D&D General “‘Scantily Clad and Well Proportioned’: Sexism and Gender Stereotyping in the Gaming Worlds of TSR and Dungeons & Dragons.”

[mamba]

Then remove those two and actually respond to my post. Or don't. But stop taking things out of context and ignoring the greater point please.

the greater point being you excusing Gary as a product of his time… you call it providing context, but it is more than that, whether you deny it or not.

Gary was a repeat offender who remained stubbornly sexist his entire life. So going back to your degrees of murder analogy, that makes him a serial killer

 

[Steampunkette]

Denial? Yes you are engaging in denial by dismissing the very idea that there could be a double standard and which has a point where it shifts from inclusivity to exclusion & gatekeeping.
@Ruin Explorer too
Please. Just stop.

Hitting the DARVO, again.

Listen, this isn't going to get us anywhere because we're having two very different conversations. One based on what has happened and is happening. And one based on an extreme version of what could happen if we put "Could" in quotation marks the size of Mars and stretch it to the furthest possible limit of credulity.

You're not being silenced or tone policed or gatekept because no one wants to talk about your imaginary hyper-politicized future in which, somehow, minorities gain absolute control over all conversation and the views of the majority somehow become the minority perspective and sexism is reversed, forever. It's just irrelevant to this thread.

If you wanna contribute to the topic at hand, which is the different ways that sexism have been a part of D&D in various aspects and to various degrees, or even how to combat those forces (unintentional or otherwise) by all means, do so!

Otherwise just find somewhere else to make your posts about how inclusivity could theoretically become exclusivity in the future.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Vulcans have entirely human patterns of thinking though. I mean, the text claims they don’t, but you never really see that reflected in their actions. Because as it turns out, most writers are human, so they end up writing characters that behave like humans. Maybe with some restrictions or exaggerations, but those still inevitably fall within the range of human behavior and expression.

I don’t agree. That sort of emotionless logic is not human. Perhaps one could imagine some sort of super exceptional humans that would behave that way, but it’s still different when it is a common feature of the entire species.

And yes, of course the creators are human, but they still attempted to convey a species that come across as recognisably alien, and largely succeeded in it.

And no one is asking more than this, and it is definitely better than making no attempt at all.

 

[Remathilis]

Name another way than human to describe anything in this game. We are HUMAN. We only know human ways to describe things. That doesn't make everything we describing in human manner a stand-in for things that have happened here in the real world.

Especially once you consider that humans have been very bad to a lot of groups in a lot of different ways throughout history. We literally cannot describe anything bad about any group in game without there being a real world equivalent that we can find, and then draw a parallel with should we choose to do so.

Doesn't that SUPPORT the idea that orcs are racist allegory since humans cannot create anything that isn't within the human realm of understanding?

 

[AnotherGuy]

Vulcans have entirely human patterns of thinking though. I mean, the text claims they don’t, but you never really see that reflected in their actions. Because as it turns out, most writers are human, so they end up writing characters that behave like humans. Maybe with some restrictions or exaggerations, but those still inevitably fall within the range of human behavior and expression.

And that's with the benefit of writers being able to tailor the plot and circumstances to bring out precisely the result they want, instead of being played by someone reacting to events in the moment the way we do when playing RPGs.

I think expecting players to play other species in actually non-human ways is putting the bar way too high. You can make them "weird" humans, dialing up some traits and dialing others down, but they're still going to be fundamentally human.

There is also the issue that if you play them too alien (example leaning into a races perspective due to longevity) they may become too impassioned or distant and perhaps that could create issues for party cohesion?

 

[Maxperson]

Doesn't that SUPPORT the idea that orcs are racist allegory since humans cannot create anything that isn't within the human realm of understanding?

Not really. It supports we can't write anything bad about any race if we're going to point at non-connected similarities and call them out as being the same.

Similar language doesn't make them a stand in for something in the real world just because we can draw a line to it if we want to. It has to go well beyond that like the Vistani/Romani connection did.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

One based on what has happened and is happening. And one based on an extreme version of what could happen if we put "Could" in quotation marks the size of Mars and stretch it to the furthest possible limit of credulity.

Yeah this is a particularly irrelevant approach that tends not to be helpful, I definitely agree. Truly wild hypotheticals don't usually help us talk about social issues (with some rare exceptions).

I will say that I would take the - perhaps somewhat unpopular - position that even with some people in minorities claiming "tone policing" there can be an element of inappropriateness, disingenuousness or manipulativeness, especially in a workplace so I'd put in the same general category of "phrases you shouldn't throw around in public unless you're sure you want to cause havoc" together with "white knight".

I've seen it happen - with a person (who was actually in two minorities) who was very abusive to others (not just co-workers, pretty much anyone who got in their way, accidentally or otherwise), in a pretty straightforward way, using sneering, demeaning and openly contemptuous language towards their co-workers (worse, in some ways than "white knight" or the like), claiming co-workers were conspiring against them because they didn't prioritize this person's needs above all else, and when an older co-worker pointed out this kind of language wasn't really appropriate/helpful in workplace (which was putting it mildly - in a normal business they'd have been fired on the spot - but this was charity sector), immediately rolled out "Omg I'm being tone-policed!" followed by more obviously-inappropriate language clearly designed to provoke a further reaction so tone-policing could further be claimed. This was a person in their late 30s at the time who went to a top university so 100% knew what they were up to, note. Said person eventually made wild allegations of racism against a co-worker, which turned out to wholly falsified (like to the point of actual editing of emails etc. - dunno how they thought they'd get away with that) and got fired (an almost impossible feat in that organisation), but not before about half the organisation left because of this bad behaviour (several years later and it hasn't recovered, I note).

That's not to say tone-policing isn't real - but it's mostly appropriate as a defence for people who don't necessarily have the educational background and/or make slightly off word choices because of their cultural origin being different to the people around them, and/or when people are obviously being snippy and snooty about relatively innocuous language, rather than people who are intentionally hammering a phrase they know is inappropriate. A Cambridge English grad isn't that person.

 

[billd91]

I don’t agree. That sort of emotionless logic is not human. Perhaps one could imagine some sort of super exceptional humans that would behave that way, but it’s still different when it is a common feature of the entire species.

And yes, of course the creators are human, but they still attempted to convey a species that come across as recognisably alien, and largely succeeded in it.

And no one is asking more than this, and it is definitely better than making no attempt at all.

I think what we have here is mostly just a disagreement over the extent to which the writers of Vulcan-included stories have managed to convey how different they are from the human baseline and whether the restrictions and exaggerations, as characterized by Charlaquin, do a sufficient job of doing so.

Fundamentally, I find it generally true that you can only write a non-human so far and still make them relatable. And, for television/movie writing, that kind of limits what you can do with them as a protagonist or significant supporting character for a protagonist. Writing them as a total enigma or antagonist - that's easy. See Alien for an example. But that kind of alien-ness won't work for Gimli or Legolas who still have to be relatable to the viewers.

Some of my favorite attempts to get into non-human characters come from Traveller. The alien modules put a lot of effort into trying to describe how differently certain alien species might be played or appear to Traveller players. Between Droyne collectiveness, K'kree vegetarian militancy, Vargr charisma and impulsiveness, Aslan gender roles and etiquette, and Hiver weirdness - there was a lot to work with to really make a difference stand out.

 

[Charlaquin]

Man, the line of discussion about “white-knighting” and “tone-policing” sure is weird when you can only read half of it…

 

[Steampunkette]

Yeah this is a particularly irrelevant approach that tends not to be helpful, I definitely agree. Truly wild hypotheticals don't usually help us talk about social issues (with some rare exceptions).

I will say that I would take the - perhaps somewhat unpopular - position that even with some people in minorities claiming "tone policing" there can be an element of inappropriateness, disingenuousness or manipulativeness, especially in a workplace so I'd put in the same general category of "phrases you shouldn't throw around in public unless you've sure you want to cause havoc" together with "white knight".

I've seen it happen - with a person (who was actually in two minorities) who was very abusive to others (not just co-workers, pretty much anyone who got in their way, accidentally or otherwise), in a pretty straightforward way, using sneering, demeaning and openly contemptuous language towards their co-workers (worse, in some ways than "white knight" or the like), claiming co-workers were conspiring against them because they didn't prioritize this person's needs above all else, and when an older co-worker pointed out this kind of language wasn't really appropriate/helpful in workplace (which was putting it mildly - in a normal business they'd have been fired on the spot - but this was charity sector), immediately rolled out "Omg I'm being tone-policed!" followed by more obviously-inappropriate language clearly designed to provoke a further reaction so tone-policing could further be claimed. This was a person in their late 30s at the time who went to a top university so 100% knew what they were up to, note. Said person eventually made wild allegations of racism against a co-worker, which turned out to wholly falsified (like to the point of actual editing of emails etc. - dunno how they thought they'd get away with that) and got fired (an almost impossible feat in that organisation), but not before about half the organisation left because of this bad behaviour (several years later and it hasn't recovered, I note).

There will, always, be bad actors in any community group. Within minority groups the folks who play Oppression Olympics are among the worst, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they did a bunch of that as well?

The whole "Well I'm -more- oppressed because of (insert list here)"?

That said, I don't typically use the phrase "Tone Policing", myself, unless it's blatantly obvious that's what's happening in a situation. Particularly when the majority group has been actively antagonizing the minority group (mostly through sea lioning). In fact I responded to a poster who had been tone policing me in one of these threads, recently, and making broad comments about "Civility" without using the phrase.

'Cause it seemed pointless to pull out tone policing so I just blocked, instead!