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<blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 8239366" data-attributes="member: 75787">Although you raise an important point on what is &quot;tasteful&quot; or offensive, this is not actually what we are talking about. There is a big difference between &quot;in bad taste&quot; and &quot;causing real hurt to others&quot; which is what we are discussing as the unacceptable limit of fun in a game.Queer as Folk is an excellent talking point. I believe it first aired at the end of the 90's rather than the mid, but that's beside then point. As far as I can see from reviews and commentary from the time, the average person actually quite liked it, but again, the question of &quot;taste&quot; is not relevant to this discussion. What is relevant is &quot;did it cause hurt?&quot; and, since it portrayed the gay community, it's interesting to see that the reactions from them were&nbsp; mixed. Some felt it was great to see their culture portrayed that way, others that it showed &quot;ridiculous and dangerous stereotypes&quot;. I can't speak to what the average gay UK person would have felt as I'm not a member of that community, but it doesn't appear from my reading that they were definitively hurt by it. But I'm quite willing to believe I'm totally wrong, and if they were hurt by it, then yeah, its would have been better to have done it differently.I understand that you are trying to frame &quot;badness&quot; in roleplaying games as purely a matter of taste, but I'm not aligned with that way of thinking. I agree with you that judging taste by a &quot;reasonable man&quot; criterion would be quite dodgy, and maybe I am an optimist, but I think most people are capable of saying &quot;that is awful, in bad taste and I hate it, but it doesn't actually hurt anyone so I guess ... go ahead&quot;, and so I'm good with a group consensus on what can cause hurt. Yeah, it can fail, and I'm sure people can bring up examples, but it seems a better plan than saying that we're not even going to try.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gorgon Zee, post: 8239366, member: 75787"] Although you raise an important point on what is "tasteful" or offensive, this is not actually what we are talking about. There is a big difference between "in bad taste" and "causing real hurt to others" which is what we are discussing as the unacceptable limit of fun in a game. [B]Queer as Folk[/B] is an excellent talking point. I believe it first aired at the end of the 90's rather than the mid, but that's beside then point. As far as I can see from reviews and commentary from the time, the average person actually quite liked it, but again, the question of "taste" is not relevant to this discussion. What is relevant is "[B]did it cause hurt?[/B]" and, since it portrayed the gay community, it's interesting to see that the reactions from them were mixed. Some felt it was great to see their culture portrayed that way, others that it showed "ridiculous and dangerous stereotypes". I can't speak to what the average gay UK person would have felt as I'm not a member of that community, but it doesn't appear from my reading that they were definitively hurt by it. But I'm quite willing to believe I'm totally wrong, and if they were hurt by it, then yeah, its would have been better to have done it differently. I understand that you are trying to frame "badness" in roleplaying games as purely a matter of taste, but I'm not aligned with that way of thinking. I agree with you that judging [I]taste[/I] by a "reasonable man" criterion would be quite dodgy, and maybe I am an optimist, but I think most people are capable of saying "that is awful, in bad taste and I hate it, but it doesn't actually hurt anyone so I guess ... go ahead", and so I'm good with a group consensus on what can cause hurt. Yeah, it can fail, and I'm sure people can bring up examples, but it seems a better plan than saying that we're not even going to try. [/QUOTE]

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