Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1136120The military was fractured and was not aligned only with 1 faction. That's why there where two civil wars.



You can be amoral and authoritarian easily.


Thats.....Worse. Amorality implies you simply believe in no morals. Immorality is doing things you know are wrong. As I said unless we are playing subjectivist word games.
Belief in either would make your belief in the objectionability of tyrants disingenuous.


Agreed. I liked Golarion as this anachronistic soup. Now that the adventure paths are cannon (with the endings dictated by how PAIZO wants them not the player) the end result is a much duller world.

Greetings!

Wow. What is the friction between Shrieking and Sammy? Imperial Russia fell to the fucking Bolsheviks for a variety of political, economic, and military factors. All of them combined became a dynamic ripe for the revolution. Despite the problems within Imperial Russia--the Bolsheviks proved to be far worse. Tens of millions of innocent people, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Tartars, and probably a dozen other groups--were slaughtered by the millions. Those who weren't summarily executed were sent to toil away in misery and despair in the Gulags. Communism is so fucking evil. GRRRRRR!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1136113And, predictably, the thread was locked down for not towing the party line.

I don't think that's entirely accurate - other than the party line (as a ENWorld site rule) is no politics.  I wondered if it was also before discussion turned to ENWorld's own Judge Dredd RPG.

Well, I for one am thoroughly delighted that they've made an apology... Quite right!! After all, that adventure was the cause of this whole kerfuffle. Phew! I'll sleep better knowing that tonight.

City Watch those corrupt and brutal bastards! Why 'twas only yesterday eve that I was attacked and beaten by the city watch for playing my lyre in the tavern far too loudly and in  a manner that could be considered rude. 'Tis a tough life being a fantasy bard character in the land of Boggleholm and living in the township of Cretinsville. How close it resembles our own corrupt world.

May the gods bless Paizo.

Quote from: Mistwell;1136088I know everyone here thinks EnWorld has gone down some leftist hole or something, but y'all should check out the thread on this topic over there. The majority of posts were "Damn, this is some stupid stuff right here".  There were some differing opinions, but the average response was "This seems over the top."

Mistwell, I left ENWorld after a long tenure as a result of recent  threads’ moderation, particularly those about orcs and drow.   I actually 'followed' you there.

I think you are being charitable to that Marxist commune.  Dissent is not tolerated.  In addition to uneven biased moderation (propaganda) I tired of their statements about the unimportance of long time older gamers to the gaming market.

I am glad to be rid of that stifling bullshit.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1136120The military was fractured and was not aligned only with 1 faction. That's why there where two civil wars.


Thats.....Worse. Amorality implies you simply believe in no morals. Immorality is doing things you know are wrong. As I said unless we are playing subjectivist word games.
Belief in either would make your belief in the objectionability of tyrants disingenuous.


Agreed. I liked Golarion as this anachronistic soup. Now that the adventure paths are cannon (with the endings dictated by how PAIZO wants them not the player) the end result is a much duller world.

I know I said I was bowing out, but I think I should address these points since I'm more calmed down this time.

1. This is true. The Russian military was already divided and factionalized after 1905, and then WWI proved to be a straw that broke the camel's back

2. Possibly. I can see why complete amorality can lead to tyranny via apathy

3. To me, I am an immoralist because I believe the ends justifies the means. I support what is wrong in the eyes of the morals of the Marxists/Postmodernists and the Yahwehists as a way to call them out and oppose them.

The best way I can put this is that I believe their morality is wrong and illegitimate, even if they are the dominant mindsets, and therefore they are not objective. So I oppose and defy them because they are counter to what I believe.

I guess you could say I'm a moralist of a different sort, but I call myself as an immoralist because the two dominant forms of morality are both diametrically opposed to what I do believe and I view them as illegitimate and objectively wrong. Admittedly, the choice of words is a bit dramatic.

I'll admit, I do get a bit carried away and become very over-dramatic in how I word things and present myself a lot of the time.

4. I am glad we do agree on at least one thing in all this. Paizo used to be cool back when they were just trying to keep 3.5 alive while WOTC shat the bed with 4E. Now they've drank their own Kool-Aid on this one, and I'm never buying any books from them again.

Quote from: trechriron;1136123Hmmm. Another tempest in a teacup.

This was not an apology. It was a statement. It was a "heads up, shit is heavy right now around police, when we started this we were trying to walk the line between cool idea and being sensitive, but under the circumstances it's highly likely we fucked that up. We continue to support social justice and racial equality, and we're putting our money where our mouths are. Our hope is that when/if you play this AP you aren't representing horrible brutal types, and our intent was for it to be an impetus to adventure, not some implied condoning of police brutality. We hope you'll give it a shot as intended."

A full apology would have included a retraction of the product. Hence, a statement. Not an apology.

There was no indication that Paizo was taking all APs of this subject matter off the table, only that they should have gone with another less-controversial idea in hindsight. Like "had I known that 10 brutal racists cops were going to go on killing spree in May, I would have shelved this idea for a post-police-reform time period." He is trying to walk a fine line here, which a ton of companies are doing to survive in the Age of Outrage. Pointing and Paizo as screaming "stop acting like the 2nd largest gaming company in America you shills" is pretty ignorant. No money = no company. The math is pretty simple. You may not like doing what you're told but Erik Mona is fine with it as long as his masters keep buying shit. It's a choice, not a lifestyle.

All this other nonsense you all are injecting into the conversation is simply talking points from your Red flags vs. Blue flags pamphlets.

Look at all the false dichotomies everyone is desperate to oppose on you;

• Supporting BLM means you don't support police.
• Supporting BLM means you don't support white people, or other people, or people people.
• Supporting the police means you hate black people.
• Supporting white creators means you hate black creators.
• Supporting black creators means you hate white creators.
• Supporting non-creators means you hate creators.
• People who put the TP roll serving sheets under-roll will destroy all over-roll adherents.
• Doing what you want instead of what I tell you makes you a bad person.

Common folks. We know all this is bullshit.

How can we be a bulwark against the Outrage Brigade if we become the Outrage Brigade? Relax... Erik Mona wasn't pissing in your Wheaties.

Look at all the strawmen you've got there!

Quote from: Shasarak;1136110I will admit that I am one of the more vociferous Paizo supporters here at therpgsite.

And I will also admit that I was looking forward to playing the Agents of Edgewater adventure path.

That being said, this is a step too far.

Now I have been watching the slow and then fast devolution of the Paizo staffers since the Wuhan virus sent everyone into lockdown and this has now hit peak mental retardation.

You can not come out against your own RPG adventure where you are members of the police when you have already made a RPG adventure where you are pirates and slavers.  You just can not.

So that being said, it is not me it is you.  Time for us to have a break.  Maybe play some other games for a while, see what other game designers are doing.  And maybe if you can get your shit together, clean out some of that rot eating away at your core competency, stop giving money away to people that represent the worst of society then maybe we can sit down and roll some dice again.

Their were so many ways they could have phrased their apology not that they needed on as they sure as hell did not give any for their truly more problematic APs and other similar elements in Pathfinder.

Instead they come out put their heads on the chopping block and handed the butcher the knife to cut their throat. What gets me is their sheer lack of not understanding how bad it comes across. It's like to come off as the top virtue signalers in the rpg industry they chopped off their own balls and put them in their dice bags for fucks sake.

Quote from: trechriron;1136123Hmmm. Another tempest in a teacup.

This was not an apology. It was a statement. It was a "heads up, shit is heavy right now around police, when we started this we were trying to walk the line between cool idea and being sensitive, but under the circumstances it's highly likely we fucked that up. We continue to support social justice and racial equality, and we're putting our money where our mouths are. Our hope is that when/if you play this AP you aren't representing horrible brutal types, and our intent was for it to be an impetus to adventure, not some implied condoning of police brutality. We hope you'll give it a shot as intended."

A full apology would have included a retraction of the product. Hence, a statement. Not an apology.

There was no indication that Paizo was taking all APs of this subject matter off the table, only that they should have gone with another less-controversial idea in hindsight. Like "had I known that 10 brutal racists cops were going to go on killing spree in May, I would have shelved this idea for a post-police-reform time period." He is trying to walk a fine line here, which a ton of companies are doing to survive in the Age of Outrage. Pointing and Paizo as screaming "stop acting like the 2nd largest gaming company in America you shills" is pretty ignorant. No money = no company. The math is pretty simple. You may not like doing what you're told but Erik Mona is fine with it as long as his masters keep buying shit. It's a choice, not a lifestyle.

All this other nonsense you all are injecting into the conversation is simply talking points from your Red flags vs. Blue flags pamphlets.

Look at all the false dichotomies everyone is desperate to oppose on you;

• Supporting BLM means you don't support police.
• Supporting BLM means you don't support white people, or other people, or people people.
• Supporting the police means you hate black people.
• Supporting white creators means you hate black creators.
• Supporting black creators means you hate white creators.
• Supporting non-creators means you hate creators.
• People who put the TP roll serving sheets under-roll will destroy all over-roll adherents.
• Doing what you want instead of what I tell you makes you a bad person.

Common folks. We know all this is bullshit.

How can we be a bulwark against the Outrage Brigade if we become the Outrage Brigade? Relax... Erik Mona wasn't pissing in your Wheaties.

Besides an extra helping of Strawmen your missing the forest from the trees.

Their apology you can call it statement all you like it is a apology and a pathetic one at that. They never ever came out against any of the more problematic elements in their APs or other element. At most they gave a token apology or statement and even then in some cases they had to be shamed into doing it.  

If they wanted their apology to not come off as tokenism, opportunistic virtue signalling they should have given a general apology across the board for their evil and pirate themed APs as well as how they ruined Ogres in Pathfinder.

Then again if this was written by someone who was not a favored rpg designer you would be the first to comment on their hypocrisy.

Quote from: SHARK;1136131Communism is so fucking evil. GRRRRRR!

What people often miss is that the Tzar was also a bastard. The idea was that communisms promised freedom and retribution of the wronged groups. And it didn't happen and made it worse. Just because a group is fighting wrongness doesn't give them a magic 'get out of responsibility free' card. The worst oppressions often followed reactions to other oppression.

Because only in FANTASY can the 'Good Guys' beat 'Bad Guys' and it ends with a happy ending with no ramifications. And that's fine. That's GOOD. That's why we engage in fantasy.
So it's awful to selectively take that away to appeal to a mob.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;11361371. This is true. The Russian military was already divided and factionalized after 1905, and then WWI proved to be a straw that broke the camel's back

Pretty much. Winning wars was like the one thing the royal family could hold to its name anymore. And it effectively started sucking at its ONE JOB.

Quote2. Possibly. I can see why complete amorality can lead to tyranny via apathy

Apathy being a bad thing implies a morality to be followed. You are moral, your just not using proper definitions of words.

Quote3. To me, I am an immoralist because I believe the ends justifies the means.

So learn the definition of words. You're not an immoralist. You're a moral pragmatist or a consequentialist. This is me being somewhat snarky but it's important for conversation. If I call myself a Kaiju because I like to make my own food, I expect people to call me a liar.

QuoteThe best way I can put this is that I believe their morality is wrong and illegitimate, even if they are the dominant mindsets, and therefore they are not objective.

But they believed their ends justified their means. And their means delivered their ends. The shit thing in believing an 'Ends Justify the Means' thing and a 'The strong rule the weak and the weak don't matter' is that such beliefs undermine your own position.

In my opinion, you're trying to do the SJW thing of intersectionality and lump all the demographics you don't like under one blob to make your own morality easier to parse.

Quote4. I am glad we do agree on at least one thing in all this. Paizo used to be cool back when they were just trying to keep 3.5 alive while WOTC shat the bed with 4E. Now they've drank their own Kool-Aid on this one, and I'm never buying any books from them again.

They started really getting insular first. Their word salad for the later books got massively out of hand. With the insularity, SJW-ism followed. And I'm always glad to agree with somebody on something.

Quote from: Anselyn;1136132I don't think that's entirely accurate - other than the party line (as a ENWorld site rule) is no politics.  I wondered if it was also before discussion turned to ENWorld's own Judge Dredd RPG.

Oh damn. I didn't even think of that! "Is Judge Dredd Problematic?" should be a thread!

I don't know enough about it to do it justice.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1136137I know I said I was bowing out, but I think I should address these points since I'm more calmed down this time.

Also clean out your PM box. I can't send you a message until you do.

Quote from: sureshot;1136143Besides an extra helping of Strawmen your missing the forest from the trees. ...
Then again if this was written by someone who was not a favored rpg designer you would be the first to comment on their hypocrisy.

So, you strawman the original argument with all kinds of hyperbole taken out of context but my summary of what he actually said was a strawman? Cool. I'll take responsibility. Let me start with my sincere apologies for my strawmen, I will attempt to raid the barn less in my future responses.

Let me be more direct.

I think you are overreacting. I believe the statement was obvious pandering and an appeal to everyone to please not burn Paizo down for the potentially insensitive subject matter. Which they already made and didn't care about before May.

I also think you're being stupid about how a company the size of Paizo is supposed to skate by and not say anything. OR more hilariously that you are astonished by it.

OH, and expect it to continue until the Outrage Brigade has been defeated. Which I'm pretty sure bitching at the companies scared out of their wits will not help.

Was that better?

Quote from: trechriron;1136152I also think you're being stupid about how a company the size of Paizo is supposed to skate by and not say anything.

It would honestly be better if they did not. The outrage brigade has NEVER relented when they see fear. Not giving a shit will yield better results. The mob will get bored and move on.

Quote from: trechriron;1136152So, you strawman the original argument with all kinds of hyperbole taken out of context but my summary of what he actually said was a strawman? Cool. I'll take responsibility. Let me start with my sincere apologies for my strawmen, I will attempt to raid the barn less in my future responses.

Let me be more direct.

I think you are overreacting. I believe the statement was obvious pandering and an appeal to everyone to please not burn Paizo down for the potentially insensitive subject matter. Which they already made and didn't care about before May.

I also think you're being stupid about how a company the size of Paizo is supposed to skate by and not say anything. OR more hilariously that you are astonished by it.

OH, and expect it to continue until the Outrage Brigade has been defeated. Which I'm pretty sure bitching at the companies scared out of their wits will not help.

Was that better?

Again I don't blame them for the apology. Not that they needed to do all they wrote was an AP where okays run fantasy police as characters (the absolute horror of the thing). Look up how they ruined Ogres and then compared to that tell us we're are overreacting. You won't though because it goes against the narrative of us overreacting.

I do think abject and pathetic groveling was not the way to do. If they were truly sincere about how they felt a simple apology about all the offensive and problematic topics in Pathfinder was in order. Not simply about having to play police in an rpg. You think they murdered someone with the level of grovelling and Mia cuppa in that apology. Then again one has to also be both progressive And have zero self-respect in 2020.

Then again you don't seem interested in really discussing in good faith as it's all about ones carefully constructed personal narratives and anything and everything that goes against said narrative is to be dismissed.

Quote from: trechriron;1136152OH, and expect it to continue until the Outrage Brigade has been defeated. Which I'm pretty sure bitching at the companies scared out of their wits will not help.

They could have at least shown the courage of their convictions instead of their multi coloured belly.