Quote from: yosemitemike;910710citation needed

This "common wisdom" about the Shadows of Innsmouth comes from L. Sprague de Camp who wrote a biography of Lovecraft.  Since it's easy for the Lib 101 crowd to glom onto, it's become generally accepted.

Looking at actual letters from Lovecraft to Howard, it's much more likely that the idea of alien horror being locked in one's genes came from Lovecraft's fear that the mental illness that ran in his family would manifest in him (which of course, it did).  As for New England having some small, isolated inbred villages - it kinda did back then.  "Fish Fucking", as Charles Stross puts it, is taboo on multiple levels, miscegenation being only a part, and arguably not even the main one, not even for Lovecraft.

Not saying that Lovecraft wasn't a gigantic racist as well as avowed anti-semite (despite being married to a Jew), he most certainly was - that doesn't mean everything racist you could ever say about him is true.

But...some people have a deck of one card, so that's all they play...ever.

Quote from: Krimson;910262I've been playing since '86 and I have as yet to hear the words OSR or Storygame come from a living breathing human being.

I've heard Storygame but mostly in connection with white wolf so it was most likely meant as a variation of Storytelling game.

Quote from: Nexus;910738I've heard Storygame but mostly in connection with white wolf so it was most likely meant as a variation of Storytelling game.

My local community tends to be very well wired, so I've heard both terms in my gaming store, to which the owner and my friend who works there, don't know much about it.

Quote from: cranebump;910689Pondsmith'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?

You missed my point - Mike Pondsmith is completely Guest of Honor material because he's been producing quality game products for decades - he's earned it based on merit.

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. 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.

Ill say there are a few on the list now I see,  ( just checking here ) who have some significant merit. And quite a few that don't seem to have much.

As for "Women are continually judged to a higher standard than men, especially in male dominated hobbies", I won't argue with a generalization that gets parroted over and over again as if repeating it makes it a scientific law. You gain merit in your profession or field of study by continuously excelling at your work and gaining recognition of your peers. Sure, some individual peer groups will set a standard that has nothing to do with their field (like grads of one or two specific universities being preferred hires over all others at Google), but there is no evidence to show it is always true.

Quote from: yosemitemike;910700Exactly what does this add?  What proof do you have?

I've got to ask the same thing as one of the demographic that it's supposedly done to help. At most randomly switching up ethnic backgrounds without changing much else about the character is a lateral move that doesn't improve or lessen anything for the most part. Sometimes it servers to promote stereotypes like the one black "new" Ghostbuster being the typical sassy black "urban" character amid the white geniuses and scientists. Or, ironically, trivialize the differences by making ethnic background little more than a coat of paint, freely exchanged without changing anything else about the character.

Quote from: Tod13;910231The problem is the people who would destroy the work of others to push politically correct social agendas

This.

I caught the end of a panel featuring Mark Diaz Truman (Cartel) and Julia Bond Ellingboe (Steal Away Jordan) about diversity in RPGs or something, and both stated they created those games because they found the subject matter interesting and fruitful for powerful stories. The questions from the audience however had more to do with how to use RPGs for social change.

RPGs don't create social change, they adapt to it, and using them as a form of propaganda is just going to leave a sour taste in everyone's mouth. Luckily that's not what the majority of indie designers I know do.

Quote from: Tod13;910231Who the hell came up with the "X Card"? Really? Try actually talking to each other.

That would be John Stavropoulos, same guy who spent months looking for evidence that James Desborough had threatened to rape his critics after Ben Lehmann's accusation. An accusation which coincidentally was in a letter criticizing Indie+ for how James was being billed for Mark Diaz Truman's interview with him, an interview which Anna Kreider objected to so strenuously that she threatened to pull support for Indie+ if they went through with it.

As for the X Card, it is talking to each other, just not verbally. I don't know why people feel so threatened by new communication channels, but they need to get over it.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;910276This is copy/pasted from Tod Casasent who commented on my blog post.  I think he nailed it...

Woah, Deja Vu

The important takeaway is simply that you shouldn't contradict a player's assumptions without good reason. And honestly, I find it less disruptive to have my assumptions 'corrected' than explicitly ask the GM directly if something is true.

#SchrodingersShotgun

Quote from: cranebump;910574I think someone who publishes a creative work shouldn't be indicted because someone else perceives their work as an attack just because it doesn't fit their world view.

I agree.

Quote from: cranebump;910574Remember what Morrow did with Mcarthy? He let the man speak for himself, and let everyone See It Now. And Mcarthy disappeared. Maybe not a perfect example, but the point is, the audience will tell you if they're offended, or put off, or whatever, by voting with their feet.

Which they can't do if the truth is hidden or censored.

Quote from: cranebump;910574The venue of the RPG really isn't a place where addressing real life issues of injustice will actually solve anything.  We do that at our own tables. We do that in the way we deal with others.

Also agree.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910632When 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.

That criticism had nothing to do with the the fact the majority is women, but some folks are deliberately misrepresenting things to further their agenda. And the kind of thinking you use here justifies all sorts of horrid behavior, as it frees bad actors in a community to act under the aegis of a noble cause. Using your moon logic the Democrats should be held blameless and above criticism just because they oppose Trump.

#AtLeastTheFBISeemsToThinkSo

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691The 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.

But (at least the good) stories do not have a single definitive political interpretation. If they did then they wouldn't change meaning based on the current political context. And treating games as political risks conflating matters of taste with matters of values. The fact I enjoy Grindhouse cinema says literally nothing about my politics or values. Zip. Nada. And yet there are many who think otherwise.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691Compare 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.

So what about the readers who miss the parody and interpret Judge Dredd as endorsing fascism?

#TheIronDream

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910691The 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.

Speaking of dramatic shifts in political context, I find it interesting that the horror moved from humans who willingly slept with fish people to fish people who needed to rape humans in order to reproduce.

#MarsNeedsWomen

Im just sick and tired of it being used as merely a PR ploy. Which is about 75% of the time.

I honestly never heard of both the OSR and storygames before I got on this forum. I used to hang out on WW forum and those terms never get mentioned.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;910788I honestly never heard of both the OSR and storygames before I got on this forum. I used to hang out on WW forum and those terms never get mentioned.

Same here. Before all RPGs were... well RPGs. I'm learning more and more that no matter how obscure or specific a hobby community is, they're just as fractional as any other. I'll bet that there are divisions within both OSR and Storytelling communities who constantly tell each other to fuck off.

In the end, though, no matter how "successful" we get, nor how many followers we gather, we're all still the losers in the back of the school cafeteria whom the jocks always harass, screaming NNNNNEEEEEERRRRRRRRDS! That thought keeps me from getting too impressed by game designer's pretentiousness.

I'd heard the term "narrative game" which I think is about the same thing as "storygame" before coming here. Saw "OSR" a few times but never really knew what it was beyond being related to early D and D.

Its funny how much the harassment, animosity and scorn nerds get after high school comes from other nerds. Crabs in a bucket.l

Quote from: Nexus;910795Its funny how much the harassment, animosity and scorn nerds get after high school comes from other nerds. Crabs in a bucket.l

Really?  Because to me, whenever people draw 'battle lines' it's always happened.  From Video Games to Sports Teams to Politics.  We humans seem to love to pick a side and stick with it until our dying breath.

Quote from: Lynn;910763You missed my point - Mike Pondsmith is completely Guest of Honor material because he's been producing quality game products for decades - he's earned it based on merit.

Did I? I thought you were saying he should not have been chosen(). Or were you clarifying the position of others?

After I saw the statement, I looked into the guy because, honestly, I didn't know who he was (along with a lot of folks in the RPG industry). That's why it seemed surprising to me.

Apologies if I misrepresented your position. Looks like we're actually in agreement.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;9106911) 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.

I can accept the fact that true racial/ethnic/sexual orientation representation in venues where mass consumption is a factor likely has more of an impact that I think it does, given that, as a white dude, representation has never been an issue for me. But is the impact in print media like role playing game books truly that deep, outside of the leviathons, we'll say D&D and PF. Actually, D&D is the flagship, so I'd say how they choose to represent diversity in their product likely matters, though I hold to my assertion that it is also smart business to broaden your play base (i.e., "the color of RPGS as a business is green").

I was wondering about the statistics for minority representation. Thanks for that. You can definitely see who's making an effort in that realm, however. The show hosts on, say MSNBC and ESPN show some significant minority representation. I can't vouch for everything they do, however.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;910805Really?  Because to me, whenever people draw 'battle lines' it's always happened.  From Video Games to Sports Teams to Politics.  We humans seem to love to pick a side and stick with it until our dying breath.

I'm not sure how this relates to what you quoted Most of the shit I've caught personally or seen flung since high school about being a gamer has come from other gamers that don't like how I chose to play Let's Pretend. Most other adults don't really give a shit besides think its an odd hobby. Yes, there are some eternal "jocks" that won't give it up but more strife comes from inside the so called community than outside, IME. It draws more attention when something "nerdy' become newsworthy on a slow day but, by and large most Muggles don't seem to give a crap. Hell, allot of gamers that aren't heavily online don't seem to give a crap about these little wars though they have their own tribal thing going.

If what you're saying is that "humans are tribal", I couldn't agree more but I don't how that's contrary to what you quoted.