TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

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MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

ProfessorCirno posted:

Since that time, Paizo has...stopped doing that. And while no specifics have been aired, former Paizo employees have mentioned enough to pick up on there (broadly) being a more progressive faction in the company, and a far more regressive and conservative faction - with the latter being made of mostly the men on staff, who are also the ones who are the ones largely in control of the company, so it's increasingly pretty clear that whatever minor culture war happened in the company, there's been a winner.

I kind of feel odd about that because for such a lovely company some of those people were really vehement about defending rape, the writers being lovely racists, and the company being composed entirely of white people.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2018 15:36

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 15:33

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Alien Rope Burn posted:

From John Tynes' Salon article "Death to the Minotaur":

Wait she's that Lisa?

# ¿ Mar 27, 2018 22:05

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Yeah. Geek Social Fallacies feels more relevant than ever to help explain why RPG companies and fans react so badly when these issues come up.

Lurking and overt sexism is also very important, but GSFs can serve as potent cover for it.

I get the general impression that their major issue is that they are far more fragmented than you imagine which does explain why they ping pong so utterly bizarrely. It's why I kind of stopped giving kudos to the company on the whole because they aren't the ones doing a lot of the heavy lifting in some instances.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2018 01:52

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Kurieg posted:

I mean, the guys from the New Day do let's plays in their spare time and once did their ring entrance in Saiyan battle armor.

Also, Xavier Woods has his PHD so that too.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2018 14:34

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I'm not really saying the whole company is lock-step (in fact, I've repeatedly referred to Paizo as a "many-headed hydra"), but it doesn't have to be; it just requires enough people at the top with that sort of mindset to excuse or ignore things.

I'm just saying that you really don't know how absurdly odd it is. Like most of your criticisms is milquetoast compared to what I've heard ardent fans of the game have issues with.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2018 17:48

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

ProfessorCirno posted:

More notable RE: Pathfinder's trans woman character is that they...absolutely didn't put her in their picture for International Women's Day until called out about it.

Also, Paizo is in fact increasingly just white dudes, especially as you get to their upper management, and it's getting worse. There was something of an inner struggle in the company between the parts that wanted their not being a shithead thing to be more then just performative, and those that wanted to still be lovely, but say they weren't for PR purposes, and the latter half absolutely won.

EDIT: They're also literally making their orcs more racist by turning them into straight up gorilla-people now so, good job, Paizo.

I know what you are getting at but the confusing part of it is that most of that information comes from a person who I've seen harass people over their lovely racist hiring practices.

# ¿ May 23, 2018 15:28

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Darksaber posted:

I think WotC falls into the last group as well. I think they've been making really positive and good strides when it comes to the Magic side of things, but of course the DnD side is going to be a fuckin' trash fire as long as Mearls is involved, no matter how many goddamn rainbow dragons he puts on his profile.

No. The Magic the Gathering side of WoTC is kind of a performative dumpster fire too. Never have I ever seen anyone whose sole existence of a business is dependent on MtG complain that their handling of a racist dipshit dumbass was to basically do nothing and shift all the responsibility on store owners whereas a company like Nintendo is like,"Yup this is our job. We've got this."

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 01:59 on May 24, 2018

# ¿ May 24, 2018 01:57

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Jimbozig posted:

I don't really understand what the streamer did wrong that she decided to publicly drag him on Twitter, though? Like, as far as I can tell, she's mad that he replied to a Tweet she made on what she refers to as her "private" Twitter account (which is actually completely public). I can't find where he actually said anything even remotely offensive or impolite, but I may just suck at Twitter (I definitely suck at Twitter) and I may be missing something.

What am I missing?

Dictating to people about how to do things isn't creating a dialogue.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2018 20:54

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Jimbozig posted:

Is this you calling her out for repeatedly trying to tell people how to use Twitter or what? I can't tell what you mean from the context.

Her response was rather benign all things considered.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2018 22:29

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Cassa posted:

From my understanding, it's the CEO who's a huge piece of poo poo.

Yeah even Jessica Price in an interview said that its the CEO is lovely while everyone else is fine.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2018 02:55

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Saguaro PI posted:

This thing folks sometimes do where all the people we hate need to be best buds is both rhetorically lazy and just super weird. I think it's reasonable to point out the situations where his ideology and tactics intersect, but there's no need to say his bullshit is exactly the same as their bullshit.

It is though. Remember he was friends with at least one maybe two ridiculously prominent gamergaters. In the one case stupid hat mans behavior never really changed and the only difference was that it pretty much career suicide to associate with him. In the other case I really doubt that he didn't know he was working for an overt nazi.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2018 14:49

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

moths posted:

I think he's questioning a hypothetical feminist's decision to bully the author into silence.

Which, while that's questionable, it's way more likely some chud wrote him hate mail and signed it "a feminist."

It could be that someone told him that his article was causing a large uptick in harassment towards people he wasn't expecting to. I thought I saw that pop up on Twitter.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2018 19:46

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Reene posted:

My bet was that it was an underhanded jab at Zak S, who after all bills himself as the True Sex-Positive Ally To Women Everywhere among other things.

I'm honestly not sure who else it would have been.

It's really really really really obvious who it is now and not Zak. To make a long story the scathing criticism he got was you should consult and ask harassment victims before you jump into an issue because you can very well make their lives worst. The guy effectively just harassed one of Zak's victims and she's pissed right now.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Jul 11, 2018

# ¿ Jul 11, 2018 13:58

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

moths posted:

Isn't this who assholes want us to blame though? That harassment is an inevitability and when they get called out and lash out, it's someone else's fault?

It's the point of their bullshit.

No you can be complicit in harassment and be completely benign and well intentioned. The advice I received recently when dealing with this sort of clusterfuck is to center your actions around the victims because you are not the one usually going to deal with the fallout.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2018 14:56

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

That Old Tree posted:

So far, that thread is not full of "CENSORSHIP!!!" Surprising.

It is now from one of the people involved.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2018 00:20

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Bruceski posted:

How difficult is it to google a guy before announcing him as a PR headliner for your thing?

The person that hired him is good friends with him.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2018 00:56

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Slimnoid posted:

Is he releasing a new product soon? That's probably the reason why. Dude drums up drama to sell his half-baked garbage.

I would guess he's trying to avoid the fact that despite the fact he constantly swears up and down that he would he isn't actually going to distance him from James Raggi.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2018 03:01

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Plutonis posted:

Why do people keep bringing their loving takes on how a dude who died before WW2 started turned out to be a raging racist. Like why is this poo poo only brought out for loving Lovecraft and not Walt Disney or Robert E. Howard or another popular author/artist from the early 20th century but only that loving guy.

Speak for yourself. Its a pretty common refrain around here that Lovecraft was such an irredeemable piece of poo poo that Robert E. Howard started to back away from his racism because of it.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2018 05:13

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Sage Genesis posted:

Oh, lovely. The geek social fallacies writ large, it seems.

Even more Geek Social fallacies as only in the tabletop industry can you get a convention calling for a boycott of a convention which then in turn got boycotted because of the issue of rape and sexism in tabletop.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2018 22:32

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Plutonis posted:

I played a short Pathfinder adventure recently with some friends and I made a Mesmerizer which is basically a gimmick caster class focused on illusion/mind control/hypnosis spells and it was chill that I pretty much locked down all the encounters with my poo poo because that class has a specific feature that lets my spells affect insects and undead so I pretty much chumped the boss (a mummy) by using Hold Person while the fighter, paladin and the monk beat the poo poo out of it.

Its a fifty fifty shot of the spell fizzling out normally on a turn to turn basis unless your one specific archetype. Second of all Mummies are immune to that spell regardless of psychic inception. It only over rides a creature immunity to mind effecting not the fact that the spell requires either a living creature or a humanoid which mummies are neither.
EDIT:
There is a lesson to be learned about how over the fiddly the rules are here given that it should be more straightforward like you wrote.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Dec 23, 2018

# ¿ Dec 23, 2018 01:39

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Ghost Leviathan posted:

The word 'hermaphrodite' literally comes from mythology describing a god that was a combination of male and female in the first place.

For most people, the whole spectrum of non-binary sexuality is completely new to them, and even for those who are, the terminology and norms do not even seem to be settled. Not surprised the authors feel like they're being jumped on for breaking arbitrary rules they literally had no idea existed.

I mean this is the same group that thought introducing mass murder of nonbinary people is great to introduce into the setting. Stop loving defending them.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2018 15:50

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

ProfessorCirno posted:

He had a lot to say about alignment, all of it profoundly hosed up. At one point he was explaining "Lawful Good" on dragonsfoot, which involved claiming "eye for an eye" was a proper understanding of lawful good, quoting a real world genocidal maniac (two of them, actually, but only referenced one by name), pointing out that if a paladin were to ever convert someone of evil alignment they should immediately be murdered to ensure they don't "backslide," and stating that pacifists deserve to be made into slaves.

Let's not confound pyschopath with being a libertarian which is what Gygax was. One is inherently evil where the other one isn't.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2018 00:47

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Slimnoid posted:

I'd consider a dedicated book better than a cursory treatment. Spelljammer getting a couple of mentions here and there in 4e is a cursory treatment.

Spelljammer had a dedicated book in 4e though. The problem is more that they did the smart thing and rewrote the premise because of redundancy and how pointless it was.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2018 16:04

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

remusclaw posted:

Is "Who's line" really a realistic example of how improv goes? Should there be disclaimers?

I know this is probably rhetorical but there is a simple answer to this. Who's Line is pretty realistic in regards to a specific genre of improv called sports comedy (Note: Not sure if this name is right). That aspect while accurate is but a small subset of the entire genre. In fact certain parts of improv tend to resemble actual plays in presentation than what most people associate with improv.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2019 02:19

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Nuns with Guns posted:

I posted that because it looked like ravenkult was asking for it, I'm sorry it came off like a rebuttal or fact, but can you elaborate more on that?

To make a long story short the supposed doxxing was Olivia posting a public email.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 04:21

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Liquid Communism posted:

IIRC this is a dude who got one of his hangers-on to email a guy who was criticizing him a picture of his kid's school, taken that afternoon.

Gal not dude

# ¿ Feb 13, 2019 15:14

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Nuns with Guns posted:

He burned every bridge he had to being a legitimate, professional YouTube MTG personality. Like Pundit, the big comicsgaters, and the rest of the alt-right all that's left is the hustle.

Is he the jackass that managed to force that really asinine and potentially unenforceable policy that WoTC created to appease some far right jackass?

# ¿ Feb 22, 2019 01:12

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

moths posted:

The only objectionable thing I can think of is that Johnatan Tweet maybe had some dumb opinions? I don't remember specifics, but nothing reflecting that made it into the game.

There's transphobia in 13 True Ways.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Feb 22, 2019

# ¿ Feb 22, 2019 03:15

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Sage Genesis posted:

Wait what? Please elaborate?

From 13 True Ways posted:

. Officially, his gender is male,
but there�s reason to doubt that categorization, including a
number of straight men that find themselves infatuated with
�him.�

Mind you the strange part is that I don't think I would have had a problem with it if they just left it ambiguous.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2019 03:32

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

moths posted:

Because in this industry that means anything from "wrong pronoun" to "led a transphobic harassment ring for a decade" and we're generally safer assuming it's worse.

That's literally is a type of abuse that Zak would use in regards to his normal tactics which is why I said that. Seriously gently caress that poo poo. I get where they were going with but the way they wrote just amounts to creepy emotional assault. Also, part of my response is just not wanting to deal with the defenders. I'd rather have teeth pulled out while conscious than explain LGBT+ 101 in tabletop at times.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Feb 24, 2019

# ¿ Feb 24, 2019 02:24

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

PST posted:

They've claimed they reached out to 2 female game designers, one of which being Margaret Weiss 'to see if they could attend' so that's them absolutely trying to be inclusive...

The weirdest of this and I just had this weird epiphany why not ask the person who started this whole line of questioning? They can't possibly have only known two game designers????

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Feb 27, 2019

# ¿ Feb 27, 2019 23:08

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

PST posted:

I'm pretty positive it is deliberate, because you can't get to 25 all male guests without deliberately avoiding reaching out to women/trans/NB people. It's the same as when Millar's comic convention had 40 guests of honour with no women, and he tried to claim that there were no women in the comic industry in the UK, at the same time Thoughtbubble had 40% female-presenting industry guests/featured.

And if they want to say no women deserve to be guests of honour at their con then that's something that's worth highlighting to their sponsors to see if that's the sort of convention they want to be associated with.

Ooo just as a side note you really came off a bit condescending for reasons that I'm not even sure you're aware of.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2019 15:03

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

PST posted:

I mentally inserted a 'so why bother' in Moth's comments on it, which wasn't there, so the 'and here's why' wasn't needed, so yeah I was aware of it, it was just misplaced so apologies to Moth for the overly elaborate explaining what they already knew.

I was talking about the general response to this. I know one persons advice I wanted to snap because it was an entirely useless and really pitiful,"Well try another con." I really had to bite my lip from replying back,"Which loving cons are you talking about? Every single one Im aware off has issues with rape."

# ¿ Mar 1, 2019 03:08

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Mors Rattus posted:

...

i cannot even begin to talk about how utterly asinine this is. this talking point comes up whenever, like, the topic of rape in RPGs does. people going 'but we do murders all the time, why can't we do rapes???'

it's almost as if there are qualitative differences here, between the things people experience, have experienced, and D&D's murderhoboing

like this entire point is vacuous nonsense that doesn't stand up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny, if you are sincere then congratulations, you have had baby's first qualm.

but i have literally never seen this point brought up sincerely. it is a point used entirely to discredit caring about anything.

I mean its not vacuous nonsense. So much horrible lovely traumatic stuff is ingrained into D&D's murderhoboing that I've seen people legitimately get upset with stuff that leans into classic D&D tropes because they are fundamentally vile stuff.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Mar 11, 2019

# ¿ Mar 11, 2019 17:47

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

WaywardWoodwose posted:

Tons of kids grew up playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians, yelling bang at each other with finger guns. Even taking a chess piece is an abstract killing. But if an adult (say a teacher) came upon a group of children playing pantomime rape cps would be called in a loving heartbeat. Everyone would be asking "where did these children get this idea?".

The problem with this argument is that those games don't really lean hard into aspects of genocide, racism, and other gross things that most people gloss over.

Finster Dexter posted:

For the sake of discussion, what if someone at your table had witnessed first-hand a grisly murder? Would that cause anyone to re-think how they deal with violence in the next session of D&D, where you may be expected to slaughter goblin families or somesuch?

It wasn't murder but yes I've actually seen that happen at tables before.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Mar 11, 2019

# ¿ Mar 11, 2019 19:13

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Liquid Communism posted:

Yet even then it's not 100% ingrained. D&D, and PF, are both explicit that xp is for defeating a threat, not necessarily killing it. You don't need to genocide that goblin tribe, you can drive them out, or find a good reason for them to move along.

Of course then you read the monster profiles, and run into stuff like sentient races that are invariably Evil and malicious...

When I'm referring to genocide I'm referencing one of the worst pieces of artwork I have seen which depicts their Romani equivalent as a green Waluigi knockoff. Very much so there is a ton of trauma to be had from a default D&D setting because so much of it is based upon lovely racist sexist white guy writing.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2019 11:48

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Halloween Jack posted:

I don't want to come across like I'm excusing Mike Mearls' behaviour, saying he just doesn't know what he's doing, etc. but bear in mind all evidence points to him being a dumbfuck who doesn't know what he's doing.

He literally called Mike Pondsmith a nobody and caused the direct harassment of two women by irrationally lashing out. To argue that he doesn't know what he is doing is kind of scary.

Also, fun fact about Satine Phoenix. You remember how even Zak was smart enough to distance himself from James Desborough when he went full gamergater. Satine wasn't that smart. Like literally she had to do seek him out on social media. It wasn't a passive process.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2019 15:46

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Dawgstar posted:

Didn't she do art for one of Desborough's things?

Yeah but that predates him turning into an overt giant gamergater choad who was friends with a Nazi. The fact that she actively re followed him on Twitter when he was not at all subtle about being a giant gamergater choad who was friends with a Nazi is kind of daming.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2019 16:59

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Halloween Jack posted:

I never thought I'd be accused of having too kind an opinion of Mike Mearls.

I agree, total piece of poo poo.

Im sorry. I didn't mean to imply anything by that. Its just that the one specific situation Im citing is a bit personal and emotionally charged for me even more so because of circumstances I don't want to say out loud.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2019 01:55

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 15:33

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

potatocubed posted:

On the one hand yeah, one of the founders of Contessa went to bat for Zak for years. (Including the assertion that angry nerds were out to get him because he was a cool sex-haver.)

On the other hand, I think the idea of a convention run entirely by non-men, meant to showcase what non-men bring to the hobby, is a neat idea -- and the idea of it being sunk because of its association with a man doesn't sit very well with me.

I dunno. I don't have a cogent position.

I get what your saying but when said organizer of convention threw a temper tantrum over the fact that Fred Hicks really hated the rapey imagery in Kingdom Death you can do a lot better than that. Supposedly, they also worked with Raggi and I don't remember that relationship ever being abandoned.
EDIT:
Yeah Raggi is still on Contessa's site so its not like the organization doesn't have massive problems.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Apr 22, 2019

# ¿ Apr 22, 2019 22:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

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