Quote from: Reckall on March 12, 2021, 11:44:54 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 12, 2021, 10:11:11 AM
This just makes my head spin. If I were Ramidel or Rupert, I would shake the dust off my sandals and never go back to RPGnet. Because holy shit. This wasn't a promotion of slavery, it wasn't a justification of slavery, it was an analysis of fictional slavery in a fictional setting.

At the rate they're going, the only games they'll be willing and able to discuss are Candy Land and Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

Literally. Europa Universalis IV has "slaves" as the main resource for some territories. In my current game I won some land as Portugal in West Africa and selling slaves is now part of my economy.

Let's not even talk about Stellaris, where you could genetically modify the populace of a captured planet, turn them into livestock (and hence, to food), and then sell that food back to the empire you originally captured that world from.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on March 12, 2021, 12:00:16 PM
Anything that facilitates understanding how people could be slave owners or traders, by discussing slavery's economic benefits and feasible logistics, encourages people to "normalize", and thus lose their moral horror at, slavery and exploitation. Or so the thinking goes.

If "to understand all is to forgive all," then by definition anything held to be unforgiveable must also be considered incomprehensible, and any attempt at explaining it is ipso facto a defense of it.

Accurate but infuriating because it's a kind of Dark Ages mentality that I thought we'd disposed of.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 12, 2021, 12:06:13 PM
Accurate but infuriating because it's a kind of Dark Ages mentality that I thought we'd disposed of.

Oh no, I'd call this pretty much one of the eternal verities of human nature; there have always been and always will be those who think that if the ends justify the means, then by definition anyone who rejects a given means is really just looking for an excuse to reject the ends.  If you don't hate something badly enough to brook absolutely no tolerance of it then you don't really hate it. (Q.v. William Blake: "Those who restrain desire, do so because their desire is weak enough to be restrained.")

To be honest, given the tragic progression of certain philosophical shifts one can already see at play -- paraphrasing a recent bishops' article I read: "First error begs for tolerance from truth, then it insists on equality with it, and finally demands supremacy over it" -- I'm not sure I'm entirely unsympathetic to the mindset. But someone who doesn't trust people to tell games from reality, it seems to me, doesn't really have any business running an elf-games forum in the first place.

Quote from: Visitor Q on March 12, 2021, 12:02:39 PM
The more I read this stuff the more I am genuinly coming to the view that there are adults who cannot distinguish fact from fiction, even when fiction is explicitly presented as such.

These are the same fucktards who think watching Looney Tunes will lead children to throw anvils at each other or commit some form of date-rape. They're the same as they've always been, but the uniforms have changed.

Ha!  I got banned first on that thread!  Three days for making a joke suggesting that the church's position on slavery and rape is ass backwards.  Apparently that counts as a rape joke.  Really, I expected a warning for group attacks because some of the mods aren't fond of me.  Not in the always thinking about it, but you know, the backstage, "people we hope to permaban some day" list.  It's the only place on the internet where I don't use my real name for some reason or another.

Quote from: David Johansen on March 12, 2021, 02:22:38 PM
Ha!  I got banned first on that thread!  Three days for making a joke suggesting that the church's position on slavery and rape is ass backwards.  Apparently that counts as a rape joke.  Really, I expected a warning for group attacks because some of the mods aren't fond of me.  Not in the always thinking about it, but you know, the backstage, "people we hope to permaban some day" list.  It's the only place on the internet where I don't use my real name for some reason or another.

Man, the way some people are these days, I don't talk shit about anyone who prefers anonymity, no matter how inconvenient it is.

...

Quote from: David Johansen on March 12, 2021, 02:22:38 PM
Ha!  I got banned first on that thread!  Three days for making a joke suggesting that the church's position on slavery and rape is ass backwards.  Apparently that counts as a rape joke.  Really, I expected a warning for group attacks because some of the mods aren't fond of me.  Not in the always thinking about it, but you know, the backstage, "people we hope to permaban some day" list.  It's the only place on the internet where I don't use my real name for some reason or another.

So I was able to follow back to find your name there, and check your history on Infractions. I think they are in fact angling to put you under the gardens at some point (metaphorically speaking).

You somehow managed to catch a warning for threadcrapping... in a thread about the least playable RPG system.

Yeah, if you've got anything special from the forums, I suggest you archive it off line. Sooner or later they're going to nail you as a 'repeat offender' or 'poor fit'.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 12, 2021, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on March 12, 2021, 02:22:38 PM
Ha!  I got banned first on that thread!  Three days for making a joke suggesting that the church's position on slavery and rape is ass backwards.  Apparently that counts as a rape joke.  Really, I expected a warning for group attacks because some of the mods aren't fond of me.  Not in the always thinking about it, but you know, the backstage, "people we hope to permaban some day" list.  It's the only place on the internet where I don't use my real name for some reason or another.

So I was able to follow back to find your name there, and check your history on Infractions. I think they are in fact angling to put you under the gardens at some point (metaphorically speaking).

You somehow managed to catch a warning for threadcrapping... in a thread about the least playable RPG system.

Yeah, if you've got anything special from the forums, I suggest you archive it off line. Sooner or later they're going to nail you as a 'repeat offender' or 'poor fit'.

This is brilliant. It's like the Cold War MI6 warning someone they need get out of Moscow.

I did bookmark a number of threads in the gaming section (then logged off and removed the site from my favourites bar) but I frankly haven't felt the urge to go and check them since. I probably won't be missed, and me, I miss the place where I spent most of my internets since 1996 less and less with each passing day.

Quote from: David Johansen on March 12, 2021, 02:22:38 PM
Ha!  I got banned first on that thread!  Three days for making a joke suggesting that the church's position on slavery and rape is ass backwards.

This means that you literally got banned for making a progressive point and no one realised it... 

Quote from: Jim in Oz on March 12, 2021, 09:13:59 AM
Every game site I just checked out has a thread on just how freakily Big Purple has lost the plot. That's a pretty bad sign.

Seems like they have been just a little extra the past week or two.

I wondered how long the poor guy who was doing a Let's Read of the World of Xoth was going to last.

Silver lining - I had heard of Xoth but not actually looked at it, and damn that is some quality sword and sorcery right there.

Quote from: Reckall on March 12, 2021, 03:35:45 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on March 12, 2021, 02:22:38 PM
Ha!  I got banned first on that thread!  Three days for making a joke suggesting that the church's position on slavery and rape is ass backwards.

This means that you literally got banned for making a progressive point and no one realised it... 

   Maybe they're trying to lull the remaining Christians into a false sense of security before Harris and Becerra bring the hammer down?

Frankly, my first rpg.net ban was for discussing D&D.  In fact, I said that due to D&D's portion of the fan base it will always have the majority of the catpissmen.  Now, I'm not saying I'm innocent of dissing D&D because I'm a hater and we all know what haters gonna do.  But I got banned from an rpg site for saying something purely factual about rpg demographics.  As a result I've never supported the mods or paid for a membership.

Anyhow, the Where I Read X-Men thread on Other Media is awesome and there's a couple image threads on Tangency that are entertaining.  It's also about the best place to discuss GURPS and Rolemaster without getting banned from the SJG or ICE forums

Quote from: Visitor Q on March 12, 2021, 12:02:39 PM
Will people be banned for dispassionately discussing how to create the perfect murder mystery rpg scenario without periodically reminding everyone that murder is in fact a horrible thing to do and the criminal is indeed an immoral person?

"In this scenario, we solve the murder of the black disabled transgender sex worker." Try that, see how you go.

Quote from: David Johansen on March 12, 2021, 08:31:27 PM
Frankly, my first rpg.net ban was for discussing D&D.

I never received any bans, nor to my memory any warnings, until I was permanently banned "for being generally bad for the site". As I was banned, I could not ever find out exactly what they meant by that.

I probably talked about rpgs too much

One thing that's funny to my mind is that SJG has always been a pretty progressive company.  I remember them advocating gay rights in Pyramid magazine before Dragon could even say "gay".  And Yrth the world in GURPS Banestorm is pretty much a progressive setting where orcs are people too.  Sure there's some missteps, the Kobolds were pretty sad even when GURPS Fantasy first came out in, what, 1988, maybe?  GURPS didn't really need it's own Gully Dwarves.  But, of course, one thing about progress is that it moves and yesterday's progressive is today's stodgy old conservative who just doesn't get it.