Quote from: thedungeondelver;429450What's your thought on Hogan's Heroes?

Before you answer: almost all of the "Nazis" were played by Jews who took the job with the caveat that their characters would always fail.

Not keen as its just not very funny. Its a bit like 'Allo 'Allo .....

Quote from: Esgaldil;429472Forgetting everything else, consider that in Deadlands some major political decisions and widespread public opinions are being generated by demons.  For me, that kind of takes it right out of the "Serious Alternate History with aspirations to Social Significance" category.

Unless the entire population of the CSA has now been replaced by incredibly racially tolerant Demons, it still makes no fucking sense.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Esgaldil;429479I have no objection to your proposal, Ed, and I'd probably enjoy your campaign.  However, I think plausibility can be maintained in the actions and motives of a character without forcing every setting to have a plausible basis.  There's a time for history class, and there's a time for TOON, and I submit that despite making use of many real places, dates, and people, Deadlands consistently demonstrates its proclivities for over the top absurdity, which is why I object to the Pundit's specific criticism.

But it doesn't.  Read the sourcebooks, they're mostly dead serious. Read Back East, the north and south volumes and you think you're reading a sourcebook for a WW game.
Which was of course the problem.  It SHOULD have been "over the top absurdity", but it wasn't, because it was written at a time when gaming companies were convinced that over the top absurdity was Not Allowed.

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Quote from: jibbajibba;429516Nope the player was white. I think I went to the whitest school in the whitest town in the whitest county of the UK. There were two black guys in a school of 1000 I knew one of them cos he did boxing and another cos he dated my sister for a bit.
I suspect the situation was exagerated by the GM but from later reading not as much as I thought at the time.

So then the question becomes, why did he play a black character? Did he WANT to play a black character and have himself be treated exactly like a white character? If so, what would have been the point?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;429318Take it elsewhere. Start a thread about it in the Pundit's forum if you like.  But keep talking about it here and I will have to end some people.

Done here.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429564Read the sourcebooks, they're mostly dead serious.

I've read much of the old material, and I think you're confusing "dead serious" with "deadpan".  Here's a couple of quotes (for reviewing purposes, since this is the book we are mostly talking about, despite being one of the less important supplemental materials to the game as intended) from The South:

"The peculiar smoke pillar is actually a moonshiner's signal. If your heroes follow it, they find a hidden clearing and buy tasty, tax-free whiskey. What, does everything have to be evil?"

"This creature is a large skunk ape (see River o' Blood) who has become
addicted to tobacco. He hangs around the cigar plant to steal cigars."

None of the text conveys the spirit of the books as well as the illustrations, though, which often look as though they came straight out of (amateur ripoffs of) E.C. Comics.  If White Wolf has anything like Old Fire Dragaman, they're a lot less serious than I thought.

Quote from: RPGPundit...it still makes no fucking sense.

That's what I've been saying.  It's up to you whether or not revisionism is an important issue in a setting that deliberately and gleefully (though not quite jumping up and down and shouting "THIS IS ALL A JOKE!") makes no fucking sense.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429565So then the question becomes, why did he play a black character?

I'm going to take a wild guess and say he had a Redd Foxx impression he wanted to use.

Quote from: jibbajibba;429517You see I think that that is a bit naive, which is sweet but ultimately doesn't support this discussion (as an aside in the Dogs in the Vineyard thread you seemed to indicate some LDS attachment how do you reconcile that with your obviously modern liberal views on race and gender - apologies if I am mis-remembering).

Had to go back to this post I half-remembered.....
WOW! You called me 'modern' and 'liberal' - that might shock a few who only hang out on the web.

My views on race and gender are not in any way 'modern' or 'liberal'.
My views are plain common sense and just normal humane kindness and love.
(also some brain-stuff involved)
Coupled with the fact that I evolved into not thinking of blacks as a seperate 'race'. They are the same race I am - Human  and currently living on Earth. If Lady C and I got married and could have kids together - then we are the same race. Any other way of looking at it is strange use of language and semantics to seperate people from knowqing each other and getting to be friends.

QuoteI mean you live in a country where some states had segregated schools until the 1960s and the KKK is still an active force. If you really think that the Western frountier of the 1860 - 1890 was a utopia of social progressiveness then you should read a book as opposed to watching Danny Glover movies.... just saying.

This part you got REALLY wrong. The KKK is no longer an 'active force' in America. They are a joke and the people that publicly admit to joining that group are also considered jokes.
I never said the western frontier was a 'utopia' - I DID say that many people got a second chance or tried for a second chance there - both white and black. Hell, erven a bastard like Al Swearingen in "DEADWOOD" was trying for his second or third chanc e with his little corrupt empire in that town.

Its also a little-known historical fact that a few towns did have a black sherriff. Doesn't mean things were a 'utopia' - it just means such things happened. I'm sure bigoted or racist incidents still happened in those towns. However, the town residents likely said "We know him as our Sherriff and thats good enough for us ...get your ass out of town."


- Ed C.

Quote from: Esgaldil;429585I'm going to take a wild guess and say he had a Redd Foxx impression he wanted to use.

To be fair, that's a good reason.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429307yes, it would also be wrong, if not being done in a gonzo, ironic, or tongue-in-cheek fashion. And even in the latter areas one can question the appropriateness of it.

So which is it?

Are you complaining that Deadlands is "insulting" because it's a an alternate history RPG will an alternate history that's cheesy or are you complaining that it's offensive even though it's gonzo, ironic, or tongue-in-cheek?  Or are you mangling the two complaints into one mess of an argument?

With respect to the first, it seems pretty clear to lots of people in this thread that Deadlands isn't a serious attempt at alternate history and your complaints are like complaining about what they did with California isn't geologically accurate.  With respect to the latter, that's why people are talking about Nazis and Hogan's Heroes as well as communists and pulps, because there are plenty of other examples of role-playing games taking liberties with historical nastiness to keep things gonzo and playful rather than heavy and serious.  Just about everything about Deadlands screams "gonzo and fun" yet you are choosing to take it far more seriously than intended.  

So why did they bother to write all of that alternate history detail, then?  To sell books.  A big part of what drove all the meta-plot story nonsense in the 1990s was the idea that they could sell role-playing books full of fiction that that people who don't actually role-play anymore would also buy them.  And I'm guessing that they picked the explanation they picked in the hope that it would be the quickest, bluntest, least complicated way to get from the antibellum South to something more politically correct, which is why it's so crude and blunt, like sliding the needle from one track to another on a record.  It wasn't meant to be plausible.  It was meant to sweep the issue under the rug so that people wouldn't keep asking, "So why is there still a CSA with no slavery?"  That they spend so little time on it tells me that thy are hoping you won't spend too much time dwelling on itand stop talking about it.  Is that inherently "insulting" or "offensive"?  And if you want to argue that a game must address slavery and racism in a detailed and serious manner, isn't that pushing you into Bruce Baugh territory?

Quote from: RPGPundit;429307The whitewashing in Pulps is not really quite the same.  But IF someone were to make a Pulp RPG that presented the 1920s as a time when black people explicitly had all the same opportunities as white people, or where women and other minorities were regularly presented as being institutionally in equal positions, and no one had an issue with things like sexual orientation or whatnot; in other words, if they took all the values of 2010 and projected them backward through time drooping them superimposed like some fat prostitute over an 18 year old farmboy on the historical backdrop of that other time; I would be just as bothered by it.

I think that describes the vast majority of pulp role-playing games out there, as well as the vast majority of historical and alternate history role-playing games out there.  The vast majority of all role-playing games present the values from 2010 and project them onto whatever time period or fantasy they depict.  And I can think of plenty of other places to start with this complaint other than a game with undead cardsharks and wuxia pirates.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429307ESPECIALLY if their claim or their tone implied that this was meant to be taken as a serious and historically plausible setting.

On what basis do you think Deadlands was made to be taken seriously or their history as plausible?  Just because they provide some explanation for their history does not automatically make the effort serious or plausible.  That Star Trek, a far more serious work than Deadlands, mentions the "Eugenics Wars" happening in the 1990s does not mean that such a war was ever a serious or plausible projection of the future, nor was Space: 1999 putting nuclear waste dumps on the Moon or having them blast the moon out of orbit.  Eugenics and nuclear waste disposal are serious subjects, but that does not make either of those works of fiction either serious or plausible and it would be foolish and miss the point to call either work "insulting" on the basis of their ham-handed treatment of those issues.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429307That's my complaint: that historical RPGs shouldn't whitewash history by projecting modern values on historical periods.

Well, then you should complain about the vast majority of the hobby and the genres that it's built upon because the vast majority of role-playing games, science fiction, and fantasy do just that.  Even the most highly regarded and serious of it tends to do what you are complaining about to some degree because it's all written by contemporary people with contemporary assumptions.

Further, I would argue that to complain about this, just as complaining about monocultural alien and fantasy races, misses the whole point of them in fantasy and science fiction, which are not to be a serious history lesson or plausible extrapolation of reality but to say something to the audience, all of whom are contemporary humans, most of whom live in a Western culture, most of whom don't know any historical period well enough to plausibly portray the denizens of that period, and most of whom are not looking for a history lesson in their science fiction, fantasy, or role-playing games, which is why you'll find so few pure historical role-playing games and settings.  The vast majority of people looking for historical authenticity belong to reenactment groups and/or read history books and/or read fiction specifically designed around historical accuracy.  They don't pick up books about undead gunslingers and card sharks looking for a serious treatment of history, just like they don't pick up books about zeppelin aircraft carriers and lost civilizations in Antarctica looking for a serious treatment of history.

All that said, I do think that a plausible and serious alternate history can be a good thing and help verisimilitude and I'm all for it, but even if I were going to make that argument, I wouldn't start with Deadlands.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429307Bruce Baugh's complaint is more like "RPGs should be forced to constantly address issues of racism and sexism and oppression which by the way we will judge entirely from our 21st century vantage point of smug superiority".

Well, isn't your complaint about Deadlands that it doesn't really address the treatment of slavery and racism and simply sweeps it under the carpet?  Isn't that more a difference in degree than kind?  Is your complaint about Bruce Baugh that he simply takes it too far?

Well, I have to say first of all its nice to have someone debating me that actually wants to and is capable of debate, unlike the tired string of Swine who come and go from these boards just looking to "challenge" me.

Quote from: John Morrow;429600So which is it?

Are you complaining that Deadlands is "insulting" because it's a an alternate history RPG will an alternate history that's cheesy or are you complaining that it's offensive even though it's gonzo, ironic, or tongue-in-cheek?  Or are you mangling the two complaints into one mess of an argument?

I'm arguing that Deadlands is schizophrenic.  It has a dual personality; at times being completely gonzo, but when it comes to presenting their alternate history trying to suddenly put on the veneer of seriousness.

QuoteWith respect to the first, it seems pretty clear to lots of people in this thread that Deadlands isn't a serious attempt at alternate history and your complaints are like complaining about what they did with California isn't geologically accurate.  

As far as I can recall, they don't dedicate dozens of pages to claiming that what they did to the California coastline is geographically plausible.

QuoteSo why did they bother to write all of that alternate history detail, then?  To sell books.  A big part of what drove all the meta-plot story nonsense in the 1990s was the idea that they could sell role-playing books full of fiction that that people who don't actually role-play anymore would also buy them.

I can't disagree with this, really.  Obviously it was to sell books, and they thought they had to do so in this way because they were completely sold on the dominating gaming ideology of the time (the White Wolf model).

QuoteAnd if you want to argue that a game must address slavery and racism in a detailed and serious manner, isn't that pushing you into Bruce Baugh territory?

Again, what I'm saying is a game should either shit or get off the pot.  If you're going to present a detailed alternate history, make it a plausible one, otherwise say "its just this way because it is" and get on with it.

QuoteI think that describes the vast majority of pulp role-playing games out there, as well as the vast majority of historical and alternate history role-playing games out there.  The vast majority of all role-playing games present the values from 2010 and project them onto whatever time period or fantasy they depict.  And I can think of plenty of other places to start with this complaint other than a game with undead cardsharks and wuxia pirates.

There are plenty of other game settings that do this, its true.  I have issues with most of them to, at least the ones who end up having a double discourse about it.  The reason I chose deadlands is explained in the thread title: I think Deadlands stands out in just how many different groups they ended up inadvertently selling short in different ways.

QuoteThat Star Trek, a far more serious work than Deadlands, mentions the "Eugenics Wars" happening in the 1990s does not mean that such a war was ever a serious or plausible projection of the future, nor was Space: 1999 putting nuclear waste dumps on the Moon or having them blast the moon out of orbit.  

I don't think you can seriously make a comparison on the basis of 60s and 70s TV sci-fi, where the standards of intellectual rigor were entirely different.

QuoteFurther, I would argue that to complain about this, just as complaining about monocultural alien and fantasy races, misses the whole point of them in fantasy and science fiction, which are not to be a serious history lesson or plausible extrapolation of reality but to say something to the audience, all of whom are contemporary humans, most of whom live in a Western culture, most of whom don't know any historical period well enough to plausibly portray the denizens of that period, and most of whom are not looking for a history lesson in their science fiction, fantasy, or role-playing games, which is why you'll find so few pure historical role-playing games and settings.

Pure? True. But there are many RPGs that do a good job about their history or about their alternate history as the case may be.  

QuoteWell, isn't your complaint about Deadlands that it doesn't really address the treatment of slavery and racism and simply sweeps it under the carpet?  Isn't that more a difference in degree than kind?  Is your complaint about Bruce Baugh that he simply takes it too far?

No.  If you understand what he's saying, Baugh basically wants to do the exact same thing the Deadlands guys did, impose 21st century morality on history (or rather, on how we look at historical settings in RPGs). That's not what I'm saying extrapolated, that's an entirely different argument.  Its not even the opposite of what I'm saying; if anything, its just the opposite of what the Deadlands guys did.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684If you're going to present a detailed alternate history, make it a plausible one

This is where you have made a serious error.  Deadlands has a detailed fictional history that is never plausible and never serious.  A good comparison could be made to Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which has an extremely detailed timeline and glossary, linking fictional characters from the Faerie Queen to Alice in Wonderland.  The fact that Deadlands includes real places, dates, and people should not obscure the fact that it draws on all manner of fictions without any regard at any point to plausibility.  I can't think of a single statement in the core or anywhere else that tried for a moment to convince me that this scenario was a plausible counterfactual history.  

A "veneer of seriousness" is often the best way to tell a joke.  If nothing in the source material argues for seriousness other than the amount of detail given to the fictional history, I don't think that is sufficient for accusing a game of being schizophrenic when it is, in fact, merely looney.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684Well, I have to say first of all its nice to have someone debating me that actually wants to and is capable of debate, unlike the tired string of Swine who come and go from these boards just looking to "challenge" me.

Talking a schizo out of his delusions is not much of a debate, now, is it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684I'm arguing that Deadlands is schizophrenic.  It has a dual personality; at times being completely gonzo, but when it comes to presenting their alternate history trying to suddenly put on the veneer of seriousness.

And what several people here are saying is that the "veneer of seriousness" was never meant to be anything more than a veneer, if even that.  The quantity of writing and detail presented do not automatically translate into seriousness or an attempt at plausibility.  And from what I'm seeing, it looks an awful lot like "We have to say something but how can we quickly sweep the whole slavery thing under the rug?"  And while that may come off as insulting or offensive, the actual intent might have been to avoid giving offense.  It seems less a matter of trying to downplay a nasty bit of history and more a matter of trying to avert one's eyes from it, which is often a way to be polite.  I think they were petty much going to be damned by someone no matter what they chose to do here.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684As far as I can recall, they don't dedicate dozens of pages to claiming that what they did to the California coastline is geographically plausible.

I don't have the complete Deadlines line and it's been a while since I looked at it, so I'll take your word for it.  My point is that they do give explanations for implausible details to explain them, but the presence of those explanations does not automatically translate into seriousness or plausibility.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684I can't disagree with this, really.  Obviously it was to sell books, and they thought they had to do so in this way because they were completely sold on the dominating gaming ideology of the time (the White Wolf model).

In some ways, I think they became so enamored with selling games to people who weren't playing that they started writing books that were of no use to people who were actually playing.  Had such books totally failed to sell in the marketplace, people wouldn't have been sold on that line of thinking, but they were selling -- to people who often weren't actually using any of it in play.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684Again, what I'm saying is a game should either shit or get off the pot.  If you're going to present a detailed alternate history, make it a plausible one, otherwise say "its just this way because it is" and get on with it.

As a matter of personal preference, I agree with you, but detailed alternate histories in gonzo settings can serve purposes other than seriousness and plausibility.  Essentially, they are there to provide what you referred to as a "veneer of seriousness", just enough of an explanation to add some color and head off the inevitable questions about why things are a certain way in the setting, but aren't intended to be taken wholly seriously or plausibly.  It's like the technobabble in Star Trek.  It can be fairly detailed and take up quite a bit of an episode, but often it's not particularly serious or credible, and even where it has some depth, it can still run into problems if you go too deep.  It's not intended to hold up to rigorous scrutiny.  It's an attempt to add a "veneer of seriousness" to the situation.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684There are plenty of other game settings that do this, its true.  I have issues with most of them to, at least the ones who end up having a double discourse about it.  The reason I chose deadlands is explained in the thread title: I think Deadlands stands out in just how many different groups they ended up inadvertently selling short in different ways.

Well, I think they were purposely trying to avoid the game being about slavery but wanted various antebellum Southern trappings so there were only so many ways to pull that trick off.  Maybe the could have done a better job with the details, but there was going to be a certain amount of inevitable hand-waving involved.  It would be nice to hear what the authors, themselves, have to say about their motivations, but I can think of plenty of motives that were neither malicious nor lazy.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684I don't think you can seriously make a comparison on the basis of 60s and 70s TV sci-fi, where the standards of intellectual rigor were entirely different.

Given how many role-playing games draw on material from the 60s and 70s or try to emulate the feel of that period, I think it's fair.  And I'm not really sure the "standards of intellectual rigor" have changed all that much for most people, even if people who spend their days debating fantasy on the Internet might give the impression that it has.  

At a convention, J. Michael Straczynski talked about observing a focus group watching Babylon 5 from behind a two-way mirror when a member of the focus group said that they wished Babylon 5 was more "science fictiony".  Asked to explain further, the person responed, "You know, like the Power Rangers."  People who watch movies like Troy or Gladiator are not sticklers for historical accuracy or even plausibility.

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684Pure? True. But there are many RPGs that do a good job about their history or about their alternate history as the case may be.

It depends on how picky you want to be, what pushes your buttons, and the ideological lens that you look at them through.  

Quote from: RPGPundit;429684No.  If you understand what he's saying, Baugh basically wants to do the exact same thing the Deadlands guys did, impose 21st century morality on history (or rather, on how we look at historical settings in RPGs). That's not what I'm saying extrapolated, that's an entirely different argument.  Its not even the opposite of what I'm saying; if anything, its just the opposite of what the Deadlands guys did.

That's not the impression I got about Bruce Baugh's intentions.  What he wanted to do was write a book that highlighted the racial, ethnic, sexual, and ideological politics and bigotry of the period (through his own ideological lens, of course) rather than sweep it under the carpet.  And I honestly don't see much of a distinction between that and saying that the the CSA in Deadlands should have faced the slavery issue dead-on rather than sweeping it under the carpet.  It's basically saying that "look away" is not a legitimate option and that the bigotries and oppression of a period should be present and addressed.

Quote from: John Morrow;429705That's not the impression I got about Bruce Baugh's intentions.  What he wanted to do was write a book that highlighted the racial, ethnic, sexual, and ideological politics and bigotry of the period (through his own ideological lens, of course) rather than sweep it under the carpet.  And I honestly don't see much of a distinction between that and saying that the the CSA in Deadlands should have faced the slavery issue dead-on rather than sweeping it under the carpet.  It's basically saying that "look away" is not a legitimate option and that the bigotries and oppression of a period should be present and addressed.

My point was that Baugh wants to impose 21st century morality by demanding that we look at these issues with a modern liberal agenda; while the authors of Deadlands want to impose a 21st century morality by projecting modern values on the past and engaging in revisionist history. They are two sides of the same coin.

My proposal is something totally different: Don't whitewash, and don't turn it into a morality tale of judging how evil and wrong the white patriarchy is or some other bullshit like that.  Look at it as real human problems that were a product of the historical times, but only to the extent that it naturally would come up in the EMULATION of the world. In other words, play the fucking setting for what it is, rather than trying to make a morality-play out of it.

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