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The Politics of Tabletop RPGs

Oracle of Space said:
I think that's kind of the point? With high fantasy settings such as D&D or Pathfinder or transhumanist ones like Eclipse Phase, there literally is no visible, mechanical, or cultural difference between a trans person and a cis one. Because be it magic, alchemical gender reassignment treatment, or literal body-swapping being a trans individual in these settings is not the same as in real life; it's the realized dream of many trans individuals worldwide.
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Whose point? I'm not the one who is demanding to play a human in general, nor a human who is trans in specific.

Personally, I spent most of one Eclipse Phase as an octopus which didn't have an established gender identity (wasn't that kind of campaign).

If I had a need to play a human, that very fun game would have been a bust, and that would have been unfortunate because it was in fact very fun.
 
earthboy said:
If I had a need to play a human, that very fun game would have been a bust, and that would have been unfortunate because it was in fact very fun.
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Having humans an option doesn't mean people need to play one though? Nobody is arguing that humans should be the only species available in every game. People are arguing that sometimes they want to be able to play humans, and a "no humans allowed" rule excludes them. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
 
I'm generally on the side that giving players more options rather than less is better and if one of those options is playing a human then by all means go for it.
 
No human settings are often interesting, but there's a strong interest in playing humans because many players are humans. Take some of the discussions about the value and draw of representation throughout this thread and apply it to the human v. non-human distinction. Many are looking to play someone recognizable in a fantastic setting, often someone recognizably similar to them or based upon them. Saying "everyone's non-human" and then handing out different human cultures to your non-human races isn't going to fully satisfy that representational desire.

There's value to being able to play a human because you can draw on all the assumptions of modern human culture and fantasy media to quickly build your character's persona and effectively communicate that character to your GM/fellow players. A RPG writer trying to tell a particular story or impart particular themes has their own interest in including humans to help drive the point home and to make the game's message more legible.

This is even more pronounced for beginners, who can easily slide into creating a human because they're familiar and require the least lore baggage to to start playing effectively. Only a few other fantasy races even approach the universality of humans for players.

So this isn't a knock on non-human settings, but the presence of humans across the vast majority of RPGs is driven by the very real fact that everyone interacting with the end work is human.
 
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DayDreamer said:
Having humans an option doesn't mean people need to play one though? Nobody is arguing that humans should be the only species available in every game. People are arguing that sometimes they want to be able to play humans, and a "no humans allowed" rule excludes them. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
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You are arguing that a game without humans has no right to exist.

No, you are being unreasonable. Other people have a right to create games which are not about your current preferences.


Queshire said:
I'm generally on the side that giving players more options rather than less is better and if one of those options is playing a human then by all means go for it.
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That's the kind of generic hot-take which pervades the industry, and it's probably why we keep seeing the same kitchen sinks full of Tolkien tropes over and over again.

If this status quo is your ideal state, then this answer is great for you. It's not great for me.
 
earthboy said:
You are arguing that a game without humans has no right to exist.

No, you are being unreasonable. Other people have a right to create games which are not about your current preferences.
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Got any quotes to support this? Rather lools to me like no one ever stated anything beyond their own personal opinion.

earthboy said:
That's the kind of generic hot-take which pervades the industry, and it's probably why we keep seeing the same kitchen sinks full of Tolkien tropes over and over again.

If this status quo is your ideal state, then this answer is great for you. It's not great for me.
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There's nothing wrong with avoiding Tolkien, but there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of it either. Making use of the audience's expectations is a powerful tool in any creator's toolbox.
 
Queshire said:
Got any quotes to support this? Rather lools to me like no one ever stated anything beyond their own personal opinion.
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Are you honestly demanding a quote from somewhere to support the idea that "having humans as an option" is not compatible with a game that has no humans?


Queshire said:
There's nothing wrong with avoiding Tolkien, but there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of it either. Making use of the audience's expectations is a powerful tool in any creator's toolbox.
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If you want the same status quo, then by all means include everything familiar.

Just be aware that you're letting expectations drive your game, when a better game would manage expectations instead. (You can't manage something if you always follow it.)
 
earthboy said:
Are you honestly demanding a quote from somewhere to support the idea that "having humans as an option" is not compatible with a game that has no humans?




If you want the same status quo, then by all means include everything familiar.

Just be aware that you're letting expectations drive your game, when a better game would manage expectations instead. (You can't manage something if you always follow it.)
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Eugh.

As far as I know, the statement was a trans player may prefer a game with human(oid) option, because it gives better gender euphoria. You counter by giving example of games, where that's not an option, and will then they refuse to play the game, when it's so much fun? And then it kinda spirals down.
 
Alane1 said:
I am reminded that Pillars of Eternity had differences and variations not just between various races but variations dependent on what country they came from and what their background was which came into effect into gameplay with different skills and dialogue options even before you got into classes.
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Although some of the races feel like they were just checkboxes. "We got a Fantasy setting so we gotta have dwarves!"

I agree with a sentiment I've read elsewhere that POE be better with just its unique races and humans. Maybe elves, but def cut dwarves. They contribute nothing interesting to the lore or world.
 
Oracle of Space said:
Honestly, as much as I want to do that I'm marketing to the 3.5/Pathfinder crowd that didn't jump on the bandwagon to 5e or Pathfinder 2e. I'd be practically crucified if I didn't include the standard fantasy races.
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As part of that crowd I don't see why?

The people who haven't switched to 5e tend to be the ones most interested in getting outside of the "classic" D&D faux-medieval fantasy milieu.

The truly grognard ones who want super classic are playing OSR/AD&D/Basic instead.
 
earthboy said:
Are you honestly demanding a quote from somewhere to support the idea that "having humans as an option" is not compatible with a game that has no humans?




If you want the same status quo, then by all means include everything familiar.

Just be aware that you're letting expectations drive your game, when a better game would manage expectations instead. (You can't manage something if you always follow it.)
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Huh, I didn't realize that there was only one game in existence. I mean, if there were two games in existence then wanting humans as an option in a game would say little about wanting humans in the other game.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
As part of that crowd I don't see why?

The people who haven't switched to 5e tend to be the ones most interested in getting outside of the "classic" D&D faux-medieval fantasy milieu.

The truly grognard ones who want super classic are playing OSR/AD&D/Basic instead.
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I'd say it's less of the 3/3.5/PF player base being particularly attached to the standard fantasy setting or tropes and more that it's rather hard to judge which things I can safely get rid of and which things folks don't exactly care about. Personally, I'd expect only a little bit of grumbling over getting rid of most of the standard fantasy races, and really then only for Elves and maybe Dwarves (with neither being as bad as if I had removed say Kitsune or Catfolk) but I'd rather include them than get burned for not.

Of course, the problem is that what is true for one group isn't exactly true for every group, and some of the D&D traditions are actually surprisingly important. Paizo got a pretty decent amount of hate over what they did to Paladins in 2nd edition and while I want to say that would have been obvious to me I'm not positive about that. So overall, I don't really want to get rid of anything that was considered to be a "core" part of any of these previous editions, and to keep my changes to the stuff that is mechanically broken, horribly dated, or would otherwise cause problems.
 
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So I don't really know where else to put this, or if this is being covered elsewhere, but considering Paizo are a big tabletop company and this is basically an entire truckload of mud soaked laundry from "one of the good companies", I figure this would be relevant.



TL;DR Paizo wears the skin of a good company to hide all the abuse and fucked up shit they have going on beneath the surface, such as getting indignant at workers who want a clean work environment, even when said workers are practically suffocating due to the dust in the air fucking with their asthma, and telling staff to "just don't get sexually assaulted" and to "please the con goers" when staff were sent to a convention, and they wanted to know what would be put in place to keep them safe.

Oh, and one of the least shit execs at the company was fucked up enough that he still hung a portrait of a racist as fuck cult leader on his desk, with an Iron Cross to boot, even when multiple people, including Jewish employees, asked if it could be removed/placed somewhere in his house instead.
 
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Nikkolas said:
Although some of the races feel like they were just checkboxes. "We got a Fantasy setting so we gotta have dwarves!"

I agree with a sentiment I've read elsewhere that POE be better with just its unique races and humans. Maybe elves, but def cut dwarves. They contribute nothing interesting to the lore or world.
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Eh the Boreal dwarves isn't really something I've ever seen done with dwarves before.

I mean villages of dwarven hunters who usually live in Boreal Forests and Tundra is rather different from the various depiction of how dwarves usually appear in both fantasy and folklore and their tradition of hunting down the reincarnated soul of a past village elder simply based on omens just to tell them how the village is faring and how said elder was remembered certainly isn't something I've seen before.
 
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earthboy said:
When you change bodies regularly, and you can often choose the details of your current body, how is one supposed to play a trans character who functions like a real-world human trans person?
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There is an entire sidebar on what it means to be trans in EP.

It boils down to characters having some pretty severe dismorphia if they sleeve into morphs of the wrong gender. (And yes, this means that in EP being trans is slightly different than being trans IRL)
earthboy said:
You are arguing that a game without humans has no right to exist.

No, you are being unreasonable. Other people have a right to create games which are not about your current preferences.
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I don't see the contradiction.

It is like saying that someone thinks SF games shouldn't exist because they have expressed a strong preference for high fantasy. Heavy W Guy wants to play as humans because he identifies better with humanoids. He has said nothing about designers or what other players ought to do.
 
Figure this applies. Paizo is currently under scrutiny for toxic and abusive work environment after the firing of one of their longstanding customer service employees resulted in several more quitting in protest due to the circumstances surrounding it which arent clear publically. In response jessica price has been sharing several longstanding issues, and while she is a controversial figure the sentiment and some events are backed up by other former employees. Crystal frasier in particular has shared several instances where paizo seemed to have biased business decisions against trans individuals.
 
Zimmerwald1915 said:
Everyone who's surprised, put your hands up.

No? No one? Thought so.
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From several of the tweets in the various threads, it also seems to be an issue of having a very low bar. Jessica mentioned the gay paladin being rather forward at the time, but that was also limited to a side blurb for an NPC you might never interact with in the first module of rise of the runelords (Owlcat made Irabeth, Anevia, and Sosiel much more front and center in their adaptation of wrath and I will admit the most queer NPC cast also being in an AP where the new system made NPCs superfluous made me go HMM). Moral credentialing can be a real issue even sans malice, since it feeds off the idea that you can simply do enough and then anything you choose to do past that point is obviously non-biased. I know their forums are actually in a row for once, especially since it's more people than just Jessica, but I'm curious what change if any will happen.
 
Queshire said:
I'm generally on the side that giving players more options rather than less is better and if one of those options is playing a human then by all means go for it.
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I've just generally found over time that I am less and less interested in fantasy (or sci-fi) settings with very restrictive lore and requirements. Part of it is just my general tendency to like a fantasy setting that really feels like fantasy. It doesn't mean that I can't enjoy a low fantasy setting, but if I got my preference, I generally prefer to have beholders, wizards, deities that can grant fantastic power to their followers, and magic swords that shoot lightning.

It's one thing to watch a movie or read a book because it's a non-interactive form of media, but when I'm actually playing a game and making my own characters, I like to have a more free range to select what I want to play.

Part of the appeal to me (and I imagine to many people) of a kitchen sink fantasy is the sheer extraordinary amount of choice. It's fun to see what kind of parties take shape in settings where you can be everything from a Minotaur to a human to a literal mermaid.
 
So pn another forum I'm a part of, a gm has been having issues, and recently one of his players has gone around telling people he rapes their character. Before I respond to him, I want to make sure that I'm not coming at this from a bad angle because based on his description, it doesn't sound like rape, but I'm aware that I could be completely off base.

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So, on a tangent that might be worthy of a new thread, I also heard that weekend that one of my former players is warning people away from my game because I "raped his character." The instance he is talking about is when he decided to seduce an NPC, made his seduction roll, she followed him to the bedroom, and fade to black. When asked why he considers that rape, he said because I took him initiating the seduction as consent, and he was too embarrassed OOC to say anything to stop it, but since I never explicitly asked for his consent OOC it counts as raping the character. Or something.
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My gut is that he should apologize for making the person uncomfortable, but that it doesn't seen like he raped the character or is really in the wrong here.

That said this is touchy, and I'm not experienced. I would like to give him good advise though.
 
It seems like a classic miscommunication you get online instead of face-to-face; the player presumably meant 'chat up to get information' when they said 'seduce', and the GM interpreted it via the actual meaning of 'seduce' and acted appropriately to give the player what the GM thought they wanted.

Solution: apologise for the fuck-up, GM explains why the GM made the decision, and discuss what the appropriate method of proceeding onwards is. It may be the player is no longer comfortable in the game and that's fine.

100% does not sound like the GM 'raped' the PC, though, and honestly if you say 'I want to seduce this NPC' I think most people will assume you actually mean you want to seduce the NPC? Like, if I say 'I want to fuck this NPC' and you let me fuck the NPC, you're not... raping my character?

However, you've only got the GM's side of things. It's likely significantly less clear-cut and possibly not at all what they've described to you.
 
It seems unambiguous, words mean things. If someone says "seduce" then a reasonable person will assume that they meant the act of seduction.

If they didn't mean that then the problem is with the person who used the wrong word, not the GM who responded logically to what was said.
 
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Kadmus said:
It seems like a classic miscommunication you get online instead of face-to-face; the player presumably meant 'chat up to get information' when they said 'seduce', and the GM interpreted it via the actual meaning of 'seduce' and acted appropriately to give the player what the GM thought they wanted.

Solution: apologise for the fuck-up, GM explains why the GM made the decision, and discuss what the appropriate method of proceeding onwards is. It may be the player is no longer comfortable in the game and that's fine.

100% does not sound like the GM 'raped' the PC, though, and honestly if you say 'I want to seduce this NPC' I think most people will assume you actually mean you want to seduce the NPC? Like, if I say 'I want to fuck this NPC' and you let me fuck the NPC, you're not... raping my character?

However, you've only got the GM's side of things. It's likely significantly less clear-cut and possibly not at all what they've described to you.
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I'm pretty sure this player was in a face to face group (the gm has mentioned before he doesn't want to run online). It's also a former player, so not much point setting expecting going forward (though it might be worthwhile for current players).
 
I mean, when you think about characters in media seducing people there's generally something before the fade to black, ya know? Like a chance for the player to say something to the npc. If the GM skipped that, well, don't know if I'd say it justifies warning people away, but it does seem like a failing.
 
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