GMs are going to literally rewrite game lore and mechanics to remove racism

[Menos]

I'd love to think they're just updating bad verbage while keeping the basis of 30 years worth of community intact. But honestly, given the tone taken and the demands being made, does anyone doubt the full control of new SGM Karen? They saw modern films and cancel culture and said 'we need that in our game!' At this point I expect the full gambit of modern identity politics crammed into gs4. Any depth to be sacrificed on the altar of signaling virtue. Only newspeak spoken here. Guild masters are out because words cannot have different meanings, wizards, dragons and storefront all need to be renamed too. Don't worry, just burning away all those dangerous stories to protect you. Don't let fiction be too much like real history or people might feel emotions. Words are violence. New web page background for gs4 now available.
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Hopefully I am wrong and they won't sanitize down to new star wars level blandness to win wokeness points. As to my thoughts on how likely that is, I've already canceled my accounts. Let this shit show happen with me at a comfortable distance and I'll either be back to see sanity prevailed or to cash out my gear. While they decide how racist I am for playing their game, I'll keep my money.

[Gelston]

Just when I thought I'd seen Simu go full retard, they go full retarder.

[Neveragain]

Just when I thought I'd seen Simu go full retard, they go full retarder.

It becomes pretty obvious that your staff is short on talent when they find it easier to edit decades worth of other peoples work rather than create their own series of events that would make for a different future.

Notice how these people are never able to produce their own product and are only capable of shitting on other peoples labors.

[drumpel]

OMG! You guys are all offending me! I need a safe place!

I'm offended that you've offended me. In fact, I'm so offended I need to have a fantasy game changed to prevent me from choosing to be offended about being offended by things that don't offend me because they're not real.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, offends me.

[Skeletor]

I’m calling it, Halflings will no longer be short but rather based on their descriptor height. Also, all bonuses and penalties for trading in certain towns will disappear.

Th is is a stretch but I also think they’ll get rid of stat bonuses, I don’t want to speculate what will take it’s place.

[audioserf]

I don't care about RP so I don't give even a fractional fuck about this. If they start doing shit like making Halflings have +15 STR bonus so they're not unfairly weak compared to Giants, I'll have a problem.

Most of the responses to this announcement make me wonder if I somehow got redirected to a Proud Boys subreddit or some shit.

[Donquix]

I’m calling it, Halflings will no longer be short but rather based on their descriptor height. Also, all bonuses and penalties for trading in certain towns will disappear.

Th is is a stretch but I also think they’ll get rid of stat bonuses, I don’t want to speculate what will take it’s place.

We aren't changing a lot in terms of mechanics. We are going to look at racial biases in the shops. We may change a few names around. Please don't worry about mechanics. Nothing is likely to change with the CMGR, stats, etc.

^

[Elgrim]

Crosspost from the Officials, words from Wyrom:

Wyrom Yesterday at 9:32 PM
Just some perspective, since the announcement has been perceived differently by many.
Senior staff started discussing this several weeks ago. We later added more people to the discussion to talk about the scope. The forums erupting today was a reason for me to announce today, as I was planning to announce on Thursday (after our staff meeting).
We're not looking to retcon everything. We have a number of changes, both large and small, we want to work toward updating. Our game will still have conflict. Players will still be able to roleplay, we're not changing that. But what we're doing is on the staff side, we're writing things to not have the roots in those areas. Did War of the Nations still happen? Yes. Are we going to write villains like Lerep Hochstib going forward? Probably not.
We have a list of planned updates, and we'll be discussing them when they are a bit further along.
Wyrom Yesterday at 9:41 PM
At this point, nothing is being eliminated. As Kveta mentioned, Half Krolvin do have a lot of work, and likely the most changes. But we aren't stopping anything from happening. We're just pivoting in certain areas. Your backstories and your histories will not be changed. We just want to move in a direction that we feel better with, as creators of adventures.
Wyrom Yesterday at 9:43 PM
Right now, we are reviewing racial concerns.
Wyrom Yesterday at 9:58 PM
Again, we're not removing anything. We're rewriting some things, updating others. Prejudices will continue to exist. Fantasy tropes will continue to exist. There will still be struggles between elves and dwarves. We're just altering how we've typecast the situation. Some changes will be big, but many will be small.
Wyrom Yesterday at 10:10 PM
I will post items that will be worked on once they are more finalized and have staffing.
Wyrom Yesterday at 10:10 PM
HK need the most work, and Auchand jumped on it.
Wyrom Yesterday at 10:12 PM
The updates aren't going to be as sweeping to everyday gameplay that have been rehashed on here, and they won't impact how you play, outside being more inclusive in some areas.
Wyrom Yesterday at 10:18 PM
I will say, we've seen complaints over the years about not knowing what's in development or what's being worked on. I've worked very hard to making changes so we do discuss them early and it's not been a good experience. It's taken a lot of time to move in this direction. I really don't want to backpedal on it, because we want to include everyone. We're a smaller game with a tighter-knit community. We want your input. We understand not everyone has to conduct themselves in a professional manner. But we do wish it could be more civil at times.
Wyrom Yesterday at 10:21 PM
I meant backpedal with discussing things. We don't plan to backpedal with development.
Talinvor Yesterday at 10:21 PM
"dirt elf" is a racist comment in GS. It has no application in RL
Using the N word on a dark elf, is OOC racism
Wyrom Yesterday at 10:22 PM
Calling an elf that will still be acceptable by other players. Staff won't write it into an NPC script though, @Talinvor. That's the sort of changes we're talking about.
Wyrom Yesterday at 11:08 PM
We aren't changing a lot in terms of mechanics. We are going to look at racial biases in the shops. We may change a few names around. Please don't worry about mechanics. Nothing is likely to change with the CMGR, stats, etc.
Wyrom Yesterday at 11:09 PM
Citizenship may get looked at.
To be more inclusive.
Wyrom Yesterday at 11:09 PM
There will still be fantasy tropes. So dwarves and elves likely won't get along still. But you'll still be able to play the game.
Wyrom Yesterday at 11:11 PM
We really aren't trying to change how you play. We're changing how we deliver lore. The way you want to interpret the lore will still be how you want to do it.
Astrenoir Yesterday at 11:12 PM
@Wyrom so in other words, players unattracted to the lores will prolly don't even notice changes at all, I summarize it well?
Wyrom Yesterday at 11:14 PM
@Astrenoir outside racial biases and likely some other hiccups (Vaalor papers came up, issues with citizenships, and a few others), correct. Documentation and how we deliver that documentation will be a bit wider scope.

[Fortybox]

This is a slippery slope. I don’t see how they expect to move forward with racial biases on stats. HK have a huge penalty to logic. So are we saying HK are basically dumb compared to other races?

[Candor]

I just found this thread.

You have *GOT* to be kidding me. This is all some sort of late April Fools joke, right? Everyone remembers this is a fantasy game?

Admittedly, my game time the last two years or so has been pretty low. I keep my account active because I have played the game for so long, and there are a lot of good memories. But perhaps it is getting time to move on...sigh.