Right wing nuts thread (1 Viewer)

[DaveXA]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but we need a thread for the wing nuts. Lauren Boebert.

 

[SamAndreas]

D&D’s 50th anniversary, The Making of Original D&D, referred to “derogatory language” and “cultural appropriation” in the 1974 version, prompting Elon Musk to urge Hasbro, the owner of WOTC, to “burn in hell”.

50 years ago, wow, has it been that long.

I played Dungeons and Dragons with dorm friends when I was a freshman in college and it was a new thing.

All this talk about people owning it, and, tabletop rule books and things... ... . What happened???

Back then we had things in our tunnels and dungeons too, Things like 4x4 blocks of wood, and steam pipes. Under that campus was an amazing maze of steam pipe tunnels. One could travel down there for about a mile. And there were neat chambers which we called dungeons.

Most of the steam pipes were jacketed with insulation. Where it had fallen off, we'd call those bare hot spots, dragons.

Don't touch the dragons. They would actually burn one pretty good, or bad, if one touched one.

We found a secret way into the dorm kitchen from the tunnels, so we had snacks in our dungeons, with our dragons.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

50 years ago, wow, has it been that long.

I played Dungeons and Dragons with dorm friends when I was a freshman in college and it was a new thing.

All this talk about people owning it, and, tabletop rule books and things... ... . What happened???

Back then we had things in our tunnels and dungeons too, Things like 4x4 blocks of wood, and steam pipes. Under that campus was an amazing maze of steam pipe tunnels. One could travel down there for about a mile. And there were neat chambers which we called dungeons.

Most of the steam pipes were jacketed with insulation. Where it had fallen off, we'd call those bare hot spots, dragons.

Don't touch the dragons. They would actually burn one pretty good, or bad, if one touched one.

We found a secret way into the dorm kitchen from the tunnels, so we had snacks in our dungeons, with our dragons.

Mountain Dew and Funyons, I hope.

 

[bird]

As always the tiniest bit of diversity and sensitivity to diversity leads to a “rightwing backlash”
===============


“My first Dungeon Master was an anti-racist skinhead,” Jeremy Cobb says of his introduction to the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.

For Cobb, a 32-year-old actor, one of the joys of D&D is that it unites nonconformists – “the nerds who didn’t want to play sports”, as he puts it.

Despite that, efforts to draw back from stereotypes and give the orcs, elves, and dwarves who populate its fantasy world a little more individuality have provoked a rightwing backlash.

“For me, overall, from the creative side, the game is doing better than ever,” says Cobb, who started playing in 2018 and is now a professional Dungeon Master (or referee/narrator). “But from the business side, fan relationship side and culture war side? No, not really.”

The latest controversy involves the new rulebook for the game, in which “races” of characters have been renamed “species” and they no longer have specific attributes. Previously, orcs were labelled as savage, dwarves as strong, and elves as perceptive.

Announcing the changes, the D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) said “race is a problematic term that has prejudiced links between real world people and the fantasy peoples of D&D Worlds”.

But critics have complained that attempts to make the game more inclusive will make it less fun, with some social media users complaining of “wokeism personified” and “inclusive oblivion”.

The foreword to a book to commemorate D&D’s 50th anniversary, The Making of Original D&D, referred to “derogatory language” and “cultural appropriation” in the 1974 version, prompting Elon Musk to urge Hasbro, the owner of WOTC, to “burn in hell”.

Writing in Wargamer – a site dedicated to tabletop games and wargaming – the writer Timothy Linward conceded that D&D’s earliest version of orcs as “a simple violent threat to civilisation that needed to be pacified by brave adventurers” had “unfortunately echoed stereotypes used against tribal and indigenous subcultures”, but argued that the game’s “core fantasy relies on the existence of uncomplicated baddies”.


“Dungeons & Dragons “– considered purely as a rule system – is not a game about creating intercultural harmony in a multiracial community”, he said.

Cobb, of the podcast 3 Black Halflings, which explores diversity in D&D and pop culture, welcomed the rule changes, saying they make the game more “customisable, open and friendly … it’s easier for people to come in and build a character”.

He sees two issues in the background of D&D’s “culture war” – an old guard of players unsettled by a more diverse wave of fans attracted by the boom in online content and D&D featuring in Stranger Things, and lingering tensions between the game’s publishers and fans over previous, unconnected attempts to maximise profits from the game.

Welcoming the dropping of the term “races” as a positive change – although he would have preferred “lineage” to “species” – Cobb, who grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to the UK, said: “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having an individual character who behaves brutally – but when you start painting a particular race that way, you’re inevitably going to draw on real world stereotypes.”………

Orcs, elves and culture wars: how diversity in D&D met a rightwing backlash

Some complained of ‘wokeism’ when the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons dropped ‘races’ in favour of ‘species’

www.theguardian.com

Never played D&D. Had zero interest. When I was in high school the other kids were reading Tolkien while I was reading Heinlein. I can understand why some play(ed) D&D but it just held no interest for me.