I live in the Midwest US, and thug does not have racial connotations where I am from. First homophobia, now racist remarks, dude stop digging.
Thunder Hammer needs to be banned. His remarks are homophobic and derogatory. See, I am the uneducated wage worker around here, and I am grossly offended. Being blue collar is honorable, but it is not an excuse for ignorance or insults.
And it is not even the Flambeau thing (though it is a mistake to rile up that Flambeau guy, which is I).
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now racist remarks, dude stop digging.
I am not digging RE: Thug. Look at this: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=racial+connotations+of+the+word+thug I was quite surprised to start reading about this myself, as I never had associated that word more than being a violent jerk, myself. From what I've read, it seems to be more of an east coast thing but don't pretend to be any kind of expert on it.
His remarks are homophobic and derogatory.
I can see my remarks regarding Flambeau were off base and have deleted them. I patently deny any homophobia. I did do a bad job pointing the that word associations people may have are not always politically correct, and not in our control.
Thank you for calling out on the various *phobia.
Edit: someone fortunately asked the question on how to block a user in another thread.
Just write your user name in the link:
https://forum.atlas-games.com/u/USERNAME/preferences/users
Do not copy paste the user name to be blocked into the box, it will autocomplete once you type Thunder.
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Thug is tricky. It definitely has very racist roots, and there is still a lot of biased usage in the media. That said, this coding is generally subconscious for a lot of people. They don't know the history, and they would be as likely to associate it with a mafia hitman as with a black gang member. But in how it is used by the media, it is much more commonly used when describing, say, a black victim of police brutality, vs a white one. Regardless, this is probably not the right place to hash this out.
One thing I was thinking about 6th edition...I think that Ars Magica should not try to be something to everyone. There are already games that fill that, and I don't think Ars Magica can overtake D&D in that regard. But Ars Magica has a very dedicated player base willing to buy 20+ books of source material, which is definitely something. I think expanding the appeal should definitely be a goal, but it shouldn't lose its soul in the process. If someone hates magic, wizards, and doesn't want to play with them...this might just not be the game for them. Instead, I have talked to a LOT of people who really love the core ideas of Ars Magica, but are turned off by the extended complexity. Heck, I'm playing a game and loving it, and I'm still turned off by the complexity! There's just so. Much. There. And a lot of it doesn't really add much. To me, this is a critical issue in the game.
Also, I should define what I mean by complexity. People talk about essential complexity and incidental complexity. Essential complexity is the complexity that is core to the thing you want to do. Incidental complexity is complexity you get nothing for. The magic system is "complex," but I've never seen anyone complain about it...that is essential complexity. Because the game is directly about magic, and the reward for grappling with the system is a beautiful, extensible, coherent magic system. But the skill system has a ton of incidental complexity. "Turn to page 72 of a book that came out 15 years after the core rules to find 3 pages describing a new obscure subsystem."
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First, he said in some parts of the United States and Canada, not every part, so it is irrelevant if in some places it doesn't mean that. He even pointed out that that isn't what he's used to it meaning. Meanwhile, pointing out that a term has racist connotations in some places is not a racist remark. Here is an NPR piece on "thug": The Racially Charged Meaning Behind The Word 'Thug' : NPR
Though written poorly and derogatorily, I thought he was trying to point out that game terms that may evoke such sentiment are risky. I don't think "Flambeau" would do that at all. For an obvious example, what if I wrote a game set in the southern US decades ago and had the N-word throughout it as the word was used in the setting in real life? That would be a bad choice, yes? That is quite so many huge steps beyond "Flambeau." Thankfully he has gone back to delete these statements. He was right to be called out for some of them, just not for racism.
Meanwhile, he's not the only one saying such things:
Lots of people use the N-word to describe each other and when talking with each other. That doesn't mean being from outside that group and using it is acceptable by claiming "requantifying."
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You can also flag posts as off-topic or inappropriate to bring them to the attention of the moderators, by clicking on the "..." next to "Reply", then the little flag icon. Discourse is designed to empower community members to self-police, and flag from trust level 4 users (or levels 3s on levels 0s) have automatic effects.
(And someone with TL4 should probably do a thread-split to remove these off-topic posts to another thread in general discussion, where they can be ignored in peace)
I think the point being made wasn't necessarily the issue (for me anyway) it was that the examples being used veered into offensiveness (whether intentional or not) while also requiring pretty big leaps to get to them.
For example the same point could have been made with, say, Verditius. That's a name which you could argue sounds more like the name of a nature magic house than a craftsman house, because it sounds close-ish to "verdant".
Should we split off these posts into a 'Changing the House Names" thread as @IdiotSavant suggests? I don't want to just arbitrarily do it myself, but they do derail the thread a bit.
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Thug comes from the Thugee sect of Kali worshipers in India who resisted British rule via assassination by strangulation and thus the word entered the English language with an association of violence. While there is arguably a racist component to that origin it is completely unrelated to any American usage in the modern day.
Some people may use a word in a way that implies racism, that does not mean that word association belongs to an entire country, or even regions of that country.
This is demonstrably untrue. Again, there are dissections of how the word is deployed in the media. But it's true that a given individual's associations are not necessarily, or even likely, to be explicitly racist.
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Really? you can demonstrate that the word thug is being used as an anti-indian racist slur in the united states today? Or did you just not read the entirety of what wrote, because I didn't claim that it was never used in a racist way in America today, simply that the usage today would not reflect it's origins with the thugee sect in terms of racist usage.
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This topic was automatically opened after 2 days.
There was, for a time at least, a sentiment on these boards that Houses themselves ought to be done away with. The primary advantage cited with offering a clean break with the WoD, but being rid of houses wouldn't actually accomplish that unless we also ditch (or at least rename) the Order of Hermes itself...
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As for the names, do they really have to have meaning? Some of them were just supposed to be names of those who started the Houses. "Ex Miscellanea" is a clear exception, but the reasoning has been provided. (It was more explicit in earlier editions.) Some of those names were clearly chosen to link to things, but that was not necessary. At some point I think you just have to let designers have some freedom to come up with random names. Do we object tons to "Boccob" and the like? Meanwhile D&D also used names from the real world, such as "Baphomet."
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@chuangdangjianghu didn't say it was being used as anti-Indian in the United States. Rather, he disagreed with your statement that the American usage is "completely unrelated" to the origin. Consider one of the main ways it entered American usage. In 1852 the New York Times said "We have never seen the comparison made, but it is so obvious that it must have suggested itself to some reader or writer," when talking about "the rowdies of New York." What was it considering "thug" to mean in that comparison? "A terrible sect of religionists, whose worship is the most hideous in the whole record of false ideologies." And now it is being used in the same sort of way as the NYT chose to use it, but racially, in parts of America rather than to the rowdies of New York. Experts on the subject have even explicitly stated "thug" is now being used in the same way as it had been by the British in India.
Meanwhile, I wouldn't be so sure about your statement about the Kali worshippers. That may have been the case, but it may not have been. It's not very hard to find experts who say that was not the case, that that was a misinterpretation by the British of the time.
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I would never want to entirely do away with the houses (both because I'm rather fond of most of them and as you say it would require completely rewriting the order in general) I do think there could be a diversification of the order if you were doing a new edition - take the Ex Miscellanea model and apply it to the whole order.
By which I mean have the order be made up not of just a select number of houses but of a larger number of "traditions". The old houses would be the most senior traditions but you could write it so there was more of an ebb and flow of fortunes with some traditions growing and others stagnating or splitting off from older traditions. In this model, for example, Trianomae and Bonisagi would be two separate traditions with their own internal structures, groups like the Hnutresses in the Woods would be their own tradition not beholden to any original house etc.
Keep the houses as the historical original traditions of the order but allow newer ones to rival or even eclipse them with an overall larger number of traditions but each smaller than a house in 5e.
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I get the idea of doing away with the Houses, but consider the Houses from another viewpoint: it makes it easier for beginners to try to develop a character. Compare GURPS and D&D. D&D is so much easier for the beginner making a character. You just choose the appropriate class to the type of character the player wants and make a few choices from there. In GURPS you have all sorts of things to consider so there is no clear starting point. While Ars Magica leans more toward GURPS in this regard, at least the Houses give a good starting point. Then you pair those with the suggested minimum values and some recommended things for both the first 5 years and for apprenticeship, and you're well on your way. You could alter them such as in ways @Argentius said, but I wouldn't do away with them entirely, especially when others are arguing about the difficulty of getting new players into the game.
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I didn't say it was completely unrelated to the origin, I said it was completely unrelated to the racist component of its origin, in response to the claim that it is racist in both modern usage and at "it's roots".
I think it would be useful to have better separation in the setting from the mechanics- so the storyteller can better customize a setting that they want. The idea of a house as a guideline for characters is good, but it needs to be something that can be flexible for a storyteller for multiple settings. The one thing D&D and GURPs both have going for them that Ars Magica lacks is the ability of the GM/DM to make their own world.