Something is not a societal bias if it is demonstrably true.

Men are physically stronger than women. Just ask all the women who cannot compete against trans-women in their sports, are they just losers with gender biases, or are there indisputable facts at play here? Or the female boxer who went up against a trans-female boxer and had her jaw shattered. I’m sure she was a sore loser, but I’d suggest indisputable facts were at play here and not her bias or societal biases.

I don’t think it is sexist or wrong to recognize that men are physically stronger than women. I think it is downright ignorant to pretend they are not. It leads to confusions and frustration in children, identity politics, divisiveness and division in society, and the largest gender dysphoria and youth suicide rates in US history.

I think the basis of education and dialogue should be provable fact. Not extrapolation or deductive subjective individually preferable personal ‘truths’. Honest provable fact. Society needs a common foundation based in fact, and it has been eroded over decades by the education system.

But, as you say, the Orcs and the Drow have departed this conversation, and so should we.
We do not get to choose how our children change the world. All we can do is cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Chucho68 wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:
Bias is not original sin; not by a long shot. Bias has nothing to do with the biased's physical characteristics. Bias is learned.

You are right - it is impossible to converse with closed-minded folk. But you can be open-minded and still be biased, especially implicitly.

You (or anybody else) do not have more or less bias because of skin color or gender. But there are biases based on skin color or gender; the worst expression is what we know as racism and sexism. Women, for example, are seen as fragile - it's always the 'damsel in distress' in movies, e.g. - and men as strong. This gender bias applies to everything from work opportunities and progress to who the server gives the check to at a restaurant table. Same applies to skin color bias - see this article, for one example:

Marketing Still Has a Colorism Problem

I hope you did not take my comments personally (you use the first person). Please understand: EVERYBODY has biases. The problem is what we do, how we behave, within our biases. That is why I believe EGG or DA did not intend to be discriminatory but their biases show in their writing. And it is up to those that come after to fix those biased statements, i.e., change the rules. That is what WOTC is doing.

I'm glad we are having this conversation but there really is no space here for this topic. I am not knowledgeable enough on it; people actually get PhDs on this stuff (think 10 years of reading and researching, at minimum). Again, my original intent stands: thanks to mbassoc for bringing this topic and to all for respectful dialogue.

Héctor

Yes, I did take mild offense to your remark:  “We all have biases, men/males more than most, and white males more than almost everybody else.”

We could clearly discuss this for days and never see eye to eye on the subject, so let’s agree to disagree and move on.

Tszii wrote in POD's on eBay:I specifically dont encourage reading about crime and punishment for anywhere on the globe in any year 1830-4000BC.

We live in a world where huge swathes of the more social leaning electorate would have us believe were enlightened peoples, kill women for adulatory and pat men on the back for it.  

Tszii wrote in POD's on eBay:There! We have completely high-jacked this POD thread.

Yes. Let's keep the off topic here rather than other threads.

Plaag wrote in POD's on eBay:The Dragon #3
NOTES ON WOMEN & MAGIC
by Len Lakofka
There will be four major groups in which women may enter. They
may be FIGHTERS, MAGIC USERS, THIEVES and CLERICS. They
may progress to the level of men in the area of magic and, in some ways,
surpass men as thieves. Elven women may rise especially to high levels in
clerics to the elves. Only as fighters are women clearly behind men in all
cases but even they have attributes that their male counterparts do not!

GOOGLE!

I mean yes shit was acceptable back then compared to now, but this stuff existed!

ShaneG.

That's the first I've read that passage of text.

Is that being read by people that women who play the game are only allowed to play those characters under those conditions (ie. that the game is discriminating against women), or is it saying that female sexed characters played by either males or females, have their attributes dealt with differently? Ie female characters are to have their strengths slightly lower than male strengths when compared like for like? A reflection of the real world.
Is it badly worded attempt to reflect real world physiology in a fantasy world?
Or is it an explicit sexist attack at female players because he has a problem with women?
What is he actually saying vs. what are readers with today's sensitivity triggers choosing to read into it?

Without actually knowing LL, I'd suggest he was trying poorly to codify real world physics into a fantasy settings.

ExTSR wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Then Len blocked me and never spoke to me again for the rest of his life.

 I didn't see that coming.
He actually did something very similar to me when he published Lenmore Isle or whatever it was on Dragonsfoot. DF published without proofreading, and offered to proofread for him for free.

ExTSR wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:In my many interactions with Len, he repeatedly argued that the fantasy world HAD to be like our real world in most ways.
Making this point he wandered into physics, chemistry, sociology, psychology, and more.

That's what I thought. Len (not knowing him) was trying to reproduce the real world in his perception of a fantasy game. He was not having a direct sexist attack on women players, as it is portrayed by some, nor proposing introducing sexism into an otherwise non-sexist game. He was unwilling/unable to be flexible and imagination, and either ignorant or unapologetic for it.
Isn't this largely what is referred to as Low Fantasy roleplaying these days?

ExTSR wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:I disagreed. I still do.
In my D&D games, if you want your female character to be exceptional by any particular measure, fine. Including Strength and Con.
It's a fantasy game, be whatever you want.

Agreed.

ExTSR wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:As you argue about whether the majority of women or men on the planet display certain characteristics, while showing your provincial prejudices, to me you seem an unimaginative barbarian.

There is a difference between the real world, and the fantasy world. We play in the fantasy world, in part because it gives us something the real world does not. It is escapism, and for some the ability to feed a creative urge. The problem seems to be that many, for political reasons, feel the need to drag real world politics into what is in fact a roleplaying game. I don't understand this need. I don't understand what satisfaction they get from painting the game world, and its creators, with their divisive brand of race and gender identity politics. I don't understand why this game is not just a game for them, but has to be reframed as a left-wing social battleground.

We collect 1970's and 1980's D&D. I do because I love playing the game. It wasn't written by racist misogynists' as far as I can tell. This one passage of text that has been lifted from Dragon (this smoking gun of sexism) is a guy trying to reproduce real world fact into a fantasy world, and his 'crime' is the lack of imagination to realize that fantasy games do not need to be reproductions of the real world. That doesn't make him a misogynist, any more than those who claim Gary and friends were inherently racist for creating orcs and drow. I disagree with the whole notion that what you guys wrote 40 years ago wrote was racist...

Chucho68 wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:We all have biases, men/males more than most, and white males more than almost everybody else.

... and I find fault with the proposition made here that, I would think that because I'm a white male.
This has to be one of the most sexist and racist thoughts shared with the forum.

mbassoc2003 wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:

... and I find fault with the proposition made here that, I would think that because I'm a white male.
This has to be one of the most sexist and racist thoughts shared with the forum.

And, thus, shallow thought is once again proven, quite sadly.

It is impossible to be racist or sexist toward a white male. Reverse racism/sexism is a lie.

Class dismissed. Read a book. Turn off the TV.

Héctor.

PS. Apologies to all members of this forum for my directness but silence is complicity.

mbassoc2003 wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:


Others took issue with the racism and sexism in your statements.
I confronted them.
And your response is to double down on your position?
Curious.

While I cannot assume anybody's race or gender here, I am willing to bet the "other" (I believe it was one person) is also a white male.

And let me take the opportunity: there is no "agree to disagree" on this issue. There is no "agree" at all.

H.

PS. Google my name, Hector M. Varela Rios. I am a white-passing male.

Chucho68 wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:
While I cannot assume anybody's race or gender here, I am willing to bet the "other" (I believe it was one person) is also a white male.

And let me take the opportunity: there is no "agree to disagree" on this issue. There is no "agree" at all.

H.

PS. Google my name, Hector M. Varela Rios. I am a white-passing male.

And you continue with assumptions about skin colour and your vitriol.
Thank-you for proving my point.

mbassoc2003 wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:And you continue with assumptions about skin colour and your vitriol.
Thank-you for proving my point.

I literally wrote 'I cannot assume'! What is going on?

And where's the vitriol? Because I state I do not agree with shallow thought on racism or the non-sense of reverse racism?

Jesus...here's a book suggestion: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.

Héctor.

Chucho68 wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:
I literally wrote 'I cannot assume'! What is going on?

And where's the vitriol? Because I state I do not agree with shallow thought on racism or the non-sense of reverse racism?

Jesus...here's a book suggestion: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.

Héctor.

The book you offer is a book written by a person who agrees with your world view.  Maybe even informed you of your world view.  This is like me saying, "If you don't believe that the world is flat, then I suggest you read The World is Flat by Mr. Flat Earther".