aluminiumtrioxid

In a sense, yes, although I can imagine some purists quibbling over the fact that it wasn't, strictly speaking, a dungeon.

I think I failed to articulate one of the biggest differences between OD&D - and, by extension, the games that seek to emulate its playstyle, including DCC - and later editions like 3.X or 4.0. Namely, that there's no such thing as a perception roll. You automatically get all information if you ask for it. The game kind of expects the GM to first describe a place in vague outlines, and the players to ask questions that help them gain information crucial to decision-making. Everything is hyper-deadly, but the serious threats are usually highly telegraphed. Most of the gameplay's supposed to be this ongoing dialogue where you build up whatever information you need in order to make a decision that makes you rich (or, at the very least, helps you survive), punctuated by occasional explosions of brief, but incredibly brutal action. It's a very different paradigm than even 5E's (which is actually a lot closer to oldschool sensibilities than the previous three editions preceding it).

So here's the player link for this week's game: https://app.roll20.net/join/891817/Ay_8tg

Sorry i have to butt in here, but that is simply false and have been tried times and times again, especially by those that want GG to die. Not only it's a classic divide & conquer method, it puts the acceptance of new group A in the hand of those that originally hated GG to begin with. There will be always the fallback-argument of "toxic foundations" and so on, so no. Besides it was even an experiment to do so (see http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate#pizzagate) which pretty much went as expected. ...You're not making much sense here. that is simply false and have been tried times and times again, especially by those that want GG to die. What is false? That if the Ethics Brigade had re-organized themselves under a different hashtag, it probably would have been harder to paint them as harrassers? I have a hard time accepting "this is false because reasons" as an answer, especially since the method hasn't been tried, therefore the conviction that it is, indeed, false, seems misplaced. "Maybe it would have worked but it's been decided that it's a slim chance, and comes with associated risks we're not willing to take" sounds vaguely more honest and less like outright accusing the other party of having ulterior motives is all I'm saying. What. I mean, "divide" I get, but how exactly can you get "conquered"? It's not like the group's been represented in a manner members saw as "fair" by media outlets that aren't manned by opportunistic ****bags (looking at you, Milo). Worst case scenario, instead of an amorphous blob that prides itself on being incoherent, you'd get two amorphous blobs, working ostensibly for the same goal, hopefully with a little less harrassment from one blob. ...How exactly are you expecting any good-faith discussion to ensue when you're literally incapable of not assuming the worst of the people sitting on the other side of the table? ...I'm shocked, shocked to discover that a splinter group centered solely on mockery instead of meaningful dialogue and an exploration of issues in journalistic integrity has failed to become a baggage-free bastion of enlightened discourse regarding ethics.

I don't really see how "pointing out that maybe, just maybe likening the horrible, horrible tragedy of no longer being able to scream abuse at virtual people on your favorite internet hideout to the situation of Native American people is a tad self-absorbed" runs contrary to the belief that people should be good, but whatever. In all fairness, if the people who have been serious about having a discussion regarding ethics had ditched the "gamergater" label at the point when it became irrevocably associated with harrassment, their opposition would probably have had a harder time making the "ethics is just a smokescreen" charge stick. He who lies down with pigs, etcetera etcetera. Do you have any proof that this attempt to clean up their image is actually not an attempt to clean up their image, but the result of outside pressure being applied to the owner of those sites? Because from where I'm standing, "attempting to clean up the site's image" seems like an eminently reasonable goal and an inalienable right of the owner. Posting on a privately owned site is a privilege, not a right. So you're saying that you only know half the story and won't believe the other side. Glad to know where you stand, that way I can pretty safely assume that this conversation is pointless as you won't accept any other viewpoint. After all, you believe you know. Terrible ability to parse written text, coupled with a smug dismissal of those who didn't drink the GGer kool-aid? How unexpected. Seriously, it's less "there is no evidence that could possibly sway me" and more "the evidence I've seen presented in these threads has been less than convincing so far". Or rather, it's been very convincing re: gaming journalists generally not being very capable at their jobs (something I've known for the better part of a decade), and less convincing re: gaming journalists being part of a vast conspiracy to Destroy Gaming As We Know It Forever. Then again, I never claimed to be a very avid reader of these topics. It's very kind of you to say that, but I'm afraid that's not true, and claiming such isn't really doing the quality of the debate any favors.

I'm rather proud of the "running commentary in the chat window" idea, because it gave something to do to the inactive characters, without making the game devolve into an incoherent shouting match.

It is like saying to the Indians that there is nothing that compels them to stay on the land. The thing is that these webspaces didn't began with those set of morals; they are being pushed, for some that have literally spent years visiting them and have become invested in them such a drastic change is a shock. Also, It really doesn't matter that you don't feel it because there is this awful and wonderful thing called other people that can feel independently from you. For them that have been cast aside by these websites it is a blow to their personhood. To which I can only say: boo-****ing-hoo, grow the **** up. I do find it vaguely ironic that cries of "grow a thicker skin!" and "make your own game!" abound whenever someone mentions they don't feel represented in today's gaming, but when "webspaces" [which ones?] are "being pushed" [how?] to adopt a set of morals [specifically what set?] they didn't originally have [since when can't culture shifts happen naturally? for that matter, why is it bad when they happen?], it's suddenly "a blow against your personhood", akin to the plight of the Native Americans. ... Wow. Just wow. Don't be disingenuous, you've been reading these forums and probably have seen the evidence in other places as well. Or are you saying that you're arguing from a position of ignorance? Actually, no, I haven't seen "evidence" of such, and knowing GG's standards on that front*, frankly, if you people claimed the sky is blue, I'd feel an urgent need to double-check it hasn't turned red in the meantime. *"The corrupt games media wished death in a dozen coordinated articles on millions of diverse gamers" meme seems to never die, despite the fact that over time, it's been so thoroughly twisted in the retelling as to have no resemblance whatsoever to the original articles. Just for example.

I remain unsure how the continuous sanitizing of web spaces to be better aligned with one particular set of morals isn't just that. There is literally nothing that compels you to use the particular web spaces that want you to adhere to a particular set of morals. Ie. I don't feel I'm being "forced on the right path" and "dehumanized" by the nearest church preaching that I will go to Hell for finding men attractive, because I lose nothing by simply ignoring them. When "one view" doesn't have a coherent set of goals or views, and prides itself on being an amorphous blob, it's hard for them to get traction due to being impossible to represent fairly. [citation needed] You do realize you're fighting an imaginary enemy, right?

I remain unsure how "people talking on channels that are easy for you to avoid - without any negative impact on your life whatsoever - about how the behavior you exhibit is undesirable to them" constitutes as them somehow "trying to force you on the right path" or "dehumanizing you".

Feels like a weird question to ask right after we established that it's undesirable to enforce singular, rigid views of things so complex and context-dependent than morality, or, for that matter, human interaction.

See, if the argument was "good is subjective, and there are many equally valid systems of ethics, therefore it's undesirable to enforce a singular, rigid view of 'good' as the ultimate arbiter on human behavior", that I can agree with. "Expecting people to not behave like a bag of **** to each other is fascist" is a fair bit less nuanced viewpoint than that, though. But the nuaces of what is a ****bag in relative of good is still undefined though. And that's a problem... how?

See, if the argument was "good is subjective, and there are many equally valid systems of ethics, therefore it's undesirable to enforce a singular, rigid view of 'good' as the ultimate arbiter on human behavior", that I can agree with. "Expecting people to not behave like a bag of **** to each other is fascist" is a fair bit less nuanced viewpoint than that, though.

...It's not like society doesn't have a complex set of incentives and punishments aimed at enforcing exactly this "fascist liberal notion" (dafuq). Moreover, what I don't get is the notion that somehow the freedom to be not-good is more important than the harm caused by people being not-good.

And of Mary too I'd wager. Well, Ezekiel was an actively terrible human being. Mary was merely dumb, but harmless. Although I'd hazard the guess that Mary is about as representative of the average woman as Ezekiel is of the average Catholic

Well that was fun, but by the end, I had enough of Ezekiel to last a lifetime

That's pedantic. And furthermore, irrelevant; Volourn's argument applies to pederasty as well.

And the Spartans. And the Japanese. Oh wait, no, I'm thinking of pederasty.

Cute.

Oooh, promising.

I'm not going to dignify this particular bit of idiocy with a response. I don't regard asking game journalists to do their jobs rather than asking consumers to do it for them as being particularly idiotic, it seems very reasonable to me. That's completely fair; snide remarks about "trying to excuse games journalists by shifting blame to publishers" (translation: pointing out that the particular instance of unethical behavior exhibited was done by the publisher), and how "consumers shouldn't be made scapegoats for the press" (that accusation makes no sense; how would anybody accomplish that?) are not.

So, real life has interfered with my schedule; I'm afraid I won't be able to GM tomorrow. If somebody else does, I'm rather keen on playing though.

...Surely I am allowed to take issue with the fact that, in the post in question, you've just chosen to let a really slimy move on the publisher's part go unremarked on while patting yourself in the back for winning at Ethics? I'm not going to dignify this particular bit of idiocy with a response. It's, like, I'm looking at the words, and each of them has meaning on their own, but as a sentence, it's just incoherent rambling that doesn't even have a tangential connection to the discussion we were just having.

Yeah, this was my main point as well in arguing for the Steam refunds. Worrying about short indie games being returned in droves betrays a fundamental failure to understand the target demographic of those indie games.

Which is wonderful, but it still has nothing to do with the image you directly responded to with the aforementioned post, given that said image was depicting a pretty high-ranking marketing guy at Warner Bros. masquerading as a random internet guy going off on a tirade about how it's totally expected for a game to have issues at release nowadays, and anybody raising complaints is "just a bunch of babies". Blaming journalists for that does everybody a disservice. Well, everybody who's interested in calling out anti-consumer attitudes on the publisher side, instead of pointing at the convenient scapegoat of gaming journalism.

Which still has nothing to do with this particular example of ****tiness. For heavens' sake, the guy chose to impersonate a random schmuck on the internet, which signals that they're well aware whose opinions we hold in higher esteem, that of the fellow gamer or journalists'.