Quote from: SHARK on April 22, 2024, 03:55:16 PMGreetings!

As I recall, the saying is "Politics is downstream from Culture." I forgot who first coined the expression.

Still, this all is absolutely a total culture war. Woke must be totally crushed and destroyed. If the Culture War cannot be won, then everything under the umbrella of "Culture" will continue to be corrupted and or destroyed. The TTRPG gaming hobby will be the least of our worries. It too though, will be corrupted and destroyed, just like every other aspect of our culture.

Tolkien is not at fault for anything. The problem is with the Marxist, Woke scum. They are the filthy, diseased rats, threatening to devour everything in society.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Greetings SHARK,

What's our basis for opposing Wokism? Is it liberal democracy/secularism/socially contracted human rights, Christianity, fascism, Neo-platonism, or what? If we lack a firm foundation, how can we save the house from the flood?

Neoplatonist1

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 22, 2024, 03:17:00 PMIt occurred to me that the main thing holding back the Wokification of all media products is what we might call anthropological realism. This includes TRPGs. Film and television period pieces still grasp at casting actors who look like lovers of historical accuracy would expect them to look, e.g., all those White young men on the beach in the film Dunkirk. If this anthropological realism is ever abandoned, which is the direction we're going in, we can expect every media product to look like it was generated by Google Gemini.

Correct me if I'm wrong: Tolkien was the one who introduced anthropological realism into fantasy literature. Before that we had legends and myths and fairy tales, but the grand idea of a Secondary World complete with legendarium, songs, languages, lineages, religions (of a kind), creation myths, and verisimilar histories, didn't exist until he literally wrote the book on it.

TRPGs trace their ancestry to D&D, which was heavily influenced by Tolkien, as we all know. But, there the seeds of their destruction were sown. By making fairy tales anthropologically realistic, the stage was set for inserting Boasian anthropology and Wokism into the literature. The biological essentialism that informs fairy tales of evil dragons and goblins, the ontological reality of good and evil, and the ignorance of ecological ramifications of fantasy elements, we must count down to destruction, as the real-world, contemporary opinions of these things arrogate all gamerdom.

That is, by making our TRPG worlds as, or more, realistic at Tolkien's in their ecologies, and ontological and anthropological assumptions, we open the door to the presently fashionable political agendas on these things that end up removing their fairy tale underpinnings.

This crushes the spirit of the games. If we can't have good versus evil, or wicked categories of monsters, or sexism, or unmixed races, then we can't have fairy tales, legends, and myths that transcend anthropology and connect themselves with real-life foundational histories.

This is not to object to media products being transformed into propaganda. I'd agree that they're already always propaganda. Refusing to indoctrinate someone is indoctrinating them into neutrality, just as refusing to teach children religion is teaching them nullifidianism. The Wokists have that right: most everything reinforces one political narrative or other.

The problem is that the traditionalist European narrative is what is being effaced, and if you're like most gamers, this means that your culture is on the chopping block. White, straight, sexed-normal, Christian, phallologoic, Euro-cultural elements have to go, or be queered or race-mixed or otherwise tortured and mutilated into something other than what they are, not for the sake of improving the game, or reinforcing a healthy Western Euroculture, but in order to score political points for those who hate you--a ruined and terrible form of fiction.

Anthropological realism, now informed by Woke socio-anthropology, has become the undoing of gaming. We're at the point where many young people aren't even aware of the "damsel in distress" trope. Trained by Tolkien to cultivate our sophisticated Secondary Worlds, we lose sight of the very fairy tales, legends, and mythologies that tell us to slay the Woke dragon that seeks to eat us.

So, Tolkien giveth and Tolkien taketh away. Resisters can play in their Aral Seas or Lake Chads of traditionalist gaming, but so long as the political winds blow Woke, they're going to continue to evaporate. The nature of TRPGs as anthropologically realistic obscures the fact that the fairy tale foundations in the minds of youth have been prestidigitated away.

Saving gaming from Woke cultural desertification requires rerouting a veritable Congo river's worth of cultural assumptions, including how we look at gaming itself.

Before I touch this subject, I'd like you to define "anthropological realism" because I have not been able to find a definition online.

Quote from: yosemitemike on April 22, 2024, 09:54:41 PMOrcs weren't naturally occurring organisms.  They were twisted things made to be foot soldiers.  Biology was not a factor.

Well, no. Orks were biological. They 'multiplied after the manner of the Children of Eru' after all. Its just they were genetically manipulated Men.

Bearing in mind that they are censoring Dr Seuss and Roald Dahl, no, I don't really think Tolkien set us up for anything.

The straightforward methods are usually good.

So I've read the latest beta watched a session, and I have thoughts.

[editing]

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 22, 2024, 03:17:00 PMThe biological essentialism that informs fairy tales of evil dragons and goblins,

The thing that people who compare the idea of evil orcs to biological essentialism can't grasp is that fantasy worlds do not necessarily follow biological or evolutionary principles.  Things can be as they are for other reasons.  The supernatural is real and evident.  Races can be created by gods or other supernatural beings, not evolved.  Dragons didn't evolve in LotR.  They aren't biological organisms.  They were magical creatures created by Morgoth to be weapons.  Orcs weren't naturally occurring organisms.  They were twisted things made to be foot soldiers.  Biology was not a factor.     

I think the weapon differences can be fun, but difficult. I always like 3e's method of varying weapons by giving them different abilities. So, for example, the ability to wield a longsword with one or two hands, and the difference is either being able to use your off hand or getting a damage bonus. The only downside is that it might favor some weapons. Then again, there's a reason some weapons were so common in real life. A spear is easy to use, can set against cavalry, and you can support over the guy in front of you.

Another example is the billhook: you can poke, slash, and chop. It can be used to support allies, and you can use it to drag cavalrymen off their mounts. I think having abilities tied into the weapon for this make them unique, but then again it makes stuff like a shortsword look meek in comparison. At the end of the day though if players flock around a handful of weapons it makes it easier to stock magic weapons you know they'll use.

Bonuses vs. specific armors is really cool but really unwieldy. It makes sense that a mace gets +2 vs Plate, but a sword has -2. However, it really can slow down combat. I liked AD&D 1e's approach where weapons get a bonus/penalty vs. a specific AC, but that loses out on some of the realism since a high DEX thief with leather can have a 3. Why would a mace get a bonus against that? Either way, I think it's neat but I will say I think you either gotta go whole hog with realism, or nothing at all.

Either way, if I found a Billhook +1, I'd be a happy Fighter.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 22, 2024, 03:17:00 PMCorrect me if I'm wrong: Tolkien was the one who introduced anthropological realism into fantasy literature. Before that we had legends and myths and fairy tales, but the grand idea of a Secondary World complete with legendarium, songs, languages, lineages, religions (of a kind), creation myths, and verisimilar histories, didn't exist until he literally wrote the book on it.

TRPGs trace their ancestry to D&D, which was heavily influenced by Tolkien, as we all know. But, there the seeds of their destruction were sown. By making fairy tales anthropologically realistic, the stage was set for inserting Boasian anthropology and Wokism into the literature. The biological essentialism that informs fairy tales of evil dragons and goblins, the ontological reality of good and evil, and the ignorance of ecological ramifications of fantasy elements, we must count down to destruction, as the real-world, contemporary opinions of these things arrogate all gamerdom.

That is, by making our TRPG worlds as, or more, realistic at Tolkien's in their ecologies, and ontological and anthropological assumptions, we open the door to the presently fashionable political agendas on these things that end up removing their fairy tale underpinnings.

I generally avoid the world of Lit-Crit if I can, so you'll have to pardon me if I misread the terms here.

If by "anthropological realism" you mean writing fantasy as if it was history, that goes back to at least Robert E Howard. As early as the late 1920s and early 30s he was already casting his Thurian and Hyborean ages as a prospective or alternative history of prehistoric Earth. The word "Legendarium" rarely gets used for anyone other than Tolkien, but the first one in modern literature is almost certainly the Cthulhu Mythos as created by Lovecraft, Derleth, Howard etc. in the 30s.

If you mean applying that realistic approach to fairytale creature like elves, trolls and so forth, then it's a stronger attribution to Tolkien, but it's worth noting that other authors were moving in the same direction at the same time. Poul Anderson is the obvious example. Three Hearts and Three Lions (1953, expanded/republished in 1961) casts elves and dwarfs in science-fiction terms, with nebulous scientific reasons for why they are the way they are. The Broken Sword (1954) keeps more to fairytale/mythic logic, but still takes what could be argued to be a relatively realistic approach by delving into the politics and culture of elves and trolls. But even C.S. Lewis could be argued to have been moving in that direction with the way he treats creatures like fauns and dwarfs in the Narnia series. I haven't read Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924), but from what I've heard, it's possible the approach has its roots that far back.

This is relevant, because both the 20s/30s pulp witers like Lovecraft, Howard and Derleth, and the 50s/60s ones like Poul Anderson are inspirations expressly cited by the creators of D&D. It's highly speculative, but I think it's reasonable to say that even without Tolkien's influence, D&D might have emerged in a substantially similar form to the one we actually got.

I also think it's a bit unfair to Tolkien to assert that Middle Earth is anthropologically realistic. Middle Earth is highly detailed, but its style and themes are still firmly grounded in the fairytale and mythic traditions. This is more clear in The Hobbit and The Silmarillion than it is in The Lord of the Rings, but even then it's still the case. Tolkien's background was as a professor of languages with a specialty in Anglo-Saxon literature. He famously despised allegory and was not charitable when asked about realist writers like Frank Herbert.

The development of a "realist" perspective on things like elves and orcs is I think more fairly laid at the feet of writers that followed Tolkien without understanding him. Though he doesn't use elves in his books, the best example is George R.R. Martin asking what Aragorn's tax policy is, obviously not understanding why the question is entirely irrelevant. Sadly, I have to say that Gary Gygax and Ed Greenwood are probably major contributors to this, as the needs of developing a game world require that you look at things like social organization and economics, where a novelist doesn't need to.

At the end of the day, Wokists are going to find an entry point into anything. The non-Tolkien school of fantasy novelists generally come from a more science-fiction or historical-fiction influenced background. That approach is, if anything, even easier insert a Woke crowbar into, since it has a greater implied grounding in real world logic. Absent Tolkien's influence, I think it likely that fantasy literature develops more heavily into a rationalist approach rather than a fairytale one.

More often than not, I'll describe the really big combats with some details but I never get out of hand. My usual friend group keeps it light, but we won't just roll dice. It'll go something like:

Player describes their action: "I swing my sword at the goblin" or perhaps "I loose an arrow at the goblin"
DM describes its outcome: "...and you strike it!" or "...it whizzes past it."

I've gotten quite good at describing different ways a monster/pc/npc can be struck with various attacks and spells. It's enough to give them a good mental image, but I don't have to monologue either. Nothing ground-breaking, but it works.