FYI Troy, your response was offensive to me and I am a straight white male (though my son is transgender) because you in fact were not speaking out against "tribalism" you were speaking out against non-conformity. You may have felt that what you said was against "tribalism" but the message that was received was that you won't tolerate people who are different than you.
I very much agree with @silveroak .
Not only his last post, but also the previous remark that we tend to insist that ArM is one particular kind of game, to the exclusion of everything else.
All storytelling is about asking what if,
- what if I were a mighty wizard?
- what if I were a wealthy lord with 10.000 serfs to use and abuse as I pleased?
- what if the world were all good and everybody be kind to each other?
- what if I were a gay priest and the bishop found out?
- what if heterosexuality were non-conform?
- what if there were a Hell to which LGBT+ be condemned?
Of course, some questions are provocative and challenging to work with. Some players enjoy more provocative what ifs than others. Players are offended by different things. Whatever game we want to play says nothing about what we want or condone in real life. Pacifists too can play war games.
Lots of flame wars arise from an apparent lack of understanding of how we play the game differently for different reasons. Personally, I think the published works do a pretty good job out of highlighting different options for players to tune the world to any desired flavour. The online community seems to be less accommodating. No surprise that some are scared off.
And this truly is a dilemma. If we talk too much about the challenging and provocative stories that could be told, we risk offending and scaring off potential players. If we take every possible care to avoid offence, we turn the game into a Disneyworld, where everything and everybody are too predictable to be human.
One advantage of playing in the Middle Ages, as said one of the great organisers in my live-action community many years ago, is that we know very little about it. Ignorance is bliss. To suit our gaming taste, we can make it either more or less politically correct than it actually was. Each story has to be judged on its own accord.
Personally I have been scared off by DnD communities that seem to play it as a rollplaying game rather than the roleplaying game that I am looking for.
And so it begins. The last time a similar thread on this topic was closed. We all know attempts at rational discourse will digress to insults, or people claiming they are insulted, or someone accusing people of sea-lioning, being trolls, bigots, being irrational, etc. It's been done.
Can someone with real clout post the kind of comment that stopped the last thread please?
On the topic of obscurity, I think @silveroak's point that the books are marketed towards GMs instead of players is a big one.
The disorganized core rulebook is another point, and understanding which rules apply when and where. It's also unclear what the stories are supposed to be, at least going by what I've seen posted on RPG.net, as there are a few threads over the years of "cool game, where do I even start with telling a story in it?"
I can see that being the problem for those looking for the railroaded stories that DnD still promotes. Apart from that, though, don't you have the same problem in most systems? I know that I have had that feeling in most of the cool systems I have seen.
I think this is a very interesting topic of discussion!
So, I feel like a lot of non-LGBTQ+ people aren't really sure how to address historical bigotry in games like AM, or games which draw on historical fantasy. It's pretty variable, but in my experience a lot of Queer gamers tend to want to tell certain kinds of stories. Here's three big ones I've seen:
Gay Utopian Commune: This is usually when a group of LGBTQ+ people are playing a game together and they're really, really tired of the constant day-to-day bigotry; and, they just want to have a game where it's not a big deal. Everyone's cool with it, and, for once, we all get to tell stories that are not about being gay. Because sometimes that's what you want, you know? A game where you're just, "My character is a Flambeau who wants revenge on the Magus who killed her parens, that's her whole plot. She is incidentally gay, but that's not what her story is really about."
Then there's Queer Power Fantasy: In which problems about being LGBTQ+ exist, and the people in the game get to enjoy the catharsis of overcoming them. This is pretty common for a lot of minority groups, the fantasy of being able to face the kinds of bigotry you see in your life and be someone with the power to change things and overcome things. It's the same kind of catharsis a lot of people get from fantasy games where your character is competent, powerful and able to achieve their goals.
And, while this one doesn't show up as much I do see it, some people want to tell Queer Tragedies: Stories that are about mirroring, either exactly or through fantastic metaphor, the problems and experiences that they face in day-to-day life and the biggest tragedies of their lives. These are often really rough and kind of raw- they're about expressing your problems and facing trauma in a very direct way. I only really expect them to come up in situations where there's a lot of trust.
This isn't a list that covers everything, since I'm not every LGBTQ+ person! However, I wanted to touch on the fact that within that community, there is a desire for a variety of different story and gaming conflicts. Ars Magica can be really good for these! My favorite game of AM, which I've been playing for over two years now, is a very queer story which is greatly enhanced by being an Ars Magica game. In it, there's still bigotry and challenges, but they are not presented as things that are good or noble about the setting. They're bad and we all understand them to be bad, and our characters grapple with the inherent injustice and sorrow of the world.
And that's really cathartic and fun!
I do as well.
There's a bunch of interesting discussions
How can society and government improve the safety of trans and gay people?
Are gay people bigots if they refuse to have relations with a trans person?
Should women's sport be open to trans women?
Is the government assistance to transition suitable, or is it woefully inadequate?
Does allowing self-ID create a safety risk in women's spaces such as women's shelters and prisons?
What should gaming do to accommodate LGBTIQ+ people?
Problem is, it doesn't work on the internet.
Any of these discussion, in most corners of the internet , I can near guarantee we'll end up with people getting emotional and upset.
"You are denying my right to exist."
"Woman is not a feeling."
"TERF is a slur."
"How dare you challenge my lived experience."
"You like David Chappelle? we can no longer be friends"
This forum is somewhat better than most about not going in to a compete death spiral. Very few threads get shut down, however, LBGTIQ+, especially the T part, that topic, it's just not one that tends to involve calm discussion if there's even a tiny point of disagreement.
Make a thread about good news LGBTIQ+ engagement, and have everyone slapping themselves on the back about how awesome it is, and heavily gate keep criticism. That's about the only way I can see this topic working well.
I mean, I feel pretty calm. I'm not really upset by the discussion going on.
My feelings about this thread have not risen above the dull roar of annoyance one might have when trying to watch a film and having your neighbor start vacuuming up stairs.
"Again," you mutter, rolling your eyes as you turn up the volume, "At 8pm on a Friday?"
If other people object, then I'll discuss it with them?
I'm not really sure if you're cautioning me or trying to get me to stop, though. I've been gay on the internet for over a decade, so I'm very aware of how discussions like this can escalate. That's why I'm putting such an emphasis on presenting civility.
Thanks for the engagement, though. It presents a chance to discuss some really great points about LGBTQ discussions and how internet board cultures can alienate both them and people who are LGBTQ+ allies!
That being said, this could be spun into its own topic. I believe the forum software supports scooping posts out of one thread and rearranging them into a new thread. It just needs a good name.
"How this board feels about trans issues" is accurate, but feels kind of provocative.
Perhaps, "LGBTQ+ issues and this board"?
My mistake, I didn't check any actual book lengths. When you're making a wish list, why not wish big, right?
I absolutely want my Space Marine, Jaeger Pilot, and Urban Fantasy mercenary wizard to get as much of an in-depth description as Hermetic Magi have, not to mention my nanotech based Super Hero:)
And I want them to all be played under a system based on the core of ArM4 and hopefully published by the fine folks at Atlas:)
You can interpret it that way, but it was never the case.
Someone stated the old rules forced women to take a Flaw. People started suppressing ezzelino because he was asking where they got that idea.
It turn out the original rule was "shaman must wear woman's clothing."
Can you let the past go?
Now if it's about you... you could tell me that you were touched by your visit to Palermo, you've loved dinosaur since you were kid, or the rainbow cause is important to you. No matter which of those you'll bring up, I'll politely listen because I care about you, the human, and not because those subject have any interest to me.
You know, kudos for the diet metaphor there. That's not one I've seen before. It's nice to see fresh ways to obliquely talk about my identity.
So, on the liar thing? I don't believe the vitriol in that thread was because someone was wrong about the rules, then repeated their mistake publicly. Because no one here treats that as something that requires a long thread that ends with it getting locked.
I'm not interested in having an argument with you about if there were lies or not, because that's just a way to misdirect my intent.
What do you want?
Do you believe this board does not greet the mention of transgender people as something that will ruin and/or explode any thread it's in?
If you do, then what, if anything, should we as a community draw from that?
It's the second time you bring back that point in an unrelated thread. I don't think obscurity has anything to do with gender acceptance. I haven't seen anything on this board that even touches that.
The vitriol was people suppressing a long time poster trying to clarify the situation.
How can someone confuse a house rule with something that was originally "shaman must wear women's clothes"?
Our ASG is my precious friend and has been out of the closet for more than 20 years. This is just as important to me as my friend's excessive love for pepper and chocolate. I'm sorry you've been hurt for what you are, please don't see it everywhere.
Absolutely. Not only medieval bigotry but any other aspect of LGBTQ+ as well, I think. This is simply down to lack of pre-figuration. In a sense, LGBTQ+ is an unknown world for many players. Those who are not familiar with it are unable to spin stories which make sense to those who are.
(Of course, nothing is black and white. One may be more or less familiar with different parts of a largely unknown world, and more or less able to spin a more or less limited repertoire of stories.)
There is only one way to make sense of the unknown, and that is by exploration, iteratively making hypotheses and testing those hypotheses, and this is where we run into problems. An all-straight group provides no useful feedback, and thus hypothesis testing is impossible. In a mixed group, some players may be offended by false hypotheses. It can only work if ignorance is respected, and all the players are sufficiently confident in their own identity to deal constructively with provoking hypotheses. Not impossible, but it can be painful for everyone.
That thread was far too complex to try to pin the vitriol on a single opinion, poster, or trend. Categorical positions were taken on both sides, mistakes were made and blame was abundant. At the same time, that thread managed to escalate into the confrontation which got it shut down, and produce a more nuanced synthesis which made its way into the official errata.
What breaks the forum is when blame and unnuanced opinions are repeated over and over again, with no progress and no attempt on synthesis. And frankly, I think both you @Tugdual and @Zaleramancer fall into that trap at the moment. It is both futile and embarrassing, and it does not bring us forward.
I apologise for this post. I tried to resist in the hope that the confrontational line would die out by itself. I'll return to the hope and not make another on this matter.
At the DOK.fest in Munich this spring there was an excellent documentary movie about a Syrian family, who emigrated to Germany with their two transsexual daughters.
The film is in German commercial distribution now (Zuhurs Töchter – Camino Filmverleih) and has already a trailer with English subtitles - so perhaps it might be released with English subtitles as well:
Their very personable muslim family struggles with the identity of their daughters - and might inspire some family for transsexuals in an Ars saga as well.
There is of course also the legend of saint wilgefortis for those inclined to tragedy.
Yeah, I can't keep shoveling spoons into this, so I'll come back in like a week and make my own thread.
Another win for the status quo, I guess? [Twirls flag]
This is unrelated to the current part of the discussion, I just haven't had much time for a week.
My personal take on the history thing is notably different from many worries above. I actually find ArM5 much, much easier to get into than something like a typical D&D setting because of history. For something like the World of Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms or similar, I find there is a huge amount of setting stuff I just don't know, so it's hard to figure things out. But in ArM5 I know a lot of the already history even though I studied mostly sciences. So then I can work with whatever tweaks ArM5 and the troupe want to make to the Europe very easily. The same is true of things like CoC, Marvel stuff, etc. So this significant historical connection makes the entry for me easier rather than harder, whereas with D&D it's harder. In essence, I find D&D more obscure and ArM5 less obscure.
Indeed. What makes D&D manageable is that you can play the classic, linear story of the journey. Call it Tolkienesque or Odyssean.
Each chapter is a new location, and as long as the party does not turn back, they do not have to deal with long-term consequences of their mishaps. As GM, you only have to read up on one chapter of the lore at a time ...
ArM is challenging because you are supposed to play the covenant and deal with the web of relations it has in the world around it. When you make enemies, they tend to stick around.
Thus ArM is both easier and harder than classic fantasy.
Now, what would it be like to plan a complex long-term story, covenant-style, in a pure game world like Forgotten Realms or Harn or whatever?
What about "Trans Magica"?
Regarding the kind of stories one can play involving LGBTQ+ magi characters, each one is of course absolutely free of playing whatever they want however they want, but I don't see these plots fitting well within the Order. I like to think magi are either too openminded or too indifferent to their own community. I just don't see why anyone at Tribunal, while surrounded by Merinitae, necromancers, Tytaly with the Persona virtue covering the two genders, shapeshifting specialists, Björnaers on their heartbeast and so on would be dumb enough to point a ridiculous finger to anyone just because how they see themselves or what identity they have.
I think most magi wouldn't really care about what or how their peers are, or behave. I tend to think that the social stigma of The Gift is a death sentence for many children (why most gifted people are smart? Because these are the only ones who manage to stat alive), all magi had not just survived that, but also know that they are safe from it and their society exists just because of Parma, which they have to perform twice per day to prevent start viewing among themselves as the populace does. That is something that always had justified and allowed us to play democratic and equalitarian characters (though, at the same time, they are members of a powerful elite) in the medieval world. Add to that the extreme protection of privacy they share, the protection of the Code against scrying and so on. I don't see why these nice values of them should suddenly stop when the sexual identity and choices of magi are considered (or why they would in the fist place).