(Warning: Thoughts in development.)

How come I never thought of that?

(If nobody noticed, I posted at 2-4 AM while insomniac. Apologies for offending anybody or, more likely, making no sense. On the second post, I should note that I'm fairly agnostic to the whole discussion, instead trying to describe what I see and hear. My lack of clarity continues.)

Patrick puts it beautifully.

What that horde of verbal diarrhea last, er, night (or, the time before my last sleep ) was trying to express is how bad an idea including stuff like the noted stuff (especially the catgirl, the bordellos, etc) in a product aimed at 12 year olds is.

Which doesn't mean kill it. It means you either kill it, or explicitly do not market it to 12 year olds.

Personally, I rate SR as generally PG-13, to steal the US movie rating.

I *might* play it with a 12-year-old. But I'd have to know the 12-year-old in question. Versus with a 14 year old, who I figure can handle most of SR.

Certain plots are easily R, however. Tamanous comes to mind immediately.

Meanwhile, Ellery makes a good point even as he kicks my ass rhetorically.

Cyberpunk is, by definition, about the seamier side. I'm not so sure it's about societal collapse, but it's certainly a dark time.

IMHO, we should confront all this. I just don't think gay marriage was handled in a remotely sane or useful way. (I'm also not a big fan of games as social commentary.) Instead, it really did feel like the author wanted his viewpoint to win, and thus felt it necessary to throw it into SoNA, totally out of the blue. Never mind that it makes no legal sense, has zero precedent behind it, breaks certain important constitutional parameters like, say, freedom of religion (unless I misunderstand and 'secularizing' marriage was a singularly poor word choice), and things like that. Winning is what's important.

SSG then takes that and smashes your face into it. More on-topic in this case, but...One should be more judicious about using and abusing a hot-button issue. Truthfully, even by the time SoNA came out, you could hear about it anywhere, anytime on the news. I think most people would hardly have given a damn if it was left out. I remember looking at it in SoNA and SSG and going "Hey, what are you doing in my game? Go away, political thingy! Go! Shoo! If I want to think about you, I can turn on TV!"

Similarly, I think we could have left the catgirl out, as Patrick and Ellery note. You could have spent that page and that wordcount on, I dunno...Something useful. Which would be practically anything else.

If I want that kinda crap, I can go look at a supermarket tabloid.

IMHO, though...I use gaming to escape. That sort of white-hot political commentary...is the crap I deal with at school as a polisci major.

You could leave it out profitably, thanks.

Marriage is a religious thing. Its instituted and formalized by the various faiths around the world.

Many religions oppose homosexuals and condemn them. The homosexuals have been around for just as long as the rest of humanity, and observing wildlife animals and drawing conclusion, one guesses that it has always been part of nature even before humans coined words for the behaviour.

Religious faiths can only gather power and control if their flock of worshippers grow. This leads to several faiths, fx Islam, having strict rules concerning marriage, to ensure that all men and women are paired off and produce offspring with the right religious faith.

This requirement and the fact that a homosexual couple produce no offspring makes it a natural step for a faith to exclude or oust homosexuals from their midst.

Roll on a few thousand years. Present day. Everyone in the western world has been touched and formed by religions. Even if we are not practicing religion, our basic code of morality and our ethics are colored by centuries of religious indoctrination.

Now, enter the homosexuals. For a few generations people have refrained from physically beating them up or throwing rocks after them. They have lived alongside mainstream society and carry the same basic religious teachings that everyone else does. Including the romantic marriage.

Enter trouble. The homosexuals now demand to be married. In a church. The remaining religious zealots get up in arms and the vanilla majority has a cultural memory telling them that this is "just wrong dude". As such, this is understandable as religion is a set of rules. Marrying homosexuals is against these rules. Cut and closed case.

However, now the homosexuals work actively at changing the religious boundaries to allow them into the church. And their motivation is manifasted in a desire to declare their love for eachother, to something greater than themselves. Their perception of God. - The only way they can succesfully do this is by breaking the doctrine and spawning a new, more tolerant, religion. This process hurts.

The first country in the world to accept homosexual pairings was Denmark. Not church weddings, but a legal binding that vs. the state and inheritance was the equal of a churchly wedding. - No big dresses or tuxes though. No alter music and festivities organised in a nice setting with songs and stuff.

This was demanded only a few decades later, and the state religion of christianity threw a few waves of discussion over the country, until several ministers chose to simply go ahead and give their churchly blessing to homosexuals. In effect altering the doctrine and creating a new religion.

You see, the problem isn't the homosexuals. And its not marriage. The conflict exists because the existing religions does not, within their religious rules, allow homosexuals.

But there is no "Godless" or non-church dominated alternative. If you want a big building with a choire and official fellow speaking serious words of commitment, then you have to go to a church. In a world where a more scientific and enlightened approach to the world has been dominant in the western world, its odd that these religious traditions have not evolved with us. Where is the celebration of life in general? - The put body in the ground party that does not involve God?

To simply oppose something, but being unable to explain why, is closeminded and unenlightened. I am worried about the new-religious wave that seems to sweep the US and in my eyes threaten to develop a religious bandit state, with nukes and a serious attitude problem.

I don't give a damn about how other people live their life, as long as said people do not try to restrict yet other people from living theirs. Full equality and freedom for all. The "Land of the Free" should take a nice long look at itself. When you are done puking, do something about it.

Oh, and the sexual bigotry is just too much. Come on. Really.

Its not even close to pornography.

And the drug part, drugs in SR are bad stuff. They very clearly kill you off if you keep using them.

SR is objective and mature about all the issues it covers. There is nothing in SR that I wouldn't let anyone read.

SR promotes freedom of rights and expression. It doesn't get more politically correct. (From the POV that all beings are equal.. I guess people aren't equal in the US.)

<sarcasm>Woo... commentary on homosexual marriage. </sarcasm>

I agree with Patrick. My brother is now 16 and I still was concerned he was too young for real shadowrun. I still gloss over details. On the flip side, I know we're leaving out a lot of great material to make it acceptable to younger audiences. Cyberpunk is supposed to be a very dark world. Domestic violence, racial violence, hatred, fear, rape, drugs a plenty... And Shadowrun really doesn't scratch the surface of about half of the whole scene. Drugs alone should take up a *MUCH* larger place than they do. Even the M&M section is pitifully small. The authors worked a bit too hard to make 'drugs bad!' type statements.

As for Shadowrun being 'mature and objective'... Not only shouldn't it be, it isn't! The fact that bunraku parlors and BTLs make up a significant portion of the Seattle economy just goes to show that the world isn't 'mature and objective'. It's dirty and self-serving. Now whether the book describes it in that manner or not (and it really should, to get the environment down) is a differernt question, but I don't want to explain to my 12 year old sister what a bunraku parlor is or the details of drug use, which is stuff that comes up pretty regularly in my games.

Oooh, look! Old stuff! All of two days old, true, but in an attempt to bring this thread a little more back in line (especially considering I'm the one who derailed it...).

As a father of many, and the oldest will be twelve this year I'd have to agree with "Either don't market it to the twelve year olds, or if you are, then change the content' group.

(Also speaking as a guy having worked in a comic/game shop and dealt with kids off all ages and their parents.)


I've long since dealt with the violence issue with my kids - that's an easy discussion. And have played 'violent' video games with them for years. (The only one I felt realy crossed the line was Twisted Metal Black, a big dissappointment to me as a parent - we loved the old versions of that game, the last one was just too dark)

The sex discussions are not so easy *shrug* thats just the way it is. And I'd rather do it on my terms than have something unexpectedly pop up in the middle of a game. Yeah SR is dark, gritty and laden dark imagery, but it doesn't have to be. You can start them off with basic first person shooter type advnetures and work it in slowly.

But, OTOH, SR isn't a game I'd start my kids with. I'd probaly either start them with Star Wars, a pretty basic system with a setitng they are familiar with or Talislanta - a real simple ruleset in a fantasy setting.


But yeah, either change the subject matter or change the 'reccomend for ages' line.

<nodnodnodnod> Nezumi proves my inarticulateness. Said it better than I could.

I've said my piece re the whole marriage thing in SoNA and SSG. It's domestic politics. Domestic issues in the US are more bitter and painful than international affairs, something I suspect holds true everywhere.

It's something I can find in RL. I'd prefer it didn't come near my gaming, because it kinda hurts the escapism factor. Similarly, I tried to explain what I saw, not my opinions (which are currently conflicted).

Now...What Nezumi said is exactly right.

I could accept all of this, and much more, if the game was not marketed to 12 year olds.

I would squirm a lot, an awful lot, trying to explain a bunraku parlor to anyone under 14. Drug use, not so much, but that's because of personal experience. It's something I've seen (if second-hand), and seen the results of.

My opinion:

SR would be much more appropriately marketed a la a PG-13 movie, perhaps rubbing against R but not breaking it.

But...Not marketed as PG as it currently is. It's not.

Eldritch: Thanks. You've said what I've been trying to say for pages now. I'm going to shut up and let you explain.

Hobgoblin: Yeah, kids do make it a sport, but you can't exactly sneak into a gaming book.

Not usefully, anyway.

So here, 'ratings' would have a bigger role. Ratings (if adopted by the industry) would be helpful mostly to retailers, and perhaps parents. The 'recommended age' thing should definitely be changed, my thought being to 13 or 14.

Now, that said...I would play SR with 12 year olds that I knew. I'd hesitate, thouigh not because of story or content. It's more the system, which is complex. Story or content I can gut-check on, skim over, and edit. The system, not so much.

Yeah.

Where the hell did the Sex with Ally Spirits joke come from, anyway?

A post from Deep Res a long time ago, although things like that could have been around since ShadowRN and FASA's presence on GEnie and AOL back when the game first began.

besides which, sarcasm goes well with his eyes.

So do the burning corpses of my enemies.

But, yeah... Regardless of the humorous tone of the exchange, that last post was serious (since apparently my posts need disclaimers now) on its own face.

Well if we are to get into a discussion of gay marriage then I will give an opinion. Marriage is as much about love as it is procreation, everybody I know that maybe for procreation did so after getting pregnant and is ether divorced or on there way to it. (one probable exemption that was engaged before pregnancy and brought the marriage forward). That being said marriage is as much a religious institution as a legal one and the religious implications of gar marriage are not positive. This would lead me to desire the creation of a legal institution other than marriage available to gays (and anybody else that doesn’t want to be “married”) that provides the same rights (at least in terms on wills, medical decisions when the other is unable to make or express a decision, being considered next of kin for legal purposes, couples insurance policies and tax considerations and rights on break-up) as marriage (if you find a church that will take you say whatever words you want at the ceremony). Wether or not a gay couple should be allowed to adopt is a different debate entirely, I have seen children of single parents do quite well (and quite badly, much like normal couples) I would expect an extra parent of the same sex would only reduce stress over a single parent. (all that side in SR I think there should be gay marriage as marriage, it is in keeping with the downturn of contemporary religious values, this said I have not read the entrees referring to it in any of the books)

Now that I have said that, why is it that a child should not be aware of this debate? These are things that are happening in the world. We try to shelter our children from reality and this does them no good when they suddenly have to deal with it all. Some of the greatest disasters I have seen are young adults that lead a happy sheltered childhood and suddenly hit reality road the rollercoaster and had a great time for a couple of months and then hit a brick wall when they realised they just screwed everything up because they didn’t know what they where dealing with. I count myself exceedingly lucky to have avoided that fait but until the age of 19 or 20, I had no idea what went on in my city and that naivety could easily have cost me everything.

The most common example is alcohol. When people hit legal drinking age (or before when its naughty and fun) they tend to drink a lot at once and get very drunk. This is not healthy. It is the children that grow up allowed to have a /small/ amount of alcohol and watching there parents enjoy modest quantities without becoming stupid idiots (but being told what large quantities can do to you) that grow up considering alcohol to be not naughty and fun but just something that is and can be enjoyed without loosing control of yourself. however this lessen is not just rarely taught to our children it is actually illegal to teach it.

The cat girl article (although corny) merely talks about pornography without being pornography, this I believe is a good thing and as shown by the fact that no government has restricted the sale of the book based on age, dose not exceed what is acceptable for children to see in countries where the book is being sold.

I think western culture is far to focused on keeping children as children and not enough on preparing them to deal with the world at large.

Edward

*take hat of for edward*
perfect, just perfect

My concern rests on the presentation, and not the actual information. I don't care whether it's legal in the UCAS. However, I am annoyed when it's just tossed in as an aside the way it was.

There are worse things than Cat Girl to run into at cons.

Although I agree with your POV Ellery, this is probably getting out-of-bounds for this forum.

....or i could be completely wrong about that. *shrug*

Nah, it's standard DS OTness.

You said "let them be children as long as they can".

I'm saying, "Hey, if you prepare them a little further in advance, they'll have an easier time of it."

I don't see how I misunderstood what you said--or I'm misunderstanding you again.

If you object specifically to the mention of gay marriage or pornography, and not to using violence to get ahead or attacking officers of the peace (among other things), there seems to be a mismatch in their level of preparation.

Why should a 12 year old be forced to make the difficult distinction between morally acceptable and unacceptable uses of violence when faced with a world of corporate greed and corruption? That's not letting them be children for as long as they can.

In contrast, waiting until 14 seems to be leaving things to the very last possible minute, especially given the rampant sexual suggestiveness on TV. Children aren't so stupid as to miss all of that, even if they don't have the same strength of emotional response to it before puberty.

See, for example, this article on teen sexuality.

when it comes to a product aimed to make money, and the only info on the item is from the makers themselfs then dont trust the info on the box. now if a outside party, like say a review board, had labled the book as 12+ then i would have trusted it.

allso, unless you bought the book srinkwrapped or over mail-order you had the posibility to look thru it before buying it.

but im not even sure a age 14 kid is able to make up his/her mind on gay marriages. there is a reason why the voting age is around 18 for most of the world.

another thing is that a game like SR isnt a school book. and this stuff (alltho i have not seen the book or the text) was most likely presented as either flavor text or shadowspeak. if its floavor text then its most often written as a news item or similar pulled from the matrix. if its shadowspeak then its written in the tone and personality of the person supposedly making the post. either will be slanted in on or the other direction. and non is representative of the real world of today!

Since it is within the forum, fine:

You can say "let kids be kids as long as possible" all you want. But maybe your concept of what a kid is and is not isn't quite up to snuff.

For example my spouse was self stimulating while still in the crib. She was fortunate that the Dr. (in Yugoslavia) told her mother not to get freaked out about it. That it actually helps ease the pain of the development of reproductive organs that kids that age can feel.

By 12 kids (gay and straight) can be having some damn strong "feelings".

Further kids are people, and some of them damn smart and insightful people. Maybe 12 is too young to "form an opinion", maybe not. But i'd worry somewhat about an opinion that was formed suddenly after exposure to a topic as opposed to years of information.

P.S. That said a lot of other stuff in SR concerns me. Good fantasy is engrossing fantasy that can seem real. Without outside anchors to RealLife it could sweep you away. SR has some good fantasy in it. It would have to be a mature 12 year old that i gave the book to, and i'd want to play it with them.

Hey guys,

It seems like this has really drifted away from SR, and SR4 in particular. I'd ask that it either be brought back to SR/SR4 relevance, or that you please start a new thread in the General Gaming section. It's an interesting tangent, but just not on topic for this portion of the forums.

Thanks.

I´d like to start with saying that I understand that Penta and Patrick is making an argument based not on their own values but the values of their society. As a european I can´t comment on that because I simply don´t understand the concerns. (Not saying I don´t respect that you have them.)

What I would like to adress though, is the cat girl interview. Everybody says it was stupid. Why? It was a smart piece of writing. It was funny and the characters felt alive. It delivered the point that surge is a purely physical transformation in a really good way. So there´s a concern that Shadowrun games will be filled with furries. Is your game filled with furries? Who´s fault is that? I don´t particularily like surge, but the writer who is responsible for that specific article did a fine job.

However. Surge needs to develope in SR4. It needs to develope into something that makes sense in the bigger picture. What part does it play in the awakening? What is it leading towards? There needs to be a clue to what the plan is. So that it doesn´t seem like a random, un-thought-of thing anymore.

mintcar...It was stupid. It was so very stupid.

Why?

Because it's a very, very cheap ripoff of a Playboy or Hustler interview...And the Playboy interviews have long since left their glory days.

Nezumi: You have a good idea, but the problem is books bought online, an increasing proportion. And a sheet can be chucked by the kid really quick.

That info needs to be made available to the consumer in a very easy glance-at-the-webpage sort of way.

Clearly, the internet is no longer a safe place for children to roam unattended now that Shadowrun is available in PDF form.

But, sadly, this really is off topic. We pretty much finished the SURGE in SR4 topic a long time ago by deciding that it would just appear as edges and flaws (or virtues and flaws to use the Ars Magica term--now that Edge is an attribute, they can't be called edges any more without being confusing).

Or optional edges/flaws. Or mopre expensive to reflect how uncommon it is.


I myself don't really see the surge thing as Shadowrun.

But that's just me.

i think the basic concept (rise in magic causes more Awakening wackiness) is great. i think the execution pretty much sucked, though. i'd rather have had no SURGE at all than what was presented in YotC.

exactly.

I agree with the above, with one exception. Not all the SURGE stuff was bad. We went through the book with a pencil and lined out what we thought didn't fit. Our criteria was "Does it feel SRish?" and "Does it feel EDish?" Chronic Osteowhatever made the cut but Marsupial Pouch (WTF!) was out.

indeed.