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Author Topic: Now they are coming for your old rulebooks  (Read 62283 times)

Dracones

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« Reply #195 on: July 02, 2020, 11:28:30 AM »
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1137562
We laugh now, but wait till the soulless bastards come after Legend of the Five Rings.

That won't be enough. The authors of that will also have to disavow their award winning work on that book.

We've moved on from book burning into full on McCarthy era public disavowments.

Ghostmaker

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« Reply #196 on: July 02, 2020, 12:02:02 PM »
Quote from: Dracones;1137578
That won't be enough. The authors of that will also have to disavow their award winning work on that book.

We've moved on from book burning into full on McCarthy era public disavowments.

I give him only a 50% chance of escaping the mob anyways.

There is no reconciliation within identity politics. There is only sin and castigation. They make the Inquisition of Warhammer 40,000 look like a pack of little old Baptist church ladies in terms of their viciousness.

RandyB

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« Reply #197 on: July 02, 2020, 12:48:16 PM »
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1137586
I give him only a 50% chance of escaping the mob anyways.

There is no reconciliation within identity politics. There is only sin and castigation. They make the Inquisition of Warhammer 40,000 look like a pack of little old Baptist church ladies in terms of their viciousness.

And a pack of little old Baptist church ladies could give the Warhammer 40,000 Inquisition a run for their money... :cool:

BoxCrayonTales

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« Reply #198 on: July 02, 2020, 02:06:52 PM »
The Streisand effect never fails to amuse.

The irony here is that Oriental Adventures (1e) did have sensitivity readers when it was written. Here's from the special thanks on page 2:

Quote
To the Japanese players--Masataka Ohta, Akira Saito, Hiroyasu Kurose, Takafumi Sakurai, and Yuka Tate-ishi--for critiquing and improving the manuscript on short notice.

Is the book perfect? Well, no. It would probably send medieval studies students into apoplexy. So would the pseudo-European stuff, too.

But that's hardly a reason to demand that it be banned from circulation. Banning books is a slippery slope. What's next, To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Fin?

To be honest, I'm pretty sure that asking Japanese gamers to write a roleplaying game about fantasy not!Japan would still piss off the mob because now anime tiddies of all things are considered the Great Satan. Which contradicts the message of #freethenipple, btw.

D&D is a game where you can have planets of black vikings. Let that sink in. Rather than demanding we ban books made for weaboos 35 years ago, I think it would be far more productive if we actually created the stuff we want to see. For example, I am world building a Stargate SG-1-inspired setting where fantasy counterpart cultures have their own planets, including cultures that never existed on Earth like black vikings and Inuit Starks.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2020, 02:13:05 PM by BoxCrayonTales »

ZetaRidley

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« Reply #199 on: July 02, 2020, 03:56:45 PM »
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1137610
The Streisand effect never fails to amuse.

The irony here is that Oriental Adventures (1e) did have sensitivity readers when it was written. Here's from the special thanks on page 2:



Is the book perfect? Well, no. It would probably send medieval studies students into apoplexy. So would the pseudo-European stuff, too.

But that's hardly a reason to demand that it be banned from circulation. Banning books is a slippery slope. What's next, To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Fin?

To be honest, I'm pretty sure that asking Japanese gamers to write a roleplaying game about fantasy not!Japan would still piss off the mob because now anime tiddies of all things are considered the Great Satan. Which contradicts the message of #freethenipple, btw.

D&D is a game where you can have planets of black vikings. Let that sink in. Rather than demanding we ban books made for weaboos 35 years ago, I think it would be far more productive if we actually created the stuff we want to see. For example, I am world building a Stargate SG-1-inspired setting where fantasy counterpart cultures have their own planets, including cultures that never existed on Earth like black vikings and Inuit Starks.

That #freethenipple comment made me laugh. Its actually rather ironic, and hypocritical. It's okay for the people they like to have and express sexual interests and feelings (basically the alphabet gang). God help you if you are someone they don't like and you do the same. I think thats why anime tiddies have become controversial, since thats mostly a thing white losers are into in the west. Anything you like, desire, find attractive, etc. is wrong. Anything that makes me feel uncomfortable is wrong. I think thats why many games, one that comes to mind is Pathfinder 2e, has the most unattractive, boring women and men in their artwork now. Its just boring, stilted, androgynous people. Which is funny, because I think real women want to feel sexy too. But I also think these screeching harpies get offended at sexually idealized men and women because it hurts their feelings and doesn't fit their view of gender. And god damn did RPGs have sexually idealized men and women in it until recently.

The thing about this is, its not good enough to just make something, I think. They want to control the narrative and by proxy their environment to an extreme extent. It's really just a moral panic, but instead of Satan, it's Nazi's, fascism, and anything that threatens their idealized multicultural society ideals. Kinda like how Satan and liberals were out to destroy the idealized christian society of the right back in the 80s, I think. Either way, because of this, because of the pressures of their in group peers and the demands of their extreme world view, they can't just live and let live. And that is scary.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2020, 04:03:45 PM by ZetaRidley »

FelixGamingX1

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« Reply #200 on: July 02, 2020, 05:11:43 PM »
One of these days I'd like to publish a book with detailed tips of how to make your way through this swamp which is the trpg market. SJWs tried shutting me down and ended up giving me a huge publicity boost. Hitting 4 digits in sales in the first year when nobody knows about you was quiet an achievement.

You don't have to take their bs to be successful.
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TJS

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« Reply #201 on: July 02, 2020, 06:09:39 PM »
Quote from: Rhiannon;1137560
Good point. I also wish they didn't do this as essentially a Live Play of one of those 'Let's Read' thread from TBP.

One it is rambling and boring, two it encourages kneejerk responses instead of thoughful critique, particularly when it starts to feel like they're trying to top each other in terms of negativity, like a real-time dogpile.

Why not produce a 45 minute video review like Seth Skorkowsky? I guess they figure it takes less effort to just sound off with their friends online for 36 hours.

Regardless, so far I wouldn't say this has much real life momentum, seems restricted to a few Tweets online that got around 500 likes, probably from the same group who keep calling for Mearls' head, who WotC seems to be largely ignoring.

At the same time as we saw with the White Wolf nonsense it doesn't take much to spook a corporation into action if they think it will hurt their bottom line.

Yes.  It would be much more responsible to do it in writing.  Or at least based off some kind of well prepared script if it simply must be video.  That way you could go back and look at what you had said and argued and really think about whether it holds up.

But that would take real work.

tenbones

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« Reply #202 on: July 02, 2020, 07:11:50 PM »
Well the pragmatic, if dire and cynical view is this: who cares? At this point if WotC memory-holes everything pre-5e, there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. And likely this is the direction they're going to go in varying degrees, going forward.

As I've said personally, D&D left me. Let me amend that to "us" (that care).

I'll be happy in the graveyard with my dead-trees. The horses and genies have all left the lamp-shaped barn inside the giant open tube of tooth-paste called D&D, that has been squashed flat by WotC's culturally Marxist bootheel. And hey! people love it. So good on them?

I mean how many times do we have to be slapped to understand they're telling us "WE" are not their targeted audience. The message is clear, so why support those that hate us? /shrug
« Last Edit: July 02, 2020, 07:14:27 PM by tenbones »

Shasarak

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« Reply #203 on: July 02, 2020, 07:29:38 PM »
Quote from: Rhiannon;1137554
You're a strange guy.


Pointing out an Asian person called "Davis" is strange?

I would have called them McSweeney myself.
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GeekyBugle

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« Reply #204 on: July 02, 2020, 08:00:11 PM »
Quote from: tenbones;1137659
Well the pragmatic, if dire and cynical view is this: who cares? At this point if WotC memory-holes everything pre-5e, there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. And likely this is the direction they're going to go in varying degrees, going forward.

As I've said personally, D&D left me. Let me amend that to "us" (that care).

I'll be happy in the graveyard with my dead-trees. The horses and genies have all left the lamp-shaped barn inside the giant open tube of tooth-paste called D&D, that has been squashed flat by WotC's culturally Marxist bootheel. And hey! people love it. So good on them?

I mean how many times do we have to be slapped to understand they're telling us "WE" are not their targeted audience. The message is clear, so why support those that hate us? /shrug

I'm not giving a peso to WotC, I haven't given a peso to WotC in several years now, in fact since my return to the hobby (that's when I discovered the OSR).
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BoxCrayonTales

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« Reply #205 on: July 02, 2020, 09:31:07 PM »
Quote from: ZetaRidley;1137624
That #freethenipple comment made me laugh. Its actually rather ironic, and hypocritical. It's okay for the people they like to have and express sexual interests and feelings (basically the alphabet gang). God help you if you are someone they don't like and you do the same. I think thats why anime tiddies have become controversial, since thats mostly a thing white losers are into in the west. Anything you like, desire, find attractive, etc. is wrong. Anything that makes me feel uncomfortable is wrong. I think thats why many games, one that comes to mind is Pathfinder 2e, has the most unattractive, boring women and men in their artwork now. Its just boring, stilted, androgynous people. Which is funny, because I think real women want to feel sexy too. But I also think these screeching harpies get offended at sexually idealized men and women because it hurts their feelings and doesn't fit their view of gender. And god damn did RPGs have sexually idealized men and women in it until recently.

The thing about this is, its not good enough to just make something, I think. They want to control the narrative and by proxy their environment to an extreme extent. It's really just a moral panic, but instead of Satan, it's Nazi's, fascism, and anything that threatens their idealized multicultural society ideals. Kinda like how Satan and liberals were out to destroy the idealized christian society of the right back in the 80s, I think. Either way, because of this, because of the pressures of their in group peers and the demands of their extreme world view, they can't just live and let live. And that is scary.


It gets worse.

Japanese creators are saying that white people should be banned from anime because white people want to censor anime.

While I do think anime (certain genres anyway, it's hardly monolithic) has a problem with objectifying women, censorship is not the way to deal with it.

Orphan81

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« Reply #206 on: July 02, 2020, 10:57:31 PM »
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1137680

While I do think anime (certain genres anyway, it's hardly monolithic) has a problem with objectifying women, censorship is not the way to deal with it.

Yeah, you're basically going to have to change Japanese culture, something we don't have any power to do, and something only they themselves can do... and which I hope they never do.
1. Some of you culture warriors are so committed to the bit you'll throw out any nuance or common sense in fear it's 'giving in' to the other side.

2. I'm a married homeowner with a career and a child. I won life. You can't insult me.

3. I work in a Prison, your tough guy act is boring.

Mercurius

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« Reply #207 on: July 03, 2020, 12:45:11 AM »
Quote from: tenbones;1137659
Well the pragmatic, if dire and cynical view is this: who cares? At this point if WotC memory-holes everything pre-5e, there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. And likely this is the direction they're going to go in varying degrees, going forward.

As I've said personally, D&D left me. Let me amend that to "us" (that care).

I'll be happy in the graveyard with my dead-trees. The horses and genies have all left the lamp-shaped barn inside the giant open tube of tooth-paste called D&D, that has been squashed flat by WotC's culturally Marxist bootheel. And hey! people love it. So good on them?

I mean how many times do we have to be slapped to understand they're telling us "WE" are not their targeted audience. The message is clear, so why support those that hate us? /shrug

Who is this "we" you're talking about? Are you talking about from-my-cold-dead-hands conservatives who want to MAGA-back to the 1950s? Or are you talking about the folks across the political spectrum who are concerned with censorship? If the former, yeah, I think "you" are not their target audience, because you represent a relatively small minority of D&D players. If the latter, WotC better keep "us" in mind, because we are a significant poriton of their book-buying audience.

My guess is that the vast majority of D&D players don't care; they just want to roll dice and kill things (yes, orcs).

Then there are the "traditionalists" who don't want things to change. The flexible ones are OK with new stuff (e.g. non-evil orcs), as long as the traditional variants are kept alive and supported.

Then there are the ''change-everything-ists" who want everything re-written to conform to "woke" ideology. The flexible ones are OK with the traditional stuff remaining in the books, as long as they are re-contextualized within more diverse presentations.

There are extremists on either side: traditionalists who will vituperate if D&D isn't exactly the way its always been (even though its always been changing); and the wokists who will never stop looking for signs of racism and gatekeeping, and once they're done with orcs and drow, will move on to hobgoblins and duergar. Neither group will end up being happy with whatever WotC does, because WotC will almost certainly cater to the majority of folks who can meet somewhere in the middle.

Tom Kalbfus
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« Reply #208 on: July 03, 2020, 08:32:32 AM »
Quote from: Mercurius;1137707
Who is this "we" you're talking about? Are you talking about from-my-cold-dead-hands conservatives who want to MAGA-back to the 1950s? Or are you talking about the folks across the political spectrum who are concerned with censorship? If the former, yeah, I think "you" are not their target audience, because you represent a relatively small minority of D&D players. If the latter, WotC better keep "us" in mind, because we are a significant poriton of their book-buying audience.

My guess is that the vast majority of D&D players don't care; they just want to roll dice and kill things (yes, orcs).

Then there are the "traditionalists" who don't want things to change. The flexible ones are OK with new stuff (e.g. non-evil orcs), as long as the traditional variants are kept alive and supported.

Then there are the ''change-everything-ists" who want everything re-written to conform to "woke" ideology. The flexible ones are OK with the traditional stuff remaining in the books, as long as they are re-contextualized within more diverse presentations.

There are extremists on either side: traditionalists who will vituperate if D&D isn't exactly the way its always been (even though its always been changing); and the wokists who will never stop looking for signs of racism and gatekeeping, and once they're done with orcs and drow, will move on to hobgoblins and duergar. Neither group will end up being happy with whatever WotC does, because WotC will almost certainly cater to the majority of folks who can meet somewhere in the middle.

The 1950s weren't perfect, but they weren't the biggest "disaster" to befall the USA either. The Lauren Chen show on youtube recently did a show on the left calling traditional fantasy racist, and she even mentioned Dungeons & Dragons. To make the game interesting and not boring, you need some villains. Most DMs simply want to throw some orcs at player character to give them something to do. The left wants to give the orcs some justification for their bad behavior, mainly that they had terrible childhoods, society didn't like them, and they faced prejudice and discrimination wherever they went and that is why they turned to evil. Poor orcs! Ever consider that it is the orcs' reputation for evil that is responsible for society's hostile reaction to them? "Could not be," says the left, "they are discriminated against because they are ugly, and their evil acts are just them acting out against this, so when they loot, rape, and rob, you just have to understand where they are coming from." Or I would say, they are just evil, their purpose in the game is to provide some fodder for D&D adventures. Orcs aren't real people, they don't exist, real people don't get killed when you roll some dice and reduce an orcs hit points to less than zero!

BoxCrayonTales

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« Reply #209 on: July 03, 2020, 11:34:32 AM »
Quote from: Mercurius;1137707
Who is this "we" you're talking about? Are you talking about from-my-cold-dead-hands conservatives who want to MAGA-back to the 1950s? Or are you talking about the folks across the political spectrum who are concerned with censorship? If the former, yeah, I think "you" are not their target audience, because you represent a relatively small minority of D&D players. If the latter, WotC better keep "us" in mind, because we are a significant poriton of their book-buying audience.

My guess is that the vast majority of D&D players don't care; they just want to roll dice and kill things (yes, orcs).

Then there are the "traditionalists" who don't want things to change. The flexible ones are OK with new stuff (e.g. non-evil orcs), as long as the traditional variants are kept alive and supported.

Then there are the ''change-everything-ists" who want everything re-written to conform to "woke" ideology. The flexible ones are OK with the traditional stuff remaining in the books, as long as they are re-contextualized within more diverse presentations.

There are extremists on either side: traditionalists who will vituperate if D&D isn't exactly the way its always been (even though its always been changing); and the wokists who will never stop looking for signs of racism and gatekeeping, and once they're done with orcs and drow, will move on to hobgoblins and duergar. Neither group will end up being happy with whatever WotC does, because WotC will almost certainly cater to the majority of folks who can meet somewhere in the middle.

The stereotype of goblins (and dwarves et al) bears superficial similarity to racist stereotypes of Jews. In Cornish folklore, even, some mine-dwelling friendly goblins are literally the ghosts of Jews. I'm pretty sure this has been discussed at length for years now.

So that got me thinking... how would Jews and goblins, dwarves, et al interact if they met?

From there, I got a goblin hero who is Jewish because his human mother was a Jew. He fights antisemitic teutonic werewolves.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137724
The 1950s weren't perfect, but they weren't the biggest "disaster" to befall the USA either. The Lauren Chen show on youtube recently did a show on the left calling traditional fantasy racist, and she even mentioned Dungeons & Dragons. To make the game interesting and not boring, you need some villains. Most DMs simply want to throw some orcs at player character to give them something to do. The left wants to give the orcs some justification for their bad behavior, mainly that they had terrible childhoods, society didn't like them, and they faced prejudice and discrimination wherever they went and that is why they turned to evil. Poor orcs! Ever consider that it is the orcs' reputation for evil that is responsible for society's hostile reaction to them? "Could not be," says the left, "they are discriminated against because they are ugly, and their evil acts are just them acting out against this, so when they loot, rape, and rob, you just have to understand where they are coming from." Or I would say, they are just evil, their purpose in the game is to provide some fodder for D&D adventures. Orcs aren't real people, they don't exist, real people don't get killed when you roll some dice and reduce an orcs hit points to less than zero!


The behavior of orcs bears more resemblance to historical raiders and tribal warfare than to poor people in cities.  Orcs don't draw on any stereotypes of African Americans. They draw on stereotypes of vikings and indigenous peoples.  Those are completely different things. If we're going to argue whether a depiction draws on stereotypes, then we need to at least get our references correct.

Also, "what do we do with the baby orcs?" long predates the woke mob. Tolkien did it first! D&D fans are not mindless consumers. We do analyze D&D's idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, the woke mob has made it impossible to do so without devolving into flame wars.