Quote from: GameDaddy;1104610Also, the politically correct liberals that are running around the south and are busy tearing down statues and defacing monuments are demonstrating that even though they won the war, and freedom for their peoples, they are not yet healed and united as a people. Is it that they can only truly feel free if they are allowed to continue hating on others, and openly demonstrating their hostility? This nation divided cannot stand, and yet, ...why are they are still divided and not taking their rightful place as leaders, but insist instead on being rebels and promoting unlawful and damaging actions to existing property, showing a disrespect for history, and inciting themselves and others to resort to violence. Lo, behold... the slave is now the master, see how he wields the whip!  In doing so, ...even though he is now free,and can throw away the whip entirely, he chooses not to. Is he any better than his former master?

Well said.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104611To be fair, they're not saying you can't have Nazis in a game about WW2. They're just saying that presenting an alternate history where the Nazi regime is depicted as still being around after 1945 as a viable government would constitute an intolerable apologia for the Nazis' platform.

No, I don't get it either.

True, but that's why I thought about Rifts.  The Coalition is certainly "Nazi-like" and yet there are plenty of Coalition PC choices, and some understanding for why they exist and why many people support them.  

One can imagine an alternate WWII history where the Nazi regime still exists in a role not dissimilar to soviet Russia post WWII or Maoist China after the revolution.  Playing PCs from these places would certainly require a delicate hand, but I don't see how ret-conning them out of the game world would make it richer and more vibrant.  Playing an unrepentant violent racist in a sympathetic manner is certainly not something I would approve of, but there's room for exploration of mature, interesting, and even dare I say it redeeming stories set in a complex moral background.  See, for example, Oscar Schindler.

I'm somewhat familiar with the setting but not a Deadlands fan (prefer real west vs weird west).

I'm curious is this really retconning, meaning they are making a new edition and changing the existing game history, or are they continuing the timeline to the point where the CSA finally loses (so not really a retcon, just an extension of the history).

The first I have a hard time believing it is not politically motivated, the second I can see just being time to change things up and introduce some new things to explore. Like having different eras to play in Star Trek TOS vs NG vs DS9 all theoretically the same but different.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1104621I'm somewhat familiar with the setting but not a Deadlands fan (prefer real west vs weird west).

I'm curious is this really retconning, meaning they are making a new edition and changing the existing game history, or are they continuing the timeline to the point where the CSA finally loses (so not really a retcon, just an extension of the history).

The first I have a hard time believing it is not politically motivated, the second I can see just being time to change things up and introduce some new things to explore. Like having different eras to play in Star Trek TOS vs NG vs DS9 all theoretically the same but different.

Yeah, I'm not sure 100% on that either.  It seems to be something that's kinda both - an in-game world altering event of some kind.  If it is just the evolving political nature of the Deadlands world however, why the need for the announcement with all this "explanation"?

Quote from: Brendan;1104623Yeah, I'm not sure 100% on that either.  It seems to be something that's kinda both - an in-game world altering event of some kind.  If it is just the evolving political nature of the Deadlands world however, why the need for the announcement with all this "explanation"?

It's a retcon. Deadlands (the Wild West version) doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are multiple other Deadlands games (Noir, Hell on Earth, Lost Colony) which take place later, and in those the CSA exists up to Hell on Earth/Lost Colony. That's the point at which the bombs drop and no organized countries are around anymore. Deadlands Noir, for example, is set during the Depression-era CSA (New Orleans, to be precise). So all of those games are now obsolete according to the new official canon.

Quote from: Brand55;1104627It's a retcon. Deadlands (the Wild West version) doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are multiple other Deadlands games (Noir, Hell on Earth, Lost Colony) which take place later, and in those the CSA exists up to Hell on Earth/Lost Colony. That's the point at which the bombs drop and no organized countries are around anymore. Deadlands Noir, for example, is set during the Depression-era CSA (New Orleans, to be precise). So all of those games are now obsolete according to the new official canon.

  Again, not really up on Deadlands, but it sounds like it's an alternate timeline kind of deal, which seems to already be a thing in Deadlands canon--there was timeline 'A' where the Reckoners lose, they do something to cause timeline B of the previous Deadlands material, and then the "Morgana Effect" produces timeline C for the SWADE-era Deadlands.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104610So, bad move economically in the short term, but good move politically because dumping them fans will open up a much larger market of newer younger gamers with politically correct views.

I doubt many younger gamers are interested in playing a wild west RPG in the first place, regardless of how politically correct such a game actually is.

If I actually gave a shit about Deadlands, I'd run a campaign where the Confederacy hasn't been defeated AND the PC's are all Confederates.

Then I'd record that game and post the videos all over the internet just to give the finger to all those pretentious SJW's.

But I don't really care about Deadlands and it's even more of a dead punchline than World of Darkness.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1104628Again, not really up on Deadlands, but it sounds like it's an alternate timeline kind of deal, which seems to already be a thing in Deadlands canon--there was timeline 'A' where the Reckoners lose, they do something to cause timeline B of the previous Deadlands material, and then the "Morgana Effect" produces timeline C for the SWADE-era Deadlands.

Yes and no. Time travel and changes have happened before (the Devil's Tower timeline shenanigans) but those were planned. All of the other Deadlands games were pitched as possible futures of the Weird West, and nothing that was done in the original game made those impossible. They were called possible futures because it was entirely possible and even somewhat recommended for players to mess things up and change things.

This is the first time we're seeing the metaplot advanced and changed to make those settings outright non-canon.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1104614Thank God. When I played Deadlands I had an uncontrollable urge to go enslave some black people.

My stifled sputter of laughter at that line is Reason #8172 why I am a Bad Person.

Quote from: Brand55;1104627It's a retcon. Deadlands (the Wild West version) doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are multiple other Deadlands games (Noir, Hell on Earth, Lost Colony) which take place later, and in those the CSA exists up to Hell on Earth/Lost Colony. That's the point at which the bombs drop and no organized countries are around anymore. Deadlands Noir, for example, is set during the Depression-era CSA (New Orleans, to be precise). So all of those games are now obsolete according to the new official canon.

In regards to Deadlands Noir the antagonism between the USA and CSA was never really a feature of that game. Besides New Orleans they also had campaigns for Chicago, San Francisco and Las Vegas. The emphasis was on running noir campaigns focused on a city. Of all the games I think Deadlands Noir is the least affected. Sure some things have to be renamed, and some minor points about Northern agents in New Orleans or Southern agents in Chicago fall away, but I'd hardly call Deadlands Noir obsolete.

I have played Deadlands and I own ~15 books of the weird west setting and a few from the Hell on Earth alternate setting.  The fact that the Confederacy survived was itself a retcon of reality.  The fact that trying to keep the Confederacy as a viable faction didn't really accomplish what they wanted is good enough reason to change direction.  And as the creator states, it is his decision and people who don't like it can find a game they like better (or modify it to suit their taste).

It was never a problem that Deadlands had Confederate characters, just like it wouldn't be a problem if a World War II had Nazi characters.  In a World War II setting, what would be a problem was if the Nazis were trying to save the Jews while containing the existential threat of a Communist juggernaut aimed at Europe - turning them into heroes and ignoring their actual historical policies goes far beyond 'including them'.  

There are a lot of historical reasons that you can consider the Confederate States 'evil'.  At the very least you can be certain that all of the political figures of the United States that violated their oaths to the Constitution committed treason by pledging themselves to a new political entity.  When you try to ignore things along those lines, it definitely can make people uncomfortable.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104636There are a lot of historical reasons that you can consider the Confederate States 'evil'.  At the very least you can be certain that all of the political figures of the United States that violated their oaths to the Constitution committed treason by pledging themselves to a new political entity.  When you try to ignore things along those lines, it definitely can make people uncomfortable.

Ehh? The same could be said for the original thirteen English Colonies on the eastern seaboard. Did the Colonists not owe an oath to the English Constitution when they rebelled against King George III, and refused to disarm in 1775? So evil... yeah. Slavery is evil, but that didn't start the civil war, and wasn't even made an issue in the war until after 1863, when Lincoln had the clarity to precisely define the underlying problem and issued the Emanicipation Proclamation. In doing so he also made it possible to to raise a much larger army, and incited wide-scale armed rebellion and uprisings within the Confederacy after that. It certainly helped the North win the war, which up until Gettyburg was clearly losing.

Quote from: wmarshal;1104635In regards to Deadlands Noir the antagonism between the USA and CSA was never really a feature of that game. Besides New Orleans they also had campaigns for Chicago, San Francisco and Las Vegas. The emphasis was on running noir campaigns focused on a city. Of all the games I think Deadlands Noir is the least affected. Sure some things have to be renamed, and some minor points about Northern agents in New Orleans or Southern agents in Chicago fall away, but I'd hardly call Deadlands Noir obsolete.

Let me clarify: you can still play the games, and you can even hand-wave elements here and there to make them "fit" the new canon. That's perfectly fine and I'm sure plenty will do that. When I called them obsolete, I was referring to their stories, backgrounds, and a number of setting elements that no longer make sense with what is now official. This would include the agents you mentioned but also the entire setting elements involving Prohibition, which the Union had but the South did not.

And I know there were other cities offered in the Companion, but they didn't receive nearly as much coverage and all adventures were set in New Orleans. So for Noir, New Orleans is the primary setting. I do think Noir benefits over HoE/LC just by the fact it isn't set as far in the future.

What are the Morgana Effect and SWADE?

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104610Shane made a deliberate decision to include a successful CSA in the Deadlands setting originally, and did so because it was in fact controversial and was a draw for players from the South where they could imagine and partake a world where what they believe in, and value remained. For the same reason that he chose to originally include that, I chose not to buy Deadlands. I remember visiting them at their booth at GenCon back in 2000-2001 just after their second edition release and shaking my head wondering where they would ever find enough support to succeed with a game that defended Slavery, and a successful South. Succeed they did though, and now that it is a success, he is turning his back on his original fans (note: not me though, because I never was a fan), and ditching them. So, bad move economically in the short term, but good move politically because dumping them fans will open up a much larger market of newer younger gamers with politically correct views.

(Snip)

I'm glad Shane has grown in Wisdom and will no longer promote advocating for slavery in his games over other forms of governing. I'm sad though because he is reducing the places in the RPG world where one can experiment in a sandbox, and see actual results of implementing policies that for example promote racism in particular and slavery in general. RPGs are supposed to be a place where one can explore the finer details of ideologies and concepts, in order to better understand the implications of the concepts in practice, as well as to come up with better solutions for the future.

Slavery was never defended in Deadlands, and Shane has never "promote advocating for slavery." What Deadlands did was have the CSA abolish slavery and whitewash the hostile race relations one would otherwise have expected to occur, and did so in a way that's a bit hard to believe. Making him out to be some kind of neo-confederate is a bit much.