Quote from: tenbones on December 29, 2021, 10:19:43 AM
Since for the vast majority of D&D's history the cultures (note: cultures not necessarily nationalities which is distinct from ethnicities) are real-world analogues that for obvious reasons mostly European.

The issue is the assumptions of writers trying to shoe-horn real world ethnicities (note: Ethnicities) into cultures (note: cultures) free of ANY context for the purposes of virtue signaling.

While the original D&D was more narrowly Tolkienesque European -- AD&D had a lot of cultural mix from the start. The AD&D core books shoe-horned in a lot of non-European material, from Chinese monks to Egyptian mummies to Indian rakshasas to Afro-Carribean zombies -- none of which had ANY context. The cosmology mixed Nirvana and Devas with Judeo-Christian devils and others. The adventures likewise ranged all over in culture, from jungle-bound Dwellers of the Forbidden City to Near-Eastern Desert of Desolation series and so forth.

Quote from: tenbones on December 29, 2021, 10:19:43 AM
This always goes back to my claim: the dirty secret is Kara-Tur, Nyambe, Maztica, Al-Qadim didn't sell. Now we can argue about the qualitative differences between those settings, Maztica is a horrible representation of Mesoamerican fantasy which is a real shame. But Al-Qadim is ***fantastically*** good. But not enough people came out to support it.

The unshocking reality is that /gasp people like playing with what they know.

Quote from: tenbones on December 29, 2021, 10:19:43 AM
It's easier to make a Black Female Paladin in the European mold than to make a cool Black Female Fantasy Masai-Warrior that has their own cool schtick, or might be a Paladin analog culturally, call everyone Racist that disagrees even by implication. Let's make Hovito Knights in full plate with lances etc to rep South American's, instead of fantasy Feathered Serpent Warriors with obsidian blades as hard as steel, and their own cool "thing".

So you're saying that Paizo should make alternate settings like Al-Qadim, even after blatantly admitting that such settings were unsuccessful despite their quality?

Quote from: jhkim on December 29, 2021, 01:29:01 PM

Quote from: thedungeondelver on December 29, 2021, 11:19:27 AM

Quote from: jhkim on December 29, 2021, 01:37:37 AM
I don't think I ever played A2, but I fondly remember the tournament module A4 "In The Dungeons of the Slave Lords" -- where the characters are naked through the whole adventure. (They are technically given loincloths, but their only weapons are using the loincloths as slings.) Playing through the challenges was hilarious as we described them going through the fights with all their parts hanging out.

Nothing wrong with all-naked adventures and other material. But not every game line has to include everything. I'm pretty sure A4 would have been changed to add some clothes if it were part of BECMI or in the 2E era, for example.

Sure, I don't think everyone would argue that, for example, every comic book should include the same story elements and art styles of Heavy Metal magazine (nudity, graphic sex).  Archie can be Archie without Axa waltzing in to Riverdale and having a foursome with some characters; but leave the reading options available, says I.

Oh, I just thought of another one that would put Paizo in a tizzy: in G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, there's a storm giantess being held prisoner.  Gary mentions that the Jarl "desires her to be his leman" (the Jarl also has a wife), and is keeping her locked up denying her food and drink until she submits.  Again, another great rescue situation (although I debate the ease with which a mere Frost Giant could subdue a storm giantess in her wrath).

Another one Paizo would forbid you running.

Agreed, but sexualized violence is also a line where TSR would forbid you from running it, too. The original run of Module B3 "Palace of the Silver Princess" was recalled and copies destroyed because it had an illustrated scene of a woman tied up and threatened by a crowd of men - which turns out to be an illusion cast by a monster to draw the characters in to intervene. In the revised version, that encounter was cut along with a few other points.

Self-censorship has always been standard for mainstream game lines. If I want more edgy content than the default for a given game line, I can put it in for my own game - or just choose another game to play. B3 was more heavily self-censored since it was for the Basic Set, which was more family-friendly than AD&D. But there were still lines that AD&D wouldn't cross either.

The most edgy sexualized violence I've had in RPGs has been in Bluebeard's Bride -- which is an explicitly feminist horror game.

Well perhaps my analogy was clumsy (including Axa everywhere in comics vs. separating them/fighting slavery in AD&D) but the point is not sexualized violence, rather, it is having truly villainous villains and villainesses to fight against.  The Slavers in the A series are bad guys.  Nothing is exalted about them, they aren't held up as grey area bad guys, there's no moral quandary "whatabout-isms" regarding them.  They.  Are.  Bad.

TSR did explicitly publish those adventures, and did explicitly publish G2, and a host of other modules with absolutely reprehensible bad guys in them.  What good is good if there's no bad guys to fight against?  The follow-ons to the G modules, the D series, has both the Kua Toa and Drow also committing such atrocities.  Take the sword to them, adventurers!

Keraptis in S2 White Plume Mountain has an entire funhouse dungeon filled with those he has enslaved: the Gynosphinx, Snarla, and the fighting-man who is in love with her, Bluto Sans Pite, and his fighting men, all are his slaves.  Whether you kill them (as you will probably have to in the case of Snarla and her lover, and given Sir Bluto's bounty and reputation, you'll want to), or liberate them, again, that's a Good Thing.  Of note the module also has a pair of Kelpies who promise pleasures of the flesh to their victims (before drowning them to eat them later).

Where I'm going with this is, in fantasy settings, the big bad evil guys, whether it's Sauron or whoever, they want power.  Lots of power.  And once they have it, short of killing to the last man, woman, and child everyone who opposed them, what do they do?  They subjugate them.  Nobody thinks this is a good act.  Nobody thinks this is awesome or fun.  Why say "The bad guys can't be that way, ever, we forbid it in your game"?  Why?  That doesn't make any sense at all.  Are they afraid that if a DM introduces a Keraptis or Slave Lords or Iuz or Drow that are evil, etc., that players will jump up and say HEY THAT'S SO COOL, I'M GLAD PAIZO GLORIFIED THIS AND WE CAN SEE HOW AWESOME THIS IS!!! and start trying to enslave people?  Or more realistically just think it's a cool thing to do?  Are they that...simple?  And I mean simple in the worst possible way.

(Interesting point: in Basic D&D, B2 has a Medusa - imprisoned in the Temple of Evil Chaos; the evil cleric there plans to "blind her, then remove her snakes, and sacrifice her to a chaotic evil god (not being above such things)."  )

I wanna toss something else in there about the 'surface level Tolkien pastiches' BCT was bitching about.

What do you think the chances are of getting something ethnically 'off the beaten path' so to speak? Especially in light of the wokescolds' tendency to scream 'cultural appropriation' over anything?

There's a reason we keep getting oatmeal. Because the worthless screaming fucks are scared of anything spicy.

Quote from: thedungeondelver on December 29, 2021, 03:47:13 PM
Where I'm going with this is, in fantasy settings, the big bad evil guys, whether it's Sauron or whoever, they want power.  Lots of power.  And once they have it, short of killing to the last man, woman, and child everyone who opposed them, what do they do?  They subjugate them.  Nobody thinks this is a good act.  Nobody thinks this is awesome or fun.  Why say "The bad guys can't be that way, ever, we forbid it in your game"?  Why?  That doesn't make any sense at all.  Are they afraid that if a DM introduces a Keraptis or Slave Lords or Iuz or Drow that are evil, etc., that players will jump up and say HEY THAT'S SO COOL, I'M GLAD PAIZO GLORIFIED THIS AND WE CAN SEE HOW AWESOME THIS IS!!! and start trying to enslave people?  Or more realistically just think it's a cool thing to do?  Are they that...simple?

I'm not a Pathfinder player and don't have any inside information to the authors' views, but here's what they say in the rules:

QuoteThe Pathfinder Baseline
You might find that your players don't have much to say on the topic of objectionable content, and just assume that general societal mores will keep the most uncomfortable topics out of the game. That's not always enough, as that approach relies on shared assumptions that aren't always accurate. The following is a set of basic assumptions that works for many groups, which you can modify to fit your preferences and those of the other players.
...

So, they explicitly say that people can modify the assumptions to fit their preferences. If a group prefers to have rape in their games, or graphic descriptions of gore, then they are free to do so. The assumptions are put as a baseline, and groups can change that by agreeing. The baseline is just there for if the players haven't made a separate agreement.

In my experience, nobody thinks that rape is a good act, either - but nevertheless many gaming groups avoid even having villains engage in it, because it makes some players uncomfortable. The reason isn't out of fear that if fictional rape happens that the players will become real-life rapists. It's possible to have a scene where the players interrupt some villains who are in the act of raping some victims. That can make for a powerful expression of their evil. However, most fantasy groups prefer to avoid that, as it makes the game less fun for them. I don't care to psychologize about why, but I have observed it in many groups. In real life, rape is more common as a crime than torture or slavery -- and it was even more common in historical times.

Is an issue that you can understand groups avoiding having rape happen in-game -- but that you consider slavery to be fundamentally different, and that it's less uncomfortable to appear than rape?

Those who preach tolerance, are usually the least tolerant of all.

They are also incapable of creating good gaming content.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 25, 2021, 04:18:29 PM
GW has largely been disinterested in WFRP, farming it out to 3rd party companies and collecting the license fee's. I don't see that changing anytime in the future. (It just doesn't bring in enough mini's sales to keep them overly interested.)

I tend to believe that someone will fill that void though.

I don't think WFRP needs anything beyond 1e, but if you're looking for a new RPG that has leaped into that genre, I highly suggest checking out MORK BORG because they have achieved dark-gonzo-fantasy nirvana where like early Warhammer, knew that it's over the top grimdark existed for an element of humor and "little victories against massive evil" was their niche.

Though Mork Borg has chosen an artpunk style that is especially jarring on purpose. For me, it works to differentiate their "brand of fantasy" from all others on the market which is smart, but artpunk is clearly not going to appeal to everyone.

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 29, 2021, 05:41:08 PM
Those who preach tolerance, are usually the least tolerant of all.

They are also incapable of creating good gaming content.

"There's only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch." -Nigel Powers

Quote from: jhkim on December 29, 2021, 02:55:01 PM

While the original D&D was more narrowly Tolkienesque European -- AD&D had a lot of cultural mix from the start. The AD&D core books shoe-horned in a lot of non-European material, from Chinese monks to Egyptian mummies to Indian rakshasas to Afro-Carribean zombies -- none of which had ANY context. The cosmology mixed Nirvana and Devas with Judeo-Christian devils and others. The adventures likewise ranged all over in culture, from jungle-bound Dwellers of the Forbidden City to Near-Eastern Desert of Desolation series and so forth.

I'm not disputing these claims you're citing, I'll circle back with that on you later. BUT do you think this counts as "representation" as demanded by the current devs at Paizo/WotC? I agree with you that those non-European elements existed and I'll go you one further, they did so for a specific potential purpose.

Quote from: jhkim on December 29, 2021, 02:55:01 PMSo you're saying that Paizo should make alternate settings like Al-Qadim, even after blatantly admitting that such settings were unsuccessful despite their quality?

I'm saying: They didn't even try.

It's much easier to pretend everyone else is racist for not accepting the odd non-contextual race-into-culture appearances and pass it off as "representation".

I'm saying in good faith that the very people that currently run Paizo, hired me back in the 3.e era to produce Al-Qadim content officially for 3e in Dragon Magazine, and I went hog-wild giving them tons of material, more than they asked for (which they even talked about in their Editorial columns) and they ended up publishing maybe 1/3rd of it. Contextually I gave them enough material for the purposes of introducing Eurocentric traditional Realms characters to Zakhara. Much of that was left on the cutting-room floor. (Ironically - some of it ended up in Best of Dragon).

The larger point being is that you have to have people invested in actual representation of a culture and DO it in good faith. There is no intention of that here.

So why claim everyone is racist without trying? Because as you damn well know (and this is where I would normally accuse you of playing stupid) they don't really care about "representation" they care about the virtue signaling and pretending to "care". And yes, as far back as 3e they were doing it.

I was pushing to do entire themed issues about getting Eurocentric Realms characters to go to Maztica, Kara-Tur, and Al-Qadim from the start... and the one venue where such content and adventures would have worked would have been in Dragon. But the current liberal SJW's that run Paizo *now* are the same ones that bitched out then long before it was stylish.

If you make a movie where everyone is rich, gay, 28, and from Singapore you can't get any more diverse than that. 

It is known.

Why should the more popular and the scrappy wanna be try hard garage rpgs be any different?

Signal is more important than reception and to feel is more important than to think or to demonstrate so WE MUST REPEAT!

A world that hates reality (or else) and only rewards (sanctified compelled) acting out will not tolerate random non astro-turfed bullshit from backsliders and free riding gudano trash. The past must be torn down after being strip mined and clipped and the results endlessly xeroxed so the new restrictive paradigm will be extruded per the transmitted fore-ordained approved whims of the designated bien pensant of the moment. The not-revolution will be corporatized. We must all be free to only ever repeat the recitation. Because Lovecraft is the KKK and rape. It is current year!

Quote from: tenbones on December 29, 2021, 10:19:43 AM

Ooo me! Ooo me!

Since for the vast majority of D&D's history the cultures (note: cultures not necessarily nationalities which is distinct from ethnicities) are real-world analogues that for obvious reasons mostly European.

The issue is the assumptions of writers trying to shoe-horn real world ethnicities (note: Ethnicities) into cultures (note: cultures) free of ANY context for the purposes of virtue signaling.

Now as an Asian guy, I ****DEARLY**** love Oriental Adventures when it dropped. Was it because representation? HELL NO. Though the fact the boxset did a fabulous job giving content to other Asian cultures other than the Fancy Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans) - thanks Mike Pondsmith, the fact was it was simply cool to have a setting that wasn't the standard D&D European fare.

But here's the thing... if I'm looking for representation, *I* don't want to see a person of a different ethnicity repping a culture they're not supposed to be from as "ICONIC". I'm not saying there can't be Mexican Samurai, or Black Samurai, or whatever but there should be some serious context to that outlier.

I assume this is true for people that are of European descent too. The "problem" is that Paizo and WotC and the rest of the woke crowd want to pretend that cultures and ethnic groups all mingle in some post-modern bullshit reality which reeks of shit they would call "whitewashing" if done in reverse.

This always goes back to my claim: the dirty secret is Kara-Tur, Nyambe, Maztica, Al-Qadim didn't sell. Now we can argue about the qualitative differences between those settings, Maztica is a horrible representation of Mesoamerican fantasy which is a real shame. But Al-Qadim is ***fantastically*** good. But not enough people came out to support it.

The unshocking reality is that /gasp people like playing with what they know. Freaky old-school GM's like me will happily run a Marco Polo-esque campaign that takes everyone from Fantasy Ireland to Saudi-Arabia, to Imperial China and Japan, then landing on the Sacred Isles of the Elves and Jungle Dwarven Kingdoms without missing beat. Most GM's don't want to do that.

And these knuckleheads in Paizo and WotC want to pretend that their newfound religions explains this: people are racist.

No they're not. They're just playing a game and want to have fun. They maybe not be as ambitious, the writing of the non-European content may not be enticing enough, but rather than make a modern attempt - they insert these cardboard cutout ethnic people into their European settings and don't even bother supporting their own ethnic cultures in their own worlds.

And who is gonna argue? They keep churning out the same old vanilla-flavored shit and people keep buying.

It's easier to make a Black Female Paladin in the European mold than to make a cool Black Female Fantasy Masai-Warrior that has their own cool schtick, or might be a Paladin analog culturally, call everyone Racist that disagrees even by implication. Let's make Hovito Knights in full plate with lances etc to rep South American's, instead of fantasy Feathered Serpent Warriors with obsidian blades as hard as steel, and their own cool "thing".

Yeah "representation" my ass.

Edit: LET me be more clear. The reason they don't do these things is because THEY look down on other cultures as "sub-standard" instead of elevating them to something cool and useful. It's their own inherent bigotry that we poor people of color *need* representation rather than give everyone a good taste of something different that might analogous to non-European cultures.

I'm always very impressed by the eloquence of your posts, tenbones. This one hits the nail on the head so precisely it caused the nail to come out the other end of the board.

I have my moments. 

^ the quality of that smack down was of epic proportions. I salute you sir!

This is the sort of thing I hate for so many reasons.

It's such childish, immature, stupid thinking. To think that representing something as evil in a game somehow promotes it is absolute insanity. This is just a repeat of the Satanic panic but with people that are even MORE out of touch with reality. Not only does this undermine the framework of a lot of different monsters, it also destroys lore for other beings that have had to contend with the predilections of evil races.

What is even more insidious, however, is the unintended consequences I think. The thing about the people making these sorts of decisions at Paizo is that they are not intelligent. Flat-out. I went to school with these sorts of people (so much so that I had acquaintances at WoTC) and interacted with them. They're foolish, hyper-emotional, childish folk. They cannot cope with life. Then again, how would you expect them to when they make it obvious they cannot even cope with fiction?

And so, having accrued the results of a lifetime of bad choices which they will complain about endlessly while forever avoiding the mere possibility that these outcomes could be the results of their decisions (Perish the thought! It is forever and always the fault of some OTHER that has perpetrated this misery on them), they make further bad decisions because decisions are made without concept of the future...because they lack accurate knowledge of the past or, really, even a cogent awareness of present reality.

Stripping all these sorts of things from evil races & creatures (just as Wizards is now doing with their revisions) does nothing but serve to undermine the heroic narrative that BRINGS people to tabletop gaming.

No longer are Fire Giants evil slavers that must be stopped. No longer are Mind Flayers abominations to be routed. No longer is SLAVERY an evil to be curtailed since it simply doesn't exist.

Your "heroic" characters will find themselves without villains.

Tabletop gaming is a fictional construct that all but hinges on ludicrous, absurd, mountainous, brobdingnagian amounts of violence. If one were to objectively step away and look at the actions of regular PCs across tabletop gaming they would find themselves looking at individuals with bodycounts beneath their belts that would beggar belief.

How?

Why?

That's the thing...all this gaming psychologically relies on the existence of evil. TRUE evil. The sort of evil that is destroyed without much hesitation because destroying evil is just. Destroying evil is right. It's good.

When the fictional construct conjures up a being, a culture, a race that is truly evil, there doesn't have to be tedious reflection upon culling them. There doesn't have to be boring, self-involved, BORING navel-gazing. Might that sort of thing work in a book? In a movie? Etc? Yeah sure, of course...because those things are narratives only...but tabletop is a game and the grinder needs meat. The hero needs foes.

Otherwise it all comes to a stop.

Otherwise it becomes all a bit monstrous.

If there are no slavers to stop eventually there will be no kidnappers to stop. No pillagers. No killers.

No monsters.

Then what are you as a hero? Are you stopping every single moment to consider the full ramifications of killing that orc before you? Is it not as valid as you? What are its motivations? What brought it to this moment? When even a Beholder might be kind and innocent with the flip of a coin, how can you EVER be sure you're righteous?

You can't because you aren't. If you proceed...if you rack up that body count and allow yourself even a moment of self-awareness you'd realize you are the monster because you've killed scores of 'not-necessarily-evil-did-you-check-your-privilege-before-initiative' beings.

You are the monster. Self-flagellate. De-colonize your mind. Repent. Beg for forgiveness. Feel terrible. Feel as terrible as the people that make these changes feel every moment of their miserable, anxiety-ridden, train-wreck, dumpster-fire lives. Share in their misery and self-loathing.

They do not believe in heroes so they must make sure you cannot feel like one.

The game has collapsed because the fictional underpinnings it relied on have been stripped away by short-sighted idiots that typically use game-night as an excuse to gossip and whine rather than game.

This will fail.

This sort of thing always fails.

Of course, they'll blame someone else when it does...but it doesn't matter to those that see the charade for the exercise in self-indulgent mental illness it is.

Headline: Paizo cancels slavery in their fictional construct, gamers with common sense least affected.

Quote from: Svenhelgrim on December 29, 2021, 11:37:13 AMBaizuo is re-writing their entire game world based on one anonymous letter.  Who even knows if the person who wrote the letter is a actually a player, or even if they are offended.

I just (after sifting to the general information available on this new mental trainwreck) had a thought: Could it be that this is some kind of Astroturfing? That Paizo manufactured this opportunity for a display of righteousness by creating a "voice from the community" that they could "responsibly react" to? I don't know, just a thought. 

QuoteIt's not that the removal of slavery offends us.  It is one of the best evils to fight against.  It's right up there with human sacrifice, and cannibalism.  But the method that Baizuo uses to remove the slavery from their campaign setting is utterly laughable.  We aren't outraged at Baizuo.  We are eating popcorn and watching them self destruct...

TBH, depending on the setting, it's not even that. For a setting with a strong historical vibe, a straight-up historical setting, or those with an archaic or "dark" feel, it may be just a more or less normal background feature. An ancient Greek or Rome settings with or without the serial numbers filed off would simply feel nonsensical without slavery, as would a Viking setting.

I also get the distinct feeling that the folks at Paizo, like so many others, perceive everything through a narrow lense specific to US history. The various forms of servitude that persisted through all the historical eras that ostensibly influenced modern fantasy settings are not the same as Antebellum Southern US slavery. You can opine that they were morally the same (though I'd disagree), but you cannot opine that they were socially and materially the same because that is not an opinion but a falsification of facts.

P.S.: This reminds of the "scandal" when the PC RPG "Kingdom come" dared not to include black people in its 15th-century Bohemia setting. These criticisms were made by similar online activists (and their mindless sockpuppets) who similarly knew nothing of marginalized and discriminated groups that actually existed in the place and time the game was set in.
The difference was, of course, that the European developer basically told the critics to go f*ck themselves and went to rake in a massive amount of sales regardless. 

P.P.S.: One response supportive of Paizo seemed to be a good example of this, but maybe I read too much into it. It claimed that "cruel nobles" and "conquering warlords" would still be available as suitable villains even if "slavers" no longer were. And I had to ask myself (didn't respond, it was on reddit or something): What exactly do "cruel nobles" do? Not force their(!) peasants to work without recompensation, I assume? Nor take the fruits of their labor? Nor hurt, injure, even kill them without legal repercussions?
And "conquerors" do what with the conquered population? Plant a brutal-looking flag on city hall and then start hiring local laborers for freely negotiated wages, while leaving in place the local judiciary and administration as preferred by the local populace?
As I said, I might be overthinking this, but OTOH I believe that Paizo and their claqueurs are seriously underthinking it. Unless it is really only about forms of unfree labor that basically mimick those of 19th-century America, but what would be the point of that?

Quote from: Gog to Magog on January 05, 2022, 05:57:28 AM


That's the thing...all this gaming psychologically relies on the existence of evil. TRUE evil. The sort of evil that is destroyed without much hesitation because destroying evil is just. Destroying evil is right. It's good.

I really liked this part. I noticed that Basic Fantasy doesn't have alignment, and I didn't like that. It always seemed like ... a bit of a liberal cop-out. I prefer OSR games that keep alignment -- good and evil clearly defined.