Quote from: AsenRG;1044589Well, that's a houserule/optional rule you're using, then. Unless you're still running Classic Traveller:).
You could certainly program your robots for CT, as well;)!

I only own, and am really only interested in running, CT.

But I'd happily play any edition.

(I'm not counting 2300 as an edition of Traveller. That one I'd like to check out sometime, but I've never even flipped through a copy)

Quote from: Graewulf;1044398Sarcasm? Otherwise, that's the dumbest fucking thing I've heard in a long time. Just in the past decade alone we've become a worse species, mostly thanks to technology replacing people and most definitely because of the cancer known as social media.

Pffft. Technology just allows us to be more efficient and effective at being numbskulls.

As for a worse species.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/steven-pinker-argues-the-world-is-a-safer-healthier-place-in-his-new-book-enlightenment-now.html

Quote from: DocJones;1044612The minute one defines something as a community, one has to then define the values of that community.
Then comes O'Sullivan's 1st law.

The word community has been redefined to include such things as communities of intererest, a type of imagined community which are created by the PR and marketing departments of large firms in order to encourage the association of membership of an imagined community as part of the purchase of the product. i.e. Buy 5th edition and join the the edition "community". This sense of belonging often comes with descriptors like "an Audi Driver" rather than "somebody who has been diving to work in an Audi for the last few years". c.f MacUser, or in this topic's case "roleplayer" or "gamer" in order to describe somebody who spends part of what little free time and disposable income they have playing a game.  This whole "sell a product, sell a lifestyle" has been around for well over a century with an early example being the Michelin Guide, but the internet has reframed it as "content marketing".

This SJW or "inclusiveness" campaign is little more than a way to expand the target demographic to include a wider range of consumers. Not to say that some of the SJWs don't believe in what they advocate, but when it comes to serious PR, there is ultimately a marketing strategy behind it. Of course, many people in the industry will easily reconcile their marketing strategies with their "progressive" ethics. Indeed within advertising that has always been the case: "Torches of Freedom" was a phrase used by advertisers to encourage women's smoking.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1044618This SJW or "inclusiveness" campaign is little more than a way to expand the target demographic to include a wider range of consumers. Not to say that some of the SJWs don't believe in what they advocate, but when it comes to serious PR, there is ultimately a marketing strategy behind it. Of course, many people in the industry will easily reconcile their marketing strategies with their "progressive" ethics. Indeed within advertising that has always been the case: "Torches of Freedom" was a phrase used by advertisers to encourage women's smoking.

This is what they want you to believe, but it's more about gatekeeping to make sure the 'undesirables' don't come back.  Which are usually the people who created or helped make the hobby in the first place.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1044619This is what they want you to believe, but it's more about gatekeeping to make sure the 'undesirables' don't come back.  Which are usually the people who created or helped make the hobby in the first place.

I don't think that what you and I are saying are mutually exclusive: by "branding" the people in marketing are hoping to create a stereotype of what their consumer is. They are selling that stereotype as much as the product itself. Sometimes more so. Red Bull is, IME, something people drink when hungover but the image of a guy on the subway looking rough and gulping down a can of that syrup does not sell. That is why we are presented with images of surfers, wing gliders, ice climbers and street artists. In our case, the old stereotype of men with goaties and rock chicks in metal t-shirts sitting round a table in a basement has been deemed unappealing to the wider audience and replaced with something "alternative" with an eye on hipsters and retro-chic.

SJWs who actually believe that they are helping minorities are just the useful idiot henchmen of a clever PR division.

But I agree that the demographic that has been deemed unmarketable is by and large the one who created the hobby. At least AFAIK. That is why I consider the behaviour that I described above as a form of social and economic parasitism.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1044618This SJW or "inclusiveness" campaign is little more than a way to expand the target demographic to include a wider range of consumers.

That doesn't sound quite right to me. LGBT in particular were always heavily represented among RPG players, and lots of female players, non-white players etc. In practice Inclusiveness is anti-straight-white-men and I would think the demand for SJW ideological conformity tends to drive away participants from a hobby. I guess the positive coverage from SJW-converged media may compensate for that.

Quote from: S'mon;1044636That doesn't sound quite right to me. LGBT in particular were always heavily represented among RPG players, and lots of female players, non-white players etc.

I take your point, but I supsect that the demographic of LGBT people that also like tabletop games wide enough to warrant such a marketting campaign. Howevere, if you look at LGBTQAA and recall that the final A stands for "Allied" you begin to see just which niche is being targeted.

QuoteA straight ally or heterosexual ally is a heterosexual and cisgender person who supports equal civil rights, gender equality, LGBT social movements, and challenges homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.

Now this is sellable: you don't need anything more specific than a semblance of vague sympathy towards a very varied group while at the same time you get a lot of positive associations for the consumer to purchase such as caring, informed, open-minded, tolerant and best of all righteous. Righteous indignation and the glory of defeating the enemy by er...buying a product and tweeting about how you dislike bigots all for $39.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1044648I take your point, but I supsect that the demographic of LGBT people that also like tabletop games wide enough to warrant such a marketting campaign. Howevere, if you look at LGBTQAA and recall that the final A stands for "Allied" you begin to see just which niche is being targeted.

Now this is sellable: you don't need anything more specific than a semblance of vague sympathy towards a very varied group while at the same time you get a lot of positive associations for the consumer to purchase such as caring, informed, open-minded, tolerant and best of all righteous. Righteous indignation and the glory of defeating the enemy by er...buying a product and tweeting about how you dislike bigots all for $39.

I think you make an arguable point. It seems like an iffy stategy to me if they are driving away the people who actually create and run games, but if they can hit the sweet spot of attracting new players without losing too many old ones - GMs especially - then it can work. If they drive away too many grognards then it'll become a fad that collapses.

I'm not convinced that WoTC or Paizo do have a considered strategy though, I think they probably just blow with the zeitgeist.

Quote from: S'mon;1044651I think you make an arguable point. It seems like an iffy stategy to me if they are driving away the people who actually create and run games, but if they can hit the sweet spot of attracting new players without losing too many old ones - GMs especially - then it can work. If they drive away too many grognards then it'll become a fad that collapses.

You may be right, but there are two things that occured to me: Firstly the demographic that they are estranging has been remarkably tenacious and, to a certain extent, will remain unaffected by current hostility as they were up until the OSR became popular; secondly the people at WotC might not really give a shit about the long term future of the hobby because in their careers, they can always move on to the next fad. After all, enlightened self-interest means that loyalty to a company or industry lasts for as long as it convenient to the enlightened individual.

Quote from: S'mon;1044651I'm not convinced that WoTC or Paizo do have a considered strategy though, I think they probably just blow with the zeitgeist.

Now there is definitely something to that idea.

Get woke and go broke.  It's not always a thing, but it is definitely sometimes a thing.

Quote from: Krimson;1043756For one, the magic book written by primitive dead people doesn't work. Jesus spoke about divorce and people who get them right in the Sermon on the Mount, and that doesn't stop people from electing adulterers into office while pretending to be Christian. Greed isn't just a sin, it's a Deadly Sin, but that doesn't stop people from putting profits over people. Gluttony is another Deadly Sin, but they doesn't stop people from stuffing their faces and sitting on their asses. Most biblical dietary law is reactionary and probably based on stuff that caused food poisoning, such as improperly cooked shellfish and pork.

And yes, you shouldn't need a book to know that not being an asshole tends to make the people you interact with more cooperative.

This is completely outside the thread topic. Please stay on topic or you'll be booted from the thread.

Quote from: Ewan;1043759'Magic book' 'primitive dead people.'

Okay...

Militant atheism, presentism in an extreme form, and more than a bit of misanthropy.

I can see we won't get anywhere. Forget I asked.

Totally off topic. Stay on topic or get booted. That applies to everyone.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1043806Hey, you know what?

Fuck you to death with a fence post in the ass, that's what.  If you can't express your lack of belief in terms other than "magic book written by primitive dead people" you are not worth wasting my time on.

Son of a bitch.  I had deleted my Ignore List and tried to make a point of not using it any more.

Oh, and here's a hint for the stupid:  Think of the insult to my wife, an ordained minister, in your little oral diarrhea.

Stay on topic.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1044672Totally off topic. Stay on topic or get booted. That applies to everyone.

Absolutely. I'll even go back and delete/edit that. Sorry for getting so far off topic.

Funny thing is... I'm only part of the RPG community because I roleplay... I can't imagine myself part of anything that I wasn't directly involved with.

Same goes for Martial Arts I'm only active in that community (or was) because of teaching and training.