Quote from: yosemitemike;910575Actual diversity is good.  Politically correct checkbox diversity is a stifling sham.

Sure. And I thought that was what I was saying. Maybe not...

The reverse of PC is also true -- making statements about the world from a single viewpoint and calling it "reality" is just as shitty. This is why we have folks n the US who believe everything is fair when it isn't (and then saying we shouldn't do anything about it). Some folks in the public arena say some awful things, then mask it as a great crusade against plain ol' decent manners (remember when humility was considered a good trait?).

On the other side, my issue is when folks feel like every place they go, and everyone they meet should be sanitized for their protection. I just hate the idea of "safe spaces."

Of course, this has nothing to do with gaming.

Quoteyounger players we kind of expect our media to reflect what our country looks like.

Blacks are 13% of the US population.  Gays/lesbians are 2-3% (and "trans" a miniscule fraction of that). Minorities of all kinds tend to self-segregate into population enclaves. If media actually reflected what the country looks like, you'd have less minorities than you do now in media.

Demanding some kind of demographic parity is a sure sign that you're an SJW hipster with no idea of what the world is actually like outside your twee little bubble.

kumbaya, kumbaya...

That was lovely, everybody! Now let's do 'Climb Every Mountain'!

Climb every mountain, ford every stream...

Quote from: Christopher Brady;910617Very few people enjoy being yelled at, reminds them too much of their job.

If you get yelled at where you work and not for good reason, then you need to find another job. Or need to quit being a pussy. One of the two, or both.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910632I understand that the Tumblr side of the storygamer community is toxic. But responding in kind just makes everything worse. Not the least of which, it plays perfectly into the outside media's narrative of the closed off nerd clubhouse and the zealous gatekeepers protecting their childhood hobbies. Is it unfair? Yeah, it is. But the fact is, it's 2016, and the side that's pushing for a greater mix of people at the table is going to have a lot more sympathy than the side which is seemingly resisting. When you call the first majority women panel at Gencon douchebags, you're setting back the work of everyone else who's been trying to get new people into the hobby or defending it from outside criticism.

I think you'll find that many of us have been trying to get new people into the hobby and defending it quite some time before you were born.

A lot of the 'seemingly resisting' you may be perceiving is an unwillingness to jump on a bandwagon when certain aspects of the bandwagon fly against other beliefs.

I may be over simplifying here but I believe the rancor regarding the Gencon panel was that 1) it was being promoted as a social justice platform first and appointing people who have very little recognition in the industry and 2) Mike Pondsmith was named Guest of Honor, seemingly taking into account that he is black, rather than the actual industry merit he does have and I assume most people here recognize as being earned. A great many of us 'older generation' respect merit, which must be earned. And honestly, you don't have to be old to gain merit. You just have to do something worthwhile and not just pat yourself on the back.

Quote from: Lynn;910680I think you'll find that many of us have been trying to get new people into the hobby and defending it quite some time before you were born.

I do get the impression, sometimes, that some young people seem to think they're the first generation to actually take a stance against racism/sexism/cruelty/whatever... that a film with a strong female protagonist is a groundbreaking new idea... that anyone over 30 is a craven lech who wishes they could still own slaves and beat their women.

Quote from: daniel_ream;910654Minorities of all kinds tend to self-segregate into population enclaves.

I'd say you're definitely on point about higher representations of minorities in media. For my part, I think that's okay, because for years there was none.

But the comment about self-segration.  I'm not sure that holds true. I'd offer that self-segregation might occur due to cultural and language boundaries. You settle in where you meet less resistance or difficulty. But there's plenty of evidence that a great deal of segregation isn't entirely by choice. There's this, for one thing. Pretty eye-opening stuff. And then there's the school segregation still going on some places in the south, according to this article from 2012. Beyond that, there are eyewitnesses to it. My wife told me about when she was working in real estate about 15 years ago, in Indiana, and how some of her bosses had unofficially drawn the real estate lines by race (as in "don't sell these homes to black people").

But of course, this has nothing to do with gaming...(again)

P.S. Apologies with the political response, but this is what happens in every thread where we talk about social justice and gaming. If it's not a demand for inclusion, then it's an insult about "the left" (the big, scary, bug-eyed monster for some folks).  We might not agree with all idealists, nor all adherents to realpolitik as a guiding life principle. But that doesn't mean either side is flat-out stupid. Your bubble is just as relevant as my bubble. There might be something within each of them from which we all could learn.

Quote from: Lynn;910680I may be over simplifying here but I believe the rancor regarding the Gencon panel was that 1) it was being promoted as a social justice platform first and appointing people who have very little recognition in the industry and 2) Mike Pondsmith was named Guest of Honor, seemingly taking into account that he is black, rather than the actual industry merit he does have and I assume most people here recognize as being earned. A great many of us 'older generation' respect merit, which must be earned. And honestly, you don't have to be old to gain merit. You just have to do something worthwhile and not just pat yourself on the back.

Pondsmith's resume looks pretty damned good. So I am wondering how would you would define 'merit," in this case. Looks to me like he has more than enough of a career to be named a "Guest of Honor." But I guess if it isn't him, then who should it be?

P.S. We older generation people (and I am one of them, if crossing over the half century mark counts), lived in an entirely different world. There are certain aspects of it I wish were more prevalent. And there are plenty of other aspects I am glad to see go away. Just my two cents there.

Quote from: Lynn;910680I think you'll find that many of us have been trying to get new people into the hobby and defending it quite some time before you were born.

A lot of the 'seemingly resisting' you may be perceiving is an unwillingness to jump on a bandwagon when certain aspects of the bandwagon fly against other beliefs.

I may be over simplifying here but I believe the rancor regarding the Gencon panel was that 1) it was being promoted as a social justice platform first and appointing people who have very little recognition in the industry and 2) Mike Pondsmith was named Guest of Honor, seemingly taking into account that he is black, rather than the actual industry merit he does have and I assume most people here recognize as being earned.

1) It was not. They did celebrate the fact that it was majority women for the first time in history. That's the kind of PR you do, especially since this is the first major convention to do so. For a lot of people, this was a big deal. If you look at the line up, there is a strong focus on opening up the industry and people who are designing games aimed at markets not really addressed by current games. But that's no different than making a panel which focuses on the emerging genre of cyberpunk, or the decline of the industry in the early 2000s. Panels are allowed to have themes.

2) They took into account both. They were trying to celebrate diversity in TTRPGs, and Pondsmith is a no brainer, being an eminent writer in the field with tons of experience.

QuoteA great many of us 'older generation' respect merit, which must be earned. And honestly, you don't have to be old to gain merit. You just have to do something worthwhile and not just pat yourself on the back.

And herein the Shitstorm lies. The panel above had metric fucktons of merit. It included incredibly successful writers and designers, from both well established brands (Paizo) and indie games. Women are continually judged to a higher standard than men, especially in male dominated hobbies. If a guy had the same resume as a decent chunk of the women up there, there would be no issue. But no, I guess someone being lead writer on the Firefly RPG, and developer for Hunter: The Vigil just hasn't earned their merit yet. The merit argument is a tired trope, continually used as a moving goalpost to justify shutting people not in the group from joining the group.

Quote from: Necrozius;910651When does this become tokenism?

I refuse to believe that by having fun in my main hobby I'm being a bigot. Fuck that noise. If I finally fulfill my dream of publishing gaming material I'm not silencing anyone else and fuck anyone who accuses me of that.

I'm not talking about forcing you to hire black writers or artists. Notice, my focus was on the media itself. You don't need to make your game about race. But randomly changing the races of a few characters actually does add something. That's basically what the Flash did, it didn't make it an issue, but, to be accessible, it just randomly mixed stuff up. For you, or your game, it really doesn't make a change. For someone who doesn't look like you reading your book, especially if they're a kid or a teen, it really does add something. Zero investment for a more accessible product. If the RPG industry was entirely run by Buddhists, and when you opened every book buddhism was assumed to be the default, and all the characters, unless they needed something special, were buddhists, that'd be a little off putting for you, wouldn't it?

Quote from: daniel_ream;910654Blacks are 13% of the US population.  Gays/lesbians are 2-3% (and "trans" a miniscule fraction of that). Minorities of all kinds tend to self-segregate into population enclaves. If media actually reflected what the country looks like, you'd have less minorities than you do now in media.

Demanding some kind of demographic parity is a sure sign that you're an SJW hipster with no idea of what the world is actually like outside your twee little bubble.

About that:

Total representation in film: White, 74% (64%), Black 12.5% (12.2%, actually roughly equal, but look below), Latino 4.9% (16.3%), Asian 5.3% (4.7%).

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/30000-hollywood-film-characters-heres-many-werent-white/


Leading Roles (the crux of my argument): Whites formed 83% of leading roles, minorities 17%. (One of the reasons why I focused so much on sidekicks and character actors vs leading roles.)

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/02/28/389259335/diversity-sells-but-hollywood-remains-overwhelmingly-white-male


Television, however:

Prime Time TV: 84% White, 8.8% Black, 5.7% Asian or Latino.

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/10/28/2840441/world-looked-like-prime-time-network-television/

Quote from: cranebump;910687But of course, this has nothing to do with gaming...(again)

This is where I kind of disagree. The youtube series "extra credits" has done a great job breaking down how video game presentation and mechanics are a form of politics. The idea of anything being simply "stupid fun" is somewhat wrong. While I'm not saying everything needs to be a Super Special Episode about the nation's problems, being aware of the messages around you is damn important if you are going to then take elements from those media and use them for your own stories. Take your normal pew-pew military science fiction series. The normal expectation is to have heroic military men doing their job, while civilians scheme and backstab around them, usually serving as an internal antagonist. Amidst the stupid fun of the giant space battles, you are consuming a form of politics right then and there. Sim City is another classic example. Tons of stupid fun bringing down the wrath of natural disasters onto your poor citizens. Also, any tax rate past 11% became counter productive and lowered your revenues over time. That's a form of politics right there. The Division is meant to be a stupid squad based post apocalyptic game. However, it involves government agents, from outside the structure of command and without any oversight, mowing down always chaotic "looters" just trying to survive the New York winter. No legal background, no due process, unconstitutional judge and executioner. As extra credits rightly pointed out, the writers seem to be completely unaware of the nigh fascistic framework they were creating for the player. Compare this to Judge Dredd, whose writers are fully aware of the framework they were creating, allowing them to twist it for parody and play with the logical consequences of that kind of mindset.

The horror of Lovecraft's deep ones are that good white people would breed with them, huge statement there. If you're going to use deep ones today, in my view you need to write with at least somewhat of an awareness of the original context. Not saying you need to make a statement about race, but at least be cognizant of the framework you are using. In a lot of race based RPGs, certain classes (jobs) are geared towards certain races. That, in a way, is a form of unintentional politics, straight out of Brave New World. Hell, Half-Orcs were always assumed to be the product of rape, while half elves came from loving families.

Example of this in action: Let's take Tolkien's swarthy easterners. The films did a great job in addressing this. Why are they throwing in their lot with Satan? Tolkien presented them as noble warriors who fight to the end, which was a good start. But are they evil by default? Do they have families? What motivates them? The Dunlendings and the Wain Riders had their land seized from them by the Rohavion. What are the places they are forced into like? What kind of desperation are they driven to, so that they now throw in their lot with the force of ultimate evil? By being aware of the original context (Middle Eastern expies vs Medieval Europe expies in a fairly troubling set up) you can use similar environments without falling into the same traps as the original writers. This kind of awareness is the most important thing in making any form of media accessible.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691I'm not talking about forcing you to hire black writers or artists. Notice, my focus was on the media itself. You don't need to make your game about race. But randomly changing the races of a few characters actually does add something. That's basically what the Flash did, it didn't make it an issue, but, to be accessible, it just randomly mixed stuff up. For you, or your game, it really doesn't make a change. For someone who doesn't look like you reading your book, especially if they're a kid or a teen, it really does add something. Zero investment for a more accessible product. If the RPG industry was entirely run by Buddhists, and when you opened every book buddhism was assumed to be the default, and all the characters, unless they needed something special, were buddhists, that'd be a little off putting for you, wouldn't it?

I apologize because 1) I agree with your points here and 2) I wasn't really reacting to anything that you posted. I was just indignant that some folks on twitter and G+ are expecting gaming companies, no matter how small and/or indie, to have a quota of non-white, non-male, non-straight people. Sadly, none of my gaming friends have the time or interest in collaborating with me on RPG material. With such a small pool of human resources, to be "expected" to have enough of the "right" types of people feels impossible and unfair.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691The horror of Lovecraft's deep ones are that good white people would breed with them, huge statement there.

But you, you're open-minded, you'd get right down in that spawning pool and fuck that Cthulhu-spawn thing and rear the resulting tadpoles with love and affection... teach them proper worship of the Outer Gods because you wouldn't want to deprive them of the culture of their ancestors. You are truly the right-minded man.

Quote from: Necrozius;910696I apologize because 1) I agree with your points here and 2) I wasn't really reacting to anything that you posted. I was just indignant that some folks on twitter and G+ are expecting gaming companies, no matter how small and/or indie, to have a quota of non-white, non-male, non-straight people. Sadly, none of my gaming friends have the time or interest in collaborating with me on RPG material. With such a small pool of human resources, to be "expected" to have enough of the "right" types of people feels impossible and unfair.

Ahh, my fault, misinterpreted your statement. I'm involved in a good amount of what people would call SJW movements and I get a lot of flack like that. Working on the Navajo Nation this summer for a legal services corporation and I remember getting torn into at a client registration clinic I was running in a small bordertown by this one woman. Believe me, if we had someone who was Dine available, they would have gone because I don't speak Navajo and a lot of older Dine don't really speak English. That and client relations is my least favorite part of the job. I'll take research and pleading writing over it any day of the week. But at the time, I was the only free guy. I tend to just let this slide, I understand why she was annoyed and it's just counter productive to try and make a big deal of it.

Quote from: Simlasa;910697But you, you're open-minded, you'd get right down in that spawning pool and fuck that Cthulhu-spawn thing and rear the resulting tadpoles with love and affection... teach them proper worship of the Outer Gods because you wouldn't want to deprive them of the culture of their ancestors. You are truly the right-minded man.

...........................You do realize the Shadow Over Innsmouth was about Lovecraft's horror of miscegenation, right? Not saying Deep Ones ain't cool as shit, and I love using them in my Delta Green campaign, but there's a hell of a historical legacy they bring with them.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691If you look at the line up, there is a strong focus on opening up the industry and people who are designing games aimed at markets not really addressed by current games.

The industry has always been open and the rise of pdf and self-publishing opened it up even more.  There were women that were prominent in RPG development even very early on and now it's easy for anyone to get their game out there.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691And herein the Shitstorm lies. The panel above had metric fucktons of merit. It included incredibly successful writers and designers, from both well established brands (Paizo) and indie games.

There seem to be a lot of obscure writers included as several people have already mentioned.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691But randomly changing the races of a few characters actually does add something.

Exactly what does this add?  What proof do you have?

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691About that:
*snip*

The statistics you cite mean exactly nothing.  Statistical disparities, by themselves, mean nothing.  They prove nothing.  They do nothing to indicate why such disparities exist.  The underlying assumption is that it is caused by discrimination but the disparities themselves do nothing to prove that.  
http://www.tsowell.com/spracecu.html

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691The horror of Lovecraft's deep ones are that good white people would breed with them, huge statement there.

His stories were set in New England.  That's the big statement he was making there.   His big statement was that he was from Providence, Rhode Island and, like many authors, wrote about the places he knew in New England.  

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691The films did a great job in addressing this. Why are they throwing in their lot with Satan? Tolkien presented them as noble warriors who fight to the end, which was a good start. But are they evil by default? Do they have families? What motivates them?

Sam's moment of empathy for the dead Haradrim is right out of the book.  It is clear in the book that you are supposed to feel bad that this person wound up dead so far from home.  He asks these very questions about the dead man.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910698You do realize the Shadow Over Innsmouth was about Lovecraft's horror of miscegenation, right?

I realize that's what YOU think it was about. As a kid, reading it, I had yet to have Lovecraft's racism repeatedly, ad nauseum, pointed out to me. So the Deep Ones were just icky monsters. I really doubt Lovecraft intended it to be a treatis on his beliefs either, it's not some sort of manifesto... but stories of that era are full of similar subhuman/inhuman creatures. Nothing about Lovecraft's stories stood out to me in that manner after I'd already consumed a heaping portion of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Abraham Merritt, and old serials I'd watch on Saturday mornings.
Yet somehow I still didn't turn out thinking I needed to be scared of people from other countries, despite the lack of heroes like you, being around to warn me about the bad man.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910698...........................You do realize the Shadow Over Innsmouth was about Lovecraft's horror of miscegenation, right?

citation needed