Quote from: Koltar;1105093No, an updated "Space: 1889" should decrease or eliminate the racism and bigotry of the setting and make it more like the way people interact at Steampunk conventions.  That would make it much more playable for beginners.

-Ed C.

And then they would be accused of whitewashing history. It's a no-win scenario, creators should create what they want and pay no attention to those who pearlclutch.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1105111And then they would be accused of whitewashing history. It's a no-win scenario, creators should create what they want and pay no attention to those who pearlclutch.

That's by design.

Outrage <> Crusade

Can't Crusade in the Holy War if you have nothing to Crusade against.

Quote from: tenbones;1105112That's by design.

Outrage <> Crusade

Can't Crusade in the Holy War if you have nothing to Crusade against.

I know, believe me I know.

Quote from: tenbones;1105104Stipulated. The meat of your statement, to me, is: to what degree am I supposed to be invested in the perceived offense that exists in other people's minds?

I would say that that depends on two factors: the sincerity of the offense and the justification for the offense. Note that in practice the two are orthogonal: it's possible for someone to be honestly outraged at an apparent statement of insult, or perceived status of degradation, while being completely mistaken about what was actually meant, and while we can't be responsible for other people's errors, basic decency and compassion is generally held to oblige us to amend the distress created by them. Likewise, because the former is entirely subjective while the latter must be at least in part objective, it's possible for a group to agree that a particular individual has a right to claim offense without that individual necessarily taking personal offense.

The trick to weaponizing this ambiguity is to affect an outrage so forcefully that attempting to examine the justification is taken as further offense, or as proof it was justified in the first place.

QuoteAnd this is where I say: It absolutely is not objectively wrong. You know why? Because if it is - the implications are that only one group of Chosen People have only the Right Beliefs and that justifies the horrors we as a species have committed historically in trying to impose that idea on everyone that may not have even had that thought cross their minds.

I'll likewise digress here to note that it is possible to believe one's beliefs are objectively correct and to believe that that does not in itself justify attempting to impose those beliefs by force. There's a pretty clear line between proclaiming the Right Way and attempting to extirpate all Wrong Ways.

Which also leads back to the first aspect, in that just because I've (admittedly rather dismissively) called Hensley's setting revisions "a greengrocer's sign" doesn't mean that this particular greengrocer isn't a sincere believer. Indeed, the strong defenses of Hensley's motivations from those who know him suggest that he's making this change solely for the best possible reason: because he feels his own conscience obliges him to.

Thus, an uncomfortable paradox: While as a statistical norm the rational bet is to assume the worst motives possible for putting up such signs and condemn them as a phenomenon, whenever dealing with a given individual, basic benefit of the doubt requires assuming the best possible motives and granting support for such individual choices when made.

Quote from: Omega;1105107They didnt quite totally sideline the demons and devils. Just renamed them. Monster Manual page 11. Baatezu. Though only 4 are presented. A Pit Fiend and three Abashai.  And two Taanri on page 337. They did though remove the Assassin class.

But the infernal beasties would get alot more coverage in the Compendiums eventually as Planescape gained steam.

   Yes, but that's the 1993 Monstrous Manual, 4 years after 2E's launch. The original Monstrous Compendium only had three Guardian Daemons (later Guardian Yugoloths) in the second batch of monsters, then you had to wait until the 1991 MC8 Outer Planes Appendix for the renamed critters. (Hence why I said 'sidelined,' not 'removed.')

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105115I would say that that depends on two factors: the sincerity of the offense and the justification for the offense. Note that in practice the two are orthogonal: it's possible for someone to be honestly and completely outraged at an apparent statement of insult, or perceived status of degradation, while being completely mistaken about what was actually meant, and while we can't be responsible for other people's errors, basic decency and compassion is generally held to oblige us to amend the distress created by them. Likewise, because the former is entirely subjective while the latter must be at least in part objective, it's possible for a group to agree that a particular individual has a right to claim offense without that individual necessarily taking personal offense.

The trick to weaponizing this ambiguity is to affect an outrage so forcefully that attempting to examine the justification is taken as further offense, or proof it was justified in the first place.

Offense is never given only taken, there's no such thing as an objective offense since even individuals within the same arbitrary group differ in takin or not offense over thing X.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105115I'll likewise digress here to note that it is possible to believe one's beliefs are objectively correct and to believe that that does not in itself justify attempting to impose those beliefs by force. There's a pretty clear line between proclaiming the Right Way and attempting to extirpate all Wrong Ways.

Which also leads back to the first aspect, in that just because I've (admittedly rather dismissively) called Hensley's setting revisions "a greengrocer's sign" doesn't mean that this particular greengrocer isn't a sincere believer. Indeed, the strong defenses of Hensley's motivations from those who know him suggest that he's making this change solely for the best possible reason: because he feels his own conscience obliges him to.

Thus, an uncomfortable paradox: While as a statistical norm the rational bet is to assume the worst motives possible for putting up such signs and condemn them as a phenomenon, whenever dealing with a given individual, basic benefit of the doubt requires assuming the best possible motives and granting support for such individual choices when made.

That someone believes his beliefs are objectively true doesn't make it so. To think that sincere belief is the justification for anything is the first step in the wrong direction. What follows is something we all know and ends with millions dead.

Just look at the SocJus Zealots, the masses of them sincerely believe their beliefs are objectively true, moral and better than other beliefs. This has been true for a while, yet we didn't start to see IRL violence until relatively recent times.

I can assume that individual X is motivated by the best intentions (or idiocy) this doesn't mean I should give his beliefs any respect. The road to hell...

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1105117Yes, but that's the 1993 Monstrous Manual, 4 years after 2E's launch. The original Monstrous Compendium only had three Guardian Daemons (later Guardian Yugoloths) in the second batch of monsters, then you had to wait until the 1991 MC8 Outer Planes Appendix for the renamed critters. (Hence why I said 'sidelined,' not 'removed.')

You are correct. I'd totally forgotten about those loose bound compendiums. Despite having a few. Or probably because I have a few. ahem.

Did Deadlands ever get into any details of what was going on in their alternate history take of the British Empire or other happening in Europe, Asia, or Africa?

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1105120That someone believes his beliefs are objectively true doesn't make it so. To think that sincere belief is the justification for anything is the first step in the wrong direction.

I assume that what you mean here is that sincere belief in itself is not adequate blanket justification for anything claimed to be done in its name. Nobody does anything without some modicum of sincere belief in its correctness, after all. (If nothing else, in the licitness of justifying an ethically dodgy action by sincerely believing one's survival or prosperity depend on it.)

Likewise, our culture used to believe that you don't have to respect someone's beliefs in order to treat him respectfully. What changed in the SJ movement over the past few years was the gradual adoption of the belief that this stance was hypocritical, rather than ecumenical, and that the ends of eliminating evil beliefs justified more and more means of punishing the holders thereof. So it's much more about which beliefs are being held than how sincerely they're held, I think.

Quote from: tenbones;1105109The obsession with Slavery today as a quasi-religious dogma is mindboggling. And I'm saying that as a person whose people were slaves at the same time as Africans in America for centuries.

I don't believe this is an actual thing. I think it's people virtue-signalling for their LARP Religion.

Outrage is a virtue and they're willing to prove it by doing all the fascist shit we already know they do. Shane is just trying to head it off at the pass.

Shane didn't specify who had real problems and came to him about them.

The target of offense are rarely as offended as White people are for them. These kinds of changes are predominantly stimulated from offended white people. I doubt that Shane would care that much unless his own position has changed (like he has a problem with it now) or he found the element causing narrative inconsistencies in his setting that just weren't working out for this new phase and was just way more trouble than it was worth.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105127I assume that what you mean here is that sincere belief in itself is not adequate blanket justification for anything claimed to be done in its name. Nobody does anything without some modicum of sincere belief in its correctness, after all. (If nothing else, in the licitness of justifying an ethically dodgy action by sincerely believing one's survival or prosperity depend on it.)

The witchburners sincerelly believed their actions were morally justified, the same goes for slavery, segregation, Nazis and commies. Nobody is the villain in their own history.

But we as a culture/species can see the errors of those times in those beliefs, yet some are doing exactly the same stuff and claiming to be morally justified to burn the witch.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105127Likewise, our culture used to believe that you don't have to respect someone's beliefs in order to treat him respectfully. What changed in the SJ movement over the past few years was the gradual adoption of the belief that this stance was hypocritical, rather than ecumenical, and that the ends of eliminating evil beliefs justified more and more means of punishing the holders thereof. So it's much more about which beliefs are being held than how sincerely they're held, I think.

Respect is earned, unless you're talking of the basic human decency of treating each other as humans and good people until proven wrong.

I don't think it really matters what beliefs you or anybody holds but what actions are you taking. To the extent that person X holds very stupid and pernicious beliefs but it's not hurting anybody I don't care what person X beliefs beyond arguing against his/her beliefs.

To think otherwise is to fall in the same trap of thinking my beliefs are the one true way tm

The worst acts in our history have been committed by people who sincerely believed their beliefs were the right ones and they were therefore morally justified to do what they were doing.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105115I would say that that depends on two factors: the sincerity of the offense and the justification for the offense. Note that in practice the two are orthogonal: it's possible for someone to be honestly outraged at an apparent statement of insult, or perceived status of degradation, while being completely mistaken about what was actually meant, and while we can't be responsible for other people's errors, basic decency and compassion is generally held to oblige us to amend the distress created by them. Likewise, because the former is entirely subjective while the latter must be at least in part objective, it's possible for a group to agree that a particular individual has a right to claim offense without that individual necessarily taking personal offense.

The issue is that unless you're Charles Xavier, your only position here is to justify your emotions based on the dictates of whatever behaviors your "in-group" has conditioned you to do. In this case you FEEL outrage at - without ever knowing the precise intent of whatever produced . The majority of the time with people is that they are not self-aware of that position they're not in. They project the intent of their conditioned behavior based on those specific beliefs to act in manner .

Their is *no* self-awareness in ones own ceding of conscious realization of this condition. Religion, Ideology, Beliefs - nothing *really* justifies this behavior... and people on the Left that DO know this... do this:

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105115The trick to weaponizing this ambiguity is to affect an outrage so forcefully that attempting to examine the justification is taken as further offense, or as proof it was justified in the first place.

<--- this.

This very discussion is about that mechanic.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105115I'll likewise digress here to note that it is possible to believe one's beliefs are objectively correct and to believe that that does not in itself justify attempting to impose those beliefs by force. There's a pretty clear line between proclaiming the Right Way and attempting to extirpate all Wrong Ways.

Yep. But if one *really* understands this position - that means you better develop a very thick skin, and deep empathy for your fellow 6.99-billion fellow citizens of the world that *don't* hold your specific beliefs. OR you better stop consuming the ever increasing products of the emergent global meta-culture.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105115Which also leads back to the first aspect, in that just because I've (admittedly rather dismissively) called Hensley's setting revisions "a greengrocer's sign" doesn't mean that this particular greengrocer isn't a sincere believer. Indeed, the strong defenses of Hensley's motivations from those who know him suggest that he's making this change solely for the best possible reason: because he feels his own conscience obliges him to.

While I'll take this at face value from his own words. I further don't dismiss that part of what informs his conscience is the fiscal ramifications of knowing his market. And I do believe he knows his market, and is making his choices accordingly. Whether I agree with those choices is irrelevant - as he himself has said. (I personally would have handled it differently, but I don't really question his motives at all). What I do know is, as others have said - he's put his own blood in the water. And the usual suspects will not stop. They want more bent knee. They want more contrition. And likely Deadlands won't be the last setting to get this scrutiny and fake outrage for the purposes of control.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105115Thus, an uncomfortable paradox: While as a statistical norm the rational bet is to assume the worst motives possible for putting up such signs and condemn them as a phenomenon, whenever dealing with a given individual, basic benefit of the doubt requires assuming the best possible motives and granting support for such individual choices when made.

I generally agree. And it means you have to stick to the terms of your own intent and meaning at all costs. There is *no* reason anyone should be attacking Shane for the content of the game. Criticize - sure, have at it. Brigading it? No. If you wanna make your individual choice to not purchase it - that costs you nothing. But personally I take the position I don't owe anyone anything. If I'm shilling a product - that's not me, that's a product. If people want to read into it - that' s their problem. If they want to make it an ideological charge... well that's when you have to simply be willing to have the discussion with people willing to have it in honest discourse. Of course you also have to be willing to say: Too Bad. To those that aren't.

Quote from: Omega;1105098Instead of jettisoning the original setting which seems to have got them all those awards and customers... why not just release this new setting as an alternative timeline? Make it an adventure and give the players and DM the option to use the new timeline only if so desired?

That way you have a product for players offended at the original setting, while not offending players used to said original setting.

Deadlands already has multiple timelines. It's just that one timeline gets the majority of attention (the one where the Reckoners won). And I guarantee you that Deadlands would have gotten a lot more customers without an "heroic" CSA.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105008I've been a Deadlands GM for both Classic and Reloaded. I've paid my money and my dues to call out Shane the Wimp.

The concept of the CSA (losing or winning or dragging on) isn't a bad idea and each option opens certain storylines to explore. Revamping the setting to tell new stories isn't always a bad idea. We've seen that plenty with many game lines and sometimes the revamp is a good idea, but mostly the revamps just crap out and alienate fans as they are often done poorly. But this CSA issue isn't a RPG revamp for in-game reasons and its so laughably obvious.  

Just about every edition change in Dungeons & Dragons had drastic effects for settings such as Dragonlance and Faerun, where the metaphysics of the universe warped to erase and change the nature of spells and classes. Artemis Entreri avoiding non-existance by going "I'm not an Assassin, I'm a Fighter-Thief multiclass who kills people for money" is the most laughable example, but the Time of Troubles, every new Mystra, and Dragonlance's 5th Age where rationales for things like "how can we explain why magic items no longer require Constitution drain to create?"

In-game reasons, when you get down to it, really come down to out-of-game meta-narratives this way. Because tabletop games aren't classic literature which evolves with the story but as a means to sell more products and keep players invested with new material. At least in Deadlands' case it's being done to get rid of a black mark upon the setting that really only attracts a certain kind of ideologue you don't want at your gaming tables and not something dumb like a character class word-games ploy.

Quote from: Libertad;1105194Deadlands already has multiple timelines. It's just that one timeline gets the majority of attention (the one where the Reckoners won). And I guarantee you that Deadlands would have gotten a lot more customers without an "heroic" CSA.

Guarantees on the internet are a dime a dozen.  Deadlands has had a whole passel of customers since 1996.  It won a bunch of awards back in the 1990's.  It is very arguable as to whether it would have gotten more customers than it had.  Popularity has certainly waned in more recent years but I find it difficult to believe that has anything to do in a broad sense with the fact that there is a "heroic" CSA.  More likely it is like most roleplaying games except for a select few like D&D, where people have simply lost interest, played lengthy campaigns and have moved on to other games.  And the longtime fans are either still playing the classic version, have moved on to Reloaded and certainly there are some other fans, and probably some new fans eagerly awaiting the new release with the retcon.

Quote from: LibertadIn-game reasons, when you get down to it, really come down to out-of-game meta-narratives this way. Because tabletop games aren't classic literature which evolves with the story but as a means to sell more products and keep players invested with new material. At least in Deadlands' case it's being done to get rid of a black mark upon the setting that really only attracts a certain kind of ideologue you don't want at your gaming tables and not something dumb like a character class word-games ploy.

This argument that the fictional Deadlands setting has a "black mark" on it because of the treatment of the CSA is ludicrous.  Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, have played Deadlands since 1996.  Many are certainly still playing games with the old orange books, and the majority of those people are not visiting online forums to talk about their games.  Just as many, if not more, are still playing Reloaded and most of those as well are not visiting online forums either.  RPG fans that frequent message boards related to gaming are a much smaller minority.  I hardly think those thousands or tens of thousands of people who have played or are playing Deadlands games are terribly concerned about the supposed "black mark" on the setting because of the CSA history in the setting.  If any of them DO have issue with it, they have likely modified it for their own purposes and moved on.

And to say that this supposed "black mark" ONLY attracts a certain kind of ideologue to gaming tables is ridiculous.  I highly doubt that there are a ton of Confederate apologists amongst those playing Deadlands, or any RPGs for that matter.  I don't think there are a bunch of White Supremacists playing Deadlands because they feel "invited" by the "heroic" CSA in the setting history.  I am only a small sample size but none of my players past or present fit any of that criteria even remotely.  Most of those I have played with could care less about the CSA.  They show up to play a game and have some fun.  I'd love to see some evidence of this supposed ideologue being attracted to Deadlands gaming tables due to the setting history.

As if arguing about the fictional setting history in a GAME isn't enough, I believe we are starting to venture into the land of real-life make believe.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1104615I'm reminded of Tolkien's abandoned sequel, where 100 years after Aragorn's death, people grew up not knowing the import of the War of the Ring, and boys played at being orcs because it was "cool".

Stop confusing The Last Jedi with other stuff...