Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 22, 2024, 11:58:38 PM

Quote from: SHARK on April 22, 2024, 03:55:16 PMGreetings!

As I recall, the saying is "Politics is downstream from Culture." I forgot who first coined the expression.

Still, this all is absolutely a total culture war. Woke must be totally crushed and destroyed. If the Culture War cannot be won, then everything under the umbrella of "Culture" will continue to be corrupted and or destroyed. The TTRPG gaming hobby will be the least of our worries. It too though, will be corrupted and destroyed, just like every other aspect of our culture.

Tolkien is not at fault for anything. The problem is with the Marxist, Woke scum. They are the filthy, diseased rats, threatening to devour everything in society.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Greetings SHARK,

What's our basis for opposing Wokism? Is it liberal democracy/secularism/socially contracted human rights, Christianity, fascism, Neo-platonism, or what? If we lack a firm foundation, how can we save the house from the flood?

Neoplatonist1

Greetings!

Well, my friend, I personally oppose the Woke based on two things--(1) My Christian faith; and (2) Traditional American Values.

The Woke are Marxist, evil, and traitors to our nation, our Republic, and our people.

And yes, as long as Americans are divided, distracted, and brainwashed with weakness, then the Woke Marxists will win. Americans need to unite, and become hard and fierce. Americans need to harden themselves in doing what needs to be done to heal our land, our nation, and our people.

"Voting harder" will not cleanse our great land, and make us strong. The hard times are coming, and America will need hard men to restore our nation if we are to have any kind of future. Otherwise, we will be choked in diverse rainbow jello and enslaved to a Marxist elite tyrant mommy-state.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Is Dragonball Biologically Essentialist?

Fictional world-building has been around since Plato's Atlantis. For world-building in more modern times, Lovecraft and Howard have already been mentioned. E.R.Burroughs started even earlier, with his Barsoom setting (Under the Moons of Mars, 1912). In his quest to create a historicized mythology, Tolkien was, among other things, almost certainly influenced by the Old Testament.

Quote from: Crazy_Blue_Haired_Chick on April 23, 2024, 08:21:34 AM

Is Dragonball Biologically Essentialist?

It's been well over a decade since I watched Dragonball, and I only got partway through Z, but I think the answer is "yes and no". Yes, in that Saiyans clearly have innate qualities which are different from humans. No, in that they aren't inherently evil. If memory serves, the reason why any race is put on the good guy or bad guy team is always ascribed to their culture and upbringing, rather than their innate qualities.

If you want to go with a super-left-wing reading, you could point out that the biological females in the series are drastically weaker than the males. IIRC the androids are the only female fighters of any consequence. That would of course be a bad faith reading, but that's the kind of thing lefties do.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 23, 2024, 11:15:50 AM

Quote from: Crazy_Blue_Haired_Chick on April 23, 2024, 08:21:34 AM

Is Dragonball Biologically Essentialist?

It's been well over a decade since I watched Dragonball, and I only got partway through Z, but I think the answer is "yes and no". Yes, in that Saiyans clearly have innate qualities which are different from humans. No, in that they aren't inherently evil. If memory serves, the reason why any race is put on the good guy or bad guy team is always ascribed to their culture and upbringing, rather than their innate qualities.

If you want to go with a super-left-wing reading, you could point out that the biological females in the series are drastically weaker than the males. IIRC the androids are the only female fighters of any consequence. That would of course be a bad faith reading, but that's the kind of thing lefties do.

If you wanna go full batshit crazy you could say that Zarbon and Frieza are female but being alien, they don't fit into our ideas of femaleness...but that's if you want to go full batshit crazy.

Also the Namekians reproduce asexually so calling Piccolo, Nail, Kami, Dende, or even Lord Slug male is misleading as they don't have sex in the first place.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 22, 2024, 03:17:00 PMSaving gaming from Woke cultural desertification requires rerouting a veritable Congo river's worth of cultural assumptions, including how we look at gaming itself.

As I am wont to say whenever these sorts of situations manifest, "It's nothing a shotgun wouldn't fix." Kill all the communists and you fix 99% of the problem. Tolkien isn't to blame for anything other than being an excellent writer who just so happened to write a British-inspired myth.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 23, 2024, 12:18:39 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 22, 2024, 11:46:37 PM

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 22, 2024, 03:17:00 PMIt occurred to me that the main thing holding back the Wokification of all media products is what we might call anthropological realism...

Before I touch this subject, I'd like you to define "anthropological realism" because I have not been able to find a definition online.

As ForgottenF put it above, (1) writing fantasy as if it were history, to which I'd add (2) employing races, sexes, cultures, and religions logically as derived from the inspiring mythos or cultures from which the given fantasy comes.

It doesn't make sense to have Africans in Rohan, for example. In fact it defeats the whole purpose. LotR is a European fantasy, the Rohan are an Anglo-Saxon horse culture; the other races of man are geographically and culturally peripheral.

OK, but doesn't that go back to before Tolkien? In Beowulf there was Grendel, and even Grendel had a mother. In it's most basic form, that is "anthropological realism" in that it is a copy of western family structure.

Actually, I think Tolkien's influence has trapped the fantasy genre in an uncreative rut where 99% of it is just Tolkien fanfiction with the serial numbers filled off. Dwarves, orcs, and elves inspired by Tolkien are everywhere in fantasy. Dark lords and heroic quests to save the world are a dime a dozen. A pseudo-medieval aesthetic inspired by Tolkien is the default.

As an old Studio C skit hilariously illustrated, the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter are the same story repackaged, despite having completely different aesthetics.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2024, 03:11:48 PMActually, I think Tolkien's influence has trapped the fantasy genre in an uncreative rut where 99% of it is just Tolkien fanfiction with the serial numbers filled off. Dwarves, orcs, and elves inspired by Tolkien are everywhere in fantasy. Dark lords and heroic quests to save the world are a dime a dozen. A pseudo-medieval aesthetic inspired by Tolkien is the default.

As an old Studio C skit hilariously illustrated, the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter are the same story repackaged, despite having completely different aesthetics.

Ehhh, no, that recognition predates Studio C by a long time.  Joseph Campbell was talking about monomyth in the seventies.  It is, in fact, one reason why modern games and media mostly suck.  Because politics comes and goes, but the human condition never changes.  And the "progressives" want to assert that there is no human condition, nor is there anything within us other than the product of culture and politics.  And that is why they fail...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 23, 2024, 03:53:14 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2024, 03:11:48 PMActually, I think Tolkien's influence has trapped the fantasy genre in an uncreative rut where 99% of it is just Tolkien fanfiction with the serial numbers filled off. Dwarves, orcs, and elves inspired by Tolkien are everywhere in fantasy. Dark lords and heroic quests to save the world are a dime a dozen. A pseudo-medieval aesthetic inspired by Tolkien is the default.

As an old Studio C skit hilariously illustrated, the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter are the same story repackaged, despite having completely different aesthetics.

Ehhh, no, that recognition predates Studio C by a long time.  Joseph Campbell was talking about monomyth in the seventies.  It is, in fact, one reason why modern games and media mostly suck.  Because politics comes and goes, but the human condition never changes.  And the "progressives" want to assert that there is no human condition, nor is there anything within us other than the product of culture and politics.  And that is why they fail...

Campbell invented the monomyth structure by examining various myths and stitching together originally unrelated scenes into a vaguely coherent storytelling template, but it's not actually an accurate reflection of universal human psychology or storytelling (read the ATU fairy tale index for comparison). That's not to say that humans don't have universal psychological biases, we obviously do.

My criticism is unrelated to wokeness and is a pure criticism of writers becoming increasingly uncreative and just aping Tolkien. That's been a problem even before wokeness.

Quote from: Brad on April 23, 2024, 12:35:52 PMAs I am wont to say whenever these sorts of situations manifest, "It's nothing a shotgun wouldn't fix." Kill all the communists and you fix 99% of the problem. Tolkien isn't to blame for anything other than being an excellent writer who just so happened to write a British-inspired myth.

Greetings!

Damn right, Brad! I have been saying this forever. Gradually, more and more Americans are coming around to embracing this conclusion. Still, though, there are far too many people that naively believe that somehow, it is better and good to tolerate these terrible people within our communities. As one aspect of culture after another becomes corrupted and destroyed by the Communists, people are beginning to cry and worry about it. These nice, naive sheep though seem to be too stupid to realise that it might be too late, and America is fucked. The Communists have a chance to achieve total victory because too many Americans were passive, naive, and weak. More eager to hold onto cherished fantasies from days long gone than to actually face the truth and grapple with the reality that is destroying everything that they value right in front of them.

The Communists and other PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL morons have declared that Tolkien is racist, and Misogynist. Ergo, he must also then be a Hu-White Supremacist. *Rolls eyes* I wish I was making this up, but it is very real. I've read that these Liberal morons actually have said this kind of stuff about Tolkien.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2024, 03:11:48 PMActually, I think Tolkien's influence has trapped the fantasy genre in an uncreative rut where 99% of it is just Tolkien fanfiction with the serial numbers filled off. Dwarves, orcs, and elves inspired by Tolkien are everywhere in fantasy. Dark lords and heroic quests to save the world are a dime a dozen. A pseudo-medieval aesthetic inspired by Tolkien is the default.

As an old Studio C skit hilariously illustrated, the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter are the same story repackaged, despite having completely different aesthetics.

Except that Frodo didn't do battle with Sauron for The Ring. Tolkien literally inverted the trope of the 'hero fighting the evil overlord'. Aragorn's rise to the position of King of the Reunited Realms of Númenor in Exile was incidental, in the grand scheme of things, to the fall of Sauron. The destruction of The Ring was absolutely divine providence instead. Frodo failed at the end, as he was always going to fail because that was the point. It was the pity that both Bilbo and Frodo had shown Gollum that enabled that last bit to happen, chiefly the curse Frodo laid upon him on the slopes of Orodruin.

Quote from: SHARK on April 22, 2024, 03:55:16 PMAs I recall, the saying is "Politics is downstream from Culture."

I believe Andrew Breitbart said that.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on April 23, 2024, 07:19:22 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2024, 03:11:48 PMActually, I think Tolkien's influence has trapped the fantasy genre in an uncreative rut where 99% of it is just Tolkien fanfiction with the serial numbers filled off. Dwarves, orcs, and elves inspired by Tolkien are everywhere in fantasy. Dark lords and heroic quests to save the world are a dime a dozen. A pseudo-medieval aesthetic inspired by Tolkien is the default.

As an old Studio C skit hilariously illustrated, the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter are the same story repackaged, despite having completely different aesthetics.

Except that Frodo didn't do battle with Sauron for The Ring. Tolkien literally inverted the trope of the 'hero fighting the evil overlord'. Aragorn's rise to the position of King of the Reunited Realms of Númenor in Exile was incidental, in the grand scheme of things, to the fall of Sauron. The destruction of The Ring was absolutely divine providence instead. Frodo failed at the end, as he was always going to fail because that was the point. It was the pity that both Bilbo and Frodo had shown Gollum that enabled that last bit to happen, chiefly the curse Frodo laid upon him on the slopes of Orodruin.

I never said Tolkien used the Hero's Journey structure invented by Campbell. I said George Lucas and J.K. Rowling copied Tolkien.


Also, Tolkien didn't invert the trope because it wasn't even invented yet. The idea of evil overlords comes from Tokien! (Yes, Christianity has Satan, but Satan whispers in the hearts of all mortals, he's not ruling the earth from a haunted castle that a group of teenage boys try to raid in an mmo expansion.)

What I remember about Tolkien is that his LOTR was meant to criticize the industrialized world, including what Tolkien experienced during WWI.

Meanwhile, I remember the Blackmoor documentary, and I think RPGing started with wargaming: they were playing tabletop Napoleonic games with movements and actions quantified using multiple factors and dice for randomizing. One of the sources was a nineteenth-century guide to wargames which they found in the uni library.

From there, some wrote a guide to medieval wargaming, and from there they started looking at the roles certain personalities played in battle, and that led to a focus on roleplaying. Maybe it was because of Tolkien that they started including fantasy elements.