I Now Pronouns You Gender-Neutral Anonymous Entity

Sometimes, small things are important.

According to Zak Smith, who helped edit it, Lamentations of the Flame Princess uses exclusively male pronouns when referring to an indefinite person. Since by far the most important point of Smith's post was "Hey, awesome independent game now available for preorder!" I didn't want to start a big conversation in the comments about this. There were some, enough for James Raggi to clarify his position (he saw downsides to all options and went with what was most comfortable to him) and I'm fine with that.

But I do want to talk about pronouns here.

It's some time in the late '80s. You just pulled the 2e D&D Player's Handbook off the shelf at... wherever the hell you bought RPGs in the late '80s. What spells can a player choose as a level 5 wizard? According to the book, he can pick from the following list. Is a fighter proficient with a greatsword? Yes, he is.

Now, several of the pictures are of women. Presumably, anyone playing the game could be female. Did the writers just assume no woman would play D&D? No. In the front of the book you'd actually find a disclaimer. I can't find the exact text, but the gist was: Centuries of use have "neutered" the male pronoun, so it's okay to use it exclusively.

So they felt the need to warn you: "Hey, we're going to assume you're male unless otherwise stated, because male is the new andro, except when it's still male." The premise that male pronouns have been "neutered" is demonstrably false the moment you find yourself needing a disclaimer to say so. [EDIT: I've removed a line here that could be misconstrued as comparing sexism and racism. That wasn't the intention: I think such comparisons are inevitably toxic because all forms of discrimination are equally foul, yet fundamentally different. Since I don't think the line was necessary to the argument, it was easier to cut it.]   

It obviously occurred to the writers that some people were going to be bothered by the it and those people were probably female. It's entirely likely, from the art direction and other clues, that the authors wanted these women to play. Otherwise, they wouldn't have run a disclaimer defending their position. What I don't understand is: Why was that so much easier than just saying "his or her"? Or alternating?

Why does it matter?

I write copy for a LGBTQ porn site, and part of my task is to look at the model's bio and use accurate gender identifiers in my writing. Sometimes that info isn't there, and I have to play it safe and use NO pronouns. If you try to guess, you will almost always be wrong. The difference between a transgendered man and a woman who is genderfucking but still identifies as female isn't something you can tell by site. Some models prefer neither pronoun - they want to be known as it, their or they ("it's not just genderfucked, it's grammar-fucked!"), or a modern "invented" neutral pronoun like ze and zir.

It may also sound like nitpicking political correctness* but to these people, it matters. They've struggled with their identity all their lives. Their government - supposedly the most democratic on Earth - denies them basic rights on a daily basis. A majority of their fellow citizens - in this "freest nation in the world" - mostly think they are perverted, insane or hellspawn that it is okay to murder. They've fought really, really fucking hard to claim their identity and when I have the ability to ensure they are referred to as who they are or in the very least not alienated because I found it easier to just assume a status quot? I'm damn hell going to give them that respect.

Likewise, when a woman reads "he" when a book refers to someone they may very well be, the message is clear even if unintentional. This book is not for you. It is for the norm, which is male - that is why we assume a being is male first unless specified otherwise. Thus it has been in medicine (at the cost of untold women's lives) and really every human endeavor for a very long time. You are not the norm. You are other. Put this book down.

Not the message you want to send when trying to diversify and expand your hobby.

It would actually be more accurate to assume an anonymous party to be female. Statistically it is more likely. Also, in the womb we all start out on the same trek - towards a female body. At a certain point those destined to be male develop a divergent anatomy, with some vestiges of the female left over (look down, boys. Notice anything pointy and pointless on your chest?). Plus we have centuries of use of the male pronoun to make up for.

Things have gotten better. That disclaimer was in 2e. Today, D&D 3e and 4e proudly use mixed pronouns, alternating between "he" and "she." They also catch flak for this in some quarters. Personally I think this is one of the better advancements of the game, besides getting rid of the seven million saving throws. The ire of a few trolls, and maybe a bit of extra effort when constructing a sentence, are small prices to pay to make people feel like you want them playing your game.

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* "Political correctness" as a term was actually first used in the modern sense by the New Left to describe leaders who "talked the talk but didn't walk the walk," so to speak. Think "Racist Senator Pretends to Like Jazz." It was also used by feminists to describe the anti-pornography movement's attempts to appropriate their ideas for their own agenda to define and narrow female sexuality. It wasn't until the 90's that clueless right-wingers used the term, which more often than not was used as a pejorative against themselves, to label any attempt to actually care about the effect of your actions upon other human beings.

In other words, if you think calling me "politically correct" will invalidate my argument, fuck your grandpa.

Early Dark vs. Lamentations of The Flame Princess: Comparing Two Games That Aren't Even Out Yet

I was pointed to this Kickstarter project today: Early Dark, an RPG. Meanwhile, James Raggi IV is finally taking orders for his Lamentations of The Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing.

If I were going to buy one of these two games, based on what I know about them as it has been presented to me, I honestly do not know which I would pick. The both have fundamental goals I like very much. Yet both goals, while not in opposite directions of one another, require a significant detour if you want to see both.

Early Dark

I'm in love with the concept of Early Dark - a fantasy RPG based on world cultures beyond just the European Middle Ages. THAT is the kind of game I can see getting more people, and different kinds of people, interested in the hobby. Some would argue that D&D has done this more and more over the years, but... well, bullshit. "Oriental Adventures" is not going to appeal to a whole lot of Asian kids. Hell, I can barely get past the title. How about we change D&D to "Honkeys on Horseback" while we're at it? "Crackers and Krakens?" "Weapons and WASPS?"

No? Maybe no "Oriental Adventures" then. Sounds more like a massage parlor, says my wife. And we all know there are no "happy endings" in old-school roleplaying.

Anyway, yeah, Early Dark sounds cool - I'd love to role something like an Apache warrior or a Zulu priest. The only thing that makes me nervous is the glimpses we get of the character sheet. That looks like some hardcore crunchiness (although it was pointed out to me that may be more reference material than actual stats. And the makers do condemn d20 for being too rules heavy during the video). Still, I see some stuff on there that makes me think very much of old World of Darkness: Arcane, Mundane, Loom, Thrive? These are terms that you can only know the application of if you play the game, unlike "strength" or "magic points." WoD was TERRIBLE for this, and maybe they still are - I don't know. You practically had to be an Eastern Religions major to play "Kindred of the East."

Lamentations of The Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing

Okay... give me a second to catch my breath... I wonder if Raggi IV would be offended if I call it "Lam-Flam" from now on. Let's find out.

Lam-Flam sets out to do something very different from Early Dark. Duh - James Raggi IV is a champion of the Old-School Roleplaying Renaissance (OSR) and has very strong opinions about it. He's also not at all concerned about the fact D&D is, due to its origins, very ethnocentric. Which isn't to say he condones real-world racism, but that he doesn't see a problem with race as portrayed in the game unless you actively correlate in-game races like orcs with real-world minorities. At least, that's what I've taken away from past posts on his blog - see "D&D and Racism."

It should come as no surprise, then, that one of differences between his game, D&D and the retro-clones is that Lam-Flam actually simplifies the concept of class and race - actually, in some instances class and race are the same thing. Rather than seek to expand your options for customizing and building your character, Raggi IV has condensed everything to "pick from a list of what you want to be."

Which, actually, has an appeal all its own. Especially if you're looking to get into RPGs for the first time, or introduce some friends to the game whom you suspect would balk at the more complicated... well, from what I've heard about Lam-Flam, if it's too hard to pick up your last hope is "TWERPS."

But of course, there's another important aspect to Lam-Flam: That bit after the colon. Raggi IV apparently sought to create a game that captures the spirit of the Weird - less "Lord of the Rings" and more "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward in Medieval Europe with Swords." This, I'm very, very interested by, especially knowing that Raggi IV is a gifted writer with a strong imagination in the subject.

The Point?

Why compare two games that aren't even technically out yet? Because I find it fascinating that in 2010, two new fantasy roleplaying games are growing out of the soil tilled by Gygax and Co back in the 70s. Two very different games that are also unlike any generation of the original crop. It's still good soil, and fresh ideas are still gestating within it.

Tolkien, Race and Archetypes

Swords and Dorkery has an interesting post about J. R. R. Tolkien basing the dwarves of Lord of the Rings on Semetic culture, including the writing, language and architecture. Which, of course, raises issues about the whole big-nosed, squat money-hoarding thing.

Just in case anyone's getting up-in-arms about this; look. There are racist ideas in Tolkien's writings. The Swarthy Men? Come on. I love his books, but they are very much about protecting the comfortable, the normal, the familiar from the strange and other.

I Have Seen the Face of the Enemy

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The video game my wife loves so much we bought it twice.

It's actually four years old at this point. I first got it for the PC, despite barely being able to run it  on mine (see all that grass, and reflections, and such? I had to turn that off). We both played it in frightening amounts, then eventually moved on.

Then I got a better computer with a giant monitor, and we installed it again. And again, we played scary marathon sessions that eventually tapered off.

The we got a Xbox 360, which means playing with a controller, on a HUGE tv, in HD, with graphics better than my computer could handle. And I'm wondering how I'll ever convince her to come roll dice and imagine killing goblins, instead.