Leaving Site

[Timerover51]

Why I am leaving the site.

This summer I will be teaching a class on how to design board, miniature, and role-playing games to students ranging from 5th through 11th grade. I have an obligation to myself, my students, their parents, and my employer to use what I consider to be acceptable games as examples from them to work from. I had planned to use Traveller as one of those games. I will no longer be doing so following the Strike Back thread started by Supplement Four, encouraging Game Masters to use the television show for ideas for games. Based on the description given by the poster, the show is borderline ⌧ography and extremely violent.

Mr. Miller and his administrators have seen fit to allow the thread to exist, which I can only assume that they implicitly agree with Supplement Four as to the acceptability of the television show. Based on that, I cannot in good conscience use or recommend to my students the Traveller game series. In accordance with that decision, I will no longer participate in this forum. I will also be taking other steps.

1. I have cancelled a large order of Traveller material from Far Future Enterprises, and will not purchase any material from Mr. Miller in the future.

2. I will not be using any Traveller material in my game design class, and will never use any such material in the future.

3. If any students ask about the game, I will indicate to them that I have it, and am very familiar with it. Any additional comments will be between me, the students, and his or her parents (yes, I do have some female students in the class). If Mr. Miller wishes to subpoena the student and/or parents to find out what my comments are in order to pursue a slander suit, he may do so if he wishes.

As for those who may feel that I am requesting censorship on the forum, it is already occurring with respect to any religious or political post. Clearly, ⌧ography and extreme violence are deemed acceptable, whereas Mr. Miller and his administrators do not see religious or political comments in the same light.

This is again a case of my greatly regretting permanently destroying my health in the service of a country and society that I no longer feel is worth defending.

 

[Vladika]

...greatly regretting permanently destroying my health in the service of a country and society that I no longer feel is worth defending.

In this part of your post I'm with you 100%!

As for the rest, though we have had our differences, I'd ask you to give it some time, cool down, and reconsider.

⌧ography isn't permitted here and a single thread isn't the total downfall of the Roman Empire.

 

[aramis]

We are rather lax about free expression, within broad limits.

If S4 had been posting example scenes in detail, we would have stopped him on multiple grounds (FFE decency standards, copyright); he did not. He pointed out a resource. At one point, someone posted a review of FATAL. It went away not because FATAL was a dog of a product, but because the reviewer got too explicit in the quotes.

Same principle applies. Reviews of objectionable material are not themselves objectionable to me, personally.

It's no endorsement of the product reviewed to allow a review of a product.

Let me put it more clearly:

[m;]No user's review of a product is an FFE/COTI endorsement of that product.[/m;]

Unless that user is Avery (FFE's official account), and then only if he says it is.

 

[Timerover51]

Would you kindly inform Avery that I would like confirmation that my order has been cancelled and I want the check back.

 

[Matt123]

Wow, if I see something I don't agree with, I just switch it off/leave the room/change channel/blacklist the individual concerned. I don't tar the entire community with accusations of ⌧ography and violence.

Good luck with your new hobbies timeover51.

 

[Carlobrand]

As to your regret for your sacrifice: the hallmark of a free society is the freedom to make and learn from mistakes, even serious mistakes. The country you sacrificed for is the country my children will inherit. I retain some hope that they and others like them can one day turn things around. Therefore, I remain grateful for your sacrifice.

As to your decision to withdraw, and to end your long association with a 36 year old role playing game and your very valued participation here, because the site administration failed to promptly censor one poster's recent recommendation to draw campaign ideas from a "borderline ⌧ography and extremely violent" television show ... well, I have no way to independently judge the show, having never seen it. Nor have I any means to judge the post since the site administration did take action to censor it - with what I presume is good cause. However, any role-playing game can fall victim to gamemasters with unsavory ideas for resources and adventures - I ran (briefly) into some truly bizarre folk in my college D&D days - and any site can fall victim to controversial posts slipping under the local radar.

Thus, I am left to say only that your response seems premature given that the administration did in fact eventually agree with your judgment regarding the post in question, once you brought the matter to their attention. However, there may be layers here that I am unaware of, so let's just say that I've always found your historical posts and links very informative and useful, and I'm going to regret not having those to read.

 

[fschiff]

This seems an incredible over-reaction to something that I have no way of commenting on, since I do not haunt these forums. I get the titles on an RSS feed, so when I checked out the offending thread (based on the first message in this thread) it was deleted. Oh well. My general reaction to these things is, "well its the internet". I am quite sure that that thread had nothing to do with the Traveller game or Marc Miller. Then it occurs to me. Oh, he's lying! "Well its the internet." Goodbye and good luck.

 

[Icosahedron]

Hopefully the students in question will be sufficiently mature to make their own decisions regarding the value and moral standing of Traveller.

I agree with Aramis, a review should not be a basis for censorship unless it contains offensive material.

If I state "I think Playboy is a great magazine" on this site, Does Timerover really intend to disturb Mr Miller and expect him to make a comment on my comment, just to stop Timerover from walking off in a huff?

I think Mr Miller has better things to do with his time - like developing T5 for us...

Having said that, don't we have a standard disclaimer along the lines of "The opinions expressed in these pages are not necessarily..."?

 

[Timerover51]

As the thread was deleted, Supplement Four posted links to a site which according to his post, depicted highly detailed sexual acts, and extreme violence, to include the killing of children. He stated that he was really "digging it", and that the site was good for Game Masters to get ideas from. Until I objected, the thread did not appear to disturb the moderators in the slightest. The following was my response to his post, which was also deleted. However, I did type it out in advance and therefore can readily re-post it.

A bit more as to why I have a violent antipathy to any show depicting children being killed.

On May 10, 1985, at approximately 2:10 AM, I approved the discontinuance of heroic life-support measures for the 5 month old infant son, Brent David. This was after a very intense and draining 5 month period in a Newborn Intensive Care Unit. I do not think that very many members of the forum have ever had to make that sort of decision.

During the course of those 5 months, I saw a lot of infants go through the NICU. Some left carried by their very happy parents, and a few left to be buried. Two cases of the latter still stand out in my mind.

The first was when a pair of twin girls were bought in, born at 24 weeks gestational age. At that time, the odds were pretty long against survival, but this set of twins had another problem as well. They were both suffering from CRACK COCAINE ADDICTION WITHDRAWAL. I assume that the average individual can figure out where that originated. They were about the size of a small baby doll that my daughter played with when she was about 4 years old. Any of you ever see someone that size in drug withdrawal? When the unmarried parents showed up to check on them, DFCS showed up as well, as they had three other children. The oldest was normal, the two younger ones both suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. DCFS was there with a court order preventing the so-called parents from making any decision with respect to the twins care. The nurse that was first put in charge, started screaming when the parents left that she wanted to kill the (expletive deleted). Most of the nurses, and at least one of the doctors, thought that extreme sterilization was in order, desiring to see them “shortened”. For those of you who do not understand what “shortened” means, I would recommend reading the first few chapters of Robert Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy for enlightenment. The twins survived about a week.

The second case was when a veritable giant of a baby was bought into the NICU, and positioned directly opposite my son on the other side of the aisle. He was close to 10 pounds, far larger than the typical 2 to 4 pound infant in the NICU. The afternoon after he was bought in, the neurology people bought in a portable EEG unit, and hooked him up. At that time, he was on a respirator, and word had filtered through the NICU that there were major problems, primarily due to an incredibly incompetent doctor. I was able to see the screen when hooked up and going. Have any of you ever seen an EEG screen for a newborn that was completely FLAT? I remember looking at that and then saying to the tech: “there is nobody home”. She looked back at me and said that there was nothing there. The NICU kept the baby going until his mother could make it in from the western suburbs, and she was bought in by ambulance because of complications from the delivery. The next day, they unplugged the respirator while his mother held him for the only time. I found myself holding the little boy’s aunt, while she sobbed her heart out and swore she was going to kill the (expletive deleted) who had done this to her sister. The aunt was an OB-GYN nurse. The husband was also extremely desirous of inflicting grave and lethal bodily harm on a certain un-named excuse for a physician. My wife had her arms around the mother, both of them crying. That is what happens when children die. How much of that is shown on the show, Supplement Four?

Aside from seeing children die, I have also seen men die. I wonder if the original poster has seen either.

My own reaction to the description of the show is that it is a sickening obscenity.

I should add that I also have an extreme antipathy to any and all drug use, whether real or fanciful.

 

[Icosahedron]

I have not seen the thread (nor the show) in question. If it contained a direct link to a site that contains offensive material, and had no warning of such, then I agree the link should be removed, but not necessarily the review.

If I were reviewing such a site, I would suggest the reader Google it, and I would provide a warning that some people may find the content disturbing.

I still don't think it has anything to do with Marc Miller, FFE, or Traveller, though, nor do I think that imposing your personal opinions on your students by way of omitting a market leader from your own classroom review is necessarily the correct response.

 

[BTolputt]

You were considering using Traveller as a good game to teach youth. I assume you read it and found nothing objectionable in the game, the setting, or the morality it contains.

Then, based on a thread made by someone other than Marc, the moderators, or FFE staff, you not only decide the game you had no problems with before doesn't deserve to be used as an example but strongly imply you'll be spreading what you believe may be slander about Marc himself.

I guess, unless Marc, the mods, & FFE don't shut this thread down, they must agree that spreading slander is fine so long as it's hard to find out who it's been communicated to.

* For the sarcasm impaired, no I don't believe this. I'm trying to illustrate how ridiculous it is to project opinions onto folks that haven't actually said anything about the topic.

 

[Vladika]

...I will no longer be doing so following the Strike Back thread started by Supplement Four, encouraging Game Masters to use the television show for ideas for games.

That thread is gone.

Based on the description given by the poster, the show is borderline ⌧ography and extremely violent.

This is true, and, That thread is gone.

Mr. Miller and his administrators have seen fit to allow the thread to exist, which I can only assume that they implicitly agree with Supplement Four as to the acceptability of the television show.

It didn't happen instantly, but, That thread is gone.

Based on that, I cannot in good conscience use or recommend to my students the Traveller game series. In accordance with that decision, I will no longer participate in this forum. I will also be taking other steps.

Why? Because it took a short while to delete it? I doubt Marc ever even saw it. He's practically never here. Maybe aramis was eating dinner, or taking a dump, or busy monitoring something else? Maybe he wasn't even on for awhile? I'm going to take a wild ass guess here and suggest that he even sleeps occasionally...

That thread is gone.

1. I have cancelled a large order of Traveller material from Far Future Enterprises, and will not purchase any material from Mr. Miller in the future.

2. I will not be using any Traveller material in my game design class, and will never use any such material in the future.

3. If any students ask about the game, I will indicate to them that I have it, and am very familiar with it. Any additional comments will be between me, the students, and his or her parents (yes, I do have some female students in the class). If Mr. Miller wishes to subpoena the student and/or parents to find out what my comments are in order to pursue a slander suit, he may do so if he wishes.

OK, but to what avail? That thread is gone.

As for those who may feel that I am requesting censorship on the forum,

You are (appropriately) and it worked. That thread is gone.

it is already occurring with respect to any religious or political post. Clearly, ⌧ography and extreme violence are deemed acceptable, whereas Mr. Miller and his administrators do not see religious or political comments in the same light.

Several times it's be noted that the mods get together and confer on these things. It, like jump, takes a little bit of time.

Again, That thread is gone.

This is again a case of my greatly regretting permanently destroying my health in the service of a country and society that I no longer feel is worth defending.

Traveller, as much as I hate to say it, isn't real life.

timerover, That thread is gone. Be hurt, be pissed, but don't go with the thread.

 

[Garyius2003]

3. If any students ask about the game, I will indicate to them that I have it, and am very familiar with it. Any additional comments will be between me, the students, and his or her parents (yes, I do have some female students in the class). If Mr. Miller wishes to subpoena the student and/or parents to find out what my comments are in order to pursue a slander suit, he may do so if he wishes.

As for those who may feel that I am requesting censorship on the forum, it is already occurring with respect to any religious or political post. Clearly, ⌧ography and extreme violence are deemed acceptable, whereas Mr. Miller and his administrators do not see religious or political comments in the same light.

This is again a case of my greatly regretting permanently destroying my health in the service of a country and society that I no longer feel is worth defending.

Two comments.

1. Drama Lama much? To put my position into internet/text speech, K Tnx Bye. You are over reacting and throwing a fit on the floor because a thread link wasn't wiped out quick enough for your tastes.

2. I regret hitting the ground so hard on a jump, but now America provides me with a small check and okay health care to make up for it. I don't weigh my service against the messes in our society. Even in our worst ghetto corruption and crime pit, or the worst excesses of Washington, we are still the best place for social class mobility.

 

[McPerth]

[m;]Thread closed for possible multiple rules infractions.[/m;]