To advertise a product as non-woke would automatically put the product under the cross hairs of anyone who is both woke and anti-political. Bringing up the word woke over the last few years has conditioned enough people to link the word with politics to the point that some people, regardless of intention, will react negatively to it.

Better to just make a good game and let the wokists let us know by their insanity that it's not woke.

I think it would be too radioactive.

I would be more likely to buy such a game.

Quote from: Battlemaster on April 26, 2022, 12:29:27 PM
And I define "woke" as adhering to a radical extremist left agenda that ignores reality, demands utter and complete submission to it's views, bans long used and commonly accepted words like gypsy because a tiny number of people claim them are offensive and organizes harassment of people refusing to submit to their demands.

Based on that definition, nearly every RPG ever published could feature your "Non-Woke" label. Certainly companies that choose to use gender neutral pronouns like "they" don't fit that definition, and most RPG companies don't impose demands of any kind on their customers.

Seems like you're the one ignoring reality.

All that said, I suspect labeling an RPG as "Non-Woke" would not be good for business. I'd venture to say that for most people, "woke" doesn't have the same negative connotations you think it does, and many potential customers would see such a label as a form of "virtue signaling".


Take Care,

Lou Prosperi

Use the phrase "Savage Orc witchdoctors" in your ads (or something similar that fits your product) and you will have the same effect as advertising as anti-woke without being so obvious about it.

Quote from: migo on April 26, 2022, 12:55:27 PM
What would probably work well is if they design a game that they think is fun, and it gets attacked for having some element that the woke object to. And then the designers tell them to fuck off.

This.

It is a necessary, but not sufficient condition.
I'm not going to buy your book based on that alone, but I'll consider it.

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 26, 2022, 07:38:24 PM
Use the phrase "Savage Orc witchdoctors" in your ads (or something similar that fits your product) and you will have the same effect as advertising as anti-woke without being so obvious about it.

Unironically, I think this is a clever way to do it. Damsels in distress, savage orcs, sinister drow. I'm for it.

Quote from: Zelen on April 26, 2022, 08:54:42 PM
It is a necessary, but not sufficient condition.
I'm not going to buy your book based on that alone, but I'll consider it.

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 26, 2022, 07:38:24 PM
Use the phrase "Savage Orc witchdoctors" in your ads (or something similar that fits your product) and you will have the same effect as advertising as anti-woke without being so obvious about it.

Unironically, I think this is a clever way to do it. Damsels in distress, savage orcs, sinister drow. I'm for it.

Make sure you have the tawdry, pulp fiction style cover art while you're at it. 

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 26, 2022, 07:38:24 PM
Use the phrase "Savage Orc witchdoctors" in your ads (or something similar that fits your product) and you will have the same effect as advertising as anti-woke without being so obvious about it.

A witchdoctor is a "healer or benevolent worker of magic in a nonliterate society" according to Britannica. Warlock or necrolyte may be better

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 27, 2022, 10:31:21 AM

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 26, 2022, 07:38:24 PM
Use the phrase "Savage Orc witchdoctors" in your ads (or something similar that fits your product) and you will have the same effect as advertising as anti-woke without being so obvious about it.

A witchdoctor is a "healer or benevolent worker of magic in a nonliterate society" according to Britannica. Warlock or necrolyte may be better

It won't matter. The SJW brigade will still shit their pants over it.

Remember, this is the same class of people who will throw a tantrum over 'cultural appropriation' even when people who are part of said culture aren't objecting to a depiction.

Sounds like a "normal" game then at the store.  The more adjectives and things you say are NOT there the less there actually is.


Don't put a Sensativity Disclaimer at the front of the product. You've just made it "Non-Woke" right there.

Acid test:  You are designing, developing, and testing the game.  It becomes clear that the best way to do something and explain it could be mistaken for "woke" on a surface examination, even though that's more about the woke crowd bastardizing vocabulary than anything else.  That is, the best way to do it could be spun as "woke" even though that has nothing to do with your analysis.  Do you do the best thing or not?  If you don't, congratulations, you've just made your game worse than it could be chasing what should be a secondary or even tertiary goal. 

It's more than a little like the "let the dice fall where they may" thing.  There's all kinds of seductive reasons to avoid it, and some shallow benefits to avoiding it, but if you really want to have a good game, you violate it at your peril.   Make a good game.  If it happens to offend some segment of the woke, that's a bonus.  Besides, in the course of making a good game, it's practically impossible to not offend the shallow, easily offended crowd.  So you probably get the bonus without even trying.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 27, 2022, 10:31:21 AM
A witchdoctor is a "healer or benevolent worker of magic in a nonliterate society" according to Britannica. Warlock or necrolyte may be better

witchdoctors were never prevalent in Europe so it must be racist colonialist whatever to use that term. I know I've seen witchdoctors proclaims as problematic by SJW so it came to mind. Lots of substitutes would be valid though. You could even go with Evangelical if you really want tears and rage.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on April 26, 2022, 02:24:23 PM
The problem is that there are several different ways of being 'not woke', and very few people are going to be sympathetic to all of them. Pundit and Venger are 'not woke', but I look askance at Pundit's stuff for various reasons and wouldn't touch Venger's with a ten foot pole.

Yes. This is a great point. If you're not woke because you're a Christian conservative, you're a very different shade of not woke than because you're a libertine hedonist, for instance.

Quote from: amacris on April 27, 2022, 12:36:43 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on April 26, 2022, 02:24:23 PM
The problem is that there are several different ways of being 'not woke', and very few people are going to be sympathetic to all of them. Pundit and Venger are 'not woke', but I look askance at Pundit's stuff for various reasons and wouldn't touch Venger's with a ten foot pole.

Yes. This is a great point. If you're not woke because you're a Christian conservative, you're a very different shade of not woke than because you're a libertine hedonist, for instance.

Grim Jim
Pundit
Venger

All non-woke or anti-woke even, yet their political, economical and social stances differ.