[OSSR] Shackled City

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:14 pm

The captain of the guard portraying it as goblins are evil and have to be stopped is normal. Narrativizing someone outside the social contract as 'evil' and committing violence on them as 'good and necessary' is a feature of all human societies, including the modern one.

I'm not saying the writer knows any of this. But it gels with history, sociology, and human nature, rather well.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:15 pm

So just to be clear Rejakor, all D&D games should be explicitly racist against black people because they were in medieval history and games should reflect monstrous parts of medieval history and portray them as good even though there is no good reason for it at all, and they could just as easily not do that?

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:32 pm

It depends if your DnD game is set in the 1806 american midwest. During the roman empire, for example, black people were not vilified (although they were typically in the northern regions largely as 'exotics' - slaves for the rich with different attributes than the norm). Through a lot of the medieval period, they were rare and not tolerated in the countryside, but tolerated in a lot of cities, especially the trade hubs (such as Venice).

We have lots of examples for how people act in various low-tech societies. That modern gamers seem to want an idealized medieval pastiche of equality and free love where all 'evil' is literally embodied by 'monsters', and some humanoids just end up with the short end of that stick due to being ugly, doesn't really change that. It's weird and somewhat disheartening that people want simplistic, black-and-white worlds to tell their stories in, where instead of standing up against an entire society because their social contract is unfair and unjust to defend a bunch of tribal murderers who are literally worse and don't even understand why it is happening, the paladin instead hits demons in the face with his sword in an unambiguously good vs evil way, but the basic lesson of Hollywood is that people like dumb shit and what people like sells books and movies.

So just to be clear, Kaelik, your incredibly obvious axe to grind doesn't change that under a generous reading of the adventure so far - ambiguous villain, town with potentially corrupt authority and apathetic citizens, humanoid enemies targeted due to slaving rather than existence, strange plagues and other horror elements - the 'neutral with evil boss town guard captain being a racist asshole telling you to murder sapient creatures for convenience' thing might be a moral choice the PCs are being asked to make. Given that they can investigate and murder all the goblins, or investigate, realize the goblins are dominated, and assassinate the vampire controlling them, it's a real choice.

Also, it's good to see that after years of not having to read your posts, you have, if anything, gotten more passive-aggressive and full of shit. Bravo.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 2:48 pm

Rejakor wrote:It depends if your DnD game is set in the 1806 american midwest. During the roman empire, for example, black people were not vilified (although they were typically in the northern regions largely as 'exotics' - slaves for the rich with different attributes than the norm). Through a lot of the medieval period, they were rare and not tolerated in the countryside, but tolerated in a lot of cities, especially the trade hubs (such as Venice).

We have lots of examples for how people act in various low-tech societies. That modern gamers seem to want an idealized medieval pastiche of equality and free love . . . but the basic lesson of Hollywood is that people like dumb shit and what people like sells books and movies.

You heard it here first, if you don't want women raped and racism in your D&D it's because you are stupid. Since the past had racism and rape, it would be stupid to want your game to not have that...

Rejakor wrote:Also, it's good to see that after years of not having to read your posts, you have, if anything, gotten more passive-aggressive and full of shit. Bravo.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Aharon · Post by **Aharon** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 2:51 pm

You see, Kaelik, that's you getting old... Less agressive and more passive-agressive

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 3:00 pm

You heard it here first, Kaelik yet again lies about what was said (not idealized medieval pastiche = rape) in order to try to come across as the shining hero of the masses, defending against the ebil mans on the interwebs.

If your setting is one where everyone is either super evil or ultra goody two shoes good guy one-dimensional characters, Kaelik, yes, you are stupid.

This is not news to anyone who has read any of your posts.

If you remove anything that might make people uncomfortable from a story, you leave little that can cause tension - drama - moral choices - or verisimilitude. Your setting is worse, because it is less interesting and less relatable. And your false moral outrage because a setting in an imaginary game might have things that people don't like in it, while condoning a simplistic good vs evil worldview that has been the basis for all kinds of horrific evil in the actual real world, is irony of the highest order and proof, if any was needed, that you are a clinically retarded idiot whose frothing rage and ability to spout about hot-button issues leads some people to believe you have a functioning brain instead of the ability to regurgitate things I am convinced you do not understand but that sound vaguely related to actual concepts real people have thought of.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 3:06 pm

Rejakor wrote:If you remove anything that might make people uncomfortable from a story, you leave little that can cause tension - drama - moral choices - or verisimilitude. Your setting is worse, because it is less interesting and less relatable.

"And that's why I make sure that women are raped and there are racist assholes in positions of power being condoned in all my games. Because you are stupid if you don't want that in your games!" -Rejakor

Look, let me spell this out because you are clearly an idiot. You condem me as lying about what you say because I'm making it about rape, but there is literally fucking zero percent of what you have said that doesn't apply exactly the same to someone saying they don't want rape in their D&D as it does someone saying they don't want racism in their D&D. So if you think it is absurd to force rape into D&D games and call people idiots if they don't want that, you should consider the possibility that you are totally wrong, and people can perfectly reasonably not want racism in their D&D.

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 3:06 pm

An aggressive tone doesn't make a post not passive-aggressive - if you lay things out in a manner that attempts to draw connections between someone being bad and truths (rape is bad, rejakor is advocating rape, rejakor is bad) you're being passive aggressive - 'i'm not insulting you, i'm just saying that all rejakors are rapists, it's a known fact' - instead of being aggressive, which is actually directly accusing the person of being bad. Saying someone is X type of bad, and implying they are [much worse] type of bad is aggressiveness and passive-aggressiveness at the same time - socially acceptable because the really bad insult is implied instead of outright stated.

None of this is exciting or new. Ways of undercutting people's social status (to avoid having to answer any of their actual points) are as old as there have been humans trying to get points for 'winning arguments', which is all Kaelik seems genuinely concerned with in any discussion about anything.

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 3:10 pm

"I like to sweep racism and crimes against women under the carpet and pretend they don't happen and never happened, because this makes me feel righteous and empowered. I also get angry at anyone who says they do or did happen, including victims of those crimes, because they make me feel bad and not righteous and empowered." - Kaelik

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 3:15 pm

Rejakor wrote:An aggressive tone doesn't make a post not passive-aggressive - if you lay things out in a manner that attempts to draw connections between someone being bad and truths (rape is bad, rejakor is advocating rape, rejakor is bad) you're being passive aggressive - 'i'm not insulting you, i'm just saying that all rejakors are rapists, it's a known fact' - instead of being aggressive, which is actually directly accusing the person of being bad. Saying someone is X type of bad, and implying they are [much worse] type of bad is aggressiveness and passive-aggressiveness at the same time - socially acceptable because the really bad insult is implied instead of outright stated.

No dumbshit, I'm not saying you are bad because you are racist rapist, I'm specifically saying you are bad because you are demanding that people have racism and rape in their D&D games.

The fact that you realize one of those is bad (demanding people have rape in their games) but not the other, is just that you are unable to comprehend your own arguments. (Except maybe not, because now not wanting rape in my games is apparently sweeping crimes against women under the rug or something? Whatever.)

I don't need to call you a racist rapist, or imply you are one, because just demanding people accept racism in their games and calling them idiots for not wanting it is so dumb all on it's own, that I don't need to address your personal beliefs about reality.

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 3:27 pm

Everything i've said applies to historical racism. It does not apply to historical rape. The two are actually separate! In entertainment (which ttrpgs are), you also have to consider audience - if the audience includes, say, someone who has been sexually assaulted, you don't bring that up in the entertainment specifically so that person doesn't get flashbacks or nightmares. If you don't, you might bring it up - specifically in the context that it is bad. You don't ignore it entirely and forever - you don't sweep it under the carpet - and you absolutely do not pretend it does not exist. Protip: Pretending something doesn't exist does not actually stop it from happening! It actually makes it more likely to happen! It's one of the worst possible actions you could take if you want it to stop happening - because awareness leads to actions taken to stop things, funding being emplaced, people realizing society will enforce punishment and investigation to stop it, etc.

So your offense, which itself seems more about winning arguments and social status than any genuine sentiment, is not only bad for storytelling - it's actually bad for solving the problem you profess to care about.

Regardless of this huge tangent into Kaelik not understanding basic sociology and ad hominem, here's the thing: your argument has no point or basis anyway. The racist captain is wrong. The goblins are being mind-controlled by an undead monster - a vampire. Regardless of whether they are written as evil monsters themselves or whatever, there is plenty of plot-room to pin their actions directly on the inherently evil undead, making the racist captain an idiot, the heroes heroes, and the goblins free.

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 3:42 pm

Kaelik wrote:(Except maybe not, because now not wanting rape in my games is apparently sweeping crimes against women under the rug or something? Whatever.)

Yes. It is. You might still do it because you don't want to address that topic - it might be off-theme, it might be too difficult for you as a storyteller, it might be a hot-button issue for someone at your table which would derail the story or cause them harm, it might simply not come up in the course of the story. Racism doesn't need to exist in every story. Sexual assault doesn't need to exist in every story.

But saying that it should exist in no stories means you're an idiot. Saying that not playing in a medieval fantasy pastiche with black-and-white good vs evil means you're advocating rape means you're an idiot. It's exaggeration to the point of a completely new argument, placed firmly in the mouth of someone else, that allows you to act like the good guy in shooting it down. More than that, your overall implication, that racism and rape in stories is a bad thing, indicates a complete ignorance of sociology and feminism. Guess what. Awareness = Prevention. People ignore things they don't like. Like crimes against women - like racism - like miscarriages of justice - like corruption - like embezzlement - like exploitation of capitalism - like every other stupid or ethically fucked thing that the human race does. Having that rendered in a way that shows it for what it is - and not as a puerile power fantasy or cheap shock - educates people. And causes them to, possibly, consider things they would not otherwise that may cause them to make better choices in their lives.

In every form of entertainment. Saying that it should not be in one type of entertainment - or should not exist in any form of storytelling - indicates you are either painfully naive, extremely stupid, or talking about something you don't understand - intentionally - in order to score social points.

Pick one.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:14 pm

Rejakor wrote:In entertainment (which ttrpgs are), you also have to consider audience - if the audience includes, say, someone who has been sexually assaulted, you don't bring that up in the entertainment specifically so that person doesn't get flashbacks or nightmares.

...

Protip: Pretending something doesn't exist does not actually stop it from happening! It actually makes it more likely to happen! It's one of the worst possible actions you could take if you want it to stop happening - because awareness leads to actions taken to stop things, funding being emplaced, people realizing society will enforce punishment and investigation to stop it, etc.

Rejakor, stop arguing with yourself. Are we allowed to "pretend that racism doesn't exist" in our entertainment because it isn't serious business and we are trying to have fun and not currently trying to reform the world through our RPG play or are we monstrous assholes who refuse to admit that rape exists by not having it in our RPGs?

I still can't tell which of those is the problem when you keep arguing both of them in every post.

Rejakor wrote:So your offense, which itself seems more about winning arguments and social status than any genuine sentiment, is not only bad for storytelling - it's actually bad for solving the problem you profess to care about.

I think you might be projecting. So far you seem to be the one advocating the RPGs are the path forward to solving racial justice problems. I'm advocating the same thing I always advocate when this sort of things come up. I don't want rape and racism and graphic torture in my RPGs, because those are not things I enjoy, and for the purpose of a cooperative storytelling game, I frankly just want to have a good time, and not delve into the terrors of the human condition and find out my friends have shitty beliefs.

Rejakor wrote:your argument has no point or basis anyway. The racist captain is wrong. The goblins are being mind-controlled by an undead monster - a vampire. Regardless of whether they are written as evil monsters themselves or whatever, there is plenty of plot-room to pin their actions directly on the inherently evil undead, making the racist captain an idiot, the heroes heroes, and the goblins free.

Uh... So fucking what? I don't want to hear about how the people who locked up Japanese were "justifiably mistaken" because all japanese people were infected by a virus that turns them into bombs in my alternative history WWII shoot em ups, and I don't want to play RPGs where the goblins are murdered by racist cops who continue to be racist cops afterword the goblins are cured of the special mind control that made that racist cop accidentally right either. I'd just as soon not have any goddam racist cops in the first place.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:18 pm

Rejakor wrote:In every form of entertainment. Saying that it should not be in one type of entertainment - or should not exist in any form of storytelling - indicates you are either painfully naive, extremely stupid, or talking about something you don't understand - intentionally - in order to score social points.

So the NFL is sexist, not because of the dehumanizing way they treat many of the women they employ, but instead actually because they decided that football is not the best medium for stories about rape.

I'll keep that in mind that every football game I watch that doesn't have a rape storyline is sexist for not including a rape storyline.

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:59 pm

Yes, 'storylines' = organized sport, tetris, movie posters, coasters, green beans, cheese, whatever allows you to strawman arguments.

Your 'racism shouldn't be in stories' argument has been disproven - now you're resorting to retarded shit and ad hominem. Well, that's great Kaelik. You continue to misrepresent my arguments all you like - it doesn't change that your kneejerk bullshit is kneejerk bullshit - that 'oh in my games I prefer' isn't what you were saying in the first place - and your exaggerations of things i'm saying - some of which is factually not what I have said or in some cases the opposite of what i've said - doesn't change that you were wrong.

Regardless of how I phrase it, explain it, or argue it, you're just going to keep twisting shit around - literally forever - because this isn't about racism or storytelling for you, it's about 'Kaelik winning internet arguments due to moral superiority', and any amount of lying and bullshit is totally okay in that context.

And for reference - i've never once found anyone who took offense (rather than say, having PTSD about it) at depictions of racism, sexism, or any of the other ills of the modern world to have done anything concrete to actually attempt to stop it. Token charity and pity votes being the extent of their beliefs on the topic, apparently. Their efforts to remove the offending reminders of bad things existing in the world are usually a lot more vigorous.

So if I appear dubious of your genuine Kaelikian intentions to save the minorities and the womens by medium of getting offended at the contents of paizo adventure paths, do excuse me. As I have a shit-ton of experience of the absolute opposite of your no-doubt noble White Knight intentions being anywhere grounded in actual action of any kind.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 5:11 pm

Rejakor wrote:Yes, 'storylines' = organized sport, tetris, movie posters, coasters, green beans, cheese, whatever allows you to strawman arguments.

Your 'racism shouldn't be in stories' argument has been disproven.

[broken irony meter picture]

Rejakor wrote:And for reference - i've never once found anyone who took offense (rather than say, having PTSD about it) at depictions of racism, sexism, or any of the other ills of the modern world to have done anything concrete to actually attempt to stop it.

Yes Rejakor, I'm sure that no one who has ever objected to blackface or the shitty rape shit portrayed as comedy in 60-80s TV and movies has ever done anything to oppose racism or sexism.

Rejakor wrote:So if I appear dubious of your genuine Kaelikian intentions to save the minorities and the womens by medium of getting offended at the contents of paizo adventure paths, do excuse me.

Yep, I'm definitely the one strawmanning here, couldn't possibly be that you have no fucking clue what people are talking about. Couldn't be that.

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 5:30 pm

So just to be clear Rejakor, all D&D games should be explicitly racist against black people because they were in medieval history and games should reflect monstrous parts of medieval history and portray them as good even though there is no good reason for it at all, and they could just as easily not do that?

Moving goalposts to

blackface or the shitty rape shit portrayed as comedy

doesn't mean you didn't say what you originally said, Kaelik.

In fact, a forum is the worst place to move goalposts because your previous posts are right there.

And yes, people like you, who take offense at every portrayal of racism, sexual assault, etc, including one in a roleplaying game of a guy who is explicitly incorrect and working for an evil beholder trying to take control of the realm of demons, aka where the racist is an asshole, do tend to never do anything to oppose racism or sexism. That is entirely my experience.

People who have problems with genuinely shitty portrayals of racism, sexual assault etc, and do not have problems with portrayals where it isn't portrayed as fine or funny, but rather as bad, or wrong, like the specific example we are talking about, tend to be more of a mixed bag, and include people I have seen genuinely oppose racism and sexism.

So yet again, you're lying. Creating a better category than mine (people who oppose genuinely problematic portrayals of racism) and putting yourself in it. And pretending that i'm saying that category do nothing, when i'm not.

Ad hominem doesn't prove you right, Kaelik. Neither does responding to strawmen. Until you actually address any of my arguments, you're just, as usual, a pompous windbag claiming wisdom and strawmanning and insulting anyone who says otherwise.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 5:34 pm

Rejakor wrote:Your 'racism shouldn't be in stories' argument has been disproven

On the assumption based on how human psychology on forums appears to work that you're just ignoring whatever Kaelik actually says good or bad, and in the hope that something will actually get through...

"There should exist stories that handle racism and rape in an appropriate manner" does not contradict "I don't want to deal with that sort of heavy shit in my D&D game that I play as shameless escapism". SuperHot would not be improved by a subplot about rape. Hatfall does not need a subplot in which you are confronted with the brutal reality of slavery.

Rejakor wrote:...including one in a roleplaying game of a guy who is explicitly incorrect and working for an evil beholder trying to take control of the realm of demons, aka where the racist is an asshole,

Next question - is this how the actual adventure path that we're derailing the actual review of actually portrays the matter? That is, does the text actually encourage you to think "the captain is a fucking monster for wanting this" without resorting to a charitable revisionist reading of the actual words on the page?

Rejakor · Post by **Rejakor** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 5:49 pm

Omegonthesane wrote: On the assumption

Translation: You're not reading anything Kaelik says.

Refutation: I'm reading everything Kaelik says, and most of it is bullshit designed to either back away from what he said earlier or paint me as the bad guy (and a rape apologist).

Omegonthesane wrote:"There should exist stories that handle racism and rape in an appropriate manner" does not contradict "I don't want to deal with that sort of heavy shit in my D&D game that I play as shameless escapism". SuperHot would not be improved by a subplot about rape. Hatfall does not need a subplot in which you are confronted with the brutal reality of slavery.

And Kaelik taking offense because I talked about how racism is historically accurate in medievalist settings, can be portrayed during games of DnD, and that generic medieval pastiche with simplistic ethics is bad for numerous reasons has nothing to do with that, despite Kaelik's many, many attempts to claim that i'm saying all stories should have racism in them regardless of theme, content, framing, or audience. Which, let me clarify, I am not. And I never was. That is a strawman argument by Kaelik. Not by me. My username is not 'Kaelik' - i've never said that.

Next question - is this how the actual adventure path that we're derailing the actual review of actually portrays the matter? That is, does the text actually encourage you to think "the captain is a fucking monster for wanting this" without resorting to a charitable revisionist reading of the actual words on the page?

They are being mind-controlled by a vampire. Note also how i've never said that Shackled City portrays racism in an appropriate manner. I've said that in the listed plot the guard captain is wrong and is working for an evil beholder and you later fight the beholder. All of which hint pretty strongly that the racism in shackled city is not 'hur dum bad' like the posters before me were saying. Maybe there's a bunch of text in there that explicitly says the goblins are evil - I don't have SC in front of me. I haven't read through it. I'm going from RI's posts, same as presumably all the other posters in the thread. If instead they're going from personal experience with shackled city and i'm wrong and the text goes on and on about how evil and shitty all goblins are and how it's perfectly fine and good to slaughter them all, the subhuman infestation filth - i'm perfectly willing for someone to say so, and i'll be corrected in my supposition.

Kaelik's 'all racism is bad and should never be mentioned' bullshit is not that, it's not even slightly like that, it's Kaelik acting morally superior because he saw an opportunity to call someone a racist. And felt confident in the ability to ad hominem his way to victory should they disagree.

EDIT: Not to mention that the entire theme of Shackled City revolves around an evil BBEG giving quests to a party of good-aligned heroes. A city guard captain telling you to go kill some (innocent) goblins who are dominated by a vampire, and being racist while he does it, is pretty much in-theme for the entire adventure path, and foreshadows the beholder being a guy giving you quests that aren't entirely on the level in the later parts of the adventure path.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 6:05 pm

Guys, come on, you are way overcomplicating this. This is just lazy videogamey quest writing, where you are asked to bring ten bear assess and no one questions what did the bears do wrong. You are not supposed to think about this quest for longer than it takes to say "UPDATED MY JOURNAL".

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 6:37 pm

SlyJohnny wrote:At risk of repeating the arguments that got the thread split off into WH40K ejaculate, this is why I accept genocide of goblin for the most part, but get weirded out when we're portrayed as Champions of Light for doing it.

Like either say you don't care about morality in games, or give it a treatment more complicated than "green is bad".

Here's the deal.

Goblins' role in the setting is providing cannon fodder that can be stabbed in the face without feeling guilty.

If you move goblins out of that category, you will have to move another race into it as long as facestabbing is the core of your gameplay. In fact this is an observable phenomenon in WoW and other settings that decide that traditional enemy races should not be irredeemably evil.

If you go "but, but, but I don't feel righteous stabbing creatures that did not really do that much bad things (but I still play the game about stabbing and clearing dungeons)" authors are left with no choice but to give the current designated fodder races the Pathfinder treatment - i.e., make absolutely sure these creatures provide you with ample reasons for stabbing.

However, I, personally, prefer not to fill my game with excessive amounts of rape and torture.

And for those who want more complicated morality in their games, like you do... well as it seems the industry, has no middle setting between "black&white" and "full grimderp". Or at least doesn't use it much. That is not because of some whim, I believe. It's again the function of the default TTRPG gameplay mode being super violent. When PCs' path in life is paved with skulls, either the setting gives them an ironclad justification for their actions, or the game strongly risks slipping into pure "might makes right".

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 6:42 pm

Rejakor wrote:
So just to be clear Rejakor, all D&D games should be explicitly racist against black people because they were in medieval history and games should reflect monstrous parts of medieval history and portray them as good even though there is no good reason for it at all, and they could just as easily not do that?
Moving goalposts to

blackface or the shitty rape shit portrayed as comedy

Look, I understand you are an idiot, but surely with multiple people pointing out how completely wrong you are, you might accidentally discover you are.

First off both those statements are literally the same thing. The goal post isn't moving at all. In both cases I am taking issue with specifically portraying the shitty thing as not shitty.

Now, you can try to stumble backwards into a metanarrative nonsense pile like you did in your next post where even though shackled city is explicitly portraying goblin racism as totally hilarious (something piazo does multiple other times in other locations too, because they totally think goblin racism is hilarious) you weren't defending specifically the specific adventure path people were actually criticizing and you were only defending a hypothetical not shit portrayal.

But even if that is your defense, you really do have to admit that "portraying racism as good" and "portraying racism as good" are not actually fucking different goal posts.

Now you also later admit that you totally don't know if Shackled City is actually portraying racism as fucking hilarious and cool, which makes the fact that you committed a good chunk of this post to specifically defending the Shackled City portrayal of racism as totally fine, kind of odd, but whatever moving onto the main point:

And yes, people like you, who take offense at every portrayal of racism, sexual assault, etc.

...

I'm not saying that you're not being asked to murder gypsies. Because you are. It's just more acceptable to murder gypsies because 'some gypsies have been doing crimes' in medieval style settings.

...

We have lots of examples for how people act in various low-tech societies. That modern gamers seem to want an idealized medieval pastiche of equality and free love . . . but the basic lesson of Hollywood is that people like dumb shit and what people like sells books and movies.

The point here is that you seem to be living in some sort of alternate universe where criticizing one specific story that treats racism as "not really that big a deal" and "kind of funny" which it totally does, and you totally even defended it for doing, counts as a claiming that no story can ever be about racism.

Which is why everyone else also knows you are a strawmanning piece of shit for your repeated completely baseless nonsense claims that I'm arguing that racism can never be depicted in any story. Because I never said that, or anything like that, at any point, and you just made it up when it turned out that you were being a shitty idiot claiming that anyone who didn't want racism in their D&D campaigns was an idiot.

You are the only person to demand that others must play the storylines you want. You've said it multiple times in multiple ways. You've called people who don't want to play specifically a D&D game about racism (being totally okay) idiots, assholes who don't care about racism, and a few other weird things besides.

But that's just you being crazy. Everyone but you can see that not wanting racism in one specific version of entertainment, such as escapism, or tactical battle simulators, does not mean you object to it in all media, and that criticism of one bad portrayal of racism doesn't equate to hatred of all portrayals of racism.

Nor is this about how "offended" I am, as nothing I said at any point could lead any reasonable person to believe that how offended I was or wasn't has ever been any part of the conversation, except in so far as you keep bringing it up.

In short, you strawman a lot and blame others of strawmanning. You are trying to make this about a quest for social justice, and you accuse other people of making it about a quest for social justice. You are wrong, and you have been wrong the whole time because you keep arguing with your own delusions instead of what everyone else is saying, and everyone but you knows it.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 7:11 pm

Rejakor wrote:Everything i've said applies to historical racism. It does not apply to historical rape. The two are actually separate! In entertainment (which ttrpgs are), you also have to consider audience - if the audience includes, say, someone who has been sexually assaulted, you don't bring that up in the entertainment specifically so that person doesn't get flashbacks or nightmares.

This is a weird point to make. Like sexual assault, racism is also a thing that people experience entirely too god damn often. If rape is a concern because it might cause unnecessary discomfort to some part of the target audience, well...

I am personally not all that opposed to fantasy racism, but fantasy racism without self-awareness is fucking creepy.

FatR wrote:If you move goblins out of that category, you will have to move another race into it as long as facestabbing is the core of your gameplay. In fact this is an observable phenomenon in WoW and other settings that decide that traditional enemy races should not be irredeemably evil.

...

However, I, personally, prefer not to fill my game with excessive amounts of rape and torture.

The Church of the Black Hat is an apocalyptic cult which emphasizes self-discipline and restraint from worldly pleasures. They are composed entirely of humans, dwarves, elves, and other traditional PC races. True to their name, every member wears a distinctive black hat while conducting official church duties - i.e. attempting to bring about the end of the world and absolutely not raping or torturing anyone because those are profane base urges. Voila. I just justified mindlessly facestabbing a group of people based on an obvious visual indicator without resorting to fantasy racism or descriptions of rape or torture. So fucking difficult. Here, let me do it again.

The WAAAGH-Tang Clan is a group of bandits who think your stuff should be their stuff. They come from [wherever the fuck the orcish homeland is in your setting], so the group is almost exclusively comprised of orcs. They may or may not rape or torture anyone, who fucking cares, no one is going to put a gun to your head and make you bring it up. They absolutely will stab you and take your stuff. That's their whole thing. You can identify the WAAAGH-Tang Clan because when you run into them they will try to stab you and take your stuff, and also their leaders' faces are on a bunch of wanted posters. Note that while the WAAAGH-Tang Clan are all (mostly orcs), not all orcs are members of the WAAAGH-Tang Clan, and stabbing random orcs will not bring you any closer to the goal of defeating them.

Jesus fucking Christ. Why is it that everytime we end up having this debate, someone makes the argument "the only easy way I can think of to distinguish the bad guys from the good guys is their race?" It's fucking creepy. It makes you look like an actual fucking racist. Stop making that argument. Stop it! Generating simple conflicts without race is fucking easy. It's so fucking easy. You should be able to do it without any problems at all.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 8:16 pm

Longes wrote:Guys, come on, you are way overcomplicating this. This is just lazy videogamey quest writing, where you are asked to bring ten bear assess and no one questions what did the bears do wrong. You are not supposed to think about this quest for longer than it takes to say "UPDATED MY JOURNAL".

I'm pretty sure that this whole argument Rej and Kae are on about isn't about over reading the actual quest. It's more like Rej said having racist people in the game is fine and setting appropriate and Kaelik not liking that idea.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Sat Apr 23, 2016 12:00 am

DSMatticus wrote: The WAAAGH-Tang Clan is a group of bandits who think your stuff should be their stuff. They come from [wherever the fuck the orcish homeland is in your setting], so the group is almost exclusively comprised of orcs. They may or may not rape or torture anyone, who fucking cares, no one is going to put a gun to your head and make you bring it up. They absolutely will stab you and take your stuff. That's their whole thing. You can identify the WAAAGH-Tang Clan because when you run into them they will try to stab you and take your stuff, and also their leaders' faces are on a bunch of wanted posters. Note that while the WAAAGH-Tang Clan are all (mostly orcs), not all orcs are members of the WAAAGH-Tang Clan, and stabbing random orcs will not bring you any closer to the goal of defeating them.

The WAAAGH-Tang Clan clearly comes from the slums of Morklin. The elite go through a rigorous training regimen in the WAAAGH-Tang underground base, called the 36 Chambers.

In order to rout the Clan and restore peace, you must get through the Razer, the Genius, the Killer Priest, the Bloodhound of Deff, Elder Dirt, the Chef, the Ghostface Strangler and the Taskmaster.