Quote from: SHARK on September 27, 2021, 05:13:56 PM
You know, everything you said is spot-on. I have always loved TALISLANTA!

But sadly, as a game world and commercial product, it has been consistently rejected, and has been a commercial failure.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Thats what happens when you go up against Big Elf

Quote from: tenbones on September 27, 2021, 04:37:55 PM

Quote from: jhkim on September 27, 2021, 12:36:56 PMI was speaking for myself, and reacting to what you said about non-European settings. If you want to discuss what modern-day SJWs want, I'd want something more specific to talk about. I ran into this recently when discussing with Pundit, and I even bought a copy of Candlekeep Mysteries at Pacificon earlier this month to get an idea about what the controversy was. In the previous thread, he said,

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 03, 2021, 04:35:00 PM
The wheelchair is in Candlekeep, and EVERY dungeon for official D&D from Candlekeep onwards has been wheelchair-accessible. Also, every D&D product from candlekeep onward has featured the wheelchair in art.

However, when I bought Candlekeep Mysteries, I found no wheelchairs of any sort in it, and the dungeons were not wheelchair-accessible. This makes me skeptical of claims. I'm happy to discuss specific authors or products, but discussing what an abstract group of unnamed people thinks isn't helpful in my opinion.

Yep. I hear you on that too. I don't profess to know if it's in the official books. I will not purchase any WotC product. But it's possible that you got an early printing? I dunno.

My question is WHY is this even a topic of discussion in a game about quasi-medieval European fantasy? So you go first: what do you think SJW's want in D&D and tell me at whose expense?

I don't make any particular claims about SJWs. My main RPG discussion forum is here, which only has a handful at most of self-professed SJWs - so I don't follow a lot of the online discussion. On the other hand, I game in one of the most liberal areas in the country - so my actual gaming is strongly liberal. From what I can tell, the liberal crowd are relatively happy with Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and Candlekeep Mysteries - so I'd guess that what they want in D&D is roughly products like that. And that's at the expense of people who like 5E but don't like those products.

Quote from: tenbones on September 27, 2021, 04:37:55 PM
To WotC I say - shit or get off the pot. Create a Blue Rose on Roids setting and go wild. Don't sneak in ingredients to established settings that have no well crafted contextual reality to be there.

So, you're making demands that WotC should make products the way you like them, instead of making products that others like?

You're welcome to express your preferences - and if you are representative of a large enough market share, then game companies will do well to listen. On the other hand, I don't believe in any sort of purity test for established settings. Settings change, just like rules editions change. Sometimes I like the changes, sometimes I don't. For example, I thought Champions got better through 4th edition, but then it got worse with Fuzion and 5th and 6th editions.

All of this is just different tastes in games.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 27, 2021, 05:48:53 PM

Quote from: SHARK on September 27, 2021, 05:13:56 PM
You know, everything you said is spot-on. I have always loved TALISLANTA!

But sadly, as a game world and commercial product, it has been consistently rejected, and has been a commercial failure.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Thats what happens when you go up against Big Elf

Greetings!

YEP! I remember that ad for Talislanta, too. I still have the original edition of Talislanta from the 1980's, all in mint condition. I also have two of the giant blue book editions--I think that was 4th-edition Talislanta. I remember when Talislanta advertised all the time in issues of Dragon Magazine! Great game world, very original, and interesting. The four initial books were softcovers--well, in truth, nearly every subsequent supplement for Talislanta was also softcover--they were produced well, with good writing, editing, layout, and consistently good, solid black-and-white art. As a second-tier game product line, it had everything, and was produced as about as good as it gets. It was a bit below D&D at the time in production values, but not by much. Talislanta was a top-notch product, and produced with obvious creativity, passion, dedication, and talent. None the less, as Tenbones described, Talislanta has always been a commercial failure, kept alive only by the company's passion to soldier on, and small pockets of devoted fans that continued to patronize the Talislanta game whenever they could do so. At various times I attempted to introduce Talislanta to my game groups--and they looked at me like I had a third eye growing out of my forehead! D&D was where it was at--and D&D with added GONZO was also good. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay gained some traction, but again, all centered in Western European foundations. Talislanta? Just too strange and unrelatable.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim on September 22, 2021, 07:30:57 PM

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on September 22, 2021, 05:21:08 PM
The problem is that I simply don't include it because that's not my style, Miss Red Panda is Mr. Red Panda's fiance and in Elsben he (gasp!) heroically protects her from an Elsbenian knight several times his size. But leftists will DEMAND all of the "inclusiveness" even in a game where sex does not play a role. If someone wants to have a game with homosexual characters then either I won't play or- if it's not about virtue signalling- simply not care.

I'm fine with you running things because that's your style -- but if other people run things in a different style, I've got no problem with that either. There's always a subset of people who will DEMAND that things be run according to their style, but they don't actually have the power to do so in my games.

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on September 22, 2021, 05:21:08 PM
By the way, has anyone noticed how radical feminism fouls up hero's journeys? If a male hero is up against a female villain he is not allowed to pummel her into defeat so in such cases a third party- apparently in a "Thor" movie it was some sort of titanic lava monster- must finish the job. This is "deus ex machina" and is not very satisfying, heck even a later Dungeon Master's guide said it was bad gaming- it's not much better in a superhero movie.

I believe you're talking about Thor: Ragnarok, which is a movie I loved. I'm happy to discuss it with you - but since you apparently haven't seen it or even know it's name, that seems tricky. Do you mind spoilers? I thought the ending was a great, and it wasn't at all a deus ex machina - since it was through the protagonists' agency. Having the evil villain caught in their exploding base, or dropped into a volcano, or eaten by their own monster is a very old trope for action movies - and not a signal of radical feminism, in my opinion.

If that's all there was to it- a sort of Frankenstein's Monster destroying its creator situation- then that would be fine, but you must know as well as I do that that was not the reason- in today's politically correct climate a male hero is NOT allowed to beat up any woman, even a villainess. That is feminism in a nutshell: equality except when it costs something.

I saw that scene in one of The Critical Drinker's videos on the subject. After "The Force Awakens" I have not set foot in a movie theater since, I will NOT give one penny to people who clearly despise me- which Hollywood does.

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on September 27, 2021, 07:26:16 PM

Quote from: jhkim on September 22, 2021, 07:30:57 PM

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on September 22, 2021, 05:21:08 PM
By the way, has anyone noticed how radical feminism fouls up hero's journeys? If a male hero is up against a female villain he is not allowed to pummel her into defeat so in such cases a third party- apparently in a "Thor" movie it was some sort of titanic lava monster- must finish the job. This is "deus ex machina" and is not very satisfying, heck even a later Dungeon Master's guide said it was bad gaming- it's not much better in a superhero movie.

I believe you're talking about Thor: Ragnarok, which is a movie I loved. I'm happy to discuss it with you - but since you apparently haven't seen it or even know it's name, that seems tricky. Do you mind spoilers? I thought the ending was a great, and it wasn't at all a deus ex machina - since it was through the protagonists' agency. Having the evil villain caught in their exploding base, or dropped into a volcano, or eaten by their own monster is a very old trope for action movies - and not a signal of radical feminism, in my opinion.

If that's all there was to it- a sort of Frankenstein's Monster destroying its creator situation- then that would be fine, but you must know as well as I do that that was not the reason- in today's politically correct climate a male hero is NOT allowed to beat up any woman, even a villainess. That is feminism in a nutshell: equality except when it costs something.

I saw that scene in one of The Critical Drinker's videos on the subject.

I agree there's a rule about male heroes not beating up women - but it isn't a new rule invented by radical feminists. It's an extremely old rule that's been in place for decades. I agree that it's a dumb rule that should be retired. I had no problem when Wolverine beat up Mystique and Deathstrike in earlier Marvel-based movies, for example. Actually, X2 is one of my favorite superhero movies.

But what you're arguing is the inverse -- that a male hero always has to beat up a female villain. He's not *allowed* to win by dropping the villain into a volcano, trapping them in their exploding base, etc. - which frequently happen to male villains. Hence it's not allowed for Thor to win over Hel by any way other than beating her up. I think imposing such a rule would be just as dumb.

The ending for Thor: Ragnarok is definitely *not* a deus ex machina - and I think it follows well from the premises of the movie. Spoilers follow...

If you think the ending is a deus ex machina from just watching that scene, you may have missed the opening scene. In it, Thor plays dumb to learn how Surtur will destroy Asgard. Thor then defeats him and captures his crown to prevent Ragnarok. However, over the course of the film, he also learns that Hel's power comes from Asgard itself. I'm not saying you will like it, but it's false to call it a deus ex machina. The ending comes from Thor's choice to destroy Asgard, which he made possible by defeating Surtur and learning his secret. It's an expression of protagonist agency and has been set up through the whole movie.

If you want an example of bad politically correct influenced writing in Thor: Ragnarok, surely Valkyrie controlling Thor with an electric taser thingy is the obvious example?  As JHKim says, Hel & her defeat was actually well set up. 

I found the big problem in Thor: Ragnarok was how it gave up character integrity for comedy. And Feminist-influenced tropes certainly fed in there.

Quote from: S'mon on September 28, 2021, 02:19:19 AM
If you want an example of bad politically correct influenced writing in Thor: Ragnarok, surely Valkyrie controlling Thor with an electric taser thingy is the obvious example?  As JHKim says, Hel & her defeat was actually well set up. 

I found the big problem in Thor: Ragnarok was how it gave up character integrity for comedy. And Feminist-influenced tropes certainly fed in there.

There's a running gag of Thor being weirdly vulnerable to being tasered, despite being the god of thunder.

Quote from: jhkim on September 27, 2021, 05:53:48 PM
I don't make any particular claims about SJWs. My main RPG discussion forum is here, which only has a handful at most of self-professed SJWs - so I don't follow a lot of the online discussion. On the other hand, I game in one of the most liberal areas in the country - so my actual gaming is strongly liberal. From what I can tell, the liberal crowd are relatively happy with Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and Candlekeep Mysteries - so I'd guess that what they want in D&D is roughly products like that. And that's at the expense of people who like 5E but don't like those products.

If you mean liberal - you mean those people into BLM, Social Justice, and the rest of the elements coming from the left, I would disagree that those things are "liberal". The elements in question are all purity tests for their orthodoxy. As I'll point out below.

Quote from: jhkim on September 27, 2021, 05:53:48 PM
So, you're making demands that WotC should make products the way you like them, instead of making products that others like?

Completely false set of choices. I literally posted the *exact* opposite in the post you quoted from. Those kinds of games with those kinds of interests - LGBT, Body Positivity, Disabled gaming, Pan-Gendered fantasy, Abortion Spells, Blackcentric-cum-white-genocide fantasy, whatever their pet axe-grinding thing is - *should* exist if they want it. Those things should be made in their own setting(s) and WotC should make them if that's what they want to make.

Here's the funny thing if you say you don't want those elements in your game setting, to *any* degree - you're a Nazi. Conversely, the elements of the game that have been traditionally emphasized which comports towards non-modern political, quasi-European historical elements from which all of this stuff came - if you want more of those things, you're a Nazi. Hence, this is not "inclusivity" at all. It's orthodoxy. It's illiberal. I'm not saying any of these elements can't exist - I'm saying they should be put in a clearer context that everyone can exept.

They, and you - based on your question, fall into the Post-Modern fallacy of conflation of all things (in this case these new elements) being equal without discernment. They're not. The vast majority of people are *not* into these things in their daily life. For the same reason that settings like Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, etc which are based on analog *actual* historical cultures didn't sell well - the Leftists twats at WotC insert this stuff into D&D where they can, into the main line because they either don't have the skill to pull it off as an ongoing product, or the market doesn't really exist for it. This is what makes their choice so insidious - people that have this pathological view as their reality assume outliers are equal to the norm, but they're too cynical to actually pull the trigger and make their own setting based on their alleged beliefs. And we all know why (see: Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, Nyambe, Sword Lesbians, etc. - they start great, after a year they die.)

Quote from: jhkim on September 27, 2021, 05:53:48 PMYou're welcome to express your preferences - and if you are representative of a large enough market share, then game companies will do well to listen.

Yep. And thus I vote with my wallet. The cynical reality as I pointed out above is WotC apparently would rather burn through it's IP's intrinsic value on its core audience by inserting these elements into their core line, and emphasizing their real-world politics vs. making a setting that actually exemplifies those supposed visions. And I'm perfectly happy taking them at their word and leaving, but I'm taking my considerable sums of money I spend in this hobby with me and happily giving it to others that make games more to my tastes.

This is a short-term thing for WotC - much like Marvel. They'll burn through their core base - and they'll take it further with their next edition which will alienate more.

Quote from: jhkim on September 27, 2021, 05:53:48 PMOn the other hand, I don't believe in any sort of purity test for established settings. Settings change, just like rules editions change. Sometimes I like the changes, sometimes I don't. For example, I thought Champions got better through 4th edition, but then it got worse with Fuzion and 5th and 6th editions.

So you do have some kind of purity test then. You DO make some discernment - you like what you like. You don't like Fuzion (who does?). But those are systems, not setting conceits. For instance - I like Greybox 1e Forgotten Realms, and I'm a huge fan of 2e. But the setting elements and metaplots of 3e got atrocious. The ELEMENTS made the setting worse. I don't give a shit about the Seven Sisters, and Drizzt now being everywhere and doing everything, and stupid shit like Spellfire (which is a 2e thing they rolled further with), I don't give a crap about their modules which pushed their increasingly stupid metaplotlines over gazeteer materials.

Just like I don't like the assumption that everything written in the rules is now assumed to be present in the setting without context. This is what degrades the basic assumptions of the original works.

Yes things change. That's obvious. But you fail to discern whether they change for the BETTER. I have no obligation to consume *bad* things. Which if WotC were neutral in their presentation of these stupid ideas like the Combat Wheelchair, and their personal politics, that too could be ignored. But they don't. Their employees that push this stuff in Social media to promote these elements cast me as an actual enemy to them - not their game we share.

Even if I *liked* the system (which I don't) I'm not going to monetarily support people who vociferously support politics that I actually find harmful. But if those politics didn't exist in the orbit of the game? I'd probably still be a consumer of WotC products - which I think most of their current herd does. They don't pay attention to what their choices, they just consume the brands they know without thought.

I'm a conscientious consumer for the most part - but in my hobbies, I take it a level further.

Quote from: jhkim on September 27, 2021, 05:53:48 PMAll of this is just different tastes in games.

No. There is more nuance than "different tastes". The game of Monopoly isn't the same as Stock Market. Both boardgames loosely about elements of capitalism but not the same game. RPG's clearly more complex. D&D has traditionally been about Western European fantasy and myth. Modern politics are *new* elements now informing the game. They shouldn't be there. Feel free to disagree, the problem is many of us that believe there is way of having your cake and eating it too - are labeled as Nazis, for suggesting THEIR way is the wrong way.

I'm perfectly fine for SJW themed games to exist. As are the vast majority of people on this very forum. But SJW's don't want *us* to exist. OUR games and settings are "problematic" *because* we don't have their elements in OUR games.

Therein is the issue.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 28, 2021, 09:06:50 AM

Quote from: S'mon on September 28, 2021, 02:19:19 AM
If you want an example of bad politically correct influenced writing in Thor: Ragnarok, surely Valkyrie controlling Thor with an electric taser thingy is the obvious example?  As JHKim says, Hel & her defeat was actually well set up. 

I found the big problem in Thor: Ragnarok was how it gave up character integrity for comedy. And Feminist-influenced tropes certainly fed in there.

There's a running gag of Thor being weirdly vulnerable to being tasered, despite being the god of thunder.

Agreed that it was a plot hole. They could have found a better mechanism by which the control collars worked and how Thor got one on him. Given the Grandmaster's advanced technology, I think there were lots of possible explanations for a control device which would have left the rest of the movie unchanged.

But I think this is getting off-topic. I agree there are feminist-influenced tropes in general, but I don't think this plot hole is radical feminism either. Lots of sci-fi movies have had a device like a control collar put on the heroes.

The funny part about the MCU - specifically with their feminist push leader - Captain Marvel, is she's very unheroic. One of the motivating factors that makes her so unlikable is her pathological need to "prove herself" against men as being a primary motivation over the relative actions going on around her.

I watched the the latest What If ... and it was godawful. They make Thor and incompetent moron, and Captain Marvel goes straight in swinging (and of course is kicking Thor's ass) with zero interplay "because stupid man". This is an extraordinary stupid version of Thor and a complete deviation from him in both the MCU pre-Thor, and let's be honest, Captain Marvel is never and has never been more powerful than Thor. That has always been Stan Lee's mantra - Thor is the most powerful hero. But with the MCU... Grrl Power prevails - which is funny, because the only principle which the MCU Captain Marvel character operates from is the execution of power on others driven by the fact she's a woman, not because of any moral or ethical value, which is the hallmark of a villain not a hero.

I'm still waiting for what is "representation" and why, and how, it should be represented in our gaming/pop culture.

Because I do not base my identity on pop-culture representations or lack thereof.

Maybe the problem is the people demanding this are the damaged folks that do?

Quote from: tenbones on September 28, 2021, 12:30:34 PM
I'm still waiting for what is "representation" and why, and how, it should be represented in our gaming/pop culture.

Because I do not base my identity on pop-culture representations or lack thereof.

Maybe the problem is the people demanding this are the damaged folks that do?

Keep an eye on "Translations from the Wokish", they will get to it sooner or latter.

https://newdiscourses.com/translations-from-the-wokish/

Oh nice! The online Bible for the Woke!

From my perspective in the UK. Things have actually become LESS diverse. When I was first going to my local Games Workshop as a young kid there were all sorts of people there. Now to be fair, it was mostly white people and as we lived in a deprived area it wasn't seen as "cool" to play Warhammer or RPGs. But we had a few people who ticked all the (then) progressive boxes. And no one cared about any intangible aspects of a person. Most people came from hard up areas and at that time it was still feasible to spend saved up pocket money on a box of Marines or a vehicle if they were a big spender. One of our best tournament players was a girl who collected Dark Eldar and Slannesh demons. What I saw a lot of at the time was really badly behaved people getting a pass. For whatever reason the manager at that GW was one anemic sod. We had this one really nasty 12 year old who would bully the other younger kids and if he lost a game he'd start throwing your minis at you in a tantrum. He was banned and promptly let back in several times. And this resulted in a lot of people leaving the hobby just before the first big price increase I remember shortly after 5th edition 40k came out.

Eventually an LGS opened up near me and again, lots of diversity there. Lots of great people. And lots of the same bastards who made people leave. When all this stupidity over SJW bullshit happened, a lot of those bastards decided to take advantage of that. These middle to upper class white men decided that they were Attack Helicopters or whatever was popular at the time. And suddenly you couldn't just tell them to fuck off when they did stupid shit. Which led yet again to people fleeing the hobby. Round about 2015 is when I noticed women were appearing less and less at my LGS. Less non white people, less diversity, hell less young people. Last I checked my LGS was a hive of really obnoxious and toxic 20-50 year olds who've driven everyone interesting away so they can have a hug box where those evil people outside can't accidentally misgender people constantly changing their pronouns. And they can have their autistic tantrums in peace. I think the LGS in question just pivoted hard to selling MTG cards and nothing else. So they can coast along just fine.

Quote from: tenbones on September 28, 2021, 10:29:13 AM

Quote from: jhkim on September 27, 2021, 05:53:48 PMAll of this is just different tastes in games.

No. There is more nuance than "different tastes". The game of Monopoly isn't the same as Stock Market. Both boardgames loosely about elements of capitalism but not the same game. RPG's clearly more complex. D&D has traditionally been about Western European fantasy and myth. Modern politics are *new* elements now informing the game. They shouldn't be there.

D&D is a brand that had produced hundreds of products in dozens of lines over more than four decades. There are going to be and must be new elements. Different editions or products might be more or less to my tastes, I don't think it's invalid to put in new elements. For example, if the brand owner wants to take Western European D&D and add East Asian martial-arts characters as a new core class - well, that's their choice. If some gamers don't want East Asian martial arts characters in their D&D, they can stick to the previous edition - or they can disallow that class in their home games. And just like monks were added, other new elements like warlocks, dragonborn, and so forth have been added.

This fundamentally is just about different taste in games. You don't like what fans of the current D&D like - but conversely, if D&D were published according to the way you like, then the fans of current D&D would not like it.

But, particularly with D&D which was released under the OGL, it's easy to have both. The older editions are still available, and there are tons of retro-clones and other OSR games.

Quote from: tenbones on September 28, 2021, 10:29:13 AM
Feel free to disagree, the problem is many of us that believe there is way of having your cake and eating it too - are labeled as Nazis, for suggesting THEIR way is the wrong way.

I'm perfectly fine for SJW themed games to exist. As are the vast majority of people on this very forum. But SJW's don't want *us* to exist. OUR games and settings are "problematic" *because* we don't have their elements in OUR games.

So if blatantly SJW-themed games like _Thirsty Sword Lesbians_ or _Coyote & Crow_ get published, then you wouldn't have any problem with it? If so, great - but as far as I can tell, the posting history in this forum says that's a minority view. Many if not most posters here had major problems with those games, as shown by the threads with hundreds of posts bitching about them.

There is a subset of people from both political sides who just want to play their games and aren't interested in changing the other side's gaming. I think there are actually plenty of these players - more than implied by the loudness in online forums.