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The Politics of Tabletop RPGs

Fourthspartan56 said:
It seems unambiguous, words mean things. If someone says "seduce" then a reasonable person will assume that they meant the act of seduction.
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Unless you're playing Apocalypse World where the move to … pretty much ask anyone nicely for anything is called "Seduce".

(I may be wrong, it has been a while since I read the book)

But as for this instance it sounds like a breakdown in communication, expectations, and maybe a lack of safety tools.

They player is perfectly within his rights to feel uncomfortable, but all the safety tools in the world can't help if the player doesn't use them.
 
samdamandias said:
Unless you're playing Apocalypse World where the move to … pretty much ask anyone nicely for anything is called "Seduce".

(I may be wrong, it has been a while since I read the book)

But as for this instance it sounds like a breakdown in communication, expectations, and maybe a lack of safety tools.

They player is perfectly within his rights to feel uncomfortable, but all the safety tools in the world can't help if the player doesn't use them.
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I think if there was a specific in-game use of Seduce that differed from the common definition it would've been mentioned.

I think they do have the right to feel uncomfortable, but that's not the same thing as taking their discomfort out on the GM. Ultimately what should've happened was the person pointing out that they meant a different kind of seduction and everyone moving on, accusing the GM of 'raping' their character is absurd behavior.
 
samdamandias said:
Unless you're playing Apocalypse World where the move to … pretty much ask anyone nicely for anything is called "Seduce".

(I may be wrong, it has been a while since I read the book)
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No? It might be in 1e, but the move in 2e is called "Seduce or manipulate" and its description makes it pretty clear that it isn't about asking nicely:
Apocalypse World p. 142 said:
When you try to seduce, manipulate, bluff, fast-talk, or lie to someone, tell them what you want them to do, give them a reason [...]

Seducing someone, here, means using sex to get them to do what you want, not (or not just) trying to get them to fuck you. Asking someone straight to do something isn't trying to seduce or manipulate them.

To seduce or manipulate an NPC, the character needs leverage, a reason: sex, or a threat, or a promise, something that the character can really do that the victim really wants or really doesn't want. Absent leverage, they're just talking, and you should have your NPCs agree or accede, decline or refuse, according to their own self-interests.
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Rat King said:
Which is weird, because in some expanded universe stuff (like SF Battles), Star Trek does have "fighters", but they're really more like torpedo boats or small attack craft rather than WW2 or jet fighters. Which makes sense considering the weaponry in the Star Trek universe.

So I dunno why Templin feels the need to rag on it.
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I guess they aren't TIE Fighters?

Am I being too bad-faith in criticizing Templin? I don't want to circlejerk.
 
Rat King said:
I haven't seen the video in question, but I don't think it's necessarily bad faith. From what I've seen of their content they do lean really heavy on the mil sci-fi aspects. in a very specific vein.
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What sort of specific vein do you mean?
 
He wanted humans to be more brutal and genocidal, as that way they'd be actual humans (his logic). It was a self admited talk about human supremacy and how orca, goblins, trolls, etc would realistically be slaves toiling in fear under human overlords.
 
Fourthspartan56 said:
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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Although I do agree that it sounds like the fault was more with the player in this instance, all the same, double-checking for sake of simple courtesy if nothing else is always a good practise.

That said, I also think as @Queshire said, this is something that should be handled to some extent through IC dialogue. You can use it to establish that a character is attracted to someone else before a "We go to our room and fade to black" conclusion to the scene.
 
This disscution is interesting and and I hate to be a wet blanket, but the current disscution on space fighter doctrine now has nothing to do with politics in tabletop games, and might be better of moved to its own thread in the Fiction Disscution sub-forum.
 
Hykal94 said:
At the end of the movie, it's pretty clear Rico went from someone doubting his place in his society to just being another jackboot of the Terran Federation. He has drank the Kool-Aid.

I read on r/Fallout today where someone complained on r/BioShock that BioShock is actually criticising Objectivism, and the user is like, "But I got into Objectivism because of BioShock!"

It's the same way people think that America was good in Fallout despite being a literal fascist state and every single developer, from Interplay to Bethesda to Obsidian, all of them portray pre-War America as a fucking hellhole, engaging in ethnic concentration camps, slave labour, unethical experimentation, imperialism and xenophobia.

Some times, no matter how clear you think you are, some fucking idiot will read 2+2=4 and comes out thinking 2+2=5.
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Bringing the subject back to TRPGs, Rifts has also had that as a chronic problem with people stanning for the Coalition States.
 
WestOrEast said:
Has any element of Starship Troopers ever been adapted to a TTRPG? At all?
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There have been several boardgames and yes, at least one RPG, released by Mongoose Publishing back in 2005. Of course, it was based on the Roughnecks series, not the book or the movie. (Though it included elements of both, allowing you to mix movie-style "light" troopers, Roughnecks-style light power suits, and Marauder suits styled after the Terran Ascendancy game.)
 
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Alert: I just moved 83 posts' worth of derail.
  • Staff Post
    • i just moved 83 posts' worth of derail.
    Hey, I know he topic can drift sometimes but please try to keep things either on the topic of political aspects of TTRPGs or short digressions. The new thread is under Fction Discussion, here
    forums.sufficientvelocity.com

    The Success or Failure of Satire

    It was also an extremely poorly researched one where many of the examples he gave of where a failure to be that ignored that their plots either actually did already do that or directly had said logic backfire on the one doing it. Like how he tried to say that Humans in guild wars werent warring...
    forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com

    If I moved the wrong post by accident just PM me and I'll move it back.
     
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  • Staff Post
    • I mean, that's great, but Games Workshop isn't exactly seen as any sort of moral authority in the community right now.

    So I predict that the unironic Imperium Fanboys can, and will, just use the valid problems of GW mindlessly crusading against all fan creations and personal-use 3D printing of miniatures to just ignore anything they say as "hypocrisy".
     
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    Apparently it was driven by a Nazi showing up to a tournament in Spain and the tournament organisers not kicking him out.

    wilbur.ghost.io

    Warhammer Nazis

    Come and see, ladies and gentlemen, the shitstorm that followed the Talavera 40k Tournament in 2021. [Content Warning: Nazis.]
    wilbur.ghost.io wilbur.ghost.io
     
    Iron Roby said:
    So I predict that the unironic Imperium Fanboys can, and will, just use the valid problems of GW mindlessly crusading against all fan creations and personal-use 3D printing of miniatures to just ignore anything they say as "hypocrisy".
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    You would have to be a moron to not immediately reject this kind of facile argument from those people.

    "Look sure that guy was a Nazi, but you didn't let me bring my own plastic dollies and so who's to say who's right here? "
     
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    GW can't really have it both ways. Like, "our good guys are really bad guys and this is all the world's longest cautionary tale" is certainly a line you can take to evade someone being like 'hey, you guys are deffo fash, I can tell by how you glorify bigotry 24/7', but it is genuinely *weird* when transposed with the fact that their business model is basically "What color Gestapo is your favorite? Gotta catch em all!"

    Like, the fundamental message of one thousand percent of GW's marketing is that Space Marines/Past Space Marines are the coolest thing that could ever possibly exist, and that serving The Emperor/Sigmar/The Great Leader is a great idea. Black Library publishes an average of 3 books a month about that. They have at least 2 lines of comic books. They have a line of literal children's books. They have a streaming service. People record their audiobooks. If you sat down and tried to absorb all of the media (read/listen to all the books/podcasts, watch all the videos, etc) that portrays the Imperium as dauntless warriors against evil you would literally be sitting down for years. There is no possible way to take that kind of output other than as painfully, cringingly sincere.

    Here's the perfect example of GW's other mouth (their symbol being the double headed eagle is, uh, apt) communicating exactly the opposite of today's 'we don't mean anything we say haha, how could you anyone think that?, these characters are all monsters!'. (Look how inclusive we are! Even multi racial families can enjoy our pure hearted hobby uwu!) https://www.warhammer-community.com...arthalos-hobby-project-is-pure-warhammer-joy/ .

    So, re: today's post, that kid is definitely experiencing the Space Marines Stormcast Eternals as the intolerant genocidal maniacs that they are, yeah? We are sure he understands that this is satirical?

    It's deeply silly. Their actual position is, roughly, 'there's a big market for this stuff, so we sell it to them', but they can't bring themselves to admit that out loud, so we get this kind of insane statement, which falls apart if you think about it for a second and a half.
     
    You will not be missed Part 2. Good. Fuck the tournament organisers for giving the Nazi shithead MAX POINTS because everyone else refused to play with him.

    I'm also super glad to see the big 40k subreddits (r/Warhammer40k, r/40klore and even the meme subreddit r/Grimdark) are all celebrating this. Feelsgoodman.
     
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