What is Political and Mod Direction

[Toadmaster]

There's a lot of theorywank in both OSR-focused and more indie-focused spaces. There's less of it in communities that aren't trying to pretend there isn't a lot of overlap between OSR and indie-- but what there is, is generally a lot more interesting.

That fits my memories, before everything turned political that void of hate was filled with you're gaming wrong diatribes and it burned brightest between narrative games and traditional games.

It is well documented in this video...

 

[Sable Wyvern]

I'm a relatively recent arrival here, and I'm here specifically because this is not TBP or Pundit's Place. I like it. I support mods erring on the side of caution, but have faith in their judgement.

For those who feel the policy requires them to "walk on eggshells" this sounds like a problem with the poster, not the policy. It's not as if you're going to be banned, or a mod is going to make you an object of rididcule for making a good-faith post that's over the line. If a post is considered over the line, but you're not being an arsehole, I can't see anything happening other than being told to take a step back or otherwise not take the converstation further in that direction. If you feel it is your god-given obligation to preach the truth to the great unwashed masses, and it hurts your soul to have to restrain yourself, there are plenty of other places where you can go practice your zealotry and can get pats on the back for it.

 

[Agemegos]

most of the arguments that leak into The Pub are really the ghosts of 15 year old shitfights on The Forge.

And they are even older than that: I remember some of them from rec.games.frp.advocacy in the early Nineties.

 

[Agemegos]

For those who feel the policy requires them to "walk on eggshells" this sounds like a problem with the poster, not the policy.

I hear you.

It's not as if you're going to be banned, or a mod is going to make you an object of rididcule for making a good-faith post that's over the line. If a post is considered over the line, but you're not being an arsehole, I can't see anything happening other than being told to take a step back or otherwise not take the converstation further in that direction. If you feel it is your god-given obligation to preach the truth to the great unwashed masses, and it hurts your soul to have to restrain yourself, there are plenty of other places where you can go practice your zealotry and can get pats on the back for it.

Okay. My view of what happened is not that I was preaching to anybody, but asking a question in good faith about a subject where I wanted information and that I had no idea would ignite Internet back-draft. If the cure is to fuck off I'll fuck off.

 

[CRKrueger]

I hear you.

Okay. My view of what happened is not that I was preaching to anybody, but asking a question in good faith about a subject where I wanted information and that I had no idea would ignite Internet back-draft. If the cure is to fuck off I'll fuck off.

Your question wasn't the issue at all.

 

[Sable Wyvern]

Okay. My view of what happened is not that I was preaching to anybody, but asking a question in good faith about a subject where I wanted information and that I had no idea would ignite Internet back-draft. If the cure is to fuck off I'll fuck off.

I genuinely don't know "what happened", and can safely say my comment was thus not intended to single out any particular comment you or anyone else has made elswhere on the board.

The first part of my comment was referring to a number of posters who made comments in this thread about feeling as if it's not safe to post here. I think that's ridculous, and do not believe that good-faith posts will attract mod anger. To be honest, if asked, I would not have known that you were one of egghsell posters; again, I wasn't trying to single you at all.

The second part was just a general comment directed at anyone who feels it's a moral imperative to preach their Truth here. It should probably have been separated out into it's own paragraph.

In any event, you were defintiely not the unspoken target of my comment, beyond a generic, "If posting in good faith makes you feel afraid, I think you are dramatically overthinking things," that was directed at everyone.

Edit to add: Agemegos If you're the person who said something about removing mysogyny from GoT for your game then, even though I wouldn't describe it as an especially misogynistic setting, based on my understanding of the context, I also wouldn't consider the comment political or inappropriate. At worst, maybe it wasn't worded perfectly?

 

[Agemegos]

Your question wasn't the issue at all.

Nevertheless, I feel as though I'm walking on eggshells, and that means the problem is me.

• Once upon a time I wrote part of a horror scenario for a con, and one participant was so strongly affected by a bit I wrote and was GMing that they suffered anaphylaxis and needed adrenalin (epinephrine) to restore their breathing. I can't tell that story on the Internet because it would provoke a hideous shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debating.
• I put fifteen years of work into developing an unconventional fantasy world, ran numerous campaigns in it, considered it a great success, and defended it against occasional criticism for including sexist social features on the grounds that the materials and my GMing always portrayed those as unjust and bad. Then I read a memoir by a journalist that made me understand what the problem was for my players, and since then I have lost all appetite for running or further developing that setting. I think that a lot of gamers would find an account of that experience interesting even though they most would not be inclined to change anything as a result of reading it. But I know that if I were to tell that story on the internet Americans from both sides of their culture wars would denounce me, either for having started where I started or for ending up where I ended up, and for presuming to have an opinion worth sharing about an experience that doesn't belong to me. There would be a hideous shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debating. So I don't tell it.
• My stock in trade as a GM is encounters with and explorations of bizarre but logical societies. When I can snatch a few moments away from my major depressive episode I am working on Forty Exotic Worlds for SFRPG, a compendium of worlds with bizarre governments and societies that PCs might visit in an interstellar-SF campaign. By necessity from that premise, those worlds include ones with governments that are non-democratic and illiberal, ones with dramatic social and economic inequality, ones with strange family structures that systematically oppress certain genders and sexual orientations, ones with socialist or laissez-faire or mixed economics that are failing, ones with odd and different economies that some readers take for satires of their ideals or recommendations of mine.But I am not advocating for any of that or against anyone's alternatives. My setting includes both surgery good enough for body modification that would give a person any form that could be mapped to their motor and sensory homunculi, and neuropsychiatry powerful enough to permanently change personality. On some worlds one or other of those is used with alarming freedom, even oppressively; on others one or other is or both are anathematised and banned. This is not in any way to do with my position on transsexual people. I would like to discuss those world designs with other gamers — a sample, perhaps, of the sort who might want a copy of my book when I am done. But I can't ask for feedback about those world designs where there is a ban on politics, and if I were to ask for it on one when politics is allowed there would be a shitfight in the audience if Americans on both sides of the culture wars were allowed to speak, and I would be denounced and confronted for my political unorthodoxy by either side that dared to and was allowed to speak. So I don't do that.

So I self-censor all the time, including avoiding the topics that I would most like to discuss. And then I asked a question that I thought was completely anodyne, and despite all my efforts there was a shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debate, the very thing that I can't bear. And it turns out that the problem is me because I walk on eggshells.

I'm not getting enough out of this.

 

[Sable Wyvern]

Nevertheless, I feel as though I'm walking on eggshells, and that means the problem is me.

• Once upon a time I wrote part of a horror scenario for a con, and one participant was so strongly affected by a bit I wrote and was GMing that they suffered anaphylaxis and needed adrenalin (epinephrine) to restore their breathing. I can't tell that story on the Internet because it would provoke a hideous shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debating.
• I put fifteen years of work into developing an unconventional fantasy world, ran numerous campaigns in it, considered it a great success, and defended it against occasional criticism for including sexist social features on the grounds that the materials and my GMing always portrayed those as unjust and bad. Then I read a memoir by a journalist that made me understand what the problem was for my players, and since then I have lost all appetite for running or further developing that setting. I think that a lot of gamers would find an account of that experience interesting even though they most would not be inclined to change anything as a result of reading it. But I know that if I were to tell that story on the internet Americans from both sides of their culture wars would denounce me, either for having started where I started or for ending up where I ended up, and for presuming to have an opinion worth sharing about an experience that doesn't belong to me. There would be a hideous shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debating. So I don't tell it.
• My stock in trade as a GM is encounters with and explorations of bizarre but logical societies. When I can snatch a few moments away from my major depressive episode I am working on _Forty Exotic Worlds for SFRPG_, a compendium of worlds with bizarre governments and societies that PCs might visit or even come from is an interstellar-SF campaign. For reasons that I consider completely innocent, those worlds include ones with governments that are non-democratic and illiberal, ones with dramatic social and economic inequality, ones with strange family structures that are systematically oppressive to certain genders and sexual orientations, ones with socialist or laissez-faire or mixed economics that are failing, ones with odd and different economies that some readers take for satires of their ideals or recommendations of mine. My setting includes both surgery good enough for body modification that would give a person any form that could be mapped to their motor and sensory homunculi, and neuropsychiatry powerful enough to permanently change personality. On some worlds one or other of those is used with alarming freedom, even oppressively; on others one or other is or both are anathematised and banned. I would like to discuss those world designs with other gamers, ones, perhaps, who might want a copy of my book when I am done. But I can't ask for feedback about those world designs where there is a ban on politics, and if I were to ask for it on one when politics is allowed either (1) there would be a shitfight in the audience if Americans on both sides of the culture wars were allowed to speak, and I would be denounced and confronted for my political unorthodoxy by whichever side was allowed to speak. So I don't do that.

So I self-censor all the time, including avoiding the topics that I would most like to discuss. And then I ask a question that I thought was completely anodyne, and despite all my efforts there is a shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debate, the very thing that I can't bear. And it turns out that this is my fault because I walk on eggshells.

It seems to me that bullet points one and three would be perfectly acceptable topics for discussion here. The point of the no-politics rules is to have the bullet point three discussion, without allowing it to turn into a pointless shitfight. It might need some careful language, and one would expect everyone involved to be on their best behaviour. While the safey tools discussion ended up being closed, we were able to have a fairly lengthy, mostly civil discussion that simply could not have occured on most other sites.

Bullet point two might be over the line, as there seems to be some real world moral judgements in play.

 

[Toadmaster]

Nevertheless, I feel as though I'm walking on eggshells, and that means the problem is me.

• Once upon a time I wrote part of a horror scenario for a con, and one participant was so strongly affected by a bit I wrote and was GMing that they suffered anaphylaxis and needed adrenalin (epinephrine) to restore their breathing. I can't tell that story on the Internet because it would provoke a hideous shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debating.
• I put fifteen years of work into developing an unconventional fantasy world, ran numerous campaigns in it, considered it a great success, and defended it against occasional criticism for including sexist social features on the grounds that the materials and my GMing always portrayed those as unjust and bad. Then I read a memoir by a journalist that made me understand what the problem was for my players, and since then I have lost all appetite for running or further developing that setting. I think that a lot of gamers would find an account of that experience interesting even though they most would not be inclined to change anything as a result of reading it. But I know that if I were to tell that story on the internet Americans from both sides of their culture wars would denounce me, either for having started where I started or for ending up where I ended up, and for presuming to have an opinion worth sharing about an experience that doesn't belong to me. There would be a hideous shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debating. So I don't tell it.
• My stock in trade as a GM is encounters with and explorations of bizarre but logical societies. When I can snatch a few moments away from my major depressive episode I am working on Forty Exotic Worlds for SFRPG, a compendium of worlds with bizarre governments and societies that PCs might visit in an interstellar-SF campaign. By necessity from that premise, those worlds include ones with governments that are non-democratic and illiberal, ones with dramatic social and economic inequality, ones with strange family structures that are systematically oppressive to certain genders and sexual orientations, ones with socialist or laissez-faire or mixed economics that are failing, ones with odd and different economies that some readers take for satires of their ideals or recommendations of mine.But I am not advocating for any of that or against anyone's alternatives. My setting includes both surgery good enough for body modification that would give a person any form that could be mapped to their motor and sensory homunculi, and neuropsychiatry powerful enough to permanently change personality. On some worlds one or other of those is used with alarming freedom, even oppressively; on others one or other is or both are anathematised and banned. This is not in any way to do with my position on transsexual people. I would like to discuss those world designs with other gamers — a sample, perhaps, of the sort who might want a copy of my book when I am done. But I can't ask for feedback about those world designs where there is a ban on politics, and if I were to ask for it on one when politics is allowed there would be a shitfight in the audience if Americans on both sides of the culture wars were allowed to speak, and I would be denounced and confronted for my political unorthodoxy by either side that dared to and was allowed to speak. So I don't do that.

So I self-censor all the time, including avoiding the topics that I would most like to discuss. And then I asked a question that I thought was completely anodyne, and despite all my efforts there is a shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debate, the very thing that I can't bear. And it turns out that this is my fault because I walk on eggshells.

I'm not getting enough out of this.

I don't know anything about your specific examples, but at some point people have to take responsibility for themselves. If horror movies cause me to have panic attacks, and I willingly watch horror movies is that the fault of the producer, director, actors, theater owner? Unless they advertised the film as Winnie the Pooh, and substituted Saw then it is kind of on me.

It is natural to feel some guilt over bad reactions that you were involved in, it is the sign of a humane person. If a kid blows a stop sign on a motor scooter and I hit him with my truck, it is not my fault, but I'm certainly going to feel bad about it and probably be filled with doubt and guilt that maybe if I were paying more attention I might have seen him in time to stop, but in the end he ran the stop sign.

Unless you were deceptive in how you pitched the game I see no way that you were the cause of injury or discomfort. Did your players ever say hey, you know xyz really makes me uncomfortable, could you not? Or is your doubt completely external based on a 3rd party who may not have even been in the least bit involved?


You know what makes for really great gaming, a perfect world with no threats or injustice. Just enjoy sitting in that big comfy chair and hey, could you pass the chips, they are a little out of my reach and I'm feeling lazy. (push) Alright, you are a rock star, what a hero!


Honestly not meant to be snarky, but it sounds like you are accepting blame for things beyond your control and that is not fair to you.

 

[Agemegos]

Honestly not meant to be snarky, but it sounds like you are accepting blame for things beyond your control and that is not fair to you.

Whether I accept the blame or not, nevertheless the shitfights occur, and nevertheless the threads get flooded with statements that are not intended to inform but to pwn. I am beyond caring whether it is my fault or not, I just want it to stop.

 

[Toadmaster]

Whether I accept the blame or not, nevertheless the shitfights occur, and nevertheless the thread get flooded with statements that are not intended to inform but to pwn. I am beyond caring whether it is my fault or not, I just want it to stop.

Copy, I misunderstood your comment.

 

[TristramEvans]

Nevertheless, I feel as though I'm walking on eggshells, and that means the problem is me.


So I self-censor all the time, including avoiding the topics that I would most like to discuss. And then I asked a question that I thought was completely anodyne, and despite all my efforts there was a shitfight in the audience and a corrosive flood of debate, the very thing that I can't bear. And it turns out that the problem is me because I walk on eggshells.

I'm not getting enough out of this.

I don't think anyone is blaming you for what happened in the comments of the thread, and you shouldn't be blaming yourself for that. I still don't know which thead this is we're talking about - the OA thread? Something else?

As far as feeling like your walkng on eggshells here, in what way? Are you afrraid of a banning or the mods are going to come down on you? I honestly don't thik your name has ever even come up behind the scenes.

 

[TristramEvans]

OK so this is a about the Re-boring cannon thread? Let me go over that in just a second.

I'll preface by saying there was nothing, and continues to be nothing, wrong with that thread's premise.

 

[Agemegos]

I don't think anyone is blaming you for what happened in the comments of the thread, and you shouldn't be blaming yourself for that.

I don't blame myself. I blame the shitheads who went berserk at the mention of sexism.

I still don't know which thead this is we're talking about - the OA thread? Something else?

In the bullet points I am talking about threads that I have not started, or at least not started here, because of the no-politics rule, because of the problem that the no-politics rule is meant to prevent, and because culture warriors everywhere could not restrain themselves from starting a fight if there were a policeman at their elbow.

As far as feeling like your walkng on eggshells here, in what way? Are you afrraid of a banning or the mods are going to come down on you? I honestly don't thik your name has ever even come up behind the scenes.

I am afraid of getting embroiled in a nasty, vicious brawl.

 

[Bunch]

In trying to come to grips with the eggshells comment. So I'm hearing that your posts end in ahitfeats on occasion due to unusual topics. I'll buy that. Just to be clear the eggshells are being caused by other posters reactions not the mods correct?

 

[Sable Wyvern]

This community can't even keep its peace over some GMs saying that they would like to tweak a canon so that their players don't have to put up with a sexist society in the game.

And didn't the people or person that made it into an issue get sanctioned for that? The intent of the rules seems to be that you should be able to make that statement here, and it's not grounds for anyone to go on a rampage.

 

[TristramEvans]

So, what happened with the Re-Boring thread:

No one took notice of it in the staff until Kruegar made a post calling out two prior posts in the thread, one for mentioning the term "misogyny" and the other for using the term "racism". The premise of CRK's post was that use of these terms was subtly introducing politics into the gaming discussion. This post was made after Kruegar reported both the posts in question, and Kruegar's post was subsequently reported.

At that point, one of the people whose Kruegar's post called out, Jamumu, immediately announced that he was quiting the forum if ths was how it was run, despite the fact that Kruegar is not a mod, and he'd been here long enough to know that. I reached out to Jamumu immediately after, but he appears to have never logged back in. With reports piling up, Endless immediately stepped in and asked everyone to chill while we sorted things out, after which Kruegar made a follow up post and we responded by removing both of his posts from public view. We originarily temporarily locked the thread so we'd have a moment to figure things out backstage, but several minutes later reversed that decision after the worry was expressed that it might look like CRK was gamig the moderation system by getting a conversation shut down (note that I don't think this was Kruegar's intention, we just did not want to give that appearance).

At which point Endless responded by threadbanning Kruegar and a very long conversation backstage took place, the end result of which is this thread and another announcement I'll make once it's ready.

None of this is the fault of the thread's OP, nor are we looking to villify any posters. To be perfectly honest, the primary concern seemed to be us losing a poster over Kruegar's post, and what appeared to be, with the second post, Kruegar directly ignoring a mod directive, contrasted with what some of us agree are legitimate concerns about the political lineancing that's become more frequent recently, if not so much in that thread but several others.

 

[Agemegos]

In trying to come to grips with the eggshells comment. So I'm hearing that your posts end in ahitfeats on occasion due to unusual topics. I'll buy that. Just to be clear the eggshells are being caused by other posters reactions not the mods correct?

That is correct. I have no concerns with the mods here.

 

[Agemegos]

And didn't the people or person that made it into an issue get sanctioned for that? The intent of the rules seems to be that you should be able to make that statement here, and it's not grounds for anyone to go on a rampage.

I don't care about the rules, and I don't care about the sanctions. I think that "who is to blame?" comes close to being the most useless question that it is possible to frame in English. I care about the shitfights.

 

[Sable Wyvern]

That is correct. I have no concerns with the mods here.

It sounds to me like the whole point of this thread, and the intent of the rules, is to create an environment that is exactly what you want.

Edit: Although, based on your follow up post, I don't know. I mean, "who is at fault" is pretty critical. If one person makes an innocent statment, and someone else responds with insane vitriol, it really does matter which of the two is at fault.

It sounds like your complaint is that trouble-makers exist?

 

[Bunch]

That is correct. I have no concerns with the mods here.

Ok now I understand. That makes a ton more sense to me.

 

[CRKrueger]

GMs saying that they would like to tweak a canon so that their players don't have to put up with a sexist society in the game.

At this point, boy, do I wish that's what they actually said.

Keep in mind though, this thread isn't about you. This same discussion about what No Politics means, the "No Political" is Political, what do we want to allow, what does our goal cost us, etc. all of it, happens like once a year and it's been quite a while since the last one.

If you want to talk about one of those three topics, start a private conversation. Ask if people want to talk about these, and if so, add them to the conversation. If it turns shitty, drop out. I have conversations all the time.

If you think there would be interest on a topic, go ahead and pitch a moderator about creating a [Mod] Topic where the refs have tighter tolerances.

There's also the Discord, not actually sure what the rules are there.

Lots of avenues to still interact with Pubbers about things you want to talk about.

 

[Agemegos]

It sounds like your complaint is that trouble-makers exist?

I guess so.

There's nothing we're going to be able to do about that.

 

[Bunch]

I don't care about the rules, and I don't care about the sanctions. I think that "who is to blame?" comes close to being the most useless question that it is possible to frame in English. I care about the shitfights.

This agree. Shitfights suck the mood out of a place. It's like going on a date and hearing the people at table 12 are breaking up. Well there goes the evening.

 

[TristramEvans]

I guess so.

There's nothing we're going to be able to do about that.

To an extent. Once the purity tests start, they never stop, but overall the Pub's populace tends to be pretty chill most of the time. I'd hope people would view the events in that thread as an abberation rather than par for the course here.

 

[Sable Wyvern]

I guess so.

There's nothing we're going to be able to do about that.

I suspect the difference is that I'm just happy that this place is already so much bettet than most, whereas you have a lower tolerance for conflict and want it to be signficantly better than it already is. Yours is an excellent position, other than that it seems to be causing you signficiant stress that problems beyond your control aren't being fixed.

I apologise that you felt my original comment in this thread was directed at you, because based on your position as it now appears to me, it actually seems you are exactly the opposite of the sort of person it was really meant for.

 

[Luca]

And they are even older than that: I remember some of them from rec.games.frp.advocacy in the early Nineties.

Today is September 10487, 1993.

 

[PolarBlues]

I've genuinely been curious what Narrative vs. Tradtional Role playing is, but it's hard to find out when every conversation involving it turns into a dumpster fire. Do people argue over different styles of play? Like Vampire Rpg's vs. Fantasy?

It is rumoured that discussions over different editions of D&D can, on occasion, turn a tad unfriendly.

 

[PolarBlues]

It is essentially arguing over ice cream flavors. Or maybe arguing over gelato versus ice cream. Or cone versus bowl.

I suspect what might bring out the aggression isn't just two people realising they have different tastes in ice cream, but rather the concern that a more general shift in ice cream preferences may, in turn, make one's favourite flavour harder to find in supermarkets and dilute one's relationship with frozen deserts in general.

Or maybe it just people and the Internet.

 

[Stumpydave]

For me, the issue isn't so much the various -isms in game settings or media. Not every fantasy race is coded to refer to an ethnic minority, not every conspiracy is anti-semitic. If you look for evidence of -ism hard enough you're bound to find it, but sometimes a fish is just a fish.

The bigger issue when posters state "no politics" is a political statement and start using terms like "dog whistles", "privilege" or "unconcious bias". Effectively accusing people of 'badwrongthink' either surreptitiously ("You horrible -ist!") or unconsciously ("You're so -ist, you don't even know it!").

I reiterate a point I've made (probably badly) before. It's ok to have these things in our what we play, read and watch. Just don't bring it into the real world.



(As to those people 'triggered' by certain topics - I don't have an answer for that beyond the unhelpful 'Bloody Millenials/Gen Zeds!' Sorry)

 

[TristramEvans]

Let's drop this tangent (the last two pages removed)

Agemegos - I don't think there's anything else the staff can say to reassure you, we all end up self-censoring ourselves here to one extent or another, but we hope you'll stick around regardless.

For everyone else, let's get this thread back on track to the issue at hand. Endless opened this topic for a specific reason and this is a chance for anyone here to influence the way the forum is run going forward.

 

[Ynas Midgard]

Even though I rarely post here, I have found immense pleasure in just following along civil discussion of various topics (even before I actually registered), both theoretical and practical, and a lot of it has to do with the specific culture The Pub has cultivated — chiefly, it's the rough-and-tumble style of posting (which I find reassuringly friendly, as this is largely how I interact with family and friends, only possible because we know that we're not out to actually hurt each other) and the "no politics" rule. I have a guilty pleasure of diving deep into the shit hole of online politicking (strictly as an observer only!), but when I want to talk (or read) about gaming, I mean gaming, and not gaming politics — and The Pub has been delivering so far.

 

[TJS]

One thing I will say about the no politics rules. I think it does more than just avoid heated topics.

I think it also keeps away from the forum people who have a tendency to make discussion on any topic unpleasant.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I suspect what might bring out the aggression isn't just two people realising they have different tastes in ice cream, but rather the concern that a more general shift in ice cream preferences may, in turn, make one's favourite flavour harder to find in supermarkets and dilute one's relationship with frozen deserts in general.

Or maybe it just people and the Internet.

I think that underlies most flame wars. Sometimes it is true (in D&D edition flamewars, there could only be one edition at a time, and not that the editions were determined by the flame wars, but there was a zero sum game behind those arguments). I think with these style arguments for the hobby as a whole though, this is less true, especially now. With everyone, making every kind of game, it isn't like the styles won't see published support (and if your style ceases to see published support, the bar to entry is so low, one can always put out material for their preferred style)

 

[Nobby-W]

I am afraid of getting embroiled in a nasty, vicious brawl.

Mostly, I deal with this stuff by just not taking the bait. Usually when I do I end up feeling it was a waste of time afterwards. Haters gonna hate, and usually when they start shit talking they're either in an echo chamber where there's not point hanging out, or they're going to look idiots without your help anyway. It's the old argument about wrestling with a pig: You get covered in shit, and the pig enjoys it.

 

[Torque2100]

One thing I will say about the no politics rules. I think it does more than just avoid heated topics.

I think it also keeps away from the forum people who have a tendency to make discussion on any topic unpleasant.

As I said previously, this is precisely the point. So much online discourse is dominated by people who argue in bad faith, who use toxic and abusive tactics like Motte and Bailey, Double-Bind, Strawmanning, Guilt by Association, etc etc etc.

Declaring hot button political topics off limits is the best way to make a community unappealing to said bad actors and stop communities from degenerating like TBP and Enworld did.

 

[PolarBlues]

I think that underlies most flame wars. Sometimes it is true (in D&D edition flamewars, there could only be one edition at a time, and not that the editions were determined by the flame wars, but there was a zero sum game behind those arguments). I think with these style arguments for the hobby as a whole though, this is less true, especially now. With everyone, making every kind of game, it isn't like the styles won't see published support (and if your style ceases to see published support, the bar to entry is so low, one can always put out material for their preferred style)

Sure the old games don't go away, but perhaps one can see it as increased competition for players, games on offer or even general attention.

 

[JAMUMU]

Hey Pubbers

Sorry, it did seem like I was rage-quitting the pub, but I actually meant the thread. I hit the log-out button for the first time (in a fit of Eurovision-drunken pique), then couldn't remember my password or which throwaway email I'd used for the account. Sorted it now, though.

And I'm sorry if using the word misogyny was a little too hot-button topic. "Sexism" would have been a better word, but Prosecco emboldens my vocabulary. I wasn't attempting to stir up a pot of trouble, rather I was just answering the OP's question. Also, I was careful to say "Westeros" rather than ASOIAF as a whole, or GRR Martin as a person, but I don't want to re-ignite any arguments.

I do very much enjoy the board's culture, and I think that the general "no politics" rule is very much a part of that. Of course it's hard to discuss cultural products without sometimes - and often without intent - stepping a toe over that line. The mods here do a fantastic job of knowing bad faith when they see it, and I think the board does lean much more toward "no politics as manners" rather than "no politics to suppress dissent".

On the other hand, certain posters have a habit of taking (a great many) things as bad faith provocations, reacting as if they've been personally slighted, then swinging into threads all guns blazing like they alone are the final arbiters of truth and justice. I don't think that's healthy for the board's culture or reputation, and not a great way to retain or attract new posters.

Anyway, I look forward to second-guessing all your personal politics based on your opinions of geese and broccoli.

 

[TJS]

Sure the old games don't go away, but perhaps one can see it as increased competition for players, games on offer or even general attention.

With D&D a lot of it is also just a fandom thing and the desire for validation.

 

[Endless Flight]

Glad to see you are still with us JAMUMU.