Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Talk about the life consuming, celibacy inducing hobby that is all the rage these days.
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VoiceOfReasonPast
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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by VoiceOfReasonPast » Mon Oct 25, 2021 4:50 pm

Double post to give an update on my favorite tabletop lolcows. It's worth it, trust me.

But first, I have come across a handy list that categorizes major companies according to their wokeness :lol:

The Fate Accessibility Toolkit

Are you nervous because your having to prepare a session involving disabled players, but you are somehow to socially inept to ask them for help? Well, fear no more, the creators of Thirsty Sword Lesbians (which is actually mostly thirsty, and not fully lesbian unless you count troons) have got you covered!

>An exploration of the challenges and experiences facing people with a variety of physical and mental disabilities, in their own words.

Thank you, but I know where to find twitter.

>Advice on compassionately and respectfully playing characters with disabilities, as well as strategies for welcoming disabled players to your game table.

"Hello, nutjob! Take a seat right next to the cripple!"

>Discussion of specific disabilities, including blindness, D/deafness and hardness of hearing, mobility issues, dwarfism, chronic illness, autism, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolarity, and PTSD.

Thank you, but I know where to find Wikipedia.

>Options for representing disability in the Fate system, using a mix of aspects, stunts, and conditions, and including an exploration of adaptive devices available to characters across a variety of settings.

Have you seen the typical twitter user's list of self-diagnosed maladies? No Fate character has enough Aspects and Stunts to keep track of that shit (unless one of your Aspects is literally that list copy-pasted).
Though I am curious how the now mandatory combat wheelchair is supposed to work in caveman times. I also appreciate that I can now keep track of how triggered my PTSD character is atm.

>Appendices focused on creating safe spaces at your table, an ASL reference for common RPG terms, and a large-print character sheet for Fate Core.

Why would I section of a part of my table as a designated safe space? Why do I need a sign language reference if I can just ask my player? And why do I need a super-sized character sheet for my visually impaired if he probably already has his own solutions (be it a custom sheet, a magnifier, or a fucking piece of paper)?

But the fun doesn't end here. They have an even woker Toolkit in the pipeline. Sadly that one has been put "on hold", probably after an announcement got leaked and the internet had a good laugh about it. So pardon me for using a third-party source for this.
BeholdShow
The Decolonization Toolkit

>Sometimes we like role-playing games to help us escape from real-world struggles.

I know how you feel, brutha.

>Other times, we need the catharsis of a fictionalized struggle against injustice to prepare us to return to the everyday struggle. For those times, there's the Fate Decolonization Toolkit.

Err... okay?

>Under the creative direction of James Mendez Hodes, this book will show players how to include colonial powers as antagonists in their games, as well as how to create characters who fight against them.

Colonial powers = white people only, isn't it?

>It breaks colonial domination down into its component systems of oppression such as violent conquest, the prison-industrial complex, theocracy, and ecological exploitation.

I sense some Christian-bashing afoot.

Real-world examples expressed with Fate mechanisms will illustrate each of these systems, mapping out how you can apply them to your own games.

Considering Fate is a system where you can write up anything as if it was a character, maybe it'll come across as weird that you spend time figuring out how to represent a cotton farm in Fate terms :lol:

Southern Cotton Farm
Aspects: Meanest Massa in Town; Moonshine Distillery; Massa's Daughter has a tight Ass
Skills: Resources +4, Shoot +3, Notice +2, Contacts +1

What's next? The Fate Genocide Toolkit that has a writeup for Auschwitz?

It also will include a complete campaign frame which calls on the players to decolonize a fantasy setting; and a discussion of how to use safety tools to keep the process empowering and educational, not exploitative.

I was also going to rant a bit about those Zweihänder folks, but apparently the preview function keeps dying if I use too many brackets in a single post.
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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by wulfenlord » Mon Oct 25, 2021 5:28 pm

Thanks for the good laughs and the handy guide, though some of the woke companies in the yellow subsection of the list are debatable how bad they are (Chaosium, Steve Jackson, Fantasy Flight, Ulisses, as they mostly strive to keep their games as apolitical as possible)
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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by VoiceOfReasonPast » Mon Oct 25, 2021 5:40 pm

Yeah, the yellow ones appear to be mostly there due to isolated incidents, but who knows if they might not fully succumb to the Woke.
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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by VoiceOfReasonPast » Sun Nov 07, 2021 9:58 am

Today's text essay: Trying to fit a square peg in a round hole (of social justice).

Chivalry & Sorcery

With a name like that you can expect one of 2 things in the world of tabletop: a retroclone of some edition of D&D, or a tabletop RPG franchise dating back all the way to the '70s, when every RPG even vaguely medieval-fantasy-ish copied the "X & Y" naming scheme of D&D. This is the latter.

Unlike D&D, C&S was definitely more medieval than fantasy, though the extend ot historical authenticity can fluctuate depending on the exact edition. The newest 5th edition promised to be extra authentic, though the writers drank from the SJW Kool-Aid with worrisome statements, like how Middle Age enthusiasts are a cesspool of white supremacy, or that they're are trying to portray the Middle Ages "as diverse at they actually were".
In the end this mostly boiled down to adding a couple pages of pandering:
  • Did you know there were female warriors besides Jeanne d'Arc?
  • Did you know there were black knights (except the examples listed include an Ethiopian order of knights that probably never existed, two Knights of the Round Table aka definitely not real, and St. Maurice, the commander of Roman's Theban Legion who actually did exist - except it was like in 200 AD so he's probably only a "knight" in the sense that medieval artists drew him in anachronistic armor)
  • Did you know gay stuff was (probably) tolerated until the 12th century when the Church declared it heresy? Lesbians have apparently always been fucked, though
  • Don't forget dem X-Cards, just in case a player in your medieval game gets triggered by it being a medieval game
Of course, there are some major hurdles in their attempts to appease to the SocJus crowd:
  • The setting is just plain unappealing to these people. No matter how many anecdotal evidence of "diversity" you can find, at the end of the day this is still White Man's Europe (tm), back when the White Christian Patriarchy (tm) was at its most dominant.
  • The rules aren't exactly a crowd pleaser, either. SJWs want "rules-light" and "narrative" RPGs (aka the tabletop equivalent of a walking sim), with very rare exceptions (like Pathfinder, which is derived from 3.X, and everyone is hard-wired to accept 3.X levels of crunch as long as it is recognizable as 3.X). This here is some crunchy percentile system whose back cover proudly states that it has "over 200 skills" - which are not only around 180 more than SJWs would like, but also include shit like "Bee Keeping", "Field Crops" and "Vegetable Crops" (don't get those latter two confused!), basically a bunch of shit which other systems would roll together into a "Profession" or "Craft" skill which you then pick a specialization for. I'm pretty sure they haven't updated their skill list in decades; haven't seen a list this autistic since the '90s.
    You're probably better off picking something RuneQuest-derived* for a less obtuse percentile system, or Warhammer for something more fantastical but still shithole-y, or for somethign even simpler stuff like Lion & Dragon (a D&D retroclone set in an authentic medieval Not-England).
  • They keep mention slaves and slavery without either condemning it every time and/or forbidden the PCs from ever owning slaves themselves :roll:
RuneQuest stuffShow
I know Chaosium is pretty pozzed atm and dead-set on retconning white people out of their Glorantha setting, but their Pendragon game about Arthurian badassery hasn't had a new edition in over 10 years. They're working on a new one, though except everything to revolve around those two black knights then.

Mythras aka The RPG Formerly Known As RuneQuest 6e had some sourcebooks revolving around specific medieval eras and places, giving you more of a laser focus. There are usually some fantasy elements as well, but you are free to ignore that stuff, and/or explain the less crazy magic stuff as effectively parlor tricks.
The books in question are Mythic Britain (which roughly deals with the same general time and space as Pendragon, but as the more historical Dark Ages instead of the anachronistic chivalry fantasy typical for the Arthurian legend; though if you want Arthurian stuff here the book provides you with more authentic Celtic versions of your Arthurs and Merlins) and Mythic Constantinople (covering the final years of what's left of the Byzantine Empire, though it gives an overview of Europea in general, which has some funky shit like knightly orders just owning citiy states.)
tl;dr: RPG writers try to virtue-signal in an attempt to get SJWs interested in a setting and system which they couldn't care less about.

But it gets funnier

Land of the Rising Sun

A classic spinoff of C&S is Land of the Rising Sun, which takes the same rules but transplants the setting to Glorious Nihon, back when it was at its most glorious. It also got a new entry for the 5th edition of the rules - and there is no pandering:
  • No list of stunning and brave female samurai/ronin
  • In fact the game repeatedly mentions how Japanese men would react with disgust at Europeans treating their females with respect. They also point out how the samurai's code of honor doesn't give a rat's ass about fair maidens.
  • Doesn't even entertain the notion of black folks in Nihon, even though Yasuke was a thing. You had one job, guys.
  • No mention of X-Cards or consent
Apparently you only have to pander if you're writing for a white setting.
Autism attracts more autism. Sooner or later, an internet nobody will attract the exact kind of fans - and detractors - he deserves.
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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by Complicity » Sun Nov 07, 2021 8:11 pm

VoiceOfReasonPast wrote:
Sun Oct 24, 2021 9:04 am
>starting the world's first tabletop worker union specifically for your D&D clone employer

Okay. What's their logo like?
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Somewhat socialist I suppose? Not sure what's up with the hand and that star, though.
And what's their problem, anyways?
>allegations of transphobia

Anythng more concise? Oh, here (ignore that popup, just scroll down to the actual article).
So some feminist - who may or may not be a troon, fuck if I can be bothered to read between the lines here - gets pissy that two buddies got shitcanned by Paizo and decides to go full-on scorched earth on Paizo, accusing them of everything from being transphobic, nazi sympathizers with anger issues, and - *gasp* not cleaning the workplace carpets for SEVEN years.

And are they like striking or something?
FAQ wrote:Paizo employees are neither striking nor asking for a boycott. As of September 16, 2021, 40+ freelance Paizo contributors have chosen not to accept further assignments for Paizo, in solidarity with the staff members they work closely with. You can find their statement here. UPW hopes that management will recognize the union by October 25. In the meantime, union members are reporting to work and encouraging the public to continue to lend support, whether that includes buying Paizo products at this time or not.
>letting others do the striking for you
:lol:

Bonus points if those freelancers will get quietly blacklisted :lol:

EDIT: Apparently this Jessice Price is a notorious drama whore who loves painting her former employers in the worst possible light. I'm amazed she can still find work, and will probably continue to do so.
Jessica Price lost 2 jobs, first at Soyizo and then at the company which made Guild Wars 2.
Reason? Being a blend of Lupa and Jamie Marchi.
I remember several Youtubers covering the issue of the second firing, showing how the nut job went against a streamer on Twatter for a week for politely disagreeing with her.
I didn't know she found another job; one of the most recent comments under one of those videos making fun of that obese cunt claimed that she opened an Onlyfans.

Oh, Gloria Comandini.
I only saw 2 articles of hers including this one, and a train should run her over yesterday.
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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by VoiceOfReasonPast » Mon Nov 08, 2021 9:21 am

The SocJus train has hit Liches. "Phylacteries" are now called "Soul Cages" in Pathfinder, and I'm sure Wizards will follow suit sooner or later with their own lame replacement term.

This whole drama started with at least one Jewish gamer(?) whining on social media because "phylactery" is another term for "Tefillin" (a leather box containing Torah verses).
Of course, if you'd bother to use Wikipedia, you'd find out that "phylactery" is just a Greek term that has historically been used as a generic term for magical charms and amulets.

I personally would've gone with "Soul Gem", mostly so I can sneak my Meduka Meguca fanfic characters into my D&D campaign while fooling the players into thinking this was an Elder Scrolls reference.
I'm also waiting for the day they will replace "mummy" and especially "zombie". The whole catalogue of D&D undead types if full of unfortunate cultural appropriation.
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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by wulfenlord » Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:11 pm

You forgot the Golem. Now why aren't the jews shvitzing about cultural appropriation there?
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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by VoiceOfReasonPast » Mon Nov 08, 2021 4:34 pm

More enlightened minds have already thought about it.
The more based article that sparked the discussion basically postulates this is silly because the Golem is just some random critter from folklore like about half of all D&D monsters.

I think it's more likely they come up with a new term for "Angel", since that's oh-so Christian.
I would personally cancel the Medua and Gorgon, because having those two be completely different monsters is fucking stupid.
Also Kobolds as depicted in D&D are a disgrace to German folklore, and probably stem from anti-German sentiments at TSR.
Autism attracts more autism. Sooner or later, an internet nobody will attract the exact kind of fans - and detractors - he deserves.
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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by Guest » Mon Nov 08, 2021 6:48 pm

Depends what edition we're talking about. 3.5e kobolds are based trapmasters who can wipe out entire parties in their warren.

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Re: Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

Post by Le Redditeur » Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:56 pm

Kobolds in 3.5 are considered the best racial pick for a sorcerer. They get a racial feat that grants them a +1 actual caster level in sorcerer - which allows them to go Epic at level 20, not 21. Plus they're a Draconic race and can access all the [Draconic] feats that grant access to juicy abilities and prestige classes. A kobold bard can easily get Dragonfire Inspiration and turn its Inspire Courage ability into a party-wide multi-dice damage buff, for example.

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