Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 01, 2021, 11:13:16 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 01, 2021, 11:01:51 PMI'm not sure if we're disagreeing. I'm opposed to both quotas and bans. There should be gay characters in a module if the author imagines them and wants them there. As far as I know, the gay characters that have appeared in modules are the result of author choice - not an enforced editorial quota.

Im playing Psychonauts 2. It has a ton of great characters. Some of those great characters are also gay. All fine by me.

But there are more forces at work here then just qoutas or bans. The cultural forces that led to qoutas being put into place, and the mobs that are created in support or destruction of something.
Have you REALLY not witnessed any such cultural forces?
Why is it the authors choice to stress that the characters are gay and not that their italians? Why has it become a talking point AT ALL, is the entire discussion point.

"It's not censorship if the author chooses to change shit to get the cannibals off of his back" Of course I doubt jhkim will aknowledge the cannibal mob even exists.

Quote from: jhkim on October 01, 2021, 10:31:46 PM
But some posters like tenbones and S'mon are saying ​roughly, "There's nothing wrong with gay characters in modules. The problem is just that they don't fit with the established settings."

You know I didn't say that, though. I'm broadly in favour of having homosexual characters in published settings, and it can be done well*. Eg Paizo when created Sandpoint in 2007 for Rise of the Runelords, there's a male homosexual couple. The liberal-minded Sandpoint folk mostly think it's a bit odd, but don't worry about it. This fitted in well with the general vibe of Golarion as created. But most stuff from ca 2012 on feels different; like they don't care how incongruous the gay or trans etc characters are, and in particular how the surrounding society regards them as normative; in fact the writers seem to take delight in beating the reader over the head with SEE!! SEE!!! To some extent that's true of POC inserts too, especially when they're race swapping existing characters. Some random character in the middle of the northern wilds is suddenly African-American.

*A recent example I can think of is in Odyssey of the Dragon Lords (2020) which I've just started running. The Amazons of Themis use men for breeding, but their loves & life mates are female. The description riffs well off actual Greek Amazon mythology + the Theban Sacred Band, and does not feel incongruous at all. Conversely in the frontier city of Estoria there's a minor male character with a 'husband' and a missing daughter, but no attempt to explain what 'husband' might mean in this pseudo-Greek setting, or how he has a daughter. The latter bugged me a bit. If they'd wanted modern style gay marriage to be a thing in Estoria, they could at least have taken a couple lines to describe how this worked.
Odyssey also does an 'everywhere is multi-racial' thing, but at least they explain this in the setting background, with the human population descended from centuries of shipwrecks from all over the multiverse. It can occasionally feel slightly 'off' in that most characters should probably look more multi-racial by default, rather than white-black-Asian, but at least there is an explanation good enough for handwavium.

Quote from: S'mon on October 02, 2021, 02:41:09 AM
You know I didn't say that, though. I'm broadly in favour of having homosexual characters in published settings, and it can be done well*. Eg Paizo when created Sandpoint in 2007 for Rise of the Runelords, there's a male homosexual couple. The liberal-minded Sandpoint folk mostly think it's a bit odd, but don't worry about it. This fitted in well with the general vibe of Golarion as created. But most stuff from ca 2012 on feels different; like they don't care how incongruous the gay or trans etc characters are, and in particular how the surrounding society regards them as normative; in fact the writers seem to take delight in beating the reader over the head with SEE!! SEE!!!

I apologize for misrepresenting you, then. It might help to discuss particular examples. I haven't read Rise of the Runelords, for what it's worth.

Quote from: jhkim on October 02, 2021, 03:21:59 AM
I apologize for misrepresenting you, then. It might help to discuss particular examples. I haven't read Rise of the Runelords, for what it's worth.

If you've not read RoTR you've probably not read Wrath of the Righteous, then? Pretty sure I've discussed it before. Guess it might have been on RPGnet, back when you could still sort of discuss stuff.

Quote from: jhkim on October 01, 2021, 10:31:46 PM
And the latest trend is diversity & representation. Why is it the latest trend and why is rejecting it seen as somekind of blasthemy is the question here.

Because in the 80's and 90's - it was not about politics and more about actually trying to put elements into the D&D brand that were fantastical that players might appreciate as part of the product. It wasn't to show Asians, and Hispanics or Middle-Eastern people "representation". At least for the Forgotten Realms, Maztica not withstanding, it was because these cultures had a footholds into the pop-culture of the west - Arabian Nights, and Kung-fu cinema, both of which were strong in their own unique fantasy elements with very well established tropes.

It had nothing to do with people's personal agenda, political or otherwise. It was designed to enrich the game. That people didn't buy enough of these products to keep these lines going could be due to a number of reasons, not the least of which is lack of interest. It could be marketing, it could be a host of reasons.

And non-white around the world did not give a shit that these lines didn't continue. Nor did anyone scream racism.

Quote from: jhkim on October 01, 2021, 10:31:46 PMIf someone opposes gay characters in modules on general principles that gay characters are bad, then this argument works.

But some posters like tenbones and S'mon are saying ​roughly, "There's nothing wrong with gay characters in modules. The problem is just that they don't fit with the established settings."

But there have been a ton of major changes in the D&D settings. Opposing all the other changes in D&D would at least be consistent - but even then, that doesn't mean it's right.

As for homosexuality - I'm loathe to compare sexuality to ethnicity as a "group" because they're not the same thing. SJW's do this for, again, political purposes. There are gay people that *detest* "LGBT-culture" that SJW's prop-up enmasse with their hysteria machine.

Again - since D&D has always been traditionally pretty tepid on sex in their game - even as early as 2nd Edition they had gay characters (the rulers of Elversult, which coincidentally is where some of my longest campaigns were situated. Yanseldara and Lady Hawklyn were prominent NPC's in my own campaign for *decades*). Greenwood has sprinkled other gay/bi characters into the Realms for years but never beat us over the head with it because no Rainbow-flag waving retrograde thinking morons made a cult out of it - because it wasn't necessary. Nor did Greenwood think it proper to be an element of political necessity or need because fantasy-elf games are about killing orcs, and getting gold.

SJW's have this de-humanizing need to put people into boxes and categories for the purposes of deracinating others in order to control them.

"Change" for change's sake is not a GOOD thing. The ends never justify the means. SJW's do not understand this because they're pathologically post-modern in their view of reality. They can't discern WHY minorities are minorities, only that they believe all things "should be equal" when they aren't for very good reasons. I can't go to China and demand muh Filipino rights of the Chinese (yeah fuck your spring rolls, Filipino lumpia rocks all over yours) and this made up LGBT culture has no "right" to put its interests over those that have no interest in their sub-culture.

The interest of representation by largely white-leftists will *destroy* any other culture it touches. Because SJW Representation is about niche and minority views of their host culture. LATINX is *not* Latino culture. Latinos vastly do not like this SJW attempt at co-opting them. Not all gays enjoy LGBT representation of the San Francisco Gay Pride variety - which is pretty perverted given how they perform in the streets in front of kids. Under the auspices of "minorities can do no wrong" is a perfect example of how they coerce people to excuse any perceived excess lest they tar-and-feather you for criticizing them - with being a racist and homophobe.

SJW's are playing with fire. Representation is earned not demanded. No one owes anyone a spot on the stage - you want representation: go make the thing worthy of people's attention and money.

Don't be a parasite on established cultures at their own expense. <--- this is something SJW's don't understand. BEING an SJW can only happen because of the cultural structures that they are trying to tear down. Once those things are gone, the whole SJW concept will, itself, get destroyed by the SJW's themselves, if not from the backlash they will create.

Edit: TL/DR - I'm totally fine with gay characters as long as they're contextually appropriate. I don't need to have modern views of political LGBT culture as wink/wink examples of out of setting nods to their political constituents. Just like I don't need token filipinos wandering around Cormyr because some asshole at WotC reads this forum and sees my posts and feels sorry for filipinos all of a sudden.

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 10:03:24 AM
Again - since D&D has always been traditionally pretty tepid on sex in their game - even as early as 2nd Edition they had gay characters (the rulers of Elversult, which coincidentally is where some of my longest campaigns were situated. Yanseldara and Lady Hawklyn were prominent NPC's in my own campaign for *decades*).

Did they ever explicitly say Vaerna and Yanseldara were gay, in 2e? I only have Forgotten Realms Adventures, which left room for that interpretation, but it required quite a bit of extrapolation to get there. Checking, the most suggestive part is a statement that Vaerna is "Yanseldara's deeply trusted companion, strong right arm, and former adventuring comrade", and that they live together in the "Ladytowers". So really nothing. Gay? Not gay? Up to you. Which is par for the course, when it comes to all forms of sexuality in early D&D.

Quote from: S'mon on October 02, 2021, 03:26:05 AM

Quote from: jhkim on October 02, 2021, 03:21:59 AM
I apologize for misrepresenting you, then. It might help to discuss particular examples. I haven't read Rise of the Runelords, for what it's worth.

If you've not read RoTR you've probably not read Wrath of the Righteous, then? Pretty sure I've discussed it before. Guess it might have been on RPGnet, back when you could still sort of discuss stuff.

Correct, I haven't read either.

As a generality, something that I note in D&D setting material is that they tend to ignore both social class and gender in a way that doesn't fit at all with real-world history. That's been the general tone of D&D from the start. Gender meant only a very minor strength limit in AD&D1 and no change in any other character skills, ability, or relation to the world. Social class wasn't mentioned at all. D&D characters have no defined social class - only money.

That's very different from how I handled gender and social class in my pseudo-historical games, for example. It took a fair amount of creative work between me and the players to include female characters and especially mixed-gender groups in my pseudo-historical games. Gender was something that frequently came up. But in D&D, I've generally ignored that - which has meant that I've defaulted to an ahistorical gender equality. It's a similar with social class. Having Skallagrim gain his own land after success in raids was a huge deal in my vikings game.

I think it's a question of taste whether one prefers this. Some would argue that its simpler and helps getting straight to the fantasy adventure stuff -- similar to having a "Common" language, universal base-10 coinage, and fixed prices around the world. There are GMs who make their D&D worlds more immersive with mixed languages, unique coinage, social class, and gender roles. But a lot of them default to ahistorical.

Similar issues apply to issues like sexuality, marriage, lineage, and inheritance. I'd agree that same-sex marriage (for example) is ahistorical, but like with these other issues, matching history is a matter of taste - not an absolute.

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 10:03:24 AM
Representation is earned not demanded. No one owes anyone a spot on the stage - you want representation: go make the thing worthy of people's attention and money.

Don't be a parasite on established cultures at their own expense. <--- this is something SJW's don't understand.

This is something I agree about. If one wants game products like X, then make game products like X. It's fine to make one's preferences as a customer clear, but in the bigger picture, if a large group wants something, they need to make it.

I'm absolutely with OSR people who want old-school style games, and then make and play such games.

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 10:03:24 AM
Edit: TL/DR - I'm totally fine with gay characters as long as they're contextually appropriate. I don't need to have modern views of political LGBT culture as wink/wink examples of out of setting nods to their political constituents. Just like I don't need token filipinos wandering around Cormyr because some asshole at WotC reads this forum and sees my posts and feels sorry for filipinos all of a sudden.

But as you said, no one owes you anything. If you want contextually-appropriate gay characters, then make modules with contextually-appropriate gay characters. If WotC makes modules that aren't to your tastes, that's them doing their thing and they have no obligation to make what you want.

Quote from: jhkim on October 04, 2021, 12:59:53 PM

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 10:03:24 AM
Representation is earned not demanded. No one owes anyone a spot on the stage - you want representation: go make the thing worthy of people's attention and money.

Don't be a parasite on established cultures at their own expense. <--- this is something SJW's don't understand.

This is something I agree about. If one wants game products like X, then make game products like X. It's fine to make one's preferences as a customer clear, but in the bigger picture, if a large group wants something, they need to make it.

I'm absolutely with OSR people who want old-school style games, and then make and play such games.

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 10:03:24 AM
Edit: TL/DR - I'm totally fine with gay characters as long as they're contextually appropriate. I don't need to have modern views of political LGBT culture as wink/wink examples of out of setting nods to their political constituents. Just like I don't need token filipinos wandering around Cormyr because some asshole at WotC reads this forum and sees my posts and feels sorry for filipinos all of a sudden.

But as you said, no one owes you anything. If you want contextually-appropriate gay characters, then make modules with contextually-appropriate gay characters. If WotC makes modules that aren't to your tastes, that's them doing their thing and they have no obligation to make what you want.

  Incorrect, they have an absolute obligation to make what customers want and will pay for.  This is why they shoehorn their current year perspectives into established settings and games instead of simply making a game where those things make sense.  They want to have and to eat their cake.  If lots and lots of people are asking for those things in modules, so be it.  They are not however.  They just get crammed in so a massive corporation can "check a box" and cash a check at the same time.  There is a reason this is always a very, very gradual creep in the direction they are going. 

Quote from: Pat on October 04, 2021, 10:38:58 AM

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 10:03:24 AM
Again - since D&D has always been traditionally pretty tepid on sex in their game - even as early as 2nd Edition they had gay characters (the rulers of Elversult, which coincidentally is where some of my longest campaigns were situated. Yanseldara and Lady Hawklyn were prominent NPC's in my own campaign for *decades*).

Did they ever explicitly say Vaerna and Yanseldara were gay, in 2e? I only have Forgotten Realms Adventures, which left room for that interpretation, but it required quite a bit of extrapolation to get there. Checking, the most suggestive part is a statement that Vaerna is "Yanseldara's deeply trusted companion, strong right arm, and former adventuring comrade", and that they live together in the "Ladytowers". So really nothing. Gay? Not gay? Up to you. Which is par for the course, when it comes to all forms of sexuality in early D&D.

During the 2e-era, I think it was highly suggestive. I just ran with it. My players thought it was cool how I handled it, I kept it discrete because POWER - ruling without producing heirs is/was and issue in monarchies etc. In fact that was at one point one of the sub-plots of our long-standing campaign, some of the PC's having become powerful enough to be in her orbit finding someone to potentially fulfil her monarchial duties with. In the end she ended up adopting an infant the PC's rescued...

So yeah, *I* made her gay overtly. Again, it's implied, and I simply contextualized. And I think that's how it should be. This is why Thirsty Sword Lesbians exists as it does - its not trying to look like what the Realms of 1e/2e era is trying to present.

But they want Thirsty Sword Lesbians in everything. And they want pretty much anything associated with western European culture downplayed for their own weirdo sensibilities, not their core audience.*

* The Core Audience has changed - since they're not catering to long-haul campaign playing, they are shoe-horning in modern politics as promulgated in the rest of pop-culture and media (and the education system) into the game. I'm banking on this catching up with them.

They don't want me, or my gold. And I'm fine with that. I sure as hell don't need some Leftist pretending to represent me in some tokenized fashion for them to score points with each other in their cult.

Quote from: jhkim on October 04, 2021, 12:59:53 PM

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 10:03:24 AM
Edit: TL/DR - I'm totally fine with gay characters as long as they're contextually appropriate. I don't need to have modern views of political LGBT culture as wink/wink examples of out of setting nods to their political constituents. Just like I don't need token filipinos wandering around Cormyr because some asshole at WotC reads this forum and sees my posts and feels sorry for filipinos all of a sudden.

But as you said, no one owes you anything. If you want contextually-appropriate gay characters, then make modules with contextually-appropriate gay characters. If WotC makes modules that aren't to your tastes, that's them doing their thing and they have no obligation to make what you want.

That's correct. They *don't* owe me anything. They're trying to sell me a product. If they're trying to sell me something I don't want - I don't buy it. Better still - their creators are on social media saying they don't want people with "wrong thoughts" buying their work. Fair play. Done and done.

But this thread is about the "importance of Diversity and Representation" - how is it important? The hidden clause here is that if you don't agree with how that "Representation and Diversity" is portrayed then what? You're a monster.

So it's not that WotC is even really trying to sell me something - they're turning it into a litmus test for the Cannibal cult. WotC has not given us "representation". They've given us tokenized caricatures of what those that ascribe to their Woke culture *believe* about POC's and LGBT folks and any other "minority" status they can invent out of thin air for the purposes of bludgeoning other with. So WotC doesn't even believe this is "representation" - of what? This is to assuage the monsters in their midst (which may only exist in their own minds) that *they* are not the racists they pretend they're against. (while treating white people that don't agree with them - and anyone else for that matter, as Nazis.)

TSR? They showed diversity - they tried to give us settings in actual non-European context. Still, imo, some of the best stuff they've ever done. WotC isn't even *trying*. Instead they're coercing people by sprinkling little bits of this non-contextual garbage into established settings for the purposes of marking their territory like jackals, pissing in our collective yards and daring to attack you if you say otherwise.

WotC like all these other corporations are mining the IP for what its worth and producing dogshit for the brand-loyalists to consume. As they say there's good news and bad news... the bad news being it's dogshit. The good news is there plenty of it to eat.

Quote from: oggsmash on October 04, 2021, 01:38:13 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 04, 2021, 12:59:53 PM
But as you said, no one owes you anything. If you want contextually-appropriate gay characters, then make modules with contextually-appropriate gay characters. If WotC makes modules that aren't to your tastes, that's them doing their thing and they have no obligation to make what you want.

  Incorrect, they have an absolute obligation to make what customers want and will pay for.  This is why they shoehorn their current year perspectives into established settings and games instead of simply making a game where those things make sense.  They want to have and to eat their cake.  If lots and lots of people are asking for those things in modules, so be it.  They are not however.  They just get crammed in so a massive corporation can "check a box" and cash a check at the same time.  There is a reason this is always a very, very gradual creep in the direction they are going.

I disagree. Customers don't own the company. If a Christian shop owner wants to stay closed on Sunday, even if the customers want to buy from the store then - that's their right. If an environmentalist shop owner wants to not provide disposable plastic bags even if the customers want them, that's also their right. If a game developer wants to make modules however they want, that's their right.

Of course, it's also the customers' right to not buy from them if they don't like it.

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 02:12:52 PM
WotC isn't even *trying*. Instead they're coercing people by sprinkling little bits of this non-contextual garbage into established settings for the purposes of marking their territory like jackals, pissing in our collective yards and daring to attack you if you say otherwise.

(bolding above is mine) I fundamentally disagree that WotC is coercing people by including any sort of content in their modules - whether that's gay NPCs or anything else. Whatever they want to print in their modules is just fucking words on a page. No one is being coerced by the printing of fictional game content.

Quote from: jhkim on October 04, 2021, 02:33:40 PM
I disagree. Customers don't own the company. If a Christian shop owner wants to stay closed on Sunday, even if the customers want to buy from the store then - that's their right. If an environmentalist shop owner wants to not provide disposable plastic bags even if the customers want them, that's also their right. If a game developer wants to make modules however they want, that's their right.

Of course, it's also the customers' right to not buy from them if they don't like it.

But if we're being apples to apples - the Christian store owners are not demonizing their patrons for not agreeing either. They're not on social media shitting on their established patrons for not agreeing either. They're not inserting little Satanic references into their products either that their constituents do not believe in, at least as presented.

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 02:12:52 PM
WotC isn't even *trying*. Instead they're coercing people by sprinkling little bits of this non-contextual garbage into established settings for the purposes of marking their territory like jackals, pissing in our collective yards and daring to attack you if you say otherwise.

Quote from: jhkim on October 04, 2021, 02:33:40 PM(bolding above is mine) I fundamentally disagree that WotC is coercing people by including any sort of content in their modules - whether that's gay NPCs or anything else. Whatever they want to print in their modules is just fucking words on a page. No one is being coerced by the printing of fictional game content.

What do you call it if you're associated with a company's products, for decades and now it's expected if you purchase and use those products and engage with them publicly about your opinions and are mobbed for wrongthink about those products?

REMEMBER this is about "Diversity" and "Representation" - yes words on the page (and pictures) is what is supposed to be representative of ones thoughts and ideas - and how is this playing out? Is what WotC putting out there *actually* good in these terms. And if you are a public consumer of those goods as they slide this garbage in there - how obtuse to you have to be, once again, to know that if you speak up you will be attacked publicly.

So you're making my point - it's "shut up and keep buying products, or you're a Nazi". Or don't buy them at all. It's absolutely coercion to anyone that is a consumer of D&D products that doesn't agree with this stuff. And if you're going to engage publicly about our content, expect to be shunned.

Edit: Remember - people were ALREADY playing D&D long before WotC went woke and took over. When they started doing this shit in D&D people have been speaking up against it - we're here RIGHT now because of it. And look, we're multiple pages into this thread and not a single good example of why WotC brand of "Diversity" or "Representation" has been presented as being GOOD for the hobby.

I'm still waiting. When I ask for "is it good?" it's deafeningly silent. So which is it? And why?

Here is a better litmus test for you jhkim... or anyone else.

Put some words on the screen that we can judge for good Representation of Gay Filipinos you'd like to see in D&D.

You're the one that wants to pretend all is well in the land of D&D. Give us a paragraph or two. Go on. My filipino Straw Hat of Judgement awaits. After all, if you can obtusely pretend whatever it is WotC is doing is "Good" then you should be able to illuminate us on what that looks like.

... or you can just admit what WotC does for "Representation" is stupid.

Quote from: tenbones on October 04, 2021, 03:33:34 PM
Here is a better litmus test for you jhkim... or anyone else.

Put some words on the screen that we can judge for good Representation of Gay Filipinos you'd like to see in D&D.

You're the one that wants to pretend all is well in the land of D&D. Give us a paragraph or two. Go on. My filipino Straw Hat of Judgement awaits. After all, if you can obtusely pretend whatever it is WotC is doing is "Good" then you should be able to illuminate us on what that looks like.

... or you can just admit what WotC does for "Representation" is stupid.

He cant because he is not a Gay Filipino.