TheRPGSite

Hey guys, do me a favor, post games here that meet the following criteria:

1. They are available for sale on OBS.

2. They are more offensive in some sexual, moral, or other sense, than Venger Satanis' fairly mild 'benny-hill-in-space' type game, Alpha Blue.


Please be sure to explain WHY you think the game you cite is more offensive.

Thanks!

The Dresden Files Paranet Papers supplement for Dresden Files (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/139271/Dresden-Files-RPG-Paranet-Papers-Vegas-Chapter-Early-Preview).  Because you can't solve the child porn issue, you have to perpetuate it or the world ends.

Crack Wh-r- : Solitaire Adventure Dice Game: A board game/paragraph game. Playing a hooker.

Everything by Scorched Urth: Black Tokyo, etc make Alpha Blue look like the Smurfs.

Everything by Dakkar Unlimited: Not super offensive. But some of their stuff is on par with or worse than AB.

Sexcraft: A Little Game with a Lot of Sex: By John Wick

Who's Your Daddy?: Party game about "Players birth as many kids as possible and do their best to sue other players for child support.  Last one with any money wins the game."

And a couple of more.

Problem is OBS has some of the damndest things listed as Adult. Things that obviously arent.

The first edition of Crimson Blades gave cumulative bonus for summoning a Demon of Desire for sacrificing a virgin of an intelligent species, while in the nude, at an orgy with more than 2o participants. And that wasn't flagged as adult content.  I also didn't find it offensive. But that is a lot of sex and violence.

The cover of Eldritch Wizardry for 0D&D shows a naked woman bound to a sacrificial altar. Cue moral outrage

I haven't read Alpha Blue, only seen the cheese cake cover.

Is Alpha Blue blacklisted again?

No, but the author is backing up James Desbourgh because Hentacle was removed.  Then suffer a bit of backlash from the SJW guys.

Why was Hentacle removed? Thats been around twelve years now?
So how is Cthentacle different as that is still up? Looks even more raunchy?

I am assuming a SJW reported it and it got black listed.

Quote from: Omega;911563Everything by Scorched Urth: Black Tokyo, etc make Alpha Blue look like the Smurfs.

I love the Scorched Urth stuff, especially Black Tokyo.  I doubt I'll ever find people to play it with, but it's a fun read.  They go to such extremes of extremes that it's almost funny.

So..you're officially ranking games by their offensiveness now? Really?

I don't really see the objective of this thread. If Alpha Blue is available again, it's no longer any kind of dividing line between what is and isn't permissible on OBS. You can't play gotcha with OBS for selling games more offensive than another game that they sell. I could almost see the logic of listing games more offensive then Hentacle, but I am unsure that anything like this exists.

This thread just seems to be a handy guide for people looking to flag things that might otherwise have passed under the radar.

Quote from: Baulderstone;911760This thread just seems to be a handy guide for people looking to flag things that might otherwise have passed under the radar.

It's exactly that. It's nothing more than unprincipled tribalist bullshit.

Quote from: carpocratian;911751I love the Scorched Urth stuff, especially Black Tokyo.  I doubt I'll ever find people to play it with, but it's a fun read.  They go to such extremes of extremes that it's almost funny.

They should do a new edition of Black Tokyo and keep the setting and attitude but get better art and replace the current clunky Pathfinder ruleset with a variant of the simple and versatile system from Alpha Blue. Bring the two great brands of bad-taste roleplaying together.

Quote from: RPGPundit;911545Hey guys, do me a favor, post games here that meet the following criteria:

1. They are available for sale on OBS.

2. They are more offensive in some sexual, moral, or other sense, than Venger Satanis' fairly mild 'benny-hill-in-space' type game, Alpha Blue.


Please be sure to explain WHY you think the game you cite is more offensive.

Thanks!

How are we defining "worse"? Not being a smart ass. Its a pretty damn subjective standard.

Dark Albion? I hear the author's a monster!

It's easy to find stuff "more offensive" than Alpha Blue in their adult section, but based on the descriptions of Hentacle and Cthentacle, finding "more offensive" than those may be...challenging.

Except for that Dresden child rape thing.

Well there is that Dungeons and Dragons game that seems to be fairly popular.  A friend of mine committed suicide after her character Blackleaf was killed, and we all had to ignore her because she was dead to us.

Then I found god, and quit playing the game before I learned any mind control spells. :(

Shouldn't this be in Pundit's subforum?

Manual of Exalted Power: The Infernals. I don't think anything should be taken down as long as it's behind the filter, period, but the first that probably SHOULD go is the supplement based around the constant rape and forced impregnation of the adolescent girl crying for her daddy to come save her from the demons that have destroyed her life and body.

Quote from: carpocratian;911751I love the Scorched Urth stuff, especially Black Tokyo.  I doubt I'll ever find people to play it with, but it's a fun read.  They go to such extremes of extremes that it's almost funny.

I've seen some Black Tokyo groups over the years (and someone is buying it). Most of the big fans I know of are women and there was one all female face to face group locally but I'm not sure if they still play.

Quote from: Baulderstone;911760I don't really see the objective of this thread. If Alpha Blue is available again, it's no longer any kind of dividing line between what is and isn't permissible on OBS. You can't play gotcha with OBS for selling games more offensive than another game that they sell. I could almost see the logic of listing games more offensive then Hentacle, but I am unsure that anything like this exists.

This thread just seems to be a handy guide for people looking to flag things that might otherwise have passed under the radar.

The objective of the thread is to specifically point out games the Swine never target, to prove that this has fuck all to do with "offensiveness" and EVERYTHING to do with who the authors are.

Also, to start building a fucking list of which Forge/Storygames and other Swine-favorites WE will target the next time OBS bans something. Because I increasingly think that until a viable competitor to OBS emerges, the only real answer is going to be to sabotage the entire reporting system, and scare OBS into realizing there's WAY more of us than there are of the Outrage Brigade Regressives, and they should be more afraid of displeasing us than displeasing them.

Quote from: Rincewind1;911947Shouldn't this be in Pundit's subforum?

No, because that's where you want it to be.

What else? What White Wolf products are on OBS? What products Wieck personally worked on?

What Paizo titles should be targetted?

Putting John Wick's Galaxy XXX on the list is utter bullshit and anyone who's read or heard about it would understand why. What made Alpha Blue so distasteful was not the presence of sex, but how it handled it. You can have rape within a setting, the real question is how you handle it. Delta Green, for example, uses the horrors of sexual assault, or actions reminiscent of it (forced insertion of worms via the anus, for example) to further its themes of hopeless fear, through the deliberate juxtaposition of you (badass spec ops super tactical guy) and the completely helpless position and terrifying position you find yourself in. In Vampire, you basically role-play a rapist. Replay Bloodlines and relate how you feel stalking "high class" ladies through alleyways because you desperately need the blood points. You are forced into the mindset of an ill monster, compelled to prey on the weak. Hell, Patty the ghoul is one of the best portrayals of dependence and the lines of consent I've ever seen. A good intentioned deed leads to probably the only person in the game who doesn't try to use you, and is grateful (Nines excepting). Hell, she wants to be with you, and the rewards get addictive, despite the fact that you know the effect blood has on ghouls and you know this isn't out of her free will. It's a really well done examination of power and consent.

To return to Galaxy XXX, there sex is presented as fun and two sided. The better both people are at sex, the more they personally gain from it. Being able to give people mindshattering orgasms is even a weapon for both genders, and both sexes are able to use sex to empower themselves. It's cover has two, equally damn sexy people on it (this might be the time to notice a theme). He even got the artist to put pants on the lady after his wife remarked on the difference between how the guy and girl were drawn, and the power balance it created. It uses sex in just as goofy and lighthearted a way as Alpha Blue attempted to, but in a compelling, tasteful way. Alpha Blue pissed people off because it was a juvenile return to 1980's nerd porn, entirely focused on the male gaze, with tasteless and completely clueless references to rape machines without any context or interesting use to further a theme. The main setting is a fucking space brothel, for God's sake, with the cover being a bikini clad babe. It shouldn't have been banned, but it did deserve the flak it got, and the inability of some communities to understand the difference between the two games is a product of the same mindset that resulted in Alpha Blue in the first place. The presence of tits isn't offensive (barring a fantasy setting where male frontline warriors are in full plate and the girls get bikinis, but that goes back to the whole "use sex with balance" shtick). The idiotic use of sex through a solely male viewpoint is. The use of rape isn't by it's nature offensive. The clueless use of it without purpose is. If you're going to crowdsource your personal vendetta, at least look for good examples (a shit ton of White Wolf products, for example).

Enjoy the ignore list.  Seriously you bitching about a hobby of make believe.  Just grow the fuck up Iskandar, try to get your priorities straighten out, and stop being a swine.  That shit is nothing to be proud of.

God damn Pundit how do you keep sane with all these idiots?

So, food for thought here:  

1- Since when are 'naked ladies' and 'sex' and 'tentacles in your butthole' more offensive that... oh, I dunno... outright wholesale slaughter?  I mean, Dark Heresy has rules for blowing someone's stomach open and guts spilling out all over the place and making people roll checks to keep their balance.  Sure, rape is terrible and all that jazz.  It's not something I would enjoy as part of an RPG game.  But people forget that these games also feature outright butchery, cannibalism, slavery, etc.  

2- Not seeing the Exalted 2e book that had a spell that got you raped by the Neverborn.  Nor am I seeing that Book of Vile Darkness or that other D&D porn book full of photos of ugly naked people.

Quote from: Crüesader;9126271- Since when are 'naked ladies' and 'sex' and 'tentacles in your butthole' more offensive that... oh, I dunno... outright wholesale slaughter?

It's that selective fundamentalist thinking ala Bible thumpers who rail about certain 'sins' (homosexuals, fornication) but pretty much ignore the stuff that's actually a big deal in the book... like seeking after material wealth and 'the golden rule' and most of the ten commandments.

Bah. I just researched the Galaxy XXX cover controversy mentioned by Iskandar up there. Christ what a bunch of pointless whibbling virtue signaling.... and that is just looking at the pre and post censorship covers.   I couldn't be bothered with the eye bleeding that the actual justification might cause should I read it.

Seriously: Picture one has a shirtless guy (wearing pants, obviously) standing beside/behind a girl wearing a monokini outfit that includes thigh high boots.  Picture two is identical except now her bare hips (monokini... remember? Seriously, stop staring at the pictures, guys... I'm trying ta tells ya somfin.) are colored the same as the monokini, making it pants like, with a weird bikini top built in.

So this was some sort of clothing based power imbalance?

Sure. I mean that poor dumb bastard is practically freezing his nipples off, and the haughty bitch is just smirking at her fully covered nips!  

In all practical terms she is wearing more clothing than he is IN BOTH PICTURES.

So.. she gets even more because... clothing power imbalances?






Seriously. You guys can tell me it was all a practical joke now. Right? Right?  I mean... I'm not really crazy, the world actually does make sense and people care more, like real world problems, than wether or not some cartoon chica likes flashing her hips or not? Right!!  

Its not a joke???


SIgh. I'm off to worship azathoth now.  Cthulu only promises to eat my soul... azathoth says he'll scour it entirely from existence, as if it never was.  Hope he's not lying... can never tell with those cult guys.





Edit::: Bah. I had to read the text.   I'm gonna go on and say it. John Wick has no spine at all.  Your typical pussywhipped spineless, gormless chump at least has some bones in his body, and might recognize a spine if showed one... but John Wick is a fucking jellyfish.  I'm pretty sure I could convince him to eat his own poop, and not only would he blog about it, he'd brag how much more enlightened he is for self-recycling.

I ordered both 'Alpha Blue' and 'Girls Gone Rogue' to see what all the fuss was about. In the end I found nothing that really made me mad, just a well organised book on having dumb sex adventures in that painfully unfunny British 60s sex comedy style.

The only thing that stood out for me was how the book insists on using 'whores' as a catch all term for sex workers. I did find it odd that a book dedicated to harmless 'naughty comedy' (like Benny Hill naughty) consistently used degrading terms for the women it primarily portrays, the brothel's prostitutes.

Quote from: Spike;912635Bah. I just researched the Galaxy XXX cover controversy mentioned by Iskandar up there. Christ what a bunch of pointless whibbling virtue signaling.... and that is just looking at the pre and post censorship covers.   I couldn't be bothered with the eye bleeding that the actual justification might cause should I read it.

I didn't know anything about this either.  I saw your post and decided to have a look at the covers.  I knew the moment I saw John Wick's name it was going to be stupid.

Like you, I'm sure this was just John Wick trying to get himself attention by coattailing on all the stupid SJW regressive feminist shit of late.  He was hoping there would be some controversy over it, but I guess it never got any real attention.

The funniest, or most pathetic I guess, thing about that post is the single comment, where the person just totally Curbstomps Wick with his own words.

He starts off the descriptions of the characters talking about having shorts on the guy, but then goes into this whole Buck Rogers Time Travel thing, basically the guy isn't from the CrazySexyGroovy 40th Century and so he isn't ready to ditch the pants, while the woman next to him is totally secure in her 40th Century sexuality and uses it like a weapon.

Then he basically caves into criticism the depth of which is...

Pants are Power. Penis has pants. Vagina must have pants.

...so now apparently the woman either isn't as totally secure in her 40th Century sexuality or doesn't actually want to use it like a weapon, whichever.

As the poster pointed out, the original picture demonstrated 40th century sexuality, the new picture demonstrates 21st century Identity Politics and the New Prudism...and the total lack of anything resembling a spine by the author.  Didn't he just run the highest grossing KS in RPG history?  This guy used to have an ego, didn't he?

Quote from: RPGPundit;912598What Paizo titles should be targetted?

Insofar as OBS goes, this is a moot point. Paizo doesn't market their electronic materials through any store but their own.

Quote from: CRKrueger;912885The funniest, or most pathetic I guess, thing about that post is the single comment, where the person just totally Curbstomps Wick with his own words.

He starts off the descriptions of the characters talking about having shorts on the guy, but then goes into this whole Buck Rogers Time Travel thing, basically the guy isn't from the CrazySexyGroovy 40th Century and so he isn't ready to ditch the pants, while the woman next to him is totally secure in her 40th Century sexuality and uses it like a weapon.

Then he basically caves into criticism the depth of which is...

Pants are Power. Penis has pants. Vagina must have pants.

...so now apparently the woman either isn't as totally secure in her 40th Century sexuality or doesn't actually want to use it like a weapon, whichever.

As the poster pointed out, the original picture demonstrated 40th century sexuality, the new picture demonstrates 21st century Identity Politics and the New Prudism...and the total lack of anything resembling a spine by the author.  Didn't he just run the highest grossing KS in RPG history?  This guy used to have an ego, didn't he?

I get your point, but this is where we get the difference between in character to reader and author to reader text. A cover has to speak in 21st century values because the person viewing the cover for the first time lives in the 21st century. The cover is telling a new reader what this game is about and whether or not it is for them. VTM, for example, has a fantastic minimalist approach with the single fallen rose. It's compelling and it's combination of high class artistry and beauty (the rose), loss and death (the cut branch, soon to rot) amidst a dead background (the loneliness of being a vampire) communicates the game perfectly. It draws in a reader and tells them what to expect. Dark Sun does the same. There's no plate armor or heroic fantasy, it is a dry, barren, brown desert where half naked barbarians are charging at each other with bone weapons. It immediately relates the themes and invites the player in through language they understand. Which is why you save the cannibal gnomes, and general horror of the setting, for once they have started entering the setting. Galaxy XXX is a game about sex intended for both genders. The cover thus uses 21st century norms of sexiness and power (the balance) to invite both genders in, from which they can then explore the fictional setting, where they are exposed to more 41st century norms. Once they get a fuller grasp of who the lady is, the 41st century norms become more relate-able and she comes across as the powerful person she is. Slapping 41st century norms would just result in what originally started this whole thing man- oh hey, hot chick in a bikini, woman- why is he wearing pants and she isn't, which defeats the whole "lets make a sex game that isn't a total fucking embarassment to the medium (see below for more)" thing.

Also, I find it kind of strange that the very idea that an author would make a minor change based on feedback from someone else shows that he's some kind of spineless bitch. The dude is making a game about sex intended to appeal to both genders. He actually asked someone of the opposite gender for advice on making it more inviting. She gave good advice and he incorporated it. This is a basic part of game design, or professional design in just about any medium, and exactly the kind of things RPGs should do if they actually want to expand beyond 40-50 year old white men who got started in the 1980s. The fact that he just had the highest grossing KS in RPG history may be a hint that this approach works. It's also the kind of thing we do in our day to day lives all the time. I love to cook, especially for dates and family. What I cook for others is different than what I cook for myself because when you are preparing something for the enjoyment of others, it's important to take into accounts their likes and dislikes. This is just basic courtesy. If you want other people to enjoy the thing you are making, consider small changes to make it as enjoyable as possible.

Quote from: Battle Mad Ronin;912755The only thing that stood out for me was how the book insists on using 'whores' as a catch all term for sex workers. I did find it odd that a book dedicated to harmless 'naughty comedy' (like Benny Hill naughty) consistently used degrading terms for the women it primarily portrays, the brothel's prostitutes.

I did not know about Alpha Blue exclusively using whores as a term. What the fuck? Call girls, hookers, joy girls, courtesans, streetwalkers, there are a metric fuckton of terms that could have been used, and a few that actually give some form of agency or power to the women in question. But fuck that, lets teach those dumb bitches a lesson and just use quite possibly the worst term available instead.

While I agree that the use of "Whore" is unfortunate, let's not get carried away here: I don't remember the author exclusively using that term in the book.

Their official term on board the Alpha Blue was "Satisfier". If "whore" was used, it was an off-hand synonym (obviously not a good one in what is supposed to be a sex-positive, tongue-in-cheek setting). I didn't even remember that he had used it, but that's my mistake.

Quote from: Necrozius;912922While I agree that the use of "Whore" is unfortunate, let's not get carried away here: I don't remember the author exclusively using that term in the book.

Their official term on board the Alpha Blue was "Satisfier". If "whore" was used, it was an off-hand synonym (obviously not a good one in what is supposed to be a sex-positive, tongue-in-cheek setting). I didn't even remember that he had used it, but that's my mistake.

Righty right, I apologize for getting so heated.

However, even satisfier is far from ideal. If you are creating a game set in a space brothel, you should really be trying to maximize the agency of the courtesans in question. This starts at the term you use for them. Take Mal's punching of someone else for calling Inara a whore in "Shindig" followed by him asking whether she learned something in whore school. The whole point here was that Mal's view of Inara is wrong. While he can get over her career, it's because of his respect for her, not his respect for the power and training she has. Kaylee, on the other hand, respects both Inara but also the career Inara takes great pride in, a career which involves immense amount of cultural training and leads to prestige, wealth and power. Secondly, and even more importantly, Inara's power and prestige is shown repeatedly through the series and reinforces to the audience just what she brings to the table through her life's work.

This isn't just matters of making a more palatable game, it's also about game design itself. Player characters aren't supposed to be the most powerful people in the setting at first. The whole point of a sex comedy is that the general antagonists are the challenges standing in the way of the protagonists getting laid. Ensuring that the women in question are powerful/have agency means that the PCs need to struggle to impress people. Just snapping fingers and flashing cash should not be the alpha and the omega. Not to mention, the women being satisfiers/whores/other terms which are focused on the client vs their own status means that the major conflict is between the PCs and the pimps/other people who run the station, reducing the brothel workers themselves to just a bikini clad backdrop. Needless to say, that is hardly ideal if you're trying to make a sex positive game instead of just a "ripped from the pages of hustler" game.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;912932...
This isn't just matters of making a more palatable game, it's also about game design itself. Player characters aren't supposed to be the most powerful people in the setting at first. The whole point of a sex comedy is that the general antagonists are the challenges standing in the way of the protagonists getting laid. Ensuring that the women in question are powerful/have agency means that the PCs need to struggle to impress people. Just snapping fingers and flashing cash should not be the alpha and the omega. Not to mention, the women being satisfiers/whores/other terms which are focused on the client vs their own status means that the major conflict is between the PCs and the pimps/other people who run the station, reducing the brothel workers themselves to just a bikini clad backdrop. Needless to say, that is hardly ideal if you're trying to make a sex positive game instead of just a "ripped from the pages of hustler" game.

Great suggestions here. Some good potential to add a bit more depth and focus to Alpha Blue, I think.

Next up we have to make sure everyone in Alpha Blue is using the missionary position and then once thats fixed we can move on to handing out condoms... or pants. Still debating that last... :rolleyes:

Unless everyone in Alpha Blue is squeaky clean goody goody theres probably a few individuals the term whore would apply to. Male or female. Though to be fair seems the term isnt necessarily allways a derogatory one? I've come across it a few times during research and the usage was neutral in several cases.

So the better question then is hows it being used in Alpha Blue? Not like it really matters in the long run.

And a question about OBS.

Once somethings been tagged as "offensive", removed, then proven not. Does that protect it from being flagged again later and removed again and maybee not getting returned?

Quote from: Omega;912964And a question about OBS.

Once somethings been tagged as "offensive", removed, then proven not. Does that protect it from being flagged again later and removed again and maybee not getting returned?

According to the way the process was explained when it first was instituted, once a game has been vetted by OBS after a complaint it goes on a list that keeps it safe from further reports. That way others can come by and spam the report button but the title is flagged not offensive and thus won't be taken down by anyone at OBS.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;912901I did not know about Alpha Blue exclusively using whores as a term. What the fuck? Call girls, hookers, joy girls, courtesans, streetwalkers, there are a metric fuckton of terms that could have been used, and a few that actually give some form of agency or power to the women in question. But fuck that, lets teach those dumb bitches a lesson and just use quite possibly the worst term available instead.

Is the outrage brigade planning to ever put out a book... like some form of thesarus... that will explain to those of us NOT in the illuminatii which words are worse than others?   When did whore become "the worst term available"?   Mind you, I'm not exactly disagreeing with this assessment, but I'm betting I could think of quite a few words that the Outrage Brigade might think are just as bad, if not worse, than Whore. Bitch... that's a popular one to complain about. Is it better or worse than Whore? What's the hierarchy here.

Of course, since I pride myself on my wordsmithy (I know...I know...), I can imagine getting much worse than Whore.  Just off the top of my head? Fuckmeat. Cocksleeve. Hmm, how about fuckslot? That one is pretty damned low. I'm not sure I can... top? Bottom???? that one without getting obscure, esoteric or otherwise outre.

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;911763It's exactly that. It's nothing more than unprincipled tribalist bullshit.

You do realize this thread was started by a person who thinks magic is real?

Quote from: IskandarKebab;912901I did not know about Alpha Blue exclusively using whores as a term. What the fuck? Call girls, hookers, joy girls, courtesans, streetwalkers, there are a metric fuckton of terms that could have been used, and a few that actually give some form of agency or power to the women in question. But fuck that, lets teach those dumb bitches a lesson and just use quite possibly the worst term available instead.

Unclench your asshole already, white knight.

Quote from: Spike;912974Is the outrage brigade planning to ever put out a book... like some form of thesarus... that will explain to those of us NOT in the illuminatii which words are worse than others?   When did whore become "the worst term available"?   Mind you, I'm not exactly disagreeing with this assessment, but I'm betting I could think of quite a few words that the Outrage Brigade might think are just as bad, if not worse, than Whore. Bitch... that's a popular one to complain about. Is it better or worse than Whore? What's the hierarchy here.

Of course, since I pride myself on my wordsmithy (I know...I know...), I can imagine getting much worse than Whore.  Just off the top of my head? Fuckmeat. Cocksleeve. Hmm, how about fuckslot? That one is pretty damned low. I'm not sure I can... top? Bottom???? that one without getting obscure, esoteric or otherwise outre.

"What's a bureaucratic felcher?" - The Martian

Quote from: Sommerjon;912983You do realize this thread was started by a person who thinks magic is real?

You do realize you're responding to someone who also believes magic is real? This has nothing to do with this site's atrocious politics.

edit: Seriously, using a man's spiritual beliefs to belittle him, no matter how you feel about his politics, is just not right.

Quote from: Sommerjon;912983You do realize this thread was started by a person who thinks magic is real?

And whos to say its not last i checked science still hadn't figured out esp but had to admit that they couldn't explain how it worked.
Or for that matter ghosts and the repeated sighting and events that occur consistently in some locations that people have been unable to explain.
Whether or not you believe in some thing that cant be explained has very little to do with whether on not it actually exists or not.
Theirs a whole list of believes that related to things that couldn't be explained that did in fact turn out to exist.
Including germs and water dowsing.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;911562The Dresden Files Paranet Papers supplement for Dresden Files (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/139271/Dresden-Files-RPG-Paranet-Papers-Vegas-Chapter-Early-Preview).  Because you can't solve the child porn issue, you have to perpetuate it or the world ends.

What? Can you explain this bit? I've played Dresden Files and found it to be a fine game, but what's the deal with child pornography?

Quote from: jeff37923;912997"What's a bureaucratic felcher?" - The Martian

oooohh.... that is definitely going on the list. Delightfully esoteric, and yet with a certain je ne se qois...

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;911763It's exactly that. It's nothing more than unprincipled tribalist bullshit.

I'm ok with that. If the SJW cunts want to censor everyone they don't like, they should expect to receive the same treatment.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;912901I did not know about Alpha Blue exclusively using whores as a term. What the fuck? Call girls, hookers, joy girls, courtesans, streetwalkers, there are a metric fuckton of terms that could have been used, and a few that actually give some form of agency or power to the women in question. But fuck that, lets teach those dumb bitches a lesson and just use quite possibly the worst term available instead.

And all those names?  Equally derogatory.  Each and everyone one of them means the same thing, in the same degrading way.  So it doesn't matter if you use whore, strumpet, doxy, prostitute, call girls, 'escorts', or whatever they are all insulting and degrading terms.  Why?  Because selling yourself for sex, especially if your female, is bad.  Doesn't matter the reason, the made up societal bullshit, or whatever justification, it is considered bad.

It's a no-win situation.  So why bother prettying it up and be fucking honest with yourself about it?

Quote from: Crabbyapples;913017What? Can you explain this bit? I've played Dresden Files and found it to be a fine game, but what's the deal with child pornography?

In the LA section, there's a demon run ring of child pornography.  However the demon running it is using the children's misery to feed an even greater demon to keep it sedate and 'happy', that if awoken will destroy the world.  Full stop.  No way out  End of discussion.  There are no clues given as to how to prevent the end.  In fact, it's implied that the GM make it unpreventable by the PC's for...  Something.  Hubris?  To crush your players' dreams of being heroes?  I don't know.

Thing is, it 'glorified' child porn, by making it a more than necessary evil, you (the players, not any one person on this forum) MUST support it, and personally, it's one of the few things I find offensive.

RPGs are about making shit up.  If you're OK with having heavy situations like rape and child porn among other degrading crimes (and as someone who runs a Mutants and Masterminds Iron Age campaign, I'm a firm believer that people can -not always and not everyone, but there are enough- do really nasty shit for profit, or just their jollies) but one thing I always do in my games, simply because you can't always stop it happening in real life, is let the PC's stop it.  As violently as they like.  I like to run empowerment fantasies, letting people do shit they can't in real life for various reasons.

But the Paranet Papers LA scene bothers me no end, because I don't like the idea of having any sort of sexually exploitative crime unstoppable because 'Reasons'.


Sorry, went on a rant there.  But that is where I stand on this,

Oh, and I from what I heard, and Nexus has echoed what people have told me, I will put Exalted's 2e Infernals book on the list of offensive shit that if I were to pick on.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;913037But the Paranet Papers LA scene bothers me no end, because I don't like the idea of having any sort of sexually exploitative crime unstoppable because 'Reasons'.

At the same time, saying that a hopeless and ugly situation in a serious game is morally equivalent to the trivial way something like Tournament of Rapists treats sexual assault is ridiculous bullshit. People are really stretching to find ways to call SJW game publishers "hypocrites".

Quote from: Christopher Brady;913035And all those names?  Equally derogatory.  Each and everyone one of them means the same thing, in the same degrading way.  So it doesn't matter if you use whore, strumpet, doxy, prostitute, call girls, 'escorts', or whatever they are all insulting and degrading terms.  Why?  Because selling yourself for sex, especially if your female, is bad.  Doesn't matter the reason, the made up societal bullshit, or whatever justification, it is considered bad.

It's a no-win situation.  So why bother prettying it up and be fucking honest with yourself about it?

Because there are situations where selling sex has been a positive. There are women today who have been able to find empowerment through selling sex. The call girls involved in the DC Madam scandal, for example. They were making tons of money choosing to sleep with some of the most powerful men on the planet. Or those who advertise through Craigs list and vet their customers. I used Inara from Firefly as a fantastic fictional example of this. She is a powerful, wealthy, cultured woman who wields enormous influence through her position. When she says "release this ship from lockdown", people listen. She is proud of her job and what she does. You can do prostitution in a sex positive way. It involves agency, choice and respect. Whore strips away all of this, while courtesan or call girl reckons back to an element of class and power. Are the women forced to take a client by a pimp, or do they have some choice as to say yes or not? Are they the lowest of the low, or are they seen as respectable members of society? This is why I mentioned the sex comedy elements of facing the obstacles between the protagonist and getting laid. If you are going to to make a comedic sex game, part of the comedy should be the PCs challenges in proving themselves to the professionals.

Quote from: Spike;912974Is the outrage brigade planning to ever put out a book... like some form of thesarus... that will explain to those of us NOT in the illuminatii which words are worse than others?   When did whore become "the worst term available"?   Mind you, I'm not exactly disagreeing with this assessment, but I'm betting I could think of quite a few words that the Outrage Brigade might think are just as bad, if not worse, than Whore. Bitch... that's a popular one to complain about. Is it better or worse than Whore? What's the hierarchy here.

Of course, since I pride myself on my wordsmithy (I know...I know...), I can imagine getting much worse than Whore.  Just off the top of my head? Fuckmeat. Cocksleeve. Hmm, how about fuckslot? That one is pretty damned low. I'm not sure I can... top? Bottom???? that one without getting obscure, esoteric or otherwise outre.

Those are all terms which in and of themselves carry with them more insult. Same thing with the terms nigger or faggot. You could probably develop more creatively and basely insulting terms. But what makes those terms so horrible is the power and legacy they bring with them. It's not just the insult value of the word, it's the intense dehumanization that has been attached to them by societies use. I doubt a woman has been called a fuckslot before, and they'd still be pissed if it happened, but whore would probably hit harder thanks to the environment in which she has grown up.

As a counterpoint, take bitch. Bitch can be reclaimed. For example, Ivelisse in Lucha Underground calls herself the baddest bitch in the room. And she backs it up, by kicking the shit out of everyone, making it a term of power. That doesn't mean calling a woman a bitch out of context wouldn't be a complete asshole move. But a motorcycle riding mma fighter, for example, might embrace the term "bad bitch" and turn it into a compliment from people who know her well. But whore, I've yet to see people be able to defang whore, or cunt.

As for thesaurus, I can't help you there. Honestly, the basic rule is just read how the word is being used by the people who it would ostensibly apply to. A slur is a slur out of context, and even within context with close friends you're dancing on a high wire rope. But if no one is turning a word around, then that's a major "do not touch" signal.

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913040At the same time, saying that a hopeless and ugly situation in a serious game is morally equivalent to the trivial way something like Tournament of Rapists treats sexual assault is ridiculous bullshit. People are really stretching to find ways to call SJW game publishers "hypocrites".

This is where I smack you upside the head with a thing called context.  In Tournament of Rapists you play as people going undercover to END the tournament forever.  A tournament of consenting adults that agreed to this horrible shit.  In other words this is stoppable and the wrong can be righted.

The Papers game force children to be preyed on.  If the heroes try to stop it the world dies and no one will save any one.  Which creates a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario.  Which by the way those scenarios suck ass.  Point is you have to let this slide, or else you allow something worse to happen so it forces the players to be helpless.

One you can stop forever and the other your helpless as you watch in horror.  So very different games going on.  Papers is more offensive than Tournament of Rapists mainly because Papers stripped your ability to do any thing about it.

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913040At the same time, saying that a hopeless and ugly situation in a serious game is morally equivalent to the trivial way something like Tournament of Rapists treats sexual assault is ridiculous bullshit. People are really stretching to find ways to call SJW game publishers "hypocrites".

Oh joy. Here we go again.

Tournament of Rapists... isnt. Pretty much all the participants are there of their own volition and are aware of the nature of the thing. All but maybee one of the opponents are monsters of some sort ranging from ghosts to mutants to demons. Yadda-yadda like anyone ever listens.

Quote from: Snowman0147;913056This is where I smack you upside the head with a thing called context.  In Tournament of Rapists you play as people going undercover to END the tournament forever.  A tournament of consenting adults that agreed to this horrible shit.  In other words this is stoppable and the wrong can be righted.

It's cute that you think that makes playing sexual assault for comedy better than playing it for horror. Adorable, really.

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913064It's cute that you think that makes playing sexual assault for comedy better than playing it for horror. Adorable, really.

It is not cute.  Quite horrible actually, but it proves my point that you never argued against.  That is one horrible thing is done by consent and can be stop.  The other is done by force and while you can stop it you end up doing something even worse.  So much so that there is no point in stopping the horrible wrong in the first place.  This creates a feeling of helplessness which is offensive because you can't do any thing about it.

Quote from: Snowman0147;913080It is not cute.  Quite horrible actually, but it proves my point that you never argued against.  That is one horrible thing is done by consent and can be stop.  The other is done by force and while you can stop it you end up doing something even worse.  So much so that there is no point in stopping the horrible wrong in the first place.  This creates a feeling of helplessness which is offensive because you can't do any thing about it.

And you're still ignoring that the helplessness is part of a horror scenario while the game with the "consensual rapes" is a fucking comedy. Stop being obtuse.

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913082And you're still ignoring that the helplessness is part of a horror scenario while the game with the "consensual rapes" is a fucking comedy. Stop being obtuse.

Dresden Files is not what I call a horror setting.  Urban Fantasy sure, but not horror.

Edit:  Also to add this.  Since when was Black Tokyo considered to be a comedy game?

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913064It's cute that you think that makes playing sexual assault for comedy better than playing it for horror. Adorable, really.

What game are you asserting makes playing sexual assault comedic?

• Alpha Blue - Are the Satisfiers on the Alpha Blue Stations slaves?  Is rape on the menu there?  I don't know, never seen it.
• Black Tokyo - It's playing the setting as horror anime.  The specific Tournament of Rapists is a Big Bad Guy Organization the PCs are supposed to *stop*.  Think Tekken with Tentacles.  Do you think Black Tokyo is a comedy game?  Legend of the Overfiend wasn't very funny, nor was it supposed to be.  At least I hope not.
• Paranet Papers - Allowing the Child Porn Ring to continue is supposed to be horrific.  Frankly, if the Paranet Papers were a supplement for CthulhuTech instead of for a Fate product released by Evil Hat, there would already be a petition on change.org.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913086What game are you asserting makes playing sexual assault comedic?

Quote from: CRKrueger;913086Alpha Blue - Are the Satisfiers on the Alpha Blue Stations slaves?  Is rape on the menu there?  I don't know, never seen it.

I'm not arguing about Alpha Blue, since I don't know much about it beyond Pundit's review. I have no objections to it, but it's not my cup of tea. It wasn't my intent to derail the argument, but merely to comment that playing "tit for tat" in this fashion is hypocritical, ridiculous, and morally wrong.

For the record, I think the people trying to censor games that feature rape, even in a juvenile fashion, are wrong. I think the people making juvenile shock-comedy games that trivialize rape and make fun of survivors are more wrong. (But still don't support censoring them.) I think the people trying to censor any game with adult themes produced by people they consider "social justice warriors", as a form of retaliation for their efforts to censor offensive games, to be extremely fucking wrong. My argument isn't for or against any specific group of people, it's against bad behavior and bad arguments on both sides.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913086Black Tokyo - It's playing the setting as horror anime.  The specific Tournament of Rapists is a Big Bad Guy Organization the PCs are supposed to *stop*.  Think Tekken with Tentacles.  Do you think Black Tokyo is a comedy game?

I think the inclusion of feats like "Triggered" indicates that the authors are making fun of sexual assault and sexual assault survivors, yes. And since I don't believe anyone is actually half as stupid as they're pretending to be here, I think you are generally aware of the fact that this was the intent as well.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913086Paranet Papers - Allowing the Child Porn Ring to continue is supposed to be horrific.  Frankly, if the Paranet Papers were a supplement for CthulhuTech instead of for a Fate product released by Evil Hat, there would already be a petition on change.org.

And maybe if that's what were happening here, you'd have a point about the hypocrisy of the people outraged by "offensive" content in gaming.

You do know that triggered is a real thing used by the military right?  I mean how do you know the feat isn't using that?

Quote from: Snowman0147;913092You do know that triggered is a real thing used by the military right?  I mean how do you know the feat isn't using that?

I have a superpower. It's called "common fucking sense".

Quote from: Christopher Brady;913037In the LA section, there's a demon run ring of child pornography.  However the demon running it is using the children's misery to feed an even greater demon to keep it sedate and 'happy', that if awoken will destroy the world.

The end scene from The Cabin In the Woods would be my team's response.
BTW, don't click the link if you haven't seen the movie. Totally worth seeing start to finish.
For the rest of you, enjoy the finale again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCySBdoY75M

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913090For the record, I think the people trying to censor games that feature rape, even in a juvenile fashion, are wrong. I think the people making juvenile shock-comedy games that trivialize rape and make fun of survivors are more wrong. (But still don't support censoring them.)

This is a perfectly reasonable position.

We don't have to approve of a particular whatever, and we can vocally disapprove, but we must respect the author's right to create that whatever and the audience's right to purchase and enjoy that whatever, even if its not our cup of tequila.

Of course, unless that whatever is totally unlawful.

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913097I have a superpower. It's called "common fucking sense".

Translation: You've never seen the feat, you have no idea what the text of the feat actually says, you assume the worst because, of course, it must be the absolute worst, right?  Everyone else, of course, knows this but they're being disingenuous in not siding with your "truth" because of *their* ideological bias, right?

Seriously?  Here's another common sense view, one based purely on facts.  Neither of us has a copy of ToR to rely upon to actually prove our point.

• This is a dark game about dark Japanese sexual shit.  
• What's one main anime trope - The Fighting Tournament. (Enter the Dragon, Tekken, etc)
• What happens when you mix that trope with Horror Hentai - you get Tournament of Rapists (which BTW is also a type of Japanese Fighting Game, see Battleraper).
• What's one way the heros take down the Big Bad Guys behind The Fighting Tournament?  They enter it.
• What happens when a PC enters the Tournament of Rapists and fights a Hentai Demon?  They may lose, and get raped by a Hentai Demon.
• If such a thing happens, they may acquire the Feat Triggered.
• Triggered may be a Feat that in some way deals with Psychological Horror.  It may not.

Nothing about that screams out *Comedy*, unless you come with a Belief in the idea that anyone who could tread on such a topic is automatically going to do it in the worst possible way and you convince yourself of this hypothesis SIGHT UNSEEN.

There's absolutely nothing intrinsic about having a Feat called Triggered in a horror game that means it's being played for socio-political satire.

If Evil Hat follows up Paranet Papers with character creation options to play one of the survivors of that Child Porn ring the PCs are supposed to allow to continue because it is the Lesser Evil, and includes Triggered as a Fate Aspect, I guess that would be totally Kosher, right?  Because by continually signalling the proper virtues, Evil Hat has become above suspicion?

Now we're right back to where we started.  It's not WHAT is being objected to, it's the WHO.  When some are allowed to say certain things because they meet a Purity Test, or some other evaluation which marks them as the In Crowd, therefore their motives are above reproach and others are not, because they are the Out Crowd, and their motives are by default suspect...

Sorry, that's Totalitarian thinking.  Not in my fucking hobby.

Quote from: Spinachcat;913105The end scene from The Cabin In the Woods would be my team's response.

You're goddamn right!

Spoiler

or Baelin's choice in Kingdom of Heaven.  If the world has to rely upon this to survive: It doesn't deserve to survive.  There are worse things than death.

Actually I think my players might be more apt to try a Serenity ending.  Try to make the whole damn world aware of this shit, so that people will wake up to the supernatural shit going on and appeal to anything out there that's good to set shit right again.  If that didn't work, well, we all gotta die sometime.

Okay, I'm gonna try to make the waters a little less muddy.

There is no Feat in Tournament of Rapists called Triggered. There is, however, a creature called a Phallic Swarm that possesses the Special Quality called "Triggering." It states:

QuoteTriggering (SU)
Phallic Swarms are basically the raw concept of rape incarnated, and are especially fearsome enemies to those who have suffered previous sexual abuse. Any creature that has ever been raped or sexually abused is considered paralyzed for 1 round if it falls victim to the Phallic Swarm’s distraction ability.

Quote from: Snowman0147;913080It is not cute.  Quite horrible actually, but it proves my point that you never argued against.  That is one horrible thing is done by consent and can be stop.  The other is done by force and while you can stop it you end up doing something even worse.  So much so that there is no point in stopping the horrible wrong in the first place.  This creates a feeling of helplessness which is offensive because you can't do any thing about it.

Don't engage, Snowman, he's another one of 'those'.  Already decided to use it for his political screed.

Quote from: Brand55;913111Okay, I'm gonna try to make the waters a little less muddy.

There is no Feat in Tournament of Rapists called Triggered. There it, however, a creature called a Phallic Swarm that possesses the Special Quality called "Triggering." It states:

Hmm, a horror game with a psychological power that draws upon the past psychological history of the PC to harm them in some way.  Doesn't particularly sound like they're going for the yucks there.  It's hard to gauge context without more text, but I suppose you could argue the name of the power is satirical in that obviously you can be raped with a lot more than a phallus, you can even be raped with a vagina, so the name is riffing off of a feminist "The Penis is Evil" thing, but good god you're fucking stretching it to make that claim.  (A lot more than that Satisfier with the space pineapple: Blame the other Alpha Blue thread for that one.)

Quote from: CRKrueger;913108What happens when a PC enters the Tournament of Rapists and fights a Hentai Demon?  They may lose, and get raped by a Hentai Demon.
If such a thing happens, they may acquire the Feat Triggered.

Except I have seen excerpts from Tournament of Rapists, and Triggered is a feat taken by rapists that gives them combat bonuses against victims.

edit: I misremembered. It is, indeed, a creature ability. I think my point still stands.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913108Now we're right back to where we started.  It's not WHAT is being objected to, it's the WHO.  When some are allowed to say certain things because they meet a Purity Test, or some other evaluation which marks them as the In Crowd, therefore their motives are above reproach and others are not, because they are the Out Crowd, and their motives are by default suspect...

Sorry, that's Totalitarian thinking.  Not in my fucking hobby.

I'm objecting to WHAT is in the product. I don't know who published it, and I don't care. I don't think they should be "punished" by anything except the honest market-- people voting with their wallets. But at the same time, I reserve the right to disapprove and to say that they shouldn't have published it. I reserve the right to say that the people defending it, specifically-- not the principle of free speech behind it-- are being ridiculous.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913123Hmm, a horror game with a psychological power that draws upon the past psychological history of the PC to harm them in some way.  Doesn't particularly sound like they're going for the yucks there.  It's hard to gauge context without more text, but I suppose you could argue the name of the power is satirical in that obviously you can be raped with a lot more than a phallus, you can even be raped with a vagina, so the name is riffing off of a feminist "The Penis is Evil" thing, but good god you're fucking stretching it to make that claim.  (A lot more than that Satisfier with the space pineapple: Blame the other Alpha Blue thread for that one.)

Yeah if you think that triggered mechanic is comedy your sick in the head.  It is clearly a horror tool that isn't trivializing any thing at all.

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913097I have a superpower. It's called "common fucking sense".

No you don't.  You believe magic is real.

Quote from: Sommerjon;913149No you don't.  You believe magic is real.

If I can give you a drink through the internet I would.  That deserves a up vote.

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913127edit: I misremembered. It is, indeed, a creature ability. I think my point still stands.

What, the idea that it's a satirical attack on SJWs, or some form of comedy?  From that description, really?

Quote from: FaerieGodfather;913127I'm objecting to WHAT is in the product. I don't know who published it, and I don't care. I don't think they should be "punished" by anything except the honest market-- people voting with their wallets. But at the same time, I reserve the right to disapprove and to say that they shouldn't have published it. I reserve the right to say that the people defending it, specifically-- not the principle of free speech behind it-- are being ridiculous.

Japanese Anime in general has pedophilic and misogynist tendencies (yeah I went there), Hentai is just a darker side of that.  Horror Hentai an even darker side.  I don't see Black Tokyo being off limits any more than Baali or Black Spiral Dancers, or Cenobytes or whatever.

It's Transgressive.  Transgressive shit is always offensive, always shows us things we don't want to see.  It's truth.  In this case, truth about a certain type of Japanese Art that says something about people.  Hell, a college roommate of mine had a girlfriend who would probably play Black Tokyo and ToR, have her character enter, and lose on purpose.  She was off the chain.

I certainly don't see it as being worse than the Paranet Papers resolution, the Exalted Eternally Raped Child Who is the Mother of Demons, the blood-dripping rape strap-on picture from Montreal By Night, or the introductory fiction from Clanbook:Baali.

None of which will ever get pulled from OBS.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;913044Those are all terms which in and of themselves carry with them more insult. Same thing with the terms nigger or faggot. You could probably develop more creatively and basely insulting terms. But what makes those terms so horrible is the power and legacy they bring with them. It's not just the insult value of the word, it's the intense dehumanization that has been attached to them by societies use. I doubt a woman has been called a fuckslot before, and they'd still be pissed if it happened, but whore would probably hit harder thanks to the environment in which she has grown up.

Bullshit.  What is the great power in the word 'Faggot'?  You DO know the etymology of the word, right?  I have know any number of gay men who used fag and its derivatives to refer to themselves and their cohorts, in preference of almost any other word.   It is USEFUL to claim its an amazingly hateful word when used by the outgroup (straights).  The same can be said of Nigger.  Have people used both words in hateful, derisive ways? Absolutely, but they have no intrinsic power or abnormal history that makes them special. Its the outrage brigades, including morons like you, who try to claim otherwise.    Consider the word 'Colored'. No days if you call a black man 'colored' it is taken as proof positive that you are a racist... and yet fifty years ago it was the prefered term used by everyone, to include blacks. The C in NAACP stands for Colored, recall.  Its a deliberate perversion of language for political power that you are engaged in, and I won't play.

QuoteAs a counterpoint, take bitch. Bitch can be reclaimed. For example, Ivelisse in Lucha Underground calls herself the baddest bitch in the room. And she backs it up, by kicking the shit out of everyone, making it a term of power. That doesn't mean calling a woman a bitch out of context wouldn't be a complete asshole move. But a motorcycle riding mma fighter, for example, might embrace the term "bad bitch" and turn it into a compliment from people who know her well. But whore, I've yet to see people be able to defang whore, or cunt.

You are so precious!  What is your opinion of the word Bastard?  C'mon... Its a gendered insult.

QuoteAs for thesaurus, I can't help you there. Honestly, the basic rule is just read how the word is being used by the people who it would ostensibly apply to. A slur is a slur out of context, and even within context with close friends you're dancing on a high wire rope. But if no one is turning a word around, then that's a major "do not touch" signal.

  Wrong again!  


A slur is an insult. You are attempting to establish protected groups who we are not allowed to insult.  Voltaire said it best (if only by attribution) that you may know who rules you by knowing whom you may not speak ill of.    The truth is you don't want to allow any 'slurs', any insults to certain groups.  If I need to insult a woman, what term may I use, headmaster?  

THat's why no one comes up with a list, a thesarus, of words that order them in terms of offensiveness. Its an impossible task, because the goal isn't to eliminate a few problematic words, the goal is to control.  

Here is the simple, unassailable, truth, the 'Simple Rule'. You do not get to tell me what I can, and cannot say.  Not in any context. You cannot compel my politeness.    There is no on who can compel my respect. It must be earned individually.  A woman who has not earned my respect does not get my respect freely because she's a delicate flower.  

And if the term is accurate, such as calling sex workers whores, then even if I respect her I will still use the word. The negative connotations are inherent. A woman who really doesn't want to be called a whore can avoid the vast majority of the 'impact' of the word by simply not.acting.like.a.whore.

Just sign up with a new and fake account and report everything. It'd crash their whole report/review system (ie create too much work for them) and they'd bin it or introduce "no reporting things you've never bought" controls.

Quote from: Spike;913164Bullshit.  What is the great power in the word 'Faggot'?  You DO know the etymology of the word, right?  I have know any number of gay men who used fag and its derivatives to refer to themselves and their cohorts, in preference of almost any other word.   It is USEFUL to claim its an amazingly hateful word when used by the outgroup (straights).  The same can be said of Nigger.  Have people used both words in hateful, derisive ways? Absolutely, but they have no intrinsic power or abnormal history that makes them special. Its the outrage brigades, including morons like you, who try to claim otherwise.    Consider the word 'Colored'. No days if you call a black man 'colored' it is taken as proof positive that you are a racist... and yet fifty years ago it was the prefered term used by everyone, to include blacks. The C in NAACP stands for Colored, recall.  Its a deliberate perversion of language for political power that you are engaged in, and I won't play.

Shockingly, times change and the words a group prefers to identify itself changes also. There are older black Americans who prefer Negro as their ethnicity. That being said, it's their fucking choice not yours. They lived through being Black in America, they faced the prejudice and the judgment, they get to decide what they want to call themselves. The same applies to faggot, their struggle, their choice, not yours. To use a scenario that a lot of gamers can relate to, I occasionally jokingly self reference as a bit on the spectrum. Were someone to use it as an insult towards another, I'd be fucking furious. Because using it jokingly is a coping means to embrace your own weaknesses and struggles, using it as an insult degrades someone for something they had no choice in.

Nigger carries with it a horrible legacy, it's what the KKK would shout as they murdered black americans who tried to register to vote. Nigger-lover is the chant of the crowds that attempted to lynch the freedom riders. It's the American sieg-heil, a pure expression of hatred and violence. It's the crack of the whip in the cotton fields, the brutal repression following reconstruction, the silent threat of the sundown towns, the denial of the benefits of the GI bill to men who did the same fighting as their white counterparts, the broken bodies left by the Rampart division and murder of a teenager by a deluded man who thought he could play neighborhood batman. It's an encapsulation of every promise the declaration of independence made that was broken. I grew up in North St. Louis, my friends use the word all the time. Despite the fact that they jokingly call me it every now and then, I will never use it. Because there is a fundamental divide in the America we experienced, and no matter how close we are, that word will always carry even a little baggage. And if you can't understand that, then actually open your goddamned eyes and take a look at the world around you.

QuoteA slur is an insult. You are attempting to establish protected groups who we are not allowed to insult.  Voltaire said it best (if only by attribution) that you may know who rules you by knowing whom you may not speak ill of.    The truth is you don't want to allow any 'slurs', any insults to certain groups.  If I need to insult a woman, what term may I use, headmaster?  

THat's why no one comes up with a list, a thesarus, of words that order them in terms of offensiveness. Its an impossible task, because the goal isn't to eliminate a few problematic words, the goal is to control.  

Here is the simple, unassailable, truth, the 'Simple Rule'. You do not get to tell me what I can, and cannot say.  Not in any context. You cannot compel my politeness.    There is no on who can compel my respect. It must be earned individually.  A woman who has not earned my respect does not get my respect freely because she's a delicate flower.  

And if the term is accurate, such as calling sex workers whores, then even if I respect her I will still use the word. The negative connotations are inherent. A woman who really doesn't want to be called a whore can avoid the vast majority of the 'impact' of the word by simply not.acting.like.a.whore.

Seems like someone's been taking his red pills lately.

First things first, I find it ironic that you are citing Voltaire, a man who was horrified by slavery, to justify your defense of using words that defines someone by their race or sex and attaches perceived flaws to it. Slurs are hurtful because they define people who aren't straight, white men as lesser because of their skin or sex.

Since apparently subtlety is lost on you, I'll make this simple. Not using slurs=/= not using insults. I am not saying you can't insult someone who is a woman or a minority. Michele Bachmann is a conspiracy raving idiot, for example. But when you use a slur like whore or nigger, you are insulting their very existence, the biological factors they cannot change. You are saying: I do not hate you because of a decision you made, I hate you because of your very nature. You strip away their agency and free will and state that the very skin they live in carries with it immense flaws they will never be able to surmount. There is never any fucking reason to insult someone's biological nature. Slurs are also one of the purest expressions of power there is. It's like shouting down from the rooftops, "I am a member of the group with power and it's the fault of your own genetics that you will never be equal to me."

And please, define "acting like a whore", I'd assume it's by dressing up sexy but ignoring you and instead going out with chad thundercock because he has more money and drives a cool car because she can't control her vagina and GODDAMMIT I'M THE REAL PERSON SHE SHOULD BE LOVING FUCK YOU STACY FROM HIGH SCHOOL! Zak S. got paid cash (that he donated) for having sex on camera, yet I doubt you'd be calling him a whore or negatively defining him by that life choice.

I'd say grow up, but I'd assume you've had plenty of time to do so in the past few decades and instead chose to carve out a cave of bitterness where people trying to get you to not act like an utter asshole is the ultimate tyranny. Societies changing and the power you get from being from the dominant group is lessening, tough shit.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913160Japanese Anime in general has pedophilic and misogynist tendencies

I will have to disagree.  Right now, Japan is facing a population crises.  Men are effectively hiding from women, because of the aggressiveness inherent.  The goal for a woman in Japan, last I checked (anecdotally) was to have a career until she hits 24 and then get married to a (preferrably rich) man, and have him take care of her for the rest of her life.  The men are being called 'herbivores' for not wanting to be worked to death at the whim of their wives.

Also, as for 'pedophilia', I would like to point out that as of the time of this posting the age of consent in Japan is 13. The various prefectures raise it to 18 typically.  Also, Japan seems to understand that cartoons are not REAL FUCKING PEOPLE!  At least compared to North America.

Uh, up here in my province of Ontario, Canada, the age of consent is 14, unless they are working for your as an employee, then it's 16.

Different nations, different rules.  We may not agree with it but perhaps if we could accept that...  Nah, this is the Internet, flame away.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913160(yeah I went there), Hentai is just a darker side of that.  Horror Hentai an even darker side.  I don't see Black Tokyo being off limits any more than Baali or Black Spiral Dancers, or Cenobytes or whatever.

It's Transgressive.  Transgressive shit is always offensive, always shows us things we don't want to see.  It's truth.  In this case, truth about a certain type of Japanese Art that says something about people.  Hell, a college roommate of mine had a girlfriend who would probably play Black Tokyo and ToR, have her character enter, and lose on purpose.  She was off the chain.

I certainly don't see it as being worse than the Paranet Papers resolution, the Exalted Eternally Raped Child Who is the Mother of Demons, the blood-dripping rape strap-on picture from Montreal By Night, or the introductory fiction from Clanbook:Baali.

None of which will ever get pulled from OBS.

Worse?  Nope.

You know what's starting to piss me off?  People coming in and telling me what I can't get for my own good, as if I'm too stupid to understand what I'm purchasing.  I haven't been 12 (physically) for several decades now, I like to think I know what I'm getting into.  If you don't like it, that's up to you, but don't try to tell me how I should live my life.  Live your own first.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913160Japanese Anime in general has pedophilic and misogynist tendencies (yeah I went there),

Hentai is just a darker side of that.

Horror Hentai an even darker side.

1: Except you are totally wrong.

2: Wrong again. Hentai material in anime/manga means just adult material. That could be as simple as lots of nudity, to lots of sex. That could be romantic, comedy, or not. The term covers a fair range and like all terms gets miss-used or crosses the border between just raunchy and flat out freaky.

3: Finally got one right.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;913165Just sign up with a new and fake account and report everything. It'd crash their whole report/review system (ie create too much work for them) and they'd bin it or introduce "no reporting things you've never bought" controls.

Thought you couldnt report something you didnt buy anyhoo? But a glance over at OBS seems thats not the case?

So any fruitcake with an agenda can have at it.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;913168Societies changing and the power you get from being from the dominant group is lessening, tough shit.

The dominant group is doing just fine. They're called "the very rich".

Their power has only grown, never lessened, with much thanks to the SJW bullshit.

BLM vs ALM? Safe spaces? Goodspeak? Trans potties? All laughable distractions for the proles.

Quote from: Spike;912974Of course, since I pride myself on my wordsmithy

You have an entire room devoted to selective word choice? Wow.

If you don't have a devoted room, then the term that most of us wordsmiths use for the process of being a wordsmith is wordsmithing. :p

I played in a campaign of DFRPG with the paranet papers. We stopped that child porn ring and found an alternative to the childrens' suffering. Not pretty, but not a scenario where you can't win at all, well perhaps in the hands of a bad gamemaster, but then everything sucks in the hands of a bad gamemaster.

As for the topic at hand. Basically everything with vampires is a thinly veiled rape fantasy and imho just as "offensive" as the tournament of rapists. And that is my problem with all of this. The content matter is important, but also, the skill of the people involved handling said content.
For example, Vampire the Masquerade and Requiem both are very poor in regards to handling the vampirism is rape or worse thing, mostly they gloss over it or verbosely ramble on about it, without giving it any heft in play. Monsterhearts on the other hand handles it fairly well, by giving the whole thing gravitas.

I haven't read tournament of rapists and can't attest to whether it handles the matter well or not. However if they start banning stuff based on content and execution for real, then there are a lot of products they need to axe.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913160Japanese Anime in general has pedophilic and misogynist tendencies (yeah I went there)

I've been watching a great deal of anime over the last year or so - getting back into it after quite a few years of only casual perusal - and I don't believe this to be correct.

Quote from: Alzrius;913207I've been watching a great deal of anime over the last year or so - getting back into it after quite a few years of only casual perusal - and I don't believe this to be correct.

Then you need to spend some time in Japan and get a real grip on the cultural motivations behind a lot of that shit. Just not recognizing or understanding where something is really coming from doesn't mean it's not there.

Quote from: Kellri;913209Then you need to spend some time in Japan and get a real grip on the cultural motivations behind a lot of that shit.

The irony here is that I've lived in Japan before, and studied the culture professionally, and so I feel quite comfortable in saying that I have a "real grip" on the cultural motivations involved. To whit, the idea that anime "in general" is misogynistic or pedophilic is not only untrue, but ridiculous.

QuoteJust not recognizing or understanding where something is really coming from doesn't mean it's not there.

You do realize that you've just perfectly summarized your own take on the issue, right?

I'm in a thread where someone said we needed to "maximize the agency" of FICTIONAL F*ING CHARACTERS.

Fictional characters have NO AGENCY because they don't exist. Someone else—author, player, GM—makes ALL of the decisions as to what they are depicted as thinking, feeling, doing, wearing, appearing as, and so forth ON THEIR BEHALF. THEY HAVE NO EXISTENCE OUTSIDE OF SOMEONE ELSE'S DECISIONS, and thus no agency.

This is utterly true, and anyone who thinks differently is functionally insane.

Quote from: Bren;913186You have an entire room devoted to selective word choice? Wow.

If you don't have a devoted room, then the term that most of us wordsmiths use for the process of being a wordsmith is wordsmithing. :p

 Of COURSE I do.  Its where I keep my banhammer, where I forge my neologisms!

Quote from: Spike;913244...forge my neologisms!

I thinking that should be an RPG pun, but I just can't make it work out or relate it back to Edwards.

I do like the phrase forging neoglogisms though. :)

Quote from: Efaun;913189As for the topic at hand. Basically everything with vampires is a thinly veiled rape fantasy and imho just as "offensive" as the tournament of rapists.

Uh. Since when was having your blood sucked out by a leech "rape"?

Quote from: Omega;913251Uh. Since when was having your blood sucked out by a leech "rape"?

Since Victorian times or 1991.

Quote from: Omega;913251Uh. Since when was having your blood sucked out by a leech "rape"?

Since everything vampire became about sex rather than "repulsive monsters stealing your life's blood in a hideous perversion of the Sacrament and Communion".

Vamp's drinking blood = sex now. Forcible drinking of blood by vamps thus = rape, because today's interpretations of monsters are the ONLY interpretations of monsters, and the past never happened.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;913256Since everything vampire became about sex.

Those damn Victorians.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;913241I'm in a thread where someone said we needed to "maximize the agency" of FICTIONAL F*ING CHARACTERS.

This is utterly true, and anyone who thinks differently is functionally insane.

Your also in a thread where at least two someones have now claimed that everything from Kimba to Macross is a cover for pedophillia and misogyny because Japan is a rape culture.

Im not so sure you are right on the functional part...

Quote from: IskandarKebab;913168Shockingly, times change and the words a group prefers to identify itself changes also.

Amazingly that is my point. Since times and cultures change (or simply vary. Consider how the British use Cunt vs Americans...), attempting to ban the use of certain words is misguided at best.  

QuoteThat being said, it's their fucking choice not yours. They lived through being Black in America, they faced the prejudice and the judgment, they get to decide what they want to call themselves. The same applies to faggot, their struggle, their choice, not yours.

Really?  Then I insist YOU have to call me "Thy Lord your God!". My struggle, my choice.  

QuoteTo use a scenario that a lot of gamers can relate to, I occasionally jokingly self reference as a bit on the spectrum. Were someone to use it as an insult towards another, I'd be fucking furious. Because using it jokingly is a coping means to embrace your own weaknesses and struggles, using it as an insult degrades someone for something they had no choice in.

Grow up, Francis.

QuoteNigger carries with it a horrible legacy, it's what the KKK would shout as they murdered black americans who tried to register to vote. Nigger-lover is the chant of the crowds that attempted to lynch the freedom riders. It's the American sieg-heil, a pure expression of hatred and violence. It's the crack of the whip in the cotton fields, the brutal repression following reconstruction, the silent threat of the sundown towns, the denial of the benefits of the GI bill to men who did the same fighting as their white counterparts, the broken bodies left by the Rampart division and murder of a teenager by a deluded man who thought he could play neighborhood batman. It's an encapsulation of every promise the declaration of independence made that was broken. I grew up in North St. Louis, my friends use the word all the time. Despite the fact that they jokingly call me it every now and then, I will never use it. Because there is a fundamental divide in the America we experienced, and no matter how close we are, that word will always carry even a little baggage. And if you can't understand that, then actually open your goddamned eyes and take a look at the world around you.

Lol. Hyperbole much?  Let me quote a guy in this thread called Iskander.  

QuoteShockingly, times change and the words a group prefers to identify itself changes also.

Also, I like how you claimed you would never use 'the word' yourself, but you dropped it in this very thread twice unsolicited.

QuoteSeems like someone's been taking his red pills lately.

Wicked burn, brah.  Five years ago.  Keep up with the times. Gamergater is a bit more current, but right now its been superceded by saying I'm a Trumper or Trumpkin.  

QuoteFirst things first, I find it ironic that you are citing Voltaire, a man who was horrified by slavery, to justify your defense of using words that defines someone by their race or sex and attaches perceived flaws to it. Slurs are hurtful because they define people who aren't straight, white men as lesser because of their skin or sex.

AAwwww... you are so precious! I want to wrap you up in a bow and keep you!  

Let me break this down for ya:

'YOu can't use Voltaire cause I saw him first!'. What are you, five?

Second, did you just accuse me of being pro-slavery? I'm pretty sure you did!  Way to dodge Godwin's Law!  As soon as I get back from the plantation... lol

Third, I'm arguing from natural law and first principles on the topic of Free Speech. I have an inherent right to say whatever the fuck I like. including insulting. There is no corresponding natural right to 'not be offended'.  Between teh two of us, I'm pretty sure Voltaire would be on my side.

Fourth: Did you actually try an inverted reductio ad hitlerum?    Hitler was a vegetarian, there for vegetarians are hitler... or in your take, I, Spike, believe in Slavery (Lolwut?!) and therefor I can't believe in Voltaire?  

QuoteSince apparently subtlety is lost on you, I'll make this simple. Not using slurs=/= not using insults.

Wrong!  Or more accurately, you've been misusing the term slur.   Lets go back to the word whore, which is teh point of contention. If someone is paid to perform sexual acts they are, definitionally, a whore. The term is insulting. It only becomes a slur if you are using it to insinuate some who is not, in fact, a whore is one.   Of course that doesn't mean it can't be used as an insult.

QuoteI am not saying you can't insult someone who is a woman or a minority.

Sure you are.  Allow me to demonstrate.

 

QuoteMichele Bachmann is a conspiracy raving idiot, for example.

So, you are suggesting that, because Michele Bachmann is a woman she is (as is so very stereotypically said of women), less intelligent than men?  Are you also suggesting that women are more prone to believe in conspiracies?


That is how the game is played, and I refuse to let you play it.

QuoteBut when you use a slur like whore or nigger, you are insulting their very existence, the biological factors they cannot change. You are saying: I do not hate you because of a decision you made, I hate you because of your very nature. You strip away their agency and free will and state that the very skin they live in carries with it immense flaws they will never be able to surmount. There is never any fucking reason to insult someone's biological nature. Slurs are also one of the purest expressions of power there is. It's like shouting down from the rooftops, "I am a member of the group with power and it's the fault of your own genetics that you will never be equal to me."

Oh, man... the desire to fisk this, line by line... the temptation. Yet, it is all utterly irrelevant.  None of it changes the fact that YOU, that no one, has the right to force me not to be a jerk.  And sometimes an Insult is just and insult.  

QuoteAnd please, define "acting like a whore",

Sure. Start with 'accepting money for sex'.   Then you can, if you chose, expand 'Money' to include 'gifts, favors or other 'values', and you can expand sex to include 'favors of a sexual nature'.  So, with a slightly broad definition you can say catagorically that a stripper is a whore.  If you broaden money to include 'attention' and sex to 'prancing around half naked' you have a definition broad enough to include most uses of the term.  

QuoteI'd assume it's by dressing up sexy but ignoring you and instead going out with chad thundercock because he has more money and drives a cool car because she can't control her vagina and GODDAMMIT I'M THE REAL PERSON SHE SHOULD BE LOVING FUCK YOU STACY FROM HIGH SCHOOL!

Project much?

QuoteZak S. got paid cash (that he donated) for having sex on camera, yet I doubt you'd be calling him a whore or negatively defining him by that life choice.

Then you would be wrong. By definition Zak S. is, in fact, a whore.  As it happens, I actually rather like whores, but that doesn't mean I still don't think they've made a rather poor life choice in the process.  

QuoteI'd say grow up,

No.

 

Quoteinstead chose to carve out a cave of bitterness

Nope. Try again.

Quotewhere people trying to get you to not act like an utter asshole is the ultimate tyranny.

Anyone trying to force me to behave in any manner at all is tyranical by definition.  

QuoteSocieties changing and the power you get from being from the dominant group is lessening, tough shit.

Yeah, I got sooo much power...  This is as tired as your accusing me of taking the red pill earlier.  

,VOICE OF GOD!>J'accuse! Iskandar. You are not here to talk about elf-games. J'accuse, Iskander, that you are here under false premises, sent from the commisariat to control the narrative, to force us lowly peons to tug our forelocks in respect for the Party Line.

Quote from: Bren;913258Those damn Victorians.

What do you mean? It wasn't universal, even AFTER Victorian times, as the Nosferatu movie shows. It took Hollywood (and those AWESOME Italian B-Movies that inspired Cleric Turning) to marry sex and vampires nearly irrevocably.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;913263What do you mean?

I mean Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is probably the most common source of vampire tropes in the 20th and 21st century. To that we can add Polidori's Vampyre, the Penny Dreadful Varney the Vampire, and Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla - lesbian vampires they didn't start in B-movies. The connection between sex, blood, and death in 19th century vampire literature is, I thought, well known.

Quote from: Omega;913259Your also in a thread where at least two someones have now claimed that everything from Kimba to Macross is a cover for pedophillia and misogyny because Japan is a rape culture.

Im not so sure you are right on the functional part...

Nearly every sexually active anime character looks like a teen if not adolescent is what I meant by "generally pedophilic", it is an art form that draws heavily on sexual attraction to the young.  You want to argue that a 14 year old who is biologically capable of reproduction isn't a child and so that isn't pedophilia, ok, fair enough, there's a lot of anime that would land inside adolescence yet outside prepubescence as far as characters go.  Of course then there's Magical Girl and the SchoolGirl fetish...

If you are correct that Hentai simply means "porn" then I'm sure there must be Hentai somewhere that doesn't include monsters or some form of intercourse that begins with forced sex and leads to orgasm because the woman really wants it despite earlier protests.  There should be "romance Hentai" or some such, and perhaps there is.  It doesn't come up when you google Hentai though, the other stuff does, hence "generally misogynistic".  Nowhere did I say Japan was a rape culture or even claim that the idea of a rape culture even exists.

If you want to flag me as ignorant of all the various subtropes, cultures and kinks of "Hentai", you have my permission to do so.

Quote from: Bren;913268I mean Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is probably the most common source of vampire tropes in the 20th and 21st century. To that we can add Polidori’s Vampyre, the Penny Dreadful Varney the Vampire, and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla - lesbian vampires they didn't start in B-movies. The connection between sex, blood, and death in 19th century vampire literature is, I thought, well known.

It is.  I learned the concept in school as "The Byronic Vampire" pointing mainly to Polidori's seminal effect on the genesis of the Romantic Vampire (Romantic as in Romantic Authors), his vampire essentially being inspired by and criticism of Lord Byron.

The Romantic, ie. sexual vampire, has pretty much come to be by far the dominant version, starting with Dracula, becoming even more dominant recently thanks primarily to Anne Rice, not Hollywood.  But the Monstrous Vampire still exists, even though these days it's primarily in comics (30 days of Night, American Vampire, etc) and some fiction rather than on screen.

Quote from: Bren;913268I mean Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is probably the most common source of vampire tropes in the 20th and 21st century. To that we can add Polidori’s Vampyre, the Penny Dreadful Varney the Vampire, and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla - lesbian vampires they didn't start in B-movies. The connection between sex, blood, and death in 19th century vampire literature is, I thought, well known.

I know that, but it wasn't universal, which is what I was discussing. It didn't become universal until Hollywood.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913280The Romantic, ie. sexual vampire, has pretty much come to be by far the dominant version, starting with Dracula, becoming even more dominant recently thanks primarily to Anne Rice, not Hollywood.  But the Monstrous Vampire still exists, even though these days it's primarily in comics (30 days of Night, American Vampire, etc) and some fiction rather than on screen.

Yeah, the silent era Nosferatu style of vampire just doesn't have the sex appeal of ol' Dracula. No wonder he lost out in the market of romantic fiction. I think that were I ever to run a vampire focused setting (at best an unlikely event), I'd have all the vampires look like Nosferatu, but with the power to fool certain suggestible minds into thinking they look (smell and feel) like Lestat and his kin.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913280It is.  I learned the concept in school as "The Byronic Vampire" pointing mainly to Polidori's seminal effect on the genesis of the Romantic Vampire (Romantic as in Romantic Authors), his vampire essentially being inspired by and criticism of Lord Byron.

The Romantic, ie. sexual vampire, has pretty much come to be by far the dominant version, starting with Dracula, becoming even more dominant recently thanks primarily to Anne Rice, not Hollywood.  But the Monstrous Vampire still exists, even though these days it's primarily in comics (30 days of Night, American Vampire, etc) and some fiction rather than on screen.

The vampires in The Strain are pretty monstrous...

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;913241I'm in a thread where someone said we needed to "maximize the agency" of FICTIONAL F*ING CHARACTERS.

Fictional characters have NO AGENCY because they don't exist. Someone else—author, player, GM—makes ALL of the decisions as to what they are depicted as thinking, feeling, doing, wearing, appearing as, and so forth ON THEIR BEHALF. THEY HAVE NO EXISTENCE OUTSIDE OF SOMEONE ELSE'S DECISIONS, and thus no agency.

This is utterly true, and anyone who thinks differently is functionally insane.

Technically right, but not really right. When I talk about agency, I'm talking about agency within the fictional setting. Does the call girl drop her panties the second a PC flashes cash, or within the fictional setting, does she have a "choice" (die roll based on persuasion, quest you must meet, reputation within the area). This basic set up has a huge impact on how the PCs experience the game and the message of the game. It's what separates a depressing red light district full of desperate people from a vibrant space brothel ripe for comedic adventures. Or, let's go even more basic. Say you are in a video game with a relationship system. Compare a game which has the person fall in love with you instantly (thank you for saving me brave, sexy, stranger), to a game where you have to act a certain way, choose certain story paths, ect (thank you for helping me out with that personal quest and respecting my wishes to fight the main boss alone, instead of grabbing the loot instead). By forcing the player character to make choices based on the preferences of a fictional character, you are giving "agency" to a fictional character in the sense that they are not there to be the PC's slave. They have "their" own goals and motivations, likes and dislikes. It's basic fiction writing 101.Vampire the Masquerade plays a ton with NPC and PC agency. When the coterie starts out, they are basically the bitch of every other vampire in town. Most NPCs as well are bound to someone else and obeying their orders. Compared to the free roaming adventurers of DnD, it's a deliberate design choice with immense impact on the feel of the game.

Agency of NPCs and PCs is a basic part of game design and has a large impact on how the player character interacts with the world and game. It's why railroad adventures where all the PCs do is watch the NPC signature characters do everything are so hated, or when an NPC isn't statted and just slaughters the party.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;913241I'm in a thread where someone said we needed to "maximize the agency" of FICTIONAL F*ING CHARACTERS.

Fictional characters have NO AGENCY because they don't exist. Someone else—author, player, GM—makes ALL of the decisions as to what they are depicted as thinking, feeling, doing, wearing, appearing as, and so forth ON THEIR BEHALF. THEY HAVE NO EXISTENCE OUTSIDE OF SOMEONE ELSE'S DECISIONS, and thus no agency.

This is utterly true, and anyone who thinks differently is functionally insane.

[Corporal Hicks]Ease down Ripley, ease down.[/Corporal Hicks]

Of course all choices are made BY the players, but the whole concept of roleplaying, of playing pretend, of empathy, of imagination in general is the ability to consider and adopt another's point of view.

Let's say I'm playing a character kind of like Conan and I'm in a situation somewhat like Queen of the Black Coast.  The character in that situation wouldn't want to endanger the love of his life, and if he knew his actions were going to likely result in her death, he wouldn't choose that path unless there were no other way.  If I am playing AS the character, that's how I play.  

If, however, I remove myself from the point of view of the character, then I might decide that while my character really loves this woman, I don't want to spend the rest of this character's gaming career as a pirate, so maybe if she went away, not only would that be great for my character's goal of being a king by his own hand, but then the loss would make for some epic roleplaying....and so your character loses the love of his life.

That's not roleplaying, that's roleplaying-->storytelling-->roleplaying.  The live flesh and blood human person retains the Agency, but they exercise that Agency either as the character or as themselves.  The decision is AS the character, or is ABOUT or FOR the character.

That's what's meant by Character Agency.

But, you should try talking to an author sometime about whether their characters have a life and mind of their own. ;)

Quote from: CRKrueger;913279Nearly every sexually active anime character looks like a teen if not adolescent is what I meant by "generally pedophilic", it is an art form that draws heavily on sexual attraction to the young.  You want to argue that a 14 year old who is biologically capable of reproduction isn't a child and so that isn't pedophilia, ok, fair enough, there's a lot of anime that would land inside adolescence yet outside prepubescence as far as characters go.  Of course then there's Magical Girl and the SchoolGirl fetish...

If you are correct that Hentai simply means "porn" then I'm sure there must be Hentai somewhere that doesn't include monsters or some form of intercourse that begins with forced sex and leads to orgasm because the woman really wants it despite earlier protests.  There should be "romance Hentai" or some such, and perhaps there is.  It doesn't come up when you google Hentai though, the other stuff does, hence "generally misogynistic".  Nowhere did I say Japan was a rape culture or even claim that the idea of a rape culture even exists.

If you want to flag me as ignorant of all the various subtropes, cultures and kinks of "Hentai", you have my permission to do so.

To chime in on this, the sexualization of younger and younger characters is a relatively recent thing in Japan, and has grown as the population ages. When youth is at such a premium, it becomes more and more fetishized. Compare this to the traditionally attractive archetype of the Japanese woman, the yamato nadeshiko, who is usually in her 20's, brave, hard working, cultured, independent and dedicated to the mission of her family.

Quote from: Xanther;913287The vampires in The Strain are pretty monstrous...

The Strain is a novel trilogy adaptation, like the 30 Days of Night movie is a comic adaptation.  Hollywood probably isn't going to lead with a monstrous vampire of it's own volition, it has no built in hook like sex vampires do - unless it's an adaptation from some other media.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913295The Strain is a novel trilogy adaptation, like the 30 Days of Night movie is a comic adaptation.  Hollywood probably isn't going to lead with a monstrous vampire of it's own volition, it has no built in hook like sex vampires do - unless it's an adaptation from some other media.

Adaption is the thing these days in Hollywood, which really isn't such a bad thing.

Just saying The Strain has the monstrous vampire thing on the little screen.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;913294To chime in on this, the sexualization of younger and younger characters is a relatively recent thing in Japan, and has grown as the population ages.

I don't know what you mean by "relatively recent." What's your point of comparison?

• The early 11th C Tale of Genji?
• The Shogunate period and the interaction with Europe during the age of exporation in the 16th and early 17th centuries?
• The opening of Japan in the mid 19th century?
• The first animes made in Japan circa 1910 or so?
• Japan pre-WWII e.g. 1920s and 1930s?
• Japan post-WWII when the birth rate started to drop rather precipitously in the 1950s as did the death rate?
• The 1960s with Astroboy, Marine Boy, or Kimba the White Lion when the birth rate stabilized for a while?
• The 1970s with Space Battleship Yamato, Mobile Suit Gundam, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, or Rose of Versaille when the birth rate began dropping again?
• The 1980s with Vampire Hunter D, Bubblegum Crisis, or Ghost in the Shell (birth rate continues to drop and death rate begins to rise)?
• The after the 1980s (birth rate still dropping; death rate still rising)?
• Or the mid 2000s when the birth rate actually dropped below the death rate driving the current negative population growth rate?

I doubt there are many, if any posters, whose personal memory goes back much before the 1960s. And if it does, it probably doesn't include much Japanese culture. So the meaning of the phrase relatively recently is itself highly relative.

Quote from: Snowman0147;913152If I can give you a drink through the internet I would.  That deserves a up vote.

You could buy a bottle online and have it drop shipped.

Quote from: Bren;913186You have an entire room devoted to selective word choice? Wow.

If you don't have a devoted room, then the term that most of us wordsmiths use for the process of being a wordsmith is wordsmithing. :p

Quote from: Spike;913244Of COURSE I do.  Its where I keep my banhammer, where I forge my neologisms!

Oh cool i always wondered where that eloquence came from.
Tell me though how big is a wordsmiths anvil?
I am wondering if we have the room for the likes of one as my sister would enjoy using it.

Quote from: Omega;913259Your also in a thread where at least two someones have now claimed that everything from Kimba to Macross is a cover for pedophillia and misogyny because Japan is a rape culture.

Im not so sure you are right on the functional part...

Well if you have a preconceived notion and refuse to listen to the contrary You get well you get Victorian history books about medieval arms and armor.

Quote from: Bren;913305I don't know what you mean by "relatively recent." What's your point of comparison?

• The early 11th C Tale of Genji?
• The Shogunate period and the interaction with Europe during the age of exporation in the 16th and early 17th centuries?
• The opening of Japan in the mid 19th century?
• The first animes made in Japan circa 1910 or so?
• Japan pre-WWII e.g. 1920s and 1930s?
• Japan post-WWII when the birth rate started to drop rather precipitously in the 1950s as did the death rate?
• The 1960s with Astroboy, Marine Boy, or Kimba the White Lion when the birth rate stabilized for a while?
• The 1970s with Space Battleship Yamato, Mobile Suit Gundam, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, or Rose of Versaille when the birth rate began dropping again?
• The 1980s with Vampire Hunter D, Bubblegum Crisis, or Ghost in the Shell (birth rate continues to drop and death rate begins to rise)?
• The after the 1980s (birth rate still dropping; death rate still rising)?
• Or the mid 2000s when the birth rate actually dropped below the death rate driving the current negative population growth rate?

I doubt there are many, if any posters, whose personal memory goes back much before the 1960s. And if it does, it probably doesn't include much Japanese culture. So the meaning of the phrase relatively recently is itself highly relative.

I'd personally place the transition towards extreme infantization around the mid 1990's, really starting to hit around the early 2000s. Rei, from Neon Genesis Evangelion, for example, was designed as a response to the growth of moe characters. Ironically, she ended up being a template for moe characters going forward. You see the same phenomena with male characters as well. I'd say that the "traditional" anime protagonists tend to be in their early to late twenties. Spike from Cowboy Bebop, Goku, Kenshiro from fist of the North Star, if you look at the shows cited from the 70's and 80's all but Gundam primarly star twenty somethings. Even Gundam is mostly populated by adults, and has an incredibly powerful underlying theme of what war does to child soldiers forced to fight. However, it seems like as a whole, the medium is switching to high school age as the baseline. This article covers how age is depicted quite well: http://www.theprospect.net/why-anime-almost-always-has-high-school-protagonists-40204. I'd link this to the aging of Japan and the increasing nostalgia and fetish for high school days, when life was simpler and the pressures of adulthood in a brutal economy weren't around (despite the 90's being the peak of the slowdown, it seems like the cultural impact was somewhat delayed as the decline of the economy started to become ever more permanent).

Quote from: Xanther;913301Adaption is the thing these days in Hollywood, which really isn't such a bad thing.

Just saying The Strain has the monstrous vampire thing on the little screen.

Yeah, I like it, I haven't read the novels.  A little disappointed to see the "Society of Elder Vampires" crop up, but still waiting for Season Three.

Quote from: Omega;913251Uh. Since when was having your blood sucked out by a leech "rape"?

It's not the act, so much as the intended violation.  The original Vampire story, before the whole stupid romanticizing of the human shaped mosquitoes was an analog to the abusive boyfriend.  It was meant to scare women away from the 'bad boys'.  Unfortunately, like all things in life, especially when women are involved, the opposite effect happened.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913279If you are correct that Hentai simply means "porn" then I'm sure there must be Hentai somewhere that doesn't include monsters or some form of intercourse that begins with forced sex and leads to orgasm because the woman really wants it despite earlier protests.

"Hentai" is depiction of abnormal sex, but the huge volume of manga (and anime) out there that dwarfs anything else. And like many imported words, the understood meaning is a bit off from the original meaning - sort of like how so many people thing sushi is raw fish on a pat of pickled rice, rather than being pickled rice that usually has raw fish on it. It is kind of amusing to see the embarrassed reaction of older Japanese people when they learn that "hentai" is a well known export from Japan.

Quote from: Alzrius;913215The irony here is that I've lived in Japan before, and studied the culture professionally, and so I feel quite comfortable in saying that I have a "real grip" on the cultural motivations involved. To whit, the idea that anime "in general" is misogynistic or pedophilic is not only untrue, but ridiculous.

As have I on both counts, so I'm failing to see the irony. Anime has entire sub-genres dedicated to pedophilia and misogyny - popular sub-genres that are decades old. Further, it's not just something limited to one author or publisher either. I'm not going so far as to claim all anime has that, but enough of it does that it's what I would categorize as a 'prominent theme'. If you don't like to recognize that as a cultural motivation, what would you call it?

Quote from: Efaun;913189For example, Vampire the Masquerade and Requiem both are very poor in regards to handling the vampirism is rape or worse thing, mostly they gloss over it or verbosely ramble on about it, without giving it any heft in play.

Actually, that was smart business. Lots of people love vampires and fantasize about being vampires. Why ruin their fun?

How well would D&D have done with marketing their game as murderhobos?

Most people want to play heroes (or anti-heroes), not amoral degenerates.

Quote from: Efaun;913189However if they start banning stuff based on content and execution for real, then there are a lot of products they need to axe.

What products?

This whole thread has only seemed to mention about 3 titles.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;913338It's not the act, so much as the intended violation.  The original Vampire story, before the whole stupid romanticizing of the human shaped mosquitoes was an analog to the abusive boyfriend.  It was meant to scare women away from the 'bad boys'.  Unfortunately, like all things in life, especially when women are involved, the opposite effect happened.

er... Vampires were originally undead relatives and loved ones that weakened and wasted away their victems.

That's only because trenchcoats and uzis hadn't been invented yet.

Quote from: Kellri;913348As have I on both counts, so I'm failing to see the irony.

The irony is that you're indicting someone for not knowing enough about the cultural background of anime without realizing that said person does indeed have quite a bit of knowledge about said background.

QuoteAnime has entire sub-genres dedicated to pedophilia and misogyny - popular sub-genres that are decades old.

No, it doesn't. Erotic anime is a particular genre unto itself, but while there are some loli (and, to be fair, shota) titles among them, saying that that's enough to constitute their own sub-genre is iffy; there might be enough emphasis on that particular aspect to constitute that particular classification, but it could be argued either way. You're on much shakier ground with the idea that there's any particular "sub-genre" devoted to misogyny (a term that's become so loaded as to be almost meaningless).

QuoteFurther, it's not just something limited to one author or publisher either.

Is anyone putting forward that particular tropes are limited to a particular author or publisher?

QuoteI'm not going so far as to claim all anime has that, but enough of it does that it's what I would categorize as a 'prominent theme'.

And you'd be wrong to do so. But that's largely because you've broadened both terms to the point where they're fairly useless with regards to what they present. Any instance of a teenage character (or a character who looks young enough that they could be thought of as being a teenager) displaying an instance of sexuality or sexual identity is not "pedophilia." Any instance of something bad happening to a woman - particularly where "bad" can now mean things like "don't play enough of an active role" - is not "misogyny."

Moreover, anime is so broad and so diverse in what it displays that any attempt to categorize anything as being "prominent" across the entirety of it is a fool's errand.

QuoteIf you don't like to recognize that as a cultural motivation, what would you call it?

I'd call it an entirely false premise, probably stemming from some combination of personal prejudices and lack of sufficient knowledge of the subject in question.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913295The Strain is a novel trilogy adaptation, like the 30 Days of Night movie is a comic adaptation.  Hollywood probably isn't going to lead with a monstrous vampire of it's own volition, it has no built in hook like sex vampires do - unless it's an adaptation from some other media.

If The Strain and 30 Days of Night don't count because they are based on books, then Dracula and Twilight don't count either.

As for the anime discussion, I've spent a good amount of time in Japan. Anime is a crap way to examine Japanese culture. As an adult, it's okay to see the latest Ghibli or Disney/Pixar film with the family. If someone is any deeper into anime than that, they keep it quiet. Being a hard core anime fan in Japan is about on par with being a brony in America. Worse actually, as Japan is not as good a place to be a weirdo as the United States.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;913320This article covers how age is depicted quite well. I'd link this to the aging of Japan and the increasing nostalgia and fetish for high school days, when life was simpler and the pressures of adulthood in a brutal economy weren't around (despite the 90's being the peak of the slowdown, it seems like the cultural impact was somewhat delayed as the decline of the economy started to become ever more permanent).

The sort of anime you are talking about is being marketed to a young adult to twenties age range in Japan. That age range spends a lot of money, just like in the West. Once students complete their secondary or post secondary education, they go to work. What comprises work has changed a lot since the bursting of the economic bubble in the early 90s. Young Japanese people are not in a race to become seasoned adults like in many Western countries. You are right that there is a nostalgia for more carefree days, but mostly that is from knowing that when one is firmly within the societal machine, you are entering a world of heavy responsibility. Sure, people are getting married later and later, and enjoying single life much longer. But that actually started before the bursting of the economic bubble with many other sociology-economic changes.

Back to the original topic... The Scroll of ExXxalted or something like that. Tentacle sex depicted and blue charms.

Quote from: Spinachcat;913354Actually, that was smart business. Lots of people love vampires and fantasize about being vampires. Why ruin their fun?

How well would D&D have done with marketing their game as murderhobos?

Most people want to play heroes (or anti-heroes), not amoral degenerates.

   True, which is why D&D shifted in the early 80s ... but there are segments of the hobby that do cater to people people who enjoy or miss playing murderhobos. DCC's initial blurb, anyone?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;913338It's not the act, so much as the intended violation.  The original Vampire story, before the whole stupid romanticizing of the human shaped mosquitoes was an analog to the abusive boyfriend.  It was meant to scare women away from the 'bad boys'.  Unfortunately, like all things in life, especially when women are involved, the opposite effect happened.

I'm not certain Akkadian mythology had a concept of "boyfriends" let alone abusive ones.

Quote from: Kellri;913348As have I on both counts, so I'm failing to see the irony. Anime has entire sub-genres dedicated to pedophilia and misogyny - popular sub-genres that are decades old. Further, it's not just something limited to one author or publisher either. I'm not going so far as to claim all anime has that, but enough of it does that it's what I would categorize as a 'prominent theme'. If you don't like to recognize that as a cultural motivation, what would you call it?

This is the same as claiming "books" have a common theme based on reading a few romance novels. Genres exist within art forms, they don't inform the entirety. This is especially true of anime moreso than western animation which has been relegated to a cultural ghetto by the assumption that there is one intended audience, an assumption that anime has never evinced.

Quote from: TristramEvans;914430This is the same as claiming "books" have a common theme based on reading a few romance novels. Genres exist within art forms, they don't inform the entirety. This is especially true of anime moreso than western animation which has been relegated to a cultural ghetto by the assumption that there is one intended audience, an assumption that anime has never evinced.

Yes defiantly the phrase for the concept is the animation age ghetto.
Thats why there are so few western animated movies aimed at the adult market let alone movies out side of the family guy class.

a different kind of Offensive, but it still applies...
Fantasy Imperium, a historically accurate (except for all the magic) medieval Europe dealing in part with an Islamic incursion.  Meticulously researched. At least until you get to the bibliography.
the books used to research Islam are: Islam & Terrorism, Islam Unveiled, Why I am not a Muslim, and The Great Arab Conuests.

Quote from: remial;915083a different kind of Offensive, but it still applies...
Fantasy Imperium, a historically accurate (except for all the magic) medieval Europe dealing in part with an Islamic incursion.  Meticulously researched. At least until you get to the bibliography.
the books used to research Islam are: Islam & Terrorism, Islam Unveiled, Why I am not a Muslim, and The Great Arab Conuests.

If it relates to minorities, it's not considered offensive for the purpose of this thread.

Quote from: kosmos1214;914620Thats why there are so few western animated movies aimed at the adult market let alone movies out side of the family guy class.

Yeah. There's been a lot of non-juvenile animation in the west but most of it is short-form and unique.

Watership Down, Plague Dogs, Gandahar, Fantastic Planet, and many more. Most just dont originate in the US. Or are based off books that werent kids stories either.

In the US animation has the same stigma as gaming. Kits stuff. So it tends to be lighter. Though obviously some writers have bucked the system to some degree and some producers said fuck you and went more adult. Which is why theres older cartoons like Johnny Quest and such which have body counts that would make some modern censors faint in shock. So instead any "adult" animated show on TV tends to the crass.

Animated movies have ranged all over the place really. But again in the US at least the trend is the lower age brackets.

Quote from: Spike;912974Is the outrage brigade planning to ever put out a book... like some form of thesarus... that will explain to those of us NOT in the illuminatii which words are worse than others?  

That would defeat the purpose of letting them declare whatever words you used at any given moment to be the 'worst'.

Quote from: Simlasa;915105Yeah. There's been a lot of non-juvenile animation in the west but most of it is short-form and unique.

Quote from: Omega;915190Watership Down, Plague Dogs, Gandahar, Fantastic Planet, and many more. Most just dont originate in the US. Or are based off books that werent kids stories either.

In the US animation has the same stigma as gaming. Kits stuff. So it tends to be lighter. Though obviously some writers have bucked the system to some degree and some producers said fuck you and went more adult. Which is why theres older cartoons like Johnny Quest and such which have body counts that would make some modern censors faint in shock. So instead any "adult" animated show on TV tends to the crass.

Animated movies have ranged all over the place really. But again in the US at least the trend is the lower age brackets.

Yes agreed sadly its why i have put some faith that will doubtlessly be dashed that sausage party dose ok at this point im about ready to give any thing to break the stigma.

Quote from: RPGPundit;915326That would defeat the purpose of letting them declare whatever words you used at any given moment to be the 'worst'.

well...

....  yes.


that was sort of my point.  Did I miss it, or did Iskandarkebab stop replying to me? Am I on his ignore list? Oh please, please let me be on his ignore list. I can't wait to start gossiping about him behind his back!

Quote from: remial;915083a different kind of Offensive, but it still applies...
Fantasy Imperium, a historically accurate (except for all the magic) medieval Europe dealing in part with an Islamic incursion.  Meticulously researched. At least until you get to the bibliography.
the books used to research Islam are: Islam & Terrorism, Islam Unveiled, Why I am not a Muslim, and The Great Arab Conuests.

That is an odd take.  If the setting is meticulously researched, and you found nothing patently offensive in the presentation of the setting, than the fact that the author(s) also included a bunch of modern takes on Islam and the west in their research... and decided to disclose this in the bibliography... suddenly makes what was accurate and inoffensive... offensive?


This implies a few different things. First, the author(s), read those books but didn't include any of the racist elements that make them beyond the pale.

or second that you have a knee-jerk reaction to the titles, and have no idea what those books contain and you assume they MUST BE racist, and anything in them is suspect automatically. Based on the titles, one assumes.

Third possibility: The books are racist, were used heavily in the setting, and you too are a racist who failed to note how inaccurate and racist the setting was until you read the bibliography and realized how many 'banned and evil racists books' were used to research the setting.

So... which is it?

It may have been deleted. But back when the Tournament of Rapists uproar was going on and BGG was censoring the site, there was also mention of some sort of white supremacy RPG over on OBG. An RPG designed to promote bigotry and hate.

Quote from: Omega;915735It may have been deleted. But back when the Tournament of Rapists uproar was going on and BGG was censoring the site, there was also mention of some sort of white supremacy RPG over on OBG. An RPG designed to promote bigotry and hate.

I don't recall any racist rpgs on OBS, but I do recall that years before the Big Purple had a hilarious review of of the RAHOWA RPG... in which all the evil races (Blacks, Jews, Mexicans... etc), had cool super powers based on racial stereotypes, and white heroic people got bupkis... and since the combat system was broken to the point of uselessness, there was no way to beat all those inferior races with their superpowers...

In short, a game so racist and so bad that it was easy to believe it was satirical, but probably wasn't.

Quote from: Spike;915705That is an odd take.  If the setting is meticulously researched, and you found nothing patently offensive in the presentation of the setting, than the fact that the author(s) also included a bunch of modern takes on Islam and the west in their research... and decided to disclose this in the bibliography... suddenly makes what was accurate and inoffensive... offensive?

If those were the ONLY books mentioned in the bibliography referencing Islam then that could imply either that the authors are either intentionally trying to make a very out-of-context ideological statement by omitting any useful sources or are imbeciles incapable of using a public library.

In any case, it's not necessarily a conservative trait to pick and choose the worst possible sources to make an ideological point. In the 80s and 90s it was almost a requirement for any history that even briefly touched on the Middle East to reference Edward Said's polemic 'Orientalism'. Hell, as a student at the time, I kept a copy around just because almost every one of my humanities professors would, at some point, assign some part of that fucking book as a reading assignment. Needless to say, pointing out in a subsequent discussion (at the time) that Said, as a Palestinian emigre, had a very personal agenda, was almost tantamount to calling for carpet bombing in Gaza as a prelude to a new Crusade.

Quote from: Omega;915735It may have been deleted. But back when the Tournament of Rapists uproar was going on and BGG was censoring the site, there was also mention of some sort of white supremacy RPG over on OBG. An RPG designed to promote bigotry and hate.

Well, the Racial Holy War RPG has been around for a while, it was contemporary of the original uproar over FATAL. Wasn't there a recent fantasy RPG written by a famous White supremacist in Denmark or Norway or something?

That would be Varg Vikernes (former member of Mayhem and Burzum, who served time for murder). He wrote the MYFAROG rpg, which I think was just really into Viking mythology and Asatru or whatever. Or maybe it was just a mix of stuff from Neo-Nazi propagandha and Black Metal Satanism. I doubt its available on OBS.

Quote from: Necrozius;915847He wrote the MYFAROG rpg, which I think was just really into Viking mythology and Asatru or whatever.

Yeah, the author is nutty but his game doesn't seem to be overtly pushing any agendas... based on the reviews I've read/watched. I'd kinda like to give it a look but it doesn't come in cheap/easy PDF form, just hardcopy (AFAIK) direct from the author.

Quote from: Simlasa;915864Yeah, the author is nutty but his game doesn't seem to be overtly pushing any agendas... based on the reviews I've read/watched. I'd kinda like to give it a look but it doesn't come in cheap/easy PDF form, just hardcopy (AFAIK) direct from the author.

Actually, some checking reveals that there's a softcover version available via Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/MYFAROG-Mythic-Fantasy-Role-playing-Game/dp/1522875077/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472398587&sr=8-1&keywords=myfarog).

Quote from: Kellri;915817If those were the ONLY books mentioned in the bibliography referencing Islam then that could imply either that the authors are either intentionally trying to make a very out-of-context ideological statement by omitting any useful sources or are imbeciles incapable of using a public library.

In any case, it's not necessarily a conservative trait to pick and choose the worst possible sources to make an ideological point.*.

I think you missed my point.  The actual text of the game met with full ideological approval as historically accurate. Only the bibliography made it, in a sort of reverse osmosis fashion, unacceptable.

While hardly an unusual perspective, sadly, it is still warped as hell.   Regardless of the ideology.. conservative or progressive... to find a text completely inoffensive, even praiseworthy, until you read the sources is... tragic.  The easiest read possible is that you, or whomever, is so caught up in the 'party line', and the subsequent signalling that you haven't strayed from purity, that you will reject that which you know is true (ie: a historically accurate text) based entirely on perceived 'party line' signalling that is outside your standard for purity (ie sources that are badthink).

Epistimalogical Closure is a shame regardless of the ideology it is in support of.

No, actually what I'm saying is that finding a bibliography full of suspiciously ridiculous texts could possibly impugn the preceding text. Maybe not enough that I would want to throw it away in disgust, but enough that I would want to go back and do a closer reading of it and make sure that it is, in fact, historically accurate. That's not hewing to a party line, that's just good sense. Similarly, if I went to a restaurant, enjoyed the meal, and later found out that the chef was a vocal proponent of eating dog-flesh, I might want to look a little more closely at their meatloaf next time.

The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the over-analysed life is fucking tiresome.
That anyone devoted more than five minutes to whether someone was wearing shorts on a book cover is at least four minutes too many :-/

Quote from: Spike;915811I don't recall any racist rpgs on OBS, but I do recall that years before the Big Purple had a hilarious review of of the RAHOWA RPG... in which all the evil races (Blacks, Jews, Mexicans... etc), had cool super powers based on racial stereotypes, and white heroic people got bupkis... and since the combat system was broken to the point of uselessness, there was no way to beat all those inferior races with their superpowers...

In short, a game so racist and so bad that it was easy to believe it was satirical, but probably wasn't.

Quote from: TristramEvans;915822Well, the Racial Holy War RPG has been around for a while, it was contemporary of the original uproar over FATAL. Wasn't there a recent fantasy RPG written by a famous White supremacist in Denmark or Norway or something?

well apparently the people who run the rpg.netwiki think its one of the worst rpgs ever along with The World of Synnibarr and cyborg commando meaning its actually probably one of the best games ever written.
https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Worst_RPGs_ever

Hmm... I wonder if they'd still be as scathing of Wraeththu today, given its themes etc...

Quote from: GRIM;916033Hmm... I wonder if they'd still be as scathing of Wraeththu today, given its themes etc...

It's not the flower-penis that RPGnet needs, its the flower-penis RPGnet deserves...