Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 08, 2022, 12:41:12 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 08, 2022, 11:30:24 AM
Yeah, I wouldn't go as far as Omega on wishing suffering on others over online disagreements. But I do find it worrisome that so many people here like to downplay the real scope of the Satanic Panic when so many people's lives were ruined because of it. But hey, their church didn't bring up D&D specifically, therefore persecution outside the hobby never happened and people didn't have their lives destroyed over false accusations. And anyone saying otherwise was brainwashed by the media and didn't experience religious lunatics personally.

Interestingly enough I've seen similar attempts to downplay what's going on with the woke hysteria in the "left" by less politically involved people, or those who still cling to the "left-wing" label and are in denial, who want to believe that it's only a fringe minority or an astroturf movement taken out of context by equally bad right-wing media. As opposed to a valid concern that has many former leftists running away from the left (myself included) or getting cancelled and treated like Nazis for not towing the line, or commiting some faux pas that gets blown out of proportion. Yet I doubt many here would award the same courtesy to such attempts to salvage the "left" as they do to Christianity's involvement in the Satanic Panic.

Particular people being strongly affected versus widespread are two different things.  You are talking depth instead of scope.  The Satanic panic was sharp and pointed where it was applied, but it was limited in scope--not least because not all that many people agreed with it, it was not strongly backed by any institution, and the institutions that did back it at all did so inconsistently, and it simply wasn't on the radar at all for the vast majority of people.  Some people cling to the idea that it was wide spread for who knows what reason.  Mainly, I think it's a crutch to hide insecurity.  It's telling that 30 years after it is no longer a thing, there can't be a discussion about the woke without it getting brought up as somehow equal. 

Meanwhile, the woke infects academia, the media, many parts of politics, culture, the arts, business (especially HR departments), religious faiths, and even sports.  It's pervasive, and actively after everyone.  To equate that to the scope of the Satanic panic is the height of delusion and blindness.   It seems there are always an awful lot of people that have never met any conservative Christian that are sure that everything said about them must be true, almost as if it was necessary for their own identity for it to be that way.  Hmm.

People cling to the idea that the Satanic Panic was widespread and bring it up 30 years after it's no longer a thing because it was widespread. And it was a real event that did happen, and enough people who were there to see it happen are still alive today to bring up how it did happen. Because it was the ONLY thing comparable to today's woke mob, so it's the only example people have to drawn upon from relative recent history to describe what's going on today. The fact that it didn't affect a fringe hobby (TTRPGs) as much as other areas of society doesn't mean that it wasn't widespread, only that most people didn't know WTF TTRPGs were back then.

I also lived all my life in Puerto Rico, which is like 90% conservative Christian. And we're talking about Christianity, which is the dominant religion in the world, particularly the West, where most regular posters in these boards live in. We're not talking about some obscure cult at some far off distant land, and everything you claim about the woke's reach into the institutions can be said about Christianity for hundreds of years and didn't stop being the case till recent history (and even then it still holds some sway and it's influence isn't entirely gone). Everyone here has met multiple conservative Christians throughout their lives.

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 08, 2022, 02:00:19 PM
I'm talking about their attitude about gaming, where everything old school is seen as superior, and everything about modern RPGs is seen as the downfall of the hobby and (for the anti-SJW portion of the OSR at least) an invitation for the woke mob to bring an incursion into the hobby.

I agree that is an issue, but the term toxic has a very negative connotation. I see those things as supporting their chosen team. Those are the OSR fans that paint their faces before the game and scream the loudest but they aren't exactly soccer hooligans. They are about words, ideas, debating things (and of course hawking product) rather than actual toxicity. Problem is few actually engage in the war of words, ideas, and debate because the OSR is smaller or because they can't actually challenge the ideas in question and so just dismiss things like Shrieking Banshee did above.

Regarding the Satanic Panic. I don't think anyone doubts it scared TSR into removing Assassins and Devils and Demons in 2E (at least initially). It happened, but I only saw it on TV.

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 08, 2022, 02:00:19 PM

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 08, 2022, 12:17:01 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 08, 2022, 11:44:17 AM
The difference is most people who play other systems or have different play styles don't band around a particular label or fantastically promote it as a game philosophy, or the salvation of the hobby. Only the OSR does that (or at least, a vocal faction of them).

I think that is inaccurate. The story game movement for example was particularly hostile and demeaning to other styles of play. It was the salvation of the hobby until it sort of faded away. Also I think you have things backwards. What is coming out of WoTC and Paizo (the biggest players in the RPG world) about everything being racist or sexist is super toxic. Most of what you see as toxic behavior in the OSR is actual in reaction to that.

Yeah, I forgot about the storygame movement. I was sorta on hiatus during that time and didn't pay much attention to TTRPGs online back then, so I wasn't really affected by it. But I suppose that was bad as well. I hardly ever hear about story games these days unless it's people crapping on them, though (even in other boards), but the OSR is alive and well.

I'm not talking about the OSR's attitude towards politics, which is not even universal and there are people ostensibly in the OSR who're on the other political side as well, and not everyone against wokism in gaming is OSR anyways. I'm talking about their attitude about gaming, where everything old school is seen as superior, and everything about modern RPGs is seen as the downfall of the hobby and (for the anti-SJW portion of the OSR at least) an invitation for the woke mob to bring an incursion into the hobby.

• Character creation should always be random (specially ability score generation).
• Roll 3d6 in order is the solution to everything.
• Level limits are the silver bullet solution to handling race balance (nevermind that capping levels addresses absolutely nothing).
• Lack of game features are itself a feature, not the absence of one, because "rulings not rules".
• Skills exist out of some people's need to codify everything into rules (not the desire to define a character's specific knowledge or expertise), because they don't understand everything should be "rulings not rules".
• Eliminating racial class restrictions was the beginning of the end.
• And player options were the thing that facilitated snowflake characters, opened up the kitchen sink and ultimately attracted SJWs into the hobby. Etc.

.

I prefer the "You're no hero..." style of play rather than superheros fantasy. I find that random PC creation with players having multiple PCs to best fit that style. And while not the solution to everything, 3d6 in order is the solution for 0-lvl funnel characters. In my campaign the players do not roll up 0-lvl PCs, rather I pre-generate four to a sheet using the Purple Sorcerer's web app and let the players randomly a sheet from a stack of 50.

I play DCC so level limits moot for me. And IIRC, level limits were more for pushing players to play humans (part of Gygax's gaming philosophy) rather than for game balance.

You need some rules, but you do not need rules for everything. I prefer less crunchy/stripped down rules as I like rulings, not rules -- YMMV.

Not a fan of skill systems, as I find them limiting. In my game, PCs develop "skills" by trying to do things. For example, one PC wanted to spend his downtime at a high-class tavern that had dancing. As a way of fitting in, the player said that his PC was going to get involved with the dancing. I set a DC, rolled a d20 (which came out a 19), so I said that he had (over time) developed in to a very good dancer. I have other PCs that are becoming skilled at navigating the bureaucracy of the CSIO.

I like racial class restrictions for campaign flavor. Since DCC uses race-as-class, I get what I like. That said, if a player had a really interesting concept that fit well into the campaign, I would be open to a halfling barbarian PC.

I think that it was SJWs, in part, that caused snowflake PCs, not the other way around. When I started my game I told the players not to worry about back-story, but to focus on the PCs story going forward. And while they are welcome to have back-story, it will not give them any in-game advantage.

All that said, I do not believe in wrongbadfun. You do you and play as you like.

Regarding the Satanic Panic I'll add myself as a data point of someone who went through it. I had pretty much all of my aunts, uncles and cousins one one side of the family convinced I was engaged in devil worship and on a straight line to Hell. Once my parents left me to spend the night at the grandparents, and an aunt came by, bullied me into giving her the D&D books I'd brought to read so that she could burn them.

The Satanic Panic wasn't a universal experience, but it was real, and it expressed itself in more than just a teeny-tiny handful of communities.

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 08, 2022, 02:10:17 PM
I agree that is an issue, but the term toxic has a very negative connotation. I see those things as supporting their chosen team. Those are the OSR fans that paint their faces before the game and scream the loudest but they aren't exactly soccer hooligans.

In my admittedly limited experience with sports fans... the painted nutjobs who scream in the faces of other teams' normal fans are one of the reasons all the normal fans keep rooting for those people's teams to lose and do so in a humiliating fashion. It doesn't much matter that they're only a small percentage of that team's overall fans; they're the loud face of those fans.

Doubly so when the obnoxious jerk is a player or coach or manager who talks trash about other people's teams or the fans. Watching Kaepernik be a loser brought smiles to many after he made such an ass of himself. Only his diehard fans said it was wrong for him to face consequences for his asshole tendencies and that just made normal people want to see him fail harder because it would ruin the days of the ones trying to make excuses for him.

Basically, that same phenomenon perfectly encapsulated how many outsiders (i.e. non-OSR fans) view much of the OSR.

As to the Satanic Panic. I know it existed because one my friends got subjected to it by his mom (a proto-Karen if ever there was one). But I also know it was my parish priest who defended my friend and rpgs from said proto-Karen.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 08, 2022, 04:50:34 PMIn my admittedly limited experience with sports fans... the painted nutjobs who scream in the faces of other teams' normal fans are one of the reasons all the normal fans keep rooting for those people's teams to lose and do so in a humiliating fashion. It doesn't much matter that they're only a small percentage of that team's overall fans; they're the loud face of those fans.

I don't think we can really judge a group based on its worst elements. I think it depends on who is in charge of the higharchy. Just as you can't say men are because some men are bad (and it isn't the responsibility of every group to 100% police their subgroup).

But if the person leading an official, or semi-official group is a nutjob, and is leading the charge so to say, then yes, id say its fair to say that a group can be charged as a whole with something.

On that end I don't have mutch to judge the OSR from. The pundit is a jerk when it comes to this. But thats about the only OSR Identity I know - period.

Kevin Crawford with his wonderful books is very friendly, open to new ideas, and doesn't present his gameplay preference as gospel. But its true that at this point Im not sure he can even be called OSR because its far too innovative.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 07, 2022, 09:51:09 AM

Quote from: Omega on October 07, 2022, 09:44:36 AM

As for the Satanic Panic denialists. I hope you fuckers get to some day suffer like the some of us did.

It's your hypocrisy on this point that causes me to lose any respect for your position.  You are willing to judge an entire group of people on the basis of a curated slice, but mad that gamers get a bad rep using the exact same means.  Meanwhile, the press laughs and laughs at yet another example of Gell Mann Amnesia. It's an effect so pervasive that even though Crichton named it and you invoke it in other contexts, your uncontrolled hatred makes you incapable of seeing past your own narrow experiences.  It's truly in all senses of the word, pathetic.

Nice try timmy. But not true.

I said denialists. Not everyone.

Keep struggling though.

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 08, 2022, 11:30:24 AM
Yeah, I wouldn't go as far as Omega on wishing suffering on others over online disagreements. But I do find it worrisome that so many people here like to downplay the real scope of the Satanic Panic when so many people's lives were ruined because of it. But hey, their church didn't bring up D&D specifically, therefore persecution outside the hobby never happened and people didn't have their lives destroyed over false accusations. And anyone saying otherwise was brainwashed by the media and didn't experience religious lunatics personally.

My ire isnt against the people who just note that their area just never had any trouble. Nothing wrong with that.
Its the ones who prance past saying it essentially never happened, that I wish it happens to some day so that when they whimper and whine about how unjust it all is I can sit back and tell them "hay. Didnt happen here so never happened."

Where I am currently living seems to have never had any trouble that I know of. Though last church meeting I went to locally was pretty disgusting. Just not satanic panic stuff. Though would absolutely not surprise me if these jokers have gone after people in the past and I've just never heard of it.

Quote from: Omega on October 08, 2022, 08:36:39 PM

Nice try timmy. But not true.

I said denialists. Not everyone.

Keep struggling though.

I'm not interested in the appraisal of my "tries" by a fool.  Stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

Quote from: Omega on October 08, 2022, 08:50:13 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 08, 2022, 11:30:24 AM
Yeah, I wouldn't go as far as Omega on wishing suffering on others over online disagreements. But I do find it worrisome that so many people here like to downplay the real scope of the Satanic Panic when so many people's lives were ruined because of it. But hey, their church didn't bring up D&D specifically, therefore persecution outside the hobby never happened and people didn't have their lives destroyed over false accusations. And anyone saying otherwise was brainwashed by the media and didn't experience religious lunatics personally.

My ire isnt against the people who just note that their area just never had any trouble. Nothing wrong with that.
Its the ones who prance past saying it essentially never happened, that I wish it happens to some day so that when they whimper and whine about how unjust it all is I can sit back and tell them "hay. Didnt happen here so never happened."

Where I am currently living seems to have never had any trouble that I know of. Though last church meeting I went to locally was pretty disgusting. Just not satanic panic stuff. Though would absolutely not surprise me if these jokers have gone after people in the past and I've just never heard of it.

An RPG titled, "Knights and Chivalry" or "Heroes of Honor" could have slipped right on through without much fanfare; but if it was titled "Dungeons & Dragons", it was the spawn of Satan.  On the other hand, D&D received lots of free advertising to rebellious teenagers, and those interested in anything counter-culture.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 07, 2022, 08:08:18 AM

Quote from: blackstone on October 06, 2022, 11:23:09 AM
but we can't have this now. not anymore. so, we have to create a sub-set of a sub-set: the OSR.

I agree with everything except this. Thanks to the "One True Wayist" tendencies of many of the OSR's promoters, the OSR brand is considered rather toxic in my area (politically very conservative... many of our Democrats are to the right of most East Coast Republicans).

I, for one, have zero interest in any editions of D&D save the one despised by the entire OSR community (and late-edition 3.5e with all the WotC late game supplements allowed; core-only 3.5 sucks). I barely escaped the actual toxic old school AD&D back in the day with my interest in rpgs intact (I will forever be thankful to Kevin Seimbeda for the Robotech rpg that led me into the rest of Palladium's catalogue that kept me involved in gaming) and that association still causes me viceral dislike of TSR D&D and retroclones based on them.

So, while I agree there needs to be a subset of a subset... it needs to be BIGGER than just the toxic OSR. I needs to be broad enough to include those who prefer systems like Savage Worlds, Palladium's newer materials, people who enjoyed the Big Damned Heroes angle of 4E while being politically anti-woke, etc.

Otherwise you're just going to split the anti-woke subset into camps too small to actually be an effective counter or, worse, even cede a whole bunch of people who could have been allies but have been left effectively homeless because both the OSR and the Woke have their One True Wayist dogmas.

To put it in game terms... Woke is Evil, but OSR isn't the opposite, it's Law (One True Wayist tendencies + Tradition!)... thus there's a whole arc of the alignment pie... neutral good, chaotic good, true neutral/unaligned, and even some chaotic neutrals who would be down for fighting evil with the lawful neutral and lawful good parts of the OSR... if the OSR doesn't exclude working with them for being non-lawful.

I'm glad you found games you like to play, and that you enjoy them.  But listening to you is like getting advice on men and dating from a woman who just left an abusive relationship.  You are obviously completely incapable of separating your personal experiences from the both the actual mechanics of a system and the average fans of those systems.  I'd sooner take mental health advice from the woke...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 09, 2022, 12:57:41 PM
You are obviously completely incapable of separating your personal experiences from the both the actual mechanics of a system and the average fans of those systems.  I'd sooner take mental health advice from the woke...

So, I point out the OSR on its own isn't enough to oppose the Woke agenda in gaming and that we should pursue a broader tent of rpg fans... but because I have had bad experiences with OSR-style games in the past and expressed distaste for them (while not begrudging anyone their preferences) as an example of WHY we need to look beyond just the OSR to oppose the woke agenda in gaming, you've decided I must be compared to crazy people...

I think my previous statement here sums it up...

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 08, 2022, 01:29:53 AM
... its disciples keep echoing the equivalent of the Communist bromide that "you just haven't tried a REAL OSR game yet."

If you don't like the OSR you must be crazy. You must bow down to the OSR cargo cult or you will be just as canceled by them as you are for not bowing down to the woke's idols.

And yet some wonder why outsiders looking in consider the OSR to be toxic.

I can say from personal experience that Pundits advice made my game worse. The Pundit markets his games through his opinion pieces and website (primarily so), so his attitude isn't irrelevant.
Wokesters can also generally align with the OSR-ians when it comes down to many design ethos principles. They only object to some of the attitude.

The OSR protecting against the woke is like the people who think you can fight the woke with punk.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 09, 2022, 11:00:08 PM
I can say from personal experience that Pundits advice made my game worse.

What advice, please elaborate.