EntrerisShadow's page

Paladin of Baha-Who? wrote:

When people react badly to suggestions about how to make RPG gaming welcoming to women, it always makes me wonder why they value the behavior that is offputting so highly.

Its not necessarily the behavior itself that's valued but the ability to not constantly have to think about what you're saying and doing. Taking that self monitoring up to a level that more women would be comfortable with can detract quite a bit from the fun.

You have to avoid a level of offense that's set by another person. Its not static, its not objective, and most importantly its not visible. Telling when you've stepped over the line or are coming close can be VERY hard so it's a constant worry that anything you say might be over the line.

Someone asked me who my previous post was directed at --- and this right here is a related, if not perfect, example.

Really, other people do this every day. The fact alone that we have a concept of 'emasculation' in our culture is a good indication about how often women are just expected to adjust their attitudes based on the subjective sensibilities of someone else. Yet we almost never argue about what is actually emasculating in that context - it's just generally assumed that they know because they've been taught from early childhood, as women, what sort of things are typically expected by and around men. Every woman I have ever met does this. This is the reality of their lives. And yet here we are again fretting about being asked to do the same thing for others we have grown completely accustomed to expecting from them.

And what's particularly telling is what exactly we are worried about. Like we won't be able to relax because what? Because somebody might unfairly dislike us? Wanna talk about what women have to fear if they step over the line?

It's not an argument worth having. We have some pretty strong guidelines about what should be expected. I think the line is typically a lot clearer than we want to believe because if it is our excuses dry up. But even if you do inadvertently step over it, you just apologize and try to do better. There are no REAL consequences for a slip up. What a freaking gift that is!

I sorta try to avoid this topics now as they get my rankles up... but I can't help it, because this always happens. Someone talks about how you can be more inclusive and the straight white guys inevitably bring up a ridiculous argument about how everyone needs to get over it and NOT being offensive would be its own form of discrimination by not treating people 'equally'. And I hate, hate, hate that argument with a passion.

Maybe there's a point, and maybe somebody gets to say that. But not you. Not me. Not us. Not the people whose entire lives have been defined by others going out of their way not to offend us.

Making a big budget Hollywood movie? Better not make it too black! Or only include women! Hell, you just better not even make it too 'girly' regardless of your male-to-female ratio.

Remember Magic Mike? How many of you actually saw it? Notice the actual ratio of male-to-female nudity in there? Even if you're targeting women in a provocative way you have to include something for their boyfriends in case they get 'dragged' along to see it. Ever see any such consideration given to women?

All this talk about sexy iconics and never once is it considered that it would actually be more than fair if Pathfinder never included a sexualized female character and only focused on the female gaze because it still wouldn't bring the industry close to parity. There was never a point at which heterosexual men were NOT considered as part of the target demographic. Can you say that about any other group?

Want to sell a predominately black musical genre to a white audience? It'd better have a white face stamped on it, even if they're despicable human beings. (Eminem springs to mind.)

Want to make feminism relevant to men? Better list the myriad ways that men are hurt by patriarchy, too - as if subjugating 51% of the population in the guise of tradition wasn't enough of a reason. And you'd better begin every single point by reminding men - mostly straight white men specifically, as the only group of people who predominately have so few actual problems that they have to go looking for them - that you don't hate them or aren't biased toward them.

Stop acting like being asked not to offend is hypersensitive or some great burden on you or like you're the "true" Egalitarian(TM) for not buying it. It's just people asking for the same basic courtesy we've taken for granted since we pretty much got control of the Western world 500 years ago. If we lived in a society that didn't do that, then you might have a case. But since you have ZERO idea what it's like to constantly be expected to just 'get over it' or being diminished, then no, you're not being fair when you're "equally" crude or belittling to everyone you meet. Especially when they're things that can only very specifically target someone for their gender - like rape, for instance - but ultimately no matter what the context.

EntrerisShadow wrote:

thejeff wrote:

And all of that is without considering climate change.

Kind of surprised this hasn't come up more. We are in a unique situation where the doomsday warning aren't coming from religions or prophets or mystics - but peer reviewed scientific research.

Again, probably won't wipe humans out (EDIT: completely), but it'll be apocalyptic in that the world on the other side is going to look very different.

It's not unique. This isn't the first time science has predicted humanity's demise.

The first time is one of the pieces of science that led to China's one-child-only policy and many of the human rights abuses China has performed while maintaining that policy.

It's since been disproven, but that doesn't exactly do much to comfort all of the victims of implementing its suggestions.

Edit: Almost forgot... there were also the scientists who were afraid the first atomic weapon would ignite Earth's atmosphere. They were quickly proven wrong, but for awhile there was some serious consideration that the U.S. may be building a weapon that would destroy the planet.

I don't even know where to begin with this. You're comparing apples to oranges here.

The atomic bomb concern was a small fraction of scientists worried about the possibility of a chain reaction. A better example would be the small fraction of people who thought the large hadron collider would open up a black hole. They were there, certainly, but a fringe group that were almost universally dismissed out of hand. It's hardly anywhere near the consensus we have on climate change.

I don't know enough about China's one-child-policy to say what lead to it, but if what you say is true, then again there's an enormous difference between clinging to policy in light of debunking evidence, and refusing to acknowledge legitimate findings.

EntrerisShadow wrote:

Kind of surprised this hasn't come up more. We are in a unique situation where the doomsday warning aren't coming from religions or prophets or mystics - but peer reviewed scientific research.

Yes, because when people in lab coats start clucking that the sky is falling, it must be true.

Wow, arrogant much? I definitely trust those 'people in lab coats' - that is, people who have dedicated their entire lives to studying and understanding natural phenomena - when they overwhelmingly agree there going to be potentially catastrophic consequences, to the drivel of anti-intellectual knuckle-draggers who think their lack of education on the matter somehow makes their opinions more valid.

OK, so I saw my last post was deleted. I'm not surprised. I was angry when I wrote it - I still am. I'm furious. I wrote that Fergurg, and people like him, are delusional.

I get why my post was deleted. I don't agree with it, but I expected it. However, a few posts beyond that, I find this:

BTW: You want a conspiracy theory? I got one, and I don't think it's too far-fetched: Garner's legal issues, and the reason he knew that particular cop, were related to not paying cigarette taxes. The mayor of NYC loves himself some taxes. The people who elected him, the same people who would be part of the grand jury pool, elected a man who campaigned on raising taxes.

Is it just me, or does this sound like a "Business man didn't pay the money we wanted him to pay. Sure was a tragic 'accident' what happened to him. If only he had paid, that could have been avoided."

And this is precisely what I'm talking about. Our slavish devotion to an abstract notion of 'civility' (toward other white males who have none for anyone else) has sincerely hampered our position. Unless you catch someone organizing a cross-burning, you can bet calling a racist racist is going to get stamped down hard.

Yet here is someone insinuating that the mayor, who has a black family - who has been touched directly by the brutality and racism of the NYPD - is responsible for the death of an innocent man over TAXES. Here is somebody who has done nothing but try to justify the murder of unarmed black citizens as legitimate police work, now using those same people he denigrated as pawns for some right-wing fantasy about Tax Collecting Death Squads.

What a vile, racist and ridiculous thing to say. What a vile, racist, and delusional position to hold. Fegurg is a very disturbed individual with disturbing views. Yet my post is the 'inflammatory' one for pointing that out?

My guess is this will probably be deleted, too. Something might happen to my account - a temporary suspension or something so I can "calm down" or whatever. But we whites who for too long placed the feelings of racists in our midst above the lives and justice for those who didn't look like us - we are just as responsible for these statistics as the "I Am Darren Wilson" crowd. Every time we legitimized these people, every time we refused to call them what they are, every time we got up on the proverbial stage and shook hands and acted like The Loyal Opposition with murderers we perpetuated that system. There is blood on all of our hands now.

I'm done treating people with respect whose entire existence is one dedicated to the oppression and murder of others. I'll save my respect for their victims.

thejeff wrote:

It also ties in nicely to the "It's the black people's fault" theme. If it's not because they're criminals, it's because they must just be jerks to cops more often.

If they don't enjoy being shot to death, maybe they should trying being a little less black. /s

I know it's sarcasm, but that's about a perfect summation of FOX News' position.

Pardon the expression, but there are few issues on the scene right now that are as black and white as this one. (The only one that immediately springs to mind is torture.) You are on the side of victims, or you are on the side of the murderers. This is not left vs right, law and order vs civil liberties. This is as close to being on the side of objective good versus objective evil you will ever get.

Look at the photos from the 1950's and 60's, where the cops turned firehoses on civil-rights protesters and consider for a long while, if you'd been raised in that era, whose side you would be on.

Lemmy wrote:

IME with the police from 3 different nations, (including Brazil, which is not exactly known for it's amazing police force and safe streets), most police officers are actually honest people doing their work, usually legitimately trying to protect and serve the community.

As is the case with any other organization, though, it has bad apples. A$#%#%%s will be a@@~@$@s, no matter their job. And if those a*!%%*@s are in a position of power, they'll abuse it. It doesn't matter if it's the power of carrying loaded arms and beating up people or the power to write and approve bad laws.

Additionally, police officers don't grow on police trees. They most likely come from the communities where they work. The police (much like government) reflects the society that it works for. In a place where racism is common, expect lots of racist cops. In a place where corruption runs rampant, expect corrupt cops.

I know the quality of police forces varies wildly from place to place, but I tend to at least show police officers some respect and give them the benefit of doubt. Their job is often dangerous and underpaid, and to make things worse, the communities they protect often see them with bad eyes...

It's certainly not an easy job. Especially in the communities that most desperately need an effective police force.

A. As mentioned above, they often don't live in the communities they work and prefer to have a relatively long commute to avoid running into people they have arrested. This is more true the likely more urban an area is.

B. Aren't recruited from communities which have grown to distrust the police, like minority ones, because people don't grow up to aspire to be their enemy. By actively discriminating against a community, you reduce the number of people from that community interested in being recruited.

At this point, I more or less assume a cop is scum on a power trip and deal with them like any other bully, unless they give me the rare cause to think something else.

Also,...

^--- All of that. Also, semi-related, but you want to talk underpaid? More fast food workers are killed per capita than cops and their asking to be paid more than the minimum wage is met with derision and anger by the same people who defend criminal cops. I'll leave it there so as not to hijack, but it really gets my cackles up.

There's a definite problem with the police, especially when interacting with minority groups.

Truthfully, it can probably be traced back to our unique relationship with slavery and how this made America distinct from its European fellows in its development of white supremacy. The way-too-simplified explanation would probably be, whereas European white supremacy was outwardly focused and expansionist, America's looked inward. Rich European immigrants experienced uprising and revolts of both slaves and poor white immigrants - usually brought over as little more than slaves themselves - and learned quickly to divide and conquer. Keep institutionally powerless lower-class whites looking down, afraid of blacks rising to their very limited station, so they wouldn't look up and see whose boot was on the back of their neck. The very institution of the municipal police department is at its core racist, an extension of this meant to insulate white communities and cow minority ones into submission.

To put it succinctly, it working precisely how it is designed to work.

Kthulhu wrote:

I personally find items that merely make an existing number bigger to be absolutely the most boring items in the entire catalog of Magic items. Even (and especially) the vaunted "Big Six".

I absolutely agree. +x weapons and armor are nice for their utility but just don't spark the imagination the way a Cloak of Manta Ray or Horn of Blasting does. Those are truly "cool" items that often solve a problem or turn the tide of battle in ways that create a memorable experience.

Thia is something old school I'd like to see make a comeback. Far fewer magic items, but the ones that exist have epic names and stories behind them, rather than just +X whatever.

My 5E game has 5th level characters and they've yet to find a magic weapon, but it doesn't seem to be hurting them at all. (In fairness, the party has a Sorcerer, Druid, and Cleric; but the Paladin and Fighter are still effective.)

Actually, the only magical equipment they've found thus far is a quest item with a minor effect. But it felt a lot more special than buying enchantments when they're in town.

My peeve is getting interested in joining a new campaign but being told for the 497th time in a row "Core only." Since 2nd edition I've been buying just about every sourcebook I could get my hands on from TSR, then WotC, then Paizo. And I read up and find some new race/class/feat/build that makes me want to play it. Only I'll give my idea to the GM and he'll say "Oh, I'm not allowing that." I don't think I ever got to play in a 2e game with the training wheels off, and I can only think of 1 3e game I got to play a later core class (Warblade from Book of 9 Swords - thank you SlyFlourish!). To be fair, I did get approved to try a duskblade in another game, but the game folded before I got to write it up.

Core Only is one of my major pet peeves, too. I often limit my games around a certain theme or I might say no to particular class/race combinations, but if I'm going to the DM, I do the heavy lifting of making sure it's balanced and appropriate. My biggest complaint about DM's is cutting things arbitrarily. I got banned from playing an alchemist by a DM because he hadn't bothered to read the class and didn't want to.

You know what I hate? Ninjas. You know what class I read all about anyway? Ninjas. You know what class I let my players choose if they're so inclined? Ninjas.

Also going to chime in with the chorus of people who can't stand Chaotic Evil Chaotic Neutral players. I love Chaotic Neutral. It's one of my favorite alignments since it is so freeing. But I know any DM that sees "CN" on my character sheet is going to groan and roll her eyes because too many players have used it as a license to kill, brutalize, rape and pillage indiscriminately.

Somewhat back on topic, one of the things I appreciate most about 5E is the dismantling of "Save or Die" spells. There are a still a few high level "I Win" buttons, but saves and DCs never reach the absurd heights they do in 3.PF. So no more, it's a complete waste of time to cast "Hold Monster" on a caster-type enemy, but no more Charm the Heavy-Hitting mook and combat is over, either.

As examples; the Catholic Church (and the Vatican) is clearly not lawful good but does have a lawful and just society as a goal that we would call lawful good. But as any large institution is inevitably prone to corruption the Catholic Church has problems with abuse of power and position as well as institutional attempts to whitewash current and past events that put the church in a bad light. Any political institution (which means any country and any large religious organization) can ascribe to lofty goals like being a just society.

I wouldn't call any city-state whose utopian ideals include the subjugation of women and non-believers "good".

Hence the problem with every Abrahamic religious organization. It's not that they're bad when they're corrupt; it's that they're bad when they're following their teachings to the letter.

How tactically oriented is your GM? Because I'll tell you right now that if I were GMing this system, it would be incredibly hazardous for casters. I would take full advantage of this... feature as early and as often as possible. It's not...

Unrelated to the caster thing, but I have to say that it's interesting that in such a stripped down system, 5E demands players be more tactically astute than the rules-heavy 3.PF model.

The Monster Manual pretty much hands out advantage to GM's like candy. Even the staple of low-level counters - 1/4 CR wolves - become deadly if you throw more than one of them in there. (Automatic advantage when in a pack, and DC 13 trip attempts on every attack.)

A Level 1 Fighter in 3.PF could probably kill a dozen rats without breaking a sweat. I almost killed our party fighter with 4 of them, due to the new finesse attack/damage rules.

In PF I always had to throw harder CR's at my players to make the encounters challenging. In 5E I'm wondering what drunk hobo thought "1/8" was an appropriate challenge rating for something that can knock out your fighter in two hits.

Laurefindel wrote:

The fact that casters can't go in and out of combat with impunity is not a bad thing IMO even if it changes the paradigm a bit.

It hurts the robustness of the overall system if you limit it too much. 3.x/PF probably went a bit far, but casters still need some ability to do so, as combat is going to be where the party spends a lot of time, and returning to AD&D levels is to me too far of a step back. Maybe 5E pulls it off in play without having to have the perfect group, but on paper, it seems like it has most, if not quite all, of the difficulties that AD&D had, which makes me less likely to actually try the game because I like to play casters and I need them to be not entirely reliant on teammates or DM fiat to be both fun and useful. 5E just doesn't seem to have that from what I've seen so far.

Well, our level 1 sorcerer did single-handedly end an encounter with 5 goblins last session.... so I can say with certainty it's not unheard of for a caster to hold up by themselves. (Like I said - Sleep is still a great equalizer. Probably moreso now that that there's no save.)

I disagree with your last statement. I think there is a VERY real chance of getting crushed by a martial, because once they are adjacent, you can't get away. And cranking down spell slots seems to me to be cranking down choice. Maybe I'm just looking at it very differently.

I actually like that quite a bit. Essentially, D&D is a party based system, meaning that no class should be a one man show. You need every member of a party to effectively do different things.

So casters really shouldn't be able to get away from martials. In a party, the martials should be killing opposing casters or trying to prevent the other beat sticks from killing their caster.

The caster, depending on the type, should either be killing scores of smaller enemies, buffing their allies and debuffing opponents, or shaping the battlefield so it is more advantageous toward their group.

Casters should cast and martials should . . . uh, martial. I could see a two-adventurer party with a Battle Master Fighter and Diviner Wizard being more dangerous than the standard group of 4.

Kthulhu wrote:

David Bowles wrote:

The point is that they have taken away a lot of caster choice and enhanced martials tremendously. I see no reason to play a caster at all in 5th ed. Because some martial is going to come pound me like railroad tie.

Let's pretend for a moment that 5e actually was weighted in the favor or martial.

Is that so g@*!~%n bad? And if it is, then the bad news for Pathfinder is that it's way WAY more unbalanced, just in the opposite direction.

Perhaps. I find that high level DPR must be performed by martials in Pathfinder, because all the attack spells just bounce off the opponents. In Pathfinder, caster strength is diversity of effects. That's why I dislike sorcerers in homebrew games.

The whole full attack after full move combined with how disengaging from an opponent in combat works means that a caster can never get away from a martial in combat. The can't even mitigate the incoming damage. Combine this with gimped casting, no channeling, no meta magic and it adds up to a bunch of classes I would never play.

That is helpful in recommendations, at least.

If you think martials got shafted in 3.5/Pathfinder, you'll probably see 5E as a godsend.

If you think PF is balanced already, you'll probably find 5E completely unfair.

I have seen them. And casters are eviscerated in 5th. No channel. No summons.

You can still summon as a Caster. (Conjure X spells exist) And they do have channel?

Summoning is powerful, but I wouldn't even say it's the most powerful thing you can do as a conjurer. (Black Tentacles, Pit spells, Glitterdust, and so on.)

I guess it is a pointless argument - different strokes, and all that - but I've found casters to still be incredibly powerful.

Eben TheQuiet wrote:

David Bowles wrote:

I dislike the lack of dynamic range of 5th edition greatly. Getting rid of all the "+1's" makes 5th ed combat pretty boring to me.

I agree with this. I've only played a few pick up games (and all at level 1 & 2, so keep that in mind), but there really didn't seem like much difference between someone invested in a particular area and someone who wasn't.

I can appreciate a simplified system, and I can appreciate the flexibility it gives DM's to improvise and keep things moving narratively, but I want my character build choices and conceptual areas-of-focus to make the character mechanically stand out.

I improvise just fine in Pathfinder. But I've been templating since 2000. The first 3.0 game I ran had templated NPCs in it.

One more point about 5th: I hate it that martials can take a move and then get all thier attacks. 5th, from what I have seen, is balanced very heavily in favor of martials. I would, for example, never play a cleric in 5th. I'd make someone else do that job.

Wait, what?!

Dude, have you seen the cantrips in this edition? Unlimited Xd6-Xd12/day at range with several feats and class features that allow you to add your casting stat to it?

I'm playing a Cleric with the War domain right now who currently has more attacks than our fighter and does more damage per swing. (Though that'll change around 5th level, as it should.) Plus spells get stupid powerful in the higher levels.

The only real difference I can see is it lets martial characters actually do their schtick instead of forcing everyone go into archery so they can get their full attack routine reliably.

Usual Suspect wrote:

I had a DM that let the party gang rape my character's cohort. The idiot couldn't quite understand why I quit after that. Kept pushing to know why I quit coming to the game (I had made a polite excuse as to why I wouldn't be back). He was terribly upset when I explained what a douchbag move it was for the DM to ignore evil actions in a game where he had specifically outlawed evil characters. Most of his players thought it was hillarious. Honestly, 3 twenty-something guys couldn't figure out why rape isn't fin or funny.

Pretty much ruined gaming for a year as I wasn't even interested in role-playing because of that.

Wow, that's an asinine group. The DM wouldn't have had to push me to know why I left...

Rape is something that the heroes kill villainous NPCs for doing, not something that PCs do because lolz the evulz!

I feel like even THAT has to be handled with tact, shouldn't be introduced until you've properly gotten to know the vibe at the table, and still should be used very, very sparingly. (Aside from any other offense it may cause, rape to establish that this is a 'dark' campaign is cliche.)

But what Tequila Sunrise described is just sick. Even if they were evil characters, even if the DM enforced that and made them rewrite all of their character sheets --- some things are just so beyond the pale of human decency I couldn't imagine how anyone would want to play it out in a board game in the first place.

I like to play good looking, human height, non humans. I find that sooo many GMs are rigid and conservative, so I often wind up playing elves and half-elves. But I'd love to explore Aasmimar, Tieflings, Dhampir, Catfolk, but again, many GMs have a stick up their @$$ with this stuff.

In fairness, after a lot of the Aasimars/Tieflings (ESPECIALLY Tieflings) I've seen played, I understand GM's not wanting them around. Too much of the same wangsty, special snowflake BS over and over and over. And anthros? Well, I could share some links about what turns people off to anthros, but I'd be banned from the forums.

Oh, and I forgot to say, I really don't like adventure paths and I was disappointed that Tyranny of Dragons was one, instead of a more sandboxy campaign.

I actually love the AP style. I mean, has enough really changed that we need new Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dragonlance, and/or Greyhawk source books? It probably wouldn't be too difficult to translate the previous edition's sourcebooks to make it fit, either way.

I can do sandbox-y just fine. But sometimes trying to make a coherent story come together over a period of weeks can be a little difficult if I'm on a downswing. The AP's provide a nice break from hardcore DMing to let me play on "Easy" mode for a while.

EDIT: And oh yeah, lorenlord, I'm quite pleased to see how this is going, too! Was a little worried it might devolve into a flame war, but this has been really interesting so far.

Well, the roleplaying stuff is only a facet of it. Generally speaking people apply the label "weaboo" to any non-native fan of Japanese culture and ESPECIALLY media and entertainment.

Extremism on the part of the fan may or may not be present. I've seen the term used to shut down discussions and dismiss a fan's opinions immediately in the vein of "Shut up, I don't watch weaboo crap," or "3.5's Book of Nine Swords is WEABOO FIGHTAN MAGICKE!"

Generally, when someone says it, it seems in my mind to carry a subtle racism to it, implying that the media in question is inherently bad because it's Japanese in origin, or at the very least enjoying it is not something "normal" geeks (i.e. straight, white, cisgendered American men between the ages of 13 and older) should be doing.

If I can offer a defense, I think this cuts both ways.

I enjoy anime, and I do get irritated by a lot of the stereotypes of what it is. I know a lot of people who won't give it a chance because they believe every stereotype they've heard about it. (Perverted, childish, inscrutable - take your pick.) That's sad and offensive, and they're missing out on some really great things. I would even go so far as to say that a childhood devoid of Miyazaki is as incomplete as one devoid of Pixar.

But there's the racism of "Anything non-European is innately inferior", and there's the racism of "Anything (whatever culture) is automatically the best!", especially when it's not really that culture but some bowdlerized version that has more in common with Western misinformation than the actual society. The version that misuses casual Japanese terms in every day conversation - sometimes in offensive or culturally inappropriate ways, regards major parts of Japanese history as their most stereotypical and "most honourable" stereotype (see: Samurai), at the extreme end one who has an obsession with Japanese women, in particular getting a Japanese girlfriend as a prop for his hobby. (Yes, I've met this guy, and yes, he's exactly as greasy as you are picturing him right now.)

It's like the white people who dress up in (what they think is) traditional Native American garb and co-opt it for ridiculous 'ceremonies'. So basically this but with Japan.

Here's my thing: I absolutely do get annoyed with people who play the same character over and over and over. I had a friend that played a rogue that was always just him. But sometimes a halfling. I don't even remember any of their names - so we'll just call him Frank. "Frank the Rogue" for Every. Single. Game. That was irritating.

But the big difference between him and the weeaboos I've played with, however, is that although Frank the Rogue was redundant, his lack of creativity didn't also come packaged with an insistence that Frank was the best way to play a rogue ever and everyone who plays a rogue is doing it completely wrong. No, "Frank's short sword/dagger TWF style wasn't so obviously not good enough RAW because that fighting style is clearly superior to every other fighting style anyone had ever created - like, why would YOU (not you in the general sense, but you who specifically did not choose to play as a Frank clone in this game) choose anything else? Are you stupid?"

Every out-of-game conversation wasn't about Frank's culture, or why it was obviously better than anyone else's. No, "Why would you even want to think about anyone else's? Frank's people are like @#$%ing magic, man. Did you know that Frank's short sword would have killed a medieval knight just by vibrating at the right consistency? Or that even our modern military with all of its guns and drone warfare couldn't take out a force of 50 Franks because Frank's people are just that badass."

And then WotC and Paizo didn't introduce a bunch of Frank-inspired material that was mechanically superior to the core equivalents, even if that would make no freakin' sense whatsoever, just so if you had a world that didn't feature Frank's culture, you could be accused of being stingy or a bad DM when you didn't want to include the new Frank stuff.

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:

I dislike people who have lists of people they dislike.

Cannot agree more strongly, this thread and the contributions to it make me very, very sad. People are to be handled on a case by case basis...interest based descimination isn't more noble than skin color,or gender or any other irrational reason to hate on people.

I dislike people who post in threads just to let us all know how above it all they are.

You're taking this way too seriously.

I not a fan of players insisting on playing evil (or acting like immoral ass**** or playing "neutral-badass" just to impress other players).

I find the enjoyment of doing depraved things disturbing at best, loathsome in most cases.

I can understand (and enjoy) characters struggling against their worst nature, or going into a momentary fit of madness, but there needs to be an intent of redemption somewhere.

Oddly, as a player and a DM, I enjoy evil characters. Especially moustache-twirling, snidely-whiplash sorts that sacrifice a thousand bunnies to call forth Lord Triffaldar: Demon King of Rabbitkind.

But nothing kills the fun faster for me than characters which are grimdark, amoral antiheroes who kill without a second thought and remain completely detached from any sort of emotion whatsoever.

I think because as long as you understand it's evil and dastardly, you can enjoy a villainous character the way you enjoy Loki or The Joker - with an understanding that what they've done is wrong and taking satisfaction in their eventual downfall.

The second variety, though, is just so off-putting. It's like you don't even understand the difference between right and wrong.

I took the thread title to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I don't really "hate" any gamers, but there are annoying habits we all have to some degree or another, and it's cathartic to point them out with a bit of hyperbole. I can find myself often times going through this thread and chuckling to myself saying, "Yeah, I'm that guy". (Sorry, Earlier-Gnome-Hater-Whose-Name-Escapes-Me. Gnomes rock my world and I will always play them up as campy as I feel they're described. I humbly accept my flogging for that sin.)

EntrerisShadow wrote:

And I especially don't want to (in one disturbing case) even scratch the surface of your weirdo loli-fetishism.

Ugh. I almost want to ask how this happened, but... ugh.

There's no real big story about it. She was a friend's new girlfriend at the time, who he claimed was really into anime, RPG's, and cosplay. (All things I can appreciate, honestly.) He asked if she could join a game I was starting the next week. It was the day after our second session they broke up and spared me a very awkward conversation.

what cracks me up is when anyone tries to claim that loligoth "fetishism" or interest is not treading a highly questionable path. It's as if they do not understand where the term "Lolita" in that regard comes from, and why it is a questionable path.

Or to quote the Bard Sting - "He starts to shake he starts to cough just like the man in that book by Nabokov"

I actually was going to post something similar to this, but figured I should let it go. I felt like Auren wasn't being entirely genuine when describing what loli is and why so many people are disturbed by it.

In any case, my issue with that player wasn't just the loli-character - it's that she insisted on making it intensely, disturbingly sexual. (Such as - ugh, "descriptively" - hitting on the other players while affecting a little girl voice.) But when you lay it out as a fashion that's intended to dock adult women out as prepubescent children, I think the fact it sets off a lot of people's ick factors is understandable.

A terrible Tolkien-esque setting where every race was incredibly more powerful than Humans who had no special abilities whatsoever (even feat and skills were removed)

And it goes from there.

^--- this, although not to the degree where everything cool for humans got stripped.

I have been plopped into this exact setting so many times I can't even point to a specific one. Just, we get it - humans suck and you obviously hated high school.

The only other terrible one I can think of is a homebrew world where the gods had come to reside on the material plane. You don't know railroading until the king you're meeting with is a literal god - good luck with any bluff check, sense motive, perception, etc.

• Occasionally fudging die rolls, and reserving the right to roll behind a screen while requiring players to roll openly

  Yes, although my fudges almost always serve the players rather than me. If the first combat has an orc crit the fighter my player spent fifteen minutes making, I'll fudge the hell out of it.

• Employing prominent NPCs/GMPCs

  Aren't prominent NPCs what a GM is supposed to make? I've only used a GMPC once - and that was a healbot/perception monkey. (2 person gestalt game and they both took classes without perception - they each had a negative modifier.)

• Disallowing (or even placing restrictions of any kind on) full casters

  Yes, I do this. I don't allow Summoners. It takes too long, nobody builds them right, and I don't think they fit the system. And I've considered doing an all T3 and below game.

• Enforcing alignment in clear and definitive fashion

  Yeah. Too many players write "CN" on their sheet as excuses to go on murder sprees.

• Imposing an objective morality on paladins, such as disallowing prevarication for selfish gain, torture, baby- (including baby monster) killing and casual sex as inherently evil and/or chaotic

  In defense of the OP, I could see casual sex as being considered "chaotic". But I don't consider it so, so no. But I actually give my Paladins a 10-point edict to follow according to which god they choose. Far fewer "Should the Paladin fall?" arguments that way.

• Not providing the "required"/desired magical paraphernalia on schedule

  Oh yeah.

• Believing the DM's role is benevolent autocrat rather than either gleeful tyrant or impotent fantasy tour guide

  I prefer to see it as a little of both. The important thing is I try to find a balance between the sessions where the players feel challenged and where they get to feel empowered.

• Refusal to permit evil (or even chaotic neutral) PCs

  Not at all. If you can work within the group, and it can make sense within the framework of the story, all alignments are allowed. Just don't mindlessly backstab the other party members.

• Disallowing classes that violate the campaign's established and specific tone

  Just did this, actually, against the advice of several other posters. So far it's working out okay, although I did almost kill the party with a swarm.

• Laying the smack down, hard, on abusive meta-gaming

  Depends. If they're not advancing the plot due to some Platonic ideal of never metagaming, I will encourage them that maybe their character would have an idea of what to do next. But I will come down hard if that 8 int Fighter decides he knows all the strengths and weaknesses of a dragon without the appropriate ranks in knowledge or a good in-story reason.

• Requiring immersive role-play rather than simple recitation of mechanics

  No. Not everyone can be creative off the cuff like that, and I see no reason to punish them. And I enjoy the mechanics sometimes too.

• Taking control of PCs who refuse to role-play honestly when charmed, dominated, etc.

  You know, I've never had a problem with this in my games. We all sort of have an agreement not to use "Dominate Person" on PCs in our games - the worst you'll get is a "Hold Person".

• Retaining control over magical weapons, cohorts, mounts, animal companions, eidolonsSUMMONERS DON'T EXIST! RRRAAGGEEEE!, etc.

  Nope, no way. Too much work on my part. Unless there's a good reason your cohort wouldn't do what you ask them to ("Say, Nodwick, would you kindly go sacrifice yourself on that altar so we can bypass this puzzle? There's a good lad!") I am fine just letting the player handle it.

Gamers who take umbrage with an established world and refuse to stretch their creative muscles rather than get to make whatever combination they feel like.

And the most common subset of that - Weeaboos.

Anime is fine. Manga is fine. Japanese culture can be pretty cool. But I really don't want to role play with your Generic Ninja Stereotype #1,542. And I especially don't want to (in one disturbing case) even scratch the surface of your weirdo loli-fetishism.

Does no one recognize the "sneak attack with a ballista" reference? lol

It's from the same bit as "I shoot magic missile. At the darkness!" and "I steal his pants."

Name the movie!

From the same series, the most succinct description I've ever heard of a typical D&D session:

"Where did you even get a tomato?!"

(Like a boss)"I'm a Bard."

Not to derail, but after going through and reading this thread I'm noticing something - a lot of the posters hate Pathfinder. And not in the sense that, "I'm ostensibly a fan but I find a lot of fault and pick apart the system" hate, but like, "I hate Pathfinder and think it's beyond redemption" actual hate.

Which makes me ask, why are you here? I mean that not in a snarky, "Ew, why is he here?" sense, but just out of legitimate curiosity.

Stylistically (the art, race and class descriptions, etc.), do you prefer the 5th Ed. style or the Pathfinder style?

This one is really hard for me to say. 5th Edition is new, so it's going to engender strong feelings either way, whereas I've had my Pathfinder books for years so I'm sort of used to *that* style. Overall, though, I'd give it to PF for consistency. Some things in 5th Ed. really jumped out at me as great (The Warlock looks really cool, and Dragons in the Monster Manual look much more epic to me.) but there were just as many things that looked cliche or terrible. (Gnomes, goblins - pretty much any small race.)

Mechanically, what did it do better than Pathfinder?

I think what 5th Ed. did beautifully was realign D&D with its strength - party based gameplay. In Pathfinder, too many builds were traps and it was too easy to make a build that completely replaced another build through the proper combo of feat selection. So now a Fighter feels different from a Barbarian feels different from a Paladin feels different from a Ranger. No more, "Fighters suck - just play a Ranger and call it a Fighter."

Even within builds, they've ended the dominance of THW Fighters. They still have some goodies - like being the only variance that can power attack at the cost of a feat - but it's not the runaway superior option it has been since 3.0.

Mechanically, what did it do worse than Pathfinder?

Multiclassing and cantrips. Here are two instances where the simplification has really hurt 5th Ed. There's really no reason for a Wizard/Sorcerer to NOT take a 1 level dip in fighter. Suddenly you can wear armor and cast spells.

And the cantrips are unlimited by beefed up to a point where the meet and even occasionally exceed the capability of first level spells. When you can throw an unlimited 1d12 ranged touch attack that scales with level, I'd call that a tad broken.

Also for simplicity's sake, a lot of the more flavorful spells have become blase damage dealers. Cloudkill, for instance, now instead of the differing effects depending on creature levels just does so many dice of Poison damage. I know they wanted to streamline, but it's made playing a Blaster-Caster the only real option.

Dex to damage for ranged and finesse, on its surface, seems kind of awesome. Thematically it makes sense and works well for classes that traditionally built for stealth and movement rather than brute force. But it sort of makes Dex the "God" stat. There are still reasons to build a STR character, I guess - but not many.

I give Advantage/Disadvantage a wash - it's nice not to have to sift through a dozen different variables to figure out your total bonuses, but it's also too dependent on luck for my taste.

Among those things it did better, can or should any of them be translated to the PF system?

The feat system, definitely. Make feats tie to ability score increases, so that in order to take one you must sacrifice something else that may be valuable to you. And make them worth that sacrifice. 30 (mostly) great feats is a far superior system to 100's of feats comprised of 70% crap, 20% situational, 5% every worthwhile (insert class here) build will have and 5% that should just be an available option, all intertwined by obnoxious feat trees and prerequisites.

Among those things it did worse, was the PF mechanic the clearly superior option, or could they be fixed with small tweaks?

I think a tweak to the Advantage/Disadvantage system could save it. Spoony did have a great point when he pointed out that having a disarmed, injured, confused opponent confers exactly the same advantage as the True Strike cantrip. That seems unfair and actually sort of discourages what 5th Ed. was attempting to do by making the players consider and role-play out combat rather than just doing the typical "I full attack - does 27 hit? 21? 25? 19? OK, two hits." *roll damage* routine.

OK, so in a respectful enough way as not to have this thread locked, this is a semi-related thread to the "Will You Be Switching?" topic. But whereas many of those posts answered with a brief yes or no, I wanted to delve a little deeper.

Now that the PHB and Monster Manual are out, in comparison to PF, what do you think of 5th Ed? As objectively as possible (A completely positive/negative comparison is fine, as long as you reason why and don't just say "D&D/PF sucks and only tools would play it"):

Stylistically (the art, race and class descriptions, etc.), do you prefer the 5th Ed. style or the Pathfinder style?

Mechanically, what did it do better than Pathfinder?

Mechanically, what did it do worse than Pathfinder?

Among those things it did better, can or should any of them be translated to the PF system?

Among those things it did worse, was the PF mechanic the clearly superior option, or could they be fixed with small tweaks?

I'm sure there are more questions to be asked, these are just the first four that popped into my head. Feel free to add more.

I know a lot of people seems to be obsessed with the idea of everything needs to be balanced...but quite frankly do you actually really care? Like a player wants to play a tiny fey creature barbarian and complains that he isn't doing as much damage as the half-giant barbarian? Old school players do you remember how hard it was to play a pixie barbarian?

I mean, I understand that some people like to play special snowflake characters but do you actually care that them playing a subpar option or class should be compensated by something else?

Frankly, I don't think that everything should be balanced to be viable at the same scale of power all the time but that's just my opinion.

First of all, I can see somebody has been watching Spoony's Counter Monkey Videos.

Which is funny, because I remember when I watched that video I was like, "Well, of course that's ridiculous! You picked a ridiculous example!"

I do expect SOME balance. What that means is I don't need every option to be as good as every other option - and I really haven't heard of any players who are asking for that.

But speaking as someone who mostly GM's, there is nothing more frustrating than running a party where one member is either A) So powerful they make the rest of the group redundant (In my group these are generally Clerics, although one Paladin in a demon-heavy campaign pretty much one-shotted every encounter) or B) so weak that they never get to contribute anything. (EVERY rogue I've had come across my table has fallen to this.)

If you want to play against type and challenge yourself with a build that's not super powerful but you love the concept, I absolutely believe you should have that choice. But when comparing optimized builds against one another there shouldn't be options that so vastly outperform the other that they render the latter obsolete.

Yeah, combining the PHB and DMG into the CRB was one of the best things about Pathfinder. Now that I've gotten the first book for 5th Ed., I keep trying to find terrain rules and magic items and the like and I have to remind myself I don't have *that* book yet.

I'll probably be playing both.

I can see the benefits and drawbacks to both - what I do like about 5E is that I think this will be what I use when introducing somebody new to the hobby. They can cut their teeth on a simplified-but-not-too-great Advantage/Disadvantage system and flat class bonuses and then move on to the more complex but ultimately more rewarding tome of tactical and design bonuses and penalties of Pathfinder.

I do think they made one very, very good decision: They scaled Feats way back. Power attacking is one flat bonuses that's wrapped into another feat. You can move and attack without taking the atrocious Dodge-Mobility-Spring Attack feat chain. Fighters and Monks get more attacks than any other class, and there is no way to change that. The strength of D&D/PF has been in a diverse class system that allowed you to craft a very specific niche. (As opposed to systems like Heroes that gave you flexibility at the expense of clearly defined roles.) The Feats system eroded that more and more to the point where I had players rolling up Sorcerers that could melee on par with a fighter, and Alchemists that completely replaced Rogues. In 5E, Rogues don't suck because there's no one who can step on their toes with the right feat combinations.

To take a feat, you have to be at a level that gives you an ability score increase. And not every class gets these at the same levels. So your rogue or fighter can have God Stats (eventually) or be feat hounds. I love that. I hope that if there is a PF 2.0, they consider this change as well. Feats have just simply gotten way too out of hand.

If you are wise, you'll take the second monkey. It's the only one that does not directly put you at risk. The key is simply learning to let go of your hatred, or at least understanding that if you have $50 million, it really doesn't matter if someone else has $100 million.

Failing that, you could always wish for things that would be nice to have but not in excess.

bugleyman wrote:

Simon Legrande wrote:

That chip up there is called collectivism. I keep it there as a reminder that even though I wish to be treated as an individual and strive to treat others the same, that will usually be considered bad because many other people would rather identify themselves by the group they belong to. Every now and then someone comes along and tries to load some guilt up there too. Because for some reason I should be held accountable for the actions of people I've never met just because we have the same skin color. Well there's no room for the guilt so don't expect me to feel any.

Nor should you.

But refusing to acknowledge racism doesn't eliminate it, just as the act of acknowledging racism is not itself racist.

I'm not sure that I ever said racism doesn't exist. I'm quite aware of its existence partly in thanks to the term "white privilege". I'm acknowledging that racism exists on all sides and that anyone who says only whites can be racist is flat out wrong. The way I see it, the only way to eliminate racism is for ALL people to stop practicing it.

Unfortunate use of the word irony aside, that's still incredibly ignorant.

Nobody says only whites can be racist.

OK, most people don't say that. A very select few do. Just like a few people will say all heterosexual sex is rape. But their numbers are so negligible that they could hardly be counted at all and are more often used as a strawman to conflate valid arguments with ridiculous ones.

It's not that people of any race cannot be racist. It's just that institutionally whites have power in America. That's such a plain fact to say it isn't a level of denial I can't even begin to debate with. And the problem is not that people are racist - which sucks, but will never be solved - but that this particular racism is widespread and institutionalized.

Taken individually, it doesn't matter if Abdul next door to me thinks all white people are shifty-eyed devils, or if Jim Bob down the street thinks all blacks are intellectually inferior criminals.

What matters is that our entire culture had been built upon the backs of an oppressed people, and in many ways continues to do so while also disenfranchising those who are identified by other socially outlying features. That is what needs to be fixed, and ignoring it is a tacit endorsement of a system that is still heavily weighted against minorities. Deflecting onto those individuals whose attitudes you find distasteful gives you an all-too-convenient excuse not to worry about how those people are treated.

Amy was not useless, she has legs you can look at to forget...hmmmm...Amy's legs.

This right here sums up a huge problem with Moffat's run.

RTD Companions:

Rose: Provides a human connection and through sheer determination alone - without advanced strength, wits, or technology - rescues the Doctor and all of the human race from a Dalek invasion.

Martha: A brilliant medical student, eventually doctor, who while not possessed of Time Lord intelligence, is easily the most clever of the companions. On many occasions it is her cleverness - The Family of Blood episodes, Last of the Time Lords - that ultimately saves the day.

Donna: Provides a moral center that keeps the Doctor form straying too far. She convinces him that even fixed points in time provide opportunities to do something right, and the lack of her influence is felt severely in the "Waters of Mars" episode.

Moffat companions:

Amy: Has nice legs. The actress, Karen Gillam, was essentially hired on that feature alone. Moffat was going to pass because thought she was "wee and dumpy". It wasn't her acting ability, or her personality that changed his mind - he just had to see she was actually tall and fit.

Claire: Fairs marginally better, but is constantly subjected to unflattering physical comparisons to Amy and quips about her looks. Also the whole "born to save the Doctor" nonsense. He found a way to keep stuffing the same character in the fridge over and over and over and over . . .

Really, I know there's a lot of complaints about it, but I feel like the sexism wouldn't even be that bad (still bad, but sadly not any worse than most of the industry) if not for the nonsensical storytelling, the recycling of recent plots, and the lack of interest in coherency or motivation. Matt Smith's characterization and now Peter Capaldi's is infuriatingly nonchalant about sacrificing others to save himself. I get that he can be dark, he can resort to killing if he has to, but the peaceful resolution isn't even a blip on his radar any more. The end of this most recent episode - which has earned an inordinate amount of praise, imho - goes right back to that.

For me, there's one saving throw that could be made, and a few people have suggested it. This is all speculation (I don't think Moffat is actually clever or moral enough to make it happen, but I've read a couple of fairly convincing arguments), but right now about the only way to redeem this incarnation is if he actually does turn out to be The Valeyard.

OK, so I've been reading up on this Gamer Gate thing, and I'm a tad confused still. I'm not a huge gamer (Tabletop > Video Games, forever and always), but it seems like this is inescapable at the moment (My YouTube is currently inundated with pro- and anti-Quinn videos.) So tell me if this is sort of correct:

-Zoe Quinn made a video game called Depression Quest and released it on Steam.

-Quinn claimed to be harassed in the lead-up to releasing the game by members of a board called Wizardchan. They say they didn't.

-Quinn's ex-boyfriend makes a blog about her which mentions numerous infidelities with members of the gaming press - the one everybody seems focused on is this guy from Kotaku, whose name escapes me.

-Quinn files a DMCA violation against a YouTube user named TotalBiscuit, which raises the ire of 4chan.

-4chan users are accused of doxxing Quinn and release nude photos, personal information, etc. They maintain that Quinn did this herself to garner sympathy.

One side says that the whole thing is not about Quinn's behavior at all but an expression of hostility toward female gamers and developers. I'm a bit confused by what the argument is on the other side of the coin, though - is it that she deserves no sympathy because she faked the attacks, or that she deserves no sympathy because she brought it on herself?

BTW, is there a specific reason why we don't see the Weeping Angels move when nobody is looking at them.

If it is because we're looking at them, kinda makes them extra creepy.

They changed that in the 5th season in "The Time of the Angels" and "The Flesh and the Stone". Truthfully, it was when I realized I really wasn't going to enjoy Moffat's run - the angels were creepy when we didn't see them move.

When we did, they were just crappy CGI.

I'm honestly shocked how much praise this episode of Who received. It's the exact same Dalek episode from Season 1! It uses even almost the exact same "WHAM!" line:

Season 1 Ep 6 "Dalek"

I know people wanted a 'darker' Doctor, but really not a fan of how easily this - and the Smith incarnation - are always straddling the line of 'murderous psychopath'. I don't know, maybe that is closer to the incarnation from the 70s, but we have enough of those types on television now. Do we really need another show with an insufferable genius who really doesn't care for people and only shows interest in them as 'mysteries' to be solved?

OK, I've tried avoiding this thread for a while, but this is so endemic of everything wrong with this debate and society in general I can't let it go.

I'm seeing a lot of No True Scotsman going on here.

"This guy is a racist, white, privileged jerk!"
"Actually, he's Latino."
"Well, he's not a real Latino. And he probably grew up in a rich neighborhood."
"Actually, he grew up in a pretty poor neighborhood."

It's not a No True Scotsman. If his family had immigrated from a Latin American country and had a background there, then I would have no problem saying he's Latino. At some point there's a difference between NTS and just ignoring facts.

The Dutch colonized Africa, too. Most South Africans speak a version of the dialect they inherited. Do I get to say I'm black now? If you answer "no" to that, well, then I suppose you're submitting to No True Scotsman. I could easily be mistaken for a really, really, really, really light skinned black guy, so obviously I've faced discrimination.

Remember, if you point out the absurdity of that, you're engaging in a logical fallacy!

If I insisted that Larry Correia wasn't Latino because he doesn't act stereotypically Latino enough, or doesn't trace his lineage far back enough, you would have a case on your hands. But that is not the case at all.

Nobody was insisting he, personally, is rich. There was some conversation about gaming typically being a middle upper-class hobby, which is predominately white. But being a poor white person is not nearly the same as being a poor PoC. Just like being a poor man is not the same as being a poor woman. Or being a poor straight person is not the same as being a poor gay person. Wealth is its own distinction with its own set of inherent privileges, but poverty is not the great equalizer everybody likes to treat it as.

Not to mention:

"I disagree with tor.com."
"Well, you must be racist."
"I'm not racist."
"The fact that you disagree with tor.com is all the proof we need."

EDIT: By the way, I want to specifically exclude mechaPoet from this, since he or she seems to have tried hard to avoid such ad hominem nonsense.

There are two types of people who argue with what I call "tumblr's idea of Social Justice"—bigots, and people who can't stand tumblr's idea of Social Justice. What Correia calls Social Justice Warriors (a term I'll concede I misused earlier) do not understand this difference. It's easier to be the hero if you get to call everyone you argue with a racist, completely eliminating those pesky shades of grays, right?

Horse. $%^@.

If that's what we were saying, most of us would be calling ourselves racist. I didn't agree with a lot of what A.A. George wrote. But there is a HUGE difference between disagreeing with an article, and being utterly dismissive and calling the author a racist.

Which is what happened. The first people to start throwing around the "R" word were people who wanted to dig at "SJW" types so they blatantly called A.A. George a racist. And then we were racist for pointing out that Larry Correia is actually Western European, so even if you say "OK, that's Latino", it's still really disingenuous to describe himself as a person of color.

If you want to break this down into a way oversimplified version of events, it's a lot more like:

"I definitely agree with Larry. That tor.com was full of it."
"I found his attitude to be terrible - that first article wasn't entirely off base."
"Whatever, A.A. George is a racist. Besides Larry Correia is a PoC - he's Latino!"
"He's a white skinned European. So, no, he's not really."
"You're racist!"
"White privilege exists and that specific attitude about it is problematic."
"You're calling us racist!"

People on this side of the divide have been very careful about calling those on the board on the other side racist. mechaPoet even apologized for straddling too close to that line. But pointing out problematic attitudes or acknowledging that white privilege exists is not the same as saying white people are racist. The same way most men aren't chauvinists or most heterosexuals (well, sadly, that still depends on geography a bit) are not homophobic - it's just that those who are privileged by a system tend not to notice it. We live within a very narrow experience and don't bother to look at it through the lens of somebody who hasn't had that experience.

Saying, "Your attitude is contributing to a problem," is not the same as, "You're a racist." But nobody likes to hear they're part of the problem, so it's far easier to dismiss anybody who points it out as a bunch of wild-eyed slacktivists who are just looking to slap labels on people.

thejeff wrote:

Caineach wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Caineach wrote:

He is basically calling all the white people at the con slave masters

This is where I lose it. How do you get that out of the post?

original article wrote:

It was a surreal experience and it felt like I had stepped into an ugly part of a bygone era, one in which whites were waited upon by minority servants.

If the minorities were servants, the whites are masters. It is passive-aggressive and makes pretty much everyone who doesn't agree with him roll their eyes and tune out the rest of his article. Because if he is going to open with crap, why bother reading the rest.

servant <> slave

No, but it is where most people will assume you are going.

That, itself, is making assumptions. I didn't take it that way, neither did thejeff or mechapoet, and even the people who are actually participating in this thread area small sample of all people on the Paizo messageboards, let alone the general population.

Black people playing a mostly servant role to wealthier whites lasted long after slavery ended. It's still not uncommon, at least in some settings and parts of the country - though now that few people have house servants it's more common at expensive hotels and other event type things. It really is disturbing when you notice it. At least for me.

But it's very much an emotional thing and I think it's a good way to start. I don't think it says anything in particular about the whites in the picture, other than possibly that they're oblivious to it, probably because they're focused on the gaming.

It is a terrible way to start. It assigns responsibility for this discrepancy on the Gencon attendees.

We are all responsible. Businesses reflect their consumer base - not perfectly, but predictably. No, in the grand scheme of things they do not have the power to change that dynamic everywhere. But something cold be done to change it here.

Quote:

As I've said all along, I don't think this is far more a reflection of systemic racism in society than it is GenCon's fault. I'm not even sure it's gaming's fault, though there are things gaming can do to encourage more minority participation. I'd read "gaming has made little room for people of color" as "as done little to actively encourage minority participation", rather than "actively excludes".

This is what I meant earlier about having to take everything he wrote in the worst possible light.

I ask again, if every discussion of race issues in the US has be phrased to make sure there is absolutely no blame ever laid on white people and that no white people are made uncomfortable by it, then how are we every going to get anywhere

The first step in any conversation is making sure the other person is willing to listen to you. Starting with an accusation turns them off. Using charged language like "privilege" turns them off. If you want to actually affect change, you need to discuss the issue in a way that you don't alienate your audience. Otherwise, you just turn a potential ally into an enemy. The Tor article fails miserably at this.

OK, this is a bit of a tangent, but that attitude irks me. Going beyond GenCon, just overall, this irks the hell out of me. For one thing, it assumes white America cares about what is happening to minorities. (One look at the overwhelming disparity in response to the shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson illuminates nicely that, on the whole, they really don't.) Your advice actually is great in the context of an actual dialogue between two parties in a disagreement. But that's not the context we're speaking of.

But the really bothersome part is that it's ultimately saying that the onus is on those people who have historically been oppressed. (Again, not just black people but women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, Muslims, Native Americans, and so on.) After years and years and years, how could people who have had no wrong done to them and - even if they'd not personally contributed, silently benefited from the system that perpetuated it - have the unmitigated gall to say, "Now I'll listen, but only if you watch your tone"?!

These are difficult things to hear, and I understand the resistance. But it's our responsibility to get over that. Just like the "privilege" you used - Growing up poor, my first response to white privilege was, "That's a load of crap! I haven't had ANYTHING easy!" Of course, when I actually read what was actually meant by white privilege and how it applied, it's indisputably true. Sorry if the language isn't dressed up enough not to offend, but we're not talking about a term that says all white people think this way or act that way. Just a term that means being born white in America comes with certain unfair advantages, which it does.

EDIT: Whoops, kind of got ninja'd on that one. Took WAYYY to much time getting the quote brackets right.

I really want to post more here, but I gotta sleep. I just want to know, how do the new posters in this thread feel about this statement?

A.A. George wrote:

"I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance. If you do not see race, you do not see me. You do not see my identity, my ethnicity, my history, my people. What you are telling me, when you say “I do not see race,” is that you see everything as the normal default of society: white. In the absence of race and ethnicity, it is only the majority that remains. I am erased."

I personally found it offensive for reasons stated on page 1. Do you find this statement acceptable? Why?

I don't find it offensive at all.

Too often (usually) well-meaning white people say, "I don't see race" as confirmation that they're not at all racist. But it is a rather ignorant thing to say for precisely the reasons he's pointing out. What he's saying is that it is used as a way to be able to ignore other cultures and experiences because, to you, there is no difference.

There's a reason Stephen Colbert mocks the "I don't see race" line in his conservative-pundit guise. It is a dismissive thing to say. (And too often used to justify ignoring very real racial disparities in hiring, education, and our criminal justice system.) To respect a person is to respect the whole person - that includes understanding how their experience differs from yours due to not being a member of the dominant culture. The statistics do not lie - being black in America is very different from being white. (Also being gay, Latino/a, a woman, or non-Christian, but one thing at a time.)

He, uh, never claimed it was factual. And, much as I'm actually a strong advocate of working to destroy subconscious and cultural prejudices (which are a serious problem), a lot of people who go on about them come come across precisely like that, especially when they talk about it on the internet. So...it's a caricature, but not necessarily a completely inaccurate one.

The factual claim was in response to Hama's post. Hama did call it a factual, well reasoned argument - which I did not find the response to be at all.

Also, I don't accept the 'caricature as not entirely inaccurate' argument. A personal anecdote: My greatest shame is that in my late teens and early twenties I was one of those MRA guys. I technically believed in equality for women, but I saw every argument as the work of feminazis trying to undermine men at every turn. Women should have rights, but if we weren't careful, these castrating man-haters would make all penetrative sex classified as 'Rape'.

The turnaround came when somebody finally asked me if I had ever, personally, encountered a feminist who was actually like that. When I had to really think of it --- no, no I hadn't. Not on the internet. Not in real life.

No, the only feminists like that I ever "encountered" were straw feminists and precisely that type of made-up caricature everybody just knew existed. Even the actual woman that were often singled out as being the perfect example of how those women REALLY exist- Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin - came across very different when you read them in context and not as clips cherry picked to sound terrible. Those marauding misandrists I'd been told about existed only in the heads of my fellow men's activists.

Worst of all, because that was how we saw the opposition, the things we said truly were vile. You can justify so much when you just know the other side is ten times worse. And once I was out, I saw it in so many other groups that had picked sides in the so-called culture "war" - because all is fair in love and war, after all.

So I ask you - How often have you actually encountered these kind of "SJWs", and how often has that encounter been second hand through people complaining about them? I'm betting if you really stop to think about it, most of that awareness we have of those sort of people is through news stories that thrive on drumming up controversy (Don't get me started on the infamous "Some are saying..." 'news' pieces) and people like Larry Correia that want to make a point.

I do not accept that any caricature is accurate, because I have had it demonstrated to me firsthand how blinding and dangerous that sort of thinking is. If there is a group or individual this guy thinks is wrong, he needs to argue with that group/individual. His issue is with the tor.com writer's assessment of GenCon and gaming - so that is the argument that should be had.

Also, this thread's title is misleading . . . it's true he DID say that, but it was a minor point in an article with a very different main thesis.

Fair warning, this is going to get rather maudlin.

Lately, it seems like there has been an uptick in threads blasting Paizo for the editorial decisions they've made. I won't be too specific here, but let's just say there have been complaints levied about the insulting lack of eye candy, or Paizo menacingly pushing the so-called 'gay agenda'. And to the credit of the posters here - and the human race - most of the community has rushed to Paizo's defense.

But I'm tired of waiting an reacting to negativity. Too often those of us who are impressed by the decisions a company makes are content to say 'Oh, that's nice' to ourselves and move on, while the bitter and angry minority tries to drown out the rest to sound bigger than they are.

So, apropos of no (specific) complaint:

Thank you, Paizo, for making a dedicated effort to include LGBTQ individuals - who have made up a large part of the human experience, but who have been relegated to obscurity bordering on invisibility.

Thank you for writing well-rounded female characters that are not relegated to damsels in distress and trophies to be won. For not treating female sexuality as something sinful or shameful, or as something that exists for men and male players.

Thank you for presenting humanity as a wide range of ethnicity and body types, and creating a human 'culture' that is as varied as our experiences in the real world. We are not uniform as a species - our art should reflect that.

Thank you for being accessible to your consumers. Far more often than not it feels as though companies are an unknown entity, rather than actual organization made of up of living people. Many companies, especially the larger ones, are content to allow third party intermediaries handle any direct public interaction and remain hidden behind official press releases.

Does Paizo achieve these things 100% of the time? No. Nobody does. But they are perhaps the most consistently thoughtful of any major tabletop or fantasy publisher on the market today. That they strive to reach a goal that is ultimately impossible, while managing to get a little closer at every opportunity, is something most of us appreciate - even if we do not say it often enough.

I started playing Pathfinder because I love role-playing and I love fantasy. It could have been any fantasy TTRPG, but with nearly every decision that Paizo makes in its materials and as a company in general, I feel more confident about that decision. There are very few companies I will gladly give my hard earned money to without a bit of ethical trepidation, and Paizo is chief among them. Thank you for being that, especially in an industry that desperately NEEDS a company like that.

Alchemist is just too weak.

I'm very curious about this, particularly since your preferred list includes both the rogue and fighter. Why would you call the alchemist weak? I've heard a lot of complaints about flavor, but I don't think I've ever heard an alchemist called weak, so I'm wondering what strikes you as weak about it?

Sitri wrote:

I have read several threads somewhat lately where people have been complaining about art where some of the women display some level of sexuality. I can't help but think that contributed to the very sterile looking new iconics. If they pull up the brawler's belt a half inch, the entire female lot is ready to go for 1960's prime time television decency standards. Obviously there are some people that are very happy about this, but does anyone besides me find this a bad thing?

It's the inevitable result of the philosophy driving it. Trying to be everything results in being nothing. Things considered 'mainstream' are oppressed with the belief that mainstream's very existence oppresses everything else. It's why, under the aegis of religious freedom, religion is forbidden in public institutions whether it's a manger scene in front of the local library or the inclusion of God in the pledge of allegiance. The phenomenon is evident in many places in modern culture and we're seeing it here - stylized or accentuated male and female sexuality is repressed because somehow it's very existence oppresses gay and transgender individuals... which in turn results in the 'saming' of the sexes or, ultimately, a complete lack of any sexuality whatsoever.

Predictable as the sun rising I'm afraid.

OK, sorry for three posts in quick succession, but this has been gnawing at me since I read it. I didn't want to derail the thread, but the first thing is as infuriatingly wrong as the rest of it that I cannot just let it go without challenging it.

Religion is not forbidden in public institutions. You can read your Bible, pray, talk about Jesus, use public institutions to have private meetings for religious groups if they provide equal access for that sort of thing. (Don't even get me started on schools granting ease of access to religious groups for these purposes and then shutting out atheist or LGBTQ groups.) What we ask is that the tax dollars WE ALL pay for not be used to codify or show favoritism to one particular religion. Give me one good reason why I should pay for a model recreation of a scene from YOUR holy book.

To say Christianity is somehow maligned in a society where 75% of the population is some form of Christian, your churches are granted tax exempt status (often even in the face of obvious politicking - a fact that makes me guffaw whenever a fundamentalist says gay marriage is granting 'special rights' to homosexuals), and all of your major holidays are federally recognized is ignorant to the point of delusion.

And that precious "God" mention wasn't even in the Pledge of Allegience until the 1950's - claim what you will, history is on our side. Even Bellamy's family didn't support the move when Eisenhower and Congress officially recognized the change. They actually changed a secular pledge to be more in line with your beliefs.

I would like to argue with the bit about male/female sexuality being neutered because it offends gays, but I can't. It's so ridiculously wrong on so many levels it can't be argued with - because nobody has given that as a reason for ANY of the artistic decisions. It's an absurd strawman argument you invented.

I don't see any issue with the way the new iconics are portrayed. I would prefer more Jirelle's to Seoni's, given that Seoni's outfit might be sexy, but seems like the least practical thing ever to wear for adventuring.

Actually, Seoni's outfit makes decent sense for a sorcerer to me. Every caster I've ever played wore robes until late levels when you could buy mithril light armors that had 0 ACP and a Spell Failure chance of (pretty much) nill.

You could make the case it is still unnecessarily sexual - there's probably not a great reason to bare that much skin when you're wading into combat, although my understanding is the outfit does fit the Varisian culture. (I'm not super familiar with Golarian, but Varisians are meant to be Roma equivalents, right?)

Overall, I'm of a split mind on this. On the one hand, it's hard not to wince at sexual depictions of women when you consider how our hobby is perceived by the outside world. There's especially the danger of making it unappealing to women* - who, more than just being invaluable for their perspective, are ultimately essential to the survival of any product. TTRPG's will not survive without a strong female player base. That's a fact.

On the other, it's sexist in of itself to say that a woman must never be presented as sexual. To say nothing of the commentary it makes to insist that a woman who displays her body or sexuality has no value beyond her physical appeal to men. But it's very difficult to find the line between sexual agent and sexual object and clearly delineate it. Read any argument over Amiri to see this in action.

And then of course there's the whole can of worms about male vs female sexual depictions. Can you really compare exposed breasts to exposed penises? Is there a difference between a chiseled man in artwork and a curvaceous woman? How is the specific way the characters are presented, even if both show a similar amount of skin, still clinging to the archetypal male power fantasy?

Sorry, there's really no good answer to this. I think Paizo has done as well as they can by having several women in the design team who have a level of artistic control over what is published (I remember Jessica Price mentioning something about a female Trox depiction for Bestiary 4 she had specifically denied.) but you're never going to find the perfect balance.

*I know a lot of men will also be put off by the inclusion of cheesecake - gay men, religious men, straight men who find it unappealing, etc. But women are the largest affected group, bar none.

Player Says: These are my lucky dice!

Player Means: The numbers on these dice are faded beyond recognition, making it easy for me to fib about my roll!

Alternatively: I don't understand how probability works.

I'm confused - None of those things you mentioned are really selfish? Lazy, yeah, (I mean, sitting at home watching internet movies - going two places for your coffee/breakfast seems like a huge pain in the butt, actually) but selfish?

Of course, every new generation is lazy, selfish, and entitled according to the generation that preceded it. Society is always going to hell in a handbasket.

Is this thread meant to be an honest complaint or a parody? It's becoming very hard to tell.