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" Decolonizing D&D: Is your game problematic?"

Started by ArrozConLeche, August 19, 2019, 01:39:11 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Haffrung

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1100361Bad gaming is worse than no gaming.  If you make the gaming bad, good gamers will not invite you back.

Compared to 30 years ago; compared to 20 years ago, there is less stigma among gamers generally, but that doesn't mean there aren't gamers with absolutely no social skills who ruin it for everyone else.  If you find you're not welcome at the gaming table, you should take a good hard look at your behaviors and consider whether you might be the problem.

I have no idea how this relates to what I posted. I'm a well-adjusted professional in a good job with a happy family and lots of friends. I have no shortage of people to play tabletop games with.

We were talking about zealots like the one who wrote the blog. People who take radical academic theories about colonialism, constructivism, and intersectionality, and turn them into social agendas that drive every single fucking thing in their life. And why those zealots have such outsized influence on hobbies and entertainment.
 

Haffrung

Quote from: S'mon;1100348Talking about SJW witterings here is pointless and only gives them fuel.

Disagree. The zealots are too small in number to enforce cultural norms themselves. They need the aid and compliance of much larger numbers of moderate people. The reign of outrage will subside only once the rest of us realize just how many of us there are and how few of them.

Quote from: S'mon;1100348What is useful is making sure authority figures - which can be as minor as a Facebook group owner or bulletin board site owner, or organiser of a public Meetup - are aware of the tactics and know to look out for SJW infiltrators and deal with them swiftly. A 'no politics' rule can be effective, it worked on EN World for many years before the SJWs successfully Converged the site through appeal to Morrus & co's sense of male chivalry. Angry posts here don't do anything to protect neutral ground from SJW takeover.

But those authority figures feel they're just doing the decent, liberal thing, like everyone who isn't an alt-right bigot. The extreme distortions of online discourse have caused those authority figures to badly misapprehend the true makeup of their audience. They think it's a 50 vs 50 culture war, where in reality it's a 10 vs 10 culture war, with 80 per cent of people wishing they'd just shut the fuck up and let them enjoy D&D, or boardgames, or comics, or comedy, etc.

Boardgamegeek is being taken over right now by SJWs because, like most hobbies, the forums are dominated by small numbers of highly active users. And the zealots are very good at employing the most effective weapon in the SJW arsenal: if you're a decent and compassionate person, then surely you must agree that [colonialism/sexism/bigotry/intersectionality/heteromative, etc. etc. etc.]. So even people who think SJW theories are flakey and their weaponization of shame offputting go along because they want to be decent and compassionate people. The only thing that will stop them is large numbers of decent and compassionate people speaking up and saying you don't have to be a bigot to oppose politicizing every single aspect of tabletop gaming.
 

jeff37923

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1100361If you find you're not welcome at the gaming table, you should take a good hard look at your behaviors and consider whether you might be the problem.

There is some wisdom in this statement. There would be more if it acknowledged that maybe the others at the gaming table are the problem, and it may be better for your sanity to not be one of those "Popular Kids".
"Meh."

FickleGM

I will forego the rant brewing in my head, but boy have I grown to hate the word "problematic" and have come to equate it with the act of trying to remove something that I enjoy (usually as a foil or a challenge to be overcome) from the games I play or other media I digest.
 

JRT

#94
Eh, I still agree with Kyle and S'mon, not stoking the fires is the best way to handle it.

The one danger is to become a zealot yourself against the other zealots.  That's the key thing to avoid.
Just some background on myself

http://www.clashofechoes.com/jrt-interview/

GeekyBugle

Quote from: JRT;1100403Being a zealot turns off a lot of people.  With #1, the lurkers just get annoyed at the tone, and fighting zealotry with zealotry just makes both sides look unsympathetic.  And for #2, the harm is it can distract from the board people who just want to talk about RPG and games, etc.  I sense a growing fatigue on this line of subject matter.



I honestly don't mind criticism or mockery--but I do agree with the posters that one of the best ways to combat this is to not fuel the fire, which both Kyle and S'mon have stated.  Otherwise, you run the risk of becoming a zealot yourself, and you will alienate the middleman--the people you supposedly are trying to reach.  

And saying you may be taking things a little too far is not "silencing", its simply stating opinions you may not like.

Concern troll is obvious troll.
Quote from: Rhedyn

Here is why this forum tends to be so stupid. Many people here think Joe Biden is "The Left", when he is actually Far Right and every US republican is just an idiot.

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

― George Orwell

JRT

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1100404Concern troll is obvious troll.

Eh, think what you want--heck, while you were responding I felt it wasn't worth it and edited my post.  

Calling anybody who disagrees with you a troll though--you're engaging in the same tactics that they use. Pot meet Kettle, I guess.
Just some background on myself

http://www.clashofechoes.com/jrt-interview/

Omega

Quote from: Jaeger;1100223The so-called "satanic panic" was a toothless fart into a strong breeze compared to what the SJW's are doing.

The SJW's already had more impact, have exerted more influence and control over over the social mores of the mainstream RPG hobby than all of the fraud, huckster, peacock-preacher's involved in the "satanic-panic" combined.

Youd like to think that. But the Satanic Panic had far reaching impacts and was appallingly pervasive well into the early to mid 90s before most of the fallout lost its impact. Lives were ruined and books, toys and more were burned and destroyed. Some were so terrified of the mere hint of it they would pull up stakes and flee if they thought their kids were in "that cult".

The thing alot of folk keep missing though is this.

The SJW cult is really just a continuation of the "Political Correctness" of the 90s, which was a continuation of the "Moral Guardians" of the 70s and so on. This bunch has been around a long long long time and are rather cyclic in that about every 20 years theres a big surge to "Clean everything and make it safe!" taken inevitably and usually right out the gate too far. Which causes pushback from those wrongfully attacked and hence you see this slow escalation of media that is increasingly offensive as pushback.

The other problem is that this new wave of the Prude Patrol has been also co-opted by 3rd wave Feminists so they can piggyback on moral outrage.

And the article in the OP is nothing new really. These sociopaths can and will see demons in anything.

Omega

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1100254What!? You mean to tell me the push to teach creationism in schools wasn't stopped by just ignoring it's proponents? I can't even.

Yes. That is exactly what happened in some areas. There was a push to keep or return creationism in schools. People ignored it and boom, now its being taught to your kids. And usually evolution and other sciences get the short end of the stick in the process.

Ignoring this stuff only allows them more time to get a foothold and convert more people. Flat Earthers?

jhkim

As far as whether to respond about progressive opinions in gaming -- I don't mind it, but can we try to keep it more in Pundit's forum? I know that Pundit is allowing more of such discussion here in the RPG forum lately as moderator, but I feel like it threatens to drown out more practical gaming talk.

To my mind, the real problem is echo chambers -- which are encouraged by social media, and create a lot more partisanship and outrage.

Omega

Quote from: trechriron;1100308I seriously wish we would stop using SJW in the pejorative. It gives those of us who actually fight for social justice a bad rap. These people are only co-opting the term as they found a less-discerning crowd there.

That is the problem really. And it is in no way limited to games or media. I have seen this in various fan and special interest groups where another group infiltrated and co-opted it. It doesnt allways work. But the times it fails is alot less than the times it succeeds.

And its allways the same damn argument. "Well you see this thing you are doing is also really this thing we are doing too!" or "Well you see this thing you dont like is also really this thing we dont like too!" Sometimes to the point that the interest or hate subject becomes literally "everything on earth".

Social Justice was primed for abuse and it attracted ever more abusive people to the point "everything is racist, everything is sexist!" or "everything is a storytelling game!" or "Everything is pornographic!" or "Everything is violence!" because to these nuts it is never enough.

The truth of the matter is. You are not a social justice warrior. You are a normal concerned human being.

Haffrung

SJW is a pejorative. And I'd be happy to use a term that the people in question find acceptable. But what do we have? The intellectual foundation of the movement is radical social constructivism, and the moral foundation is extreme equity. Neither rolls off the tongue or is sufficient alone. And I don't think 'leftist' is the answer, because leftism to many people is basic stuff like universal public health care. 'Liberal' is dead wrong, because there's nothing liberal about judging and shaming and enforcing conformity. Of course the people in question don't have a term for themselves, because they think this stuff is so obvious to everyone willing to open their eyes that it doesn't need a name. It's simply justice. As though there has ever been a universal consensus of what constitutes justice.

One of the things I find remarkable about this movement is how so many of its champions come from academia, and yet seem totally incapable of contesting and defending their beliefs on rational grounds. Their fallback is always moralistic, in the same way the beliefs of religious conservatives are.
 

GeekyBugle

Quote from: Haffrung;1100417SJW is a pejorative. And I'd be happy to use a term that the people in question find acceptable. But what do we have? The intellectual foundation of the movement is radical social constructivism, and the moral foundation is extreme equity. Neither rolls off the tongue or is sufficient alone. And I don't think 'leftist' is the answer, because leftism to many people is basic stuff like universal public health care. 'Liberal' is dead wrong, because there's nothing liberal about judging and shaming and enforcing conformity. Of course the people in question don't have a term for themselves, because they think this stuff is so obvious to everyone willing to open their eyes that it doesn't need a name. It's simply justice. As though there has ever been a universal consensus of what constitutes justice.

One of the things I find remarkable about this movement is how so many of its champions come from academia, and yet seem totally incapable of contesting and defending their beliefs on rational grounds. Their fallback is always moralistic, in the same way the beliefs of religious conservatives are.

The term was coined by them, we just use it to mock them because they aren't for Justice, they are anti-social and they are the farthest thing from a warrior.

Yes, they are moralistic, because it's not an academic field, it's a cult, an atheist religion. Just compare them with religious fundamentalists:

Anti-Sex? Check
Moralistic? Check
Authoritarian? Check
Totalitarian? Check
Science deniers? Check (among the sciences they deny is biology, parts of evolution, psychology, evo-psich)
Believe in an invisible, all knowing, all powerful, omnipotent and unfalsifiable being? Check (God on one side and Teh Patriarchy tm  on the other)
Dogmatic? Check
Use mantras? Check
Hate towards the unbeliever? Check
Ego maniacal? Check
Use logical fallacies and double think to justify their unjustifiable beliefs? Check
Double standards? Check
Quote from: Rhedyn

Here is why this forum tends to be so stupid. Many people here think Joe Biden is "The Left", when he is actually Far Right and every US republican is just an idiot.

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

― George Orwell

deadDMwalking

Quote from: Haffrung;1100417Their fallback is always moralistic, in the same way the beliefs of religious conservatives are.

Not just religious conservatives...  

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,...
When I say objectively, I mean \'subjectively\'.  When I say literally, I mean \'figuratively\'.  
And when I say that you are a horse\'s ass, I mean that the objective truth is that you are a literal horse\'s ass.

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. - Peter Drucker

GeekyBugle

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1100429Not just religious conservatives...  

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,...

Leave it to a leftie to equate that to the zealots in his side or the other side.
Quote from: Rhedyn

Here is why this forum tends to be so stupid. Many people here think Joe Biden is "The Left", when he is actually Far Right and every US republican is just an idiot.

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

― George Orwell