CMG57 said:
I am always surprised at the intolerance of gamers. One might expect those engaged in a hobby quick to be accused of being bad or evil to be a bit more open minded of things that are different.
First, if this reply looks godawful, it is because I made a mistake in my reasoning about how to intersperse my comments with a quote. Hopefully, it looks okay.
The use of language on this thread has been - I feel- very sloppy, resulting in postings that can be read as extreme, as I read the post that I am quoting. For all those who do not mean this, please be more careful and remember that we cannot see your faces.
The word 'intolerant' as it is most commonly used should more precisely be stated as "intolerant due to bigotry" or, perhaps, "irrationally intolerant". In the broader sense, I hope that each person here is "intolerant" of quite a wide number of activities (murder, theft, illegal drug use, and so on). The questions here should concern where is that line drawn and what are proper responses to take when one feels it has been crossed. To say that someone opposed to what we have seen of the BoEF is "intolerant" - as it's commonly used - is improper, as it is entirely possible that one could actually have a well-defined and well thought out moral system that happens to find some things objectionable.
One should not be so "open-minded" that one's brain falls out!
CMG57 said:
Games depict every aspect of life: from war to food to sleeping, so why is it that games or game products depicting sex or even nudity cause such an uproar. ... material cut for space ... The photographs I have seen are professionally done and tasteful. It matters not what the photographer does on his own time and with his own career. The fact is that he has produced quality prints for this manual. The statement that Anthony Valterra is using his position at Wizards to further this project holds no logic; anyone, yes, anyone may use the OGL/d20 license for their product as long as they follow the requirements listed therein. ... material cut for space ...
As someone else pointed out, in the cultures where most of the role-playing material is made, takes place, and sells, violence is a social activity and sexuality is a private activity. Due to this, there is concern about whether this product is being made and marketed for prurient purposes. I imagine and hope that a book illustrated with photographs that proposed to detail graphically the real effects of fighting with medieval weaponry and dwelling on the pain caused would trigger the same sort of response. After all, aspects of sexuality exist in a number of places in the game system - in an abstracted fashion, in the same way that fighting is abstracted. (Although admittedly not to the same degree, but remember the roots of RPG came from wargaming. If the roots were in sex games, we would not be seeing this response, and also most people posting in this thread would not be here.
My judgment of the photographer's taste is different than yours. That does not in itself prove that you are wrong in this matter of taste (of course, it doesn't prove you are *right*, either!), but since the photographer's site was specifically cited in the press release, it has already been chosen (by Valar, inc.) as relevant to the discussion.
Finally (and this was not directly addressed by Cayle, but I didn't want to respond ten different times to ten different posts just to up my post count), while it is a form of self-censorship to choose not to buy a product, and to choose not to shop at a store that carries products that I feel are beyond a line I've set for myself, that's a reflection of straightforward ethical responsibility, not some "intolerant" attempt at *imposing* censorship on anyone else. I reject the idea that I have some responsibility to choose to shop at a store that carries material I find repeelent over shopping at a store that doesn't, just to show I'm not "intolerant".
Harry
