Quote from: ForgottenF on April 26, 2024, 10:45:14 AM

Quote from: Trond on April 26, 2024, 10:07:59 AM

Quote from: Slambo on April 25, 2024, 09:58:38 PM

Quote from: Trond on April 25, 2024, 09:22:19 PMHere's a question: these Africa-based settings, do they sell? Do black people actually buy them in larger numbers than they otherwise would?

I'm actually interested in trying a setting like that once (I also bought the Pundit's book based on India, and a few others that are slightly different from the norm). But I also suspect that the situation is a bit similar to what Bill Burr points out about women's sports ("they don't buy any tickets!!!"   ).

Anecdotally, I'm not really attracted to African settings myself. Except Ancient Egypt based settings if you count that.

Well, Egypt does have a long history. Africa south of the Sahara is the opposite.

This is also part of the problem when people say that we should teach more history written by blacks or whatever. There's not a whole lot written even recently, and the proposition falls apart the moment we want something more ancient. "OK then, let's get some books based on prominent writers south of the Sahara from say 2000 years ago? Someone like Xenophon or Cicero maybe? ....No?"

On top of that, most of the market for RPGs, including among black people, is way more steeped in the European-Mediterranean cultural tradition than they are in the African. They're probably more comfortable roleplaying something like ancient Greece than they are ancient Africa.

This I assume is the reason there aren't more RPG settings based on historical China. There's plenty of source material, but it's not something the mostly Euro/American audience has much interest in.

That and Asian settings get attacked pretty hard if they don't pay the troll toll to the sensitivity readers lol

Quote from: Cipher on April 26, 2024, 03:37:17 AMThey already did this, with all the cries of "greenskins" being a racial slur and such. I've even seen some people claim that Dragon Age Origins calling elves "knife ears" was also a racial slur.

Yet they can call anyone else they target some sort of -ist or -phobe.
Its only wrong when someone else does it.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 26, 2024, 08:10:55 AMAlso is that where that came from? Calling elves "knife-ears" has become a bit of a meme at this point, to the point where it even made it into that shitty Rings of Power show. I was wondering who came up with it first.

I think its older than Dragon Age. But not sure when. I suspect it originated in Warhammer.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on April 22, 2024, 08:39:07 PMhe only creatures that probably were inherently evil were Ungoliant and her spawn (Shelob, etc).

Even Ungoliant's a bit ambiguous as it's unclear if she is even apart of Arda and Eru's design or if she is some sort of byproduct of Malkor's corruption of reality.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on April 26, 2024, 07:20:52 PMEven Ungoliant's a bit ambiguous as it's unclear if she is even apart of Arda and Eru's design or if she is some sort of byproduct of Malkor's corruption of reality.

The best theory is that she and Tom Bombadil were creations of The Music of the Ainur, specifically Ungoliant is the Discord of Melkor. Probably also the Nameless Things that Gandalf encountered below Moria while chasing Durin's Bane were of the same sort. Also The Watcher in the Water in the lake created by damming the Sirranon as well. Tom would be The Music given form,

Eurofantasy is oversaturated, trite and stale now. It's time for Afrofantasy and Sinofantasy to take over. Anyone who doesn't want that is a white supremacist who needs education. /sarcasm

Quote from: SHARK on April 24, 2024, 01:28:10 AMI hope that I have encouraged you, brother!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I find your response and exhortation heartening, SHARK, and thank you for it.

Without giving us the right to defend ourselves and our loved ones God becomes a moral monster, and I'm happy to meet someone who sees a Christian way to avoid that horrible conclusion.

What Bible version do you use? Whom do you consult for Scriptural advice?

Neoplatonist1

Quote from: SHARK on April 23, 2024, 05:32:16 PM

Quote from: Brad on April 23, 2024, 12:35:52 PMAs I am wont to say whenever these sorts of situations manifest, "It's nothing a shotgun wouldn't fix." Kill all the communists and you fix 99% of the problem. Tolkien isn't to blame for anything other than being an excellent writer who just so happened to write a British-inspired myth.

Greetings!

Damn right, Brad! I have been saying this forever. Gradually, more and more Americans are coming around to embracing this conclusion. Still, though, there are far too many people that naively believe that somehow, it is better and good to tolerate these terrible people within our communities. As one aspect of culture after another becomes corrupted and destroyed by the Communists, people are beginning to cry and worry about it. These nice, naive sheep though seem to be too stupid to realise that it might be too late, and America is fucked. The Communists have a chance to achieve total victory because too many Americans were passive, naive, and weak. More eager to hold onto cherished fantasies from days long gone than to actually face the truth and grapple with the reality that is destroying everything that they value right in front of them.

The Communists and other PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL morons have declared that Tolkien is racist, and Misogynist. Ergo, he must also then be a Hu-White Supremacist. *Rolls eyes* I wish I was making this up, but it is very real. I've read that these Liberal morons actually have said this kind of stuff about Tolkien.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

SHARK, the problem the Wokists exploit here is that seeing one's kind reflected on the Screen or in Print is a Good Thing. Tolkien presents his Secondary World drawing on principles from European (British) civilization, tradition, religion and myth. His story is (implicitly) Christian, and White and Male, because such is the main and traditional driver of European history.

Because the latter-day West's primary commandment is "ontological security!" wherein freedom from harm is the greatest good, the Wokists seize on the idea that all groups not prominently represented (or represented at all) in Tolkien are thus being deprived of their own Good, and so harmed.

Since the West is the best civilization ever created, in principle, faults and warts aside, it behooves us to preserve that which has traditionally driven its history. Preserving Tolkien is part of this, as it puts Christians-before-Christ, European racial stock, and heroic Masculinity into center stage.

Without this, the West, including America as its best and last defense against all external (Chinese) and internal (Islam, Wokism) threats, will crumple into multicultural confusion and demoralization, which the Oligarchal Blob seeks as a method of control.

It's true that Tolkien's viewpoint deprives Blacks, Women, Homosexuals, etc. of representational Goods. University-trained Leftists/Wokists therefore can't help but perceive Tolkien as racist and misogynist, when he is writing about White Traditionalist societies where racial mixtures are vanishingly rare, homosexuals unmentioned, and traditional sex roles are almost universal.

But this is a necessary feature of the West. The Wokists want to deface 20,000 years of European history and replace it with a Communist Year Zero. Anyone with a good heart can enjoy and even treasure Tolkien, but it takes a resentful, envious, and destructive heart to try to tear Tolkien down because he wrote a European myth.

The stumbling block for us, is that the Wokists want everything to be political, and so long as we play like it's not,  they win. Not just traditional representation on the Screen and Print is a Good, but the essence of Middle Earth is itself a Good, a sublime Good, and that means that Government Policies that move the West further from the traditions and axioms embedded in authors such as Tolkien, are destroying "all that is green and good in the world" by replacing it with the Wokist slag and rubble that you and I see and warn others about.

Tell a man he is something long enough, he starts to believe it. At this point in the West's intended and ongoing decline, if your heroes aren't called White Supremacists and Sexists, you're not trying hard enough. And if you're not trying to be like your heroes, then they aren't really your heroes. Tolkien wouldn't like being called what the Wokists call him, but Tolkien didn't live to see what we have lived to see, with much worse to come if we spend our energies peeling off labels rather than fighting for the Western tradition.

Neoplatonist1

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 25, 2024, 10:52:26 AMIf the woke hate white people and Europe, then write Afro Fantasy. It's really that simple. There's no shortage of African scholars who can explain it.

Writing something like that would be tip-toeing through a minefield now.  You couldn't get away with having one white guy write it.  That would be problematic appropriation.  You would need a black writer and at least one black diversity kommisar.  You would probably get anachronisms like Pan-Africanism or outright nonsense like Afrocentrism shoved in there.  It would probably have to revolve around current year talking points and how white people are bad.
 It would be implausibly utopian like Coyote & Crow because we can't put in anything that makes black people look bad even if it's a common human problem. You would certainly have to get rid of the slave trade in fantasy Africa.  You would be subject to intense scrutiny and probably accusations of racism no matter what you did.   

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 27, 2024, 10:46:47 PM

Quote from: SHARK on April 24, 2024, 01:28:10 AMI hope that I have encouraged you, brother!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I find your response and exhortation heartening, SHARK, and thank you for it.

Without giving us the right to defend ourselves and our loved ones God becomes a moral monster, and I'm happy to meet someone who sees a Christian way to avoid that horrible conclusion.

What Bible version do you use? Whom do you consult for Scriptural advice?

Neoplatonist1

Greetings!

You are very welcome, brother! I am always glad to help! As for Scriptural advice and instruction, I would absolutely recommend Pastor John MacArthur, and Pastor J. Vernon Mcgee. I have included YouTube videos of both men below. I have found that the doctrinal instruction and wisdom provided by Mcgee and MacArthur through the years have been rock solid in providing a powerful foundation that stands the test of time, and crushes all of the world's arguments, temptations, and fickle, spiritual fads so commonly passed about by one flavour of charlatan after another. Listen to these Godly men's teachings, read their books, and study God's Word. 
As for the Bible, I strongly prefer the King James Bible. The Common Man's King James Bible is my favourite. (By Hoffman)
For additional study, you can't go wrong with the MacArthur Study Bible. (NKJV).

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


Pastor John MacArthur

Pastor J. Vernon Mcgee

Does anyone find it ironic that is was the Left during the late 60s into the 70s that was a champion of Tolkien's works? The "Frodo Lives!" slogan spry-painted on the walls of many college campuses by anti-establishment students is well known.

Today? Quite the opposite.

Now his works are denigrated by left-wing post-modernist pseudo-intellectuals.

Personally, I think it comes down to jealousy.

Those left-wing ass hats wish they had a 10th of the creativity Tolkien, Vance, Heinlein, and others had. Their short cut to creativity is the post-modernist route, which is a lazy man's way. All you're doing is taking all of the age old tropes of story-telling and reversing it all. That's it. Nothing more.

It's not creative. It's a stupid person's way thinking they're clever, which is pathetic.

Because the worst kind of stupid is the guy who thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, and everyone else knows he's as dumb as a sack of hammers.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 26, 2024, 10:45:14 AM

Quote from: Trond on April 26, 2024, 10:07:59 AM

Quote from: Slambo on April 25, 2024, 09:58:38 PM

Quote from: Trond on April 25, 2024, 09:22:19 PMHere's a question: these Africa-based settings, do they sell? Do black people actually buy them in larger numbers than they otherwise would?

I'm actually interested in trying a setting like that once (I also bought the Pundit's book based on India, and a few others that are slightly different from the norm). But I also suspect that the situation is a bit similar to what Bill Burr points out about women's sports ("they don't buy any tickets!!!"   ).

Anecdotally, I'm not really attracted to African settings myself. Except Ancient Egypt based settings if you count that.

Well, Egypt does have a long history. Africa south of the Sahara is the opposite.

This is also part of the problem when people say that we should teach more history written by blacks or whatever. There's not a whole lot written even recently, and the proposition falls apart the moment we want something more ancient. "OK then, let's get some books based on prominent writers south of the Sahara from say 2000 years ago? Someone like Xenophon or Cicero maybe? ....No?"

On top of that, most of the market for RPGs, including among black people, is way more steeped in the European-Mediterranean cultural tradition than they are in the African. They're probably more comfortable roleplaying something like ancient Greece than they are ancient Africa.

This I assume is the reason there aren't more RPG settings based on historical China. There's plenty of source material, but it's not something the mostly Euro/American audience has much interest in.

Interestingly, Japan's top ttrpg, Sword World, has a more or less European setting and in the rule book for Sword World 2.5 it expressly says that players should choose western-sounding names for their characters.

Quote from: blackstone on April 29, 2024, 08:02:42 AMDoes anyone find it ironic that is was the Left during the late 60s into the 70s that was a champion of Tolkien's works? The "Frodo Lives!" slogan spry-painted on the walls of many college campuses by anti-establishment students is well known.

Today? Quite the opposite.

Now his works are denigrated by left-wing post-modernist pseudo-intellectuals.

Personally, I think it comes down to jealousy.

Those left-wing ass hats wish they had a 10th of the creativity Tolkien, Vance, Heinlein, and others had. Their short cut to creativity is the post-modernist route, which is a lazy man's way. All you're doing is taking all of the age old tropes of story-telling and reversing it all. That's it. Nothing more.

It's not creative. It's a stupid person's way thinking they're clever, which is pathetic.

Because the worst kind of stupid is the guy who thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, and everyone else knows he's as dumb as a sack of hammers.

Both sides should go back to reasons why Tolkien wrote the books. From what I remember, he specialized in medieval studies and wanted children to read LOTR so that when they grew up they would then read and appreciate Beowulf and others. Meanwhile, he became critical of industrialization and war because of what he experienced, like trench warfare and many of his friends dying, and then concerns over consumerism and deforestation, which might explain why he depicted them through Mordor. Finally, even with that he knew that Avalon would never return, which is why he or his estate reluctantly licensed the work to producers, publishers, and merchandisers.

I think what happened was that those who appreciated LOTR in the 1960s were young adults, which meant that they should have moved on to medieval literature following Tolkien's beliefs but didn't because they were the first products of a television culture, which in turn is part of a consumer society. Later, their children, who grew up with in the same society and spoiled by all sorts of consumer goods (including, ironically, movies, toys, etc., about LOTR) began to react negatively to the same society, but because they could not imagine living in anything outside it, remained in it.

Quote from: blackstone on April 29, 2024, 08:02:42 AMDoes anyone find it ironic that is was the Left during the late 60s into the 70s that was a champion of Tolkien's works? The "Frodo Lives!" slogan spry-painted on the walls of many college campuses by anti-establishment students is well known.

Today? Quite the opposite.

That is because the moral busybodies are like parasites and will jump from one host to the next, always targeting whomever they repressed and championing them now.

Quote from: Omega on May 01, 2024, 03:01:30 AM

Quote from: blackstone on April 29, 2024, 08:02:42 AMDoes anyone find it ironic that is was the Left during the late 60s into the 70s that was a champion of Tolkien's works? The "Frodo Lives!" slogan spry-painted on the walls of many college campuses by anti-establishment students is well known.

Today? Quite the opposite.

That is because the moral busybodies are like parasites and will jump from one host to the next, always targeting whomever they repressed and championing them now.

Could you give some more examples of this process?