Vampire the RPG.
"I exist only by drinking the blood of the living... but I, like, feel totally bad about it and stuff."
"Hey yeah let's put that in the game mechanics."

Do we need a socioeconomic and textual analysis of this to know that it's dumb? It's Vampire! Vampire is thespy, and thus inherently wrong.

I haven't gotten through the article on Vampire, so no comments about that right now. But I've done a lot of Lovecraft-based games, so I'm interested in that.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048061I actually think the opposite. IMO, some of the best neo-Lovecraft fiction are the stories that confront that prejudice directly rather than trying to ignore or whitewash it. For example: Lovecraft Country, The Ballad of Black Tom, The Litany of Earth, and The Black Brat of Dunwich. These stories feature protagonists who are black, female, LGBT or even literally alien. I particularly like the revisionist stories which depict the fish people and god hybrids as persecuted victims.

I'm not familiar with the fiction in question - I haven't read any direct neo-Lovecraft fiction. I agree with the general strategy, though, within gaming. I dislike games that try hard to be Lovecraftian but gloss over the racism. His xenophobia was a core part of many stories, and I like games that run with that aspect of it.

Quote from: S'mon;1048163I don't think Lovecraft was a bad person. But he was at least borderline mentally ill. He was literally, medically, xenophobic.

And it empowered his writing.

I think we're all agreed that Lovecraft was racist. The issue is about how to do games that are based on Lovecraft. A lot of games do gloss over that aspect, which I think you agree empowered his writing. I think it's more interesting to take it and explore it, as BoxCrayonTales says.

For example, my last Call of Cthulhu campaign was set in the 1950s after a devastating war with the Deep Ones - known as the "Deep War". The Allies in this war were the key naval powers: the U.S., England, Germany, and Japan. This meant that the U.S. was now allied with Nazi Germany, and the PCs missions had them working with them some. It was weird and a little uncomfortable - which I think is good for a Lovecraftian horror game.

Quote from: S'mon;1048163I don't think Lovecraft was a bad person. But he was at least borderline mentally ill. He was literally, medically, xenophobic.

And it empowered his writing.

I should have used "" that's not what I meant. You probably right, he had a rough childhood but I also believe that he was an honest person.

Quote from: John Scott;1048189I should have used "" that's not what I meant. You probably right, he had a rough childhood but I also believe that he was an honest person.

By all accounts he was a decent bloke and well liked (by people who enjoyed his work) it's obvious by the correspondence he had with them.

But he was a troubled man... It's no wonder he had a fear of strangers as he was mentally abused by his mother who pounded a lot of strange ideas into his head as a kid. It should also be noted they he was changing his beliefs as he got older. He did marry a Jewish woman.

After reading all of that I'll say this- Zak and I do not get along. We've had it out here and elsewhere and he took a shot at me on Twitter a couple of weeks ago which I actually appreciate because it showed the true colors of a third party. With almost a decade of animosity between us I don't think he deserves that snarky commentary. He has proven himself a creative member of the gaming community and I do not believe the smears in this article nor do I believe he deserves unending ridicule. I get the irony of this situation and we are not going to be pals, but even I don't think he needs this. Big Purple chewed him up enough in their huge thread.

Any of the criticism in the article could be leveled at the whole of White Wolf's games. In whatever incarnation they might be. Not just Vampire 5th Edition.

I think it's really dishonest to try and claim that Vampire 5th is the only incarnation of the White Wolf games with questionable content and ideas behind it.

Quote from: bat;1048195After reading all of that I'll say this- Zak and I do not get along. We've had it out here and elsewhere and he took a shot at me on Twitter a couple of weeks ago which I actually appreciate because it showed the true colors of a third party. With almost a decade of animosity between us I don't think he deserves that snarky commentary. He has proven himself a creative member of the gaming community and I do not believe the smears in this article nor do I believe he deserves unending ridicule. I get the irony of this situation and we are not going to be pals, but even I don't think he needs this. Big Purple chewed him up enough in their huge thread.

I just wanted to say I applaud this display of maturity and pushback against libel, even (especially!) for a rival. We degrade all of ourselves to let such misbehavior go unchallenged.

kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya!

The author used the word "fuck" 18 times. That's fucking amazing.

Quote from: Aglondir;1048217The author used the word "fuck" 18 times. That's fucking amazing.

Because he fights the fucking MAN, man!

Quote from: Azraele;1048170I was just referring to it's author, Alexander Macris being a self-proclaimed "Ayn Rand libertarian". If I recall correctly, he once referred to the mechanics as celebrating the moment in human history when free enterprise began to replace feudalism.

Hmm, I can't recall saying that, but it does sound like something I would say!  But maybe not about ACKS. ACKS is set in Late Antiquity - feudalism hadn't yet begun.

As far as being an Ayn Rand libertarian, I am one; ACKS - well, all of the PCs in ACKS would have been called looters & moochers by Ayn Rand. She didn't think much of conquerors and kings. "Entrepreneur Executive Boss" would be more her taste.

ACKS is a fantasy game inspired by the hero's journey of fictional protagonists like Conan and Aragorn, or real-world protagonists like Aurelian or Alexander.  I don't worry about how it ties into contemporary political norms anymore than I worry about who Scipio and Hannibal would have voted for in 2016. I just enjoy imagining a world where magic is real, chaos and evil threaten civilization, and heroes must rise and save the realm through daring, cunning, and skill.

Quote from: amacris;1048225Hmm, I can't recall saying that, but it does sound like something I would say!  But maybe not about ACKS. ACKS is set in Late Antiquity - feudalism hadn't yet begun.

As far as being an Ayn Rand libertarian, I am one; ACKS - well, all of the PCs in ACKS would have been called looters & moochers by Ayn Rand. She didn't think much of conquerors and kings. "Entrepreneur Executive Boss" would be more her taste.

ACKS is a fantasy game inspired by the hero's journey of fictional protagonists like Conan and Aragorn, or real-world protagonists like Aurelian or Alexander.  I don't worry about how it ties into contemporary political norms anymore than I worry about who Scipio and Hannibal would have voted for in 2016. I just enjoy imagining a world where magic is real, chaos and evil threaten civilization, and heroes must rise and save the realm through daring, cunning, and skill.

Nothing like getting a response from the author. In our mutual defense, you say a lot of stuff that's worth reading.

Quote from: jhkim;1048188I think we're all agreed that Lovecraft was racist. The issue is about how to do games that are based on Lovecraft.

I always just ran the Chaosium adventures (in my hardback Call of Cthulu 2e from Games Workshop) as written. I don't generally find Lovecraft scary but I did manage to scare myself running The Haunted House in a freezing house in Sheffield, 1996, for my fiancee as a solo player. Unlike me she wasn't scared at all.

At the time I ran CoC I wasn't aware of Lovecraft's xenophobia. If I had been when I ran The Secret of Castronegro ca 1986 I can imagine I could maybe have added an extra edge to it (it has ghouls, and Mexicans). But really the kind of purity/corruption/alien threat themes you see in HPL are not very different to classical horror themes, including swords & sorcery - REH's swords & sorcery is definitely principally horror. What makes HPL different from typical fantasy horror is not Fear of the Other, it's the Fear of the Uncaring Universe, a universe without any Providence or divine protection for humanity.

Quote from: bat;1048195After reading all of that I'll say this- Zak and I do not get along. We've had it out here and elsewhere and he took a shot at me on Twitter a couple of weeks ago which I actually appreciate because it showed the true colors of a third party. With almost a decade of animosity between us I don't think he deserves that snarky commentary. He has proven himself a creative member of the gaming community and I do not believe the smears in this article nor do I believe he deserves unending ridicule. I get the irony of this situation and we are not going to be pals, but even I don't think he needs this. Big Purple chewed him up enough in their huge thread.

The normal SJW approach is that if you disagree with them, you're a Nazi. That's their standard modus operandi.
Zak's case is interesting in that he doesn't actually disagree with them on the issues, he just has an obnoxious personality.
Which to them makes him a Harasser and, by osmosis, now a Nazi.
So you don't have to like him or agree with him to see this is obviously wrong and unfair.

So heres a question.

The article is obviously tortured dishonest badly written garbage.

Reading through the long thread on RPGnet it's clear that most of the arguments against White Wolf are incredibly thin and based on the desire to believe it's written to appeal to Nazi's.  (When it looks like the game will most likely take a left wing slant as all WW games before it).

Why then do this crowd want to believe the game is written to appeal to Nazis?  What do they really have against WW that they should twist things this badly to make this out?

Quote from: S'mon;1048231I always just ran the Chaosium adventures (in my hardback Call of Cthulu 2e from Games Workshop) as written. I don't generally find Lovecraft scary but I did manage to scare myself running The Haunted House in a freezing house in Sheffield, 1996, for my fiancee as a solo player. Unlike me she wasn't scared at all.

At the time I ran CoC I wasn't aware of Lovecraft's xenophobia. If I had been when I ran The Secret of Castronegro ca 1986 I can imagine I could maybe have added an extra edge to it (it has ghouls, and Mexicans). But really the kind of purity/corruption/alien threat themes you see in HPL are not very different to classical horror themes, including swords & sorcery - REH's swords & sorcery is definitely principally horror. What makes HPL different from typical fantasy horror is not Fear of the Other, it's the Fear of the Uncaring Universe, a universe without any Providence or divine protection for humanity.

It's a lot more complex than "xenophobia". After all, one of his best (and longest) stories, At the Mountains of Madness, is largely about how the Elder Things (which are extremely far from being human) are "men", because they are rational, intelligent, beings.

Similarly, the story many people point to as exhibiting his "xenophobia", The Shadow over innsmouth, the narrator at the end realizes that he's actually one of them, and maybe they aren't so creepy after all. Which sets the tone for a lot of later Deep One stories by Derleth and Lumley, where they are portrayed more as creep humans than anything else.