Quote from: Renegade_Productions on May 30, 2021, 09:32:48 PM

Quote from: JeffB on May 30, 2021, 11:33:12 AM
Scooby Doo (the first two seasons, anyway) is awesome. I've enjoyed them all over again as an adult watching them with my kids.

Please stop insulting it by comparing it to lame WOTC D&D product       

It's the most apt comparison, sadly. And whatever is the easiest to steal from, WOTC seems to use it.

No, I get it.

I gave up on WOTC years ago. At some point they completely ruin everything they acquire. TSR era D&D settings. Star Wars games. In recent years- D&D proper.  I wish they'd give up the rights for DragonQuest so we could get a decent re-make/retro clone.

There's always DragonRaid.

Quote from: Renegade_Productions on May 29, 2021, 08:59:56 PM
The saddest part of this nu-Ravenloft, speaking from the POV of a Christian fan of D&D, is along with generally ruining the legacy of the game with their stupidity and soapboxing, the SJWs are, probably intentionally, helping confirm what the anti-D&D crowd was claiming about the game decades ago.

Not so much that the game is a gateway to Satanism, but that it encourages players to indulge in lapses of moral standards, if not outright evil acts, under the guise of having fun and to earn rewards for doing so. The loss of alignments doesn't help.

I don't have links offhand - but as I recall, in the past Pundit has said that it was good for D&D to be controversial and edgy - pissing off the conservative Christian crowd, because it made it a cool thing for rebellious teenagers to do. With AD&D, it allowed players to play things like half-orc assassins, priests to pagan gods, and so forth.

Personally, I am highly skeptical that evil acts in fictional fantasy encourage real-life moral lapses - or that gun violence in video games encourages real-life gun violence, as a direct parallel.

Games aren't real life.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 01:04:36 PM
Personally, I am highly skeptical that evil acts in fictional fantasy encourage real-life moral lapses - or that gun violence in video games encourages real-life gun violence, as a direct parallel.

Games aren't real life.

Correct.  And fictional representations of people don't cause real attitudes towards people.

And yet they didn't think to include the spell Scooby Door so that whenever you go through a door in a corridor you come out of another random door.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on May 31, 2021, 02:38:36 PM

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 01:04:36 PM
Personally, I am highly skeptical that evil acts in fictional fantasy encourage real-life moral lapses - or that gun violence in video games encourages real-life gun violence, as a direct parallel.

Games aren't real life.

Correct.  And fictional representations of people don't cause real attitudes towards people.

The CSI effect and various studies suggests there's at least some influence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_mass_media

The exact level of influence is debatable, but it's not zero.

But I doubt depictions of fantasy creatures that people know don't exist will influence anybody's views of real groups.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 31, 2021, 02:50:24 PM
The CSI effect and various studies suggests there's at least some influence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_mass_media

The exact level of influence is debatable, but it's not zero.

But I doubt depictions of fantasy creatures that people know don't exist will influence anybody's views of real groups.

Right. I would agree that there are plenty of effects from fictional depictions of real things. i.e. A lot of people's views of radiation is influenced more by fiction than fact, for example.

Also, I'll put in some exception especially for young children's media. Media consumption in young kids likely influences personality development.

But "Speak With Dead" in a D&D game doesn't encourage real-life sin and immorality, when played by teens and adults.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 03:09:13 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 31, 2021, 02:50:24 PM
The CSI effect and various studies suggests there's at least some influence.

The exact level of influence is debatable, but it's not zero.

I would agree that there are plenty of effects from fictional depictions of real things. ...Also, I'll put in some exception especially for young children's media. Media consumption in young kids likely influences personality development.

And since this effect is largely accumulative over time and with multiple repetition of tropes throughout multiple media products, any attempt to link a specific case of maladjusted behaviour to exposure to a specific product is specious at best. Generally the only cases where this is directly obvious are in people who already have documented psychological issues.

The real counterbalance to this kind of influence should be better education, both informational and moral, but in the West nowadays it seems like the increasing polarization over the latter has led to a breakdown in trust of the institutions charged with the former.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 03:09:13 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 31, 2021, 02:50:24 PM
The CSI effect and various studies suggests there's at least some influence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_mass_media

The exact level of influence is debatable, but it's not zero.

But I doubt depictions of fantasy creatures that people know don't exist will influence anybody's views of real groups.

Right. I would agree that there are plenty of effects from fictional depictions of real things. i.e. A lot of people's views of radiation is influenced more by fiction than fact, for example.

Also, I'll put in some exception especially for young children's media. Media consumption in young kids likely influences personality development.

But "Speak With Dead" in a D&D game doesn't encourage real-life sin and immorality, when played by teens and adults.

Yeah, I am not too worried about kids playing with a ouija boardgames. The original Ravenloft eventually put out dice and cards for fortune telling, and that really added to play. Lots of people just used Tarot Cards. I grew up religious, this stuff doesn't bother me. I also listened to The Number of the Beast, read books on the occult, etc. If individual parents want to stop their kids from playing with a game because of religious concerns, that is certainly up to them (I wasn't allowed to play D&D for a number of years on those grounds). But I think the last thing we should be doing is parroting the concerns of the satanic panic over this stuff. Hasbro already puts out the game Ouija itself and no one complains about that. I don't see how it would be any worse for them to use that in cross-over products. I think the bigger issue really is the potential price tag (if they made it essential to playing Ravenloft that you also needed to buy a whole other board game, I could see that being a problem). I'm old enough now to have seen many exaggerations of the impact of media on young people and on adults. I'd be much more concerns about what kids are doing on twitter and facebook, than what they are doing in fantasy roleplaying games.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 01:04:36 PM


Games aren't real life.

This

Quote from: Warder on May 31, 2021, 04:56:02 AM
Wow, after the shit games like Warhammer 40k and Kult pulled, its dnd that end up literally corrupting the youth. I really woudnt think this possible even 10 years ago.

No consequences Ravenloft? Equals no interest in the new version excet as a cautionary tale.

Albeit in a completely different way than BADD and the Satanic Panic folks would have everyone believe back then, but yeah, it goes to show what kinds of internal damage SJWs in droves can do.

Quote from: JeffB on May 31, 2021, 10:14:45 AM
No, I get it.

I gave up on WOTC years ago. At some point they completely ruin everything they acquire. TSR era D&D settings. Star Wars games. In recent years- D&D proper.  I wish they'd give up the rights for DragonQuest so we could get a decent re-make/retro clone.

One can hope. Me, I'll just hoard all the 3.5 and older stuff I can get my hands on.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 01:04:36 PM
I don't have links offhand - but as I recall, in the past Pundit has said that it was good for D&D to be controversial and edgy - pissing off the conservative Christian crowd, because it made it a cool thing for rebellious teenagers to do. With AD&D, it allowed players to play things like half-orc assassins, priests to pagan gods, and so forth.

Personally, I am highly skeptical that evil acts in fictional fantasy encourage real-life moral lapses - or that gun violence in video games encourages real-life gun violence, as a direct parallel.

Games aren't real life.

No, but they're not therapy either, and that's what D&D is being made into at present with this shift towards the 'Play it however you want. You can do no wrong' ideals and general softballing. (The settings get watered down, if not perverted, at the same time.)

As I said before, I don't see D&D as a gateway to Satanism, but these days, with how mentally fragile if not broken people are becoming, it very well can become a hollow treatment for an issue that needs a professional or some other real world solution.

And we all suffer when that happens.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on May 31, 2021, 03:43:22 PM

And since this effect is largely accumulative over time and with multiple repetition of tropes throughout multiple media products, any attempt to link a specific case of maladjusted behaviour to exposure to a specific product is specious at best. Generally the only cases where this is directly obvious are in people who already have documented psychological issues.

The real counterbalance to this kind of influence should be better education, both informational and moral, but in the West nowadays it seems like the increasing polarization over the latter has led to a breakdown in trust of the institutions charged with the former.

Pretty much. As for what you just described, that's essentially nurturing, and to reach back a few decades, the commies knew how powerful cinema and other forms of entertainment were in that regard. Hence, to quote Vladimir Lenin, "Give me a generation, and I will change the world."

Since D&D is nothing if not an American entertainment cornerstone, and SJWs are essentially modern day commies...

Quote from: Renegade_Productions on May 31, 2021, 07:27:13 PM

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 01:04:36 PM
Personally, I am highly skeptical that evil acts in fictional fantasy encourage real-life moral lapses - or that gun violence in video games encourages real-life gun violence, as a direct parallel.

Games aren't real life.

No, but they're not therapy either, and that's what D&D is being made into at present with this shift towards the 'Play it however you want. You can do no wrong' ideals and general softballing. (The settings get watered down, if not perverted, at the same time.)

As I see it, "Play it however you want" is something players say when they *don't* regard RPGs as therapy or otherwise important, but just as a fun pastime. For example, I might not like how some edition of a game is written. In that case, I don't like it for myself and wouldn't want to play it. If other people play it and like it, though, I don't care and I don't think they're harming themselves or others.

Quote from: JeffB on May 31, 2021, 10:14:45 AM
I wish they'd give up the rights for DragonQuest so we could get a decent re-make/retro clone.

That's one of the few new games I might actually pay money to get my hands on.

Thanks TSR, for buying up bunches of crap, then going broke, and getting your own shit bought up by a bunch of hacks best known for publishing a card game, best known for putting RPG companies out of business, and then getting its ass handed to it by Pokemon :/

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 01:04:36 PM

Quote from: Renegade_Productions on May 29, 2021, 08:59:56 PM
The saddest part of this nu-Ravenloft, speaking from the POV of a Christian fan of D&D, is along with generally ruining the legacy of the game with their stupidity and soapboxing, the SJWs are, probably intentionally, helping confirm what the anti-D&D crowd was claiming about the game decades ago.

Not so much that the game is a gateway to Satanism, but that it encourages players to indulge in lapses of moral standards, if not outright evil acts, under the guise of having fun and to earn rewards for doing so. The loss of alignments doesn't help.

I don't have links offhand - but as I recall, in the past Pundit has said that it was good for D&D to be controversial and edgy - pissing off the conservative Christian crowd, because it made it a cool thing for rebellious teenagers to do. With AD&D, it allowed players to play things like half-orc assassins, priests to pagan gods, and so forth.

Personally, I am highly skeptical that evil acts in fictional fantasy encourage real-life moral lapses - or that gun violence in video games encourages real-life gun violence, as a direct parallel.

Games aren't real life.

What I did say was that, from a business perspective, it was much better for D&D's popularity when kids' parents were worried that playing D&D would turn you into a satanist than later on, when parents were worried that playing D&D would turn you into a 34-year old virgin still living in their basement.

There's a huge difference between D&D having an element of "Heavy Metal" style edgy rebelliousness, and D&D becoming a propaganda tool of the Woke Leftist Establishment.

The current D&D-as-Indoctrination is not encouraging rebelliousness, but rather encouraging conformity to the agenda of the new social Establishment. The equivalent comparison isn't to when D&D was an edgy free-for-all, it's closer to when Comics became yoked by the Comics Code Authority.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 01, 2021, 03:23:03 AM

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 01:04:36 PM

Quote from: Renegade_Productions on May 29, 2021, 08:59:56 PM
The saddest part of this nu-Ravenloft, speaking from the POV of a Christian fan of D&D, is along with generally ruining the legacy of the game with their stupidity and soapboxing, the SJWs are, probably intentionally, helping confirm what the anti-D&D crowd was claiming about the game decades ago.

Not so much that the game is a gateway to Satanism, but that it encourages players to indulge in lapses of moral standards, if not outright evil acts, under the guise of having fun and to earn rewards for doing so. The loss of alignments doesn't help.

I don't have links offhand - but as I recall, in the past Pundit has said that it was good for D&D to be controversial and edgy - pissing off the conservative Christian crowd, because it made it a cool thing for rebellious teenagers to do. With AD&D, it allowed players to play things like half-orc assassins, priests to pagan gods, and so forth.

Personally, I am highly skeptical that evil acts in fictional fantasy encourage real-life moral lapses - or that gun violence in video games encourages real-life gun violence, as a direct parallel.

Games aren't real life.

What I did say was that, from a business perspective, it was much better for D&D's popularity when kids' parents were worried that playing D&D would turn you into a satanist than later on, when parents were worried that playing D&D would turn you into a 34-year old virgin still living in their basement.

There's a huge difference between D&D having an element of "Heavy Metal" style edgy rebelliousness, and D&D becoming a propaganda tool of the Woke Leftist Establishment.

The current D&D-as-Indoctrination is not encouraging rebelliousness, but rather encouraging conformity to the agenda of the new social Establishment. The equivalent comparison isn't to when D&D was an edgy free-for-all, it's closer to when Comics became yoked by the Comics Code Authority.

On the upshot, if history repeats itself (or at least rhymes), we'll be seeing a revolt against the new establishment very soon.

After all, the CCA isn't really much of anything any more.