Quote from: kythri;1087354Let's not give Baizuo more credit than they're due.

As you mention, it's outsiders to the hobby that have been allowed in and embraced that are at fault, not some halfwits wearing rose (rainbow?) tinted glasses.

Greetings!

"Baizuo"=White Leftist Nutjobs, from the Chinese perspective? I've heard something like that. Amazing how the Communist Chinese see right through the SJW bullshit, and yet, over here we have SJW's constantly screeching that "Communism just hasn't been done right"! The Chinese must laugh at how stupid and pathetic we are.

We have to resist these outsiders at every opportunity.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I don't see the complete relevance to the topic of this thread, but the more open and inclusive 5e is a powerhouse in RPG sales and matters enough for Hasbro that it gets mentioned in their earnings calls. In the spirit of no BADFUN labeling, a game that makes it clear that you can be whatever gender or sexuality you want to be and has a wide and more representative art direction cannot be bad.

I have zero issues with newcomers not having to have the social issues playing used to give you and I have no problem with the way they want to play. When it spills over to social media and becomes a fight of issues and political agendas, then I have an issue.

I want a safer con experience. I don't want internet witch trials.

Their was a Dragon Magazine cover thst had a fit, blond haired white or was bronzed very athletic character on the cover and a few out of shape male gamers complained about it. One of the first complaints about body shaming years before the SJWs coined it.

We gave had SJWs or similar people in society. It is only recently that society bent over backwards freely to accomodate them willingly.

Quote from: Omega;1087357Unfortunately this isnt so. There are people within the hobby with this mad urge that they have to "clean up the hobby so the mainstream will respect us." and you see nearly the exact same line used in other hobbies and venues. Especially art. But its popped up as an excuse for censoring in board games too.

This has been a common talking point since at least the mid-00s (although Jeff Freeman, ever the visionary, had already lampooned it in Chicks in Gaming - 1997, on RPGNet of all places!), it just became much more prominent later. As the process goes, people first come up with an extreme negative stereotype of their fellow gamers (cat piss men, alt-right nazis, convention rapists, etc.), then blow it completely out of proportion. Everyone is an enemy! 90% of the hobby is rotten! There are no suitably pure people in this world! Then, they devise a plan to exchange those mean, stinky old gamers for a new cadre of squeaky clean, good-smelling, suitably woke replacements. Fire the fans, in with the new.

At the bottom of it, this is a product of self-loathing and extreme misanthropy. It is no accident these views had first become popular on RPGNet and Something Awful: the former is a pit of despair, and the latter had made aggressive shitposting into an art form. They ended up cross-pollinating a whole lot, and there you have it: the perfect ideological foundation to "rid the hobby of undesirables".

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1087393I don't see the complete relevance to the topic of this thread, but the more open and inclusive 5e is a powerhouse in RPG sales and matters enough for Hasbro that it gets mentioned in their earnings calls. In the spirit of no BADFUN labeling, a game that makes it clear that you can be whatever gender or sexuality you want to be and has a wide and more representative art direction cannot be bad.

I want a safer con experience.

1: The problem starts when it becomes a marketing ploy rather than something good intentioned or just there because the author thought it interesting or fit the piece. As noted before. They way they go about it is reducing us to just check marks on a virtue signal scorecard. And then wonder why we are pissed off about it. I am sorry. I will NOT be your check mark. And for all their faults that is something SJG never did. (far as I know. Please dont tell me they are doing this too!)

2: Cons have allways been relatively safe. The idea that all cons are totally unsafe is a fabrication. Fearmongering at its finest. Ive veen to quite a few cons, some with attendance in the tens of thousands. And even at MiniCon which was pretty wild I never had any trouble from attendees. I did see some nasty behavior by staff at two on the other hand. But never once saw any harrassment or even heard of any taking place. Has it happened? Of course. Theres allways going to be someone out there who is up to no good. Nothing you can do will ever stop that. Treating attendees like they are all criminals waiting to pounce on the poor helpless damsel is not the way to make a con "safe". It will though draw attention and resources away from real problems like theft and other low behavior.

 It is also not going to stop things happening away from the con or in hotel rooms. Which seems to be where a-lot of these incidents actually take place.

You want to make cons safer. Stop attendees from going to the local bars and getting in trouble. Lots of luck that.

Quote from: Omega;10874161: The problem starts when it becomes a marketing ploy rather than something good intentioned or just there because the author thought it interesting or fit the piece. As noted before. They way they go about it is reducing us to just check marks on a virtue signal scorecard. And then wonder why we are pissed off about it. I am sorry. I will NOT be your check mark. And for all their faults that is something SJG never did. (far as I know. Please dont tell me they are doing this too!)

2: Cons have allways been relatively safe. The idea that all cons are totally unsafe is a fabrication. Fearmongering at its finest. Ive veen to quite a few cons, some with attendance in the tens of thousands. And even at MiniCon which was pretty wild I never had any trouble from attendees. I did see some nasty behavior by staff at two on the other hand. But never once saw any harrassment or even heard of any taking place. Has it happened? Of course. Theres allways going to be someone out there who is up to no good. Nothing you can do will ever stop that. Treating attendees like they are all criminals waiting to pounce on the poor helpless damsel is not the way to make a con "safe". It will though draw attention and resources away from real problems like theft and other low behavior.

 It is also not going to stop things happening away from the con or in hotel rooms. Which seems to be where a-lot of these incidents actually take place.

You want to make cons safer. Stop attendees from going to the local bars and getting in trouble. Lots of luck that.

There is a decent amount of truth in this post. The word "safe" has been hijacked to mean "cleansed of all wrong think." Cons are very safe places. If you want to go to a non-safe place, try hosting your con in Afghanistan.

The very word has been altered purposefully in order to create sympathy for their self defeating cause. Eventually, they will have to come out as pretenders or wallow continuously in self-flagellation. They seem to much prefer the second pathetic option.

While they do that, I'm going to play some games about killing orcs without remorse or even considering how my game might affect the feelings of others.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1087350Does anyone realize the kickback that came from a lesbian half-orc in the "Wrath of the Righteous" AP?

She wasn't a lesbian - she loved her trans boy/girl-friend just as much when he was a boy as when he was a girl!
She did remind me of when fanfic authors abuse a canon character to have them fall in love with the author's own author-insert Mary Sue. Don't know if the author (of Worldwound Incursion) Amber Scott is trans or just an SJW, but the whole NPC bio thing there had the Reek of Wrongness to me. Some commentary on her writing at https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4d45tn/amber_scott_writer_for_the_new_baldurs_gate_has/

Quote from: Omega;1087357Unfortunately this isnt so. There are people within the hobby with this mad urge that they have to "clean up the hobby so the mainstream will respect us." and you see nearly the exact same line used in other hobbies and venues. Especially art. But its popped up as an excuse for censoring in board games too.

I believe the idiots on the inside let in idiots from the outside, and it's more of an outside influence that's creating this.

As someone mentioned, a lot of this attitude festered out of rpg.net - it's known that that site invited non-gamers in and allowed them to change the place, creating the cancer  that it is today.

Quote from: Omega;10874162: Cons have allways been relatively safe. The idea that all cons are totally unsafe is a fabrication. Fearmongering at its finest. Ive veen to quite a few cons, some with attendance in the tens of thousands. And even at MiniCon which was pretty wild I never had any trouble from attendees. I did see some nasty behavior by staff at two on the other hand. But never once saw any harrassment or even heard of any taking place. Has it happened? Of course. Theres allways going to be someone out there who is up to no good. Nothing you can do will ever stop that. Treating attendees like they are all criminals waiting to pounce on the poor helpless damsel is not the way to make a con "safe". It will though draw attention and resources away from real problems like theft and other low behavior.

 It is also not going to stop things happening away from the con or in hotel rooms. Which seems to be where a-lot of these incidents actually take place.

I don't think that harassment was not happening and that it was not happening enough that many women gamers experienced it. I don't think that you need to be running a con in Afghanistan to be at the level of unsafe that action is needed (as another poster suggested).

I am willing to bet that more women were harassed than there was theft.

There is a huge difference between a con making it explicit that harassment will not be tolerated and having a way for it to get easily reported and parsing every action and reaction through some form of extreme morality filter and whipping up mobs over those results.

I don't find broad dismissals to be useful. You want to make the con appealing to a wide group of people and providing a fun environment where people can game is important.

This thread is about taking that too far. One incident at one con becomes a reason to attack another company's business via the use of untrue and unsubstantiated allegations does not make cons or the industry safer.

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1087440I don't think that harassment was not happening and that it was not happening enough that many women gamers experienced it. I don't think that you need to be running a con in Afghanistan to be at the level of unsafe that action is needed (as another poster suggested).

The problem with most of these "policies" is that they either lack proper definitions or are intentionally kept very vague in order to allow anything to be construed as "harassment".

What the fuck is that anyway? Is trying to talk to a woman harassment? Looking at her? Is eye contact harassment? I'm pretty sure some or all of these would be turned into harassment if the rules were in the hands of certain people.

Do you people even socialize up there anymore? How do you get girlfriends these days in the cold cold north? Cause down here in the hotlands it still takes about fifty nos before you get a yes. And yes, before someone interjects with anything retarded like "people don't go to cons to get girlfriends/boyfriends!".....all social interactions include that possibility.

Quote from: BronzeDragon;1087443The problem with most of these "policies" is that they either lack proper definitions or are intentionally kept very vague in order to allow anything to be construed as "harassment".

What the fuck is that anyway? Is trying to talk to a woman harassment? Looking at her? Is eye contact harassment? I'm pretty sure some or all of these would be turned into harassment if the rules were in the hands of certain people.

Do you people even socialize up there anymore? How do you get girlfriends these days in the cold cold north? Cause down here in the hotlands it still takes about fifty nos before you get a yes. And yes, before someone interjects with anything retarded like "people don't go to cons to get girlfriends/boyfriends!".....all social interactions include that possibility.

The vagueness is a feature, not a bug. It allows more judgment to be applied. At a site that is more pro-OSR style rules, that should be apparent.

As for finding a BF/GF, I have never experienced 50 no's before (Canada and USA). I have always assumed that women at a gaming convention are there to game and that is it. Otherwise, they seem to make it clear. When I game with someone I like, I am quite open to sharing my contact info to stay in touch and potentially game with them again. If I get their contact info, I discuss gaming with them, regardless of if they are women or men.

I DM Adventurers League games on Sunday afternoons and my two daughters play then (they actually are DMing as well now, seems to run in the family). There is a lot of whining here about hypotheticals, but I see lots of younger new players and they are very evenly balanced between boys and girls today. There also are tons of parents that bring their kids with them to play. Lots more non-whites as well (not as much in the local store as my town is surprisingly white for the area).

I think that being more open up front and more representative has helped a resurgence of D&D and this edition feels more like earlier editions on purpose.

I can dream of a thousand scenarios where something could go wrong, but I would rather fight the small cases of actual bad actors (like the one this thread is about) than invent problems in my mind.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1087350We let the SJWs twist the hobby sideways and we get Flame Wars like never before.

Does anyone realize the kickback that came from a lesbian half-orc in the "Wrath of the Righteous" AP?

Can we just PLAY tabletop roleplaying games and be left alone?

Can I remind you again that many of us older gamers who endured the "Satanic Panic" and saw our books burned (literally) and dealt with the worst aspects of social ostracization NOW, having found our comfort zone within our hobby, are ONCE AGAIN ATTACKED by outsiders calling what we do BADWRONGFUN?

The OSR isn't backing down. We wont divorce ourselves from 5E as it has subtle OSR connections. We wont flee the hobby so the SJWs can claim it as their own.

There were no SJWs in this hobby before and when the dust settles, the old school games who've been here since the late 70's/early 80's will remain.

Remind them that they've picked the wrong fight.

Can't remember the exact issue, but there was at least one article in the old Dragon Magazine where the feminist author was saying how bad chainmail bikinis were because buzzword, buzzword, buzzword. It was right around the satanic panic so yes, there were SJWs already infiltrating the hobby back then, we just had a bigger enemy to fight and they seemed to be on our side and were asking for so little most of us saw nothing bad in giving ground to them while fighting the other moral authoritarians that wanted to destroy our fun.

That said I totally agree, we won't cede ground, they picked the wrong fight at the wrong time, we now can self publish without any cost by publishing only PDFs and going POD. How do they think they can win and totally control the hobby is beyond me.

Sure they can (and probably will) take over the big publishers (at least most of them), but how are they going to pressure Pundit, or me or any other self employed game designer to fire him/herself for crimes against political correctness?

Quote from: Omega;1087356Actually there were a few way back. Complaints would pop up in Dragon now and then for example that would fit right in with today's SJW rhetoric.

Theres allways going to be these moral guardians. The problems start when publishers begin to take them seriously or knuckle under to threats.

Note that it is nigh invariably these types who are the ones who resort to bullying or even violence. Not the people they are attacking.

Yep, good memory, and there was even at least one article against chainmail bikinis by a feminist right when the satanic panic was going on.

Any behaviour or opinion we might imagine has a precedent somewhere if we look hard enough. However, that doesn't indicate the behaviour is endemic, or even significant. The real difference is that fringe views have entered the mainstream because a handful extremists were pushing hard enough and long enough. Angela Dworkin, etc., were already around in the 1970s/1980s, but they didn't have an Internet army.

Quote from: Melan;1087481Any behaviour or opinion we might imagine has a precedent somewhere if we look hard enough. However, that doesn't indicate the behaviour is endemic, or even significant. The real difference is that fringe views have entered the mainstream because a handful extremists were pushing hard enough and long enough. Angela Dworkin, etc., were already around in the 1970s/1980s, but they didn't have an Internet army.

Greetings!

Excellent, Melan. Yes, merely because a few antecedents existed back whenever, has little correlation to their prominence *now* Beforehand, they were tiny and relatively inconsequential. Still sometimes loud and strident, but overall isolated and powerless.

Now, as you said, they have this instant lynch-mob capacity, and an ever-present ability through social media to gather and attack whoever they do not like much like a huge flock of vultures, or a swarm of diseased, hate-filled rats.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK