Really? Really?!?

I for one put my vote FOR THE SHIRE.  Nothing says 'old school oddity' quite like a front-rank of heavily armored halfling warriors, cap-a-pie in BX 60gp plate mail, terrorizing enemies in a 10' wide passage with their nigh unhittable armor class (and of course, a 2nd rank of spearmen or pole arm users that strike above the halfling's heads).  "Little killers", we used to call them.  It's high time these doughty warriors take their place as the fearsome combat terrors we love and need.

Kidding aside, this whole episode about the internet-troll supporting ACKS forced me to get some mental distance about what's going on.  You have a project backer (the trollish character) who's bringing dollars to the table and lots of support, and in turn gets direction on an art order.  Our beloved publisher has assured us the book will be apolitical, professional, and the art will be appropriate to the genre.  The thing that got under my skin was 'the dark lord' boasting to his sycophants that the art would depict him or his minions destroying what he calls 'SJW's'.  Whatever.  At the end of the day, I'm confident a cool picture of an evil overlord will end up enhancing the book and fitting the genre, and I'm just going to ignore the drivel.  Gaming can transcend politics and there's a lot of good stuff going on here.  More backers brings us that much closer to The Little Killers.

Besides, I think we're missing the point on who is the real evil genius in all this - he's got sides bidding up their campaigns to back new character classes, he's dangling hard cover books to lure the reticent (I got sucked into King, too).  Your strings are getting pulled and you’re all doing the Kickstarter Dance, people!  I'm on to you, Alex.

[quote="Beedo"]

I for one put my vote FOR THE SHIRE.  Nothing says 'old school oddity' quite like a front-rank of heavily armored halfling warriors, cap-a-pie in BX 60gp plate mail, terrorizing enemies in a 10' wide passage with their nigh unhittable armor class (and of course, a 2nd rank of spearmen or pole arm users that strike above the halfling's heads).  "Little killers", we used to call them.  It's high time these doughty warriors take their place as the fearsome combat terrors we love and need.

Kidding aside, this whole episode about the internet-troll supporting ACKS forced me to get some mental distance about what's going on.  You have a project backer (the trollish character) who's bringing dollars to the table and lots of support, and in turn gets direction on an art order.  Our beloved publisher has assured us the book will be apolitical, professional, and the art will be appropriate to the genre.  The thing that got under my skin was 'the dark lord' boasting to his sycophants that the art would depict him or his minions destroying what he calls 'SJW's'.  Whatever.  At the end of the day, I'm confident a cool picture of an evil overlord will end up enhancing the book and fitting the genre, and I'm just going to ignore the drivel.  Gaming can transcend politics and there's a lot of good stuff going on here.  More backers brings us that much closer to The Little Killers.

Besides, I think we're missing the point on who is the real evil genius in all this - he's got sides bidding up their campaigns to back new character classes, he's dangling hard cover books to lure the reticent (I got sucked into King, too).  Your strings are getting pulled and you’re all doing the Kickstarter Dance, people!  I'm on to you, Alex.

[/quote]

Thanks! This was well put and is a good summation of things. 

The illustration of the Dark Lord class is just going to be a picture of me next to my Kickstarter crowdfunding total. Hehe.

 

[quote="Alex"] The illustration of the Dark Lord class is just going to be a picture of me next to my Kickstarter crowdfunding total. Hehe. [/quote]

"I love the smell of Internet bunfights in the morning. Smells like... victory!"

 

 

[quote="GMJoe"] On an unrelated note, I'm amazed how civil the discussion in this thread has been. [/quote]

I'm not. There aren't any political brownie points to be won in the thread, since Alex is maintaining Glorious Neutrality; more importantly, the numbers of people engaged in the argument seem relatively even to either side, and a number of people have already expressed a desire to not see this descend into a political row. 

End result is that the social status cost/benefit ratio of sticking the boot in is skewed towards cost, and these chimp-brains of ours are really good at making that sort of calculation without conscious input, so people instinctively don't do it.

 

[quote="Alex"] ... As long as you support adventuring and conquest, don't mind a goddess of love and war served by scantily-clad bladedancers, and understand why halflings should not be a default PC race, you are welcome here. [/quote]

 

Seriously though, screw halflings.

Cake-huffing little bastards, the lot of 'em.

Death, reanimation, followed by second death's too good for 'em.

It's late, and doesn't change anything, but I want to say I fully support Alex in this.

Here's where I'm at in general, and it's got nothing to do with Vox specifically, or even with Autarch (which probably doesn't endorse what I'm about to say).  It has to do with seeing gaming forums start to declare opinions and people beyond the pale, and what I've seen is that doesn't stop.  There's a neverending stream of people fed to the alligators of banning, until it's just a circle-jerk of approved opinions.

This isn't a unique feature of gaming forums; it's part of a general social trend that's just copied over into our little niche.  It's part of the trend to exile wrong-thinkers from polite society.  But you're not actually changing minds, you're just training people to shut their mouths and keep their heads down.

For those who don't keep their mouths shut, social ostracization is just the opener.  Step two is to come for their livelihoods.  It's not enough to not hang out with them, they need to be fired, or their business boycotted.  Because making a living is too much to allow a wrong-thinker.

And what I can't help but notice is that today, it's mostly one side of the political divide that's willing to cut off friendships and end peoples' livelihoods.  However politely and reasonably Rhetorical Gamer and Verita express themselves above, that is the game they're playing.  "No association with the extremists, and we get to define who the extremists are."  Well, I'm done with that.  Your side has already spent that currency.  I've seen it too many times before, and I'm fed up with it.  The only people on any side I'm going to boycott or cut off are the people who use boycotts and ostracism.  Anyone else, I don't have to defend them, endorse their positions or excuse myself in order to associate with them in a thing we used to call "civil society."  A civil society that Rhetorical Gamer and Verita above have rejected, however measured the terms they try to express it in here.

With respect… the new thing here is not people shunning racists. It’s the racists asking people to tolerate their “wrongthink”. Abhorrent views are abhorrent. It’s not “brave” it’s just gross. Many people don’t want it here, but they also don’t want to have to argue about whether it’s ok because “please take it somewhere else”

Dave, DrPete - I appreciate that both of you have maintained a respectful tone here.

General question for all of you. Would you prefer that I:

  1. Lock this thread since a plan of action has been established
  2. Leave this thread open but only specifically for THIS issue
  3. Leave this thread open for general (polite) political discussion
  4. Seize power in the White House and institute a new regime that balances stronghold development with urban investment, rural investment, magic research, and festivals.

I'm for #4 but it might need a bigger Kickstarter so we can retain Edward Luttwak

 

I see plusses and minuses to 1-3 and can't say which one I think is the better solution.  Therefore #4 can be the only choice.

[quote="Alex"]

 

  1. Seize power in the White House and institute a new regime that balances stronghold development with urban investment, rural investment, magic research, and festivals.

[/quote]

Change the law that requires a US president to be US-born and you can have Conan the Terminator on the American Throne!

I think we can just agreen that “current host of the Apprentice” should be in the line of succession going forward…

I do want to apologize for my lack of civility on this issue. I’ve been discovering my inner paladin.

As to the thread, I guess I’m neutral. I would be interested in the occasional update on the competition between the two sides, but I don’t need to hear people keep visiting the boards to say “White nationalists are people, too. Please don’t be mad at us.” or “You guys are the intolerant ones for not being cool with it”

[quote="Alex"]

Dave, DrPete - I appreciate that both of you have maintained a respectful tone here.

General question for all of you. Would you prefer that I:

  1. Lock this thread since a plan of action has been established
  2. Leave this thread open but only specifically for THIS issue
  3. Leave this thread open for general (polite) political discussion
  4. Seize power in the White House and institute a new regime that balances stronghold development with urban investment, rural investment, magic research, and festivals.

I'm for #4 but it might need a bigger Kickstarter so we can retain Edward Luttwak

 

[/quote] You forgot 5. Start passing around the ostraka in the finest tradition of Greek democracy. [/sarcasm]

Since you should mentioned "inner paladin". I actually wrote an extensive essay a few years ago attempting to establish the link between real-world moral theory and D&D alignments. You can find it here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/8386-All-About-Alignment

By my assessment, using that system, Kantian (deontological) ethicists are lawful good, Augustinian ethicists are lawful good, Rothbardian libertarians are lawful neutral, Ancient Assyrians are lawful evil, Roman stoics are neutral good, Thomist ethicists are neutral good, rule-based utilitarians are neutral good, Randian libertarians are true neutral, Aristotelian virtue ethicists are true neutral, LeVeyan Satanists are neutral evil, Act-based utilitarians are chaotic good, pleasure-seeking hedonists are chaotic neutral, and Nietzschean ubermensches are chaotic evil. (Of course the alignments are named from the lawful good perspective; the article explains that chaotic evil might call it the pragmatic/dogmatic axis and the cunning/chump axis, etc., so chaotic evil is pragmatic and cunning, while lawful good is dogmatic chump.)

(And I myself am philosophically True Neutral, being a committed Aristotelian with heavy influence from Thomism, Stoicism and Objectivism.)

Everyone can now officially be thankful I just went with Law, Neutral, Chaos for ACKS :D

 

I suppose an Epicurean hedonist would be neutral good, since they seek moderation in all things and believe that what matters is the total balance of pleasure of one's network of friends, rather than solely one's immediate happiness.

[quote="The Dark"]

I suppose an Epicurean hedonist would be neutral good, since they seek moderation in all things and believe that what matters is the total balance of pleasure of one's network of friends, rather than solely one's immediate happiness.

[/quote]

Yes, I think that's right. Just so.

[quote="Alex"]

Everyone can now officially be thankful I just went with Law, Neutral, Chaos for ACKS :D

[/quote]

Thank you for that. I mean it.

So here's a question-

If 'For the Light' gets to the $1000 dollar goal, can we pick out pictures to go in the book in addition to the content? If so, who gets to pick them out?

I find everything about Theodor or whatever his name is horrifying and distasteful. Receiving a commendation from his company has the same weight to me as getting a commendation from any other racist or sexist organization. Its not something that should be encouraged.

Since he's gaming the system to get art he is not otherwise purchasing, can For the Light do the same? It seems only fair.

I for one would like to see a full page illustration of the Champion (or whatever the good class is) killing the DarkLord and his mates.

I assumed if this gimmick caused any additional art, the descriptions picked would be optimized to portray various forms of "The chosen one".  You'd have your not-david slaying a not-goliath, your not-luke looking wistfully over a burned settlement in the desert (obviously sans lightsaber), etc.

part of me thinks the obvious answer is for Alex or the potential artists to make a series of proposed depictions, with or without rough sketches, and have those who contributed to the light campaign do some kind of voting. knowing Alex he'd probably find some way to weight the votes proportional to contribution to the goal, but I don't think that's strictly necessary.

The other part almost thinks that a proper repudiation would be to have the art be full of diverse portrayals of people being heroic; persons of color and self-rescuing princesses.  But I ultimately have to reject that notion because I don't believe variety of portrayals and wanting everyone to have the chance to see themselves as the hero should be a political issue. In fact, it's Mr. Beale who accuses sci-fi and sci-fantasy novels of being political for doing exactly that.  At least that was the impression I got in the portion of his blog I could stomach to read.

Ultimately, my hope is that this rises above a mere repudiation but is also pretty cool.  I hope that if some conservative leaning (ie: not extremist) gamer with no prior knowledge of this kerfluffle picked up this book, they could look at the chosen one portion of the book and say "hey, that's pretty cool".

 

[quote="Tywyll"]

Receiving a commendation from his company has the same weight to me as getting a commendation from any other racist or sexist organization.

[/quote]

We should all be thankful there has never been a severe misunderstanding of the title of this game by the dudes from "Return of Kings" :-P