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I once derailed an RPG session by starting an in-character debate about whether it was slavery to keep giant spiders chained up for silk production, given that we had objective proof they were sentient and hadn't agreed to be there, and also that as the City Watch our duty was to all sentient inhabitants of the city regardless of species. I managed to bring the debate back for multiple sessions of the campaign. It was glorious.
Did it culminate in a Spider workers revolution and the installation of the Spider Soviet Republic?
 
Did it culminate in a Spider workers revolution and the installation of the Spider Soviet Republic?
They wound up escaping and fleeing the city! The spider farmer was pretty pissed, and explaining to him that it wasn't actually the Watch's problem because the spiders hadn't actually committed an offense and as such were free to go didn't really calm the situation down much.

Unfortunately, he was also the main provider of spider silk for the city's potion industry, so then we wound up getting involved in a trade war between various organised crime elements taking advantage of the situation.
 
They wound up escaping and fleeing the city! The spider farmer was pretty pissed, and explaining to him that it wasn't actually the Watch's problem because the spiders hadn't actually committed an offense and as such were free to go didn't really calm the situation down much.

Unfortunately, he was also the main provider of spider silk for the city's potion industry, so then we wound up getting involved in a trade war between various organised crime elements taking advantage of the situation.
Did the Alchemist’s Guild hire any assassins to make sure no more City Guards got it in their head to destroy major component suppliers? :grin:
 
CRKrueger CRKrueger I also agree, but I think a rule is uncalled for. If anyone decides to talk about the rules of Stigmata, sure, why not?
And that's the first time I hear it mentioned on The Pub. If you hadn't mentioned it yourself, it might have been the the last, too:smile:.
So I'd say, let it just languish in the "undiscussed" pile with no formal rules against it:wink:.

Anyway.

It strikes me that a lot of games with organisation / faction rules - Other Dust was the first that came to mind due to being community-based, but other examples include REIGN, Mindjammer, Stars Without Number, etc - could be repurposed to be used as a "structure" for this sort of campaign. The big issue you'd probably run into is scale (The smallest possible gang would be... oh, one, I suppose) and "why does the biggest gang not simply kill all of the others", so you'd need some sort of authority group and "heat" mechanic that everyone needed to stay under, but that's a solvable problem.
I agree.
And the reason "why doesn't the biggest gang kill all the others" is quite simple: Realpolitik:wink:.
 
But now in the G2G/ HQG/ RQG era, the Lunars are more Babylonian/Achaemenid Persian, and the Orlanthi are Thracian/Achaean/Minoan, so I may have swung back to my original RQ2 stance, supporting the Orlanthi claims to the throne of Dragon Pass.
Orlanthi! Bah! Windbags!

My name is Ham. I am a goldentongue lord of Issaries. May I introduce you to my innovative distributed inverted-funnel order fulfillment process . . .

And in time it came to be known as the way of Ham, or Ham's Way.
 
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Stigmata should be considered Politics, period, and not be talked about.
Time to bite the bullet and make the hard choice.

I take your point, but if we're going down this route I think we also have to ban any designer who uses politics as a significant part of their marketing. Olivia Hill would qualify. So would Pundit. So fine, but if we're declaring Stigmata off limits (and as I've said I don't really like the game so it's no skin off my nose) then Lion & Dragon should absolutely be off limits for similiar reasons.

Precis Intermedia as well. (They're still called "Politicallly Incorrect Games" in some of their listings). That last one would be a genuine blow for me as I like their products and am keeping an active eye on some of their uncoming boardgames, but if we're going to go for a hard line on this I think we have to do so fully.
 
I take your point, but if we're going down this route I think we also have to ban any designer who uses politics as a significant part of their marketing. Olivia Hill would qualify. So would Pundit. So fine, but if we're declaring Stigmata off limits (and as I've said I don't really like the game so it's no skin off my nose) then Lion & Dragon should absolutely be off limits for similiar reasons.

Precis Intermedia as well. (They're still called "Politicallly Incorrect Games" in some of their listings). That last one would be a genuine blow for me as I like their products and am keeping an active eye on some of their uncoming boardgames, but if we're going to go for a hard line on this I think we have to do so fully.
Hmm,
Do Pundit’s games intersect with his Political RPG Punditry? FtA and Lion and Dragon don’t, I don’t have Arrows of Indra.
Does PIG release games as a means of political action? Do they even release any politically charged RPGs?
The author of Stigmata has said playing the game actually makes the world better.

You’re comparing apples and asteroids.
 
I take your point, but if we're going down this route I think we also have to ban any designer who uses politics as a significant part of their marketing. Olivia Hill would qualify. So would Pundit. So fine, but if we're declaring Stigmata off limits (and as I've said I don't really like the game so it's no skin off my nose) then Lion & Dragon should absolutely be off limits for similiar reasons.

Precis Intermedia as well. (They're still called "Politicallly Incorrect Games" in some of their listings). That last one would be a genuine blow for me as I like their products and am keeping an active eye on some of their uncoming boardgames, but if we're going to go for a hard line on this I think we have to do so fully.
BTW, we should probably go to Rules Discussion for this.
 
(Moved from this thread.)

The author of Stigmata has said playing the game actually makes the world better.
Authors say a lot of things. Doesn't mean we need to care.

Pre-emptively banning discussion of a game just because of the author's political stance or it being explicit about having been designed to incorporate them really seems like an iffy road to go down, and a solution in search of a problem. If we were going to entirely ban games with political elements then we'd have to ban discussion of a lot of other games too as a result. It's also entirely against the site's "we're all adults and we can all read the rules, we don't need to micromanage what is and isn't allowed to be discussed because you should be able to use your own judgement" ethos; there's plenty to discuss in Stigmata outside of the politics (It's heavy, heavy structuring, for example, or conceptual similarities between it and Underground) if anyone wants to.

I think the current situation, where if it became an actual problem the mods told us to stop it, and we all tried in good faith to stop it getting that way (After all, you're the one who most explicitly commented on the game's politics, rather than it's having them), works fine. If that means someone could potentially start a discussion about Myfarog's mechanics under the same justification, okay, that's free speech for you.
 
Lion and Dragon has design decisions made explicitly for political reasons, according to Pundit. This is a difficult one though, because obviously I can't provide evidence of that without quoting him. I think we need mod guidance on whether that's acceptable specifically in this thread.

CRKruger said:
Does PIG release games as a means of political action? Do they even release any politically charged RPGs?

Their original name (still up on some products) is a political statement. If a company was called "I'm With Her Games" would they be de facto political regardless of what they put out?

Again, I'm not actually arguing that we should ban discussion of either of those things; I put a L&D review up after all and like the game. I'm merely saying that we should be consistent and I don't think allowing these games and banning Sigmata from discussion is.
 
(Moved from this thread.)


Authors say a lot of things. Doesn't mean we need to care.

Pre-emptively banning discussion of a game just because of the author's political stance or it being explicit about having been designed to incorporate them really seems like an iffy road to go down, and a solution in search of a problem. If we were going to entirely ban games with political elements then we'd have to ban discussion of a lot of other games too as a result. It's also entirely against the site's "we're all adults and we can all read the rules, we don't need to micromanage what is and isn't allowed to be discussed because you should be able to use your own judgement" ethos; there's plenty to discuss in Stigmata outside of the politics (It's heavy, heavy structuring, for example, or conceptual similarities between it and Underground) if anyone wants to.

I think the current situation, where if it became an actual problem the mods told us to stop it, and we all tried in good faith to stop it getting that way (After all, you're the one who most explicitly commented on the game's politics, rather than it's having them), works fine. If that means someone could potentially start a discussion about Myfarog's mechanics under the same justification, okay, that's free speech for you.
My position on Myfarog is the same as it was three years ago when this was raised.

I think the same applies to the MYFAROG example.

If someone really wants to discuss the game's mechanics and setting, fair enough. It's not something people should be moderated for.

But why would you want to? It's notorious, not popular. I'd rather talk about games that people might actually like. (See also F.A.T.A.L)

Shouldn't be banned. I reserve the right to think anyone actually starting a thread on it is being a tiresome child.
 
alright, well, I'm going to bring the whole discussion here I think, so that thread can continue on without anyone tempted to reply


edit:...and done...due to the way that works, a few are displaced a bit, but I think we can all manage

I just got up, so give me a bit to process all this.
 
Lion and Dragon has design decisions made explicitly for political reasons, according to Pundit. This is a difficult one though, because obviously I can't provide evidence of that without quoting him. I think we need mod guidance on whether that's acceptable specifically in this thread.

Their original name (still up on some products) is a political statement. If a company was called "I'm With Her Games" would they be de facto political regardless of what they put out?

Again, I'm not actually arguing that we should ban discussion of either of those things; I put a L&D review up after all and like the game. I'm merely saying that we should be consistent and I don't think allowing these games and banning Sigmata from discussion is.
I disagree about consistency. “RPGs as political treatise” amounts to a catalog of 2. From what I’ve heard, Myfarog doesn’t even hit that bar, despite its odious subtext. Calling your company Politically Incorrect Games isn’t even in the same cosmos. If all ”I’m With Her Games” put out was Terror Network games, Arrows of Indra and Two Fisted Tales, it would be hard to see the politics, unless they made a big deal about all the proceeds going to HRC.

That’s the problem with the “Everything is Politics” fallacy. It allows you to ignore obvious overt politics by saying things like “Politically Incorrect Games is a political statement“ and draw false equivalencies.

I’m fine with confining things to game mechanics, but unfortunately, when the injection of overt politics into gaming is completely one-sided, then “No Politics“ becomes “Tacit Acceptance and Promotion” of the message Political RPGs espouse.
 
I disagree about consistency. “RPGs as political treatise” amounts to a catalog of 2. From what I’ve heard, Myfarog doesn’t even hit that bar, despite its odious subtext. Calling your company Politically Incorrect Games isn’t even in the same cosmos. If all ”I’m With Her Games” put out was Terror Network games, Arrows of Indra and Two Fisted Tales, it would be hard to see the politics, unless they made a big deal about all the proceeds going to HRC.
I find it incredibly hard to look at a game like Terror Network and think "yes, that is a game with no political agenda". Even if it's not explicitly stated, given that it's based on groups with real-world histories and paints the PC's opposed to them as "unsung heroes", it's pretty damn clear where the game stands.

That’s the problem with the “Everything is Politics” fallacy. It allows you to ignore obvious overt politics by saying things like “Politically Incorrect Games is a political statement“ and draw false equivalencies.
When the majority of people claiming "we're politically incorrect" share very similar stances and politics, if you decide that you want to brand yourself as politically incorrect, I think you can hardly complain if people assume you share those stances and politics... after all, if you saw those things as negatives, why would you want to associate yourself with them?
 
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alright, well, I'm going to bring the whole discussion here I think, so that thread can continue on without anyone tempted to reply


edit:...and done...due to the way that works, a few are displaced a bit, but I think we can all manage

I just got up, so give me a bit to process all this.
FWIW, I think most of us are on the same page: discussing a game is fine, whether it has political leanings or not, as long as we ourselves don't lapse into talking about those politics.
However, I'd also like to note that a lot of the complaining about games' politics seems to be coming from a certain side of the political spectrum, which in turn doesn't seem to have any problem discussing games "apolitically" as long as they are games that have politics they agree with. I'd like to see less of those bad-faith appeals to the "no politics" rule, as that's a perfect example of how "no politics" can be manipulated to privilege particular political POVs.
 
FWIW, I think most of us are on the same page: discussing a game is fine, whether it has political leanings or not, as long as we ourselves don't lapse into talking about those politics.

Bingo. This has always been our position. I’m not banning any games here pre-emptively, just like I don’t ban members pre-emptively based on previous history elsewhere.
 
FWIW, I think most of us are on the same page: discussing a game is fine, whether it has political leanings or not, as long as we ourselves don't lapse into talking about those politics.
However, I'd also like to note that a lot of the complaining about games' politics seems to be coming from a certain side of the political spectrum, which in turn doesn't seem to have any problem discussing games "apolitically" as long as they are games that have politics they agree with. I'd like to see less of those bad-faith appeals to the "no politics" rule, as that's a perfect example of how "no politics" can be manipulated to privilege particular political POVs.
Well, let’s not mince words then. You want to know my politics, ask me. You want to assume, well...remember what happened with Butcher and Noman.

I don’t see a hell of a lot of conservative or right wing authors bringing their politics into gaming. If there are any, let me know. I can only complain about the ones that actually exist, which are all on the left side of the scale at this point in time.

I’ll take a wild guess myself here, I‘m guessing the politics of Ladybird, Blackleaf and yourself align with the author of Stigmata more than not. Coincidence that you’re then defending the RPG against the rule of No Politics? See how that works?

It’s really convenient of people to say that they’d accept a mechanics discussion of FATAL, Myfarog or RaHoWa, when they know no one‘s going to read and analyse those games...or find any form of a Political RPG in 2020 that isn’t from a Leftist viewpoint.
 
I find it incredibly hard to look at a game like Terror Network and think "yes, that is a game with no political agenda". Even if it's not explicitly stated, given that it's based on groups with real-world histories and paints the PC's opposed to them as "unsung heroes", it's pretty damn clear where the game stands.


When the majority of people claiming "we're politically incorrect" share very similar stances and politics, if you decide that you want to brand yourself as politically incorrect, I think you can hardly complain if people assume you share those stances and politics... after all, if you saw those things as negatives, why would you want to associate yourself with them?
I guess Bill Maher shares those stances and politics, too, eh?:trigger:
So now you’re saying Brendan made a political right wing game...BRENDAN? Are you out of your goddamn mind?
 
That’s the problem with the “Everything is Politics” fallacy. It allows you to ignore obvious overt politics by saying things like “Politically Incorrect Games is a political statement“ and draw false equivalencies.
When someone makes a game that some people call politically incorrect, that doesn't necessarily suggest any political agenda on the part of the designer. When a designer declares their own game to be politically incorrect, they are banging a political drum loudly and clearly.
 
The political statements and leanings of a particular RPG author are of no concern to us because we don't talk politics here. If that author's game has political statements or leanings, we have to work around that. If we can't do that, we can't talk about the game. But as we do with everything, it's on a case by case basis. The less hard rules we have here, the better. Once you start down the dark path and all that.
 
When someone makes a game that some people call politically incorrect, that doesn't necessarily suggest any political agenda on the part of the designer. When a designer declares their own game to be politically incorrect, they are banging a political drum loudly and clearly.
We’re talking about the former name of Précis Intermedia Games, Politically Incorrect Games. You ever think they just wanted a funny name that had an acronym of PIG?

I suppose 4 Devils Studio is announcing their Satanism.
Noble Knight games is promoting crusades against Muslims.
Age of Exploration Games is touting colonialism.

How many hundred game company names do I have to list before you guys start realising how silly you sound?
 
The political statements and leanings of a particular RPG author are of no concern to us because we don't talk politics here. If that author's game has political statements or leanings, we have to work around that. If we can't do that, we can't talk about the game. But as we do with everything, it's on a case by case basis. The less hard rules we have here, the better. Once you start down the dark path and all that.
Fair enough. :thumbsup:
 
We’re talking about the former name of Précis Intermedia Games, Politically Incorrect Games. You ever think they just wanted a funny name that had an acronym of PIG?

I suppose 4 Devils Studio is announcing their Satanism.
Noble Knight games is promoting crusades against Muslims.
Age of Exploration Games is touting colonialism.

How many hundred game company names do I have to list before you guys start realising how silly you sound?

I don't think Baulderstone is referring to the names of games companies, rather games where the author goes on social media and loudly declares them to be "not PC!" or "anti-whatever"
 
My position on Myfarog is the same as it was three years ago when this was raised.

Shouldn't be banned. I reserve the right to think anyone actually starting a thread on it is being a tiresome child.


Honestly, a bunch of posters showing up to talk about Myfarog's "mechanics", stating they werent interested or completely unaware of the author's politics, was one of the contributing factors to me leaving The Site.
 
I don't think Baulderstone is referring to the names of games companies, rather games where the author goes on social media and loudly declares them to be "not PC!" or "anti-whatever"
Which we weren’t talking about...unless he was alluding to Pundit, which from Lion and Dragon’s perspective, “not-PC” means a look at Medievalism without injecting modern culture war politics. If we’re at the Bizarro World idea that “not injecting politics” is making a political statement, the The Pub is the most political gaming site on the web, which we all know is pants-on-head crazy.
 
That’s the problem with the “Everything is Politics” fallacy. It allows you to ignore obvious overt politics by saying things like “Politically Incorrect Games is a political statement“ and draw false equivalencies.

On what grounds are you claiming the term "political correctness" (which this is obviously a reference to) isn't a political statement? It's been a political term since its inception, although which side of the spectrum use it has varied.

I’m fine with confining things to game mechanics, but unfortunately, when the injection of overt politics into gaming is completely one-sided, then “No Politics“ becomes “Tacit Acceptance and Promotion” of the message Political RPGs espouse.

Ok, it looks like I'm going to need to do evidence on this, but I'll keep it in this thread and won't be discussing the rights or wrongs of any of the statements. I merely use them to prove that a) direct political statements have been made by the designer of Lion & Dragon and b) that those statements have directly informed the design of Lion & Dragon. (Although quite honestly I don't think you can separate how a RPG is marketed from the RPG anyway when it comes to this, although I can understand why you prefer to for the purposes of debate).

Note that this is all from "Lion and Dragon AMA", not from unrelated posts on the forum. And I've only quoted Pundit, as we can't assume other posters are representative of his design process.

So, it's been a while since I did a thread about L&D, so I figured I do another 'ask me anything' thread, particularly for newer members. But really anyone can feel free to ask what they'd like about the game.

So, go ahead! If anyone has questions related to Lion & Dragon, Dark Albion, Cults of Chaos, or any of the Medieval-Authentic RPGPundit Presents material, I'll try to answer.

Clarification that this thread is specifically about those games/supplements and all answers are related to them.

if I do another big book for L&D, that will probably be it. For making the SJWs go spastic, but also because it's an incredibly rich setting material.

In response to a question about the Crusades as a future supplement. Here Pundit expressly confirms that politics is part of the decision process when considering what supplements to put out.

The fact is, in Dark Albion, the church is the medieval catholic church with a singular name change. And the reason for that was that in my experience there are so many players with such a fucked-up view of Christianity that they just can't bring themselves to suspend those biases in historical play. They jump in with all their prejudices and end up warping their whole character's perspectives; but if you change "jesus" for "sol invictus" suddenly all that vanishes as if by magic

I mean you can argue that's theological not political, but it's still pretty clearly a statement with strong political implications in the real world.

It’s really convenient of people to say that they’d accept a mechanics discussion of FATAL, Myfarog or RaHoWa, when they know no one‘s going to read and analyse those games...or find any form of a Political RPG in 2020 that isn’t from a Leftist viewpoint.
I mostly talk about older games anyway but I'm fine with any discussion of, say, Space Opera. And that game has explicit political statements in its rulebook.

But really, that's not where the disagreement lies. Again, it comes back to whether a designer talking about their game to promote its sales and using politics to do so counts as part of the game for the purposes of its discussion. And you seem to want to exclude it, partly because not doing so would suddenly mean that games you'd rather were open for discussion ceased to be so.
 
I'd just like to point out that it's entirely possible this argument was the ultimate purpose of the original thread, and the OP was low-key trolling The Pub (as they've done before...)
 
I’ll take a wild guess myself here, I‘m guessing the politics of Ladybird, Blackleaf and yourself align with the author of Stigmata more than not. Coincidence that you’re then defending the RPG against the rule of No Politics? See how that works?

It’s really convenient of people to say that they’d accept a mechanics discussion of FATAL, Myfarog or RaHoWa, when they know no one‘s going to read and analyse those games...or find any form of a Political RPG in 2020 that isn’t from a Leftist viewpoint.
It probably wouldn't be too hard to work out where I stand, no (I mean, when one side wants me dead due to a quirk of my birth, they probably don't want me anyway), but that's genuinely Not It. It's absolutely about free speech; if someone wants to take a particular stance or discuss a certain topic, fine, but they can hardly complain when others take a stance in relation to that (And sometimes that stance is going to be from the owners of the space and be "nope, not here, not in our space"). If someone wants to discuss the mechanics of MYFAROG, fine, but like A Fiery Flying Roll Black Leaf said...

Shouldn't be banned. I reserve the right to think anyone actually starting a thread on it is being a tiresome child.

The system works.

Hell, there's a discussion currently ongoing about a game with a political stance I oppose by an author with a political stance I oppose. So I just... don't read that thread. Going on a tirade against it feels like something from the other sITEs and I really can't be bothered to be honest.

I don’t see a hell of a lot of conservative or right wing authors bringing their politics into gaming. If there are any, let me know. I can only complain about the ones that actually exist, which are all on the left side of the scale at this point in time.
Off the top of my head Wade Dyer, author of the Fragged Empire series of games, is openly right-wing and has stated as such on r p g dot net, and I believe I've specifically recommended Fragged Empire in the past for someone wanting a game with a crunchy sort of combat engine. But if there are very few other right-wing authors producing games that I'm interested in discussing... I think I can hardly take any of the blame for that.
 
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Which we weren’t talking about...unless he was alluding to Pundit, which from Lion and Dragon’s perspective, “not-PC” means a look at Medievalism without injecting modern culture war politics. If we’re at the Bizarro World idea that “not injecting politics” is making a political statement, the The Pub is the most political gaming site on the web, which we all know is pants-on-head crazy.
In Pundit's case it means that Lion & Dragon is being marketed like this -

Do you want to explain how that isn't specifically injecting modern culture war politics into the game?
 
Let's not talk about Pundit any more than we have to unless he actually comes here and posts. Please keep it focused on the discussion of the rules here at the Pub.
Fair. I think I've made the point there anyway; we already are fine with RPGs made by designers with explicitly political goals and marketing techniques.
 
On what grounds are you claiming the term "political correctness" (which this is obviously a reference to) isn't a political statement? It's been a political term since its inception, although which side of the spectrum use it has varied.



Ok, it looks like I'm going to need to do evidence on this, but I'll keep it in this thread and won't be discussing the rights or wrongs of any of the statements. I merely use them to prove that a) direct political statements have been made by the designer of Lion & Dragon and b) that those statements have directly informed the design of Lion & Dragon. (Although quite honestly I don't think you can separate how a RPG is marketed from the RPG anyway when it comes to this, although I can understand why you prefer to for the purposes of debate).

Note that this is all from "Lion and Dragon AMA", not from unrelated posts on the forum. And I've only quoted Pundit, as we can't assume other posters are representative of his design process.



Clarification that this thread is specifically about those games/supplements and all answers are related to them.



In response to a question about the Crusades as a future supplement. Here Pundit expressly confirms that politics is part of the decision process when considering what supplements to put out.



I mean you can argue that's theological not political, but it's still pretty clearly a statement with strong political implications in the real world.


I mostly talk about older games anyway but I'm fine with any discussion of, say, Space Opera. And that game has explicit political statements in its rulebook.

But really, that's not where the disagreement lies. Again, it comes back to whether a designer talking about their game to promote its sales and using politics to do so counts as part of the game for the purposes of its discussion. And you seem to want to exclude it, partly because not doing so would suddenly mean that games you'd rather were open for discussion ceased to be so.
So...let me get this straight...

Pundit replacing Christ with Sol Invictus as a medieval religion because he says modern gamers are too ignorant of and prejudiced against Catholicism...and
Brett coming up with a catchy name and funny acronym for his game...

Are to you the same thing as a guy writing an RPG that he sees as an actual instructional tool on how to defeat his definition of fascism?
And you’re accusing me of letting my political bias cloud my arguments? Jesus Wept, I not only lost this ironymeter, the next 100 I will buy have been erased from the future.

Pundit’s not injecting any culture war politics INTO THE GAME, he’s virtue signaling to the anti-SJW crowd as marketing, the same way Fox virtue signals to the SJW crowd (and everyone else he can think of) as marketing.

Anyway, I think we’re done here. Endless Flight has made his call, so mechanics only for any games with political baggage. The rest is just a perfect example of why you don’t allow politics...or claim not to.
 
The other analogy I think is probably the previous discussion of Christian RPGs. That strikes me as the model to follow here. We're talking about games with explicit evangelical aims in many cases. But we seemed fine discussing the games themselves, with the mods occasionally stomping on people trying to argue about religion outside of this.
 
I'm ruminating on an overall reply to this topic still, but one thing I've seen crop up that I'd like to put a stop to is the pernicious idea that there are Two Sides here - there are hundreds of sides, and each poster here at the Pub is an individual with their own opinions, and not under any obligation to or should be assumed to hold the stereotypical or extremist positions of a group because they either share one opinion with that group or disagree with one position of an opposing group. I really just don't want there to be this unspoken division formed on The Pub that casts our posters into a dualistic tribal framework. We're all Pubbers.
 
I'm ruminating on an overall reply to this topic still, but one idea I've seen crop up that I'd like to put a stop to is the pernicious idea that there are Two Sides here - there are hundreds of sides, and each poster here at the Pub is an individual with their own opinions, and not under any obligation to or should be assumed to hold the stereotypical or extremist positions of a group because they either share one opinion with that group or disagree with one position of an opposing group. I really just don't want there to be this unspoken division formed on The Pub that casts our posters into a dualistic tribal framework. We're all Pubbers.
Yeah, I'm sure this is the norm rather than something that makes me exceptional but I'm pretty sure which pigeonhole I'd be stuck into depends on what issue someone asked me about.
 
I'm ruminating on an overall reply to this topic still, but one thing I've seen crop up that I'd like to put a stop to is the pernicious idea that there are Two Sides here - there are hundreds of sides, and each poster here at the Pub is an individual with their own opinions, and not under any obligation to or should be assumed to hold the stereotypical or extremist positions of a group because they either share one opinion with that group or disagree with one position of an opposing group. I really just don't want there to be this unspoken division formed on The Pub that casts our posters into a dualistic tribal framework. We're all Pubbers.
Kind of surprising you need to bring it up based on the recent Noman event. He was an ex-cop who was against police brutality and corruption who supported BLM yet was practically called a racist because he thought the way the Bundle was being handled broke the No Politics rule due to its overt nature.

When you design your RPG as an actual indoctrinational tool and Political Treatise all in one and make no qualms about it, you’ve pretty much taken a big damn jump over that No Politics line.

But, I have to admit, you can talk about the mechanics of the game without getting into what the author has said about the game.
But, we all know that RPGs specifically designed as politics are going to be coming from one side only, so simply accepting those (and there will be more) as not violating the No Politics rule is endorsement, as several people brought up during Bundlegate.
 
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