User talk:OriginalPrankster/SJW

Re: Bioware

I don't know how relevant the decay of BioWare is to the article. First, I remember you were the one complaining that there was too much non-/tg/ shit here. The SJWs also essentially own the video game industry (that's why they're coming for /tg/ now, it's the next step down the hobby ladder in terms of money to leech) so if we open that can of worms we could be here all day. On top of that, nearest I can tell the BioWare devs actually believe the shit they're spewing. OriginalPrankster (talk) 12:30, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

At the time I was just using it as an analog to what's going on in the RPG industry today as a commentary to what you were talking about, but upon retrospect I think you are right- I was allowing myself to go too far off on that tangent. And personally? I noticed that BioWare started spewing that shit at almost the same time their new EA overlords began taking heavy criticism for their unsavory business practices, and I doubt that's purely coincidental; quite a few other people at the time also put two and two together and concluded they were just using the issues to deflect criticism. But who knows? I'm no mind reader, and I can't tell whether they actually believe it or if it's all just an act on their part (and by extension, everyone else that kowtows to the SJW lot).

My guess? It's all a ploy. By their nature, they don't criticize any kind of work that caters to their ideology, no matter how poor the quality of the end product, which makes them a demographic that's all too simple to milk for all they're worth. By contrast, people like you and me are more sensitive to flaws in a product, which means we're more likely to call them out on their shit and less likely to buy the stuff that falls short of our standards. The SJWs get their egos stroked, and the companies get a supply of customers which will happily buy even the worst of their products. It's a symbiosis I suspect will end only when it's decided they're no longer profitable. After all, their main concern is money and I'm certain they'd be more than willing to change their tune as soon as they think there's something to be earned from it.--Newerfag (talk) 15:52, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Why bother?

Is there a reason you essentially copied the existing SJW page and made it less pithy instead of more as you said you would (notwithstanding the inability to even link them to half of the things you ascribe to them for want of evidence- I could point to all of those decisions being the natural consequences of them being made by people who don't play the games they make, because executives are never involved in the products they create)? Honestly, it makes you look just a little bit obsessed with these people, and that's putting it politely.Newerfag (talk) 03:09, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Possible worked example: Mongoose Paranoia

Not Paranoia XP, the new Paranoia produced without the original crew in the driver's seat. (The one mission from Costikyan doesn't count, for all we know he just did it for a paycheck. I have no idea what Ken Rolston was smoking when he let this get out the door.) Someone recently treated me to the starter set PDF and it reeks of Tumblrfags infesting an established property for personal gain without understanding what the original was about. This gets to the core of what I had in mind for this article: SJWs don't just turn games into ideological weapons, they make bad games in general. Points of contention:

• The Sidebar of Doom: "...gender isn’t as big a concern to the citizens of Alpha Complex as it is to today’s society – gender discrimination is treasonous because it wastes valuable time. Women, men, cisgender, transgender, non-binary and intersex people are all equally capable of serving the Computer..." Except it's totally a big deal because the writers wrote a sidebar to show how progressive and diverse they are and return to the point several times throughout the rules text. One of the perks of everyone being hormone-suppressed clones is GMs can nip this kind of preening bullshit in the bud; if you care about gender beyond the most abstract sense you're probably not taking your pharmatherapy regimen and are therefore a traitor.
• Return of the Sidebar of Doom: "...heterosexual sex is treasonous, as it makes a mockery of the Computer’s extensive cloning facilities. The Computer has no official stance on homosexual activity due to a lack of programming on the matter, and treats it as a form of enthusiastic wrestling that is inadvisable when traitors may be nearby." The Computer's insanity is (out of universe and possibly in-universe depending on your views on the Big Whoops) based in the 1950s moral paranoia that gave us propaganda films like Perversion for Profit, which is part of why nobody's allowed to fuck in Alpha Complex. (Note that the speaker claims that gays are bad because they leave America vulnerable to Communist lies.) Saying that the Computer has a "blind spot" for gays and not heteros shows a distressing lack of comprehension of Paranoia's DNA.
• Stupid fucking dead memes, especially "hurf durf cake." Only RPGs that don't exist deal in stupid fucking dead memes.
• GM advice that feels the need to explain in detail why RPGs are fun (presumably because the writers didn't understand it either), confuses forced memes with setting up for a running gag and revels in petty dick moves, like consistently referring to XP as "XP points" because "if it annoys you just reading through this book, imagine how much it’ll annoy your players." While a big part of Paranoia GM culture is dicking over players at will, it's supposed to be done in the interest of setting up a combustible mix of player paranoia and conflicting agendas, so that everyone is entertained by the ensuing clusterfuck. The shit MParanoia recommends (and the way it recommends it) isn't trying to make the game entertaining for everyone, it's just being a douchebag.
  • At the same time the GM handbook says that you need to make your table a safe and comforting space and be nice and make everyone happy because "it's 2016." Yes, we've reached a level of rhetoric on par with a /v/ troll. One particular sidebar is so fucking hypocritical, insulting and holier-than-thou that I feel the need to quote it verbatim:

I DON’T CARE ABOUT OFFENDING PEOPLE, THIS IS PARANOIA!
If you don’t care about offending people, you’re a dick, and the only people that like you are dicks like you, and we don’t want to play games with you, and when you leave a room decent people are like ‘Can you believe that person?’ and they don’t like you, so try being a better person maybe?

We're reaching levels of "you are having fun incorrectly" that shouldn't even be possible. This is the first time an RPG has taken "don't be an asshole to your players" and twisted it into something I feel the urge to rail against. (However, I will admit that the "You are Number One" badge is an idea with potential and the next time I can get a Paranoia game together I'll probably jack it for my own purposes.)

• Communism as an actual threat. While replacing "Commie Mutant Traitors" with "terrorists" is more in the skub category for me because I can kind of see where it's coming from, making the Communists anywhere near serious is a betrayal of the core premise of Paranoia's secret societies: that all of them are at least as fucked up as the Computer and that they cause trouble more by accident and the Computer's own meddling than anything else.
• No Holloway art. Instead you have this weird chunky-looking shit that resembles Holloway art filtered through the mind of a DeviantArt furry porn artist who refuses to improve because he'll be making hundreds of dollars a month drawing inflation porn of his buddies' self-inserts either way. About the only thing about it that isn't garbage is that clones now actually look like people with nonfunctional endocrine systems, as opposed to Holloway where everyone looks like Bill Murray. (Not necessarily an improvement, mind, but not oppressively awful either.)
• Trendy "narrative" card-based mechanics. This is also a bit skub, but the problem I see with cards is that they're going to get your players thinking about what's on the card over the situation in front of them, which promotes mechanics-driven thinking. Mechanics-driven thinking is treason; Paranoia should be about pulling off batshit insane stunts because the GM thinks they're funny and inventive, not because you have a card that says you can.
• This is a pretty minor nitpick, but the layout is pretty damn unprofessional and full of wasted space. Comparing it with the Paranoia XP rulebook is like night and day. OriginalPrankster (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2018 (UTC)