Quote from: Abyssal MawI suspect "respect" is the furthest thing from his mind. Respect would mean leaving this particular topic alone.

With your assumptions, yes.  With his assumptions, no.  You two are having a disagreement, and a heated one (at least on your side), but that's a shitty reason to assume malice.

Quote from: TonyLBWith your assumptions, yes.  With his assumptions, no.  You two are having a disagreement, and a heated one (at least on your side), but that's a shitty reason to assume malice.

It's not an assumption of malice. It is malice itself.

It maybe unintended malice, (it seems that he's trying to do some kind of touchy feely 'good thing')  but that does not change it's essential nature.

Also, why is this game about germany and not about the norwegian nazi collaboration?

Why is the second game about the Judenrate? That's an extremely touchy subject itself.

Why is the third one called "how not to care"?

There's a very revisionist "Jews probably had it coming...it's the human condition. Say how can we relate this to current day politics?" taint to this when you look at the big picture.

It stinks.

What I want to know is why the OP posted this thing here. JimBob mentioned this some time ago on another thread. But why post on this site?

Regards,
David R

Maybe because he knows people here won't hold back on their comments & criticisms.

BTW, AM, I'm Jewish, and although I'm pretty uncomfortable with this project in the way I described upthread, I don't agree at all with turning this into a specifically "Euros vs. Jews" thing. Rather I find it borders on an invitation to engage in onanistic "misery tourism" that trivializes the actual experiences and events. I wouldn't be any less uncomfortable regardless of the ethnic background of the game designer, or if the game was about the Khmer Rouge or the genocide in Rwanda.

There's just something about the idea of a group of people acting out these sorts of events in order to stimulate their own emotional response, that I find (as I said above) either pathetic and risible in the case of fictional suffering, or repulsive in the case of actual atrocities. Add in an external audience, as with a film or play, and somehow that changes everything--perhaps because the external audience validates the act and "keeps it honest" (i.e., non-onanistic).

Quote from: Elliot WilenMaybe because he knows people here won't hold back on their comments & criticisms.

BTW, AM, I'm Jewish, and although I'm pretty uncomfortable with this project in the way I described upthread, I don't agree at all with turning this into a specifically "Euros vs. Jews" thing. Rather I find it borders on an invitation to engage in onanistic "misery tourism" that trivializes the actual experiences and events. I wouldn't be any less uncomfortable regardless of the ethnic background of the game designer, or if the game was about the Khmer Rouge or the genocide in Rwanda.

There's just something about the idea of a group of people acting out these sorts of events in order to stimulate their own emotional response, that I find (as I said above) either pathetic and risible in the case of fictional suffering, or repulsive in the case of actual atrocities. Add in an external audience, as with a film or play, and somehow that changes everything--perhaps because the external audience validates the act and "keeps it honest" (i.e., non-onanistic).

Fair enough Elliot. And really, your'e right about that, and more exacting about what makes this upsetting. The awfulness is just killing me, here.  I should probably get out of this thread.

Elliot, alsolutely, only that IMO the crucial difference between a film and an RPG that matters here is that the former is so evidently a re-presentation, not an enactment. A film doesn't claim it could deliver to you the actual experience of X.

Instead, your experience of a film will only ever be the experience of somebody else's take on X. And that gets rid of the presumptuousness (on the part of the RPG designer) and the emotional obscenity (on the part of the players) we're talking about here.

Quote from: Elliot WilenMaybe because he knows people here won't hold back on their comments & criticisms.

Of course, but I find it amusing that for a site that is supposed to be about "mainstream" rpgs we sure do stray out of the reservation....

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Abyssal MawI should probably get out of this thread.

I hope you don't. IMO you're making a lot of sense and you're needed to stop this thread from going off on stupid flights of fancy. Not that you care this coming from me and all that.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Elliot WilenMaybe because he knows people here won't hold back on their comments & criticisms.

BTW, AM, I'm Jewish, and although I'm pretty uncomfortable with this project in the way I described upthread, I don't agree at all with turning this into a specifically "Euros vs. Jews" thing. Rather I find it borders on an invitation to engage in onanistic "misery tourism" that trivializes the actual experiences and events. I wouldn't be any less uncomfortable regardless of the ethnic background of the game designer, or if the game was about the Khmer Rouge or the genocide in Rwanda.

There's just something about the idea of a group of people acting out these sorts of events in order to stimulate their own emotional response, that I find (as I said above) either pathetic and risible in the case of fictional suffering, or repulsive in the case of actual atrocities. Add in an external audience, as with a film or play, and somehow that changes everything--perhaps because the external audience validates the act and "keeps it honest" (i.e., non-onanistic).

Someone, somewhere (recently) on a very similar subject (Wraith, I believe) said that a group mature enough to role-play the Holocaust would be mature enough not to.

While I don't subscribe to absolutes I think it's a good point to make, and it stands along with Sett's point that the *real* art in this endeavor will come from video taping people playing this atrocity.

Especially if they imagine they're doing something deep and worthwhile.

I predict that it'll be unwatchably horrible -- onanistic seems to be a horribly appropriate term.

To the OP: My last post, which you read and responded to made two points. The second (and lesser one) you responded to -- you're reading more than Wikipedia (good for you!)

The more important point, which you skipped, I'll make again: if you're not real clear about your reasons for doing this you're likely to come up with something awful.

My guess is that you have some kind of agenda -- or some underlying belief about this material and at some level your game is going to end up as a statement of that belief.

If you've got something to say, figure out what it is and try saying it. If it turns out not to be something you'd prefer to have your name attached to (when put in plain text) then you're better off not making a game.

I'm guessing again, but I suspect that'll be the case (if it wasn't, I think you'd be more intuitively clear about your reasons for doing this).

Recommendation: stop and think.
-E.

Okay you know what I think this whole teaching thing is bullshit. I'm not knocking any playstyles but if the OP had come out and said,  "Look I'm gonna make a game based on the Holocaust and it's just a setting where you could run investigative type adventures or survival/escape type stuff whatever". This whole hiding behind a way to understand...to teach...to remember...is utter bullshit to me.

I think it's dishonest. I think it's pretentious. No amount of research can justify a project like this in the way how the OP has presented his case. Much better I think to say..."look I see this as just another setting" than try to disguise the whole project as some kind of noble endevour.

I think what the OP is really doing is trying to cover his ass because if he did say something like that it would really bring out the pitchforks (and rightly so) ...but at least it would have the merits of candour and perhaps honesty. I'm irritated that the concept of fun is being mangled to suit a provocative project only because the OP does not have the guts to say, "hey I believe rpgs can be about subjects like this and yeah it may be in bad taste but some folks may find this fun"

Rant over.

Regards,
David R

A note: to be clear, Mattijs did not say that it was not a game. I was wrong. But he strongly implied that here.

Quote from: MattijsThe main problem, as I see it, is that if I call it a "game", the connotations of that word aren't all applicable to We All Had Names. It might be better for all involved if I call it an "interactive story" or similar, to show there are no win conditions, it's not primarily a "fun" activity, it's not about using game systems against each other etc.

Reading him literally, he is saying that it is a game, but it would be bad marketing to say so. Reading him more sympathetically, he is saying it's not really a game.

I would say that it's not a "game" because a game is an activity with three characteristics: it's for recreation, it's got some choices in it and some chance (uncertain outcome). This is not for recreation. There are no chances and the outcome is certain. All that's left is "choices." An activity composed simply of choices may be fulfilling and interesting, but it's not a game. You need it to be recreational and have some chance in there, too.

It's not a game, so I don't see why it's here. Or you could say that Mattijs does think it's a game, and is just worried about the marketing, but I think that's a very ungenerous reading of him. He doesn't seem that clueless.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen[...] I don't agree at all with turning this into a specifically "Euros vs. Jews" thing. Rather I find it borders on an invitation to engage in onanistic "misery tourism" that trivializes the actual experiences and events. I wouldn't be any less uncomfortable regardless of the ethnic background of the game designer, or if the game was about the Khmer Rouge or the genocide in Rwanda.

I agree with all this. Reading this as Norwegian anti-semitism is, I think, going too far. "Onanistic misery tourism" is a wonderful phrase, and very much what I was trying to say earlier.

I also agree that the Holocaust is not unique in this respect, that it'd be pointless and tasteless to do this kind of thing with it. I said that earlier but everyone focused on the Jewish thing. Genocide did not begin or end with Treblinka. Why not give this treatment to, say, Srebenica in the 1990s? Let's roleplay young Moslem men saying goodbye to their wives and mothers and sisters as the UN troops draw up lists for the Serbs outside town!

I think the key thing here is that it's not a roleplaying game. I think I can rephrase what I was saying in my thread about my Roman game, about why I'm setting aside historical figures.

I want them to be able to do stuff that matters.

PCs should be able to do things. In Mattijs' thing the PCs will be powerless, their only choices being Sophie's Choice. To me that is the absolute opposite of what rpgs are about. The PCs should always have a chance to make a difference. Escape from Sobibor or Uprising could be interesting rpgs about the Holocaust; Auschwitz Chimneys could not be. The issue is whether PCs can make a difference. PCs should not have to be passive observers of their fates. That doesn't mean they should always succeed, but just that their success or failure should be obviously at least partly affected by their decisions and actions. They should not be powerless and irrelevant.

Ever see the DM of the Rings webcomic? The authour presents us with Lord of the Rings as a D&D campaign. The players are pissed off all the time because nothing they do matters - they're just spectators to the grand history of the true heroes, Gandalf &c. The players respond by having their characters just kill the bad guys in mid-sentence, trying to force their will onto the world. "We will be important whether you like it or not, you bastard."

If Mattijs' thing does not allow for the PCs to try to escape, or for them to make shivs to stab SS guards, take their weapons and lead an uprising, or at the very least hide in the sewers and sneak out at night to steal things, then it's not what any of us would call a "roleplaying game", because the PCs are powerless. If we want passive entertainment or learning we can just watch tv or read a book. We don't need to sit around with a bunch of geeks "experiencing" things.

Quote from: Elliot WilenThere's just something about the idea of a group of people acting out these sorts of events in order to stimulate their own emotional response, that I find (as I said above) either pathetic and risible in the case of fictional suffering, or repulsive in the case of actual atrocities. Add in an external audience, as with a film or play, and somehow that changes everything--perhaps because the external audience validates the act and "keeps it honest" (i.e., non-onanistic).

I agree with this, too.

Occupation 1942, Juhana's fallout shelter weekend, and now this - there seems to be this long Scandanavian tradition of "rpgs" where your characters suffer passively. And people wonder why they have a high suicide rate despite their excellent social welfare policies. Seems to me they've got a preference for melancholy.

It's not a roleplaying game, and it's a pointless wank. Onanistic Misery Tourism!

Elliot has used such a better term.  Onanistic Misery Tourism is perfect.

I think in simpler terms (imagine that JimBob, an American even!):

To me, these people are using the death of 6 million people to "learn something about themselves."

Tony - I give you exhibit A in helping you understand condemnation.  If you can't condemn this, I have little hope, my friend.

And before you say "well you just disagree that a role-playing game can be used in this manner," no, that's not it.  Let's say, for the sake of argument, that a role-playing game can be used to evoke deep emotional interaction.

That does not mean this is a valid use of that. If you have to resort to using the starvation, torture, mutilation, and death of 6 million people to fool yourself into thinking it gives you any understanding of their plight all in an attempt to learn somthing about yourself...well..as I said to my wife, what the fuck kind of human being are you?

Quote from: James J SkachElliot has used such a better term.  Onanistic Misery Tourism is perfect.

If you have to resort to using the starvation, torture, mutilation, and death of 6 million people to fool yourself into thinking it gives you any understanding of their plight all in an attempt to learn somthing about yourself...well..as I said to my wife, what the fuck kind of human being are you?

1) Maybe the game should be called OMT?

2) Don't leave us hanging -- what the fuck kind human being did she say she was?

-E.

So it seems thergsite has reached a consensus on this. Except for TonyLB, who is doing as he does with the Forge - he won't praise it, but he'll defend it from others' attacks. He who sits on the fence gets it up the arse!

The consensus seems to be

• It's not a game.
• As a way to learn something about yourself, there are much better ways.
• It's in bad taste.

There's also the idea that it sounds really depressing, but apparently that's the aim, so...

Some people are expressing it more negatively than that, and seeing anti-semitism and so on, and some express it humorously but precisely (thanks, Elliot!), but that seems to be about the consensus.

We still await TonyLB and Pseudoephedrine's Jewish friends who think it's a smashing idea and would like to write something like that themselves. I expect to see them about the same time we see that Belgian girl write an rpg about being shut in a paedophile's dungeon for six months, or someone from Srebenica in Bosnia write about that, or someone from Haditha in Iraq write an rpg about US Marines coming and raping a 14 year old girl, then murdering her and 23 members of her family and neighbours to cover it up.

"Who wants to play the girl?"
"I dunno. Can she be a ninja?"

Quote from: J ArcaneHey, umm, Ian.  I'm writing a post-apocalypse RPG.

I haven't seen what you're working on, so I'm not automatically lumping you in.  Is it a morbid exploration of the most venal descent into barbarism possible?  If not, you're golden.

Gamma World didn't explore the depths of human depravity.  Twilight: 2000 didn't, though it walked that line a time or two.  The Morrow Project excaped that trap.  But there are a few too many post-apoc games out there that smack of excuses for revenge-porn -- Eye-for-an-Eye dialed up to 11.  And that's really at the heart of what most of us in this thread find appalling: Finding entertainment and amusement in human misery and despair.

!i!