Quote from: Bren;914407OK, OK. There was a premise. It was an incredibly fucking dumb premise. But you are right there was a premise. In the same sense that someone with really bad taste still has taste.

Dumb premises aside, I actually do think there's a benefit to it which is just running into the Unfortunate ImplicationsTM by accident. Which is to say that a LOT of gamers would hesitate to play blacks, Chinese, or more in games in the historical west simply for the case of not wanting to deal with a Storyteller's idea of what is period appropriate racism. When, ironically, the Wild West was about as multicultural an environment as you're likely to humanly get (while also being extraordinarily racist by our standards). As many as a third of what we think of cowboys were black after all.

So I applaud the idea.

It's just an idea which screws up when you have the Confederacy existing.

Quote from: CTPhipps;914391Do people dislike the gonzo tech?

I do.

No wonder our Deadlands DM put his campaign in Arizona.

These discussions are exactly why I don't do Alt-History RPGs.

Quote from: Spinachcat;914422No wonder our Deadlands DM put his campaign in Arizona.

These discussions are exactly why I don't do Alt-History RPGs.

I admit, the spirited discussion of this is making me think of an interesting plot hook.

THE TERRITORY INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT

The PCs are confronted with people from California, Nevada, Utah, and Texas who want to make their own third nation. The Western States of America.

Quote from: Spinachcat;914422These discussions are exactly why I don't do Alt-History RPGs.

If I find your alt-history premise compelling or interesting for some reason I'm in. If I find your premise actively annoying to me, then I'm out so I won't trouble your table and its alt-history premise. If I find your premise uncompelling/uninteresting, but not actively annoying then I'm in if the balance of other factors* make playing sound fun and I'm out if they don't. So again, I'm unlikely to trouble your table.



* Stuff like...What's the system? Do I like or tolerate your GM style? Who else is in the group and how much do I enjoy their company? Where and when do we play? Do I have anything better to do with that time commitment?

Quote from: CTPhipps;914424I admit, the spirited discussion of this is making me think of an interesting plot hook.

THE TERRITORY INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT

The PCs are confronted with people from California, Nevada, Utah, and Texas who want to make their own third nation. The Western States of America.

Wouldn't they have most of the North American ghost rock? If so, aiding or hindering their effort could be interesting. And someplace other than Texas or the Deep South as the breakaway region has the virtue of not having been overused.

Quote from: CTPhipps;914411Weirdly, i feel the need to point out the events DIDN'T set up those events. The Reckoners LOST that war and then rewound time to win by sending back the [strike]Terminator[/strike] Old Stone....then someone ELSE rewound time (Pinnacle Entertainment) and Old Stone was killed.

So it's all alternate timelines now.

But there's never been a master plan by the Reckoners to destroy the world.

You know Deadlands: Hell on Earth, the post-apocalyptic setting, is the future of the Deadlands world, right?  Or one of the futures?  You don't get post-apocalypse without apocalypse.  The reason they call them the Reckoners, is that they brought the Reckoning, ie. an apocalypse of both Global WMD Exchange and Biblical proportion.

Did they extinguish all life on earth and turn Earth into an asteroid field?  No, but nowhere did anyone say that was their intent.

Quote from: Spinachcat;914422No wonder our Deadlands DM put his campaign in Arizona.

These discussions are exactly why I don't do Alt-History RPGs.

I don't mind a good alt-history romp, but usually that takes the form of...
"What if instead of X, we had Y?"

Instead with Deadlands it's always a historical circlejerk with the subtext of white guilt completely discarding the entire supernatural basis of the cosmology and all the answers already given for why things are.  Not liking the answers is subjective.  The fact that the answers were given is not.

Cue alignments, gods, rain shadows, all the stupid hard and social science crap that people always throw in completely ignoring the COSMOLOGY of that world, which is never exactly our own.

Also if you were looking for a historical treatise you might not want to have picked up the game the bills itself as Spaghetti Western - With Meat.  If you did, not sure that's Pinnacle's fault.

Quote from: CRKrueger;914525I don't mind a good alt-history romp, but usually that takes the form of...
"What if instead of X, we had Y?"

Instead with Deadlands it's always a historical circlejerk with the subtext of white guilt completely discarding the entire supernatural basis of the cosmology and all the answers already given for why things are.  Not liking the answers is subjective.  The fact that the answers were given is not.

Cue alignments, gods, rain shadows, all the stupid hard and social science crap that people always throw in completely ignoring the COSMOLOGY of that world, which is never exactly our own.

Also if you were looking for a historical treatise you might not want to have picked up the game the bills itself as Spaghetti Western - With Meat.  If you did, not sure that's Pinnacle's fault.

The problem with this argument is the cosmology is thrown into a real-world situation. You can argue Napoleon conquers the world with dragons just fine but if you're arguing dragons make Napoleon a pacifist then you're going to have people argue the point because Napoleon was a shifty warmongering but terribly competent son of a bitch. The supernatural doesn't trump the historical OR VICE VERSA.

All of them are just setting elements in the end.

Some make sense, some don't.

Quote from: CTPhipps;914532You can argue Napoleon conquers the world with dragons just fine but if you're arguing dragons make Napoleon a pacifist then you're going to have people argue the point because Napoleon was a shifty warmongering but terribly competent son of a bitch. The supernatural doesn't trump the historical OR VICE VERSA.

All of them are just setting elements in the end.

Some make sense, some don't.

Yes, the supernatural can completely trump the historical, that's what supernatural means by obvious definition.  Napoleon will become a pacifist if he is charmed into becoming one, or has been possessed by a supernatural being that now puppets him into acting like one for its own purposes - like Jefferson Davis is in Deadlands, for example.

If you don't like a Napoleon pacifist, that's your own subjective opinion.
If the setting includes methods of Mind Control and Possession, then Napoleon being so compromised is objectively plausible.  The fact that you find that an uninteresting, uninspired or weak way to change his path through history, or want to dismiss it because of your own personal ideas about the motivations of the author - that's your own subjective opinion.

My big issue with the cosmology of manitous feeding on human suffering is how much of a cop out it ends up being. They end slavery to bide their time for a bigger apocalypse, so the major manitous are working in concert? OK, then why the fuck couldn't they get their act together elsewhere, especially in the West? Why allow a sporadic "booga boooga!" to harvest a bit of fear when the goal is massive industrialization for an apocalypse later?

You can't be powerful coordinating puppetmasters while nincompoop manitous are tipping your hand left and right. Ohhh, but they are scaring humanity into embracing technology to fight back... Bullshit, man would embrace new technology anyway because of laziness and greed. Having known supernatural forces openly arrayed against mankind risks cooperation and coordination. Staying quiet and still, letting mankind do the work, does more damage. It takes too many conspiratorial layers, between mankind and manitous, to bottle back the genie in order to forward the industrial revolution plan for atomic apocalypse.

Again, I find the grand unifying theory of big bad evil guys just useless. It read too much like a publisher cop out and whitewash. But if we are to answer "Why South Loses Slavery Yet Still Survives?" just fall back on the Deadland's equivalent of 'a wizard did it': "Unobtanium is Super Useful and the Council of Manitou Made it So." One line, ignore alt history attempts at natural world coherency completely, and run with the madness.

Does that satisfy me? No. But I don't play Deadlands for the greater world premise or metaplot leading to Hell on Earth.

Quote from: Opaopajr;914662My big issue with the cosmology of manitous feeding on human suffering is how much of a cop out it ends up being. They end slavery to bide their time for a bigger apocalypse, so the major manitous are working in concert? OK, then why the fuck couldn't they get their act together elsewhere, especially in the West? Why allow a sporadic "booga boooga!" to harvest a bit of fear when the goal is massive industrialization for an apocalypse later?

You can't be powerful coordinating puppetmasters while nincompoop manitous are tipping your hand left and right. Ohhh, but they are scaring humanity into embracing technology to fight back... Bullshit, man would embrace new technology anyway because of laziness and greed. Having known supernatural forces openly arrayed against mankind risks cooperation and coordination. Staying quiet and still, letting mankind do the work, does more damage. It takes too many conspiratorial layers, between mankind and manitous, to bottle back the genie in order to forward the industrial revolution plan for atomic apocalypse.

Again, I find the grand unifying theory of big bad evil guys just useless. It read too much like a publisher cop out and whitewash. But if we are to answer "Why South Loses Slavery Yet Still Survives?" just fall back on the Deadland's equivalent of 'a wizard did it': "Unobtanium is Super Useful and the Council of Manitou Made it So." One line, ignore alt history attempts at natural world coherency completely, and run with the madness.

Does that satisfy me? No. But I don't play Deadlands for the greater world premise or metaplot leading to Hell on Earth.

Actually, this is part of the reason I revived this thread. Is there a downside to having the Confederacy win the war (storytelling wise)? You have the Reckoners now have secret puppet-mastery of the Evil EmpireTM and now they've got it churning out evil which they can feed on while preparing to move to the Wild West to increase the size of their buffet considerably. I think it makes them look more terrifying and skilled personally.

Quote from: The Butcher;913866Deadlands' take on the West results on a setting that is almost as divergent from the late-1800s American West as WFRP's Empire is from 1500s Germany. Which is okay, I guess. Historical calques are a tine-honored tradition in fantasy dating back at least as far as Howard's Hyborian Age essay. And the American West, too, has seen its share of steampunk and supernatural silliness in fiction.

What we're talking about is preferences. I think the Deadlands alt-hist, both the Confederacy and the ubiquitous steampunk mad science, make for a sillier setting I'd like and is therefore Full of Fail for my nefarioys GMing purposes. I tone it down because fuck it, I'd rather play it as a more subdued horror/dark fantasy Western. I want a Western where the graveyard scene from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly gets interrupted as the buried gold's owner rises from the grave, doomed to lure and slay those who follow him in the sin of greed. I want a Django who flips open the coffin to reveal an undead companion he's been cursed to lug around and feed with the souls of his unsuspecting victims, or a Vulcan that fires bullets that bounce off without wounding the hungry spirit an insane Comanche medicine man slew the last few people of his community to bind into flesh.

Keep your Hellstromme gewgaws and your Confederate emancipators to yourself; I'm fine with a slightly darker West.

Hells, this bit made me wish to play Deadlands more than any actual published material (I too have been tired of GONZO STEAMPUNK FOR SCIENCEEEEEE!...). Maybe it's time for some house - rules and to dust off the old Aces & Eights...

Quote from: Opaopajr;914662My big issue with the cosmology of manitous feeding on human suffering is how much of a cop out it ends up being. They end slavery to bide their time for a bigger apocalypse, so the major manitous are working in concert? OK, then why the fuck couldn't they get their act together elsewhere, especially in the West? Why allow a sporadic "booga boooga!" to harvest a bit of fear when the goal is massive industrialization for an apocalypse later?

You can't be powerful coordinating puppetmasters while nincompoop manitous are tipping your hand left and right. Ohhh, but they are scaring humanity into embracing technology to fight back... Bullshit, man would embrace new technology anyway because of laziness and greed. Having known supernatural forces openly arrayed against mankind risks cooperation and coordination. Staying quiet and still, letting mankind do the work, does more damage. It takes too many conspiratorial layers, between mankind and manitous, to bottle back the genie in order to forward the industrial revolution plan for atomic apocalypse.

Again, I find the grand unifying theory of big bad evil guys just useless. It read too much like a publisher cop out and whitewash. But if we are to answer "Why South Loses Slavery Yet Still Survives?" just fall back on the Deadland's equivalent of 'a wizard did it': "Unobtanium is Super Useful and the Council of Manitou Made it So." One line, ignore alt history attempts at natural world coherency completely, and run with the madness.

Does that satisfy me? No. But I don't play Deadlands for the greater world premise or metaplot leading to Hell on Earth.

Interestingly enough - wouldn't it make more sense for the Confederacy in Deadlands' world to actually win the Civil War (with support of Manitous), so they could create their Empire for Slavery, stretching from Cuba to Brazil? That ought to raise more suffering than a period of detente following abolition of slaves.

QuoteInterestingly enough - wouldn't it make more sense for the Confederacy in Deadlands' world to actually win the Civil War (with support of Manitous), so they could create their Empire for Slavery, stretching from Cuba to Brazil? That ought to raise more suffering than a period of detente following abolition of slaves.

I brought this up in the Pinnacle Forum and the creator had this to say.

http://www.pegforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=233274#p233274

   Slavery played second fiddle to the war as far as the Reckoners were concerned. They did everything they could to keep the war going. That is foreshadowed by the very first supernatural event, the dead rising at Gettysburg and changing the course of that battle.

    Don't fall into the trap of thinking that was just a "supernatural twist" to an historical event. It was purposefully done. The old Marshall's book even discussed how generals kept dealing with "weird events" that kept the war going.

    Unfortunately for the Reckoners, the South had no viable chance to keep fighting even with their aid without outside support (which also spread the war's influence farther). So slavery had to go. In fact, the South would need a more direct hand in order to keep the war going, so the Reckoners installed their own president (replacing Jefferson Davis with a doppleganger, covered in Dead Presidents).

    Ultimately, there was a "logical" reason (subjective of course) for changes that do free up game play. The Reckoner's needed the war, and if that greater evil led to some lesser goods, well, sometimes "the ends justify the means" even for the bad guys.

Quote from: CTPhipps;914896I brought this up in the Pinnacle Forum and the creator had this to say.

http://www.pegforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=233274#p233274

   Slavery played second fiddle to the war as far as the Reckoners were concerned. They did everything they could to keep the war going. That is foreshadowed by the very first supernatural event, the dead rising at Gettysburg and changing the course of that battle.

    Don't fall into the trap of thinking that was just a "supernatural twist" to an historical event. It was purposefully done. The old Marshall's book even discussed how generals kept dealing with "weird events" that kept the war going.

    Unfortunately for the Reckoners, the South had no viable chance to keep fighting even with their aid without outside support (which also spread the war's influence farther). So slavery had to go. In fact, the South would need a more direct hand in order to keep the war going, so the Reckoners installed their own president (replacing Jefferson Davis with a doppleganger, covered in Dead Presidents).

    Ultimately, there was a "logical" reason (subjective of course) for changes that do free up game play. The Reckoner's needed the war, and if that greater evil led to some lesser goods, well, sometimes "the ends justify the means" even for the bad guys.

Interestingly enough, I'd say they got their battles wrong. Antietam'd be a much better fit than Gettysburg - after Antietam, without Reckoners gaining control of both British and French governments, the chance for foreign intervention was practically non - existent, even if South'd abolish slavery, since it'd be seen through the lenses of Emancipation Proclamation any way, as well as interest on the other side of the Pacific generally waned as alternative sources of cotton (from India, Turkey and North Africa) provided to be, while expansive, a good alternative to counting on Southern blockade runners and their King Cotton blackmail.

By the way - did Vicksburg also fall around the same time range as Gettysburg in Deadlands? I can't recall, and that was actually more important than Gettysburg itself (cutting Confederacy in two via Mississipi).