Comfort withcross gender characters based on your gender

Riley37 · Jun 8, 2018

Lylandra said:
FYI, I'm German and we tend to have very strong opinions on Nazis and how to represent them in the media. I'm also very astonished every time I see how people from other (most often non-european) countries almost fetishize this dark aspect of the 20th century to the extend that we see Nazis and Nazi references everywhere.

I'm aware that for a German, the rise and fall of the Third Reich is merely one decade, out of centuries of German history; but for some of us, it was a very... influential... decade. Some survivors were so emotionally traumatized, that it affected how they raised their children, which in turn had effects on grandchildren. Some families put "never forget, never again" at the center of their tradition of values. Not my family, directly, but I have friends in such families, and the emotional intensity has not faded away, not yet.

Mike Godwin, author of Godwin's Law, says this: "The best way to prevent future holocausts, I believe, is not to forbear from Holocaust comparisons; instead, it’s to make sure that those comparisons are meaningful and substantive." More recently, after the death of Heather Hafer at Unite the Right, he announced an update: "By all means, compare these s***heads to the Nazis."

Your nation has renounced National Socialism. Mine has not. In 2016, someone "decorated" my workplace with a swastika carving. If you haven't had that experience, then of course you and I have different understandings of what's history and what's contemporary.

Lylandra · Jun 8, 2018

Riley37 said:
I'm aware that for a German, the rise and fall of the Third Reich is merely one decade, out of centuries of German history; but for some of us, it was a very... influential... decade. Some survivors were so emotionally traumatized, that it affected how they raised their children, which in turn had effects on grandchildren. Some families put "never forget, never again" at the center of their tradition of values. Not my family, directly, but I have friends in such families, and the emotional intensity has not faded away, not yet.

Mike Godwin, author of Godwin's Law, says this: "The best way to prevent future holocausts, I believe, is not to forbear from Holocaust comparisons; instead, it’s to make sure that those comparisons are meaningful and substantive." More recently, after the death of Heather Hafer at Unite the Right, he announced an update: "By all means, compare these s***heads to the Nazis."

Your nation has renounced National Socialism. Mine has not. In 2016, someone "decorated" my workplace with a swastika carving. If you haven't had that experience, then of course you and I have different understandings of what's history and what's contemporary.

Nah, it isn't "merely one decade". If you take a deeper look into the country's legal system, constitution and political clime, then this decade was a period that changed everything. Only the very far right are trying to reduce it to "merely a decade".

"Never forget, never again" is basically a mantra that is taught through various means in school and trying to understand what made some of our grandparents or grand-grandparents commit such horrible crimes or openly celebrate the burning of books or the declaration of war is tough at least. Which is why many people over here see it as "our" duty to prevent the rise of another fascist regime at all cost. Which is why we usually don't want to make Nazi comparisons without true reason, lest we'd trivialise what happened in the Reich.

Sorry to hear that you had to endure such experiences. It is not like there are no idiots over here who leave swastika markings, but 1) doing so is considered a crime and 2) there are many more who'd turn the swastika into yet another graffiti in no time (even if this is a - minor - criminal offense, too, but most people don't mind).

Thomas Bowman · Jun 8, 2018

Lylandra said:
These reasons are very, very, very different and I don't wish to write an essay about the hows and whys and also would love to not Godwin the thread about freakin' cross-gender play any further.

FYI, I'm German and we tend to have very strong opinions on Nazis and how to represent them in the media. I'm also very astonished every time I see how people from other (most often non-european) countries almost fetishize this dark aspect of the 20th century to the extend that we see Nazis and Nazi references everywhere.

I don't really think there is much to say about cross gender play. In a world which the DM is trying to portray, it is necessary to have both male and female characters, and that often means the DM ends up portraying female characters, when I'm a DM I often do it third person, as I feel more comfortable playing a narrator and describing the female characters actions, and saying "she says," every time she has something to say to the PCs. I am not going to try and speak in a falsetto high female voice, or bat an eyelash or anything like that.

It is interesting how some people keep on trying to make this thread political, when it really is not.

Riley37 · Jun 8, 2018

Lylandra said:
"Never forget, never again" is basically a mantra that is taught through various means in school and trying to understand what made some of our grandparents or grand-grandparents commit such horrible crimes or openly celebrate the burning of books or the declaration of war is tough at least. Which is why many people over here see it as "our" duty to prevent the rise of another fascist regime at all cost. Which is why we usually don't want to make Nazi comparisons without true reason, lest we'd trivialise what happened in the Reich.

That is a good principle. I wish that more people in my nation learned how to question the decisions of our grandparents and great-grandparents, how to recognize when they made mistakes or made evil decisions, and how to recognize the same choice when it happens again. How to make a different decision, next time.

One of my distant relatives was an officer in the German army, in the 1940s. He eventually tried to assassinate the Reichsfuehrer. It is easier to think about that decision, and the consequences (his execution as a traitor, the children taken away from his wife)... it is harder to think about all the orders that he obeyed, before he reached the limit of his willingness to obey.

aramis erak · Jun 8, 2018

Lylandra said:
FYI, I'm German and we tend to have very strong opinions on Nazis and how to represent them in the media. I'm also very astonished every time I see how people from other (most often non-european) countries almost fetishize this dark aspect of the 20th century to the extend that we see Nazis and Nazi references everywhere.

A significant number of Americans love to lampoon the Nazis, to turn them into tragic comedy figures, or to use them as safe villains.

A very small proportion idealize them — about the same proportions as in Germany, so I have read — but here, they make the news. Regularly. And are very vocal in their political movements.

Reich Star, for example, is a decent game, and a "What if the Nazis had won WWII and then discovered a hyperdrive in the 21st C." It paints them as "still evil"... and predicates fighting them in the flavor text. My players, including a Jew and a Romany, plus me being ethnically and religiously Ukrainian, chose to play resistance hiding inside the SS Totenkopfverbande. Yes, the most evil, vile, despicable portion... for the cathartic pleasure of being able to take down the 3rd reich from the top. (It also is the game that made me decide some things are, in fact, best left to a fade to black and make a roll.)

Unlike gender issues, few people I've met mind lampooning the Nazis. Make them out to be untermenschen, and all's right.

But that, too, is changing in tolerance levels in places I'm gaming.

Thomas Bowman · Jun 9, 2018

Riley37 said:
That is a good principle. I wish that more people in my nation learned how to question the decisions of our grandparents and great-grandparents, how to recognize when they made mistakes or made evil decisions, and how to recognize the same choice when it happens again. How to make a different decision, next time.

One of my distant relatives was an officer in the German army, in the 1940s. He eventually tried to assassinate the Reichsfuehrer. It is easier to think about that decision, and the consequences (his execution as a traitor, the children taken away from his wife)... it is harder to think about all the orders that he obeyed, before he reached the limit of his willingness to obey.

The people obeying Hitler's orders and fighting his war for him, weren't doing Germany any favors. Germany would be better off if there was no Hitler. Germany lost land because of that war, and the Soviet Union and now Russia are bigger, at the expense of the rest of Europe, because of that war. The Germans who actively fought Hitler in whatever capacity should be memorialized.

evileeyore · Jun 9, 2018

Riley37 said:
I'm aware that for a German, the rise and fall of the Third Reich is merely one decade, out of centuries of German history; but for some of us, it was a very... influential... decade. Some survivors were so emotionally traumatized, that it affected how they raised their children, which in turn had effects on grandchildren. Some families put "never forget, never again" at the center of their tradition of values. Not my family, directly, but I have friends in such families, and the emotional intensity has not faded away, not yet.

Mike Godwin, author of Godwin's Law, says this: "The best way to prevent future holocausts, I believe, is not to forbear from Holocaust comparisons; instead, it’s to make sure that those comparisons are meaningful and substantive." More recently, after the death of Heather Hafer at Unite the Right, he announced an update: "By all means, compare these s***heads to the Nazis."

Your nation has renounced National Socialism. Mine has not. In 2016, someone "decorated" my workplace with a swastika carving. If you haven't had that experience, then of course you and I have different understandings of what's history and what's contemporary.

Mmmmm....

I'm just going to sit and revel in the smug righteousness of this post while I think about my responses to the other ones.

Riley37 · Jun 9, 2018

evileeyore said:
Mmmmm....

I'm just going to sit and revel in the smug righteousness of this post while I think about my responses to the other ones.

You mean, you're gonna enjoy telling yourself, "that guy over there is smugly righteous, and I'm so much better than him, because *I'm* not afflicted with such smug righteousness"?

Which of the following do you consider smugly righteous, looking back on how they expressed their positions: Chamberlain, Churchill, Orwell?

IMO one of the major choice forks, in how you respond, is whether you prioritize hard evidence, on the factual matters at hand (such as *exactly* who has done *exactly* what to CD Projekt, with what motives or goals), and how you find that evidence, and whether the search for evidence ever changes your estimation of the situation.

Thomas Bowman · Jun 9, 2018

We have gone far afield from discussing playing the opposite gender. There is really not much to discuss here that is on topic. I've outlined an in game mechanism for changing a character's gender, called True Polymorph, solves the problem quite neatly in fact, but I guess people don't want neatness, they'd rather talk about politics. Good fodder for getting someone banned I think.

evileeyore · Jun 10, 2018

Riley37 said:
You mean, you're gonna enjoy telling yourself, "that guy over there is smugly righteous, and I'm so much better than him, because *I'm* not afflicted with such smug righteousness"?

Hah. No, I'm going to enjoy the smug rolling off you as you virtusplain to a German, someone who lives in country where you can't walk a few blocks without literally tripping over a reminder of how terrible the Nazis were, how "some families put "never forget, never again" at the center of their tradition of values." As though this isn't spoken by every President they've had in the last 70 years, as though it isn't a daily part of German life.

You encounter a bit of rude, hateful graffiti and now you feel virtuous enough to explain to a German, one who literally had just said "[I'm] very astonished every time I see how people from other (most often non-european) countries almost fetishize [the Nazis]" how it is 'contemporary politics' for you.

Do you even think about what you write sometimes or do you just let the arrogant virtue signalling flow unconstrained?

Comfort withcross gender characters based on your gender

Comfort with cross gender characters based on your gender

I am male and am uncomfortable with cross gender characters

I am male and am indifferent to cross gender characters

I am male and am comfortable with cross gender characters

I am female and am uncomfortable with cross gender characters

I am female and am indifferent to cross gender characters

I am female and am comfortable with cross gender characters

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