Quote from: Omega on January 17, 2021, 06:44:29 AM
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This was my point with Essentials, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annhialation, etc. The inclusions are meaningless as they have nothing to back them up. You can literally change the genders or even race and have no impact at all.

The fact that I would have to consciously change them, means that they are not meaningless.

This is how entryism starts. Small inclusions.

When people dismiss them as meaningless, without pushing back, it shows that these inclusions are having the intended impact:

They are slowly normalizing the woke.

I am not sure on that.

These things are usually so small that they lack impact. Hence why they are meaningless. Tomb of Annihilation for example. The shopkeeper who is worried about his husband. Its a single throwaway sentence with nothing to back it up or give meaning or even acnowlege that this is a gay relationship. Much the same with the gnomes in Essentials. Or Strahd, you know, that guy who got turned into a vamp because of his obsession with a woman? Oh now hes Bi. Meaningless throwaway sentenceces with jack all nothing to back them up. Or actually contradicted by other material.

It would be the same as say having a Call of Cthulhu module set in the deep south in a bigoted town and there is one sentence saying "Joe is black" but nothing else to back that up.

Looking back at some of the incidents in the books I have it almost feels like someone after the fact edited this stuff in due to how nothing they all are.

Contrast this with say Idle Champions of the FR where we have a Tiefling thief party member in a wheelchair, and a Tabaxi bard member in a lesbian relationship with a human NPC right front and center. Small to be sure. But these have background and impact the story.

Quote from: Jaeger on January 18, 2021, 06:23:50 PM

Quote from: Omega on January 17, 2021, 06:44:29 AM
....
This was my point with Essentials, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annhialation, etc. The inclusions are meaningless as they have nothing to back them up. You can literally change the genders or even race and have no impact at all.

The fact that I would have to consciously change them, means that they are not meaningless.

This is how entryism starts. Small inclusions.

When people dismiss them as meaningless, without pushing back, it shows that these inclusions are having the intended impact:

They are slowly normalizing the woke.

Greetings!

Exactly, Jaeger. It's the whole "Boiling the Frog" approach. Always pushing here, pushing there, including ths stupid meaningless thing, always a little more.

Until it isn't so meaningless and it isn't so harmless, now, isn't it?

This is how we have gotten to where we are at, and with more to come. This stupid ideological BS has to be resisted loudly, and constantly. No matter how seemingly small or "meaningless" it might appear to be, because ultimately, it isn't.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Except its not.

Every one of the examples other than the Strahd intro are meaningless because there is nothing to back it up. None of it comes across as woke agenda indoctrination. SJWs are never subtle. And a good portion of these entries are just a single sentence, if even that, in the whole book. Nor any crowing that its there as is usual for the woke need to virtue signal at any opportunity.

Candlekeep is to date the first one where WOTC has actually gotten more aggressive in pushing and advertising their agenda.

To an intelligent person, the answer is oblivious no. To a child or an idiot, the answer is yes and that is why the concept of total party kill has been invented, to prove that violence begets more violence and as a referee I have access to many, many violent NPCs and monsters that will kill the violent PC, except if the others PCs kill them first.

QuoteExcept its not.

Every one of the examples other than the Strahd intro are meaningless because there is nothing to back it up. None of it comes across as woke agenda indoctrination. SJWs are never subtle. And a good portion of these entries are just a single sentence, if even that, in the whole book. Nor any crowing that its there as is usual for the woke need to virtue signal at any opportunity.

Candlekeep is to date the first one where WOTC has actually gotten more aggressive in pushing and advertising their agenda.

Well it's bit dualistic - one of aspects of diverisity and queernormativism SJW pushes and praises is... well normativism - ergo you just put alphabet people randomly without much story or importance even - they're just there in the world, like each time developer rolls 19 on minor NPC table.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 20, 2021, 04:49:25 PM
Well it's bit dualistic - one of aspects of diverisity and queernormativism SJW pushes and praises is... well normativism - ergo you just put alphabet people randomly without much story or importance even - they're just there in the world, like each time developer rolls 19 on minor NPC table.

It doesnt work that way though. If you just have X in somewhere at random and it does nothing it is not going to register usually and not further the cause thusly.

Well sure SJWs would prefer proper rep both in main NPCs and among random city crowd, that's true.

Quote from: Omega on January 21, 2021, 05:58:35 AM

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 20, 2021, 04:49:25 PM
Well it's bit dualistic - one of aspects of diverisity and queernormativism SJW pushes and praises is... well normativism - ergo you just put alphabet people randomly without much story or importance even - they're just there in the world, like each time developer rolls 19 on minor NPC table.

It doesnt work that way though. If you just have X in somewhere at random and it does nothing it is not going to register usually and not further the cause thusly.

Except it did.

They got you to say that it's no big deal.

And not only are you not objecting to the SJW normativism, you are pushing back against people who don't like it.

Quote from: sureshot on January 14, 2021, 08:24:15 AM

Hell the person who created the so called "wheelchair of representation" likely suffers from mental illness as she can walk and move fine except self-identifies as being wheelchair disabled. While continually going to medical providers to get certified as such and they keep kicking her out of their offices.

Is this actually true? The creator of this abomination is actually larping as a disabled person? And no one sees anything wrong with that?

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 15, 2021, 08:59:18 AM

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 15, 2021, 07:55:16 AM
You need proper evil campaign

You wouldn't want me in a "proper" evil campaign. Most people have zero concept of what actual evil looks like. They think is something edgy or cool. It's not. It's cruel, vindictive and ultimately nihilistic.

I have no problems running evil NPCs; in large part because they're intended to ultimately fail by the PCs efforts. They're designed to be undone. But that's not a proper evil campaign because the point of an evil PCs is to not be undone and that's a problem.

Case in point, thd last time I was ever asked to actually play an evil character I was tasked by the GM with playing an evil mirror version of my PC (I had a lot of spells, the GM trusted me and was already running several other PCs as evil mirror copies) with the specific goal of "you know what your good self knows and want to hurt your good self as much as possible."

The GM was thinking "let's have a good matched fight", but instead I had to pull them aside and make sure he knew just what my interpretation of his directions were.

See, the thing about playing a "goody-two-shoes" is that you care about a lot of people and help alot of people. So I told the DM that if my goal is "hurt my good self as much as possible" they wouldn't stay and fight... they'd immediately teleport away, leaving their mirror allies in the lurch and start systematically murdering everyone my PC had ever loved or helped (which included a lot of the DMs favorite non-combat NPCs), get a copy of the animate dead spell to turn everyone killed into skeletons (because in 3e your soul can't move on to the afterlife or be resurrected while it is undead) and then scatter them with commands to lay buried and motionless for eternity so their souls would be trapped forever and denied the afterlife. Then I'd send my PC a message via spell of what I'd done and that if they ever helped another soul I'd do the same to them.

The GM decided he should run my evil twin after all and never asked me to play anything evil ever again. Also, no one from that group ever complained that I only played good PCs after that.

I play only good PCs not because I don't know HOW to play evil, but because I cannot understand why anyone would ever WANT to.

Very well said. I have seen firsthand what evil is and most gamers don't come close in their interpretation of evil, much like you described as expected from your gm. I don't play evil characters for the same reason and as a GM I tone my bad guys down to a more PG level as some of my players are rather squeamish... which actually ties into the wheelchair angle. My most squeamish player is disabled and needs crutches to walk and even then not at all quickly. He is perfectly ok with his limitations in life and we don't coddle him. We also do geocaching for fun and I have more than once extricated home from situations he couldn't get out of and I had no complaints in the process. In gaming, none of his characters have ever had the need to be representative of his disability and he laughs at this concept. He knows he will never be able to do the things his characters can do or even the things I did as a soldier in the military and he doesn't whine about it. He also hates people pitying him as he's very capable though limited. I have nothing but respect for him and love him like a brother because of who he is as a person.

Quote from: jhkim on January 15, 2021, 11:15:23 AM

Quote from: sureshot on January 15, 2021, 08:46:48 AM
Well if the new book and so called Wheelchair of Representation is anything to by they already seem ready to focus on their woke agenda even if it harms the rpg as a whole.

First of all, there are lots of liberal gamers as well as lots of conservative gamers. I think to match the market, there should be some liberal-themed RPG books, as well as some conservative themed, and some neutral or other. I think matching the market is good for RPGs as a whole.

Also, the Candlekeep Mysteries book isn't out yet, and I can't tell that the wokeness in it amounts to much. The woke agenda could be comparable having to two gay NPCs out of dozens in an adventure book, where if you just replaced one "M" to "F" it would be gone. In this case, it could be that someone who is reading the module might not notice at all how a given dungeon is wheelchair accessible -- it could just be all one level.

Wouldn't it be better if we just left the politics out of gaming and just gamed for fun?

QuoteVery well said. I have seen firsthand what evil is and most gamers don't come close in their interpretation of evil, much like you described as expected from your gm.

Evil is a spectrum.
It's not like you move from CN one step too far and suddenly you are Demogorgon.
Playing CE character does not mean playing PURE EVIL, just like playing LG does not mean playing Jesus Christ.

I play with CE rogue in my team and NG archer, and it's working, because archer girl is not self-righteous, and rogue is not murdering psychopath, just you know amoral thief.

QuoteWouldn't it be better if we just left the politics out of gaming and just gamed for fun?

No. Gaming is cultural activity and culture is and always was inevitably tied to politics and vice versa.
Also being conservative and liberal is not just political stance, but also philosophical, ethical and so on.
You can pretend you ignore it - but even then unconcioussly you're taking some stances.

Problem is SJWs are insufferably nagging about it

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of WestProblem is SJWs are insufferably nagging about it

Yeah, if you don't push back then you will be pushed over.  Safe to say, the SJWs made it an issue rather than keeping it to their own table/house rules.

Quote from: jhkim on January 15, 2021, 11:15:23 AM
First of all, there are lots of liberal gamers as well as lots of conservative gamers. I think to match the market, there should be some liberal-themed RPG books, as well as some conservative themed, and some neutral or other. I think matching the market is good for RPGs as a whole.

Quote from: Samsquantch on January 26, 2021, 11:36:14 PM
Wouldn't it be better if we just left the politics out of gaming and just gamed for fun?

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 27, 2021, 03:55:13 PM
No. Gaming is cultural activity and culture is and always was inevitably tied to politics and vice versa.
Also being conservative and liberal is not just political stance, but also philosophical, ethical and so on.
You can pretend you ignore it - but even then unconcioussly you're taking some stances.

Problem is SJWs are insufferably nagging about it

The issue is that I can play a game and have fun with it - but someone else might try the exact same game and be put off by what they perceive as the politics of it. For example, I joined this board 15 years ago, and I had fun playing the Blue Rose RPG -- but RPGPundit had tons of complaints around the politics of it while liking the True20. Nowadays, Pundit's more into OSR.

Different people enjoy different things.