Funny Events of the "Woke" world

[Eacaraxe]

Are we trying to emulate reality or fantasy?

I've always been on the simulationist side when it comes to my own dungeon design, yeah. That is to say, when I'm coming up with a dungeon, I design it to in-universe purpose in accordance to the needs and capabilities of whatever made it. It preserves verisimilitude.

Yes, that's exactly the sort of grandiose, mad and cruel plan I expect a lich to do. It simply does not equate to a lich whose eternal undeath is telling visitors "Next stop, dungeon sublevel 3", does it?

Is "dungeon sublevel 3" code for a disguised teleportation circle with a contingency woven in, to teleport whomever crosses it into a pit trap? You're completely forgetting casters' ability to automate shit, including their own spells, for the purposes of your (bad) argument.

And by the way, there actually is a lich in Forgotten Realms who does pretty much exactly that. He's one of Larloch's many fully-fledged lich servants, if memory serves, who does all the divination and conjuration magic so he doesn't have to.

Yes, and this is completely consistent with the situation. The dungeon that has sparked this outrage may be "wheelchair accessible" by inventor intent, but is apparently not by in-game reason. Therefore all there needs to be is a reasonable justification under the scenario's internal logic why the dungeon happens to be wheelchair accessible... of which there could be many, and several are already posted.

There needs to be a reasonable justification under the setting's internal logic as to why disabled adventurers would need specifically a wheelchair, and therefore ramps for wheelchair accessibility, in the first place.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

but the show actually showed them working round said thing. They didn't magically only explore places with wheelchair accessible ramps.

I seem to recall it even became a minor plot point multiple times. It wasn't some aesthetic look.

I remember some-one on about their D&D campaign before where they played basically a living plant. No legs just a pot they could barely jump about to move slowly in. Most of the time they relied on other players helping them about or other solutions like creating arcane golems or other such constructs to transport them or other solutions. The whole trying to find solutions to the problems that came up was part of the game for them they didn't expect the game to bend to them just so they could pretend it was an aesthetic.

Yes? And? Therefore? They also *didn't* have to do that plenty of times

God forbid WotC release a single supplement where they *didn't* have to do that. Sorry that you aren't being catered to by official material 100% of the time, I guess. I hope you can make it through this trying time.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I've always been on the simulationist side when it comes to my own dungeon design, yeah. That is to say, when I'm coming up with a dungeon, I design it to in-universe purpose in accordance to the needs and capabilities of whatever made it. It preserves verisimilitude.

If you're making your own dungeons, you do not need this supplement

There needs to be a reasonable justification under the setting's internal logic as to why disabled adventurers would need specifically a wheelchair, and therefore ramps for wheelchair accessibility, in the first place.

Legs don't work

 

[Absent]

Mmmyeah good luck with that :

Avoid phrases that link negativity with blackness, anti-racism report recommends

Sayings such as ‘black mood’ or ‘whiter than white’ reinforce racist connotations, says Reframing Race initiative

www.theguardian.com

I'm generally the first one to agree that metaphors shape representations as much as they are shaped by them, and I'm really aware that "black" people have the burden of being associated the the same color descriptives as negativity, but that unfortunate coincidence won't be easily broken. Blackness as a color is an equivalent to the night, to the lack of visibility, to the amalgamation of colored substances that end up as "stains", and all things that represent threat for mankind and for diurnal animals in general (which the human is). The metaphor is profoundly rooted in mankind's history, biological reflexes, evolution. It doesn't prevent humans to appreciate the blackest black in many contexts, from car paint to (ironically) night contemplation to (more in point) all variations on "black is beautiful".

But you won't get rid of the "prince of darkness", "dark elves", "dark mood" and all the poetry of death and despair. There's a dissociation to be made (that most people make) and an awareness of the cross-influence of metaphors (the dumb "up/big=good, low/small=bad" kind of reflexes, that stem from the same things). But if anything, it would be easier to get rid of the "black" descriptive when it comes to skin colors that are very seldom truly black (and yet, are way more often than they are truly white).

That said, maybe after some decades of destruction, global warming will end up reversing these values, attaching negativity to (sun)light and positivity to the shadows...

 

[Trunkage]

Mmmyeah good luck with that :

Avoid phrases that link negativity with blackness, anti-racism report recommends

Sayings such as ‘black mood’ or ‘whiter than white’ reinforce racist connotations, says Reframing Race initiative

www.theguardian.com

I'm generally the first one to agree that metaphors shape representations as much as they are shaped by them, and I'm really aware that "black" people have the burden of being associated the the same color descriptives as negativity, but that unfortunate coincidence won't be easily broken. Blackness as a color is an equivalent to the night, to the lack of visibility, to the amalgamation of colored substances that end up as "stains", and all things that represent threat for mankind and for diurnal animals in general (which the human is). The metaphor is profoundly rooted in mankind's history, biological reflexes, evolution. It doesn't prevent humans to appreciate the blackest black in many contexts, from car paint to (ironically) night contemplation to (more in point) all variations on "black is beautiful".

But you won't get rid of the "prince of darkness", "dark elves", "dark mood" and all the poetry of death and despair. There's a dissociation to be made (that most people make) and an awareness of the cross-influence of metaphors (the dumb "up/big=good, low/small=bad" kind of reflexes, that stem from the same things). But if anything, it would be easier to get rid of the "black" descriptive when it comes to skin colors that are very seldom truly black (and yet, are way more often than they are truly white).

That said, maybe after some decades of destruction, global warming will end up reversing these values, attaching negativity to (sun)light and positivity to the shadows...

I dont know about Dark elves. I see gradual change. I do like that many companies that started with Dark Elves have turned them into their own thing, even creating their own names. Many are no different from other elves. It also helps that many other elves are pretty terrible too

That being said, a Tiste Andii or Dunmer is still a dark elf, no what you may think. Dhukari has always doing their own thing, usually being pretty white

 

[Ag3ma]

Is "dungeon sublevel 3" code for a disguised teleportation circle with a contingency woven in, to teleport whomever crosses it into a pit trap?

No. But nice attempt to contort the argument.

You're completely forgetting casters' ability to automate shit, including their own spells, for the purposes of your (bad) argument.

I don't think you even know what you're arguing about.

 

[Eacaraxe]

No. But nice attempt to contort the argument.

You start making radical, bad faith assumptions of others' arguments unsupported by respective games' mechanics, lore, and settings, and I'm the one contorting the argument by calling it out? Nah.

If you're making your own dungeons, you do not need this supplement

"If you don't want/need it, don't buy it" is the same flavor of "love it or leave it" false dichotomy that shuts down critique of a subject. Nah, I'll continue questioning this crap and the intention behind it all I like.

Legs don't work

That's by far from the only reason one might be wheelchair-bound, but we're not even going into that yet.

More to the point, why would people need wheelchairs in settings that have floating or flying items which can be ridden, magical prostheses, mundane or magical mounts small enough to fit not within your 10' wide hallways but 5' or smaller, entire sets of armor capable of restoring full mobility, restoration spells, shape change, teleportation, and magical hovering/flying entirely without the aid of an item.

"But magic is RAAARE!" bullshit. We're discussing adventurers, who even at level 1 are wealthier and have more access to magic and magical items than any commoner in a given setting. Half that shit I mentioned is, in D&D 5e, readily available in tier 1 (levels 1-4) play. D&D 5e is the edition in which magical items are least common and hardest to acquire, and even under 5e circumstances is this shit available from the earliest adventurer levels.

You know what we call a mobility-impaired adventurer with a broom of flying and a harness? An adventurer. Brooms of flying are one of the most common and iconic low-level wondrous items in the whole damn game, right there with bags of holding, rings of protection, and cloaks of elvenkind.

Hell if you're wont for imagination you don't even have to go that far down the rabbit hole. Go for some kooky steampunk artificer shit that half the D&D settings nowadays already support, like a mobility automaton that has spider legs, or tracks, instead of wheels. Homebrew a common magical belt a character has, that provides a permanent partial levitation and functions akin to leg braces. Actual magical leg braces. The list literally goes on for someone conversant in the settings and mechanics, that are internally consistent with the settings themselves and their central conceits.

Unlike most of the people who join the circle jerk over this nonsense, I've actually played a disabled PC and have firsthand experience with it. I had some truly unfortunate rolls on the physical attributes, and worked that into the character's backstory that she was born with some form of palsy, abandoned in the woods to die (as historic custom), and adopted by a circle of druids. She was a druid/MoMF, and wild shape was her means of overcoming her disability. Great fucking character.

 

[Hawki]

Snip

Ah yes, those pesky Dark Elves and Dark Eldar, who are, um, paler than other elves in their settings...

You do you, wokeists.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

"If you don't want/need it, don't buy it" is the same flavor of "love it or leave it" false dichotomy that shuts down critique of a subject. Nah, I'll continue questioning this crap and the intention behind it all I like.

Oh, what's the nefarious intention behind a few dungeons with ramps and bad guys who aren't racially evil?

That's by far from the only reason one might be wheelchair-bound, but we're not even going into that yet.

More to the point, why would people need wheelchairs in settings that have floating or flying items which can be ridden, magical prostheses, mundane or magical mounts small enough to fit not within your 10' wide hallways but 5' or smaller, entire sets of armor capable of restoring full mobility, restoration spells, shape change, teleportation, and magical hovering/flying entirely without the aid of an item.

"But magic is RAAARE!" bullshit. We're discussing adventurers, who even at level 1 are wealthier and have more access to magic and magical items than any commoner in a given setting. Half that shit I mentioned is, in D&D 5e, readily available in tier 1 (levels 1-4) play. D&D 5e is the edition in which magical items are least common and hardest to acquire, and even under 5e circumstances is this shit available from the earliest adventurer levels.

You know what we call a mobility-impaired adventurer with a broom of flying and a harness? An adventurer. Brooms of flying are one of the most common and iconic low-level wondrous items in the whole damn game, right there with bags of holding, rings of protection, and cloaks of elvenkind.

Hell if you're wont for imagination you don't even have to go that far down the rabbit hole. Go for some kooky steampunk artificer shit that half the D&D settings nowadays already support, like a mobility automaton that has spider legs, or tracks, instead of wheels. Homebrew a common magical belt a character has, that provides a permanent partial levitation and functions akin to leg braces. Actual magical leg braces. The list literally goes on for someone conversant in the settings and mechanics, that are internally consistent with the settings themselves and their central conceits.

Great. And a lotta people liked the battle chair. I dunno man, some people like wheels more than tracks amd flying. Kinda wild that the wheel is the sticking point here

 

[Absent]

Ah yes, those pesky Dark Elves and Dark Eldar, who are, um, paler than other elves in their settings...

You do you, wokeists.

Beyond nerd credit, are you actively trying to miss the point here ? The prince of darkness isn't particularly dark-skinned either.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Ah yes, those pesky Dark Elves and Dark Eldar, who are, um, paler than other elves in their settings...

You do you, wokeists.

For all their many, many faults, Games Workshop being ahead of the curve in that specific instance is really funny, even though I'm 95% certain it was accidental. D&D couldn't even say Drow weren't inherently evil anymore without Gamers™️ throwing a hissy fit

 

[Hawki]

Beyond nerd credit, are you actively trying to miss the point here ? The prince of darkness isn't particularly dark-skinned either.

I was responding specifically to elves, I didn't care about any of the other stuff because it's all nonsense.

The idea of darkness being associated with evil is common across various cultures, going at least as far back as Zoroastrianism. You can claim that's racist, but if so, well, you do you.

 

[Absent]

I was responding specifically to elves, I didn't care about any of the other stuff because it's all nonsense.

The idea of darkness being associated with evil is common across various cultures, going at least as far back as Zoroastrianism. You can claim that's racist, but if so, well, you do you.

I see we have a very attentive reader here.

 

[Ag3ma]

You start making radical, bad faith assumptions of others' arguments unsupported by respective games' mechanics, lore, and settings, and I'm the one contorting the argument by calling it out? Nah.

Let's get to that in a minute.

More to the point, why would people need wheelchairs in settings that have floating or flying items which can be ridden, magical prostheses, mundane or magical mounts small enough to fit not within your 10' wide hallways but 5' or smaller, entire sets of armor capable of restoring full mobility, restoration spells, shape change, teleportation, and magical hovering/flying entirely without the aid of an item.

Are these realistically available within the resources of the average low level PC? Weren't you just talking about settings and lore and stuff? "Hey, every veteran who lost a limb in the war gets a free aerial servant to do stuff for them, whoo-hoo!" Is that really what typical cod-medieval fantasy settings are like? You've created an "it's fantasy, you can do anything" argument that runs face first smack into the wall of setting and internal logic that you are trying to argue, when you propose absurd solutions that may make no sense in the setting. What if your PC doesn't have a friendly mage or 1,000 gp to buy a magical prosthesis? Well, you'll just to have to hop, because wheelchairs are banned.

It's even worse, because your "It's fantasy, you can do anything" argument is internally contradictory anyway as it is employed to claim players shouldn't do something, even when that something is reasonable and less absurd than your purported solutions. You can think up any device for your disabled character to move around, but it can't be a wheelchair, because wheelchairs are banned.

 

[Chimpzy]

House Republicans propose planting a trillion trees as they move away from climate change denial

House Republicans are searching for solutions to climate change without restricting American-produced energy that comes from burning oil, coal and gas.

apnews.com

Watch out, GOP gone woke.

I'd approve if they personally provide the fertilizer

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

God forbid WotC release a single supplement where they *didn't* have to do that. Sorry that you aren't being catered to by official material 100% of the time, I guess. I hope you can make it through this trying time.

I'm sorry you feel the need for material to be made to cater to your every whim or keep throwing months or years long hissy fits at companies and then pulling the sanctimonious and smug "Oh I'm sorry this thing made you angry" move in the most patronising way.

I'm also sorry that when you get called out on this you either run to some other insults or play the victim and run to try and have people calling it out shut down.

I'm not sorry for you, I'm sorry for the world and the state it's becoming thanks to this bullshit.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I'm sorry you feel the need for material to be made to cater to your every whim or keep throwing months or years long hissy fits at companies and then pulling the sanctimonious and smug "Oh I'm sorry this thing made you angry" move in the most patronising way.

I'm also sorry that when you get called out on this you either run to some other insults or play the victim and run to try and have people calling it out shut down.

I'm not sorry for you, I'm sorry for the world and the state it's becoming thanks to this bullshit.

"Consumer feedback is bad if they listen to people I don't like".

God, imagine thinking adding ramps in dungeons because a piece of fanart got popular and changing a couple races so they weren't genetically evil *20 fucking years after Warcraft did* has any material effect on the world

 

[crimson5pheonix]

On the one hand, I absolutely get why someone would want to play specifically a wheelchair bound PC and wouldn't want to be stopped by every staircase.

On the other hand, use magic to move your wheelchair up and down stairs when it happens.

On the gripping hand, paladins (and similar) have had to deal with "no horses inside" for years and you don't see them bitching (much).


As to the far more interesting "trans in fantasy settings" question, well I do also lean towards verisimilitude. First caveat, ttrpgs are collaborative storytelling, so if a player really just wants to tell a trans positive story translating real world trans experiences to the tabletop, accommodations should be made. Work with the player and figure out how to tell that story in Faerun or wherever. Past that though, adding trans people in general to a fantasy setting becomes an interesting question. Why do trans people exist as a class in society? In our world of course you have a trove of government information that would have to be altered to transition, and physical transitioning is limited largely to hormones and cosmetic surgeries. In most fantasy settings though there are no IDs or anything, and sex changing magic exists, sometimes as traps you can just accidentally stumble across. So the idea of "trans people" changes. You would see say, people finding a way to pay for magic to physically transition, people learning magic to transition, maybe a particularly dumb (or desperate) person to intentionally go looking for a magical trap or piss off powerful mages in hopes of getting the "right" curse. After that just going to a new town lets you say you're whoever you are and nobody would be any the wiser.

I think PF2e just added a sex change potion that costs 10 gold (I don't play PF2e because I absolutely despise it mechanically, but I think I've seen this), and this provides an interesting thought experiment on the issue. It was clearly added so PCs can transition basically for free, 10 gold is a joke. However for commoners that's still weeks to months worth of saving to afford, if not years (unless that's changed in PF2e). So you could have a setting where "trans" people still exist, but only as the underclass as rich people just transition whenever. They could even have crazy sex parties where they use up a bunch of the potions for a laugh and make this situation the focus of a quest or campaign.

Or you can keep doing crass jokes (or maybe less crass, depending on how you portray it) say where a town gets cursed by some bad guy, and the party goes around uncursing the townsfolk only to find out the wife in a couple turns back into a man, because they were cursed to be a woman and decided they fit better as one anyway.

 

[Kae]

"Consumer feedback is bad if they listen to people I don't like".

God, imagine thinking adding ramps in dungeons because a piece of fanart got popular and changing a couple races so they weren't genetically evil *20 fucking years after Warcraft did* has any material effect on the world

I mean, he's probably the kind off person that would've liked the race debacle in Star Frontiers so it's best to just not take him seriously at all, honestly I personally wouldn't bother talking to him, haven't in a while.

On the one hand, I absolutely get why someone would want to play specifically a wheelchair bound PC and wouldn't want to be stopped by every staircase.

On the other hand, use magic to move your wheelchair up and down stairs when it happens.

On the gripping hand, paladins (and similar) have had to deal with "no horses inside" for years and you don't see them bitching (much).


As to the far more interesting "trans in fantasy settings" question, well I do also lean towards verisimilitude. First caveat, ttrpgs are collaborative storytelling, so if a player really just wants to tell a trans positive story translating real world trans experiences to the tabletop, accommodations should be made. Work with the player and figure out how to tell that story in Faerun or wherever. Past that though, adding trans people in general to a fantasy setting becomes an interesting question. Why do trans people exist as a class in society? In our world of course you have a trove of government information that would have to be altered to transition, and physical transitioning is limited largely to hormones and cosmetic surgeries. In most fantasy settings though there are no IDs or anything, and sex changing magic exists, sometimes as traps you can just accidentally stumble across. So the idea of "trans people" changes. You would see say, people finding a way to pay for magic to physically transition, people learning magic to transition, maybe a particularly dumb (or desperate) person to intentionally go looking for a magical trap or piss off powerful mages in hopes of getting the "right" curse. After that just going to a new town lets you say you're whoever you are and nobody would be any the wiser.

I think PF2e just added a sex change potion that costs 10 gold (I don't play PF2e because I absolutely despise it mechanically, but I think I've seen this), and this provides an interesting thought experiment on the issue. It was clearly added so PCs can transition basically for free, 10 gold is a joke. However for commoners that's still weeks to months worth of saving to afford, if not years (unless that's changed in PF2e). So you could have a setting where "trans" people still exist, but only as the underclass as rich people just transition whenever. They could even have crazy sex parties where they use up a bunch of the potions for a laugh and make this situation the focus of a quest or campaign.

Or you can keep doing crass jokes (or maybe less crass, depending on how you portray it) say where a town gets cursed by some bad guy, and the party goes around uncursing the townsfolk only to find out the wife in a couple turns back into a man, because they were cursed to be a woman and decided they fit better as one anyway.

Regarding wheelchairs, I think it makes sense to think about how it would work on a fantasy setting, serves as a lot of world building to determine if these people are the kind of people who would value people with disabilities and who wouldn't, and designing the space around that makes sense, specially since even if magic is available to facilitate the movement of some people whether through magical healing or levitation or something else like a magical power armor that allows you to move, it would only be available to a limited few, so I don't think it's a big deal to have some environments that accommodate for wheelchair, if anything it could be very relevant for flavor, as for me personally when I played a disabled character I used a floating disc spell to get around in a D&D campaign, but I was a wizard, in a Legend of the 5 rings campaign, there was another player that was playing as my guard and best friend, so he helped me get around until I managed to develop magic to float around, but I was playing a priestess in that one.

As for trans stuff, I mean it's kinda built in already into fantasy games, there are low level spells that allow you to alter certain body parts temporarily, magic potions that help you change shape, high level spells that change your physical form permanently, shape shifting races and so on, if anything it's kinda more absurd that these things already there wouldn't be used for that, in my games even cis people have explored trans stories with their characters, because it just kinda made sense based on what happened and what we had available to us, I even played a genderfluid character once who would change gender by dying and getting brought back by reincarnation spells, which was a bit gruesome, but it kinda happened organically because the character had bad luck and died a couple of times by accident and it ended up becoming their thing.

IDK, I think it's kinda dumb to say those themes aren't appropriate to fantasy stories when they lend themselves so naturally to them if you feel like exploring them, so I just thinking people complaining about them haven't actually considered the implications of having magic, it also fits with sci-fi games too, I mean most of them already have body modification with cyborg stuff, it's kinda absurd to assume the transhumanism of body modification doesn't include transgender.

So I just think they are pretty easy things to incorporate into a game and I don't feel like the exploration of issues of gender or disability feel out of place in TTRPGs in any way shape or form.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

And yet, modelling exercises from scientists tend to get much closer to the truth than random estimations.



It's just that you don't know what the scientific consensus actually is. That's all.

Depends on the modeling, you should take most modeling with a generous sprinkling of salt.

Mainstream media pushed "western" scientific consensus is not the worldwide scientific consensus. Funny how none of you in the 3-ish years now can link to a paper showing proof of masks working or a cost-benefit analysis saying lockdowns did anything; in fact, a recent published paper from the UK says "COVID-19 lockdowns were 'a global policy failure of gigantic proportions'" which is what Canada basically said awhile back as well. But no, according to you, the consensus is that lockdowns worked even though you can't even produce a single paper that says that. The paper also points out how bad the modeling was as well. The Imperial College of London's modeling said lockdowns would prevent 400,000 deaths in the UK and 2 million in the US when in actuality, they prevented 1,700 in the UK and 4,000 in the US. Again, models should be accompanied with a salt shaker.

Did lockdowns work? The verdict on Covid restrictions

Examine the impact of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality, suggesting that voluntary changes in behavior, not strict restrictions, mitigated the pandemic.

iea.org.uk

Science is based on probability. It does not tell you what is absolutely right and what is absolutely wrong, it tells you what is more or less likely to be true.

A scientist will understand that. I can understand non-scientists not quite getting it, because when the probability something is true is sufficiently high, it is generally talked about like an absolute fact, and will be functionally treated as one even by scientists. Thus, were you to notice (you don't appear to), I spend a great deal of time talking in terms of balance of evidence.

Uncertainty is something a scientist kind of needs to accept. However, even with high uncertainty, if the evidence is 80:20, the most reasonable thing to do is give the 80 priority in one's belief. Even if it's wrong, at least you'd be wrong for the right reasons. The right reasons matter, because if you reason right, you'll be right more often than you're wrong in the long run. That's how probability works, after all.



No, I disagree with the philsophical stance and thus the resultant scientific analysis of certain doctors who have very particular way of assessing evidence. Specifically, that the way they they weigh certain forms of evidence is likely to cause suboptimal reasoning that leads them to make errors in their conclusions or leave them unable to make conclusions that they should. A more holistic view of science would be preferable.

I call them a cult because because that's how they have been accused as operating by quite a few other people in the field... this might be pejorative, but I can see why.

I'm well aware that it's probability to a degree, the issue I have when the confidence range is huge. Like I said, there's a range of 30 million to 60 million buffalo America had pre-colonalization, that's quite a range and that's only 500 years ago. There's a chance the population was not even in that range. Whereas if you say you're 95% confident there was 45-50 million buffalo, that probability is a lot better and much more accurate as well. If we have such a range for buffalo 500 years ago, you think we're gonna have better confidences and more accurate ranges for other animal populations before humans? Also, you say that the UK was mainly forest before humans, which means there were probably large numbers of deer then and deer on a pound-per-pound basis emit more methane than cows. I'm more than willing to say we should probably lower cow numbers but people have to be extreme and saying beef and diary have to go.

It varies for me based on the thing being studied and how much evidence I'm going to require. Something that is hard to (or impossible) to control and test, I'm not going to require super hard evidence that a drug would require. For example, nutrition based science is super hard set up random controlled trials obviously so I'm not going to require it to convince me because it's hard to control people's food in the study first of all and second of all, you may need to do long-term studies to actual find out many things and that makes it almost impossible to study nutrition as you would a cancer drug so I'm far more willing to accept mechanistic science in that regard. When there's so many confounders, you have to take things with generous helping of salt. Masks as well have tons of confounders and all the studies on masks that we have the eliminated the most confounders all have shown that masks did very little or nothing at all. That was the science pre covid and it's still the science post covid.