Killing the Golden Goose

[Ian Absentia]

4 hours ago, klecser said:

Isn't it amazing that the ones who cry foul the loudest about how "sensitive" people are, turn out to be the most sensitive ones in the room?

A common tactic employed against liberals, progressives, and other socially-sensitive and -inclusive softies is to adopt a hand-wringing, beleaguered posture and demand recognition, sensitivity, and inclusion with no intention of reciprocating.  It's a win-win for the trolls, and a lose-lose for the home team.  If you acknowledge their POV, they've scored legitimacy; if you deny them recognition, they claim hypocrisy and undermine the legitimacy of your POV.

Note:  This tactic is employed on both the reactionary and the revolutionary ends of the spectrum.

Protecting the rights of those who're determined to exploit yours is ever the slippery slope of liberty.

!i!

Edited August 13, 2019 by Ian Absentia
Too much hyphenated verbiage

[Ian Absentia]

And since we're cataloguing rhetorical double-speak...

• "Let's begin an argument by agreeing that my opinions are 'objective' and sensible a priori."
• "Everything was going fine until you felt safe enough to complain about it."
• "I genuinely admire how your people held up under the oppression and exploitation of my people. You should be proud of yourselves instead of playing the victim."
• "He channeled his objectionable opinions and behaviors into a pursuit that I can enjoy without taking responsibility for encouraging him and others."
• "There were very fine people on both sides."

Those are good ones.

!i!

Edited August 13, 2019 by Ian Absentia
Adding another goodie

[seneschal]

On 8/11/2019 at 7:26 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

w o w this is an atomic hot take

 

On 8/12/2019 at 2:10 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

superluminal meteor strikes on the Earth, @g33k

I don’t get your tongue-biting outrage.  We’re all about women being strong, confident and capable, right?  Right?  I gave you historical examples of how women have been strong,  capable and effective throughout American history, specifically from the late 19th century through the 1940s.  This offends you?  Nuts!

As for all the rest, I dislike having politics shoved into my role-playing.  For me, it spoils the fun.  I think it could also spoil the fun for a lot of potential new players, creating an unwelcoming environment for folks who just want to escape real life for a while and enjoy a game.  If you want to dump politics into your games at your table, fine.  But I don’t think it would be beneficial to the general customer base to take the Cthulhu product line in that direction.  I think it would harm the overall quality of the material and would ultimately hurt Chaosium’s sales and profitability.  And that’s the whole point of this thread.  Does this offend you, too? Again, nuts!

Since the Call of Cthulhu game line is based on a specific author’s work, it is unproductive (especially for Chaosium) to attack the reputation of said author.  It would be like Disney Corporation saying, “We love Mickey Mouse but, gee, we don’t know about that Walt guy!”  I mean, if you and the others despise Lovecraft so much, why are you eager to play his role-playing game?  And why waste your energy fulminating at a man long dead?  You can’t change the past.  Save it for running campaigns your players will love.

Edited August 14, 2019 by seneschal

[midwinter]

I personally dislike when Lovecraft as a person and author is viewed through a Seattle-made 2019 rainbow-coloured lens. The highly political LGBTQ community is just a minuscule fraction of rpg gamers as a whole yet gaming company after gaming company try to accodommate all their wishes, their outcries for more inclusiveness, more diversity even if it flies against a historical milieu that a game is trying to emulate. You can see evidence of the catering to this minute but loud group in the CoC artwork and in the text itself. But do these people really buy the products? Can there be financial gains to be made from this small community when you risk losing more "conservative" customers? Customers who are hardcore horror fans, customers who cherish Lovecraft's works (warts and all) and don't want to read about preteen hookers and crossdressers in 1920s Berlin? I prefer my Lovecraftian horror to be rather sexless. I can only speak for myself in this regard (like any rebutters). When it comes to inclusiveness, I think Chaosium ought to include more handicapped people in their art and scenarios before catering to tiny social groupings. There are more people with handicaps than people who belong to the LGBTQ clique and angry voices on Twitter isn't a reflection of the real world.

[Ian Absentia]

I hope readers have been keeping score in the preceding posts, but I thought I should add this one to the rhetorical scorecard:

6 hours ago, midwinter said:

When it comes to inclusiveness, I think Chaosium ought to include more handicapped people in their art and scenarios before catering to tiny social groupings. There are more people with handicaps than people who belong to the LGBTQ clique and angry voices on Twitter isn't a reflection of the real world.

• "Let's you and him fight."

Carry on.

!i!

Edited August 14, 2019 by Ian Absentia
No need to get personal

[Ian Absentia]

[snip]

Edited August 14, 2019 by Ian Absentia
Duplicate post

[Qizilbashwoman]

7 hours ago, midwinter said:

I personally dislike when Lovecraft as a person and author is viewed through a Seattle-made 2019 rainbow-coloured lens.

He literally thought non-Anglo-Saxon people - and quite literally Anglo-Saxons, meaning he excluded, say, Italians and Greeks - were subhuman, and was extraordinarily vocal about it, and included it as a main theme in his stories.

"Seattle-made 2019 rainbow-coloured lens" are you joking with this passive-aggressive stuff?

Just say "homosexuals", it's shorter and we all know what you mean.*

Insubordinate and churlish.

Bonus points for managing to work in Twitter somehow.

*I'd like to go on record now as saying these arguments here are entirely not good faith, they are passive-aggressive character attacks and why they slide under the auditor radar as "okay" is unclear to me

Edited August 14, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[midwinter]

49 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

He literally thought non-Anglo-Saxon people - and quite literally Anglo-Saxons, meaning he excluded, say, Italians and Greeks - were subhuman, and was extraordinarily vocal about it, and included it as a main theme in his stories.

"Seattle-made 2019 rainbow-coloured lens" are you joking with this passive-aggressive stuff?

Just say "homosexuals", it's shorter and we all know what you mean.*

Insubordinate and churlish.

Bonus points for managing to work in Twitter somehow.

He also wrote about inbred, white hillbillies, don't forget that. I think he loathed most people. And I frankly don't give a damn. I like horror and I like Lovecraft's works. I sometimes feel I can relate to Lovecraft on a personal scale in many ways, even though he was a much more active, outdoorsy type than I am. And he had lots of penpals too. I would have loved to have been one of his penpals.  

Now with that being said, I must explain what I mean with "Seattle-made 2019 rainbow-coloured lens". I don't think gay people have had any problems playing Call of Cthulhu in the past. There was no need to bring up sexual orientations, gender or skin colour around gaming tables in the 80's for instance. So to clarify - it's the woke clique screaming for "inclusiveness" and the people that cater to that clique that should be under my umbrella term. And Seattle is famous for those angry Twitter people crying foul. From the comics industry, to Hollywood movies, console gaming and to tabletop rpgs. They are always there (the very vocal and DIVERSE minority) but in general they aren't even fans of what they have issues with (let's say a particular game or a comic). They are not the real hardcore consumers and Seattle is NOT a reflection on how the world looks like. There is a reason why "get woke, go broke" is a modern saying.

But for inclusiveness of handicapped people, I want Chaosium to take the ball and run with it. It makes perfect sense in a 1920s setting too, after The Great War. I will endorse this move completely. I bet there is a bigger market of rpg players with some form of handicap than there are rpg players who are transpeople. So it would make sense economically too. It's always about the almighty dollar in the end, isn't it?

By the way, I have some mental disorders. The way sanity and phobias etc in the game works ought to be highly offensive to me, because mental illnesses doesn't work that way at all. But I don't give a damn. It's a non-issue because I know it's a game. But if one wanted to create a real Twitter stink one could take a serious look at it all - why doesn't CoC's infantile take on fear, mental illness and their 1D100 random phobia lists cause more of an uproar than exclusion of certain sexual identities? Where are the woke people crying foul in regards of this? Isn't it time for Chaosium to revise their fantasy take on madness and phobias? Or maybe put a giant disclaimer on the back of the game: "Warning! This roleplaying game simulates bouts of madness and insanity. But in no way does the fantastical game mechanics reflect real mental disorders or cast a shadow on people with real mental disabilities." Wouldn't this be more important than talking about LGBTQ people in the 1920s? Chew the cud of that for awhile, then make your witty comebacks.

 

[Trifletraxor]

3 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

*I'd like to go on record now as saying these arguments here are entirely not good faith, they are passive-aggressive character attacks and why they slide under the auditor radar as "okay" is unclear to me

Well, as this is a thread of predictably baiting rants and triggered responses, I'd say none of the arguments are entirely in good faith, on either side. I would hazard to guess that all participating in this thread know the debate is utterly pointless as it's one of those that really only boils down to "I'm right and your point of view is stupid". 

With "political correctness" as a tag for the thread, I never expected a civil discourse and passive-agressive arguments were to be expected, but at least now it's not cluttering up the other threads that actually focus on roleplaying. 

As stated before, this is a lightly moderated forum were members are expected to self-moderate. The auditor radar has quite poor resolution, but this has worked very well until recently... 

Aggressive and blatant personal attacks will not be tolerated, but I'll let you score your rethorical points at each other up until that to keep it contained here. 

[g33k]

9 hours ago, midwinter said:

... But do these people really buy the products? Can there be financial gains to be made from this small community when you risk losing more "conservative" customers? ...

Just gonna point you (and @seneschal who makes a similar claim) to Harlem Unbound.  I think there's more than just a "market" for such content.  I think there's a HUGE market for it.  Triple-gold at the ENnies (and don't forget that's fan-voted, so customers not industry pundits).

Not sure if there has ever been any supplement that was as on-the-nose for LGBTQI+ issues as Harlem Unbound is for African-Americans...?  Berlin Wicked City plus some trappings from Cabaret (the musical) would seem fertile, here (I don't have the book, so maybe those trappings are already rolled-in?).  At the same time, non-cisgender folk have ALWAYS been part of the human experience, and in my experience slightly over-represented in RPG'dom, so there's certainly room for more of that!

I'm... unclear why just including them is a problem for you?  Is it just that they are offensive?  Honestly -- as a cisgender guy -- I prefer to have the inclusion, than to not have it.  So far as I can see, I'm not threatened by non-binary genderfolk.

Personally... I'm willing to leave behind the kind of person who finds such inclusivity to be a bad thing.  History is cluttered with the detritus of slave-owning Americans, of Americans who thought women didn't deserve the right to vote, etc.  Cis-centric sentiment is the same kind of sentiment, and is heading the same generally-detritus-y direction.

 

OTOH...

57 minutes ago, midwinter said:

 ... But for inclusiveness of handicapped people, I want Chaosium to take the ball and run with it. It makes perfect sense in a 1920s setting too, after The Great War. I will endorse this move completely ...

Got nothing but agreement with you, on this point.

I think a deep dive into the travails of Doughboys-come-home would be very fertile CoC ground.  There was also a big Polio spike in the USA in 1916, that could lead to characters with handicaps.  The disease certainly would have sparked some horror in Mr. Lovecraft's psyche!

I'm not sure a "handicap-centered" supplement would work, however:  I think the majority of players want fully-able PC's.  But I'd love to see much more pre-gen PC's and key NPC good-guy types with various disabilities.  These could just be included as normal parts of whatever product(s) Chaosium is already producing.
 

A chapter or appendix on war-wounds and war-traumas in a "Doughboys" book (and impacts on their lives at home) would seem like an easy include (if there were such a book).

 

And also:

3 hours ago, midwinter said:

... The way sanity and phobias etc in the game works ought to be highly offensive to me, because mental illnesses doesn't work that way at all ... why doesn't CoC's infantile take on fear, mental illness and their 1D100 random phobia lists cause more of an uproar ... Where are the woke people crying foul in regards of this? Isn't it time for Chaosium to revise their fantasy take on madness and phobias? ...

Yeah, I can get behind this, too!  I've been occasionally advocating for years now that people should just rip UA's "Madness Meter" and use it to replace CoC's insanity rules.  Better still, of course, would be to find some gamers who ALSO have professional psych degrees, and some more with personal experience of non-neurotypical states, and do a redesign of these mechanics from scratch.

 

And despite agreeing with those points, I'm gonna call you on a pretty clear case of "whataboutism" -- the fact that Chaosium hasn't done everything for every marginalized group takes nothing away from the fact that they now ARE doing some good things for some of those groups.  "But whatabout this other deserving group?" is a silly rhetorical maneuver that screams "I have no real facts or logic, but the truthiness of my position is clear!"   The only downside I can see is the angst of a some special snowflakes who hate to see their fallacious & outdated POVs debunked.

 

[Lordabdul]

18 minutes ago, g33k said:

Just gonna point you (and @seneschal who makes a similar claim) to Harlem Unbound.  I think there's more than just a "market" for such content.  I think there's a HUGE market for it.  Triple-gold at the ENnies (and don't forget that's fan-voted, so customers not industry pundits).

The new edition of Masks of Nyarlathotep, which (among other cool things) fixed some of the most obvious problems with sexism/racism, just got Gold in Best Adventure, too.

12 hours ago, midwinter said:

When it comes to inclusiveness, I think Chaosium ought to include more handicapped people in their art and scenarios

In the meantime, feel free to support the FATE Accessibilty Toolkit, which is currently in "prototyping mode".

[Ian Absentia]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

Just gonna point you [...snip...] to Harlem Unbound.  I think there's more than just a "market" for such content.  I think there's a HUGE market for it.  Triple-gold at the ENnies (and don't forget that's fan-voted, so customers not industry pundits).

I'm thinking to 20 years back when Pagan Publishing was switching the code of the customary Lovecraft-esque Call of Cthulhu adventures.  Not always even-handed and definitely not all leftie-liberal-squishiness, they turned a hairy eyeball toward Lovecraft's dated sensibilities several times.  They turned the tables on a classic Anglo-Saxon touchstone in their Golden Dawn book and its hideous interpretation of the King Arthur myth.  Their inclusion of Tcho-Tcho-Americans in Delta Green: Countdown was a  brilliant and savage take on US immigration policy (among other issues).

Point being, gamers who love Call of Cthulhu have been moving past Lovecraft for years now.  It turns out this precious goose ain't that fragile.  And it ain't that golden, either.  And -- here's a poorly-kept secret for you -- the Mythos didn't start with Lovecraft, and it hasn't ended with him.

The game will change with the times.  The game will survive.  Chaosium will survive.  Whether or not you want to change is up to you.

!i!

[klecser]

14 hours ago, g33k said:

Yeah, I can get behind this, too!  I've been occasionally advocating for years now that people should just rip UA's "Madness Meter" and use it to replace CoC's insanity rules.  Better still, of course, would be to find some gamers who ALSO have professional psych degrees, and some more with personal experience of non-neurotypical states, and do a redesign of these mechanics from scratch.

I don't even call it Sanity. In my game, the mechanic is replaced with a "Cosmic Trauma Resistance" (CTR) meter that essentially functions the same way, but it is all about how characters deal with the trauma they get from the Mythos. "Make a CTR check." My entire group is non-neurotypical, and subtle changes like that make the world of difference. Call of Cthulhu attracted them because (with some massaging) it allowed us to explore cognition in a fictional space. We know the history. We're re-writing the Mythos as we see fit.

So, leave it to the other crowd to just assume that we aren't cognizant of these things. Maybe people aren't aware of it because they never asked? Because they assumed we run a progressive playbook that we get when we join?

"I can't imagine it, so it can't be a thing." "I don't see the market being viable, so we should resist the market." The evidence is there (Harlem Unbound, the success of the Inner Darkness KS). The writing is on the wall. You can either accept the evidence, or pretend like it doesn't exist. 

At the end of the day, the question g33k posed is the real critical one. Whether someone likes something or not isn't the issue here. The question is why people would stop other people from liking what they like? Why do you feel a need to try to STOP people from approaching something a certain way? The argument most frequently lifted is "it will chase people away from the game." Nope. All evidence to the contrary. So what now? What is your big justification for stopping people from having fun if it isn't YOUR way? Why is this YOUR space and not EVERYONE's space? You know that freedom means everybody, right? Not "freedom so long as I get to define what the freedom is."

Edited August 15, 2019 by klecser

[midwinter]

10 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Point being, gamers who love Call of Cthulhu have been moving past Lovecraft for years now.  It turns out this precious goose ain't that fragile.  And it ain't that golden, either.  And -- here's a poorly-kept secret for you -- the Mythos didn't start with Lovecraft, and it hasn't ended with him.

The game will change with the times.  The game will survive.  Chaosium will survive.  Whether or not you want to change is up to you.

The Mythos didn't start with Lovecraft, eh? Who started it then? August Derleth? And the part of the Mythos you described as not having ended with Lovecraft is true of course, if you refer to authors like Campbell, Lumley and more modern authors. But there is a stark difference between them and Lovecraft. Try publishing a Call of Cthulhu scenario using Lumley's Mythos creatures and you'll probably hear from his lawyers. The same goes for the rest. Lovecraft on the other hand ENCOURAGED people to use and expand upon his horror creations. Now it's all about copyright and compensation. In fact, you can't even publish a free scenario in the Miskatonic Repository with Lumley's or Campbell's creatures in it even though they are found in the 7th edition core books. The modern authors have no qualms about "borrowing" some Lovecraft material though.

You're right that Chaosium's CoC seems to change with the times. But the certain interpretations of these modern "times" might not ring true among many in the rpg crowd. Only time will tell if the game will be focus even more about LGBT people in the 1920s, prostitution, white guilt and inclusiveness a few years from now. Frankly, instead of all that hard inclusive research and shoehorning, they could just change the setting to modern day Portland or Seattle. That would be a win-win situation for the new, updated and woke CoC crowd. And Chaosium could leave out mentioning Lovecraft in future publications, just like people removed his bust from The World Fantasy Award.

Modern era Chaosium's biggest problem is not about being inclusive enough though, it's about IDENTITY. There is some ambiguity when it comes to CoC. Is Call of Cthulhu a horror game these days? The line between CoC and Pulp Cthulhu is quite blurry. Does Chaosium really want to do a REAL horror game? Do they want to try to make it a creepy, scary game? Do they have the balls to do it? The current 7th edition is more or less PG-13 according to the instructions found in the Repository. Why not make Punch-a-nazi-Pulp Cthulhu PG-13 but make the original CoC darker and creepier? I would, but then again I'm not in charge of hiring people who think horror movies are too scary. I do know horror though as I'm an avid collector. Well, a hoarder, really. My team would consist of hardcore horror fans aiming to make Call of Cthulhu creepy again, while paying no heed to Twitter storms and other political outcries. But I also feel that all those fancy awards might have gone to Chaosium's head. And in the end it's about making money, not artistic integrity and vision, sadly. New Chaosium is Metallica after the success of the Black album and Cthulhu is now Mammons little b*tch.

[midwinter]

1 hour ago, klecser said:

I don't even call it Sanity. In my game, the mechanic is replaced with a "Cosmic Trauma Resistance" (CTR) meter that essentially functions the same way, but it is all about how characters deal with the trauma they get from the Mythos. "Make a CTR check." My entire group is non-neurotypical, and subtle changes like that make the world of difference. Call of Cthulhu attracted them because (with some massaging) it allowed us to explore cognition in a fictional space. We know the history. We're re-writing the Mythos as we see fit.

So, leave it to the other crowd to just assume that we aren't cognizant of these things. Maybe people aren't aware of it because they never asked? Because they assumed we run a progressive playbook that we get when we join?

"I can't imagine it, so it can't be a thing." "I don't see the market being viable, so we should resist the market." The evidence is there (Harlem Unbound, the success of the Inner Darkness KS). The writing is on the wall. You can either accept the evidence, or pretend like it doesn't exist. 

At the end of the day, the question g33k posed is the real critical one. Whether someone likes something or not isn't the issue here. The question is why people would stop other people from liking what they like? Why do you feel a need to try to STOP people from approaching something a certain way? The argument most frequently lifted is "it will chase people away from the game." Nope. All evidence to the contrary. So what now? What is your big justification for stopping people from having fun if it isn't YOUR way? Why is this YOUR space and not EVERYONE's space? You know that freedom means everybody, right? Not "freedom so long as I get to define what the freedom is."

non-neurotypical is a modern buzzword too, is it? In all my years meeting up with doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc, I have never come across such a term. Must be an American thing but I don't like the sound of that word. I'm rather "batshit insane" than "non-neurotypical".

Since you claim that the woke/sjw/inclusive/LGBTQ market increases sales...do you have any sales figures for Harlem Unbound and other titles that might point to the marketing strategy being a success? And how many LGBTQ people do you think buys Call of Cthulhu products? Why not target an Asian-American audience instead? I'm pretty certain there are more of those in the USA. Wouldn't that be a better strategy? Chaosium could write a gaslight scenario about how the Chinese broke their backs building American railroads. Or whatabout the First Nations? Chaosium could have scenarios concerning the murderous decimation of the tribes and the theft of their lands. Many of you probably live on stolen Native land. Then as a token of good will Chaosium could donate the money to the Odawa for instance.

[Lordabdul]

You're 43 posts in this forum and you're already writing stuff like this? (and judging from your posting history, that's pretty much all you ever posted about). Congrats, you're the first member I'm muting.

Edited August 15, 2019 by lordabdul

[midwinter]

There is a post missing in this thread where I was called odious. I got an email about it:

odious

• adj.
  Arousing or deserving hatred or strong dislike. synonym: hateful.
• adj.
  Extremely unpleasant; repulsive: synonym: offensive.
•  
  Hateful or deserving of hatred; offensive; disgusting; causing or exciting hatred, dislike, disgust, or repugnance; repulsive; disagreeable; unpleasant: as, an odious person; an odious sight or smell.

 

45 posts into Chaosiums enchanted forum and I am regarded as repulsive, repugnant, deserving of hatred, hateful, offensive, disliked. Wow, my mom couldn't have picked a better word (the mom part is a joke, I loved my mom dearly and she loved me). Well, I hope you aren't employed by Chaosium. Calling customers odious is bad for business I think. But it's a good, staunch word. Lovecraftian, even. I will savour this moment since I've never been called odious before.

[The Hooded Claw]

Yes, I posted it then took it down because I realised  it was too extreme. Maybe you can learn something.

Edited August 15, 2019 by Addison

[g33k]

1 hour ago, midwinter said:

non-neurotypical is a modern buzzword too, is it? In all my years meeting up with doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc, I have never come across such a term. Must be an American thing but I don't like the sound of that word. I'm rather "batshit insane" than "non-neurotypical".

Terms like "neuroatypical" / "neurodivergent" / "neurodiverse" / "non-neurotypical" were AFAIK coined by the aspergergers/autism community as a self-descriptors ("normies" obviously become "neurotypical" in this parlance; "normie" being the semi-insulting dismissive term used for many years in deliberate, defensive fashion as they felt insulted and dismissed my most terms commonly used toward them).  You may be correct that the usage originated in the USA; I find it in use more than a decade ago, with origination credited to the ANI (Autism Network International) community.  Note it's the term chosen by the people themselves, not a "woke" label invented for the feels and to be kinder & gentler.

One can also see "NT" for neurotypical and "ND" for neurodiverse/neurodivergent.

A moment with Google and I get over 1.6 million hits so... not terribly rare or unusual .  There's a film from a few years back (2013) titled "Neurotypical"   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1760416/   .

Dunno why you're... angry and dismissive about this language?

 

[Sumath]

Wow, this all escalated quickly.

My take on this is as follows: If you and your gaming group don't want to discuss HPL's racism, or play scenarios with explicit parallels between HPL's xenophobia and the horror themes of aliens from beyond, then... don't. That's fine - everyone is free to decide what they want to explore in their own games.

But that goes both ways - so coming on to a forum and trying to tell everyone else they (or Chaosium) shouldn't talk about HPL's racism is an imposition upon others. You don't get to decide how other people game. And the idea that politics doesn't belong in role-playing is itself a political position. I can't think of a single role-playing game that doesn't adopt a political position of some sort.

As far as freedom of speech goes, trying to stop people referring to HPL's prejudices is just an attempt to close down discussion. Why shouldn't they refer to them? There is no obligation for gamers to refer to them (much as there is no obligation to talk about how carcinogenic a packet of cigarettes is - you can just smoke them if you want to). But there should be no bar on referring to the author's personal beliefs either and there are clearly strong feelings about this.

Finally, from an ethical, reputational and business point of view, the OP's idea that Chaosium (or any other modern international business) would not seek to distance themselves from the kind of repugnant views expressed in some of Lovecraft's stories is incredibly naïve. Which company is going to promote a product based upon the work of a highly problematic writer, yet not acknowledge those problems, or point out that they absolutely do not agree with such views?

[midwinter]

8 minutes ago, g33k said:

Terms like "neuroatypical" / "neurodivergent" / "neurodiverse" / "non-neurotypical" were AFAIK coined by the aspergergers/autism community as a self-descriptors ("normies" obviously become "neurotypical" in this parlance; "normie" being the semi-insulting dismissive term used for many years in deliberate, defensive fashion as they felt insulted and dismissed my most terms commonly used toward them).  You may be correct that the usage originated in the USA; I find it in use more than a decade ago, with origination credited to the ANI (Autism Network International) community.  Note it's the term chosen by the people themselves, not a "woke" label invented for the feels and to be kinder & gentler.

One can also see "NT" for neurotypical and "ND" for neurodiverse/neurodivergent.

A moment with Google and I get over 1.6 million hits so... not terribly rare or unusual .  There's a film from a few years back (2013) titled "Neurotypical"   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1760416/   .

Dunno why you're... angry and dismissive about this language?

 

I'm not autistic and I don't have Aspergers. I don't call people without mental issues "normies" either. What's normal anyway? I do not enjoy having mental problems. I was better before and I aim to be better again. And neurodiverse as a word must have been thought up by some really sensitive think-tank. What does it even mean? What would be the opposite? Those that aren't neurodiverse would be like The Stepford Wives. Nah, keep these nonsense terms in USA where they belong.

[g33k]

1 minute ago, midwinter said:

And neurodiverse as a word must have been thought up by some really sensitive think-tank. What does it even mean?

Again with the dismissive language... because?

As I stated:  it was "thought up" by the folks themselves who experience it on a daily basis (no think-tank involved).  It means exactly what it sounds like -- a non-typical range or diversity in neurology.  As widely noted, autism is a "spectrum" with very diverse effects&symptoms.

It's... actually a very elegant phrasing; information-dense, descriptive, lots of utility. 

[g33k]

On 8/14/2019 at 12:01 AM, seneschal said:

As for all the rest, I dislike having politics shoved into my role-playing.  For me, it spoils the fun.

Do you just not get it?  Racist and sexist politics have been shoved into role-playing for DECADES.  Yes, it does spoil the fun.

The fact that you don't even notice it... can't even see it when it's pointed out to you...?   You were asking up-thread how anyone dare level a charge of "privilege" at you.  Well, you just wrapped yourself in the Privilege Flag, soaked yourself in Privilege Juice, and promenaded down Privilege Street.  Nobody did it but you.

But "inclusivity" isn't politics.  It's just human decency.

 

[rsanford]

5 minutes ago, g33k said:

Do you just not get it?  Racist and sexist politics have been shoved into role-playing for DECADES.  Yes, it does spoil the fun.

The fact that you don't even notice it... can't even see it when it's pointed out to you...?   You were asking up-thread how anyone dare level a charge of "privilege" at you.  Well, you just wrapped yourself in the Privilege Flag, soaked yourself in Privilege Juice, and promenaded down Privilege Street.  Nobody did it but you.

But "inclusivity" isn't politics.  It's just human decency.

 

I don't know G33. In Dallas where I live (in a suburb) being called privilege is usually meant as an insult and as a way of saying that a person's voice doesn't matter (because they aren't inclusive). I wouldn't be surprised if a lot other people feel that way too. And a large number of political conservatives in the US would say that inclusivity is just a phrase used by liberal elites to elevate some people while ignoring others. I understand your opinion as you are trying to define inclusivity in its truest sense; however I bet the word's most common use is by politicians to describe something that some group of people (maybe deplorables or others) lack.

I do know that it wasn't many days ago that a person on this site was called out for being priviledged and being not inclusive. That is a pretty new phenomena on this site and not everyone is going to enjoy seeing that.

[klecser]

I really admire the fact that you (and others) are trying, g33k. I think its pretty clear that we're wasting our time. They aren't interested in learning. The fact that someone equates "batshit insane" with "neurodiverse" shows what kind of social experience we're dealing with.  I think this thread has accomplished what it needs to accomplish: to show the community that the incredibly aggressive attitudes espoused by some do not need to exist in role-playing groups.

Don't like something? Don't participate with it. But just know that you being ignorant of something doesn't make it wrong. Meet more people. Part of this reaction can be explained by a simple limitation of life experience. Salt of the Earth. Just because someone hasn't experienced something doesn't mean it isn't a thing. 

Edited August 15, 2019 by klecser