List of woke and non-woke role-playing games

[rusty_shackleford]

I was alive and playing D&D at the time of "the satanic panic" and can tell you that the older (Silent Generation and older Boomers) right wing christians of that era were absolutely unhinged about everything at that time.
It wasn't just D&D, music, movies, and TV. They were calling everything satanically influenced. McDonalds, the local daycare, skateboarding, it didn't matter because there was always some nutcase preacher condemning it.
While soliciting donations, of course.

Have you looked at society lately and considered they might have been right tho?

Oh, of course. They were wrong in every analysis, motivation, and detail, but the rise of non-supernaturally driven evil is plain to see.
That's the funny/ironic part. Their religion blinded them to the people (some of them, anyway) orchestrating their ruin.
Israeli Jews were the one group I never heard them call satanic. And yet, it may have been the most appropriate of all.
"There is no cause so righteous that you will not find knaves and fools enthusiastically supporting it."

but how do you know it's not supernatural?

[Rand]

Have you looked at society lately and considered they might have been right tho?

Oh, of course. They were wrong in every analysis, motivation, and detail, but the rise of non-supernaturally driven evil is plain to see.
That's the funny/ironic part. Their religion blinded them to the people (some of them, anyway) orchestrating their ruin.
Israeli Jews were the one group I never heard them call satanic. And yet, it may have been the most appropriate of all.
"There is no cause so righteous that you will not find knaves and fools enthusiastically supporting it."

but how do you know it's not supernatural?

Because I have never seen valid or believable evidence for any of the supernatural claims ever made.
Although I have seen countless attempts. All were unconvincing and/or shown to be fraudulent or just confused.
This is getting way off forum topic, anyway.

[rusty_shackleford]

Because I have never seen valid or believable evidence for any of the supernatural claims ever made.
Although I have seen countless attempts. All were unconvincing and/or shown to be fraudulent or just confused.

And how many rational liberals accurately predicted that reading harry potter would create an entire generation of, for lack of a better term, "witches" —- compared to the number that mocked them?
Because they were right, you know. Tumblrinas were absolutely obsessed with harry potter.

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't mind me tho, I'm just saying the guys who are being mocked tended be right about a lot more things than the guys mocking them, especially consider the latter now believe that a man in a dress is a woman.

[gerey]

Tumblrinas were absolutely obsessed with harry potter.

If only they had spent less time fantasizing about relationships between underage boys and more time questioning why Rowling had all the magical bankers look as they do.

[Cmdr Shepard]

Don't mind me tho, I'm just saying the guys who are being mocked tended be right about a lot more things than the guys mocking them, especially consider the latter now believe that a man in a dress is a woman.

That is usually how it goes. I mean even movies and games do it. Some "nutjob" says stuff at the beginning and no one takes him serious until it actually happens.

[Acrux]

I actually disagree with this, fwiw

there is little mention of such a type in mythology or fantasy literature, so we do not have a solid role-model.

An obvious example pops out at me: Mordred.


But this is closer to something akin to a fallen paladin, Mordred is a tragic figure of circumstances, not inherently evil. And I assume Gygax would have made a similar counterargument that he wasn't an "anti-paladin" but merely a fallen paladin.

That was the immediate thing I thought of as well. I guess it's difficult to determine a strong difference between a "fallen paladin" and an antipaladin. I suppose the first is just someone who has fallen from the order, while an antipaladin takes the extra step to dedicate his life to evil? I think you could argue that Ganelon, Guy of Gisbourne (in later stories), and Darth Vader also fit.

[Acrux]

Oh, of course. They were wrong in every analysis, motivation, and detail, but the rise of non-supernaturally driven evil is plain to see.
That's the funny/ironic part. Their religion blinded them to the people (some of them, anyway) orchestrating their ruin.
Israeli Jews were the one group I never heard them call satanic. And yet, it may have been the most appropriate of all.
"There is no cause so righteous that you will not find knaves and fools enthusiastically supporting it."

but how do you know it's not supernatural?

Because I have never seen valid or believable evidence for any of the supernatural claims ever made.
Although I have seen countless attempts. All were unconvincing and/or shown to be fraudulent or just confused.
This is getting way off forum topic, anyway.

When you a priori decide that a category cannot exist, of course your measuring instrument will not be able to detect it.

[UltraFan123]

I would say a way to differentiate them would be if the guy was a paladin from the beginning but later fell from grace in contrast to someone who for whatever reason wanted to be an "evil paladin" from the start.

[ArcaneLurker]

Don't mind me tho, I'm just saying the guys who are being mocked tended be right about a lot more things than the guys mocking them, especially consider the latter now believe that a man in a dress is a woman.

That is usually how it goes. I mean even movies and games do it. Some "nutjob" says stuff at the beginning and no one takes him serious until it actually happens.

Even then, they are taken for a nutjob because they couldn't convey a rational concern, or logically cohesive theory. It's also like the boy who cried wolf, it's something they repeat all too often.

All the Illuminati shit must have had some truth to it, but it's funny how you never heard Illuminati conspiracy theorists talk about Jews. They were simply lead by the nose to follow the crumbs of symbols laid out in media, and that's as far as their thinking took them.

[OnTilt]

Even then, they are taken for a nutjob because they couldn't convey a rational concern, or logically cohesive theory.

That's the limitation of materialists though -- everything has to fit in the box. Matters of spiritualism aren't strictly logical.

I'm not saying that I agree with everything the satanic panic 'movement' was on about, but they clearly recognized the spirit of the direction things were going in.

[ArcaneLurker]

Even then, they are taken for a nutjob because they couldn't convey a rational concern, or logically cohesive theory.

That's the limitation of materialists though -- everything has to fit in the box. Matters of spiritualism aren't strictly logical.

I'm not saying that I agree with everything the satanic panic 'movement' was on about, but they clearly recognized the spirit of the direction things were going in.

Don't pretend as if they 'spiritually' discovered it or perceived it, like some kind of seer or psychic.
It's more likely that they were lead towards that, but pointing in all the wrong directions, and every attempt was made to fuel hysteria, only to get the pendulum to swing the opposite way, right back at them.
Being blind to the source, renders the warnings moot.

Spiritualism is only passed on through tradition, and the traditions that were passed on to me, were globohomo, Jew-loving protestant bullshit.
So if I wasn't a materialist, I wouldn't have realised the truth of many things.

And yes, everything fits into a box. That's how we can make predictions based on observations. And there is no truth without logic, because we should all know, if a statement contradicts itself, it can't be true.
If the supernatural exists. That, too, would have to be sorted into 'boxes'.
The 'laws of physics' that define our world may not be the same as a world that exists outside of ours, but there would still be 'laws' of some kind.
To prioritise superstitions over building a coherent, logical understanding, is what leads to Voodoo Shaman nigger shit.

And it makes far less sense to #believeallpastors, or believe something is automatically true, without evidence, than trying to find evidence of something that you have decided doesn't exist, because there hasn't been sufficient evidence found.

[Rand]

Because I have never seen valid or believable evidence for any of the supernatural claims ever made.
Although I have seen countless attempts. All were unconvincing and/or shown to be fraudulent or just confused.

And how many rational liberals accurately predicted that reading harry potter would create an entire generation of, for lack of a better term, "witches" —- compared to the number that mocked them?
Because they were right, you know. Tumblrinas were absolutely obsessed with harry potter.

Bullshit. You don't need Harry Potter for that.
We had edgebitches doing witchcraft nonsense when I was in high school in the 80s, and I heard about the same nonsense in the 70s as well.

[Rand]

Don't mind me tho, I'm just saying the guys who are being mocked tended be right about a lot more things than the guys mocking them, especially consider the latter now believe that a man in a dress is a woman.

The funny part about that is if you ask the right questions, even those weirdos admit that they don't think of them as women.
It's a cult. You know what you're supposed to say and you do because belonging and showing allegiance is more important than the truth.
Most human groups do the same thing to some degree.

[Rand]

but how do you know it's not supernatural?

Because I have never seen valid or believable evidence for any of the supernatural claims ever made.
Although I have seen countless attempts. All were unconvincing and/or shown to be fraudulent or just confused.
This is getting way off forum topic, anyway.

When you a priori decide that a category cannot exist, of course your measuring instrument will not be able to detect it.

Don't accuse me of that which you probably do yourself. People can think differently using different methods. I find religious believers have the strongest preconceptive thinking immune to reason and evidence.
If there were decent evidence, I wouldn't dismiss it. However it would need to pass very serious scrutiny.
The problem is that when ALL the previous evidence turns out to be: not evidence, bad reasoning, lies, and craziness, it naturally makes the standard for belief increase as a result.

For example, I doubt you think squirrels are the secret masters of the world. You've seen not only no evidence of this, but good evidence that it's probably not the case.
However, if a squirrel wrote a legible note to you, in person, telling you of the squirrel conspiracy, all the earlier squirrel behavior would now be questionable evidence.
As would the derelict you heard a month ago raving about it on the streetcorner, which you naturally dismissed.
And yet, the standard for believing something so at odds with your experience is so high, you would first suspect your senses being wrong, then some sort of trained animal, then Elon putting brain chips in a squirrel before you could take it at face value.
It would take a long time and a lot of evidence to get past your reasonable suspicions, since the proposition is so out of order with the good evidence to the contrary you already have.

[OnTilt]

Don't pretend as if they 'spiritually' discovered it or perceived it, like some kind of seer or psychic.
It's more likely that they were lead towards that, but pointing in all the wrong directions, and every attempt was made to fuel hysteria, only to get the pendulum to swing the opposite way, right back at them.
Being blind to the source, renders the warnings moot.

You don't have to be a seer or psychic to have discernment, nor is it necessary to understand on a logical level the precise nature of a threat to know that a threat is present and active. I actually agree that they went in all the wrong directions with it. When logic is insufficient but a problem can nonetheless be intuited most people tend to react with emotionalism. This is easy to manipulate, sure, but that doesn't invalidate the fact that they did correctly intuit/discern/whathaveyou a threat -- and yes it was in fact satanic.

Spiritualism is only passed on through tradition, and the traditions that were passed on to me, were globohomo, Jew-loving protestant bullshit.
So if I wasn't a materialist, I wouldn't have realised the truth of many things.

I am not a materialists, and yet I came to most of the same conclusions as yourself despite my starting place being the same globohomo inculcation. The traditions that were passed to you were incorrect, but you threw the baby out with the bath water.

This does make me wonder what your moral justification is, I assume it would have to be some form of relativistic utilitarianism.

And yes, everything fits into a box. That's how we can make predictions based on observations. And there is no truth without logic, because we should all know, if a statement contradicts itself, it can't be true.
If the supernatural exists. That, too, would have to be sorted into 'boxes'.
The 'laws of physics' that define our world may not be the same as a world that exists outside of ours, but there would still be 'laws' of some kind.
To prioritise superstitions over building a coherent, logical understanding, is what leads to Voodoo Shaman nigger shit.

This all presumes that the human mind (and implicitly your mind) is capable of understanding everything, in it's entirety. Anything that isn't able to be rationalized by it simply doesn't exist. You should be able to see the fallacy in that.

And it makes far less sense to #believeallpastors, or believe something is automatically true, without evidence, than trying to find evidence of something that you have decided doesn't exist, because there hasn't been sufficient evidence found.

I don't believe anything without evidence. I just don't rely solely on empirical evidence, since I'm not busy denying half of reality.

[logincrash]

The barrel on that rifle would look like an exploded cartoon cigar after the first shot. The ring should've been destroyed if the DM had any balls to stand up for himself or if he even existed.

[WhiteShark]

The barrel on that rifle would look like an exploded cartoon cigar after the first shot. The ring should've been destroyed if the DM had any balls to stand up for himself or if he even existed.

But the player rolled a natural 20!!!

[Acrux]

The barrel on that rifle would look like an exploded cartoon cigar after the first shot. The ring should've been destroyed if the DM had any balls to stand up for himself or if he even existed.

But the player rolled a natural 20!!!

I roll to jump to the moon...

...20! Too bad for you, DM.

[A Chinese opium den]

Looks like D&D became shit long time ago, how interesting.

There was this jewish plot against Gary Gygax in 1985...



The rest is History.

Six million dollars lol.

[OnTilt]

Looks like D&D became shit long time ago, how interesting.

There was this jewish plot against Gary Gygax in 1985...




The rest is History.

Six million dollars lol.

IIRC the number 6,000,00 has some particular meaning in gematria, which is the reason they use it so often in their schemes.

[A Chinese opium den]

There was this jewish plot against Gary Gygax in 1985...




The rest is History.

Six million dollars lol.

IIRC the number 6,000,00 has some particular meaning in gematria, which is the reason they use it so often in their schemes.

I liked how you inserted the reply into the original text, felt very conspiratorial and jewish. You should change it back

[gerey]

The barrel on that rifle would look like an exploded cartoon cigar after the first shot. The ring should've been destroyed if the DM had any balls to stand up for himself or if he even existed.

Depends entirely on how quickly the ring undoes the magic. It's entirely possible the magic is completely undone once the ball has exited the barrel. If I were the DM I'd let it go, if only because the player had the creativity and initiative to turn a shitty item into something useful. Though, I'd probably add the caveat that repeated use of the ring in a short span of time runs the danger of breaking it, and that the resizing of the projectile negatively affects accuracy (which should already be pretty bad for a smoothbore firing spherical bullets), if only to ensure a degree of balance is maintained.

My question, on the other hand, is if the shrinking magic also affects the weight of the cannon balls. From the post, I'd assume yes?

[WhiteShark]

My question, on the other hand, is if the shrinking magic also affects the weight of the cannon balls. From the post, I'd assume yes?

Assuming D&D 3.5:

You are able to shrink one nonmagical item (if it is within the size limit) to 1/16 of its normal size in each dimension (to about 1/4,000 the original volume and mass).

[ArcaneLurker]

You don't have to be a seer or psychic to have discernment, nor is it necessary to understand on a logical level the precise nature of a threat to know that a threat is present and active.

What does instinct or intuition have to do with Spiritualism?
Nothing. The desire to percieve those things as threats is something derived from one interpretation of the Bible, but New Age spiritualists are likely to see "authoritarianism" and "racism" as these present & active threats growing around them.

The traditions that were passed to you were incorrect, but you threw the baby out with the bath water.

I actually spent a long time trying to find an alternative way of looking at it, without doing what most others do. I wasn't able to build a logically cohesive interpretation of it, nor find a motivation to continue trying. Too much of it rings false, as painful as that is, because of how many Europeans have given their life to it.

This does make me wonder what your moral justification is, I assume it would have to be some form of relativistic utilitarianism.

Yes, because if your morality wasn't written up by ancient Jewry or Israelites then you must have no other source for formulating an understanding of right and wrong.

This all presumes that the human mind (and implicitly your mind) is capable of understanding everything, in it's entirety. Anything that isn't able to be rationalized by it simply doesn't exist. You should be able to see the fallacy in that.

This presumes that every human mind is always going to be incapable of understanding something that was once beyond human understanding. Even if what you say is true, it's necessary to make the attempt, instead of deciding, before hand, that it's impossible. Also, there is a difference between a rationalization from someone that doesn't want to believe something exists, for ulterior motives, and a rationalisation from someone that has no reason to believe in something yet.
There isn't a fallacy in that, no, there is a logical fallacy in saying "I shouldn't have to rationalise or use logic to believe something, it's a logical fallacy to say otherwise."

I don't believe anything without evidence. I just don't rely solely on empirical evidence, since I'm not busy denying half of reality.

It was literally what Acrux just stated though.
Besides that, you're assuming, right there, that there is half of reality which can not be evidenced in any sufficient manner. Thus you are believing something without evidence.

[Acrux]

I don't believe anything without evidence. I just don't rely solely on empirical evidence, since I'm not busy denying half of reality.

It was literally what Acrux just stated though.

No it wasn't. That's a misrepresentation of what I wrote, but I don't feel like arguing about it.

[Xenich]

Don't mind me tho, I'm just saying the guys who are being mocked tended be right about a lot more things than the guys mocking them, especially consider the latter now believe that a man in a dress is a woman.

Well, they may have been right in the outcome, and I am sure it "aided" the acceptance of it, but I don't think it was the underlying cause. Wiccans have been slowly growing in popularity long before Harry Potter and that occult type crap attracted many young girls and women in my time (usually the creepy loner types, some metal chicks, etc...).

I think it is more of a combination of breaking down the family, removing God from society, corrupting education by turning the children against the parents, and then... these topics become seeds for those types that can fill some void they have of moral foundations.

The ones that always seemed to fall into this crap already had serious deficiencies in other areas (like the weirdo D&D kid that implements satanic rituals in their games).

Most children with good foundations don't seem to succumb to it as they view all of it is fantasy make believe entertainment.

[Xenich]

The barrel on that rifle would look like an exploded cartoon cigar after the first shot. The ring should've been destroyed if the DM had any balls to stand up for himself or if he even existed.

Depends entirely on how quickly the ring undoes the magic. It's entirely possible the magic is completely undone once the ball has exited the barrel. If I were the DM I'd let it go, if only because the player had the creativity and initiative to turn a shitty item into something useful. Though, I'd probably add the caveat that repeated use of the ring in a short span of time runs the danger of breaking it, and that the resizing of the projectile negatively affects accuracy (which should already be pretty bad for a smoothbore firing spherical bullets), if only to ensure a degree of balance is maintained.

My question, on the other hand, is if the shrinking magic also affects the weight of the cannon balls. From the post, I'd assume yes?

This is the kind of stuff my games always got into, to the point of pulling out physics books and even doing the math on various practicalities (ie we never just said "its magic! derp derp" as there had to always be some law of consistency to its function).

That said... we also had a DM that was educated in the sciences and essentially lived in the reference manuals (the kind of guy that buys law books so he is prepared for the "wish" argument). You had to be careful trying to one up him as it always ended badly for the player that tried to push it too far.

"Hell hath no fury like a DM scorned"

[GalwainOthmark]

Well, a Paladin would be a holy knight. Being a knight meant a significant position in that time, even if you were nominally a monk.

At least in its origins (AD&D) Paladins felt more like Arthurian knights/Charlemagne paladins than templars. In fact, it's the Cleric the one that is compared with the armed monks of a Holy Order, not the Paladin.

That's the funny/ironic part. Their religion blinded them to the people (some of them, anyway) orchestrating their ruin.

This is not as clear cut as you seem to assume: Check out the Finder's Case. The Satanic Panic actually has a (small) basis in reality and there's evidence of cultic "satanic" activity related to the kidnapping of children around this time. That said, the D&D-related panic was pure noise and completely unrelated to this.

To better understand Gygax's reasoning, remember that paladin used to have significant drawbacks in play. An "anti-paladin" would have no such drawbacks, and just be a munchkin class.

It's important here to also point out that AD&D 1e worked far more like a wargame than a modern ttrpg, and the players were expected to act within very well-defined roles. What role a champion of evil has in a team, exactly? The Paladin as a class isn't just absurdly difficult to qualify to (I have rolled 50 different characters in a spread sheet using the methods of the DMG and only 5 or 7 can be paladins), but its function is to basically fuck over any evil monster the party may encounter, a type that is overwhelmingly dominant in the MM. What would the anti-paladin do? Be a strong counter to what?

[Xenich]

Didn't see it listed, so I thought since you are all discussing it, might as well provide it originally.

► Dragon Magazine #39 Anti-Paladin Article