rpanons | 011b

011b

Rundown:

rpanons is an anonymous community for role-play related topics. This place serves as a forum for game discussions, canon discussions, RP solicitations (ATP, game ads, open memes), and advice. The occasional off topic comment is inevitable, but please keep heated social and political topics to their respective communities. Posting them here will only get them frozen. Subsequent threads made to bypass a freeze will then be deleted.

Temporary Change: To reduce the strain on Dreamwidth's servers new entries will go up when a post reaches 3,000. Please refrain from spamming so we can stretch these entries for a little longer. We don't need several threads soliciting photo evidence of body parts, and we already know that we only care about yaoi. Failure to comply will only result in deletions and butthurt. "People may notice site slowdown/cache error pages. We're working on fixing. You can help: finish posts at 3k comments, not 5k or more." - Dreamwidth@Twitter

Rules:

Do not post pornographic or shocking images.
Do not share private entries, plurks, chat logs, etc.
Do not use this community as your social/political/hatespeech soapbox.

Concerns?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's almost 4 am here and I'm tired as hell, but I'll be around for another hour or so.

The moderator journal has an anon-enabled, ip logging off post for issues or critique regarding the game. I've also put up multiple Boarding related threads regarding opinions to the game on each rpanons post under game ideas and have (I think) been replying to them as quickly and thoroughly as I can.

A discussion of trans* issues came up once four posts ago, and burnt out in about a day. At the time it seemed like limiting the characters who may be applied for to those who are both physically and mentally male seemed to be the popular choice and I was in favor of it to attempt and avoid in-game issues of ignorance.

I haven't heard anything about it since.

If people want change, that's fine. There are three weeks to opening so ironing out the major issues now would be best.

Should I stick up a poll regarding this topic?

Dude, it's anoncomm. People here have had violent, multi-page wank about everything from brownies to roller coasters.

And I love anons for it. There's no better group of people to get worked up about asinine, stupid stuff with, but transsexual issues are touchy and I'm not here to try and offend anyone.

I don't really care about it either way but "Let's avoid ignorance by literally ignoring the issue"

From the discussion on the page linked above, it seemed to me like both the popular decision and the one least likely to piss anyone off.

I was wrong.

there is literally no decision that won't piss anyone off. it's fine the way it is. leave it.

Leave it alone. These people are scraping for anything to wank about. It's the new game tradition.

Just allow trans characters to stop the wank. There's not many canon trans characters, so it's unlikely you have to worry about someone apping one anyway.

Opinion noted! Thank you.

Either way you go, someone's not going to be happy.

Please, don't let this discourage you. I'm very excited about trying this game.

Thank you for the support. The game will be opening one way or the other, since I've already invested way too much time in it.

I don't have a horse in this race because I'm not apping to the game, but just want to point out that a poll is not always the best way to decide everything, and majority rule doesn't necessarily address the issue of why people are acting bent out of shape about this.

If what you want is to be sensitive to people's concerns about the exclusion of trans characters, then asking for a simple majority vote isn't likely to give you that.

Reading all of this, it sounds like the problem is as much an issue of phrasing as it is game policy. What you say here about "physically and mentally male" characters, for example, comes across as pretty insensitive to begin with since it's such an oversimplification of so many complicated things. At best, that kind of phrasing implies that "maleness" takes a very limited and restricted physical shape, and that's quite an ignorant place to start from.

Maybe you should try going with an in character justification (saying that the school itself has a gender exclusionary policy and will only accept students who were assigned male at birth and have been raised as male since) than having a rule with an OOC justification that comes from you drawing a line in the sand about what constitutes "real" maleness. No matter where you draw the line, there are always going to be people who dispute it, and they're going to get justifiably angry because lines drawn in the sand like that are bound to feel like they extend beyond the rules of a DW RP game.

I've got mixed feelings about the policy and I would be much more supportive of it if there was a clear IC reason that was consistent with the rest of the setting. (e.g. establish the school as rather conservative in general and make the only cis men rule a part of that) I actually like the idea of games that have clear in-universe restrictions on characters you can app, and I feel like if you're going to do that you should embrace it fully instead of just chucking it in the FAQ.

I disagree and think a poll is the only method of gauging playerbase opinion here -- and that's what this comes down to, essentially. From the start I've been building a game around what other people seemed to want, which is probably a pointless attempt but one I've tried all the same. I want the people who play in the game to be comfortable and happy, and it seems to me that the best way to do this is to, well, ask.

In-character justification is a doable solution, and I appreciate your input. Should the rule end up remaining, I'll be sure to go in and made some changes by adding in something to the IC rule section and FAQ.

Thank you very much.

You're free to do what you want of course, but as far as playerbase goes, remember that's not a static group. Your playerbase changes over time, and a poll is only going to give you a snapshot of one moment which might not end up being very representative of the playerbase in one or two months time. Or, if you think of it differently, it gives you a snapshot of one moment which then starts to define everything after, since it will attract some people and keep others away, so it kind of becomes self-enforcing.

Good luck coming up with a solution that will work for you guys and the game though!

Your policy implies that it's a men-only game, but your refusal to allow trans men into the game only shows that you're not aware of what "male" actually means.

LJ/DWRP has an unfortunate habit of viewing trans men as not truly male, and this needs to stop. You're able to make a difference here; whether or not you choose to do so is up to you.

When this topic first came up, I actually did do some research into the logistics of it. I'm not by any means an expert, but I do understand that transsexual people have a mental gender that does not fit their physical gender. I understand that a transsexual male is, in fact, male. I also was under the impression that this is a touchy subject and it would be better in the long run to stand by the option to make all characters both physically and mentally male to avoid potentially explosive (and not in a fun, CR-gaining way) issues within and outside the game.

Your opinion has been noted, thank you.

I'm trans and please trust me when I say that most of these complaining anons are probably overzealous cis allies.

It'd be nice to allow trans guys but it's your game so you really don't have to. Actually what really bothers me is that intersex characters have to be sexswapped to be physically male because... there's just a lot of issues there. But idk if you allowed physically intersex characters then people would probably start making their characters intersex for kewlies and funsies, because we all know how RP is.

Just keep going how you're going. You don't have to change anything.

Another trans guy.

Please just... Christ, everyone shut up. Especially those of you railing on and on about this when you have no plans to app a trans character anyway.

The rule right now is physically and mentally male because of it's simplification. It's not ideal, I know, but this is a delicate subject that I honestly didn't want to have to police further down the road after a miscommunication.

Thank you for your input, I do appreciate it.

yo, i'll put my input in as a player who's reserved a character.

pros of allowing trans characters
-it'll get people off your back
-political correctness

cons of allowing trans characters
-during the app process, people may insist a character is a transman when canon doesn't state that he or she is (ex. saying mulan is trans)
-as i mentioned in my other reply in this thread, fictional drama could occur over trans characters' identities. players may not want to see that brought into an rp since rping is meant to be an escape from real life.
-wank over a trans character "not having the right equipment" for gay sex
-wank over "where is the line drawn?"
-players fetishizing or trivializing a tran character's identity

me? i'm okay with having ftm characters in the game, but thinking of the possible wank worries me. my suggestion is to omit the section about trans characters from the f.a.q. since that seems to be offending the most people. if someone apps a trans character, you can cross that bridge when you get there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

011b

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

+1

no subject

no subject

Yes.

no subject

no subject

+1

no subject

no subject