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Author Topic: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass  (Read 22645 times)

RPGPundit

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #165 on: September 14, 2021, 10:47:34 AM »
Deleting mention of actual historical attitudes regarding homosexuality doesn't create greater historical authenticity - it creates less.

But in a game like D&D (aka-fantasy) historical accuracy is not really a consideration.

If you wanted to play a 'historically accurate' game set in Europe then the Woke Scolds would spit the dummy. They can't handle the truth as the saying goes. :)

There are medieval-authentic ways to have gay characters that are not anachronistic to a medieval setting. There are gay characters in my Albion setting (including of course some actual historical characters), and one of the secret societies in my "Medieval-Authentic Secret Societies" RPGPundit Presents books (#90) is a secret society of gay men (disguised as a confraternity of Christmastide revelers).
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rytrasmi

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #166 on: September 14, 2021, 11:39:34 AM »
The problem I have with the combat wheelchair is that it's yet another example of the dumbing down of what an RPG is supposed to be. There seems to be a movement to turn games into dress-up balls where everyone plays a quirky and magical version of themselves. We must have gay characters because there are gay players, we must have diverse characters because there are diverse players, and so on. This speaks to a total lack of imagination.

Most people don't use their imagination much and don't want to actually role play. They want something cookie-cutter and easy. This is the cause or effect (chicken vs egg) of D&D becoming more popular.

The more interesting approach would have been a supplement or couple of pages that describe ideas for magical mobility aids (golems, etc) and real mobility aids from actual history with ideas about how and when they could be used in a campaign, along with some suggestions as to how/why magical healing wouldn't work.

But that's too much to expect from Hasbro, a giant toy company, and their subsidiary WotC. The combat wheelchair, the art that looks like modern 20-somethings in magical dress up, the staged diversity, etc make no mistake it *sells* this stuff. Does it make for good play at the table? Who knows? And frankly Hasbro and WotC don't care as long as it moves product out the door. If I were in a target market for unimaginative and token inclusion, so that giant companies could sell more crap, I would be repulsed.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2021, 11:41:32 AM by rytrasmi »
The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out
The ones that crawl in are lean and thin
The ones that crawl out are fat and stout
Your eyes fall in and your teeth fall out
Your brains come tumbling down your snout
Be merry my friends
Be merry

Chris24601

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #167 on: September 14, 2021, 11:48:12 AM »
Deleting mention of actual historical attitudes regarding homosexuality doesn't create greater historical authenticity - it creates less.

But in a game like D&D (aka-fantasy) historical accuracy is not really a consideration.
Historical accuracy, no. Cultural verisimilitude though should be a consideration. Sure you can have a term-limited democratically elected 14 year old queen as head of your planetary government (side-eyes George Lucas)... but it makes anyone who stops to think a moment go through at least a bit of cognitive dissonance trying to weld it together.

In the same way, something like homosexual marriage typically requires certain societal conditions in order to be plausible. Chiefly, enough of a support system, either due to personal or society wealth, to be able to have their needs met in the absence of the normal pattern throughout history of elderly parents being supported by one or more of their adult children (which in pre-modern times typically meant destitution and begging once they were no longer able to support themselves if they had no living children).

Basically, you're only going to find homosexual relationships as primary relationships (versus on the side of traditional marriage/children) among the affluent of your setting; its going to be non-existent amongst the lower classes (peasants, serfs, etc.) who have no reserves of wealth only their families to support them once their health fails.

So adding open homosexual marriage to some sort of civilization where everyone is a sorcerer and every need is handled by magic wouldn't break verisimilitude, but a gay couple who are serfs scraping a living off the land from harvest to harvest with no children to assist in their labors and just one crippling injury or illness from death by starvation isn't going to feel plausible (by contrast two serfs with their own wives and children who have a gay relationship on the side wouldn't break the verisimilitude).

jhkim

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #168 on: September 14, 2021, 12:29:44 PM »
Being homosexual doesn’t cause you to emit a rainbow halo or any other identifying trait. At best it might be notable by drawing on various stereotypes of flamboyant clothing and effeminate behavior, but then you’ll be accused of mockery by the LGBT community you’re trying to pander to.

So again, including it as a character detail is just virtue signaling and making the players aware of it is as subtle as a random NPC shouting out “I enjoy foot massages” at them... completely out of place and irrelevant to the PC’s interaction with them.

It seems like you're arguing that the *only* thing in NPC descriptions should be things which are visible at first glance. So there shouldn't be anything about an NPC's background, or relationships, or hidden motivations.

But that's not how old-school NPC descriptions worked. In reply #159, I just gave a bunch of examples of old-school NPC descriptions that included sexuality by specifying their romantic relationships. That makes sense to me. In real life, sexuality is one of the most powerful of human motivations, and it drives a lot of human behavior. It is featured in most of our popular stories, from Disney cartoons to action movies.

---

For me, the key thing about all these objections is that they simply don't match up to my experience. I've included simple mention of sexuality in my NPCs for decades - from Strahd's love for Tatiana to bits of color like the barman's spirited fights with his wife. And yes, that includes gay NPCs. I don't see the problems that other people are claiming. It hasn't made my games un-fun or un-escapist or unrealistic. They've been fun and interesting in play.

From my old "Favorite Gay Characters" thread, others said similar, like:
There was quite a lot of them.

The most recent wasn't one of mine. It was in my Dark Albion campaign, one of my players was a fighter from a knightly family named Alan Boleyn (a possible ancestor of the future Queen of England). Boleyn's player made it clear that Alan was gay, and the rest of the PCs generally had a strong suspicion, but of course the setting being what it was, he kept it mostly under wraps. He had at one point been a favorite of the Duke of Clarence, who I also played as secretly gay.
Oh, the wizard Lord Krens of Krens' Cairn an NPC in my Wilderlands is pretty cool. He's known to 'prefer the company of men', which caused a political problem as he wouldn't marry one of Lord Vilius Theber's daughters sent to study magic under him; and he was the one Ghinarian Lord to successfully defy Warlord Yusan; Krens' Cairn became the launchpad for the counter-offensive that ultimately destroyed Yusan. Him being gay doesn't have anything much to do with him being a cool character though.

Mordred Midwinter, Eldritch Knight of Valon, is a cool PC IMC who's gay; this mostly manifests in him having no interest in the various buxom noblewomen he interacts with. Also perhaps his occasional prissiness and horror of dirt - player is gay and likes a laugh. :)

I'm not saying anything about other people's campaigns, because I don't know them - but if I'm told that gay NPCs objectively make a game worse, it doesn't fit what I see.

Pat
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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #169 on: September 14, 2021, 12:39:20 PM »
More than that, the only thing that ever hinted at a character's sexuality was if the text stated they were married. And as you yourself stated, in both the 1970s and 1980s, and in the medieval European vagueness that D&D is based on, gay marriage simply wasn't a thing. Homosexuality tended to be secret. So the expected number of explicitly known homosexual characters in D&D during the 1970s isn't even 2% of almost nothing. It's 0% of almost nothing. i.e. zero.

I looked at a similar claim a few years ago. I find that there are many mentions of sexuality other than marriage. Below are some selected NPC descriptions from the original Temple of Elemental Evil. I've highlighted the relationship mention in the quotes below.
The Temple of Elemental Evil is far more verbose than the old school norm, and focuses specifically on a starting village/town/area and tries to create a web of relationships. You'd have a hard time finding anything comparable in any other module. Plus, all those are variations on marriage-lite, so it's just pedantry to argue they're substantially different than references to marriage.

There is an argument to be made that there could be same sex paramours or assignee in Hommlet or Nulb, but since you came up with 5 examples, even one example would 20%, which would be a massive over representation.

Sexuality almost never comes up in D&D.

Chris24601

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #170 on: September 14, 2021, 12:55:52 PM »
For me, the key thing about all these objections is that they simply don't match up to my experience.
Given the number of people disagreeing with your interpretations have you considered the obvious yet? i.e. that your experiences are atypical.

rytrasmi

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #171 on: September 14, 2021, 01:30:49 PM »
It seems like you're arguing that the *only* thing in NPC descriptions should be things which are visible at first glance. So there shouldn't be anything about an NPC's background, or relationships, or hidden motivations.

But that's not how old-school NPC descriptions worked. In reply #159, I just gave a bunch of examples of old-school NPC descriptions that included sexuality by specifying their romantic relationships. That makes sense to me. In real life, sexuality is one of the most powerful of human motivations, and it drives a lot of human behavior. It is featured in most of our popular stories, from Disney cartoons to action movies.
You lost me here. Your examples are stat/background blocks. Do you think the DM introduces Dala by saying "This is Dala. She is a wench. She has 87 GP under her mattress and is the lover of Dick Rentsch. Her hit points are..."? The romance stuff is there for the DM to use when role playing the NPCs. I don't think anyone is arguing that DM eyes only stat/background blocks should be first glance stuff only.

Sexuality is a very narrow motivation. People experience numerous flavors of passion and flesh-on-flesh stuff is merely a subcategory of that, lust if you will. Are you going to fight for your lover because you like inserting appendage A into slot B, or are you going to fight because you love the person? Loving a person has nothing to do with sexuality, the obvious example being family, but also other examples such as platonic love, "preferring the company of men," sharing a bed, etc. Retconning everything back to sex is dull.

The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out
The ones that crawl in are lean and thin
The ones that crawl out are fat and stout
Your eyes fall in and your teeth fall out
Your brains come tumbling down your snout
Be merry my friends
Be merry

jhkim

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #172 on: September 14, 2021, 02:38:40 PM »
But that's not how old-school NPC descriptions worked. In reply #159, I just gave a bunch of examples of old-school NPC descriptions that included sexuality by specifying their romantic relationships. That makes sense to me. In real life, sexuality is one of the most powerful of human motivations, and it drives a lot of human behavior. It is featured in most of our popular stories, from Disney cartoons to action movies.

You lost me here. Your examples are stat/background blocks. Do you think the DM introduces Dala by saying "This is Dala. She is a wench. She has 87 GP under her mattress and is the lover of Dick Rentsch. Her hit points are..."? The romance stuff is there for the DM to use when role playing the NPCs. I don't think anyone is arguing that DM eyes only stat/background blocks should be first glance stuff only.

rytrasmi -- It sounds like you're agreeing with me. Yes, I would also say that including the romance stuff is there for the DM to use when role-playing Dala. This was what Chris24601 said about such material:

So again, including it as a character detail is just virtue signaling and making the players aware of it is as subtle as a random NPC shouting out “I enjoy foot massages” at them... completely out of place and irrelevant to the PC’s interaction with them.

I think including that Dala is Dick Rentsch's lover isn't the equivalent of her shouting it out of place at them. It's a note for the DM on how to role-play her.


Sexuality is a very narrow motivation. People experience numerous flavors of passion and flesh-on-flesh stuff is merely a subcategory of that, lust if you will. Are you going to fight for your lover because you like inserting appendage A into slot B, or are you going to fight because you love the person? Loving a person has nothing to do with sexuality, the obvious example being family, but also other examples such as platonic love, "preferring the company of men," sharing a bed, etc. Retconning everything back to sex is dull.

I don't see what this is in reference to. I would agree that love of family, platonic love, etc. is also important - and I'm fine with including those in NPC descriptions as well. Broadly in this thread, it feels like if I mention a gay NPC in my play, then other posters reply back as if somehow my play consists of nothing but gay romance. By this logic, evidently Temple of Elemental Evil is a romance module all about Dala and Dick.

jhkim

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #173 on: September 14, 2021, 04:05:31 PM »
For me, the key thing about all these objections is that they simply don't match up to my experience.
Given the number of people disagreeing with your interpretations have you considered the obvious yet? i.e. that your experiences are atypical.

Most of the arguments against me have been theoretical rather than expressing people's actual experience. Pundit talked about gay characters in his Albion setting, but he didn't seem to have any problems with them either.


Homosexuality was often restricted and had specific attitudes regarding it in many historical societies. However, there were examples of open homosexuality in many historical societies - from the Greek to the Norse to many others. In general, taking some men out of the gene pool was historically the norm. In Christian Europe that was done mainly via celibate monks and priests. In other societies, though, practices differed.

Never very successfully though. Throughout the middle ages priests and ESPECIALLY Monks had terrible (and apparently well-earned) reputations for sexual lasciviousness with any woman they could get their hands on (often Nuns). To the point that it became a big argument in the Reformation.

Comparatively, cases of "sodomy" were relatively few, though of course they may have been better hidden. But Catholic priests and monks didn't tend to get a reputation for homosexuality until the modern era.

Sorry if I miscommunicated, Pundit. I wasn't trying to imply that priests and monks were generally gay. Rather, I was saying that they didn't generally raise families - and I agree that they were frequently not actually chaste. The licentious priest or monk has been a frequent stereotype in many of my historical games as well. Chris24601 is arguing that in a pseudo-historical setting, everyone had to raise families because it was a struggle to have a next generation. I was saying that even in historical times, it was common for a significant segment to not raise families - like vestal virgins, monks, nuns, etc. They were not chaste, but I'd think that the number of children raised in monasteries and nunneries was much less than the equivalent among married couples.


But in a game like D&D (aka-fantasy) historical accuracy is not really a consideration.
Historical accuracy, no. Cultural verisimilitude though should be a consideration. Sure you can have a term-limited democratically elected 14 year old queen as head of your planetary government (side-eyes George Lucas)... but it makes anyone who stops to think a moment go through at least a bit of cognitive dissonance trying to weld it together.

In the same way, something like homosexual marriage typically requires certain societal conditions in order to be plausible.

I don't speak for Rob here, but from my view, the point is that most players aren't particularly concerned even with cultural verisimilitude in D&D any more than in Star Wars. D&D worlds have frequently have dozens of points where if you stop to think about it, it doesn't make sense -- from the coin economy to castles to religious belief and more.

For a historical setting or a more culturally detailed fantasy setting like Harn, I generally agree. When I've had gay characters in such settings or in historical settings, it's been in ways that fit with the broader society - which wouldn't be like 21st century same-sex marriage.

rytrasmi

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #174 on: September 14, 2021, 04:29:07 PM »
Sexuality is a very narrow motivation. People experience numerous flavors of passion and flesh-on-flesh stuff is merely a subcategory of that, lust if you will. Are you going to fight for your lover because you like inserting appendage A into slot B, or are you going to fight because you love the person? Loving a person has nothing to do with sexuality, the obvious example being family, but also other examples such as platonic love, "preferring the company of men," sharing a bed, etc. Retconning everything back to sex is dull.

I don't see what this is in reference to. I would agree that love of family, platonic love, etc. is also important - and I'm fine with including those in NPC descriptions as well. Broadly in this thread, it feels like if I mention a gay NPC in my play, then other posters reply back as if somehow my play consists of nothing but gay romance. By this logic, evidently Temple of Elemental Evil is a romance module all about Dala and Dick.
I was referring to your statement: "In real life, sexuality is one of the most powerful of human motivations, and it drives a lot of human behavior. It is featured in most of our popular stories, from Disney cartoons to action movies."

I was disagreeing with that. Sexuality is not a motivation. The feeling of passion that is (or may not be) consistent with one's sexuality is a powerful motivation. Nobody charges into battle because of their sexual preferences. It's always for a specific person.

Dala and Dick are lovers. They likely have a sexual relationship, but perhaps not. In the scope of the game, it doesn't matter if they have a sexual relationship, what kind of sex they've had, etc. They are lovers and that is sufficient for their motivation as NPCs, and being lovers is actually greater motivation than whatever flavor of sexuality they have. Dala could be trans, Dick could be gay and closeted, there could be any combination of sexuality between the two. The fact that they are lovers is all we need to know to run them as NPCs.




The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out
The ones that crawl in are lean and thin
The ones that crawl out are fat and stout
Your eyes fall in and your teeth fall out
Your brains come tumbling down your snout
Be merry my friends
Be merry

Shasarak

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #175 on: September 14, 2021, 05:15:21 PM »
Thats the first time I have seen someone seriously wanting to cut descriptive text so that they can fit in more sexual orientation.

Who cares if he has a beard?  Well I guess who ever has to describe him to the players.

Sorry, Shasarak. Sarcasm can be hard to communicate online.


Its probably best to leave it to the experts.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

Chris24601

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #176 on: September 14, 2021, 05:47:24 PM »
Thats the first time I have seen someone seriously wanting to cut descriptive text so that they can fit in more sexual orientation.

Who cares if he has a beard?  Well I guess who ever has to describe him to the players.

Sorry, Shasarak. Sarcasm can be hard to communicate online.


Its probably best to leave it to the experts.
If I ever add a deity of Sarcasm to my setting, it’s name shall be Shasarak.

Shasarak

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #177 on: September 14, 2021, 06:30:33 PM »
Thats the first time I have seen someone seriously wanting to cut descriptive text so that they can fit in more sexual orientation.

Who cares if he has a beard?  Well I guess who ever has to describe him to the players.

Sorry, Shasarak. Sarcasm can be hard to communicate online.


Its probably best to leave it to the experts.
If I ever add a deity of Sarcasm to my setting, it’s name shall be Shasarak.

If you do that then I pledge to buy a copy of this game you always talk about.

Might not play it, but will definitely buy.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

Pat
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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #178 on: September 14, 2021, 06:40:48 PM »
Thats the first time I have seen someone seriously wanting to cut descriptive text so that they can fit in more sexual orientation.

Who cares if he has a beard?  Well I guess who ever has to describe him to the players.

Sorry, Shasarak. Sarcasm can be hard to communicate online.


Its probably best to leave it to the experts.
If I ever add a deity of Sarcasm to my setting, it’s name shall be Shasarak.

If you do that then I pledge to buy a copy of this game you always talk about.

Might not play it, but will definitely buy.
You posted that in black text.

Shasarak

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Re: The Chronic Fatigue Barbarian is a Real (Not Parody) New D&D Subclass
« Reply #179 on: September 14, 2021, 06:50:29 PM »
Thats the first time I have seen someone seriously wanting to cut descriptive text so that they can fit in more sexual orientation.

Who cares if he has a beard?  Well I guess who ever has to describe him to the players.

Sorry, Shasarak. Sarcasm can be hard to communicate online.


Its probably best to leave it to the experts.
If I ever add a deity of Sarcasm to my setting, it’s name shall be Shasarak.

If you do that then I pledge to buy a copy of this game you always talk about.

Might not play it, but will definitely buy.
You posted that in black text.

That was using dark grey text.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus