Goodman Games

Just a couple of things I noticed:

beta, p. 43 wrote:Where a human wizard may cast a spell to summon a demon a few times in his life, an elf may converse repeatedly with the same demon so many times over so many centuries that long-term arrangements become feasible. All elves have one or more extraplanar patrons who sustain their magic. As such, their spells tend more toward those associated with elemental or demonic powers.

If elves live so long, and presumably have cast lots of spells with their demonic patrons, why are they all not totally corrupted?

beta, p. 52 wrote:DC 10 tasks are a man’s deed.

Tell that to Red Sonja! This sentence should be made gender-neutral.

Now, back to reading!

dunbruha wrote:If elves live so long, and presumably have cast lots of spells with their demonic patrons, why are they all not totally corrupted?!

Hmmm maybe you just described the creation of the Drow? Maybe "Elves" were humans once and were "corrupted" into their current stats.....

The truth is out there send for Mouldy and Skellies

dunbruha wrote:Just a couple of things I noticed:

beta, p. 43 wrote:Where a human wizard may cast a spell to summon a demon a few times in his life, an elf may converse repeatedly with the same demon so many times over so many centuries that long-term arrangements become feasible. All elves have one or more extraplanar patrons who sustain their magic. As such, their spells tend more toward those associated with elemental or demonic powers.

If elves live so long, and presumably have cast lots of spells with their demonic patrons, why are they all not totally corrupted?

I'd assume elves don't cast such spells as often as humans (they have far more resources over the course of their long lives to tap in...when they bother to do so.) and also placate their patrons more easily (e.g., "100,000 in gems to slow down this corruption? Yawn. Over a decade okay? Great."

beta, p. 52 wrote:DC 10 tasks are a man’s deed.

Tell that to Red Sonja! This sentence should be made gender-neutral.[/quote]

Why?

joela wrote:

dunbruha wrote:

beta, p. 52 wrote:DC 10 tasks are a man’s deed.

Tell that to Red Sonja! This sentence should be made gender-neutral.

Why?

I agree. Why? I, for one am up to my gills with the whole PC movement.

To the point, I'm offended by this squirrelly gender-neutral language push the PC crowd wants.

Nothing personal towards you Dunbruha, or Red Sonja!

JediOre wrote:I agree. Why? I, for one am up to my gills with the whole PC movement.

To the point, I'm offended by this squirrelly gender-neutral language push the PC crowd wants.

Nothing personal towards you Dunbruha, or Red Sonja!

And I'm not particularly keen on gender exclusive language. If you all ask the point of being inclusive, I have to ask the point of being exclusive. Why?

That said, I'm not particularly upset by random exlusive sentences like "man's deeds". As long as it's clear the game is for girls too, I'm happy. Restrictions based on sex like 1e had would drive me away completely, or artwork with fully clothed mature men coupled with postage-stamp clad jailbait girls would definitely be a turn off (a lot of that in 2e's days). So far that doesn't seem to be DCC.

ETA: As sick as everyone is of the PC movement, I'm also so sick of the Anti-PC movement, which slaps a "PC " label on any opinion not liked and calls it stupid and offensive. That's offensive. At this point the term "PC" is so overused I have no idea what those that use it actually mean, only that they are trying to discredit a viewpoint by using a negative term in the same sentence.

nanstreet wrote: And I'm not particularly keen on gender exclusive language. If you all ask the point of being inclusive, I have to ask the point of being exclusive. Why?

Nanstreet, male pronouns and "mankind" are not gender exclusive. All of the romance languages use the male phrase as both exclusive and inclusive.

JediOre wrote:

nanstreet wrote: And I'm not particularly keen on gender exclusive language. If you all ask the point of being inclusive, I have to ask the point of being exclusive. Why?

Nanstreet, male pronouns and "mankind" are not gender exclusive. All of the romance languages use the male phrase as both exclusive and inclusive.

I'm aware of that (I think everyone under the sun knows that). It's EITHER exclusive OR inclusive, just figure out which one while reading. Language should strive for clarity.

"Man's deeds" implies manliness, which is gender specific. Whatever. I get what is trying to be conveyed. I view it in the same light as using something like the womanly "mothering", which I don't think is meant to exclude or insult males. It's only if a text exclusively uses male pronouns, male phrases, and male references that I will feel excluded.

JediOre wrote:To the point, I'm offended by this squirrelly gender-neutral language push the PC crowd wants.

I didn't mean to offend anyone. All I am suggesting is that they might sell a few more books if they didn't exclude half of the population in their examples. It is a very tiny thing, but the example could easily be written using other words. And there is a solid Appendix N example of a character that does all of the things listed in that section who is definitely NOT "manly"!

dunbruha wrote:

JediOre wrote:To the point, I'm offended by this squirrelly gender-neutral language push the PC crowd wants.

I didn't mean to offend anyone. All I am suggesting is that they might sell a few more books if they didn't exclude half of the population in their examples. It is a very tiny thing, but the example could easily be written using other words. And there is a solid Appendix N example of a character that does all of the things listed in that section who is definitely NOT "manly"!

Dunbruha,

You didn't offend me. It's the whole concept of re-engineering our language and history that offends me. I work at a college and am awash in a sea of political correctness. Stuff like this has become an almost knee-jerk reaction for me. A "hot-button" if you will.

I'll leave it at that, for I don't want to high-jack this post even further than I already have.

Actually, most women I talk to appreciate it when you include some sort of gender reference. Of course some don't care, but those that do appreciate the little things like including a few hers and shes once in a while. It really shouldn't be a big deal for anyone. It has less to do with PC (<b>f*ck</b> political correctness) and more to do with respect. But that's something that can't be easily taught, much less be learned on an RPG forum.

I would think women would prefer being left out of the examples of mayhem that often befall HIS character.

Here's a female gamer who explains why it matters, at least to her:

http://revolution21days.blogspot.com/20 ... er-to.html

reverenddak wrote:Actually, most women I talk to appreciate it when you include some sort of gender reference. Of course some don't care, but those that do appreciate the little things like including a few hers and shes once in a while. It really shouldn't be a big deal for anyone. It has less to do with PC (<b>f*ck</b> political correctness) and more to do with respect. But that's something that can't be easily taught, much less be learned on an RPG forum.

Yes. Thank you. That's it in a nutshell.

The word man is not exclusive, it's gender neutral. It's a shortened version of human, which, last time I checked, included all of us.

JRR wrote:The word man is not exclusive, it's gender neutral. It's a shortened version of human, which, last time I checked, included all of us.

True, on Middle Earth. But it "bothered" at least one of us, so it might not be as widely adopted as you would like to believe.

reverenddak wrote:

JRR wrote:The word man is not exclusive, it's gender neutral. It's a shortened version of human, which, last time I checked, included all of us.

True, on Middle Earth. But it "bothered" at least one of us, so it might not be as widely adopted as you would like to believe.

This is true for most of the history of the English language. The male pronoun has allows been the gender neutral form, or the male specific form, depending upon the context. The female form has always be female specific. By using the female specific, one is being gender exclusive.

It was not until the rise of modern Feminism in the education system back in the '70s and '80s that the concept of "man" and male pronouns was bullied into the category of discriminatory.

JRR wrote:The word man is not exclusive, it's gender neutral. It's a shortened version of human, which, last time I checked, included all of us.

In some uses, true. Not in this case, though.

dunbruha wrote:

JRR wrote:The word man is not exclusive, it's gender neutral. It's a shortened version of human, which, last time I checked, included all of us.

In some uses, true. Not in this case, though.

Dunbruha, you are correct. The observation you made that started this thread was about "a man's deed."

JediOre wrote: It was not until the rise of modern Feminism in the education system back in the '70s and '80s that the concept of "man" and male pronouns was bullied into the category of discriminatory.

When you use the term bullied, you make it sound like it's a bad thing. That's like saying, before it was acknowledged as a discriminatory thing, it wasn't discriminatory.

"DC 10 tasks are a man's deed. The weak and unskilled could not achieve these tasks." Although it isn't explicitly saying "male", it isn't that hard of a stretch to interpret it that way. It's vague, and should be avoided.

JediOre wrote:It was not until the rise of modern Feminism in the education system back in the '70s and '80s that the concept of "man" and male pronouns was bullied into the category of discriminatory.

You just don't get it. Context is not always clear. My sociolinguistics class had this gawd awful textbook that switched randomly and clunkily between the neuter male and the neuter female. But it did make the point that neuter female could be just as effective as neuter male, and neuter male could work perfectly fine if the writer was good enough to make the context clear. The male neuter does NOT carry any magic abilty on its own to convey context. That's all up to the writer. 1970s is not the first time Male Neuter has come up, although it might be the first time females got to weigh in on the matter; several centuries ago weren't there some male Latin-loving eggheads that decided that English needed a Latinesque "rule" about male pronouns being neuter? Meh, I think the Latin love affair blinded a lot of scholars to what English actually was, a Germanic language with rich Romance borrowings that continued to change and grow with it's environment.

Feminist bullies? Yeah, too bad women like to know when they are included.

Consciously forcing a language to change probably won't work well (yeah, I know, tell that to Webster ), but trying to force a language to not change is equally problematic. English has always been highly adaptable. I can think of several evolutions in my lifetime-- such as using the word "gender" when "sex" is meant (which kinda drives me up a wall, but I don't seek to find catagories of people to blame for bullying the poor language into it, the horror!). English will continue to adapt when it needs to, and sometimes when it doesn't. Personally I find it one of the wonderful things about the English language. I don't understand getting bent out of shape over the possibility that language might evolve.

So, what does feminist bashing and the use of male pronouns have to do with DCC? Anything?

The PC movement summed up for me.