TSR Giantlands

[Tales and Chronicles]

This actually seems quite plausible. No pretending required. He's an old guy not involved in gaming social media. And if we didn't all know that he's out of touch with the modern scene before he posited GiantLands as the first fantasy post-apocalypse game, we do now.

Yet, he re-tweeted videos by same or aligned content creators. That proves a certain willfulness, no?
I mean, being invited by someone on a show proves nothing. Maybe you did not know the guys or their opinions. But if you keep sharing their content, that kinda proves that 1) you are still somewhat social-media-savy and 2) judge this content somewhat pertinent to your own opinions.

 

[Yaarel]

Side note: saints aren’t perfect; they’re sinners too. They just happen to have done something extraordinary in the furtherance of the faith.

Heh. When I look at traditions about saints, the saints themselves say they are sinners.

Perhaps the main difference between a saint and a normal person is, the saint comes to understand their own limitations and a normal person doesnt.

It seems like when a saint says theyre a sinner, the religious people of that tradition think the saint is just being modest. But no.

The saints are telling the truth. They really are sinners. We should believe them.

 

[Yora]

Side note: saints aren’t perfect; they’re sinners too. They just happen to have done something extraordinary in the furtherance of the faith.

Going with this line of moral philosophy, the important factor is repentance. Recognizing the mistakes that you made and changing to be better now and in the future.
People who continue to be rude bullies have not earned to have past grievances forgotten.

 

[Yaarel]

Going with this line of moral philosophy, the important factor is repentance. Recognizing the mistakes that you made and changing to be better now and in the future.
People who continue to be rude bullies have not earned to have past grievances forgotten.

I agree with you. Owning up to ones own mistakes and reorienting toward better behavior is vital.

At the same time. Different saints have different strengths and different weaknesses.

For example when I look at traditions about the Tsadikim (Jewish understanding of saints), what impresses me is how extremely different they are from each other. There are no two alike. Ultimately, a Tsadik is someone who is open to becoming the best version of oneself. In this difficult world, even the best version of oneself continues to struggle with limitations.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Pundit has said plenty of wrong things and I find him deeply annoying and I tell him fairly often that he is full of...poop. But he's not David Duke or H.P. Lovecraft's ghost. He's schtick. A really annoying schtick.

“Careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

 

[Valmiras]

“Careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

I was literally just about to post that.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yet, he re-tweeted videos by same or aligned content creators. That proves a certain willfulness, no?

If he re-tweeted gross vids from these guys, absolutely, it no longer becomes plausible that he didn't realize who he was sitting down with. But "the same" and "aligned" are not the same thing when it comes to knowing better about who to sit down with.

The bit about sharing videos with regressive opinions is what makes me think that sadly, Gradine may be entirely correct about their premise B, even if I'm unaware of us having solid evidence for their premise A.

[Edited: Thank you, Thaumaturge!]

 

[Thaumaturge]

Edit: It has been fixed.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

He's not a good dude. Sorry not sorry

I do not have your certainty. You could very well be right. But life (and people) are a lot more complicated than the "right or wrong" discourse that the internet allows. Speaking only for myself, I would not want to be judged on my worst moments in my life, and I know that my best moments are hardly representative either. Kind of what @Dannyalcatraz was saying about saints and sinners.

I say that not to excuse Jim Ward, or anyone else, or to minimize your individual hurt; I am painfully aware that I am saying, to you of all people, "Hey, don't forget that this old white guy is a person too, who contains multitudes, and should not be reduced to a few traits." Instead, I am pausing to observe that I have seen a number of things, especially recently, that give me pause.

I do my best to avoid politics, so I will make this point obliquely; I know people that have been sucked into the world of ... we will say conspiracies. And no, not the people you would suspect. One African-American friend has "lost" a young daughter who I know to be a good person to those ... conspiracies. And a good friend of mine who is a medical doctor (?!?) spends a great deal of time on-line spreading ... nonsense ... about vaccinations. Several months ago, I was speaking to someone who I had always known to be LGBTQA+ friendly, and she started talking (to me!) about how she had heard that Brown (the university) wouldn't tell parents about gender-affirming treatments for the students, and how that was wrong.

Patient listening, conversation, and being non-judgmental (and if you've read my posts, you know that's not my specialty!) has helped, but a lot of times I am at a loss. A while back, I would hear things that would be so self-evidently wrong (flat-earth type stuff) that I didn't even think it was worth worrying about; but what do you do when people really believe in a flat earth?

Which is why I also lack your certainty about sourcing. I am at least somewhat familiar with RPGs. But I've never heard of that show that Jim Ward was on (podcast, youtube channel, people) and I have no intention of clicking on it. I avoid most youtube things (it's the modern version of "I don't own a TV"), don't use facebook or twitter (although I will look things up on twitter on occasion), and my main interaction with this hobby is through the written word on forums like this. But to recount another personal story, a while back one of my best friends was telling me that they had been watching these videos of "this guy who made a lot of sense" and luckily, the name rang a bell ... well, more of an emergency klaxon (because I had read about him on another website) and I was able to explain to my good friend that this particular Canadian might not be the person to get answers from.

Eh, this is a long and winding setup to the point I am getting to. I don't know if Jim Ward is a good person going through a bad patch, or a bad person who did good things in the past, or just a flawed person like the rest of us who is making some bad choice right now. I do know I am probably more likely to extend some benefit of the doubt to him (even if it is wishcasting) because he really did bring so much joy to so many people for so many years, including me, through his work. I am particularly grateful to him because Jim Ward created/introduced Corellon Larethian to D&D, who was important to many LGBTQA+ players in the early years of D&D- no, I don't think he did it on purpose, but even unintentionally, he made the world a lot better for a lot of LGBTQA+ players.

Other than making jokes, I try not to get to in the weeds in these threads, because it is profoundly sad to me to see these things happen. I see the good work of people like Sacrosanct, making inclusive OSR-style games, and that makes me inordinately happy. I hope that Jim Ward is being used for his name, and is not fully aware of the company he keeps; in the meantime, I will try and remember his good works, and not whatever dumpsterfire he is attached to.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Going on an interview show with someone who says bad things isn't the same as you believing in those things or supporting those things. That's not a fair standard. It's not a standard we use in society. The very paradox of intolerance you support comes from a book which speaks at great length about directly speaking to those you disagree with, and to the audiences of those who you disagree with where you find those audiences.

Except this isn't the scenario we're talking about. Your speaking of people being interviewed by people they disagree with about the things they disagree with. To debate those things.

However, if a game designer agrees to be interviewed by interviewers who are known for their extreme views, to simply talk about gaming, and not even the -ism's in gaming the host subscribes to, then that seems like an implicit agreement or at least tolerance for their intolerance and support for their platform. (And then, of course, making "what-about" statements during the interview supporting the host's views only turns the implicit into the explicit.)

So @Gradine's cooking show example, even without it's hyperbolic guests, is more in line with the issue people are taking exception to.

(And even in the context you're speaking about, there are so many bad faith arguments and debates out there, I think people should be leery of , and even reject, discussing publicly with those of extreme views they disagree with.)