Before I start in on my review today I went through my normal routine of perusing a list of websites and interweb hangouts. Most of these are online comics, a couple of "news" sites, and only two social media feeds.
I'm deeply disturbed by a
public G+ post by Dyson Logos. We've shared some emails and words of encouragement and never have I seen anything to indicate he is less than a stand up guy, and his post only reinforces my point. I usually save rants for my other blog, but this soap-box moment belongs here.
While I encourage you to
read that post, the TL;DR version is that he commented on a game system that had some sexist rules, how he didn't like those rules, and some people are losing their shit over his statements.
I'm much more stereotypical gamer than I'd like to admit sometimes. 43 yo white male, overweight, from the Midwest who has been playing since I was seven or eight. I can tell you for certain I've played games that had sexist rules and didn't even notice....well at least at first. I've played in convention games where a player has been mean, sexist, and derogatory towards women at the table and I didn't even notice, much less take any action.
In my own defense though if I see what I think is a stupid rule I just don't use it and for that one player, well that's all on me. I was in the middle of losing my PC and wasn't paying attention to what was going on. I took action the next day, but that was less than optimal.
The way I see it we play these games to have fun and it isn't cool to have fun at the expense of someone else (
Schadenfreude maybe). To actually codify this in a ruleset is inexcusable. Most of play some sort of fantasy setting with mythical creatures and magic or otherworldly technology, so what is the purpose of stating all women are inferior to men in some way?
I've met women "doing a man's job" that I thought were clearly inferior in some important aspect of said job, but you know what? It wasn't because they were female....I've seen some sucktastic men "doing a man's job". This is in the real-world. In the fantasy world? I would expect Elves to be prettier than Humans and Humans to be stronger than Halflings, but there is no place for requiring such delineations strictly on the basis of gender because you have some anecdotal real-world experiences.
Even...and this is just me playing "Devil's Advocate" it was ok to put sexism and misogyny into an RPG game, it is not ok to threaten people who have a different opinion on what is appropriate in a RPG ruleset, setting, or home-game. If the Edition Wars have taught us anything it should be there isn't room for this, but there is enough room for everyone to belly up to the table to play....assuming they can "play nice".
I for one applaud Dyson for taking the stand he has. In this respect he's definitely a better man than I am, but I'm working on it.
I'll have the review up later today....
