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90s Cringe Rock posted:Hey so you know Fabled Lands, a cool series of open-world gamebooks? By the guy who wrote Heart of Ice, which I thought was the best gamebook ever written? I had Heart of Ice as as kid, and I agree it was fantastic. I was planning on using it as the basis of a campaign for years. It's a damned shame that the writer is such an rear end in a top hat.
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Mar 25, 2022 12:06
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| # ? May 25, 2024 14:41 |
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https://twitter.com/SpindriftGames/status/1507256078475571203 Of course, Alexis Kennedy is defending the nazi sympathiser. This is the Fallen London guy who was accused of abuse by several women.
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Mar 25, 2022 13:14
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Aaaaaand here comes the followup, which is basically a short ramble of passive-aggressive whining.quote:Only a few years ago, we might have imagined in the West that we’d abandoned blasphemy thinking for Enlightenment values. Well, that light’s flickering. You know how denunciation works – fail to condemn and, bang, you’re guilty too. And if you’re interested in that (you should be; we desperately need to vaccinate our minds against it) the book you should definitely read is Darkness At Noon. Or, failing that, at least watch that TNG episode with the lights. Drakyn fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 18:30
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Drakyn posted:Aaaaaand here comes the followup, which is basically a short ramble of passive-aggressive whining. I've added this blog to my RSS reader under "Idiots", can't wait to see what kind of nonsense he gets up to next. 
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Mar 25, 2022 18:31
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There's a few political things in settings I'd like to talk about myself but I think it'd be interesting to just mention Malifaux/Through The Breach and basically about how the initial jumping-off point was just fine. I know the metaplot needs to exist to sell new minis and armies and their followup game whose name I don't even remember but like. It was just fine and nuanced enough for a game where there's an entire faction of burlesque corset-clad undead sex workers. A fascist empire hamstrung by dwindling special resources/paperwork and nominally claiming rule over the majority of the world and dealing with that slipping grasp vs. a rebellious coalition of like-minded innovators and magical scholars united under the banner of reasonably corrupt union practices and both sides dealing with a variety of other parties such as proper Triads (even though the Ten Thunders are not just China), people who don't want to be in the union/listen to ethics as they pursue power and knowledge, and the Neverborn who are Malifaux's initial inhabitants who want everyone new to leave. There's just enough of an interesting political angle to jump off from depending on your interests and pursuits and it feels like it actually matters politically which way you push the dominos.
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Mar 27, 2022 18:01
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Cultural Impact of Sci-Fi: Inspiring an entire generation of scientists, engineers, and activists to do good, innovative, and bring humanity to a greater level of existence. Cultural Impact of Fantasy: Arivia posted:In tabletop games politics, I'm seeing scattered references (sourced in languages I don't read) that Ukrainian Azov fighters are specifically calling Chechens orcs who deserve to be slaughtered. D&D monster politics leading to actual real life war crimes, gross! https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/28/ukrainian-fighters-grease-bullets-against-chechens-with-pig-fat Fantasy was a mistake.
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Mar 28, 2022 03:43
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I've often felt some kind of discomfort about fantasy race systems, especially when they're used allegorically, since allegories and metaphors for real-world human peoples kinda go awry when there's actually severe differences in the fantasy race's anatomy and capabilities. Not that effective allegory can't be done, just it can get very weird. Lord of the Rings largely just does its own weird and un-allegorical thing with its races. If anything, it'd be more allegorical for real-world religion than real-world race or nationality. And then of course, it doesn't feel right for an entire group of people to just all be innately bad and evil and savage, mainly because if anyone thinks of real-world peoples like that, it's very bad. Not too hard for actual racists to co-opt that kind of thing. Although there's a whole weirder thing specifically with Russia and Mordor, because aside from being run by an evil dictator, there's a whole weird thing where some Russians do somehow sympathize with Sauron and Mordor, which is probably the result of a popular Russian fanfic, The Last Ringbearer, that portrayed Tolkien's books as elven propaganda and depicted Mordor as a rapidly industrializing state that wanted to destroy the shackles that magic chained the world in. There was even a plan to erect an eye of Sauron over a Moscow skyscraper back in 2014, the year of the annexation of Crimea. It was only stopped by religious leaders complaining. https://jordanrussiacenter.org/news/eye-sauron-moscow-revenge-orcs/ Pop culture can take really weird turns as it crosses national lines. There's an even weirder thing with a Russian cult worshipping an American cartoon mouse, but I have no idea how to dig into that.
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Mar 28, 2022 07:25
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Yeah, there's a whole host of "oh, America casts itself as the forces of good? You're the elves, the Jedis? Well we're the orcs (but not the Sith for some reason), which somehow means we're definitely going to win, because we're terribly literate", which can be found in generically chauvinist "common sense" circles, but can probably be traced back to We Are Scythians.
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Mar 28, 2022 09:40
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Just you wait, in a decade or so we'll get people identifying with the Pakled from Star Trek.
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Mar 28, 2022 09:57
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I dunno, Where There's A Whip, There's A Way is a downright banger.
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Mar 28, 2022 11:15
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Even the most deranged masochistic troops would not appreciate being whipped quite so often. You have to spread the cruelty evenly, there's plenty for everyone.
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Mar 28, 2022 11:40
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By popular demand posted:Just you wait, in a decade or so we'll get people identifying with the Pakled from Star Trek. Being chunky, looking much similar to each other than the other alien species are and being depicted as 'dumb' makes them seem to be surface-level based on people with Downs Syndrome. It doesn't seem too purposeful, but Lower Decks then went on to give them, effectively, 'r*t*rd strength'. The live action stuff seemed to try and move them away from being the 'Downs aliens' after they first appeared but Lower Decks undid that progress. 🙁
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Mar 28, 2022 11:54
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My take was that it's a deeply ingrained cultural thing with them, and I hope the writers overtly take it that way rather than leave them as they are at the end of season 2 You're absolutely right that this is not acceptable as it is.
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Mar 28, 2022 12:00
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By popular demand posted:Even the most deranged masochistic troops would not appreciate being whipped quite so often. Seriously, most characterisation Orcs get in near any adaptation til maybe Shadows of Mordor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoAfb3f04mo
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Mar 28, 2022 12:17
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LashLightning posted:Being chunky, looking much similar to each other than the other alien species are and being depicted as 'dumb' makes them seem to be surface-level based on people with Downs Syndrome. It doesn't seem too purposeful, but Lower Decks then went on to give them, effectively, 'r*t*rd strength'. The live action stuff seemed to try and move them away from being the 'Downs aliens' after they first appeared but Lower Decks undid that progress. 🙁 ??? There were no live-action appearances after their first episode (excluding extras in crowd scenes.) Lower Decks didn't 'undo' anything, and I really don't think 'big dumb meathead' in the context of a comedy cartoon is anything other than a basic humor archetype.
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Mar 28, 2022 12:30
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Wasn't there a reveal that the Pakled had outsmarted the crew of the Enterprise? Their demeanor got them dismissed as just a bunch of dumb guys. They were actually more capable, and the Enterprise was punished for underestimating them. The message that we shouldn't write anyone off is solid, but writing them as antagonists was a poor choice.
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Mar 28, 2022 12:43
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moths posted:Wasn't there a reveal that the Pakled had outsmarted the crew of the Enterprise? That was the point of the episode they first appeared in, yes.
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Mar 28, 2022 12:57
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I suppose the scifi'd analogy was of how people with Downs Syndrome are treated, rather than of people with Downs Syndrome. But that's a fine distinction to cut, and maybe TNG didn't quite make it clean enough.
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Mar 28, 2022 13:11
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And of course writing in a group that has stolen everything it owns as a cultural habit is a little eyebrow raising without the Down syndrome connection
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Mar 28, 2022 13:17
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TheNamedSavior posted:Cultural Impact of Sci-Fi: Inspiring an entire generation of scientists, engineers, and activists to do good, innovative, and bring humanity to a greater level of existence. On the other hand, the Torment Nexus. Mind, I share the sentiment in that I think the way fantasy looks to a magical past that never happened lends itself to fascist interpretations much more easily, but people miss the point of sci-fi all the time so I'm not sure it's much better in practice. Like cyberpunk was supposed to be a warning but enough people went "wow cool future!" that we're now living it.
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Mar 28, 2022 14:09
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I think we've all lived through enough Musk poo poo to no longer seriously believe sci-fi is a net positive for its ability inspire nerds.
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Mar 28, 2022 14:20
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GimmickMan posted:On the other hand, the Torment Nexus. Cyberpunk was really just extrapolating then existing trends, there's a reason it's so associated with the 80s.
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Mar 28, 2022 14:20
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Also, plenty of science fiction has argued for eugenics, racial hierarchies, served as unthinking paeans for colonialism and manifest destiny in the name of 'progress', or been propaganda for various psedo-scientific theories. The very fact that John W. Campbell was the largest influence on the development of the genre for decades should put paid to any belief that science fiction is inherently progressive.
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Mar 28, 2022 14:25
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One of the earliest and most significant scifi writers of the last century was Robert Heinlein. I also got an article I purchased years ago now which is about Fascism in Sci-Fi and it documents several long forgotten pulpy scifi from the 30s about golden races and poo poo. So, uh, yeah. Reducing an entire genre to any political ideology is pretty silly.
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Mar 28, 2022 14:27
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Triskelli posted:And of course writing in a group that has stolen everything it owns as a cultural habit is a little eyebrow raising without the Down syndrome connection I wonder if it would have been better to simply have included a recurring crewman with Downs Syndrome. Like maybe we see them at Jordi's engineering staff meetings or on Worf's security team.
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Mar 28, 2022 14:29
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Angry Salami posted:??? There were no live-action appearances after their first episode (excluding extras in crowd scenes.) Lower Decks didn't 'undo' anything, and I really don't think 'big dumb meathead' in the context of a comedy cartoon is anything other than a basic humor archetype. They don't need to be about themselves to show changes, the other characters did speak of them and they were involved in aspects of the storyline in DS9. Compare the resident 'big dumb meathead' of the Klingons, and the Pakleds. Even if the writers didn't consiously create them as such, they've certainly slipped further down an unfortunate slope.
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Mar 28, 2022 14:35
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Seriously, most characterisation Orcs get in near any adaptation til maybe Shadows of Mordor. "But we don't want to go to war for Sauron, we just want to practice our close harmony singing. We could get GIGS."
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Mar 28, 2022 17:56
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Why do you think Sauron's orcs look so different in the trilogy? all the squat ones got together and lynched the whippers!
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Mar 28, 2022 17:59
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By popular demand posted:Even the most deranged masochistic troops would not appreciate being whipped quite so often. This is the exact line of reasoning that leads to you getting orc-whipped.
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Mar 28, 2022 18:02
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All whipping teaches a soldier is how to turn their back.
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Mar 28, 2022 18:33
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Doubleposting because this sure is an argument someone (not Morris) came up with!quote:So I've been musing, and there are two points I'd like to make. You gotta put in the effort to be a Nazi, you can't just half-rear end it!!! Deontology!
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Mar 28, 2022 22:29
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Hey, this has been bugging me for a bit and might actually be on topic. Is it weird that 5e D&D takes place canonically in 1489 DR, where after the terrible, cataclysmic years leading up to 1487, everything magically becomes better once it hits 1488? 1488 The number sticks out to me big time because it's one of the major compulsive tics that every white supremacist seems to need to make.
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Mar 29, 2022 00:33
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Doubleposting because this sure is an argument someone (not Morris) came up with!
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Mar 29, 2022 00:36
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not sure that Heinrich Himmler or Reinhard Heydrich meet this guy's criteria for a Nazi. He was just
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Mar 29, 2022 00:44
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Ionicpsycho posted:Hey, this has been bugging me for a bit and might actually be on topic.
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Mar 29, 2022 00:45
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I don't think it's true to say 5e takes place in 1489 anyway. Most of the adventures seem to be in the 1490s if they even bother giving a date.
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Mar 29, 2022 01:02
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Ionicpsycho posted:Hey, this has been bugging me for a bit and might actually be on topic. But, like, what are the odds all of that would be true? 
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Mar 29, 2022 01:06
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Ionicpsycho posted:Hey, this has been bugging me for a bit and might actually be on topic. The very short answer is no, it's the result of a bunch of pre-existing developments in the Forgotten Realms setting leading up to 5e. The longer answer: DR (Dalereckoning) is the calendar used by humans who basically decided to stop being idiots and actually make a go of this civilization thing with others. At the time of the original Forgotten Realms box set, the setting started at 1356-1358 DR, and novels, supplements, and other products pushed the timeline forward to 1375 DR over about 20 years of real life (1987-2007). For 4e, WotC decided to push the setting forward a hundred years for an effective reset, along with a magical apocalypse changing many of the major powers and geographies. For the 4e setting, the date was set at 1479 DR to start, but then new supplements and novels kept it moving forward again. When WotC moved to 5e, they wanted to keep SOME of the existing continuity and events from 4e, but also wanted to undo a good chunk of the changes from the magical apocalypse. So they needed a chunk of time from the last supplements and novels published in 4e, which go to 1484 DR. They can't gently caress with these dates, because it's the dates for the cross-media program they pushed in late 4e (the Neverwinter supplement, Drizzt Do'Urden novels, and MMO) and their most profitable and popular products (we're talking about planning before 5e's explosion in popularity and cultural attention). They have to line up a bunch of weird, specific things to revert what they want to do and keep the parts they want, so there's ANOTHER big cross-media project to reset things (if you're familiar with comic book continuity, think of it as putting the toys back in the toy box for the next writer after your weird status quo changing run ends and all your stuff gets reverted) and that takes about five years to sort itself out. There's ANOTHER factor that also contributes to this, which is that each Forgotten Realms year after a certain point has a prophetic name or two (called the Roll of Years or its evil counterpart, the Roll of Black) which WotC likes aligning their big events up with as prophecies. WotC's definitely lined some stuff up, like 1490 fits a Drizzt Do'Urden novel, but some of them are also pretty obscure (which is normal for the Roll of Years). 5e FR products have been all over the calendar - the adventures are definitely stand alone things, as later ones are set in years before earlier published ones (Dragon Heist is in 1492 DR for example, but Rime of the Frostmaiden is 1489 DR). So in conclusion, WotC needed to move the timeline forward for a few years of transition after the pre-existing 4e products, which ended in 1484, and five years later to 1489 as the new "normal" is a reasonable addition. It's a coincidence of involved fantasy setting planning, and I would be extremely surprised if it was ever anything else. AmiYumi posted:I don't know, it's easy to jump at shadows with that sort of thing. I'd only worry if the company in question had a long history of racial essentialism, a founder who shaped the game itself after his own racist beliefs, a workplace hostile to marginalized groups of all kinds, and perhaps even some sort of issues directly at the time of writing the book in question with the company hiring a ton of alt-right types and infamous abusers and then secretly feeding them info about the people outraged at their presence. The thing is, none of the Mearls/Zak/Pundit poo poo ever looked to have affected the FR line planning, which was its own mess. Contrast to the openly-Nazi courting Martin Ericsson who was running White Wolf for awhile and all but said "we did that intentionally" when the dice example in the Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition core rulebook was 1,4,8,8. Scipiotik posted:I don't think it's true to say 5e takes place in 1489 anyway. Most of the adventures seem to be in the 1490s if they even bother giving a date. The adventures are all over the place like I said, but the 5e setting book (the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide) sets itself firmly in 1489 as the current date. Arivia fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Mar 29, 2022 |
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Mar 29, 2022 01:07
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Yeah, that sounds like they were basically handed that the year had to be 148X, where X is greater than 4, so unless someone has secretly been playing a very, very long game, that's been locked in since at least the decision to move on from 4e. (It could theoretically be longer but would involve so many moving parts to be ridiculous and I'm dismissing it out of hand.) So we're left with kind of the strongest version of the hypothesis being something to the tune of it having been originally planned to be 1487 and someone tilting the pinball table to spit out the Nazi number by adding 1. But that has the equally possible course of events be that they randomly wound up setting it at 1488DR before someone a bit more savvy suggested adding 1 to the year in the PHB specifically to avoid an accidental Nazi shoutout and what we're seeing is the suspicious hole left by dodging it. Speaking as someone who is constantly on the lookout for even the appearance of Nazi bullshit, this is getting up to "mildly suspicious, remember in case more evidence comes to light" at most on the ol' Nazi index. Exactly the same as if I randomly found a 38.57"x38.57" table or something.
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Mar 29, 2022 05:50
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While discussion of the political implications of Orcs tends to always come back to Tolkien, I feel like the shittiest implications didn't really start taking hole until Gygax got his grubby mitts on them. While Tolkien's portrayal of Orcs had its own inherent problems, he at least seemed to want us to think of them as victims to some degree. It was D&D that really layered on the colonialist  nonsense.I think, at the end of the day, what really bugs me about the more "traditional" portrayals of orcs in tabletop is the way that they and a number of other monstrous races are basically specifically written to portray genocide as a morally justified action. Like, in Lord of the Rings, the forces of good are at war with Sauron and the Orcs, but they're more concerned with defeating Sauron than they are with wiping the Orcs off the face of Middle Earth. Then you get to D&D where you have material that straight up suggests that a "lawful good" character would be justified in murdering every orc they come across. Just the idea that people hold the worldview that the existence of an entire race of intelligent beings that are universally, irredeemably evil is both believable and that genocide is an appropriate solution to that species is really hosed up.
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