Quote from: Benoist;565084You are forgetting you are not alone.

He has a point though, most people even if they vigorously disagree with the witchhunters aren't going to buy the product for that reason alone.

With that said, you can't go around insinuating that someone is racist with impunity, especially if it affects them financially, and most especially if its a deliberate attempt to harm them for other reasons when you already know they aren't racist. The solution to these muppets is therefore fairly clear.

Sacrosanct what I would do if I were you would be to start recording and building up times, dates and locations where the individuals concerned made negative comments about you or your company. Having a pattern identified and ready to go would be useful in many ways.

I would also advise you get in contact with other companies and people who have been adversely affected, and see if they might be interested in a joint action. Go back as far as it exists, the more specifics you have the better.

Quote from: Bassetking;565101Watch out, I don't want it getting back to them that I told you, but I hear they're planning to waterboard you.

Shut up and fuck off. One of them is the bare minimum, hopefully you'll do both.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;565033Thoughts?  Suggestions?

When I 'did' race I made the PCs the 'red' guys, fighting the 'white' guys.

What are you going for here? Is it something like the Amtrak Wars books, with vault-dwelling 'pure' humans vs surface mutants?  In Amtrak Wars the vault-dwellers are the baddies and the mutants are Dances with Wolves style Noble Savages.

Edit: So you could play up dystopian elements in the 'white' society, and sanitise the 'non-whites'.

I'm not sure that designing a game around fear of the postings of Internet trolls from Something Awful is a great idea, though.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;565055It's a valid concern for people who plan to publish.  It doesn't take more than one ACLU lawsuit to make you want to avoid pissing off the people who troll IRL for just that sort of thing.

Regarding lawsuits, this seems completely backwards.  The ACLU exists to support free speech, and has many times taken up the rights of anyone to publish.  For example, they have fought for the rights of overt white supremacists to publish material, run for office, and otherwise exercise their rights.  

That said, I think lawsuits either way are never going to happen.  The real issue is whether potential customers are turned off either way.

Quote from: jhkim;565083Well, I have to say that it does piss me off when people have portrayals or allegories of the Korean War or the Vietnam War as whites vs. Asians.  The South Vietnamese military had over a quarter-million troops killed - five times the losses of their American allies against the North Vietnamese.  Yet people keep picturing the war as only Americans against the Vietnamese - and likewise ignoring the South Koreans who fought and died in both the Korean War and in the Vietnam War.  I'm not saying you're doing this - but it is a common trope in American fiction that ticks me off, so it is something to be wary of.

This is an absolutely solid point, and I do legitimately want to make sure I don't fall into any trap subconsciously.

Quote from: Bassetking;565101Watch out, I don't want it getting back to them that I told you, but I hear they're planning to waterboard you.

Since you brought this up, and I have nothing to hide, here's the story behind that for complete transparency.

Naturally the real story isn't as "OMG!" as some folks would like, so it gets told by some douchebag who makes stuff up to sound more crazy, and the rest of you idiots believe him.


Back during the whole waterboarding stuff, a shock jock named Man Cow "waterboarded" himself and taped it, and then went off saying how it was totally torture what he did.  That discussion started off with me saying what he did was not waterboarding.  Then all the tangency "experts" got all pissed off that I would dare question such a thing.

So why would I?  Because of the following:

* Man Cow is a shock jock, who has a reputation of making horrible stories up to get attention.  Like when Morton Downy Jr. made up being attacked by Nazis

*During my time in the military, I had gone though dunk training, which is very similar to what you experience in waterboarding

At first I pointed out exactly how what he did was not waterboarding, even using screen shots.  Of course the reactionaries couldn't dare have anything ruin their orgy of righteousness, even if the facts were right there in front of them.

So yeah, I did film myself doing the exact thing Man Cow did to illustrate again the critical things he didn't do that would make it waterboarding (like covering the nose with the cloth, which has a huge impact because when the water stops, it doesn't allow you to breath in through your nose).

Anyway, in hindsight it was a dumb thing to do because I should have know at that point no matter how often presented with facts, they wouldn't change their minds, but not nearly like they made it out to be.  Like I said, I had been though that stuff before, so it's not like I didn't know what to expect.  And I didn't waterboard myself because like Man Cow, I skipped several steps that I knew made the world of difference.  And no, I didn't take the clip down because I was embarrassed.  It was forced down by Youtube.  I also never once said waterboarding wasn't torture.  I said what Man Cow and I did was not torture.

But then again, when have they ever let facts get in the way?  It's like Prof Cirno saying I threw a temper tantrum when I left TBP when all I said was, "You know what Kai, if this is the moderation policy going forward (he and Rand banning everyone left and right), then this isn't the place for me anymore.  Goodbye."

Is that a tantrum now?  Usually if I'm pissed I use swear words.  Who knew.

Quote from: S'mon;565179When I 'did' race I made the PCs the 'red' guys, fighting the 'white' guys.

What are you going for here? Is it something like the Amtrak Wars books, with vault-dwelling 'pure' humans vs surface mutants?  In Amtrak Wars the vault-dwellers are the baddies and the mutants are Dances with Wolves style Noble Savages.

Edit: So you could play up dystopian elements in the 'white' society, and sanitise the 'non-whites'.

No, the various races aren't pitted against one another.  They're all playable, with none any more the "good guy" than any other.  I suppose there is conflict, but that would be location specific.

QuoteI'm not sure that designing a game around fear of the postings of Internet trolls from Something Awful is a great idea, though.

If it were just them, sure.  But we've already seen how the biggest rpg site readily falls for their trolling and instantly believes them.

Being accused of racism does bother me, and not just from a professional standpoint.  It's because of my life experiences where the reality is that nothing could be further from the truth.

I grew up in BFE Oregon, working the fields with the Mexican migrants and have nothing but total respect for how hard they work, and how they have a high regard for family.  After I graduated, I spent four years in Korea in the military.  I guess I'm so racist against Asians that I volunteered to keep doing tours there...  And now, currently?  I have been a member of my work's PRIDE team for almost 10 years now, have a mixed race family, and my son is black.  I'm not some white knight on the internet who talks a big talk.  My real life is one where I back up my words.

But hey, because I think depicting every illustration of an African warrior in royal garb is unrealistic, that makes me a racist.  I imagine this will be shocking news to my son.

WotC and now Paizo due to their size and influence will draw charges of racism no matter what, simply because they are the industry leaders and there are people looking for racism everywhere.


You on the other hand are not WotC nor Paizo. My thought is that you can do what you want with your game and it will skate under the radar.

This of course is discounting any personal enemies you've made online, they will do whatever they wish and if you're not willing to deal with it- my suggestion is to publish the game for yourself and those specific people who would enjoy it. I strongly considered doing the same with Age of Heroes myself.

LOL, yeah "they'll send the ACLU after me"... please, fucker.  The ACLU defends free speech; they've defended nazis. And they go after people who seek to take away the rights of others.  And most importantly, they're REAL activists.
Do you think that if this gang of idiotic dilettantes went up to them and said "someone is mistreating orcs in a fantasy world!" the ACLU wouldn't laugh them out of the fucking building?

Remember, most of these asses are doing this shit so that they DON'T HAVE TO do any real activism.  Its pseudo-activism, that they use as a way to feel like they're a special elite of human being without having to actually do anything to work for it. That's how Swine function.

So seriously, publish whatever you want.  If I were to add to that, I'd say "Publish whatever you want and don't be an actual racist". That's all you really have to do, not playing the sucker's game of trying to obey the political dictates of these self-styled commisars who won't be satisfied until the entire hobby is denuded of anything good about it to serve their control-freak ambitions.

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