Is this gaming product too offensive or merely funny?

[beakie]

Personally I find the idea of actively campaigning against the product on three (or more?) forums as some sort of crusade to be more offensive than the web enhancement. I mean, it's not my cup of tea but it's fiction. I don't read a lot of things, but I find the idea of championing an attempt to mobilize a community into censorship repugnant in the extreme. If someone wants to write and publish The Slayers Guide To Jews or some nonsense then I won't buy it - but neither will I enjoy watching people froth and titter over calls to boycott the publisher.

Your not buying a product you find to be nonsense IS a boycott. You have a belief - such a product is nonsense. To express your belief you don't purchase the product. No one would try to stop you. Someone might disagree with you, but they would hardly find it to be an outrage.

I don't frequent any other forums where this is being discussed, but the original post in this thread is hardly an active campaign or a crusade of any sort. It just informed the community of the fact, gave them the information they would need to address it if they DID find it offensive, and let it go. If you're referring to my post, I stated my beliefs about the product and that I would not be purchasing it or any of the publisher's other products. I suggested that others who felt the same way might boycott the publisher as well, because if anyone does share my beliefs and wants to express themselves, in a market system, you express yourself by voting with your dollars.

What products we buy, and letters of criticism (or praise) are the way that we as gamers communicate with the publishers. It's how we participate in the creation of gaming products by encouraging what we like and discouraging what we don't like. Poor binding and bad editing, for example. Have you ever written to companies with problematic products? Are there publishers whose products you avoid because of them? Or is the content more important to you than the editing or quality of the binding, so you have no reason to complain? That's fine! Express your concerns if you feel the need, don't if you don't. But don't tell other people that expressing their concerns isn't important. Nobody is trying to destroy ANY publisher, I'm just expressing my opinions the way a consumer does: with his wallet. I would much rather Mongoose and other publishers continue to produce products that don't discourage or hurt people. In fact, now that I'm more informed about their products, I'm MORE likely to buy from them than ever, assuming they apologize. I hope we can understand each other a little better now.

jakebone

 

[beakie]

Let me make something absolutely clear: If I actually belived that by not buying
'Conan: The Pirate Isles' I would somehow help people subjected to violence
and discrimination, I would boycott Mongoose.

I believe this goes for most people on this board.

Touche.

jakebone

 

[boredgremlin]

You can say I'm overreacting, that a single word is a trifling matter. You can call me a PC Nazi, or misrepresent me any way you wish. But I, for one, will not be buying any of those Paranoia XP books I was eyeing.

jakebone

You are overreacting. Not to be a culture leader or anything but this writer seems to be english. If he wrote a section in a book about wilderness classes saying that all faggots should be stamped out and buried before moving on, well to many americans thats bigotry and hate speech. To english people thats saying to make sure you ciggarette butts dont start a forest fire. Many words have very different meanings in different cultures.
[Politics and personal attacks removed. -Darkness]

 

[Jupp]

Sit on your mouth, Boredgremlin. This kind of posts is for .alt.soc. newsgroups (if at all), not for a D&D forum.

21...20...19...

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

With apologies to GRIMJIM, since I am apparently commenting on his work-- I find this web enhancement to be about as offensive as it is amusing. In my opinion, it's not really much of either, though it does have a few moments.

I don't understand the people getting deeply offended by this-- you can hear this crap a thousand different times in a thousand different settings, and it's not going to change or to go away. And, for that matter, neither this web enhancement, nor the book it is derived from, is going to cause or even contribute to violence or any meaningful discrimination against women. It is merely stupid.

If you dedicate your life to a crusade against the merely stupid, your crematoriums will be operating at full capacity, with a backlog, for far longer than the rest of your existence on this world.

I think that this is one of the biggest flaws of our society, as it stands today-- we are far too cavalier with our sense of offense, with our outrage. We become outraged at petty slights and spend so much of our lives in a huff, when we are surrounded by true travesties of human decency; it is almost as though we are afraid to confront the truly offensive, and vent our fury at the pathetic, instead. That is, in and of itself, offensive.

We should withhold our outrage for the stupid and dangerous-- and there is precious little in this industry that qualifies. If you want to make the world a better place, step away from the gaming table and take a look at the real world-- which is full of truly horrifying, offensive things that we would all be much better off if someone actually worked to destroy.

 

[Samuel Leming]

I think it would help if everyone were to calm down over this.

Please remember that our comments can be permanent if somebody quotes them. If you quote me, I can't come back and change it later.

Sam

 

[GRIMJIM]

You're making it really, increasingly difficult not to 'Do an Achilli' on this one.

Boycott - Don't be daft.

Dyke - Apparently far more offensive to delicate colonial sensibilities than ours. <insert I've known and been friendly with many gays and lesbians anecdote> and many of them freely use the word 'dyke'. Or is this somehow similar to the way its OK to use racial 'slurs' within that ethnicity but not from without?

To reiterate, one more time, for the slow of comprehension.

The extract, now removed (which I think was a mistake and will only encourage people) was but one portion of a greater whole. Reviews have, on the most part, been good. The target of the humour, satire and the barbs is not women. Not these poor delicate flowers you leap to defend so. No, the targets are you. Male gamers (with apologies to ladies in the audience). The socially retarded, romantically inept, clueless-about-women stereotypes who HOLD these views. This is something that's harder to pick up from that excerpt than it is from the whole book.

Now, if you want to lambast me for being lazy and picking on an easy target and perpetuating the existing gamer stereotypes then by all means, do that. You'd have a leg to stand on then. Attacking women? No.

It looks like I missed a trick by not taking the piss out of the PC White Knights as well.

And for the record, since someone's chosen to use the content of the thread for some sort of neo-conservative anti-liberal rant, liberalism _to_me_ means a large degree of permissiveness and understanding, preservation of freedoms and liberties, including that to make fun of whatever the hell I like. Please don't use this discussion to waffle about politics outside of where it's actually relevent. If anywhere.

 

[Numion]

FWIW I even found parts of it funny. The second and third stereotypes are real enough even in male-intensive activities besides RPGing - so I think they're not just making fun of a few unfortunate gamers.

Why this is a reason for someone to alert several messageboards and start a boycott is beyond me.

 

[Samuel Leming]

The extract, now removed (which I think was a mistake and will only encourage people) was but one portion of a greater whole.

Yeah, I agree that its removal was a mistake. The PDF can stand or not based on its content. It doesn't matter if I like it or not. Since you've done nothing wrong by putting it up in the first place, removing it makes Mongoose look kind of weak, wet & wimpy.

As I post this, GRIMJIM only has 8 posts. It's a shame this is one of his earliest experiences posting to this board.

Sam

 

[Malic]

It wasn't in the now-deleted web enhancement. It was tastelessness. Never attribute to malice what is more likely boneheadedness or bad judgement. You just might find that at one moment you don't meet the standards you are holding others up to.

I didn't, and I don't. I don't find it funny but it does not offend me particularly, and I don't think it is at all based on hatred. My comment was not related to the book at all - I felt that your comment about hatred being illusionary was less specific and belittled beakie's (and others') reference to real world issues which do, in fact, cause pain and suffering to real people. Perhaps I misjudged your post and if so I apologise.

However I still want to point out that these problems do exist. I do not feel that this gaming product will add to them, but it is insensitive about it in some ways. While I myself do not find what I have read of this produce offensive enough to care about, I can understand why some people might object to words that are associated with real life hatred and discrimination in their own experience, and I don't think they should be slapped down for saying so.

If it quacks like a duck don't be too surprised if some people react to it as if it is a duck. Even if the author's intention was parody.