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Post by Fiona on Sept 7, 2015 0:29:18 GMT -8
I don't. All that does is result in rallying a specific group of people into a loud enough uproar to take something down, potentially isolating many other silent consumers. Mob rule, as it were, which is something that's rampant these days.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Sept 7, 2015 0:41:58 GMT -8
The entire point of certain products is to be offensive. The movie Borat is a great example. No one is forcing you to watch it though. It's the same with DTRPG. Did every cinema with a screen show Borat? Suffice it to say I agree with Voltaire on this one. As do I. But not being carried by DTRPG is in no way stopping an author from writing, publishing, and distributing their material.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2015 0:53:14 GMT -8
Yeah, getting their product pulled from major online retailers has no effect on distribution... There is a big difference in not offering or carrying a product because it would not be profitable and not carrying a product because a group of people doesn't like it. As you have mentioned previous, the overhead of a website is not the same as a brick and mortar location. A movie theater only has a certain number of screens and they need to play movies people want to see so they can get as many people in the seats as possible. An online retailer isn't limited by shelf space. He doesn't have to get rid of a product because he needs the space for more popular books.
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Post by Kainguru on Sept 7, 2015 2:03:17 GMT -8
Just a side note DTRPG does sell comics: as digital editions. Not a huge selection but big enough. Everyone here knows I'm vocal cheerleader for the 2000AD stable, ie Judge Dredd, most of the search results for, eg: Judge Dredd, aren't a cup overflowing with supplements (I wish) . . . they're graphic novels. I'll be honest and admit my view of things will always be skewed by growing up reading the likes of 2000AD - which has a long history of parental concern groups and other so called champions of 'whatever' trying to get it pulled from the shelves. At one point it was stacked with all the 'mature' readers magazines along side the likes of Loaded, Nuts, Viz, Escort and others with a cardboard screen preventing the casual observer from seeing anything other than the titles. What sort of bullshit was that? here is a comic I've read since 1977 as child suddenly up with the titty mags? Great lesson there: 'psst hey, kid you wanna read 2000AD? why not check out some of these misogynist titty mags while you're at it cause you must be a misogynist male to wanna read it, right?'. Anyone who knows anything about 2000AD knows it is anything but male and hetrocentric: the comic that gave birth to one of Alan Moores most famous creations - 'The Ballad of Halo Jones', the comic that introduced several strong, independent women in to the Judge Dredd universe very early in it's development ref: PSI Judge Cassandra Anderson (who has single handedly kicked butt in more solo series than I count) and Judge Hersey (who is currently the second female Chief Judge they've had during Dredd's tenure - though technically the fourth as both have returned to office after another Judge has served in the role for an interim). 'Politically Correct' isn't the same as 'Safe'/'Cuddly'/'Not Challenging' and that's a difference that often gets confused by the Champions of 'Whatever' - more often than not these 'champions' couldn't give a shit about equality, they just a want a world that won't make them question their beliefs or take responsibility for themselves or force them to appreciate that people can have very different tastes. More often than not the people behind such pressure groups are really saying 'I believe everyone should believe what I believe and I'll use whatever tool is at my disposal to make you believe that for your own good'. My response to such attitudes is 'I've got a perfectly good mother, thank you, I don't need you to be one for me and even if I did I'd shift back home for that' . . . Because: Borat Aaron
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Sept 7, 2015 2:30:13 GMT -8
Maybe my problem is expecting people to be reasonable (despite numerous situations proving me wrong). I am capable of disliking something without insisting other people also dislike it. God knows I'd love to burn every copy of Savage Worlds in the fires of Hell, but I don't. People are free to like that game even if it does suck.
Again, I simply believe there are things that cross the "don't like it, don't buy it line". If you make a game that most reasonable people are going to find offensive, you don't get to be angry when retailers choose not to carry it.
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Post by Fiona on Sept 7, 2015 2:37:53 GMT -8
The line for 'reasonable' is no doubt different for everyone. When you start trying to dictate that line, you place yourself in the place of moral arbiter.
Thirty years ago tabletop gaming as a whole (which was largely just D&D) was under such scrutiny by fundamentalists championing family values and religious fear mongering. Today we've seen that replaced with social values and public shaming. The names changed, but the situation the same.
Personal choice is the best right of the consumer. If something is terrible and has no audience. you don't need to regulate it. It'll take care of itself and eventually vanish off the shelves. Otherwise, it'll find its audience and inhabit a niche. The only 'danger' is to the people actively looking to be offended.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2015 3:05:57 GMT -8
Reasonable people aren't so reasonable. Take shadowrun as a setting. You play criminals who commit crimes which are "okay" because they are against what is seen as an oppressive group. And if you are even more despicable and willing to burn down orphanages? Money will be thrown at you. Somehow playing a game where performing wetwork is okay is better than a game about rapists. Shadowrun is okay, but this other game is not? I don't understand, I thought we were down with crime as long as it was against a group we don't like or it paid better?
So what is reasonable? That line moves around depending on who you are or what you value. Furthermore, role playing games aren't real. The events that happen inside them don't actually happen. No one actually dies when we play assassins, and no ones life is ruined by some fantasy rape. Neither game espouses that you actually do either of these things (as far as a I know, I have not read the tournament of rapists game because it holds no interest for me). As a reasonable person I have to ask why everyone is so afraid? Is it just that western society is cool with violence but repressed when it comes to anything sexual? Perhaps no one knows a victim of assassination so the issue is farther away from us as an audience? Seems odd to me that people are okay with shooting security guards to death to make a buck but balk at other crimes that are attached to less harsh sentences. Perhaps us sensible people should be worried about why everyone is okay with games were you are neigh expected to murder people for money or idealism (aka terrorism).
I'm not really worried about either, because as I said above, this is all fake. I don't go out and commit crimes after playing a heist game and I don't buy games about sexual related content because it's creepy to sit around with a room full of guys detailing such things. Most guys I know feel the same way. I'm not expecting high sales for a game based in the aformentioned subject.
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starwar
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Post by starwar on Sept 7, 2015 3:47:21 GMT -8
Reasonable people understand rape is not about sex stuff, it is about power.
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Post by Kainguru on Sept 7, 2015 3:53:13 GMT -8
Right so, a slightly personal story - but what the fuck I may as well put it out there. When I say 'mixed white other' I'm referring to the fact that one of my maternal ancestors was a Native American. That's pretty minority given the odds being born in one of the last places you can live before hitting the South Pole and growing up in the second to last place you hit before the South Pole. The rest of my ancestry comes from Western Europe and it's through this that the Native American is introduced . . . again what are the odds? the way I understand it is that this maternal ancestor came from the America's to the UK (as this was at the time rare but not uncommon with the likes of Buffalo Bill touring Europe etc) and the rest is history. I wasn't really aware of it until I was about 7 when, like many kids that age, I had a collection of toy soldiers including cowboys and indians. Guess I was predisposed to RPG's then as I used to make up stories with them and give them names and personalities and hopes etc and play it out on the living room floor. Now I remember at the time I had a fascination about 'Custer's Last Stand' because of an old B&W movie I'd seen on the telly and in the game I was playing one time it was a 'what if Custer won'; Mum's then boyfriend asked what game I playing and told him and explained why the indians were losing, he then commented (cryptically to 7 year old me) 'shouldn't you be their (the indians) side?'. Later when I was old enough to understand what he meant I really offended: not because of the whole 'we all know now that Custer was 'possibly' not a good man' thing but because I was playing a game informed by a movie that really had nothing to do with the history of the event . . . it was story about facing certain defeat and fighting anyway. Guess I was creepy child because my other preoccupation was the infamous 'Charge of the Light Brigade' for the same reasons ('Into the Valley of Death Rode the 600'). I don't think mum's boyfriend was being nasty or meant ill, he was probably very well intentioned but he forgot that 7 year old me had no knowledge of the history of that battle . . . just a rip roaring movie seen on telly on a Saturday afternoon. But he had made assumptions, assumptions that while 'inclusive' and 'well intentioned' I felt were limiting - I could damn well play whatever side I wanted to play and if Custer got to win that time then so be it because the story of him losing had already been told (again a predisposition to RPG's: the opportunity to tell the other story that could have happened). It was like saying to the kid with German parents 'you can only ever play the Nazi in our games of war' . . . As to offense because of my ancestry, it's only ever me bothered twice: 1) 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee' : I couldn't get past chapter 2. I genuinely found it too upsetting when I read the list of Native American Tribes exterminated in such a short space of time. Hey, in that list there are people who would have been related to me and they died awful, tragic, meaningless deaths. But I think the book is an important one and I'd never, ever, ever, ask for it be removed from print . . . because it's important that these events be recorded. Like the Jews and The Holcaust: 'never forget'. 2) In a poxy New Age Shop in Birmingham, UK. There was fashion/obsession with Native American culture for awhile and I really got sick of it . . . especially the way it was exploited as a cynical marketing exercise by 'enlightened, tree hugging, crystal suppository loving hipsters'. I was there because I drove a friend to Birmingham so he could do some business (he used to buy and sell crystals - as crystals not anything else so his client base included jewelry shops as well) - I was browsing the shop and my friend happened to mention the Native American link to the owner in passing: the owner was suddenly all over me like a rash 'you must want this, you must be interested in that, what can you tell me about what it's like actually being part Native American . . .'. While I'm like 'WTF, no, I'm not really interested in that stuff, I'm an atheist and a skeptic so really 'dream catchers' gimmie a break . . . I'm more interested in British Folklore (because, you know, DnD), you have such rich cultural heritage yourself why exploit another cultures it's not like it's lacking in any way? Besides I'm a mutherfucking Australian WTF would know what it's like to be a Native American, now if you want to know how to use a sand bag to filter your own piss or use a sheet of plastic and vegetable matter with condensation to make drinkable water because your 4WD broke down in a the middle of whoop whoop then I'm your man'. The guy was really pushy though . . . 'surely you must want to explore your origins?' answer: 'yeah, but I'll go to fucking America to do that; I came to the UK because I wanted to explore something, as an Australian, equally exotic: the Western European sense of history and it's folklore'. I'll admit my final reaction was a bit OTT because I ended up saying 'you want to exploit and rape a culture for profit then why don't you start with your own . . . oh, you wouldn't? then what gives you the right to do it to someone else's just because it's a whole continent away? . . .' In my defense, because of his conduct during the business side of the purpose of the visit, the guy was nothing more than a money grabbing prick dressed in cheesecloth, swanning around being all 'enlightened' and crap. His third eye was very attuned - to the size of a customers wallet. I was offended because he wanted was to pigeon hole me based on what? a genetic quirk of inheritance? fuck that . . . that's just another step on another road to that leads to the same place: Nazi Germany 1933-1945 . . . they liked to burn books too . . . Aaron
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2015 4:30:27 GMT -8
Reasonable people understand rape is not about sex stuff, it is about power. You mean the same power you have as the person with a giant cannon against some helpless security guard? The only difference is what they are using their power to get. How many D&D games have ended up in a torture scene with the players forcing someone to watch as they are putting the pain on their family members? I've seen it, same brand of twisted shit. Your favored form is but one of many. Typically it is the one less seen because it is more awkward due to all that sex stuff it isn't about.
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starwar
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Post by starwar on Sept 7, 2015 5:16:01 GMT -8
Reasonable people understand rape is not about sex stuff, it is about power. You mean the same power you have as the person with a giant cannon against some helpless security guard? The only difference is what they are using their power to get. How many D&D games have ended up in a torture scene with the players forcing someone to watch as they are putting the pain on their family members? I've seen it, same brand of twisted shit. Your favored form is but one of many. Typically it is the one less seen because it is more awkward due to all that sex stuff it isn't about. No, not the same power. Similar, I could imagine similar trauma in being threatened with a gun as to being violated sexually. The security guard's trauma however similar is not the same though. Having your body invaded is not the same as having someone take your employer's money. You claimed to be reasonable, you ought to get that .I have no idea how many D&D games ended in a torture scene w/ players forcing someone to watch as they are putting the pain on their family members. If I find one it will more than likely be the last with those players. And I am aware that D&D has content I find problematic, and it's not just the players. This is why I expressed my opinion in that post, in hopes WoTC and other developers consider it when making a RPG. I actually do find it rather easy to not loom a succubus or incubus over the heads of the people I play with, it would be nice if I did not have tell them "No, just because the monster manual has rape monsters, does not mean I am going to role play rape your character. I understand that you have attachment to your character and are here to have fun. Looming rape is not fun for me either." And if I had a player who asked me not to have any combat because they were against violence, then I would cut all combat. I am adaptable and understanding.
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D.T. Pints
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Post by D.T. Pints on Sept 7, 2015 6:41:43 GMT -8
How does the presentation of a game (be it layout, art, fiction, rules explanation, etc.) effect your interest in that game? What can publishers do or not do to diversify appeal in RPG products? What are some examples of products that appeal to you and why do they? So again after 7 pages would you all think we are still addressing the scottcarter original post ? Because I do think there have been some quality points about censorship, inclusiveness/exclusiveness in gaming, and what constitutes "danger zones" and how they can differ from player to player and group to group. It is my hope that such discussions will result in more people getting to play more games. By the hobby presenting itself as welcoming to the vast diversity of humanity on this planet we all win. I wonder in fact how the numbers of this current gaming renaissance compares with the surges in gamers in the 80s and 90s? From an american perspective we are rapidly approaching the point when demographically those defining themselves as white will be in the minority. I think that it only makes the hobby more interesting and stronger when it becomes increasingly diverse. Our society overall benefits from the experience. In the past two years I've had more games run by non-white, non-male GMs than my previous 30 years of gaming. Most of this is from the expansion my gaming forays into online and Happy Jacks community. With a final note about censorship and "offensive content" perhaps those championing "ToR:The Beginner Box" will raise enough of a rallying cry to bring it back. But it sounds like it was just a shitty game. Whereas Lamentations of the Flame Princess has gads of disturbing imagery but there are enough fans out there to keep the publishers...publishing. Something Awful Lamentations of the Flame PrincessFull disclosure: I fucking love that game!
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sbloyd
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Post by sbloyd on Sept 7, 2015 7:59:57 GMT -8
Hearkening back to the original post, and regarding content in general, I am reminded of Stan Lee's attitude about comics: for somebody this is going to be their first. If you design your product in such a way that it "isn't for" someone, you're risking turning that person away from RPGs as a whole.
Old grognards like me often scoff at the inclusion of "This is what an RPG is" type beginning chapters in rulebooks, but they are kind of necessary.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2015 21:23:10 GMT -8
Starwar, the reason why someone shoots you matters less than the bullets in your body. The trauma of being threatened with lethal violence is no less because it is a means to an end. Armed criminals aren't so stable or predictable, so we can't really trust that he just wants the money like in the movies. Equal chance of him getting spooked and shooting you. But whatever, clearly almost dying doesn't rate on your charts.
Also, you might consider that instead of taking a game based around combat and neutering it, maybe someone susceptible to violence should not be playing D&D. There is a social contract in gaming, and changing that contract for a single player is kind of weird. It's one thing at the system choosing stage, but another to sign up for a game and than have problems with the things you knew were there to begin with. Sensativity is one thing, neutering your game is another. In simpler terms: Why did you sign up for a nudist retreat when you think naked people are offensive?
It's as if there is this race to the bottom of who is the most inclusive. It is the job of the individual to make sure they are right for the activity, not to expect that everyone already there will conform to them. Just like you don't have to buy a game you don't like, you don't have to play in one that is not right for you. What you shouldn't do is show up and try and get everyone else to change to better fit your needs.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2015 21:28:47 GMT -8
Hearkening back to the original post, and regarding content in general, I am reminded of Stan Lee's attitude about comics: for somebody this is going to be their first. If you design your product in such a way that it "isn't for" someone, you're risking turning that person away from RPGs as a whole. Old grognards like me often scoff at the inclusion of "This is what an RPG is" type beginning chapters in rulebooks, but they are kind of necessary. Examples of play are great for this. Not only does it convey what the game is, but it better illustrates how it is played. Never enough examples for my liking.
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