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RPG Designer Dudes that are Now Women (how many?)

Started by Shawn Driscoll, October 24, 2020, 11:20:29 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Witch-King of Tsámra

Why does it matter? If someone transitioned even if they are a game designer, who gives a fuck? Honestly I don't see the issue. And if there is no issue please ignore and carry on.
Playing: Nothing sadly
Running: Tales of Gor, FKR Star Wars, Vampire 4th edition

Eirikrautha

Quote from: arcanuum on October 27, 2020, 01:56:35 AM
Why does it matter? If someone transitioned even if they are a game designer, who gives a fuck? Honestly I don't see the issue. And if there is no issue please ignore and carry on.
Hey, guys, you're discussing a topic arcanum either doesn't like or doesn't care about.  So stop it!  I mean, he told you to ignore it.  Isn't that enough for you?
"Testosterone levels vary widely among women, just like other secondary sex characteristics like breast size or body hair. If you eliminate anyone with elevated testosterone, it's like eliminating athletes because their boobs aren't big enough or because they're too hairy." -- jhkim

Lynn

It seems to me based on social media posts and having gone to any number of 'cons over the years, that there is a noticeable number of cross- or trans- folks. I haven't gone to a PaizoCon in a few years, but the last few I went to there were quite a few players and many associated with publishing companies.

For all the abuse that gets heaped on the hobby, I would say comparatively speaking, it has always been more inherently tolerant of differences.
Lynn Fredricks
Entrepreneurial Hat Collector

Ghostmaker

Quote from: Lynn on October 27, 2020, 12:44:54 PM
It seems to me based on social media posts and having gone to any number of 'cons over the years, that there is a noticeable number of cross- or trans- folks. I haven't gone to a PaizoCon in a few years, but the last few I went to there were quite a few players and many associated with publishing companies.

For all the abuse that gets heaped on the hobby, I would say comparatively speaking, it has always been more inherently tolerant of differences.
That's been the problem a lot of us have been bitching about.

For all the social ineptitude gamers can display, we're a pretty welcoming bunch. But the latest push by the socjus crowd would have you believe those old school gamers were all monstrously sexist and racist and obnoxious.


The Witch-King of Tsámra

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 27, 2020, 07:06:54 AM
Quote from: arcanuum on October 27, 2020, 01:56:35 AM
Why does it matter? If someone transitioned even if they are a game designer, who gives a fuck? Honestly I don't see the issue. And if there is no issue please ignore and carry on.
Hey, guys, you're discussing a topic arcanum either doesn't like or doesn't care about.  So stop it!  I mean, he told you to ignore it.  Isn't that enough for you?
When I said ignore and carry on, I meant ignore my post and carry on. I guess I should've been more specific. Perks of writing posts really late I guess.
Playing: Nothing sadly
Running: Tales of Gor, FKR Star Wars, Vampire 4th edition

Jason Coplen

Quote from: arcanuum on October 27, 2020, 02:14:12 PM
Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 27, 2020, 07:06:54 AM
Quote from: arcanuum on October 27, 2020, 01:56:35 AM
Why does it matter? If someone transitioned even if they are a game designer, who gives a fuck? Honestly I don't see the issue. And if there is no issue please ignore and carry on.
Hey, guys, you're discussing a topic arcanum either doesn't like or doesn't care about.  So stop it!  I mean, he told you to ignore it.  Isn't that enough for you?
When I said ignore and carry on, I meant ignore my post and carry on. I guess I should've been more specific. Perks of writing posts really late I guess.

Dude, he was fucking with you.  ;D

When you can't think straight and are tired don't come here. They smell that opportunity.
Running: HarnMaster and Baptism of Fire

Shawn Driscoll

Quote from: arcanuum on October 27, 2020, 01:56:35 AM
Why does it matter? If someone transitioned even if they are a game designer, who gives a fuck? Honestly I don't see the issue. And if there is no issue please ignore and carry on.
Such a gatekeeper.

Cloyer Bulse

#22
Quote from: Hawkwing7423 on October 26, 2020, 07:22:27 PM
Why are 80% of transitions male to female, and only 20% female to male? That mystifies me.

Most children nowadays grow up in single-mother households, so there are no male role-models, aside from the stream of the mothers' boyfriends that parade in and out.

For whatever reason, I see a lot of situations where grandmothers or other female relatives put young boys (4 and under) into dresses. Female sexual predation on male children seems to often involve role-playing, with or without overt sexual acts. And it brings up the question as to why all of these women want to emasculate young boys. In virtually every case, these males were also sexually abused by other males -- eroticisizng young boys by putting them into dresses seems to encourage ridicule and sexual abuse by older males.

There is a similar disorder called body integrity dysphoria which is characterized by a desire to be disabled and by self-amputation. The risk factor is knowing an amputee as a child. This suggests that it is a learned coping mechanism for something. It is medicated with antidepressants.

As far as I know, gender identity disorder is a learned coping mechanism for severe depression, learned from exposure to sexual abuse by women and from the public school system which teaches that gender is fluid.

Kyle Aaron

Quote from: Lynn on October 27, 2020, 12:44:54 PM
It seems to me based on social media posts and having gone to any number of 'cons over the years, that there is a noticeable number of cross- or trans- folks.
Well, it's a kind of LARPing, really, isn't it?
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
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Opaopajr

This forum does like busting one's balls, doesn't it?  :) We don't take ourselves too seriously here as we're often quick to anger, quick to tease, and for the most part quick to forgive.  :D Carry on!
Just make your fuckin\' guy and roll the dice, you pricks. Focus on what\'s interesting, not what gives you the biggest randomly generated virtual penis.  -- J Arcane
 
You know, people keep comparing non-TSR D&D to deck-building in Magic: the Gathering. But maybe it\'s more like Katamari Damacy. You keep sticking shit on your characters until they are big enough to be a star.
-- talysman

GeekEclectic

The one I'm most familiar with has already been mentioned - Joe McDaldno > Avery McDaldno > Avery Alder. I actually like some of the games they made(I still want to try out Ribbon Drive someday - the idea of creating a road trip story using a group-made song playlist just sounds fun.), and for a couple years back in the day was part of the group over at Infrno.net that was really into Monsterhearts. I forget how I found out, but at some point I found out that on other big RPG forums that Infrno actually gained a bit of a reputation because of the number of people playing Monsterhearts on it at one point. I know that the games I was in always followed "fade to black" and "hollywood casting" rules, but I didn't police all the games there, so it wouldn't surprise me if some of them got creepy. I'm just pretty big into urban fantasy in general, and the game is super simple to play and run, so that was enough for me.

Some of the rules were a bit vague, but McDaldno/Alder had a blog where they would occasionally talk about the intent behind some of the rules bits. How they were supposed to work and all that. So I'd check there for rules clarifications. But between the game design stuff, there'd be things about their personal life. I can't recall exactly when the transition began, but at one point they were begging for donations to help with an adrenalectomy - removal of the adrenal glands. Literally said they were poisoning them. It was weird, y'all. And tbh I played MH from the free handouts and playbooks, so almost never looked at the book. The few times I did, yeah . . . you could tell it was a very "woke" product.

Then the people I gamed with, multiple times in many cases, started coming out as trans. The first couple were m2f. There was another group member who I'd suspected for a while due to their voice, then later heard them flat-out state it, suspicion confirmed. And a 4th . . . I don't even know. She was already a woman, and admitted to being perfectly happy being a woman, but since she didn't 100% conform to all of the stereotypes I guess she needed a special term, too? That was a facepalm moment right there. It wasn't long after that that I kind of noped out of that community, signed out of Infrno and Skype(the VOIP of choice at the time, as this was before Discord) for the last time, and went my own way. I came across one of them by coincidence on Roll20 a couple years later - an f2m I forgot to mention, though I didn't know it at the time and actually found out when we gamed together on Roll20 -  and found out that it wasn't just me. The whole group kind of disintegrated around that time anyway.

Very odd history lesson. But yes, I know of at least 1 trans game developer, at least 1 other whom I suspect(though I won't blast them online since I don't know for sure and if they haven't gone public with it then it wouldn't be my place anyway), and had at least 4 trans people in a relatively small online group of gamers I played with for a couple years back in the day.
"I despise weak men in positions of power, and that's 95% of game industry leadership." - Jessica Price
"Isnt that why RPGs companies are so woke in the first place?" - Godsmonkey
*insert Disaster Girl meme here* - Me

Anon Adderlan

Not sure your objective, but this is tantamount to asking us to #Deadname people, which doesn't help anyone's case.

Quote from: Libramarian on October 26, 2020, 08:11:01 PM
It's easier to be a misfit woman than a misfit man.

Not wrong.

Quote from: Mistwell on October 26, 2020, 09:28:28 PM
I have two real friends who went from being male to female. I've known both for over half my life.

Of the two, one of them I genuinely think is a narcissist (clinically speaking) and in love with themselves, and the transition was in some way connected to that.

The other one I genuinely think is a woman who had the misfortune of simply being born in the wrong body. She is, in every way I can think of, a completely normal nerdy woman. She's well adjusted and a reasonably happy person.

Indeed there's a hell of a lot of nuance to this issue, and we need to be able to make these kinds of distinctions without being attacked for wrongthink. For example, I know people transitioning due to trauma, which isn't a healthy reason to do so. But they're not going to get the help they need when doing so is seen as transphobic.

Quote from: arcanuum on October 27, 2020, 01:56:35 AM
Why does it matter? If someone transitioned even if they are a game designer, who gives a fuck? Honestly I don't see the issue. And if there is no issue please ignore and carry on.

Because a disproportionate number of people in this field fit that definition when compared to other fields, and it's worth inquiring as to why that is.

BoxCrayonTales

I'm nominally a postgenderist and have been for years. I used to never really think about trans issues. After hearing about the attempts by trans rights activists to erode the very concept of being female, as well as numerous other horror stories and recent lawsuits, I decided to tentatively adopt a gender critical perspective.

Humans only have two sexes: male and female. This is because there are only two types of gametes: egg and sperm. This includes individuals with variations of sexual development: they do not produce new types of gametes and thus do not constitute new sexes.

At least with current medical technology, humans cannot change their sex. Males and females are distinct from one another on a cellular level, to say nothing of the macro scale differences.

The gender ideologues ignore this and promote the false narrative that sex was invented by white supremacists in order to oppress transgender people. Among other alternative facts.

The people who are harmed the most by this are, naturally, the people the movement is supposedly trying to help.

I, as a postgenderist, believe technology should be used to remove the sex barrier for the good of mankind when it is mature enough to do so.

As of right now, the medical establishment is promoting dangerous untested body modification for a poorly-understood neurological crisis.

This is quite frankly human experimentation.

Even so, I would discourage deadnaming devs unless they detransition. It's impolite.

Eirikrautha

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on October 31, 2020, 05:53:49 PM
Not sure your objective, but this is tantamount to asking us to #Deadname people, which doesn't help anyone's case.

The people we are talking about aren't dead.  And names can be forgotten, but they can't die.  So the concept of "deadnaming" is horsecrap. Doubly so for the many folks who haven't even changed their legal name or identity (which happens more than you would think in these cases).  I believe Eddie Murphy said it best: "If his momma called him 'Cassius,' I'm gonna call him 'Cassius'!"
"Testosterone levels vary widely among women, just like other secondary sex characteristics like breast size or body hair. If you eliminate anyone with elevated testosterone, it's like eliminating athletes because their boobs aren't big enough or because they're too hairy." -- jhkim

ponta1010

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on October 31, 2020, 05:53:49 PM
Because a disproportionate number of people in this field fit that definition when compared to other fields, and it's worth inquiring as to why that is.
Do you mean on the low or high side? I ask because we seem to be doing a poor job of identifying that many.

Now I can understand that earlier generations would have been less likely to identify as such (greater social pressure to conform) and maintain a presence in the hobby (and therefore be more likely to be able to be identified). Jaquays is one of the few from the very old school that I know of. Certainly in the past five years the number of LBGTQI authors seems to have increased, but is that because they are 'branding' themselves as such to increase their attraction?
I just wanna fight some fuckin' dragons! Is that too much to ask? - Ghostmaker