Quote from: Matthijs Holter(E. is making a very important point here; however, I will answer him on the blog, since I believe this debate has been judged off-topic for the forum).

Huh? I didn't see anything E's post that would be off-topic for this forum.

RPGPundit

Perhaps the OP would be better off writing a novel. RPG's won't change the world m'fraid.

Having read the website, my impression of this project is that it is much more roleplaying in the sense of acting, rather than in the sense that people here usually mean the word.

If I understand correctly the game is a graph, like a choose-your-own-adventure, where you advance from scene to scene play-acting each one.

I see this as fundamentally different from our idea of an RPG.

First: My Jewish friends don't post on this website, and because they're my pals, I'm not going to wander up to them and ask to pop up and say "Hey, I'm Jewish and I approve". You got burnt on the "No Jews would write this game" thing with TonyLB, JimBob, and your answers to it so far are the most mealy-mouthed bullshit I've ever seen from you. "Well, TonyLB didn't actually write this thing so even though he approves of it in concept, it doesn't count."

Second: The dichotomy _is_ there. You're talking about Jews (without qualifications) automatically adhering to certain positions and viewpoints. You use the term "a person with real understanding and experience" as if it were identical to the word "Jew" in your last post, and you've managed at points to turn the discussion about the merits and demerits of the game into a debate about whether people are Jewish "enough".

Everything you've said so far seems to come from the idea that Jews "own" the Holocaust as a historical event in a way that no one else does. For example, there are plenty of "middle class comfortable kids" who also happen to be Jews. If they were to play this game, would they be "misery tourists" like the non-Jews are accused of being?

Once again, either we evaluate people on the merits of their arguments and artifacts, or else we sink into parochial gatekeeping. Matthias' RPG might be shit, but that has nothing to do with him being Jewish or not, Norwegian or not, or anything else.

Third: I think the whole "trivialisation" element is simply untrue. Games _can_ trivialise, but I don't see why they're _inherently_ trivialising. You bring up South Park, but SP is a comedy show, not a cartoon meant to be taken seriously. You're confusing a part - what a comedic cartoon does - with the whole - what cartoons do. As a counter-example, people take the death of Bambi's mother quite seriously, despite that it happens in a cartoon.

In regards to RPGs, I said earlier on in this very thread (and many times before) that we need a sufficiently robust understanding of "fun". I think that's what's going on here. If your paradigm of "fun" is South Park, then yes, anything fun is going to trivialise some other thing. But if your understanding is that "fun is satisfaction" (which is something I've argued for before in the past) then there's no reason that it automatically trivialises whatever it deals with. There are plenty of satisfying non-trivial experiences we have, and gaming can be one of them.

QuoteWhy choose the Jewish Holocaust, particularly? That's what makes me uneasy. It's like these guys are choosing to educate themselves - but the topic they choose for their education just shows how ignorant they are, how little they know of the world and its history.

That last sentence doesn't make sense. If they're ignorant, we should encourage them to learn about the things they're ignorant of. I still don't see how making a so-so RPG about the Holocaust means they don't know anything about it.

QuoteThird: I think the whole "trivialisation" element is simply untrue. Games _can_ trivialise, but I don't see why they're _inherently_ trivialising. You bring up South Park, but SP is a comedy show, not a cartoon meant to be taken seriously. You're confusing a part - what a comedic cartoon does - with the whole - what cartoons do. As a counter-example, people take the death of Bambi's mother quite seriously, despite that it happens in a cartoon.

In regards to RPGs, I said earlier on in this very thread (and many times before) that we need a sufficiently robust understanding of "fun". I think that's what's going on here. If your paradigm of "fun" is South Park, then yes, anything fun is going to trivialise some other thing. But if your understanding is that "fun is satisfaction" (which is something I've argued for before in the past) then there's no reason that it automatically trivialises whatever it deals with. There are plenty of satisfying non-trivial experiences we have, and gaming can be one of them.

It's not an issue of fun.  It's an issue of someone's made-up playacting being treated as a substitute for real life.

That's what makes it inherently trivializing.  The very idea that such a game would offer events that are in any way meaningful in comparison to actual experience is ridiculous.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineYou got burnt on the "No Jews would write this game" thing with TonyLB, JimBob, and your answers to it so far are the most mealy-mouthed bullshit I've ever seen from you. "Well, TonyLB didn't actually write this thing so even though he approves of it in concept, it doesn't count."

Bollocks. I said that no Jew would write or play this, and this remains true. If TonyLB or any other Jewish gamer wants to disprove me, and write even one paragraph for Mattijs, or post an actual play report, I'll be surprised, but will gladly say I was wrong.

Going, "oh, interesting" is really not the same thing as producing or participating.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineEverything you've said so far seems to come from the idea that Jews "own" the Holocaust as a historical event in a way that no one else does.

Each group or individual does "own" their experiences to a great degree, yes. That does not mean that other individuals or groups are incapable of understanding or empathy. We have our reason and our human fellow-feeling to help us do that.

What I mean is simply that if you want to know about the experience of Group X, it's best to simply talk to members of Group X, rather than sit around with some pieces of paper imagining it.

If all these guys were dealing with was "facts", then certainly they could learn all they wanted from books. But their aim is to get the same feeling that victims had. That's plain from the blog posts they've got. If you want to know about feelings, the best thing to do is to talk to people who've had them. I would not ask a Catholic priest what a loving marriage was like, nor would I ask a Sunni Moslem what taking communion was like, still less would I ask an American how it feels to live in a constitutional monarchy.

If they want to know how it felt for Jews in the Holocaust, they should ask some. I still wonder why they chose the Jewish Holocaust, specifically. I've listed several other genocides or instances of oppression they could have chosen. Was the choice arbitrary? I'd be asking the same whichever they'd chosen.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineFor example, there are plenty of "middle class comfortable kids" who also happen to be Jews. If they were to play this game, would they be "misery tourists" like the non-Jews are accused of being?

Again, I don't believe any Jew would play this thing. To me it's like saying, "if a Jew were to take a big shit on a Torah scroll, then...?" I simply can't imagine it happening, and don't believe it ever would happen. "if the moon were made of green cheese, then -" But it's not.

Show me a Jew playing this thing, and let that Jewish gamer describe their experiences with it. I can't.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineMatthias' RPG might be shit, but that has nothing to do with him being Jewish or not, Norwegian or not, or anything else.

It's very simple.

Mattijs' thing is about imagining the feeling of being a victim of the Jewish Holocaust. It's not about intellectual understanding, but about feeling. He proposes to do that on the basis of imagination only; but he needs imagination combined with the memories of those who actually had those experiences. He's only got half of what he needs.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThat last sentence doesn't make sense. If they're ignorant, we should encourage them to learn about the things they're ignorant of.

I've encouraged them to learn. I told them to talk to people who've actually had the experience they're trying to reproduce the feeling of in their onanistic misery tour.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI still don't see how making a so-so RPG about the Holocaust means they don't know anything about it.

Then you've not spoken to any Holocaust victims about their experiences, either.

When you look into the eyes of a victim of the Holocaust, or a victim of child sexual abuse, or a victim of a suicide bombing, or a victim of US Marines murdering an entire family, when you see the bleak pain in their eyes - you'll realise that the only thing which can be said is, "never again."

Yeah well. This was a trmendously painful topic for me. I'm glad that it's kinda over now.

Quote from: RPGPunditHuh? I didn't see anything E's post that would be off-topic for this forum.

RPGPundit

That's not exactly what I meant. As I understand it, this whole project would be off-topic here, now that I no longer wish to classify it as a "game".

Quote from: Matthijs HolterThat's not exactly what I meant. As I understand it, this whole project would be off-topic here, now that I no longer wish to classify it as a "game".

Ah, well, yes. That would probably be true.

RPGPundit

Quote from: JimBobOzor a victim of US Marines murdering an entire family, when you see the bleak pain in their eyes - you'll realise that the only thing which can be said is, "never again."

Or, perhaps, the eyes fo the victims of the holocaust who miraculously survived to be liberated by US armed forces.  Or maybe the eyes of the people as they jumped from the World Trade Center just before thy hit the ground?  Would that suffice you self-important blowhard piece of shit?

Give it rest JimBob.  It's about the Holocaust.  Can you leave your horribly prejudiced ignorant view of Americans aside for one thread?  Cause, ya know, it's not like the Australians are a bunch of saints, or the Jews don't live in glass houses, or..pick one, but make it your own instead of using an argument about 6 million people dying in a horrible human tragedy to display your ugly bias.

Unless you're trying to make a point by showing what this will inevitably devolve into when a fuckhead with a hard-on prejudice about something gets a hold of it. Like a denier showing how it was all just ahorrible accident due to string of really bad individual choices made all along the way.

Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry to everyone else; I just let one or two of these flow by in the interest of keeping this thing on track (IMHO there was actual progress made), but this was just one step too far for me. I'm tired and I let his flame bait get the best of me.

Quote from: James J SkachOr, perhaps, the eyes fo the victims of the holocaust who miraculously survived to be liberated by US armed forces.  Or maybe the eyes of the people as they jumped from the World Trade Center just before thy hit the ground?  Would that suffice you self-important blowhard piece of shit?

Give it rest JimBob.  It's about the Holocaust.  Can you leave your horribly prejudiced ignorant view of Americans aside for one thread?  Cause, ya know, it's not like the Australians are a bunch of saints, or the Jews don't live in glass houses, or..pick one, but make it your own instead of using an argument about 6 million people dying in a horrible human tragedy to display your ugly bias.

Unless you're trying to make a point by showing what this will inevitably devolve into when a fuckhead with a hard-on prejudice about something gets a hold of it. Like a denier showing how it was all just ahorrible accident due to string of really bad individual choices made all along the way.

Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry to everyone else; I just let one or two of these flow by in the interest of keeping this thing on track (IMHO there was actual progress made), but this was just one step too far for me. I'm tired and I let his flame bait get the best of me.

FWIW, I found that offensive too, but I'm kind of exhausted.

Quote from: James J SkachOr, perhaps, the eyes fo the victims of the holocaust who miraculously survived to be liberated by US armed forces.  Or maybe the eyes of the people as they jumped from the World Trade Center just before thy hit the ground?  Would that suffice you self-important blowhard piece of shit?

Mattijs' thing isn't about the liberation of the camps, it's about people forced to live in ghettos and help the Nazis kill each-other, or die in the camps. His thing is about despair, not hope.

But that's an excellent question. If Mattijs wants to write about the Holocaust, then he should mention hope, too. But he wants to focus on misery.

I didn't mention the WTC victims because I'd already mentioned many others.

Quote from: James J SkachCan you leave your horribly prejudiced ignorant view of Americans aside for one thread?  

You're picking out one example I gave. I mentioned Marines at Haditha, but I also mentioned suicide bombers, Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi, Arab victims in Zanzibar, women in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Romani, homosexuals, Soviets and so on in Nazi Europe, Bosniaks in Srebenica as victims of Serbs and the UN, Chechens and Volga Germans in the USSR, Khmer under Pol Pot, Chinese under Mao, and so on and so forth. In this thread I've been pretty consistent in listing atrocities carried out by quite a wide variety of groups.

Here, I can add some Australian ones, too. In Australia our native population is impoverished and miserable. Our government has cut funding and failed to act because Australians are racist and don't care about brown people. People will not employ Aboriginals, and then complain that Aboriginals are lazy and living on the dole. They then express surprise that the blackfellahs are impoverished and miserable. A widespread disease is trachoma, a disease of the eyes which can be prevented by dailing washing - but that's right, citizens of a First World nation, not all of them have access to clean drinking water. Even pissy little Sri Lanka got rid of this disease, but we can't - because Aussies don't care.

As late as the 1930s massacres were carried out against the natives, and no-one was prosecuted. As late as the 1970s children were taken off Aboriginal women to be put in white homes and get a token level of education and become servants. And now it looks like the government's planning to do the same child-stealing shit again, as you can see here in the ABC news. It's fucking barbaric.

The Australian government detained refugees on an offshore island in a legal limbo so that they couldn't appeal the dodgy and inhumane government decisions made against them - they created an offshore legal limbo to avoid the oversight of the court system. I'm sure the USA got the idea for Guatanamo's prison from Australia, we had it first.

It's one Ministry, by the way - the Ministry of Immigration and Aboriginal Affairs. Imagine in the USA having the Immigration and Naturalisation Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (or whatever it's called these days) as one agency. We're treating our own citizens as foreigners. They're all darkies, after all, yeah? :rolleyes:

This, I think, does not really compare with the Holocaust. As horrendously as we're treating these people, we're not raping or murdering them. If we start stealing the blackfellahs' children again, then we can start calling it genocide - the UN calls it genocide when you steal children and destroy a culture, since you're destroying them as a race, as a people. That kind of genocide I would say is to Nazi-style genocide what manslaughter is to murder - it's a lesser form of the same thing. But still, that's what it is.

We're not there yet, but you never know. But there you are, it's a criticism of my own country for its human rights violations. So I'm not picking on your USA. I pretty consistently say things against any country which has commited atrocities or violated human rights. It's just that you pay no attention unless the phrase "USA" appears in the text. So take your wounded national pride and nurse it back to health. I criticise all peoples and governments doing nasty shit, and most of all my own.  

Why did I focus on the Holocaust? Well, because that's what this thread's about... Sorry to be on-topic. But I did suggest Mattijs consider some other atrocities around the world, too.

Get over yourself. It's not all about you. Read the fucking thread, and you'll see I've mentioned many different countries' atrocities, any which seemed comparable in scale or nature to the Holocaust.

It's a nice try Kyle, but it's bullshit.

I didn't say anything the first time, cause you mentioned a bunch of others.  But in all of thsoe cases, you're comparing apples and oranges.  I know I know, it's hard to say that if you're the people to whom it happens.  But the matters are so different, they don't belong in the same sentence.

Quote from: Kyle AaronWhen you look into the eyes of a victim of the Holocaust, or a victim of child sexual abuse, or a victim of a suicide bombing, or a victim of US Marines murdering an entire family, when you see the bleak pain in their eyes

Hmmm..Nazi's? Check.  US Marines? Check.  You mention the generic Child Abuse and Suicide Bombings, but without attribution to the offenders.  No UN peacekeepers for the former, or Al Qaeda for the latter - why is that, Kyle So we're only left with Nazi's and US Marines being shown as similar. Yeah...right...no bias there.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI 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.

If I'm not mistaken, and I could be given the amount you write in posts and having only so much patience, that makes two references to the US in Iraq.  Other than the specific subject at hand, the Nazis and the Holocaust, that's the most mentions – certainly of the scale of the Haditha incident versus the level of the discussion of genocide (and I'm not counting what I could be taking too personally the mention of the illegal immigrants).

So why is that, Kyle? Wouldn't be your America-hating bias, would it? Don't answer – it's a rhetorical question - and I couldn't stand the holier-than-thou lecture that's just another smoke screen.

Quote from: Kyle AaronEven pissy little Sri Lanka got rid of this disease, but we can't - because Aussies don't care.

We're not pissy...just got ourselves into a shithole, of our own making :grumpy:

Regards,
David R

I have just finished reading this entire thread and created an account specifically because of this topic.  After all of the reading, I would like to make a few comments, if I may.

I believe the reason that Jews and Jewish organizations are brought up in this thread for reference and design is not because we have a "monopoly" on the Shoah.  However, as has been pointed out, 6 million of our people (which was the vast majority were wiped out.  As has been stated, that is equivalent to the sum total of all other nationalities, religious groups and ethnicities combined.  Therefore, we tend to pay particularly close attention, as a group, to anything involving this atrocity.

The comment that Jewish is not an ethnicity is false.  Judaism is a religion, certainly, but it is also very much an ethnicity because most of us are descended from the 6 million people who stood at Mount Sinai and accepted the Torah.  There have been conversions and (more recently) intermarriages, but most of the stock still comes from that group.  More specifically, almost all of us (from a percentage standpoint) come from the tribe of Judah.  There are even genes specifically found only in our Kohanim (descended from Aaron, Moses' brother) or, more broadly, in Ashkenaz or Sephardic Jews.

To bring both of those points to a head, one cannot imagine this horrible time and life if one has not lived it.  One is less likely to be able to imagine it if one did not personally lose family to it, as I and many others did.  One is even further removed if one did not lose a majority of one's racial, ethnic or religious group to it.  These are all great reasons for trying to spread a modicum of understanding.  Here is the catch: if you are not exceedingly familiar with the history of Jews starting with... let's say Abraham, then you are missing most of the significance of this event for that group of people.  Additionally, if you are not familiar with the 613 mitzvos (commandments) given to Jews, you will miss much of the significance of the smaller, although equally painful, details of the Shoah.  This means, sadly, that many, many, many Jews would not be able to grasp this event's impact on a personal level to the extent that they might if they would increase their knowledge of Torah, Talmud and history.  How much less so those who are not of the group.  Certainly, this point goes for all groups affected, but I am focusing on the Jews for aforementioned reasons.

Now, I will make challah and ensure to say very special blessings for those of you who could not understand the objections earlier to understand them now.  On a personal note, for the Jews who have posted on the thread, if there is anything you desire (to marry, have a child, have more money to make ends meet, recover from an illness, etc.) please provide me with your Hebrew name (or that of the person for which you would like me to pray) and the reason.

Have a wonderful Shabbos.

P.S. It is quite true that if Yad Vashem is okay with it, then many others will be as well.