aluminiumtrioxid

Diablo had randomized map design in order to facilitate replayability, Dear Esther had randomized storytelling in order to widen possible interpretations of the story. I think the two have very little in common. Well, without context, I imagine it might seem blunt and clumsy (and in the case of Pathfinder's gender change potion as opposed to belts of gender change being cursed items it does seem like engaging in childish one-upmanship with Wizards), but regardless of how it comes across (IMHO: D&D okay, Exalted okay but expected nothing less, Pathfinder kinda dumb), it's actually tangential to my point: regardless of having "politically correct" material, the core of these games hasn't changed. If this clique is indeed conspiring and ends up being able to dictate how video games must be done (an unlikely occurence, if you ask me), I can't imagine them having more influence on content than what is happening in tabletop RPGs now - and I personally think that having a trans or lesbian NPC in a game, or looting a gender-changing potion wouldn't detract from my fantasy adventuring.

I don't see how being exact and measured in one's speech could ever be seen as something to avoid. Mathematicians do it all the time, too

Not particularly innovative in my view, and certainly not worth the massive trade off of removing almost every other feature. Why is there transexual material in D&D? One can be the gender one wishes to be, there is no point in having a transitory point when a low level spell can change ones gender in an instant, and a moderate level spell can do so permanently, as well as a myriad of items in the game. One could do this when AD&D was first introduced, this is nothing new. There have always been different races of humanity, species (their races) and a vast variety of difference and diversity in gameworlds, this is not a new thing again. This sounds like just blatant and clumsy pandering that personally i'd be insulted by, one can do all this in every edition, and it was not remarked upon as something new and innovative, it simply was accepted as sexuality and race should be. It has randomized bits of narration, making the experience different on subsequent playthroughs; this, paired with the unreliable narrator, the intentional vagueness of the situation and the clues the environment provides allows for a rather wide range of possible interpretations. I can respect the opinion of someone who doesn't seek that kind of experience (read: academic wankery) from their video games, but that doesn't make it any less innovative. Aaand there is no "transsexual material" in D&D. There is a paragraph in the chargen chapter on character gender acknowledging that your character may not fit into the male/female binary, mentioning androgynous/possibly hermaphroditic elves, exotic races that might reproduce asexually, or that they might be trans (5E isn't big on abundant magic items, so belts of gender change are not a resource available for anyone willing to fork out the cash). I'm not sure how you could take the existence of a single paragraph in a 400-ish pages long rulebook as blatant and clumsy pandering. Same with Pathfinder, there's about 2 or 3 pages' worth of material devoted to the matter in the entire gameline. My point about how the existence of said paragraph/few pages bears no relevance whatsoever to the core of the material still stands.

Of course it's not, but if you read back, the whole debate sprung from someone taking an archeologist's statement that he found very little differences between male and female musculosceletal structures extrapolated from remains found Viking age tombs as "denial of biological facts". Treating "women are weaker than men" as a biological fact is blatantly wrong; "women are, in our current society, on average, weaker than men" is technically correct, but misleading (training is a bigger factor than gender in determining physical fitness, and there's a way stronger incentive for men to work out with the specific purpose of increasing strength as opposed to doing exercises that don't build muscle tissue as efficiently but burn calories really well, making them more optimal for working out with the goal to conform to societal ideal of female beauty). "Given access to the same resources and training, a male athlete will best a female one in most physical contests, most of the time" rings true, however.

I'm still not getting why am I being interrogated for Bruce's missteps in communicating his ideas clearly; as much as I'd prefer the world to turn into a giant telepathically connected hivemind of feminist thought, like the evil commie I am, it's still far from reality. One day, though. One day.

It's more like a man who's completely unable to bake bread stating that women are genetically weaker at baking bread, and proving it with examples of certain women who bake worse bread than certain men. He's allowed to do that, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't get utterly trounced at a bread-baking contest by the specific women he was talking down.

Why not just say that then ? You lot always go on on how large the segment of gamers is that consist of non-white and non-male people. Pretty sure well off is a requirement to be a gamer, well either that or really misplaced priorities in life. SJW folk seem to have some fetish for labelling people, I suppose it makes it easy to be victimized and/or rail against people once they are in boxes of your making. ...I'm not sure what your point is?

Nicely woven strawman, I really admire the craftsmanship.

Nah, it's about a doctor who's specializing in occult diseases/ailments. He's also wielding Excalibur.

There was a comic book with that premise. It was pretty lame. Found it. It's called Witch Doctor, weirdly enough.

Oh, you are absolutely allowed to, just keep in mind the mental image of landwhales talking **** about an athlete for only having, say, 10 times their muscle strength and endurance instead of 15. You've gotta admit, it's kind of ridiculous. It can be technically true and still misleading, y'know.

Have you just spoiled everything for me?? HAVE YOU??? GOD DAMN IT PEOPLE. I made a brief pause after finishing book 9. The 'pause' has been going on for quite some time now, years actually, but I intend to go back and FINISH THE WHOLE THING SOME DAY. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!!!! Aaand people wonder where the stereotype of gamers as hysterical, entitled man-children comes from.

Yeah. And more importantly, he understands art and aesthetics on a level that is rare among D&D afficionados.

It was innovative in its approach to storytelling, not in gameplay. As for "enforced political correctness taking over games"... the tabletop RPG industry proves that to be kind of bollocks. You can see the trend: the new edition of D&D talks about how your character may not fit into the gender binary - at its core, however, it's still a game about murderhobos killing monsters and taking their stuff, except said murderhobos may now be genderqueer. Pathfinder has a trans signature character, a potion of gender change, and one of their APs features a lesbian paladin NPC. They still do Standard Adventurer Stuff. Exalted 3E's example characters (all five of them) are, without an exception, people of color, with a trans man among them. Regardless, it's still a game about shiny superheroes doing all kinds of wuxia ****, not about minority rights. Beign afraid to lose your job is a problem, but your comment doesn't seem very empathetic to begin with so I guess you don't give a damn. Damn right I don't give a damn about the plight of a dude who can't even spell "sexist" and screams about his rights being violated when he's asked to cover the belly of the female character in armor because that way lies getting stabbed in the gut and a very painful, very prolonged death (trust me, I'm a doctor). No, it is you who is incorrect. Gamer is a person who plays games. That's it. That what it literally is. All that other stuff is bull****. It is makebelieve that people with agenda are forcing down our throats. What Bruce means is that people who have "gamer" as a core pillar of their self-identity are generally white, male and reasonably well-off.

C'mon, dude, Dear Esther was way more innovative than any of the more commercial games you mentioned. Also, "blatant preaching and obvious examples" it contained not. (It was also kind of a horrible game, but creative bankruptcy and enforced PCness are not accusations that could be levied against it.)

Meh, it's not like there's a huge emphasis on artistic expression in gaming right now. Personally, I see no difference between freedom of artistic expression being curtailed in the name of profit by risk-averse publishers and what you propose these people are getting up to. Edit: Re: link, words can't express the pain and outrage I feel at this gross violation of artists' rights to draw boobplate.

Nice sentiments. If only the beta had demonstrated them in practice...

Wow, that was kinda dumb. Certainly read worse, but I could still feel losing a few brain cells to it.

You're entitled to that opinion *nods sagely*

You being the kind of person who thinks Drizzt is cool explains a lot about other facets of your personality

On one hand, fat-shaming is baaaad. On the other hand, it is kind of ridiculous when whale-sized people talk crap about the achievements (or lack thereof) of athletes. But that's actually fairly tangential to what I've said. My point is that "women are weaker than men, this is just a fact of biology" is kind of a misleading statement, since the gap can be overcome (in comparison to the large majority of men) with a sufficient amount of training.

I stated my opinion that people who talk down female athletes as being inferior to male ones while being physically less capable than them are ****ing ridiculous.

She'd be less suitable for melee combat than an equally trained male though (well, at least in what is required of line infantry), I think Fighter's post had a "ceteris parabis" that was pretty obvious. So, what was the issue ? The issue was that he took the original post discussing how there were very little differences in height and (presumably) strength* among male and female skeletons found in Viking tombs as talking about all males and females, ever. *You can tell a lot about a person's muscle strength based on the impressions said muscles leave on the bones. (Don't ask about the particulars, though, the anatomy classes I took were not focused on that particular issue, to say the least.)

My thoughts on the matter are that any dedicated female athlete who spent most of her life training would, practically in any physical contest, best 99,9% of the "hurr durr females are biologically weaker" crowd who, as a general rule, didn't spend their lives in pursuit of athletic achievement. So yeah, given equal amount of training and resources, a male athlete will best a female one anytime (barring extreme circumstances), but that doesn't mean a sufficient amount of training couldn't endow a woman with better physical abilities than 90+% of men.

If said conclusion uses exceptions to make a generalization about gender then it is false. But it doesn't. When you look at the quote in context, it's fairly clear that he was talking about specifics.