@GcL Sundown has really solid horror potential in having one's bodily autonomy taken away by being forced to conform to "normal" standards of appearance, behaviour, and thought--so it treats atypicality as a sign of freedom from that oppression.
@BESW They certainly exist, and do incentivise certain pacings, yes. And they do result in awkwardness. But it doesn't seem to be these horrible chains of the system I've seen some people describe to me.
@GcL Oh yes. It's done pretty well, I think. The basic premise is that PCs are people who refuse to conform with society, and are pushed to its edges where their lives are considered expendable by others but within their found families they've found freedom to be themselves.
This is made most manifest in the setting's transhuman technomagic which lets you modify your body as you see fit--but doing so marks you as unclean to main society.
@BESW Sounds neat. Shadowrun did a lot with that as well. Still strikes me as playing on otherness of form, but I don't have an issue with that personally.
@GcL Exploring otherness of form is fine. Sundown is by disabled and neuroatypical creators.
My push is against making atypical bodies and minds a cause for dread in and of themselves, like 'sanity' and 'corruption' mechanics almost always do.
user15026
1:29 PM
I haven't played Sundown yet but it feels like the first time I could play someone who is like me and not have that be a detriment or othering or as a horror shtick or as a corruption/broken thing to be dreaded and geared
@vicky_molokh That's what we did too. We started running Atomic Robo, which being based on a comic breaks things up into scenes, issues, and volumes. Or in other words, small story arcs and large story arcs. Instead of a "session" we have an "issue" (which may span more than one table session) and refresh only occurs when the issue is complete.
@BESW Is the premise of Sundown that atypical bodies are for the protagonists? Are the reactions of the main group to that is not a making them a cause for dread or exclusion?
@BESW So, flipping it around then. The non-modified are the things for the players to fear? I find that interesting, but at the same time seems like a "ha, but now it's backwards!"
@doppelgreener That should work well, so long as issue length in terms of action (not metagame time) is relatively stable. (I think I'm often not so apt at properly breaking the flow of the campaign into such similar-sized subsections. So I'm thinking more of measuring the amount of 'action' going on in-campaign.)
@vicky_molokh Measuring action in and of itself could serve as a guideline ("we've had five different fights, surely the end of the issue must be very soon") but yeah working out when an issue "ends" is definitely a fairly loose feel thing.
@doppelgreener Thinking about it deeper, I think I'd be happiest, both as a player and as a GM, if the refresh points were related to the amount of high-stakes stuff where one has to choose what to influence towards success and what to sacrifice happening. Which isn't an easy task, of course.
@GcL It's about social conformity, and refusing to conform (or, more often, being unable to conform and being blamed for that inability--except in Sundown it's even more unfair because there is the power to modify your body however you like but doing that even in order to conform marks you as non-conformist).
Why do "normal" people condescend to and abuse and exploit the neuroatypical, or little people, or people with non-binary genders, or any other kind of non-comformity? Can you say it's fear, or disgust, or anger? Sundown doesn't try to simplify it any more than the real world can be simplified, because it's the same complicated forces that drive it.
@doppelgreener In theory. In practice, as a player I found that most of the time, there's no real choice - nearly all high-stakes moments look like you can't afford to lose even one of them. As a GM, I worry how much I unwittingly produce the same impression for the players (and asking for comments after sessions tends to produce relatively minimalistic answers). But I'm willing to experiment and see if that produces some nice result.
> You Are a Drifter - In this land, you are a changeling: one who dared hate their own skin and resolve to change it. - You seized your freedom and used it to craft yourself the body you deserve. Folk don’t like that. - They cast you out, and you became a drifter. A nobody, wandering from town to town doing the dangerous work no one else will. - Whether by blade, bullet, or bow; subversion, seduction, stagecraft, or statecraft, you get it done. - You are both desired and disdained, badass and pariah. Folk use you while they can before tossing you aside.
@GcL but how these people in the game feel about each other isn't the point of what was being talked about, which is that the game itself/mechanics do not treat being atypical as a disadvantage or a consequence of failure to be suffered
[grin] It's not a game for teaching normies about being marginalized. It's a game designed for players who already understand why the experience it offers is cathartic.
@Carcer Err, if being a changeling results in being ostracised, then it most definitely is treated as a disadvantage by the game (in the sense that playing such a character puts it at a disadvantage), even if it doesn't 'give back points' (or equivalent) for it.
(meaning, any kind of "us/them" distinction can be used pejoratively)
I've also heard normies being mentioned in a tech context, which probably has some overlap with neurotypicality but I think it's used more generally as the complement of geeks/nerds/somethings
@Carcer Well, even beyond that: being ostracised is only a disadvantage if it were possible to be welcomed as yourself without constantly expending effort to fake conformity, or at all. It's kinda like saying "being unable to fly is a disadvantage for humans" like... okay and your point is?
Sundown is about finding the place you do fit. Being ostracised from the place you don't fit is, in that lens, empowering rather than disadvantaging.
user15026
Sundown creates a space where us can have access intimacy build into the game kinda
@vicky_molokh scope issue. Yes, being ostracised is disadvantageous, but it's not a mechanical disadvantage in the system because it is already the baseline for player characters - it's not that there's a default setting of being typically able and then this is a particular problem for this character
@vicky_molokh You're doing the thing where you pick one word and dig into your particular definition of it which doesn't perfectly conform to the local context of the conversations, so that the chat has to stop and deal with your definition instead of you going "oh, that's a new way of looking at things" and listening to learn more.
This is not playing struggle Olympics, it's just...recognizing that there are people who might have things bit they don't have things in a way that actively prevents them from moving easily in the world most of the time
@Ash Not really. I'm not handwaving those issues, but calling someone a 'normie' I don't think is helpful. You can discuss one group's issues with minimizing someone else's.
@Gwideon I'm not sure anymore. Somebody mentioned sanity mechanics, I mentioned that I prefer horror which isn't sanist/ablist and mentioned Sundown as a potential example, and then things went sideways.
@Carcer If it's baseline for PCs but not for most NPCs, then I would call it by the technical term Campaign Disadvantage, i.e. a disadvantage that is specific to the PCs (and possibly to some or many NPCs). [Catching up 28 messages.]
@BESW I can actually agree with you. I don't mind the actually thought of mirroring how an experience affects someone but I'd prefer it to be labeled something other than sanity. Darkest dungeon does this well by calling it stress and calling the mechanical effects quirks
@Gwideon I don't know Darkest Dungeon too well so forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't that just slapping a slightly different label on the same basic concept?
@Gwideon Cthulhu Dark (which I like despite the name because it's otherwise bereft of HPL's fingerprints) changed from "sanity" to "insight" when it got its print publication.
I'm not sure how much it helps, but it helps a little.
@NautArch in the original message I just read it as a short-hand for people who aren't personally affected by being marginalized. There's no way to talk about a group of people without talking about a group of people...but I guess one can use more words to say the same thing for feelings' sake.
@Carcer kinda but it's definitely not presented as the some going insane. it's presented more as the stress of a situation breaking down the character's
@Carcer I guess there might also be some language barrier here. And I'm always on the privileged side of distinctions so I may be less susceptible to such subtleties.
@Carcer Normie seems to be a natural shorthand for 'someone who is generally fitting into the mainstream demographic in all or nearly all senses, and/or perceived and self-perceived as being relatively close to the median/mean/mode of the whole sample size'. Also shares the same endearing -ie ending, like e.g aspie.
@vicky_molokh It's that "endearing" -ie ending which is the problem, because I don't think you can safely assume it is meant or received in an "endearing" way
I personally definitely do not read "aspie" as endearing term
Echoing @BESW - You are free to create a different chat room to discuss this, if you like. However, in main chat, people have requested to change the subject. Please respect that.
Beat me to the punch. If this conversation is something that must continue to be discussed take it over to NAB so people can safely be here without having to engage with a conversation that has already been harmful to more than one person in this chat.
@goodguy5 I think the difficulty is in one group feeling marginalized and then using a term for those outside that group. I'm not sure what the best way to address that is.
He (@johnp, I just realized my chat link didn't resolve) made a definitive statement of "any time someone has to leave chat because it's making them _______" we should stop
I find looking up quotes from Churchill are an easy place for examples of being very civil and very impolite.
Although my favorite for being civil and polite while handling detractors would be Lincoln: Once accused during a debate with Stephen Douglas of being two-faced, Lincoln is said to have replied, “If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?”
It's why calls for civility in discussions are often more of a problem than a benefit. You can be civil while being extremely harmful to others. However, it's difficult to call out that harm without being accused of incivility.
So calls for civility tend to disarm the wronged while enabling the wrongdoers.
Hence why British aristocracy has gotten civil impoliteness down to a fine art: it's extremely weaponisable.
@NautArch Sure? My knee jerk is that seems like it makes sense. Then I start pondering... how would I tell if something is more or less subjective? What's the distribution of opinion around that. For some people is civility a very clear cut thing and niceness more nebulous? are there people where it's the other way around?
@GcL y'know, i'm not sure. I think a lot of it is about intent, though. While it can be hard to know if someone else being nice vs civil, only you know if you're trying to be.
Doesn't mean you always succeed, tho :P
But that's when the mea culpa comes out.
But I think everyone should try and be nice, and everyone should generally try and believe others are trying to do so.
@GcL and that's a good place to be coming from, especially in today's world where our differences are more commonly being highlighted than our similarities.
@V2Blast I usually wait for someone to explicitly state their intentions or internal state before I'm convinced. Of course, if someone is getting on like that it might prompt me to ask about it directly.
On the other hand, it could just prompt me to go on about goats and various ways of obtaining other those that belong to other people. Sometimes you just get poor puns.
I am always put off when someone asserts anything about the state or intent of another person. E.g. "you're just saying this because X" or "you're doing Y"
I just don't assume they're doing it in bad faith. I sigh and wander off to find a different corner of the internet or work.
@vicky_molokh Sure, but even if I could literally read your thoughts, i don't believe I could construct an accurate model of your motivations, desires, behavior, etc...
Heck, I'm not sure I could do that for myself and I can't help but read my own thoughts!
