aluminiumtrioxid

...Duh? I mean, that's the thematic statement the entire game makes.

I'm entertaining the thought of GMing an Alpha Legion-centered Black Crusade game at some point in the future. Think any of those could be useful as an inspiration for that?

Frankly, what I've seen of Abnett so far has convinced me that the man is painfully mediocre. Especially when you're comparing his work to the insane fever dreams of Watson. On the other hand, I've heard from people who make complaining an Olympic event that the Ravenor series is actually kind of entertaining. So I'm kinda curious. Any recs? I'm also getting through China Miéville's Kraken, which is rather tame by the man's standards so far, but still has its moments from time to time.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall Censorship is never a solution and is more often abused to silence dissenting opinion than for anything worthwhile. Ignoring people only takes a bit of willpower and then there are always technical solutions. I can hardly imagine that sort of rhetoric fly on this particular forum either, yet somehow we're not screaming about Obsidian's fondness for censorship and silencing dissenting opinions...

So, work's been a bit hectic this week, and I didn't really have time to prep for our next session. Which will therefore be postponed until next week. If someone else wants to GM in the meantime, I'm game.

I liked the exploration in New Vegas. It actually felt like a post-apocalyptic desolation.

The article ignores quite a few games (due to its focus on E3) and quite a few factors (like a shift towards the kind of games traditionally marketed to boys having female protagonists), hence my remaining unconvinced. Since, due to not following any gaming news sites, I have no idea what's the difference between the reporting on E3 2014 and 2015, the core argument of the article rang hollow to me.

Yet nobody kicked up a stink when people exclaimed on the Pillars subforum that the existence of guns in their fantasy is a dealbreaker. Why is being upset over having/not having guns in a fantasy game in any way a more valid preference than being upset over having/not having the option to freely choose your character's skin tone? I mean, both of them can be seen as silly on some level, yet only one of those complaints triggers a wave of harrassment in response.

The word I'd use to characterize his opportunistic self-induction into gamerdom is "spineless", but not being a polemicist, I allow for different interpretations to be held by others as valid, so...

But who said developers should be bound by such restrictions? A brief timeline of the events as far as I understand them: - A blogger who goes by the moniker of "MedievalPOC" is asked the question whether it's reasonable for a game set in medieval Bohemia to feature people of color. He responds by a lot of tangentially related art history and scholarly works about the demographic makeup of various central european countries between the 8th and 15th centuries, concluding that historical accuracy allows for, but does not necessitate the inclusion of non-white people in a game set in medieval Europe, making said lack of inclusion an artistic choice on part of the developer. He also snarks a bit about how - in the developers' words - “the ultimate character customization tool ever invented” includes zero customization options beyond "caucasian male". The word "racism" or "sexism" appears nowhere in the post. - Somehow, down the line, "allows for the inclusion of various groups of people of color" - like Romani or Cuman people - gets distorted into "there's evidence of the existence of a major black population in medieval Bohemia". Related harrassment ensues, for some reason. - Kingdom Come: Deliverance gets 1 million dollars' worth of funding, strongly implying that the "controversy" - if it can even be called that - hasn't really impacted the influx of kickstarter money in any meaningfully negative fashion. Also worth noting: the blogger in question voiced no desire to see anything changed in the final product. This, of course, has not stopped Daniel Vavra from claiming there was "a witch hunt" against him, which is "affecting [his] artistic freedom" (even though, by his own admission in the very same interview, he is "not going to change [anything] because of outside pressure"). So far, I've seen no evidence of such. - Despite the aforementioned facts, Vavra is still treated like the victim here, whose artistic freedom is being infringed upon; moreover, anybody mentioning that the possibility exists for historically accurate games set in medieval Europe that feature people of color is immediately assumed to want to restrict developers to such depictions.

That was kind of the point of the original complaint, though. You could totally make a realistic medieval game set in Central Europe which features people of color. That they chose to focus on a specific locale and time period where people of color were not present is an artistic choice. Therefore "can't, because Historical Accuracy!" rings hollow as a defense.

Not really. I remain unconvinced.

Art historians seem to disagree. Although, to be fair, that's from a different period than the one the game is set in, I think? Keep in mind that history isn't one of my strong suits, but couldn't the very same thing be said of male protagonists as well?

Well it's not like it matters much; even if there were ethnic minorities (isn't that... kind of meaningless in a medieval context, by the way?) in medieval Bohemia, the creator's free to say "well this game only covers an area of 9 square kilometers*, it's entirely plausible that there are none in this specific area". *I think?

Sure, but that works both ways- if it's low on the priority list to complain about having a black or female protagonist because it doesn't effect how the game plays then surely it is low on the priority list to complain about not having a black or female protagonist because that doesn't effect how the game plays either. On the other hand, I can kind of empathize with the desire to be represented a bit more, because games with a fixed black or female protagonist are kinda rare. (Although, to be fair, there seems to be an explosion of female protagonists lately. Dishonored 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Hellblade. Progress?) Isn't it, though?

Nice use of argumentum ad populum. Also funny how he's railing against the idea of skippable combat while praising Planescape for having its "writing, characters and storyline overshadow the gameplay to such an extent that combat ceases to be the primary focus of the game". Then again, expecting internal consistency from a guy who's perfectly happy ****ting on gamers when it's convenient, then switching sides in a heartbeat when the wind blows from the other direction was never very realistic.

That was exactly the thread that caused me to permanently tune out from your crusade. In all fairness, that's exactly the sort of carceral feminism even other feminists point and laugh at.

...Then why bring up the subject if it's not directly relevant to the discussion at hand?

Why indeed? Away with them, I say! Away! ...Oh, um, wait a sec. Who was advocating for those things in this discussion?

...That's really not how satire aimed at particular styles of expression works. Has it never occurred to you that when you're specifically trying to satirize word usage, emulating said word usage "well enough, in terms of general direction" is just not gonna cut it, because it's the very thing you're trying to get right? Also: "Hah... NERD" is a great way to end a debate on the playground, but it kind of loses much of its impact when discussing things on a video gaming forum

Its weird my girlfriend called me condescending...in fact I have been called that by people before. I don't think its true ? What do you think ? Well I dunno, congratulating someone on knowing the word "tautology" does strike me as a bit... patronizing I did not know the other four though, so who knows, maybe my knowledge of the English language is limited enough to count "knowing the word 'tautology'" as an achievement...

I do have a problem with the risk-averse big-budget model; it's been stifling creativity in the medium since its inception. That's not a good thing, and it won't magically turn into a good thing just because we now have the tools to circumvent it. (Also, while I don't consider myself to be an expert on movie history, didn't Hollywood operate on a similar principle until the... I think seventies? when the bubble suddenly burst and studios were forced to return to low-to-mid-budget productions with a strong authorial vision?) In any case, it's not the existence of big-budget games that irks me, it's the public perception of "gamers" as people who consume those big-budget games exclusively (and to the exclusion of all other activities).

Ugh, those people are the worst.

It doesn't have to be this way, but it's also not a "problem" that it is How is an entire segment of the entertainment industry seeing its customers as screeching adolescent boys not a problem? It's a medium fully capable of creating something with just a teeny bit more lasting value than the latest blockbuster everyone will forget about in two months, but all of its potential is channeled into virtually recreating very entertaining methods of murder. Which is fine, I love nothing more than entertainingly-created methods of murder and the application thereof, but maybe we could, I dunno, shoot for a bit more? (Heh, "shoot", geddit?) As much as you want to deny it, what the AAA industry produces reflects the demand. Dialing down the pointless hostility would be helpful in making this conversation more productive. Not engaging in even more pointless strawmanning would be extra helpful. In any case, as the newfangled kickstarter renaissance has shown, there absolutely is a demand for low-to-mid-budget games of the kind publishers are not willing to fund, even though they're proven to be profitable ventures. Making said publishers' reluctance to do so... baffling, to say the least. Do you honestly think the current model of "gamble ALL OUR MONEY on the next big-budget AAA game in the hope that it will maybe become extra successful and bring back the exorbitant costs its production and marketing entailed" is the most optimal way for the industry to operate? Incessantly repeating this statistic won't make it any less misleading, you know. (snip) And snidely insinuating that mentioning this statistic - which, by the way, has been the case since at least five years now! We're not talking about businesswomen, we're talking about the adult demographic who used to be into gaming when they were adolescents but have since grown up! - must be part of some evil politically-motivated plot to mislead people into believing hardcore gamers are now a demographic mainly dominated by middle-aged businesswomen is not conducive to a civil discussion.

Let me explain to you in detail, then. What you claimed to be an attempt at emulating "the SJW lingo" was essentially this sentence: "[a harpy made of corn syrup is] an appropriately toxic image for the slow poison it is". Whereas, one assumes, "the slow poison" refers both to corn syrup (which is spectacularly unhealthy) and TEH EVILZ OF FEMINISM (who will, presumably, take all of our freedomz in seemingly-innocuous baby steps, hence "slow" and "poison"). Problem with the usage of "toxic image" is that a/ it either directly refers to "slow poison" itself, which is, while technically true, also a tautology (poison is toxic, who would've thought?) or b/ it's about the feminist harpies slowly poisoning our society, which would be golden, except... While "SJWs" don't categorically reserve the term "toxic" to inanimate phenomena, whenever it's used to characterize people, it generally refers to the kind who make civil conversation impossible by their very presence (you probably know the type, loud, abrasive, have no clue of what they're talking about), not those who are insidious and manipulative. Hence, if "slow poison" refers to feminists, the usage of "toxic" wouldn't really apply, since in your interpretation, society doesn't realize it's been poisoned UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE (dun dun dun!). Or if we're specifically referring to the subgroup of feminists who are toxic, the "slow poison" term is inadequate. Therefore, we have three possibilities: either the usage of "toxic" in the sentence is a tautology, or it fails to emulate the conventions of the group you claim to mock, or your metaphor is a mess. (Also, as someone who has a passing familiarity with how human bodies work, I take issue with the implied characterization of corn syrup as "toxic". It's about as toxic as table salt, ie. while it can kill you, it's really not a very practical way of poisoning someone.) 1) Most people who misunderstand something generally don't realize they misunderstand it. Hence misunderstanding, not "un-understanding". 2) If you're attempting to satirize a group's usage of words, yes, it's kind of your job to understand how they're actually using those words. Or at least to not throw a butthurt temper tantrum when someone corrects you.