Allegory VS Interpretation

[Mercurius]

How about offending someone who turns up to play a game and finds that it contains a painfully stereotypical portrayal of their culture than nobody else at the table seems to have noticed is implicitly racist?

Deal with it at the table. Have human conversations.

 

[Ryujin]

Yes. And we operate in a world in which things that are illegal happen with sufficient frequency that they warrant some consideration.

Indeed, it warrants consideration, if only for the fact that it is more and more frequently resulting in prosecution, in North America. Online trolls, in particular, are learning that just because something was said on the internet, that doesn't mean it's not libel, nor slander.

 

[MarkB]

Deal with it at the table. Have human conversations.

But nobody at the table was to blame for it. The other players didn't have the cultural context to know that the material was offensive. Why should it be their responsibility to deal with it, rather than the author's?

 

[Zardnaar]

This isn't just stuff for the Twitter mob, though. If you're organising a Space Marines campaign for a group and you stipulate "oh yeah, and all of you have to play male characters", that's a pretty major constraint on the players' options, and it's going to make it harder to get player buy-in at many tables, regardless of how satirical it is.

Makes sense in universe though with the bioengineering to make the space marine.

Not really my cup of tea I find Warhammer silly bit it's kinda fun to read the wiki. Think I've bought a grand total of one Warhammer 40k novel.

Bit should Warhammer 40k be allowed to exist as it is right now? That's what I'm getting at.

The races in the game exist basically to kill each other. Orks are a fungal infection.

Since it's not promoting fascism or anything I would say yes. The imperium of man is not nice but it's also so over top I think it's saying don't be an idiot an run an empire like this.

 

[MarkB]

Makes sense in universe though with the bioengineering to make the space marine.

Not really my cup of tea I find Warhammer silly bit it's kinda fun to read the wiki. Think I've bought a grand total of one Warhammer 40k novel.

Bit should Warhammer 40k be allowed to exist as it is right now? That's what I'm getting at.

The races in the game exist basically to kill each other. Orks are a fungal infection.

Since it's not promoting fascism or anything I would say yes. The imperium of man is not nice but it's also so over top I think it's saying don't be an idiot an run an empire like this.

And as a fiction that's fair enough. Even in its original roots as a wargame where you're not playing an individual it's manageable. But I'm just pointing out that once you're in the region of it being a role-playing game, any aspect of it which cuts off broad swathes of the potential types of roles you can play is going to have a pretty direct impact upon its accessibility to players.

 

[Zardnaar]

And as a fiction that's fair enough. Even in its original roots as a wargame where you're not playing an individual it's manageable. But I'm just pointing out that once you're in the region of it being a role-playing game, any aspect of it which cuts off broad swathes of the potential types of roles you can play is going to have a pretty direct impact upon its accessibility to players.

Depends I suppose on who wants to buy it. No point trying to sell it to XYZ if they won't buy it if you lose ABC. Basically the 4E problem.

IDK if they can or should change it. GW is aware of it I know that much. I've heard the videogames ate making more money now than the actual game so see what happens.

 

[MarkB]

Depends I suppose on who wants to buy it. No point trying to sell it to XYZ if they won't buy it if you lose ABC. Basically the 4E problem.

IDK if they can or should change it. GW is aware of it I know that much. I've heard the videogames ate making more money now than the actual game so see what happens.

Yeah, it's easy enough to change for individual tables. I don't play the system, but I do watch a weekly Let's Play show of it, in which they're all front-line soldiers. Since that show has a sexually diverse cast and audience, pretty much the first thing they did was to look at the gender restrictions, say "nah, that's stupid" and rule that in their campaign any soldier of the Imperium can be of any gender. It hasn't had any noticeable effect upon the general tone of the campaign, which is suitably over-the-top "war is hell".

 

[Mercurius]

But nobody at the table was to blame for it. The other players didn't have the cultural context to know that the material was offensive. Why should it be their responsibility to deal with it, rather than the author's?

So you're suggesting that authors have the responsibility to make sure that what they write won't offend anyone? Not only is that impossible, but it doesn't seem necessary.

Furthermore, you talk about material as if it is inherently offensive. Taking offense is a subjective experience. This is not to say that there aren't things that the vast majority of people will find offensive, and thus should be limited in terms of public exposure. But there's a lot of range in terms of potentially offensive material. If artists continually retreat to whatever the latest offense is, it becomes a diminishing range of what is considered "appropriate."

I also don't think we can completely take away any responsibility form the person who is offended. They can choose not to play in that group or game. I mean, if I joined a group and found out that the players like to rape and pillage, I'd probably just opt out - I wouldn't ask them to change their game, if they were having fun with it. I'm not going to try to dictate another's fun, no matter how deplorable I might find it to be - not unless it is actually harming someone.

And of course the great things about RPGs, and I would say one of their defining features, is that every sort of game experience is possible. I wouldn't want to limit that range of possibilities, even while I personally wouldn't encourage allow certain behaviors at my table. That is my right, as an individual GM - and the right of players to play or not.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, it's easy enough to change for individual tables. I don't play the system, but I do watch a weekly Let's Play show of it, in which they're all front-line soldiers. Since that show has a sexually diverse cast and audience, pretty much the first thing they did was to look at the gender restrictions, say "nah, that's stupid" and rule that in their campaign any soldier of the Imperium can be of any gender. It hasn't had any noticeable effect upon the general tone of the campaign, which is suitably over-the-top "war is hell".

Up to them I'm not gonna get bent out over it.

My idea for the setting was bio engineered female only super psykers that are a lot faster.

If Space Marines can only be male due to gene seed maybe the new gene seed only works on females.

Said psykers are less vulnerable to the warp.

 

[MarkB]

So you're suggesting that authors have the responsibility to make sure that what they write won't offend anyone? Not only is that impossible, but it doesn't seem necessary.

Furthermore, you talk about material as if it is inherently offensive. Taking offense is a subjective experience. This is not to say that there aren't things that the vast majority of people will find offensive, and thus should be limited in terms of public exposure. But there's a lot of range in terms of potentially offensive material. If artists continually retreat to whatever the latest offense is, it becomes a diminishing range of what is considered "appropriate."

There's a range between checking everything and checking nothing, though. If you're writing a portrayal of a particular real-world culture that you're expecting people to portray in their games, is it really too much of a stretch to bring in someone from that culture to look it over and make sure you haven't accidentally included some bad assumptions?

I also don't think we can completely take away any responsibility form the person who is offended. They can choose not to play in that group or game. I mean, if I joined a group and found out that the players like to rape and pillage, I'd probably just opt out - I wouldn't ask them to change their game, if they were having fun with it. I'm not going to try to dictate another's fun, no matter how deplorable I might find it to be - not unless it is actually harming someone.

This isn't about the activity of the group, though. My example was specifically about what was written into a setting by that setting's author. And if that material turns out to be hurtful to someone, it isn't in the act of roleplaying it that they feel that hurt - it's in the act of reading it in the first place. That can't be undone simply by walking away from a table.

And of course the great things about RPGs, and I would say one of their defining features, is that every sort of game experience is possible. I wouldn't want to limit that range of possibilities, even while I personally wouldn't encourage allow certain behaviors at my table. That is my right, as an individual GM - and the right of players to play or not.

Again, this isn't about what anyone at the table did. It's about what the writer of the supplement did when they wrote it.