Why I Didn't Buy TroS at GenCon

[kenjib]

Is that directed at my post?

More toward other people.  Apologies for the ambiguity.  :)

[Lxndr]

A question from someone who doesn't know how all the rules necessarily interact (me):

What would change if we took Ed's suggestion, and instead of imposing encumbrance penalties on the obese, one simply reduced one's ST and other relative attributes to reflect obesity?

[Caz]

We can impose HT/tn heart attack rolls when the character runs out of EN.

[Brian Leybourne]

Guys, by all means have this discussion, but can a couple of you take a few dep breaths and re-read your posts before clicking "submit", please.

There's just a couple of comments here and there that aren't going to do anything but generate more similar comments and if we're not careful it's going to escalate.

Lets keep it nice, eh? That's one of the best things about this board - we're all friends.

Brian.

[mrgrimm]

To Kenjib : No biggie just trying to figure out if I should respond.  Even though everything is always about me... hehe....

To Lxndr : Sounds like a good start, but Strength, tends to seem better in the larger individuals, because they have their bulk to put behind their muscle.  I personally think it should be Agility and Endurance, but that would cause changes to the combat pool and possibly other things as well. If were not careful we'll turn this game into another Phoenix Command.(not a bad game, a great game in fact, just EXTREMELY difficult and many mathmatical equations are involved which tend to take the fun out of it.)

[Morfedel]

If I got out of line, I apologize. I'm just offended by political correctness.

Is it PC to respect someone for being offended at PC? :D

[mrgrimm]

I will be the first to say that if I have written anything that has offended or struck a bad nerve with anyone that I am sorry. It was not intended as such. I'd rather have friends than enemies.

[Jake Norwood]

Okay.

Obesity rules are common in Simulationist RPGs. TROS's mechanics are largely sim. This is nothing new. Clearly it wasn't meant to offend.

In the area of encumbrance, it is documented both historically and currently that obesity has a negative effect on what TROS calls "Combat Pool." We can't go off claiming "realistic combat based on historical models" and spit in the eye of that particular fact.

I've been significantly overweight, a little overweight, and currenly only about 10 lbs over, and I can say that my ability as a fighter and athelete has only been improved by a thinner waistline. I also teach swordsmanship, and heavier people are always at a disadvantage in a fight.

There is no offence intended, and it's not meant to be some form of discrimination (although I would like to point out that various races in RPGs do have bonuses and minuses based on no other criteria than race). Lastly, it's a very simple rule, and one that is easily ignored.

Jake

[Gordon C. Landis]

Hey, for what it's worth, my observation is that the only thing that got ejh upset enough to post is the word "meant" in the phrase "meant to hold."

Change it to "people carrying a significant amount of fat are essentially already partially loaded down by their own weight, and thus have a reduced capacity to carry additional weight," and my guess is, we never see this thread.

*Should* he (or others) care so much about a little word like "meant"?  Should an author care about keeping it in because it's "true"?  Hell if I know.  But best as I can tell, ejh isn't challenging the reality of the rule, or saying that it was intended to harm - he's just reporting that he felt kinda bothered, enough to not want to buy the book right away.

If the text ever gets rewritten, that observation can be taken into account, and changes either made or not, at the discretion of the author.  Not much else to say, really.

Gordon

[ejh]

Egads, Gordon actually read my post!  Congrats, Gordon!

And thanks, Jake, for your reply.  Sorry to have caused such a firestorm.  Like I said in the first place, I never thought you *meant* to give offense, only that you might want to know if you unintentionally had.  Just another molecule of feedback to throw in the bucket.  And again, overall I find the game quite outstanding, and if I weren't already wavering over spending the money I might well have just bought it anyway.

[Jake Norwood]

When we originally put those in I was a little concerned about offending, but then I figured that it was a game about killing people, so...

Jake

[Lance D. Allen]

This thread bothered me to begin, but something someone said (no, I'm not going to be more specific. I'm sick and feeling petulant.) made me think..

Considering that the charts in the character creation section allow you to make character weight based on their attributes, I'm beginning to think that the encumbrance rules are slightly redundant.

Now, I'm significantly NOT overweight, so I can't even begin to fathom what it's like, but perhaps it's a bit much to have weight reflected in both locations.

[ejh]

OK, responding to and elaborating on what Wolfen said, I'm going to further explain why the "weight as encumbrance" thing seems creepy to me.  In doing so I'm going to appear to rant and tell people what to think, but please ignore that appearance, because I'm doing this in order to explain my OWN "this is creepy" reaction.  I'm not asking anyone to share these opinions, just explaining my own.  No need to try to argue back and prove me wrong; this is documentary, not rhetoric.  Whether I'm wrong or right I'm describing the background of the reaction that I started this thread with....


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The concept of treating a part of someone's body as if it's (a) not a part of their body and (b) entirely a negative thing simply strikes me as creepy, very creepy.  Creepy in a way that is pervasive in our culture (cue the Richard Simmons "inside every fat person there's a thin person trying to get out" image), but creepy when you are able to put enough distance between yourself and cultural preconceptions to examine it.

Fat people are not thin people wrapped in fat, any more than tall people are short people on stilts.  They're just fat people.  The fat is a part of their bodies, there because their genetics, environment, and behavior working together put it there, just like every other aspect of their body.  They're not "carrying around" their fat any more than people "carry around" their brains, or pancreas, or lungs, or muscles.

The "fat as encumbrance" rules creep me out because they emphasize and articulate the body-alienation that is foisted on fat people by our culture.  In this game the mechanics work as if fat bodies were not real bodies with their own integrity, but fat suits.

They warded me off from the game because they articulate assumptions which I think are wrong, misguided, and harmful (but which also happen to be very common, which is the reason that I don't have any personal grudge against Jake for including them).

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For what it's worth, this isn't a huge issue to me; I'm not that fat, it hasn't been that much of an issue in my life, I don't take any flak for it from day to day in real life; I have virtually never taken a stand on such an issue in public.  But it's still what I believe is right and wrong.

"Offended" is a buzzword that has been abused and provokes all kinds of snotty reactions and shouts of "down with PC!" from different sorts of people, so let's not use it.

I think it's wrong to portray people in ways that tend towards the hurtful.  I'm willing to look past it for the sake of genre conventions or the like, but TroS isn't about following genre conventions, it's about "realism."  I don't think these rules are reflecting reality, I think they're reflecting a harmful prejudice and a hurtful way of conceptualizing things.

Y'all can disagree with me, that's fine, but give me the credit that this is a little bigger than "oooh, I feel like people are picking on me."  I saw something that didn't bother me because it made me feel bad, it bothered me because it seemed *wrong* to me.

OK, I *did* get ranting there.  Apologies.  It just seemed that some of the issues involved had gotten either misunderstood or trivialized, and I wanted to clarify.

Flame on again, brothers, if you must.

[Valamir]

EJ, I commend you for your patience in the face of a degree of hostility, and for successfully articulating your point quite well.

Its a point I don't happen to agree with.  I think biologically that given the actual method the body uses to store fat, that the image of "carrying it around" is actually pretty accurate.  Fat is stored in pockets underneath the skin in a manner not too disimilar to if one carried around a big gob of it in the pocket of their jeans...so equating it to encomberance I feel is pretty reasonable.

But that's beside the point entirely.  I'd like to remind everyone on this thread that this wasn't a "Why TROS sux" thread.  This is a "Why I didn't buy TROS" thread.  EJ's decision in this regard is everybit as valid and rationale as deciding not to buy a car because the interior is done in mint green velour.  Doesn't make the car crap.  Does make it one I wouldn't want to own.

Big difference there.  If there are additional posts in this thread please keep this distinction in mind.


With that said, EJ, the encomberance rules are of such minor importance to the game that you could pretty much rip the page out and not miss it (so to speak); you won't be hammered with the conceptualization you find distasteful throughout the book.

[Jake Norwood]

ejh-

So how would you do it? The existing rules are based on my experiences at the time. It is undeniable that any weight in excess of 10 lbs effects atheletic performance for the kind of activity that swordfighting is. How would you realistically represent that?

Jake