Inclusion at the cost of Generalization

[Thirteenspades]

Games that work for me these days have reduced mental buy-in. If I have to know all of the crunch straight away - I am less likely to get started. However, if the basics are easily grasped and then added complexity is an option - that I can do.

My sons recently got into battletech - I remembered the old days and numerous rules - but they have a great starter box and we were playing as soon as we had the mechs painted. The regular rules add complexity, but it is in a digestible way. If they would have hit me with the full rules right off I would have passed on playing.

It's that way with 5e for me, I started with the basic rules. But I wish they would add more options for hardcore players.

 

[aramis erak]

So, the people who are offended are not "random". They are people who have felt the sting of real-world racism, or who have learned that the folks who are subject to racism need some support from those who are not.

Racism and its effects are not random. Quite the opposite, kind of by definition.

In addition, when we use the word "random" like this, what it often ends up meaning is, "person I don't know or care about". And that's a problem. We live in a nation of 300+ million people - we need to be able to manage more than proximal empathy to make our lives work.

Your own biases are showing; his question can be as easily applied to the people offended by combat mechanics in games (and there are a few, most of whom aren't gamers), people who are offended by compulsory actions in games, people who are offended by ahistoricity of a period game (which sometimes includes me), people offended by there being a sociopolitical agenda driving a game's design (which includes me some of the time), people who are offended by games which have PCs on what is normally considered the "Bad Guys" side.

I've known people offended by Reich Star sight-unseen; Explaining that the game is about fighting the Reich in the 23rd century only mollifies some of them. Same people usually also find Grey Ranks offensive (It's set in a ghetto in Nazi Germany during WWII). (Likewise, some people are offended at the very existence of the Maus graphic novels. Similar effect.) I've known a number of hardcore gamers who have a totally insane hatred of anything even vaguely historical in games.

I've known....

• A few gamers who hated Twilight 2000, Morrow Project, and/or Aftermath simply because they presume WW 3 happens.
• A good number who hate on (Classic) Traveller because it's got death in Char Gen as a possible outcome.
• Quite a few who find table driven RPG rules offensive, without ever having played them. (Rolemaster especially gets targeted. Simple mechanics, but lots of tables.)
• A number of gamers offended by the "Great Wheel Cosmology" of AD&D... for a variety of reasons, including the idea that characters have an afterlife determined by their played alignment; others upset that each religion in the game doesn't have its own outer plane.
• A few people offended by Star Wars because "The Empire are just space nazis"... (one was once a card carrying member of the NSDAP, when he was a Boatsman in the 1940's. I've not seen him in 35 years now.)

There are quite a few things that people find offensive that aren't Race, Gender, Sexuality, nor Religion based, and many who find fictional things based off historical evils as offensive when in games.

 

[Umbran]

That wasn't what I was talking about.

You made no specific mention of what these hypothetical people were offended about. You did mention inclusion, however, and since the bulk of recent discussion of inclusion have been around racism, it seemed a likely guess.

Somebody out there hates RPGs.

Again, this is a hypothetical person, with an entirely generalized "hate". That's not really enough to discuss.

 

[Umbran]

Your own biases are showing

It is an entirely natural guess to make, given the other topics in which "inclusion" gets mentioned.

Do, please find me a thread in the past year that discusses how we should change, say, DOAM for sake of "inclusion", using that word. I'll wait.

 

[Mark Hope]

I meant mechanics had the capability to be offensive, not that they were. It was mostly geared towards mechanics that were simplified in an unnecessary way, or when another option for inclusion was possible.

Well, I've given my thoughts on why games might or might not be simplified. If you want to discuss mechanics that have the capability to be offensive, you're going to have to give some examples.

Enlighten me: what is inclusion? A proper, unbiased definition everyone agrees on will help stave off some arguments. Assumptions can destroy a logical debate.

Given that you brought it up, I feel you should define the term as you understand it for the purposes of your thread.

Unless I misunderstand you, your thread isn't to discuss non-inclusive content like, for example, potentially racist or sexist content. You're asking about mechanics, and how the use of such affects the game's audience, right? That's a pretty narrow and clear focus and I think it's an interesting topic. Mechanical heft absolutely affects my choice whether or not to engage with a system. I don't think I'd ever feel offended by a crunch-heavy game though.

 

[MGibster]

I am struggling to think of an example of mechanics that are offensive because of their complexity, which is what you were talking about in your initial post. Mechanics that are offensive for other reasons, sure, I can think of lots of those. But because they're complex? What are you referring to? Games being less inclusive to people with learning difficulties because they're too complex?

You obviously never played Enforcers which was a point based superhero game set in the 21st century that came out in the late 1980s. The game advertised itself as easy and fast, but during character generation you had to use square roots to come up with some of the statistics. The game included instructions for how to set up a Lotus spreadsheet to make character generation easy! I've played plenty of games with bad rules over the years but this one was the most offensive.

 

[MGibster]

"Inclusion" in other threads on here seems to refer particularly to being inclusive in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, LGBTQ+ status, and/or real world religions. Examples of lack of inclusion have included lack of representation in art and possible characters, use of stereotypes, and using language reflective of real world bigoted writings.

It's sometimes applied to game content as well. Some people would argue that Vampire 5E was not inclusive because it incorporates themes of sexual predation, racism, and some negative views on religion.

 

[macd21]

It's sometimes applied to game content as well. Some people would argue that Vampire 5E was not inclusive because it incorporates themes of sexual predation, racism, and some negative views on religion.

Er, Cadence mentioned race and religion in the post you quoted.

 

[Mark Hope]

You obviously never played Enforcers which was a point based superhero game set in the 21st century that came out in the late 1980s. The game advertised itself as easy and fast, but during character generation you had to use square roots to come up with some of the statistics. The game included instructions for how to set up a Lotus spreadsheet to make character generation easy! I've played plenty of games with bad rules over the years but this one was the most offensive.

Ouch. I mentioned Torg's spell creation system in a previous post but this wins.

 

[MGibster]

Er, Cadence mentioned race and religion in the post you quoted.

I'm just going to save myself some embarrassment and pretend she didn't.