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Author Topic: ...Now Apparently Dungeons and Dragons is loaded with Anti-semitic Secret Codes  (Read 15542 times)

Shasarak

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Since we're talking about D&D dwarves, I think a word from Gary Gygax might be relevant:

Quote
I have recounted this experience before, but I'll do so again: When I was part of a large con panel on the East Coast, one young twit of an editor for a major publisher also a panelist asked me before the audience why I had stolen dwarves from Tolkien. I responded in august tones: "I beg your pardon, Young Lady," but I stole my dwarves from the same source the Good Professor did, Norse Mythology."

She was pretty much silent for the rest of the session.

If any of the D&D books had a +2 dwarven warhammer of Christ-killing listed among the magic items, the dumb schmuck who wrote this article might have had a point.  But apparently Gygax & Co did such a good job of hiding their Jew-hatred that only the silly fumbledick who wrote the article noticed.

Gary stole his Dwarves from the same place as Tolkien indeed: The Hobbit
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jhkim

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There goes Melan using facts again!

The "game industry" is much like the self-publishing fiction industry. Mostly vanity press, some people making beer money, a few paying cheap rent and a handful making 6 six figures year upon year.

Yes, but isn't that roughly how it has always been? Back in the 1990s, I knew some people who published some GURPS books and such. No one had any illusions that going into RPG writing full-time was a workable career move -- particularly as TSR faltered. Some people got that illusion during the D20 boom, but it was pretty clear that was a bubble that would burst, as it did.

It just used to be that different people were making what little money there was to be made. Now with the Internet and print-on-demand, lots of people have minor freelance work, and even fewer people have full-time jobs in RPGs.

Kyle Aaron

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This is not specific to RPGs. The entire "creative economy" is a racket, and the masses of people who have been promised they will make a living in it are living increasingly marginal existences across the developed world. There are successful niches, but they are very small, and don't make for an "industry".
That's better, it makes for more creativity. We can see the way companies like google or facebook reach a certain size and stop innovating, all they can do is buy other innovative companies and crush them or absorb their creative work - usually, crush them.

Roleplaying games are a social creative hobby. So if they're smaller and more creative, that's a good thing.
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It's an interesting question to me -- when did the stereotype of dwarves having a Scottish accent start? I'm guessing it predates the LotR movies, but I don't know what an earlier source would be.

I thought it was with The Witcher...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7fZK05xikM
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Melan

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This is not specific to RPGs. The entire "creative economy" is a racket, and the masses of people who have been promised they will make a living in it are living increasingly marginal existences across the developed world. There are successful niches, but they are very small, and don't make for an "industry".
That's better, it makes for more creativity. We can see the way companies like google or facebook reach a certain size and stop innovating, all they can do is buy other innovative companies and crush them or absorb their creative work - usually, crush them.

Roleplaying games are a social creative hobby. So if they're smaller and more creative, that's a good thing.
As noted, I like it that way (and I have the same suspicions you have about large companies). But man's gotta live - and what makes an industry an industry is that it provides employment and livelihood for a substantial number of people. Call centres are an industry (although they are services), vegetable oil production is an industry (well, industrial agriculture), and power grid construction/operation/maintenance is an industry. RPGs? Uhhhhh. Let me get my magnifying glass.

Calling RPGs a social creative hobby sits well with me; referring to it as an industry? We are deluding ourselves if we call it that way. What's worse, we are giving dangerous illusions to starry-eyed young people and turning them into bitter wrecks when they realise their job doesn't pay for a car, groceries, and clothes for the kids.
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Ghostmaker

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Problem is, if you believe that then you actually have to support the idea that no object is evil in and of itself.  That means drugs, food, guns, porn, etc...The only issue that occurs is that you need to accept the consequences of your actions.

Unfortunately, on one side of the argument there are too many moral busybodies (SJW or otherwise) who want to tell others how they have to live...on the other there are all the people who don't want people to have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

What's absolutely hilarious is how often either of those groups flip their attitude based on the situation.  I have no problem with people who make games that are liberal or conservative...I have a problem when those people tell me what I can or can't play...
I agree, but you're making a crucial error here. You're assuming the moral busybodies and the ones who decry personal responsibility are on opposite sides of the argument. They are not, sir.

moonsweeper

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Problem is, if you believe that then you actually have to support the idea that no object is evil in and of itself.  That means drugs, food, guns, porn, etc...The only issue that occurs is that you need to accept the consequences of your actions.

Unfortunately, on one side of the argument there are too many moral busybodies (SJW or otherwise) who want to tell others how they have to live...on the other there are all the people who don't want people to have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

What's absolutely hilarious is how often either of those groups flip their attitude based on the situation.  I have no problem with people who make games that are liberal or conservative...I have a problem when those people tell me what I can or can't play...
I agree, but you're making a crucial error here. You're assuming the moral busybodies and the ones who decry personal responsibility are on opposite sides of the argument. They are not, sir.

Sorry, I didn't mean opposites quite that way...I should have stated it as the two 'facets' of the problem.

Facet one is the people who believe that they have to control access* to whatever they label as 'bad' things be it speech, drugs, whatever in order to 'protect' people.

Facet two is the people who think there should be access to these 'bad' things but that you should not suffer the consequences that might result from your actions.

...and yes in many cases the same people can occupy both groups at the same time.  They just want to apply it to their 'pet' item.  They don't grasp the concept that Freedom is Power, the power to do what you want...and that means the Peter Parker principle applies...With great power (freedom) comes great responsibility (for your actions)


*just look at how many people say it is ok for one person to do something but as soon as someone else does something similar it is wrong...or how someone might say marijuana is ok but guns are evil.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2021, 02:25:44 AM by moonsweeper »
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BoxCrayonTales

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Since we're talking about D&D dwarves, I think a word from Gary Gygax might be relevant:

Quote
I have recounted this experience before, but I'll do so again: When I was part of a large con panel on the East Coast, one young twit of an editor for a major publisher also a panelist asked me before the audience why I had stolen dwarves from Tolkien. I responded in august tones: "I beg your pardon, Young Lady," but I stole my dwarves from the same source the Good Professor did, Norse Mythology."

She was pretty much silent for the rest of the session.

If any of the D&D books had a +2 dwarven warhammer of Christ-killing listed among the magic items, the dumb schmuck who wrote this article might have had a point.  But apparently Gygax & Co did such a good job of hiding their Jew-hatred that only the silly fumbledick who wrote the article noticed.

Gary stole his Dwarves from the same place as Tolkien indeed: The Hobbit

D&D dwarves are lifted directly from Tolkien. You can tell because they don't incorporate anything from Norse myth that Tolkien didn't, like the ability to forge abstract concepts into magic items, turning into stone under sunlight, or being sapient maggots.

Gygax lifted vastly more from fantasy fiction than he did from the original myths and folklore that informed that fiction.

Ratman_tf

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Since we're talking about D&D dwarves, I think a word from Gary Gygax might be relevant:

Quote
I have recounted this experience before, but I'll do so again: When I was part of a large con panel on the East Coast, one young twit of an editor for a major publisher also a panelist asked me before the audience why I had stolen dwarves from Tolkien. I responded in august tones: "I beg your pardon, Young Lady," but I stole my dwarves from the same source the Good Professor did, Norse Mythology."

She was pretty much silent for the rest of the session.

If any of the D&D books had a +2 dwarven warhammer of Christ-killing listed among the magic items, the dumb schmuck who wrote this article might have had a point.  But apparently Gygax & Co did such a good job of hiding their Jew-hatred that only the silly fumbledick who wrote the article noticed.

Gary stole his Dwarves from the same place as Tolkien indeed: The Hobbit

D&D dwarves are lifted directly from Tolkien. You can tell because they don't incorporate anything from Norse myth that Tolkien didn't, like the ability to forge abstract concepts into magic items, turning into stone under sunlight, or being sapient maggots.

Gygax lifted vastly more from fantasy fiction than he did from the original myths and folklore that informed that fiction.

Yep, and he even put in Appendix N so people could find his sources of inspiration. It's not like it's a dark secret.
But he wasn't tied to them. Dwarves that turned into stone in sunlight would be annoying to play in a co-operative game, for example.
Tolkien created the modern fantasy archetypes out of existing mythology, and D&D ran with some of the ideas, but didn't limit itself to just Tolkien. There's actual Lord of the Rings RPGs for that.
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Null42

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Oh God. I'm a halfie myself but this is ridiculous.

(1) The dwarves were a good race, for starters, so I don't find it particularly offensive.  People love to make Scottish and German dwarves, probably because it fits the existing dwarven stereotypes; I was aware of the 'Jewish' origins of Tolkien's dwarves but it didn't seem to carry over to D&D, where other stereotypes like drinking and fighting (not typical Jewish stereotypes) were a bigger deal.

(2) I kind of thought D&D's gnomes (as of about 2e) might be a little Jewish, what with the bonus to INT, the big noses, and the love of money and jokes, but then again, they were good guys; I'd be much more upset about drow or orcs.

(3) Gygax swiped the golem and the phylactery from Judaism...just like he swiped the rakshasa from India, gold dragons from China, Tiamat from Babylonia, griffins from Iran and Egypt, and lots of other stuff. This was way before people were worried about cultural appropriation, mercifully.

(4) The author has ignored all the clerical spells clearly taken from the Bible...Sticks to Snakes, Lower Water, Part Water, Insect Plague come to mind. Gygax was a Christian and when writing the cleric class these would have been natural examples to come to mind.

What's going on, IMHO, is all the lefty social-justice Jews are realizing they don't have enough 'intersectionality' points and are going to get discriminated against with the other white people...not to mention saying you're oppressed gets you victim points and gets other lefties to defend you. Forget about inventing relativity, the atom bomb, the polio vaccine, and just about every major comic book character, you get points by being picked on these days.

David Johansen

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Maybe it was in the Players Handbook that had the "real" spells in it.  I never got that one.  ;)
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Shasarak

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Maybe it was in the Players Handbook that had the "real" spells in it.  I never got that one.  ;)

You missed out on that, chicks really dig a dude with access to the real spells.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

moonsweeper

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Maybe it was in the Players Handbook that had the "real" spells in it.  I never got that one.  ;)

You missed out on that, chicks really dig a dude with access to the real spells.

I'm gonna call BS on that one...

Everybody knows that gamers were misogynists who never let chicks anywhere near them until recently.  :)
"I have a very hard time taking seriously someone who has the time and resources to protest capitalism, while walking around in Nike shoes and drinking Starbucks, while filming it on their iPhone."  --  Alderaan Crumbs

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"Government is the only entity that relies on its failures to justify the expansion of its powers." -- David Freiheit (Viva Frei)

BoxCrayonTales

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(3) Gygax swiped the golem and the phylactery from Judaism...just like he swiped the rakshasa from India, gold dragons from China, Tiamat from Babylonia, griffins from Iran and Egypt, and lots of other stuff. This was way before people were worried about cultural appropriation, mercifully.
And often stripped away what made them interesting in the first place. There's cultural appreciation, and then there's creatively bankrupt.

For example, the mythological griffin could detect deposits of precious metals (which they hoarded like magpies), laid agate eggs, its feathers could cure blindness, a drinking horn made from a griffon talon would change color in the presence of poison, etc. There were also a bunch of different varieties like axex, keythong, alce, etc.

The D&D griffon is just a living taxidermy that sometimes you can use as a mount.

Brad

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(3) Gygax swiped the golem and the phylactery from Judaism...just like he swiped the rakshasa from India, gold dragons from China, Tiamat from Babylonia, griffins from Iran and Egypt, and lots of other stuff. This was way before people were worried about cultural appropriation, mercifully.
And often stripped away what made them interesting in the first place. There's cultural appreciation, and then there's creatively bankrupt.

For example, the mythological griffin could detect deposits of precious metals (which they hoarded like magpies), laid agate eggs, its feathers could cure blindness, a drinking horn made from a griffon talon would change color in the presence of poison, etc. There were also a bunch of different varieties like axex, keythong, alce, etc.

The D&D griffon is just a living taxidermy that sometimes you can use as a mount.

So then make it whatever the fuck your want it to be? You allegedly have a brain and some degree of creativity, why not use it?
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