SJW RPG And Other Acronyms

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness is coming out again, released by Palladium Books. You know, TMNT&OS was the first Palladium game I ever played -- even before I got into Robotech. It was a Palladium game, which means the mechanics were ... ehh, but it was fun, and really - that's all that mattered at the time.

They picked perhaps one of the worst streaming groups to announce this, however -- it's a group that's veering heavily on the Right, and is definitely not LGBT friendly. I won't go into too much detail, except to say that it's enough I'm not going to back the Kickstarter, and I won't be picking up the book.

Palladium, of course, has had a history -- between calling gays and trans folk 'sexual deviants', and being fairly racist in some of their game books (RIFTS Africa being an example), there's a lot there to keep people away from Palladium if they care about that kind of thing.

In the 80s, when I was a teen?  I didn't know better.  AIDS wasn't an epidemic yet, and there wasn't much to tell you about being gay, or trans, or anything else for that matter - sex ed wasn't still way behind, and I was pretty damn naive. I didn't really know what being 'gay' meant, and had no idea what 'trans' was - didn't know what a lesbian was, and had no idea what being bisexual meant (let alone non-binary, gender fluid, or anything else for that matter). There were the odd gay jokes - but the fact was I didn't 'get' them that much, either. All I knew was being gay meant kissing people of the same sex -- and really that's about it. Adults in this day and age really have no excuse, and there's enough out there that proper sex-ed should be taught in schools.

So what's this got to do with gaming?

Let's start with something simple: there's certain communities that make people who enjoy OSR look real bad. They the kind of people who complain about people who want to allow wheelchairs in D&D (why not? They existed as far back as ancient China). They complain when women are given positions of power in games and aren't treated as cheesecake. They complain when there's 'too many' people of colour in fantasy games, or the games focus on groups that aren't your typical European White groups. They're the people who complain when a company makes a game and says 'what if Europe failed to colonize the Americas?'

They complain about SJWs 'ruining' gaming. As if allowing for the full spectrum of the human experience in gaming is, somehow, 'bad'.

These are the people who made 'the red list' -- a list of gaming companies who 'put politics into gaming' - by, you know, making gaming about more than white guys. They come up with all these excuses as to why gaming shouldn't open its doors to other groups -- that it's checking off the list, that it's taking away from real roleplaying, that it's 'SJW nonsense' or catering or whatever.

Here's the thing. Gaming's come a long, long way from its roots in the 70s. That's not a bad thing. And you can totally go old school with dungeon crawls and whatever. I like old school gaming to a certain degree -- where you have to be on your toes, where insta-death can be a thing, where you roll your attributes and hit points and there's no 'death saves' or whatever. Where a Level 1 PC group can run into a nest of 100 goblins.... to me that's fun.

However, I also think the table should be open to everyone, and the game should reflect that diversity. A campaign setting that puts you in Africa and has you deal with the different cultures and mythologies of that continent? Sure. Not a single white guy to be seen? No issue. Oh, how about black people in middle-ages Fantasy Not-Europe? Sure, why not? That's not far-fetched. Oh, there's gays? Non-binary? There's trans folk? Sure, why not? There's people missing hands, or blind, or confined to a wheelchair, and don't want to have this simply 'fixed'? Why not?

What's wrong with running the gamut, and allowing everyone to feel welcome at the table?

"Politics has no place at the gaming table."

I'm sorry, but it's always been at the gaming table. It just happened to be politics you agreed with.

Dungeons and Dragons. Had Christian Saints and had Devils and Demons named from Christian mythology. (Yeah, Baalzebub, etc? Totally mythology). They had holy knights, and cleric spells which pulled from miracles. That is political -- it puts Christianity into the game and sets it above anything else.

The vast, vast, vast majority of characters were white, and male. The women were in chainmail bikinis or were the damsels in distress needing to be rescued. And let's not forget that in AD&D 1e, women were not allowed to have more than 17 Strength.

That's political.

And the main goal in gaming? Going into other lands, slaying the natives en masse, and taking their stuff, if not outright conquering the region and setting up shop there as a ruler. The opposition? Primitive, backwards, evil creatures that breed like rabbits and who are inherently evil and the anathema of civilization.

That's political.

And these people wonder why that's called racist? They don't see the parallels? They say 'it's just fantasy' and that people are reading too much into it?

D&D, from the get-go, was a colonial RPG. Humans were the best, the majority of the characters were white, and male, there were strong Christian symbolism in the game, and you went out and crushed other civilizations who were too barbaric to live and took over their lands.

We've come a long way from that, but too often I can still see the roots. And when a game company veers away from that baseline, people scream about the company giving into SJWs or bringing politics into gaming.

It's always been there.

Those people who 'can't identify' with non-white or non-male characters in a game? How about the people who can't identify with playing white, male characters? Aren't they allowed to feel represented too?

I had the excuse in the 1980s that I didn't know better. Palladium had less of an excuse, but again 80s, not much education out there. In the modern age? There's absolutely no excuse for dealing with a gaming mentality stuck in the 80s and 70s when it comes to representation and accepting minorities and the LGBT community. Simply acknowledging these people exist and that it's okay shouldn't produce this kind of hue and cry.

That's my beef.
And if you don't want it at your table -- fine. Don't have it at your table.
But shut the fuck up about it existing, and other people wanting representation.

Just because these people don't want it doesn't mean 1) it shouldn't exist, and 2) nobody else should have it, either.

Or, on the other hand - sure, tell us. It tells us what games we shouldn't be buying - because any company that supports that kind of mentality doesn't deserve to be in the business.

The "Problem" With Diversity

Interview with Patrick Stewart:
Q: Did they hold your baldness against you?
PS: That came up at the very first press conference. A reporter asked Gene Roddenberry, "Look, you know, it doesn't make sense, you've got a bald actor playing this part. Surely, by the 24th century, they will have found the cure for male pattern baldness." And Gene Roddenberry said, "No, by the 24th century, no one will care." It was one of the nicest things that have ever been said about men like me.

In a perfect world, diversity wouldn't be an issue. It would be accepted that people can be different, and there's nothing wrong with being different. That's the goal -- that people can be different and celebrate that difference, and it wouldn't make even a ripple in society -- you could celebrate with them, or just go about your life.

But here's the problem.  It's the difference between small-c conservatives and small-l liberals, but it's a very significant difference. With conservatives, conformity gives a feeling of safety / security. The people around you are like you, hold the same values, the same interests - that's 'secure'. Small-l liberals are a bit more open to things being different - the people around you aren't always like you, and can even be different - but it doesn't trigger that insecurity as much.  Does it go away completely? Of course not - everyone has their tolerance limits.

But that security thing is the big thing.
A 'fight or flight' instinct kicks in once in awhile when a person feels threatened - so a person with a strong conservative mindset runs into something which challenges their values or mindset - which doesn't 'conform' to what they feel is 'right', they try to either retreat from it, or they attack it.

And that sucks.

And to note: You can be Liberal and still be conservative. We've got relatives like that. For example, they'll comment on a person's tattoos, or hair colour / style, or their clothing, or whatever - when it's not their business. They act Liberal in a lot of other ways - but diversity is the hard one for them to swallow. "Well, yes, black people should have equal rights, but do they have to act so black?"

And our response is 'why does it matter to you?' Should you charge rent for that living space in your head you've built for them?

The thing is, that mindset -- that feeling challenged by people not acting the way you want them to act, or looking the way you want them to look -- it's very hard to 'fix' that. Part of it is education, part of it is acclimation -- but that's only part of it.

Education is: This is who they are, this is what it means to be them.
Acclimation is: They can be themselves in public, they can celebrate their culture and lifestyle. This is normal.

The big problem is this: that doesn't get rid of it. That only quietens it down. You see that from when Trump came to power. All those people who would normally stay quiet or internalise their dislike were suddenly free to speak out and act out and push back.  It went from 'flight' to 'fight'.

There's no real cure for this, that we can think of. Education and acclimation, is all we can do. The rest is up to the individuals -- they don't have to like it (though that would be nice) but they need to accept it's normal to be different.

Artificial Intelligence

Re: AI.

I'm on the fence when it comes to AI when it comes to accessing the internet to learn. And here's where the line is for me:

-- if it is accessing paid sites, or places where you're expected to log in and/or spend money to access places, that shouldn't be on the list of things it can learn from.

-- if it is something open to the public, that anyone with eyeballs has access to... something you can read without a subscription, something you can watch (like YouTube), or similar, then I more or less consider it fair game.

Part of the 'right to be forgotten' thing in the UK came from some guy making a program which pieced together a person's identity from information available to the public. And what he was doing wasn't illegal - anyone with the time and some effort could do what his program did.

The issue: it did it TOO QUICKLY. It completely cut the time and effort that a normal human would put into searching for information on a person and putting it all together.

And the courts ruled THAT to be the problem... if a person did it on their own time and worked on it, sure, fine. The moment it became easy, it was an issue, because just anyone could do it then.

And, a part of me is seeing it reflected in the AI situation. An AI can use hundreds of thousands of bits of writing, artwork, media, whatever, and draw upon it all in an instant to do what it does. Of course, a human being can do the same thing ... but that takes time and effort, and most people don't have the skills, either.

The AI 'learns' much as we do - bits and pieces here and there, putting it together, then figuring out our own thing. Not everyone takes the time to do it well - we're not all artists. But the AI can take what it's learned, and put it to use in a flash.

It's doing what we do, but faster, and without the need for the proper skills. It's the same 'sin'.

But hasn't this always been the sin of machines? Jobs which used to require humans are being done more and more by machines, which can do it more efficiently, without requiring years of training to get to where it is. How are we for turning the clock back on that?

I get it.  People are staking their livelihood on this. But that's always been the case since the first person dropped a machine into place to replace a human being. I don't think we're ever going to go back.

And I'm worried about the litigation. Yes, there should be restrictions on where an AI can go to learn - but for me that restriction is the registration / paywall.  If it's out in the open? It's out in the open. If it's something a normal person (without registration / subscription) can access, it should have access.

Is it fair?

I don't know. The guy who wrote that program to get all the information that's publically accessible on anyone... was it fair that he could do in an instant what it would normally take days to do?

Was it fair to shut that down? When, again, anyone could do it?

And that's why I'm on the fence.

Emotion vs Reason. And I always have trouble with that, because a part of me goes 'yeah, I feel it, I can see what's at stake' and a part of me goes 'yeah, but rationally...'

And that side doesn't care about 'fair' in the emotional sense. It cares about ... consistency.  If a person can do it, a machine should be allowed to do it, too.

"But it isn't creating anything"

No, not yet it isn't. Some day, it will.  But what it's doing is adapting a bunch of information it's gained, sorting through it, and choosing the 'best' outcomes it can reason. Anyone who's spent years learning off another person's style is doing similar things. They're adding their own touches over time - their own style to it - but they learned on the backs of those before them.

AI is moving to that point, I think, and I think people don't LIKE that. But it's going to happen. A part of me feels this is the usual 'machines are taking our jobs', and the significant backlash is because it's in ART, which is the domain of 'humanity'. But if we're going to get fully cognizant AI at some point... Art isn't going to be off the table, now is it?

And what are those AI to learn from?

Gold Stars

Samantha

Warning, this post is gonna be political.

So someone I saw on Twitter has a friend. That friend voted for Trump.  That friend no longer likes Trump. That friend is straddling the line between Republican and Democrat. So far, in my books, that's a strike against him.

Said friend doesn't feel he fits into either Party. He believes in equality for everyone, love who you want to love, and so forth.  Okay, fine.  But he doesn't believe White Privilege exists. That's a heavy strike in my books.  And third, he doesn't feel like he's understood as a white person.

Holy shit.  Stop right there.

Now, the person I was watching said this guy's trying to change. And then asked, "What do you say to a white male who says he doesn't feel like he's respected anymore in society?"

Respected.

For being white.

My answer?  "Sorry, I'm trying to limit my salt intake."