Posts made by Ghost

@Arkandel said in X-Cards:

@Ghost said in X-Cards:

• Asking the X-Card player to leave the game due to discomfort is contradictory to the spirit of adopting the X-card "mission statement".

That has been the default answer since the 80s. "If you don't like it then don't play here".

It fixes nothing.

I do not believe that to be correct. It fixes the problem of players playing on games with content that they do not enjoy and players being forced to play games they do not wish.

All anyone can do is ask if content can be molded to their wishes, and if the playerbase does not wish to do so, they (the existing players) are not doing anything wrong by declining to do so. That's just the way life works. You simply have to accept that some games are not a good fit for your wishes, and (this is key) if the playerbase does not wish to alter the game to your wishes, then forcing them to so so would still leave you playing with people who did not wish to alter course for your sake to begin with.

• You don't go to a Catholic church and demand sermons on Xenu
• You don't go to AA and demand them not to talk about alcohol
• You don't go to a Magic: The Gathering night and demand everyone plays Yu-Gi-Oh instead

You ask. If they don't want to, then you find groups that will meet your criteria or start one of your own. It's a tried and true method that has existed for hundreds of years; ask Christianity or Satanism.

@faraday Yeah, the X-card system isnt really designed to be chopped up in some places. Sure, it says that you can take/leave as much of it as you want, but the basic core tenets that are somewhat static/necessary are:

• You tell the player that if they push the X-card, the group will deviate from that topic, no questions asked.
• Asking the X-Card player to leave the game due to discomfort is contradictory to the spirit of adopting the X-card "mission statement".

So, in IT my crew and I often use what we call the "shooting gallery" method, which is: "If you can shoot every last bullet you can think of at it and nothing dents it, then the idea AS YOU KNOW IT is sound". Kind of a scientific method thing where you try to break your theory to test if it's a decent theory.

This, I feel, is where the X-card doesn't pass the test.

@faraday hit the nail on the head when she mentioned that the point of the X-card is "no questions asked". This is a key point to the X-card because the method believes that one should not have to justify why they pushed the X-card, and that an immediate detour needs to be made to be inclusive to their wishes.

Here is how the X-card gets a bullet shot in it:

Say you're a tabletop (convention, house game, OTT, even Mush) GM who had written an adventure surrounding a murder investigation.

X-card gets pressed on the word 'murder'

Now...the entire session focused on solving a murder is:

• Not supposed to hash out the details
• is expected to immediately detour, no questions asked
• The topic of said murder (and investigating it) is core to all of the effort the GM put into the session
• The X-card presser expects to not be asked to leave
• The GM has....nofuckingclue what to do

Changeling: The Lost is essentially about kidnapped children who are abused by alien-minded entities.

X-Card on 'kidnap' or mention of Gentry

That's...gonna be rough

Zombie game with high mortality rate and depictions of dead people...

X-card on PC death and descriptions of dead bodies

I could go on, but so long as the expectation is that there are no questions asked and that the table needs to accommodate for said X-card presser's wishes, there's no good way to navigate the pressing of that damn card if they press it on something impassable. If "no questions asked" and "cant ask player to leave" is non-negotiable, then it presents an impasse that "proper adult communication skills" is not subject to.

There is no good "game design" method (other than excluding the player from the game) that exists for "what to do if the player doesn't want to play your story, but still wants to play the game."

@Auspice gonna see the hell outta that

@Ganymede oooooodamn. Burn.

@insomniac7809 Yeah, I think it's fucking stupid. There's also this part of me that wants to be a hipster about it and declare that movies need to go back to being more about art and less about some rich fuckers financing these films as part of a wealth building project.

My friend in the industry bitches about this a lot. "Hollywood doesn't take chances" is pretty much his mantra. He's in the horror genre, and told me that ever since Blair Witch (horror example) that Hollywood wants those films that took $200,000 to shoot (low risk) but become a cult classic and nets them 200+ million.

That's why you get all of the ballsy films as lower budget. "Call Me By My Name" was a story about a young man exploring his homosexuality. Cost 3 million to shoot and made 41 million. Darren Aronofsky's "Mother!" was weird as hell and had a 30 million budget and ended up with some 45 million. "The Shape of Water" had a lady FUCKING A FISH MAN, and cost 20mil to make and came ended up making decent money and got best picture.

Fantastic Beasts/Grindewold cost 200mil to make and came back with some 645mil worldwide. When it comes to those movies, Star Wars, Marvel the execs often bet on Russian/Chinese money because US viewers dont bring in the guaranteed cash they used to.

Anyway, the fucking money game in movies is huge and filled with stupid stuff like casting Chris Pratt in everything because he "tracks well with the 14-35 age range".

@Pandora said in Fandom and entitlement:

@Ghost said in Fandom and entitlement:

Apparently not. You mean the one from 11 hours ago? Uh, sure? Anyway my response was to insomniac's post but it wasn't directly to him so I didn't tag him.

Yes, 11 hours ago. We can't all be around 24/7 like you, @Ghost some of us have real lives.

Cool.

@Pandora said in Fandom and entitlement:

@Ghost said in Fandom and entitlement:

@Pandora It wasnt meant to be related to your comment.

Do you even pay attention when posting? I obviously responded to the post in which you quoted me.

Apparently not. You mean the one from 11 hours ago? Uh, sure? Anyway my response was to insomniac's post but it wasn't directly to him so I didn't tag him.

@Pandora It wasnt meant to be related to your comment. My knowledge of casting decisions comes from a contact/family friend I have in the movie industry. Feel free to disagree as you wish.

Not that I think it's entirely right, but when you're attempting to finance a movie that costs over 170 million to make + 100 million in advertising, and you're told that not digging too deeply into any subject matter in the movie could be the difference between losing 10 million or profiting 50+ million...it may not be the entitlement answer people want, but for the super high budget money making projects these movies are, it makes sense.

There are movies where it's wrong to avoid the content, and movies where it's more reasonable to downplay it. In the end you've got to understand that the huge budget movie companies that fund these movies are less concerned about whether or not specific wishes are met and more about the investment.

@BetterNow said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Ghost I wish we'd gotten some better looks at the others. There was another MUTO, the mammoth, Kumonga, the one from the mountain that may or may not have been Anguirus, but they said 17, so with G, Rodan, Ghidorah, and Mothra, and Kong that is 8 others we haven't seen yet.

And God I hope we see them. I know Kong vs (His Eminence the One and True King) Gojira is greenlit, but I hope they bring in enough cheddar to keep going after that. I'd love to see some classic "Gojira loses his shit and Queen Mosura kicks his ass into being chill again" kaiju combat.

@BetterNow said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Ghost They moved Mothra's site to China in the film, so it made sense. Godzilla was Japan's, Mothra China, Rodan Mexico. Ghidorah....not from around here XD

That makes more sense, then. Mosura is a Chinese Kaiju!

I almost laughed seeing Kumonga (spider) ravaging my state.

@Sparks I have high hopes that with all of the potential "Young Avengers" build up in endgame and the Wanda/Vision show coming up that we're about to get the most adorable and legit gay Marvel couple (at least my own personal fave) soon:

Hulkling and Wiccan

@Sparks Hell yes.

I'm gonna say it's my favorite since Godzilla 2000, which is my go-to Gojira flick.

@Jaded I can kinda understand the complaint about Ziyi Zhang (a Chinese woman) playing the "Mosurrrraaaaaaaa" twins (who are famously a couple of Japanese girls), but the incorporation of the Mothra theme song into the soundtrack was amazing, and so was Ken Watanabe.

I remember reading something about Godzilla (2014) where Ken said that it was important for him to not say "Godzilla" as his lines. He said "Gojira", because not a lot of westerners understand that "Gojira" isn't some ESL dubbed Japanese guy failing to say "Godzilla". No. In Japan "Gojira" is his name, as are Mosura, Ghidorah, Rodan, etc.

I pretty much like everything Ken Watanabe is done; that dude is fantastic on and off-screen.

@Arkandel Maybe! I mean, just today a coworker of mine was telling me about how great Rocketman, but still mentioned that some "guy on guy" stuff on screen happened and he joked about covering his eyes like he was some kid refusing to eat asparagus.

I think there have also been some major strides, but you're always gonna have people that jabber about character relationships. Who should Brienne of Tarth fuck? Are Poe and Finn shipworthy? Iirc there was also some outcry recently about some character who was once believed to be gay, but then started sleeping with a female character, and despite writers talking about pansexuality some people felt like that character's queerness was erased.

I don't think this topic is really about movies as it is people identifying/weighing public judgment on them through response to TV and movie decisions, which, if I'm right, means that movie casting decisions, awards given, and decisions in scripts aren't going to be the answer. Its just one so-called battleground to a bigger conversation that cannot be solved by tv and film.

I think that realistically there are a few factors/questions that need to be kept in mind when it comes to "how X is depicted" (be it so-called whitewashing, racial casting, queerness in major film franchises, etc):

1. Understanding that the public is divided to a crazy degree on all things, one has to understand that there is no perfect answer

All a movie studio can do is try to not do something purposefully offensive while trying to implement content (I.e. you may have preferred more from Dumby/Grindy, but the final depiction may be where writers (or the final cut) felt the content was best without distracting from the rest of the story)

2. At what point is 'good enough'?

You hear a lot about how movies need to do more of this, less of that, more representation here, more screen time for this, but you dont really ever hear about what the end goal is. 10+ years ago people were hoping to see more positive queer relationships on screen, and since then it's become more regular to see queer sex scenes, relationships, etc. At what point has the goal been met? At what point are people moving the goalposts because they want more?

This is all rhetorical, mind you.

@Lotherio said in Good or New Movies Review:

@BetterNow said in Good or New Movies Review:

guy in a rubber chicken suit.

Come on now, it wasn't that bad back in the day...

Bobcat.

@Pandora said in Fandom and entitlement:

like gays are a distraction that had better have a good excuse for existing.

I don't think this is necessarily true. Clearly the public is divided on certain subjects, and with that has come a bit of division on what people want to see on screen.

I think people forget sometimes that these movie studios are in the business of trying to grab as much money as possible when a movie is released, so they try to hit that sweet spot where as many people as possible will tell TAKE MY MONEY. Out of focus groups, polls, etc they try to digure out demographically what will track well with audiences. If 80% of the people polled said "I dont care if the relationship on screen is LGBTQ+, but would rather not see sex on the screen" and 20% said "I would not see this movie unless there's a sex scene", the smart movie studio goes with the 80% (just an example).

I think people sometimes read waaaaaay too much into casting decisions or screentime decisions as being about social politics and representation, when it's probably more accurate to say that in INDIE production there's more of that and in MAJOR studios it's a lot more...demographics and cash intake forecasting.

I love my life.

Currently someone is claiming my SO 'threatened them' because she made a joke about how someone should shit on their car.

I wish I could make this up. We went from telepathic alien communication last week to apparently being a part of some vicious ring of threatening 'car shitters' this week.