Really? Really?!?

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

 

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.

As Dr. Pete says, with all due respect... I'm not asking to be allowed to define who the "bad guys" are. I would like to think that in a civil society - as you describe - we would understand that people like Vox Day are, in fact, abhorrent and actively do damage to that civil society.

Again - as Alex outlined in his response letter (to me originally) there is no question that Day is a self-congratulatory troll and extremist. Why would you want to associate with that would be my question?

And as Alex brought it up... his examples of working with/hiring others that were considered objectionable because of something about them (transgender) is not the same as working with Vox Day. Day actively chooses to be hateful and do damage. A transgender person is harming no one by existing.

So - forgive me - but I choose to believe that to truly have a civil society, people like Vox Day are allowed to say whatever they want but actions have consequences - and people who speak out against those who willing want to be "the Dark Lord" are trying hard to make that civil society a little more civil.

I do intend to allow art related to The Chosen One, yes. I will not allow the art of either character to be shown murdering anyone recognizable or specific. Piles of corpses are fine, of course, and have appeared in the past, but actual murderous killing of a specific person would be both in bad taste, and outside the scope of what I permit in ACKS art. 

As far as the artwork and class design - both "the Dark Lord" and "the Chosen One" have quietly received the support of very generous backers that more than cover the required costs and my plan is to work with those persons as well as the campaign creators as my proxies for the final outcome.

Rhetorical Gamer, I understand your decision not to fund us. A man has to follow his alignment where it leads him.

How about a Darth Vader-esque conversion scene? :slight_smile:

Fair enough. The Chosen backers, I think, are eager to see the “defeat” of the Dark Lord, but I don’t think that has to mean a picture of a recognizable real life person being killed. His dark tower aflame, army defeated, etc, kind of covers it, no?

I am not an artist, but I get the impression death and destruction is challenging to pull off, especially in a pencil/black and white medium. I’d prefer art that is evocative of what is about to happen. For example, being of a LotR leaning at the moment, I think of a slight, warrior woman who has thrown her helmet aside, sword outstretched to challenge an imposing lord riding upon an intimidating beast.

[quote="DrPete"] How about a Darth Vader-esque conversion scene? :) Fair enough. The Chosen backers, I think, are eager to see the "defeat" of the Dark Lord, but I don't think that has to mean a picture of a recognizable real life person being killed. His dark tower aflame, army defeated, etc, kind of covers it, no? [/quote]

Of course, very possible. 

[quote="CharlesDM"] I am not an artist, but I get the impression death and destruction is challenging to pull off, especially in a pencil/black and white medium. I'd prefer art that is evocative of what is about to happen. For example, being of a LotR leaning at the moment, I think of a slight, warrior woman who has thrown her helmet aside, sword outstretched to challenge an imposing lord riding upon an intimidating beast. [/quote]

Yes, that is generally the art style I prefer as well. 

Those both sound like pretty fantastic art descriptions.  I can't believe I forgot about "I am no man" as an iconic example of a chosen one!  Bonus points if she is also a gnome named Anne.

Have you considered that maybe not everyone who disagrees with you is a white nationalist or a *-ist, and that your knee-jerk tossing of such labels around is exactly where people take issue with your line of argument? Frankly, it's the root of why the left is in such shambles across the Western world.

Signed, a lefty who's been losing hair over how any actual leftist thought has been purged from "the left"...

Ummmm… a 5 minute scan through Vox’s blog revealed that he promotes white nationalism. I’m not exaggerating, I’m describing the facts on the ground. If you are a supporter of his movement, you might want to take a moment and ask yourself why all your fellow travellers seem so racist. What do you think they mean by all those things they say?

Edit: to be specific, from his alt right manifesto:

The Alt Right is openly and avowedly nationalist. It supports all nationalisms and the right of all nations to exist, homogeneous and unadulterated by foreign invasion and immigration.

The Alt Right believes we must secure the existence of white people and a future for white children.

Etc…

To be clear, I think I’m saying that that kind of guy is not cool, and that kind of guy doesn’t belong. It’s not “tolerance” to be cool with that rhetoric. We really are dealing with normalizing white nationalism here, not just general political correctness.

Now you're assuming that I support him or his movement, which is interesting.

Vox Day is just a silly jackass who gets his ego stroked by people like you who have elevated him to some sort of supervillain status, a role that he is more than happy to play to keep you angry at him. An internet troll, remember? You're so swept up in this notion of "paladinhood" that you've forgotten that you're taking the bait as hard as you possibly can, and are doubling down when called on it.

You’re right, I misinterpreted what you were saying. I thought you were disagreeing with the label white nationalist for Vox Day and his followers. You were just disagreeing with it for his defenders…?

Not just defenders, but for anyone who thinks that "hey, people should be allowed to play and make contributions to games regardless of their personal politics".

But really, I find it hard to believe that 'progressives' really oppose that kind of rhetoric when the reaction is always to shout insults and block/ban/cut off/etc.. At best, you're just putting a lid on it and then acting surprised when the pot boils over. At worst, you're actively feeding and playing into their version of the narrative...

I had paid very little attention to this until the dark lord campaign. Looking over his blog, there’s an article about “entryism”… He’s talking about transferring representation, but it applies to racism as well. There are people interested in moving the bounds of acceptable conversation. On the left, this might include getting a trans person on TV (or whatever) and getting people “used” to it, so it becomes more ok. The mirror to this is racism… people on the racist right want to “normalize” racist ideas, and move them into the mainstream. The time to oppose that “normalization” is when they poke their nose into the tent.

Am I incorrect in reading that as you wishing to enforce what is and is not acceptable conversation? Are you actively choosing to forget that the majority of gains found in equal rights were only possible due to the freedom of speech that you, I, and even 'deplorables' enjoy?

You should be very, very careful in conflating this kind of "we should cut off all these people" behavior with "opposition". Opposition is engaging these people and soundly defeating them in the marketplace of ideas. It should be a simple enough task if their ideas are so low, right?

I'll also say straightforward that the 'normalization' argument is a load of garbage. The only thing you accomplish by tabooing a subject is increasing its appeal; "Oh, they don't want me to hear what this person has to say, let's check that out!"... and then, because you've refused to show up to the debate, you end up losing by default as their words stand unchecked. The examples of this throughout human history are countless, and one would hope that people would have learned from the Streisand Effect as it also occurs over, and over...

I'll reiterate: The kind of over-reaction that led to this thread is exactly what Vox Day revels in, and exactly what gave him a name or a following to begin with.