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I thought this might be of interest to some on this site.  I found this on another gaming site. There seems to be some big changes coming to Deadlands: The Confederacy is being retconned so that it lost the war and is no longer a playable faction. This was listed as one of several things in an October update on the official site.

QuoteShane Lacy Hensley said:

Hey friends! Let's talk about today's Deadlands announcement.

I'm going to try and keep it short, but...we'll see. (Edit: I failed. :) )

First off, the ultimate decision to ditch the CSA in the Deadlands timeline is mine and mine alone. I created the world, I run the world with the help of some excellent people, and I know where it's heading.

Some may not know my bona fides, so here they are to avoid that discussion. I have a Masters Degree in Political Science and Military History. I've read dozens of books on the Civil War, visited at least a dozen museums, and walked the battlefields from Gettysburg to Franklin, TN and even out here in Arizona (the furthest "battle" of the West fought at Picacho Peak!). I've written historical miniatures rules featuring the ACW, was raised in both Ohio AND Virginia, and studied and modeled numerous battles of the Civil War for various wargames. I'm happy to academically debate what the war was all about. But not here, and not in Deadlands.

So what are my politics and biases? I'm a fiscal conservative, social liberal...though there are LOTS of exceptions and nuances in between, like most everyone else. My main mottos are do unto others as you'd have them do unto you, and live and let live. I served in the US Army, went to Virginia Tech, and now live in the beautiful deserts of Arizona where I can be a little closer to the West I love so much.

Now back to the game stuff.

I made the decision to remove the CSA from Deadlands about two years ago as we were creating Deadlands Dark Ages, and I knew the "Morgana Effect" would be the story reason for this revision and other, lesser continuity issues. The fall of the CSA after the Battle of Washington (1871 in DL lore) is just the thing people are going to get riled about.

I talked over the idea with the core team way back then. They're northerners and southerners and Europeans and Westerners and conservatives and liberals of many backgrounds and perspectives...and we all agreed it was the way to go for a great number of reasons.

I'll tell you why below, but first, we knew there was no business "win" here. The folks who accused of us being Southern apologists for the last twenty years would continue doing so. Those who had defended the existence of the South as a far more complex story decision (and thanks, btw!) would say we sold out, were pandering, and leave.

We knew we would absolutely lose some fans and sales over this decision. So to say we're pandering for sales is incorrect. Again, we're going to *lose* sales. Certainly for a while.

I acknowledge that and am okay with it. I accept the fallout today's announcement will cause and am completely okay with it. Nothing said here will change our opinions or hurt my feelings.

But Deadlands is mine, friends. I get to make those decisions and decide what's in the sandbox.

I *love* the enthusiasm people have for the Weird West. I love what they add to it. I love how they dress up for it at LARPs (and have even taken over entire *towns* for them--check out our Russian partners at Studio101!), play the RPG, get tattoos of Hangin' Judges and Jackalopes, and even get married in Deadlands garb. It's amazing and awesome and humbling.

But it's still mine. And until I die, it will stay that way. I know what it is and where I want it to go.

I also get to see the big picture among communities all over the world. People love Deadlands in Spain and Italy and Russia and Poland and Brazil and Germany and Hungary and China and SO many other places.

So why make the change?

Because first, we don't need it for the grand story we want to tell. When I created the whole thing twenty years ago the existence of the CSA was War's main strategy for sewing chaos and division in the US (War is one of the Reckoners in DL for those who don't know). It was a hook to create the world of Deadlands that was relatively empty then, and certainly unladen with the 25 years of history and dozens of sourcebooks you know now.

Since that decision, the role of ghost rock, the various factions, the Cult of Lost Angels, the Rail Barons, the secret organizations, and all the other wonderful and cool stuff our core team and dozens of freelancers have added to the world since were FAR more interesting and colorful.

But there is a real world "cost" to keeping the CSA, and it's one I don't have to pay...someone else does. And I don't want that. Having characters loyal to the CSA...not just "Southerners" but actual loyalists to the cause, even if anti-slavery but loyal for some reason... can be *incredibly* uncomfortable for others at the table. Especially those of African-American descent. Imagine the GM having to roleplay those voices. That's not fun. That's not what our game's about. It's not what we *want* our game to be about.

I run Deadlands for people *all around the world*. I play with all ethnicities, genders, orientations, cultures, religions, and political outlooks. I've literally run thousands of games for probably about ten thousand people over the last 25 years, and met and talked to FAR more than that in various talks, panels, guest appearances, signings, etc. And I *love* meeting you all. I *love* learning about our similarities AND differences and then having a drink and throwing some dice and shooting zombies with you. :)

We just want to tell wild tales of the Weird West. Yes, we'll make an occasional statement...I slip my views into everything I write, intentionally or otherwise...who doesn't? But our *main goal* is for people to spend time with friends they'll probably know for *decades* and leave game night feeling like a hero. Hopefully with a big goofy smile on their face as they remember that weird encounter with the jackalope or tumblebleed or the called shot that rolled 34 damage. :)

***

So what about the story and history of Deadlands? How will Noir and Hell on Earth work? We answered those questions internally a long time ago, and think the post-Morgana Effect stories we're going to tell are FAR cooler and more interesting. :)

And honestly, I'll tell you a secret. it really doesn't change much even in the Weird West. We just haven't done much with the Civil War or the CSA outside of the "Dead Presidents" adventure or as occasional background.

Everything up to the Battle of Washington stays the same. The Agents and Texas Rangers still fight with each other over the best way to handle the Reckoning. The Great Rail Wars still happen.

We described the USA / CSA a bit more in Back East North and South in Deadlands Classic, but the "north and south" still exist. The South just isn't its own government anymore. Tensions still exist. Loyalists from both sides still skirmish, especially in the border states. Fort 51 and Roswell compete with each other just like the Agents and Rangers. Honestly, it's just not that big a deal.

(The Last War in Hell on Earth gets a little weirder but a LOT more fun and Deadlands-y! :) )

***

Maybe you'll agree. Maybe you won't. That's okay. We're doing it anyway. We hope you'll join us, of course. Every creator wants to see their works loved and appreciated and our team is no different...but ultimately, and I'll just speak for myself here, I create the worlds I want. I know who I am and what I stand for, and can say the same for our team...even those with vastly different viewpoints. Meet me in person in a casual environment and I might even have a political conversation with you if you seem genuinely interested in a conversation. Just be warned. You might like what I have to say...you might not. But if I say anything, it'll be honest.

And by the way, I expected some to say I was pandering in SWADE with Red and Gabe. Think that if you want, but they're just who I saw in my head the entire time I was writing it. That's what I did and I'm happy with it. I hope you are too, but it's okay if you aren't. That's your business. I know my mind and my heart and I'm sure you know yours.

***

Thanks for reading this long post. We knew this would be a controversial topic, and that's okay. But we aren't going to answer to it anymore. I might point people to this post, I might just delete new threads if the tone is going to derail and poison the community we've ALL worked so hard to build. Fair warning.

If you want to talk about or critique the decision further, feel free to do so elsewhere. Our decision was made long ago and we're moving on. *Nothing* will change that opinion.

Our efforts are focused on making the best game and worlds we know how to make. If they don't fit your tastes, that's okay. We're all lucky to live in a golden age of gaming right now where there are *hundreds* of other choices for you to patronize. I'm *very* happy to see any of my friends at other companies get your business and for *you* to find whatever game / company / system makes YOU and your friends happy. Truly. :)

Thanks again for reading, friends, whether you like what I had to say or not. We'll see (most of) you on Banshee, where you can find out just what happened to the Reckoners after the Unity adventure. We think it's pretty cool, and hope you think so too!

I'm not a Deadlands fan, but I am a Savage Worlds fan, so I saw this. The bit about "[t]he folks who accused of us being Southern apologists for the last twenty years would continue doing so" suggests, taking it at face value, that this isn't an 'appease the activists' move, but "this is something that isn't really essential to the setting as it has evolved, and has gotten in the way of a lot of people's enjoyment, so why not get rid of it?"

"The stories we want to tell"...

Is it a novel or an RPG?

Not a fan but, if I were I might not like the change and either not buy the new products or undo their retconing.

The author/publisher/owner has the right to do what they want, but on the other hand the consumer has the right to not buy, after all they aren't entitled to our money.

QuoteBut it's still mine. And until I die, it will stay that way. I know what it is and where I want it to go.

No.  Once it is out, it belongs to the world.  They can change the future books.  However, they can't forbid people from sticking to the old version (see what happened with Cyberpunk 2020 in the third edition and how people just kept playing the old version).  And I am sticking to the old version.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1104593I'm not a Deadlands fan, but I am a Savage Worlds fan, so I saw this. The bit about "[t]he folks who accused of us being Southern apologists for the last twenty years would continue doing so" suggests, taking it at face value, that this isn't an 'appease the activists' move, but "this is something that isn't really essential to the setting as it has evolved, and has gotten in the way of a lot of people's enjoyment, so why not get rid of it?"

Then why not do something radical and have the CSA win the war? Surely a historian with those credentials understands that the CSA would leave the USA to govern itself while the CSA did the same.

Because the goal is to get rid of the CSA, period, all protestations notwithstanding.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1104593The bit about "[t]he folks who accused of us being Southern apologists for the last twenty years would continue doing so" suggests, taking it at face value, that this isn't an "appease the activists" move, but "this is something that isn't really essential to the setting as it has evolved, and has gotten in the way of a lot of people's enjoyment, so why not get rid of it?"

A younger and more naive me would have agreed. I simply no longer believe that the people who appoint themselves activists for things like this are actually outnumbered by the ostensible "oppressed" people for whom they claim to speak. Exactly how many people, in hard numbers here, are we talking?

People who don't find the Confederacy an enjoyable element to include in their own games have always been free to do that. People who object to the basic element of the Confederacy not yet being defeated in the Deadlands setting strike me as, by definition, being the people who weren't playing the game to begin with, so the contention that it's "getting in the way of their enjoyment" seems like a category error. Likewise, if the owner is going to such effort to convince people that the setting really won't be that much different in practice, then by definition all he's really changing is exactly the kind of formal label/designation that in my experience activists care far more about than participants anyway. And if he really doesn't care how people react and isn't going to change what he's doing, then why bother with this kind of apologia at all? The designer doth protest too much, methinks.

In itself it's all academic to me as I never played Deadlands to begin with (ironically, my complaints were always theological rather than sociopolitical -- I never liked that magic always involved conjuring spirits, with the strong implication that even the Blessed were doing this and simply deceiving themselves about the nature of what they were doing). But those who've read Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless" will know what I mean when I say this looks far too much like just another greengrocer's sign to me.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104598A younger and more naive me would have agreed.

 But those who've read Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless" will know what I mean when I say this looks far too much like just another greengrocer's sign to me.

   I understand the reference and the concern, and I share it to some degree despite no real interest in Deadlands and no sympathy for the Confederacy. But again, the 'we're probably going to lose sales on this' attitude of Shane's statement felt like dismissal of the noisy part of the crowd, although I may very well be naïve.

   Maybe I should follow my own advice and stick with dead or practically dead games that don't get dragged into such matters. :)

As a non-Deadlands player ( looked interesting, but never got around to it ), I don't really have a dog in this fight, but a couple of points stand out here.

QuoteI'll tell you why below, but first, we knew there was no business "win" here. The folks who accused of us being Southern apologists for the last twenty years would continue doing so. Those who had defended the existence of the South as a far more complex story decision (and thanks, btw!) would say we sold out, were pandering, and leave.

We knew we would absolutely lose some fans and sales over this decision. So to say we're pandering for sales is incorrect.

And then...

QuoteBut there is a real world "cost" to keeping the CSA, and it's one I don't have to pay...someone else does. And I don't want that. Having characters loyal to the CSA...not just "Southerners" but actual loyalists to the cause, even if anti-slavery but loyal for some reason... can be *incredibly* uncomfortable for others at the table. Especially those of African-American descent. Imagine the GM having to roleplay those voices. That's not fun. That's not what our game's about. It's not what we *want* our game to be about.

So it's not about "pandering" but it actually is about pandering. There are several definitions of "pander" but the one most relevant reads:

pan·der·er.
a person who caters to or profits from the weaknesses or vices of others.

So its pandering to weakness.   What's next, should the Coalition be removed from Rifts because Nazis?  Why don't we all just play (*hruph) Blue Rose?  


(* sorry, I threw up in my mouth a little)

Who cares? I run deadlands and tweak the hell out if thecsetting. I'll ignore this liberal sentimentality and tweak the CSA right back where it belongs, a villainous spot in the campaign.

Quote from: Brendan;1104602So its pandering to weakness.   What's next, should the Coalition be removed from Rifts because Nazis?  Why don't we all just play (*hruph) Blue Rose?

It's kinda akin to saying you can't include Nazis in a game called "World World II: Allied Special Forces" (side-bar: I would TOTALLY play that game) isn't it?

Quote from: Chris24601;1104606It's kinda akin to saying you can't include Nazis in a game called "World World II: Allied Special Forces" (side-bar: I would TOTALLY play that game) isn't it?

This.  Plus I don't give money to cunts.

Hrrrm? Lovely. This is a prime example of real world politics getting in the way of, and diminishing the value of roleplaying, and RPGs in general. While we are sitting here at the poker table I'll see your raise, and up the ante by $10.

Shane 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.

My choice for Western gaming turned out to be Aces & Eights, which supports an alternative history where the North and the South went to war early, and the war ended in a draw. In Aces & Eights at the beginning of the campaign the Confederate states exist, but without Texas which is an Independent Republic, and an uneasy truce is in effect, and peace negotiations are underway between the North and the South. In real life, the Union won and the confederacy collapsed, but not nearly as quickly as people perceive, ...for example, Texas was Confederate and didn't actually rejoin the Union until 1909. The Union pretty much packed up and went home after the war, except for a wave of settlers known as carpetbaggers who moved south and set up shop in the vacuum that was the former Confederate states.

But here's a thing, even though the slaves were free in the South and for a time enjoyed their newfound freedoms, with a former slave actually becoming the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana in 1868, Louisiana enjoyed having two more black governors until of course, the carpetbaggers from the North and the Southern Democrats together slowly introduced new laws into the former Southern States that promoted segregation and divided the population into two classes, master and servant, landowner and sharecropper, People who maintained all of their rights, and people who had very limited rights. This would progressively get worse until the 1920's and 1930's when the Klu Klux Clan (A Northen political organization founded in Indiana by the way) would openly terrorize people of color in the North, South, and West as well. This was only partially corrected after WWII and especially during the 1960's when the civil rights movement threatened to destabilize the entire Federal government, and the Fed had to step in to reiterate and fully support Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.  

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.

On a side note, I'm also Ill at ease with this current politically correct environment that is putting pressure on people to erase history, with them pulling down and removing statues across the South of famous civil war generals (who were tremendously great leaders, by the way) as well as Southern political leaders that promoted slavery because they are uncomfortable and believe having such statues in prominent places sends the wrong message to the public. If these politically correct but absolutely retarded  liberals ultimately succeed in this goal of whitewashing history, there will be no evidence remaining that there was a problem with slavery in the first place. Something the southern apologists and pro-slavery people would like very much, I'm sure.

Finally, the actual politically correct solution would be to leave the existing monuments in place, and just put up even more statues and monuments in prominent places of more progressive southern leaders that promoted liberty, justice, and freedom for all, like for example a statue of Oscar Dunn, who was a former slave, and who became a Union Admiral by first stealing a Confederate warship, enlisting in the United States Navy, then using it as a flagship to capture or sink other Confederate warships, as well as to capture Confederate merchant ships. Then after the war, he became the First Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana.

Also, 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?

Quote from: Chris24601;1104606It's kinda akin to saying you can't include Nazis in a game called "World World II: Allied Special Forces" (side-bar: I would TOTALLY play that game) isn't it?

To 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.

Thank God. When I played Deadlands I had an uncontrollable urge to go enslave some black people. [/s]

Seriously, the highlights have been covered. He went out on a limb with an RPG setting that included a "what if?" sucessful Southern Confederacy, and now wants to retcon it for PC sensibilities. Fuck him and fuck his game. I prefer the "old" Deadlands anyway, so I'm not his target audience.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104610On a side note, I'm also Ill at ease with this current politically correct environment that is putting pressure on people to erase history, with them pulling down and removing statues across the South of famous civil war generals (who were tremendously great leaders, by the way) as well as Southern political leaders that promoted slavery because they are uncomfortable and believe having such statues in prominent places sends the wrong message to the public. If these politically correct but absolutely retarded  liberals ultimately succeed in this goal of whitewashing history, there will be no evidence remaining that there was a problem with slavery in the first place. Something the southern apologists and pro-slavery people would like very much, I'm sure.

I'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".

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.

Doesn't matter to me. I never went along with the "canon" anyhow.

I like having the CSA around. I like having the Union around. Just like I run Old Republic games with the Sith Empire vs. the Republic.

This *isn't* real life. This is an RPG. As others have said here - Shane is perfectly within his rights to make whatever he wants canon. I personally do not care about canon in any game I run as long as it serves my purposes.

While it may sound "un-PC" today - but the fact is, if a player feels uncomfortable about something like this in the game - especially since by Shane's own words that Deadlands has had the CSA as part of the game for the last two decades, the problem is on the player. No one alive today was a member of the CSA. No one alive today should feel some kind of antipathy towards the CSA any more than they should feel antipathy towards Mongolians for the invasions of the Khanate into Central Asia and Eastern Europe (not to mention China and further south). Or any other institution one side would call historically "bad".

Because if we're going to talk about offense at history - and project that into FICTION... where does the cut-off begin? I want someone to defend that logic. Where do people whose ancestors were oppressed by *any* institution get to finally feel fine with the fact that history is just that - History. And fiction is just that, fiction.

Who get to make that decision for *everyone*? And to what degree am I obliged to engage with other people's neurosis over their inability to parse fiction from fact and history from today?

Edit - And yes, nothing about Deadlands when it comes to the CSA is remotely realistic in the first place. Nor do I agree that it would have played out across their products as they pretend it did. But who cares? Just use what you like and toss the rest. I'm not faulting Shane. I'm calling into question anyone freaking out about it one way or the other.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104638Ehh?

I disagree with basically everything you say, and I have reams of supporting evidence including the words and deeds of the founders of the Confederacy (https://www.nps.gov/resources/story.htm%3Fid%3D217), but debating the differences, nature, and causes of the war seems to step beyond the realm of a games discussion.

On topic, I think that the existence of the Confederacy was getting in the way of the types of adventures they wanted to write; making a change seemed necessary.  It's silly to wring one's hands over whether they made the right change for the 'wrong reasons'.  I'm troubled to think that for some people the 'wrong reasons' are that the Confederacy were/are the good guys.

Quote from: tenbones;1104643Because if we're going to talk about offense at history - and project that into FICTION... where does the cut-off begin? I want someone to defend that logic. Where do people whose ancestors were oppressed by *any* institution get to finally feel fine with the fact that history is just that - History. And fiction is just that, fiction.

Sorry for the double-post, but this was posted while I was writing my prior response.

There's no problem with having the Confederacy in a historical game.  There's no problem with having the Confederacy in a fantasy game using an alternative timeline.  The 'problem' is when the historical figures are used in a way that is ahistorical and you're giving villains a 'face-turn' to treat them like good guys.  When you're including Nazis in your game, you don't make Goebbels the Hero.  If you do, you'll offend the people who are familiar with the historical facts.  

Virtually all of the criticism of the CSA in Deadlands comes from the decision that the CSA completely abolished slavery on their own because they weren't racist and never were.  That ignores a whole lot of bad stuff and it isn't even consistent with the history.  When you pretend that a villain only had noble motives, it can make people VERY uncomfortable.

This is the kind of thing that divides your player base, and causes fans to say an older edition was better.

And I'm not even familiar with this particular game....

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104646Sorry for the double-post, but this was posted while I was writing my prior response.

There's no problem with having the Confederacy in a historical game.  There's no problem with having the Confederacy in a fantasy game using an alternative timeline.  The 'problem' is when the historical figures are used in a way that is ahistorical and you're giving villains a 'face-turn' to treat them like good guys.  When you're including Nazis in your game, you don't make Goebbels the Hero.  If you do, you'll offend the people who are familiar with the historical facts.

*None* of these "face-turning" things happened in the game to my knowledge. Not only that - WHO CARES? Let me play Devil's Advocate for the other side...

If a crack in the ground opened up and Satan and his pals from the underworld came out - and for kicks and giggles the CSA said "Well... I'll trust the human slaves to be on our side to fight the hordes of hell over Satan and his army" - as a justification to allow the CSA to survive while abolishing slavery not for moral reasons but for existential ones...

WHO is harmed by this in a fictional game? About a fictional what-if? timeline about fictional propositions about REAL people that existed decades for before any living person today was around to experience directly? Who precisely? Are these people playing Deadlands?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104646When you pretend that a villain only had noble motives, it can make people VERY uncomfortable.

Why? Is Darth Vader never really redeemed at the end of Star Wars? Or are you insinuating that historical figures *must* never be put in any light other than whatever narrative suits some consumer of history - IN FICTION? Or... what?

Quote from: Razor 007;1104648This is the kind of thing that divides your player base, and causes fans to say an older edition was better.

And I'm not even familiar with this particular game....

It's divisive because people can't seem to tell the difference between fiction, history and reality - or whenever these things cross paths in a game. And further - in their own ignorance of history, they'd prefer to *never* engage with history in reality OR fantasy if someone can pretend outrage at it... especially as fiction.

Apparently.

Quote from: Shane HensleyBut there is a real world "cost" to keeping the CSA, and it's one I don't have to pay...someone else does. And I don't want that. Having characters loyal to the CSA...not just "Southerners" but actual loyalists to the cause, even if anti-slavery but loyal for some reason... can be *incredibly* uncomfortable for others at the table. Especially those of African-American descent. Imagine the GM having to roleplay those voices. That's not fun. That's not what our game's about. It's not what we *want* our game to be about.

This seems foolish, at least at first glance, for one reason alone: I am pretty sure that a clear majority of African-American gamers would rather prefer to play in a more authentic fantasy version of the West, one which includes the Confederacy and its remnants. I could have seen your point if you had said that you want to avoid the discomfort of having a player defending the south in-character while sitting next to an African-American. But then you had to go "Imagine the GM having to roleplay those voices" and you lost me completely.

What's next? An Indiana Jones RPG without Nazi NPCs? Imagine all the Jewish gamers, perhaps some who had an ancestor die because of the Shoah! This makes no sense. Heck, I'm a German and I love the idea of blasting some German Nazis of the era. Or of any other era, including the current one, regardless of political stripes. It's just fucking fantasy. Jesus Christ.

Quote from: Shane HensleyI run Deadlands for people *all around the world*. I play with all ethnicities, genders, orientations, cultures, religions, and political outlooks. I've literally run thousands of games for probably about ten thousand people over the last 25 years, and met and talked to FAR more than that in various talks, panels, guest appearances, signings, etc. And I *love* meeting you all. I *love* learning about our similarities AND differences and then having a drink and throwing some dice and shooting zombies with you.

...and as a Non-American from "around the world", I can tell you that it just makes your setting seem less authentic. But you're right: it's your baby, your call. I'm just not convinced of its wisdom. But you do you.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104636I 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.

All I can hear among your Reeeeeing is it might somehow, somewhere, sometime make someone uncomfortable. So? 50 shades of gray I'm sure can make someone somewhere uncomfortable, should it not exist?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104644I disagree with basically everything you say, and I have reams of supporting evidence including the words and deeds of the founders of the Confederacy (https://www.nps.gov/resources/story.htm%3Fid%3D217), but debating the differences, nature, and causes of the war seems to step beyond the realm of a games discussion.

On topic, I think that the existence of the Confederacy was getting in the way of the types of adventures they wanted to write; making a change seemed necessary.  It's silly to wring one's hands over whether they made the right change for the 'wrong reasons'.  I'm troubled to think that for some people the 'wrong reasons' are that the Confederacy were/are the good guys.

Who the fuck has said that the REAL confederacy were/are the good guys?

Nice straw-man you got there buddy, you sure you can beat him to death all by yourself?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104646Sorry for the double-post, but this was posted while I was writing my prior response.

There's no problem with having the Confederacy in a historical game.  There's no problem with having the Confederacy in a fantasy game using an alternative timeline.  The 'problem' is when the historical figures are used in a way that is ahistorical and you're giving villains a 'face-turn' to treat them like good guys.  When you're including Nazis in your game, you don't make Goebbels the Hero.  If you do, you'll offend the people who are familiar with the historical facts.  

Virtually all of the criticism of the CSA in Deadlands comes from the decision that the CSA completely abolished slavery on their own because they weren't racist and never were.  That ignores a whole lot of bad stuff and it isn't even consistent with the history.  When you pretend that a villain only had noble motives, it can make people VERY uncomfortable.

Yet more Reeeeeeing and more "it might offend someone!" Who the fuck cares? If it offends you, or makes you uncomfortable the solution is easy, do not buy the fucking thing or play it.

The Coran calls for the murder of all atheists over 100 times, as an atheist my self this makes me uncomfortable, will you join me in demanding it be re written or else banned from being printed, sold distributed and it's teachings made illegal?

Two gay men kissing in the street makes some people feel uncomfortable, will you join them to ban such behavior?

Hypocritical, moralistic, holier than thou, censorious, totalitarian fuck.

Quote from: wmarshal;1104641Slavery 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.

The amateur historian in me always has balked at the idea that the Confederacy could hold out for a stalemate against the Union (in reality a win since secession was the goal), but "magic" makes anything possible and I can certainly understand the dramatic appeal of a split union beyond being a confederate apologist or having a secret wish  that slavery had continued (which in game it didn't anyway).
Much in the same way that while I would personally be somewhat uncomfortable running or playing in a "good" Germans based WW2 campaign, I doubt that many who do are secretly celebrating Nazi-ism rather than just the fact that the German's had really cool stuff to play with and the players ignore the historical baggage attached to the Axis.

Seems like a dumb change made for silly reasons to me but hey, it's their game to do with what they will. I'll say that the "signal" factor comes off as pretty high in that announcement.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1104656Who the fuck cares? If it offends you, or makes you uncomfortable the solution is easy, do not buy the fucking thing or play it.

I really do wish more people followed this advice.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1104656Yet more Reeeeeeing and more "it might offend someone!" Who the fuck cares? If it offends you, or makes you uncomfortable the solution is easy, do not buy the fucking thing or play it.

This seems bizarre.  The owners of the IP are making the change.  

I'm not arguing against it - I'm pointing out that I can see why they decided to make that change.  

If the change offends you you don't have to buy the fucking thing or play it, just like the quote says.  

It's telling that there are a number of people who have indicated that they don't play it, won't play it, and never had played it complaining about a change.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104663This seems bizarre.  The owners of the IP are making the change.  

I'm not arguing against it - I'm pointing out that I can see why they decided to make that change.  

If the change offends you you don't have to buy the fucking thing or play it, just like the quote says.  

It's telling that there are a number of people who have indicated that they don't play it, won't play it, and never had played it complaining about a change.

You're not arguing against the change correct, you're defending the change on the basis of some potential offense.

I'm not a customer of theirs, like my first intervention says, I could give less of a fuck about what they do with their IP, and I'm the kind of people to drop an IP if it's not for me. Like I did with decades of Marvel/DC comic books as a reader/collector.

I should have added disingenuous twat to the closing of my answer to you.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1104660I really do wish more people followed this advice.

It would accelerate the get woke go broke factor.

I'm not a fan, I'm a consumer, you stop producing stuff I like? My money stays in my wallet. Nobody is entitled to my hard earned pesos. I might or not make public and loud criticisms of the changes and the twats behind them but that's besides the point.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1104659Seems like a dumb change made for silly reasons to me but hey, it's their game to do with what they will. I'll say that the "signal" factor comes off as pretty high in that announcement.

I'll be charitable and simply say: I'm not going to second-guess Shane's business needs. I'm not going to presume to know his sales-needs in direct relation to his personal feelings as a scholar who is selling a product to his consumer-base.

I believe him. I believe he believes exactly what he says. And I don't think that he's virtue-signaling as much as he's acknowledging the ground has *changed* in the gaming-world below his feet and he's making the call he believes is most important for the business in direct relation to his personal desires for the game.

I'm a relative latecomer to Deadlands - I only started a couple of years ago, but I literally own nearly everything for the game across multiple editions. I chuckled at the handling of the CSA from the start - even in the pre-Savage Worlds edition. It didn't make me do anything particularly different. It really isn't a problem. What is a problem is exactly how he puts it - the years of whinging about merely using the CSA in *any* manner has been turned into an outrage-feeder despite his efforts. I get it. And he and his wife (and the rest of Pinnacle) are particularly closer to the fire than any of us on it, so I'm sure it's affected them in terms of their own views in direct proportion to whatever impact, potential or otherwise, it's had on their business. I'm not going to second-guess them on that (nor would I do that to anyone).  

Despite all this - with no offense to his sensibilities, I simply will always ignore whatever it is I like/don't like about a setting, like I do with any game. It's a bummer that it even turned into this in the first place from the whining of the Usual Suspects(tm). Deadlands is a magnificent setting, and this does precisely ZERO to get me to stop using it. But I'm always open for it to get worse. Or better.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1104668It would accelerate the get woke go broke factor.

I'm not a fan, I'm a consumer, you stop producing stuff I like? My money stays in my wallet. Nobody is entitled to my hard earned pesos. I might or not make public and loud criticisms of the changes and the twats behind them but that's besides the point.

#MeToo...


Wait that doesn't seem right...

You know... my Star Wars game is set in the Old Republic.

I am a big fan of playing in, and using the Sith Empire - not the weak-sauce bullshit Empire in the OT. In-setting the Sith Empire is *insane*. Literally. Genocide, slavery, Wampas living with Gundarks, galactic scale drug-trade and sentient-trafficking for every possible egress of human decency is on the table - and at the top of it is a veritable Death-Cult of nihilist power-worshipping Sith that makes Palpatine look like Mr. Fucking Rogers, and comparably as powerful by direct relation.

The horrors of the Old Republic era as a fictional setting are so many orders of magnitude scarier and worse than *anything* Deadlands could conjure directly as playable content in direct relation to their portrayal of their fictional CSA - it boggles my mind that people *really* are outraged at the use of the CSA. I simply don't buy it. Or at the very least - I question the honesty of people that say it.

Again, anyone that believes this fictional and ludicrous view of the CSA has any real meaning to *anyone* alive PLAYING Deadlands needs to stop playing RPG's, turn off the internet, stop reading books/watching movies and go get some much needed therapy.

There are allot of people that allegedly don't give a damn about the change, ignore canon or don't. even play the game that seems awfully pissed, even hurling insults over this. But I guess I was right about its being of interest. *shrug*

BTW:What the Blue Hell is "Reeeeing" anyway?

Quote from: CarlD.;1104673BTW:What the Blue Hell is "Reeeeing" anyway?

It's a running-gag memetic shorthand for the imagined shrieks of outrage to which most excessively SJ-conscious screeds against any particular pop-culture entertainment can be reduced.

Not sure where it started, although Gamergate is a good bet.

Quote from: wmarshal;1104641Slavery 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.

Hmmm. Didn't know that. I don't remember that being a part of how it was originally marketed.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3847[/ATTACH]

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104675Hmmm. Didn't know that. I don't remember that being a part of how it was originally marketed.

There's sidebars about it and everything. Basically - Magic arrived, Hell broke loose. CSA ended slavery because it was "all hands on deck" against the supernatural.

And they straight out said it was to not have to deal with slavery as a thing in the game. It didn't mean slavery didn't happen. It didn't mean there weren't people in the CSA that still supported it. It didn't mean that anything not-bad about the CSA wasn't in play. But it gave players a chance to play this fictional view of history without being weird about it for those that felt weird about it.

But it also meant that not everyone from the CSA was pro-slavery by some magical mandate.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104675Hmmm. Didn't know that. I don't remember that being a part of how it was originally marketed.

Don't remember the marketing but that was part of the background presented in the core book back in the day. I never bough or read anything past the original core book since my players had zero interest in a western game.

Quote from: tenbones;1104678There's sidebars about it and everything. Basically - Magic arrived, Hell broke loose. CSA ended slavery because it was "all hands on deck" against the supernatural.

And they straight out said it was to not have to deal with slavery as a thing in the game. It didn't mean slavery didn't happen. It didn't mean there weren't people in the CSA that still supported it. It didn't mean that anything not-bad about the CSA wasn't in play. But it gave players a chance to play this fictional view of history without being weird about it for those that felt weird about it.

But it also meant that not everyone from the CSA was pro-slavery by some magical mandate.

I could have sworn it was more of a the war dragged on so long that slavery was ended more out of a lack of manpower then the supernatural.

Quote from: tenbones;1104678Basically - Magic arrived, Hell broke loose. CSA ended slavery because it was "all hands on deck" against the supernatural. And they straight out said it was to not have to deal with slavery as a thing in the game ... it gave players a chance to play this fictional view of history without being weird about it for those that felt weird about it.

So the objection isn't just to the presence of the Confederacy, it's to the presence of an even semi-plausibly redeemed Confederacy, out of indignation at the implication that there were elements worth preserving in it.

I'm unsure how any attempt to create an even semi-historical game setting is going to survive this kind of retroactive Puritanism, to be honest.

Quote from: tenbones;1104669I believe him. I believe he believes exactly what he says. And I don't think that he's virtue-signaling as much as he's acknowledging the ground has *changed* in the gaming-world below his feet and he's making the call he believes is most important for the business in direct relation to his personal desires for the game.

Yeah, that would make sense. I'd probably do similar if my livelihood depended on it. Thinking about it more, in a certain sense I do that already. I censor quite a few of my views and beliefs in my workplace and just in the general company of coworkers due to the overwhelmingly far-left prevailing ideologies in my area and ingrained in the corporation itself. Where they are free to converse however they like in the workplace, I am not; I get to bite my lip and nod when certain rhetoric is leveled in my direction. There is a very strong "corporate culture" that you are expected to abide by and if you don't, you can't be sure whether or not you'll be quietly let go (with HR being the bludgeon of choice). So really, to some extent I am conforming to the culture norms to survive too (along with others I work with).

So, I could get that aspect at least. Protect your ass and ride out the wave.

Quote from: tenbones;1104669Despite all this - with no offense to his sensibilities, I simply will always ignore whatever it is I like/don't like about a setting, like I do with any game. It's a bummer that it even turned into this in the first place from the whining of the Usual Suspects(tm). Deadlands is a magnificent setting, and this does precisely ZERO to get me to stop using it. But I'm always open for it to get worse. Or better.

That's an entirely reasonable stance to take.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104674It's a running-gag memetic shorthand for the imagined shrieks of outrage to which most excessively SJ-conscious screeds against any particular pop-culture entertainment can be reduced.

Not sure where it started, although Gamergate is a good bet.

It's much older than that. Reeeeeee Reeeeee Reeeeee... is an onomatopoeic expression of intense rage or frustration typically associated with the Angry Pepe character and used by those who frequent the /r9k/ board on 4chan. The expression is often associated with the Autistic Screeching meme, however it is intended to represent the unique croak produced by several species of frogs when agitated.

Certain frog species are known to produce a shrill scream noise to ward of predators when threatened. On October 25th, 2009, the earliest known video of this behavior was uploaded by YouTuber ppparaone, which gained over 2.5 million views and 4,600 comments in the next six years (shown below). This video would later one become even more popular with a screenshot of a comment, and spread to humor content aggregator clickbait websites such as Buzzfeed  and  Smosh.

Original video link;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvgkGewzUq4

...and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atfO7pboe-0&feature=youtu.be

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104638Slavery 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.

Maybe this is just an issue with phrasing, but I think slavery was most certainly the central issue of the Civil War. Is that what you mean by it being the underlying problem? The North wasn't explicitly abolitionist until the Emancipation Proclamation, but the rebellion was clearly about concerns that the North would continue to dominate and restrict slavery until the system was untenable.

Quote from: tenbones;1104672I am a big fan of playing in, and using the Sith Empire - not the weak-sauce bullshit Empire in the OT. In-setting the Sith Empire is *insane*. Literally. Genocide, slavery, Wampas living with Gundarks, galactic scale drug-trade and sentient-trafficking for every possible egress of human decency is on the table - and at the top of it is a veritable Death-Cult of nihilist power-worshipping Sith that makes Palpatine look like Mr. Fucking Rogers, and comparably as powerful by direct relation.

The horrors of the Old Republic era as a fictional setting are so many orders of magnitude scarier and worse than *anything* Deadlands could conjure directly as playable content in direct relation to their portrayal of their fictional CSA - it boggles my mind that people *really* are outraged at the use of the CSA. I simply don't buy it. Or at the very least - I question the honesty of people that say it.

I don't get this. For those who didn't like the original Deadlands history, the issue wasn't that the CSA was too horrible. Rather, it was the opposite that the fictional CSA was too nice. By having the fictional CSA abolish slavery on their own, and overlooking other prejudices, the original Deadlands seemed to be whitewashing historical reality. It seems similar to me to complaints about Disney's Song of the South. It wasn't that the movie was horrible to black people -- there were very positive black characters. It was that it portrayed a nice sweet plantation-owning family who got along well with their black workers, which gave a false impression of Southern race relations, particularly to kids.

The parallel in WWII games wouldn't be editing out the Nazis, but rather having the Nazis give up on their anti-semitism and freeing the Jews while also winning.

Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1104680I could have sworn it was more of a the war dragged on so long that slavery was ended more out of a lack of manpower then the supernatural.

That was certainly part of it - but it ended long before the current "baseline" of the game. Essentially the CW just dragged on until when the game officially "starts".

But slavery isn't a thing by that point, using their in-game conceits.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104683So the objection isn't just to the presence of the Confederacy, it's to the presence of an even semi-plausibly redeemed Confederacy, out of indignation at the implication that there were elements worth preserving in it.

I'm unsure how any attempt to create an even semi-historical game setting is going to survive this kind of retroactive Puritanism, to be honest.

That's my problem with people's general "issues" with it. How can you enjoy/play/engage *ANY* fiction. Even now you see it in videogames where any kind of trope is tied back to "historical colonialism" rendering it "problematic" etc etc. /queue the outrage.

Rather than engaging with the product on its own merits. This is the problem of putting ones ideology ahead of an artistic endeavor.

Quote from: jhkim;1104691Maybe this is just an issue with phrasing, but I think slavery was most certainly the central issue of the Civil War. Is that what you mean by it being the underlying problem? The North wasn't explicitly abolitionist until the Emancipation Proclamation, but the rebellion was clearly about concerns that the North would continue to dominate and restrict slavery until the system was untenable.



I don't get this. For those who didn't like the original Deadlands history, the issue wasn't that the CSA was too horrible. Rather, it was the opposite that the fictional CSA was too nice. By having the fictional CSA abolish slavery on their own, and overlooking other prejudices, the original Deadlands seemed to be whitewashing historical reality. It seems similar to me to complaints about Disney's Song of the South. It wasn't that the movie was horrible to black people -- there were very positive black characters. It was that it portrayed a nice sweet plantation-owning family who got along well with their black workers, which gave a false impression of Southern race relations, particularly to kids.

The parallel in WWII games wouldn't be editing out the Nazis, but rather having the Nazis give up on their anti-semitism and freeing the Jews while also winning.

Only to kids, small immature kids who can't distinguish between fiction and reality.

A work that pretended to be historically accurate and did that would be well deserving of criticism, A work of fiction? Where do you draw the line? How about all those crusades movies/books? You know, the ones where none of the horrors committed by the Muslims are depicted or even mentioned? Should those be erased/burned?

How about all those books that claim the republicans were the racists and not the democrats?

Or how about those works by the wewuzkangs and sheit brigade?

Or any work glorifying Che, Castro and all the other communist murderers?

Where do you draw the line on works of fiction? and why isn't it akin to the moral majority and the satanic panic?

RPGs cause devil worship = RPGs cause {Insert ism here}

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104638Slavery is evil, but that didn't start the civil war, and wasn't even made an issue in the war until after 1863...

:rolleyes: What tripe. Try reading the actual articles of secession the various rebel states issued. They all list their desire to maintain slavery in the slave states, and in some cases they wanted to expand slavery, as reason for secession.

As far as Deadlands reboots, I couldn't give one shit, much less two. If I was going to do the Wild West I'd prefer the West of the movies e.g. spaghetti westerns, John Wayne, and Randolph Scott. If I wanted a weird west for anything more than a one-off single adventure, I'd base it on the West of TV shows, e.g. Brisco County and The Wild, Wild West.

Quote from: jhkim;1104691I don't get this. For those who didn't like the original Deadlands history, the issue wasn't that the CSA was too horrible. Rather, it was the opposite that the fictional CSA was too nice. By having the fictional CSA abolish slavery on their own, and overlooking other prejudices, the original Deadlands seemed to be whitewashing historical reality.

Precisely no one I know stopped playing Deadlands because they thought the way Deadlands handled "slavery" in the CSA was too unrealistic. No one cared. My evidence: everyone still playing Deadlands. Are there people that did stop? Maybe. But Deadlands proved to be ridiculously successful for Pinnacle regardless.

By claiming that Pinnacle was whitewashing reality - in a fictional game where Hell has opened up and the Four-Horsemen are planning on enacting the Apocalypse... you're saying you can't tell the difference between "fantasy" and "reality" and are pretending someone is actually *hurt* by this creation of fiction. You realize that is not true right? Or are you doing your contrarian/disingenuous dance? I literally asked this question upthread.

Quote from: jhkim;1104691It seems similar to me to complaints about Disney's Song of the South. It wasn't that the movie was horrible to black people -- there were very positive black characters. It was that it portrayed a nice sweet plantation-owning family who got along well with their black workers, which gave a false impression of Southern race relations, particularly to kids.

And? Does it *really* matter? Is there some mandate that all fictional representations of *anything* remotely historical should only show.... the *worst excesses* of that period? Or only what you and those that believe like you, about that period? Again - who is hurt by this? What is this outrage? History buffs? Fiction buffs? Fantasy/Sci-Fi buffs? Who?

Quote from: jhkim;1104691The parallel in WWII games wouldn't be editing out the Nazis, but rather having the Nazis give up on their anti-semitism and freeing the Jews while also winning.

Why? Why does this arbitrarily matter? Who is hurt by this? /rolls random What If? Table - What about a game where we find out that Hitler was mind-controlled by Aliens? Who is hurt by this fictional representation of a game/novel/movie? I'm changing NOTHING about what the Nazi's did... but you know... Alien Mind Control(tm)

What if Egypt conquered Rome before 750BC? And they went on to conquer Europe following in the footsteps of Caesar and everyone in Germany was partially black before the eventual rise of Hitler... but the Third Kemet would be carried out exactly the same, only the Germans of WWII would be mixed race. Who does this hurt as an idea to engage with and how?

Quote from: Bren;1104697As far as Deadlands reboots, I couldn't give one shit, much less two. If I was going to do the Wild West I'd prefer the West of the movies e.g. spaghetti westerns, John Wayne, and Randolph Scott. If I wanted a weird west for anything more than a one-off single adventure, I'd base it on the West of TV shows, e.g. Brisco County and The Wild, Wild West.

Oh man, this is a HUGE discussion I've been having with my players.

Simply removing most/if not all the supernatural apocalyptic stuff and play it straight up Brisco/Wild,Wild West style. I think this would be awesome.

I have plans. PLANS!!!!!

Quote from: Bren;1104696:rolleyes: What tripe. Try reading the actual articles of secession the various rebel states issued. They all list their desire to maintain slavery in the slave states, and in some cases they wanted to expand slavery, as reason for secession.

The Corwin amendment, and indeed, Lincolns own words say different.  

"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution--which amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express
and irrevocable."

No objection to slavery, yet he went to war over it?

Quote from: jhkim;1104691Rather, it was the opposite that the fictional CSA was too nice. By having the fictional CSA abolish slavery on their own, and overlooking other prejudices, the original Deadlands seemed to be whitewashing historical reality.

Thank you for using the term "whitewashing" in its original sense rather than the current bastardization. My inner linguistic Puritan's eternal torment is slightly lessened. :)

I would have more sympathy for this kind of criticism if it wasn't so often used as one fork of a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose kafkatrap. Write out a controversial historical reality in one's setting in an effort to free the game from that baggage, you're accused of whitewashing history. Leave it in for the sake of creating dramatic conflicts for your PCs, you're accused of creating a hostile gaming environment for players assumed to identify with the situational underdogs. Ya cain't win.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104704I would have more sympathy for this kind of criticism if it wasn't so often used as one fork of a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose kafkatrap. Write out a controversial historical reality in one's setting in an effort to free the game from that baggage, you're accused of whitewashing history. Leave it in for the sake of creating dramatic conflicts for your PCs, you're accused of creating a hostile gaming environment for players assumed to identify with the situational underdogs. Ya cain't win.

Isn't that what jhkim just did? Isn't that why this whole thing happened? Isn't that exactly the reason why it's being changed?

It seems to me that most of the people that have a problem with this change don't play Deadlands while a lot of actual Deadlands players didn't like the CSA element and downplayed it.

I've lurked here for a long time but this thread has compelled me to chime in with my two cents for the first time.

I played a lot of Deadlands in the late 90's and consider it one of my favorite games/settings.  I've played a little of the Savage Worlds Reloaded version but not nearly as much as the original flame-orange books.  In 1996 when the original book debuted, I owned a comic book/gaming shop and we featured the books prominently on the shelves.  I ran several demos of the game at the store and then ran the game sporadically over the next five or six years for my own group.  As a huge fan of westerns, I was excited to get my hands on the game despite the fact that it melded several genres together.  The only other western games were generally out of print by this time (Boot Hill, FGU's Wild West, and a few other less popular outliers).  In fact, several in my gaming circle at the time had no interest in westerns but actually enjoyed Deadlands because it contained the "other" stuff like magic, steam tech, monsters, campy horror, etc.

Seeing this thread was a little surprising because just last week I had made a decision to run Deadlands Classic for my regular group.  My group is entirely onboard, with most of them outright excited to try it out.  They range in age from 17 to mid-50's.

I haven't touched Classic Deadlands in many years, probably since the early 2000's, maybe 2001 or 2002.  So it's been 17+ years since I've run it or played it.  I DID run a little Reloaded more recently but not for any length of time.  I don't recall ever having an issue at the table regarding the portrayal of the CSA.  We probably had some players who played characters from the CSA but I don't believe any of them were portraying their characters as flagrant racists.  I certainly don't recall anyone singing the praises of Jefferson Davis in real-life or in the game.  At most, we probably used the USA/CSA divide to represent tensions between northerners and southerners out in the disputed lands of the west.  We might have even had a PC that was a former slave in one game, but we were all adults and were able to play the game without being insensitive to anyone's feelings.  And had someone offended someone else playing in my game, they certainly would have spoken up, resolved the issue and that would have been that.

I guess I shouldn't be given the times, but I am truly surprised that this is an issue and that there is a need to retcon the original setting to remove the CSA as a faction/power.  Like several have said, especially @tenbones, this is a fictional setting.  Sure there are some real-world parallels but the game is certainly not trying to be a simulation of reality.  There's ghost rock, monsters, magic, mad scientists, and alternate history.  For me, that is the bottom line.  It's a game.  And quite frankly it is easy enough to ignore or modify parts of the setting if someone finds something they don't like, just like any game.

I don't want to assume to speak for anyone else though, so if someone finds something about the game offensive, they can ignore the offensive part, or step away from it altogether.  Problem solved.  Of course, Shane and PEG are within their rights as the creators of the game to do whatever they want with regards to the history, setting, rules and future releases.  I have no problem with that either.  I understand the care which often must be taken in our current climate, especially by a company trying to produce material to sell to the masses.  I don't have to agree with every decision that a company makes to still enjoy their products.  And if I stop enjoying the product, I can keep the wallet closed.

All of this said, it doesn't really matter to me.  I greatly prefer Classic Deadlands to the Savage Worlds version.  Yeah, it's more crunchy, runs slower, etc.  But it makes up for that in flavor and options.  The SW version just doesn't feel the same to me.  So I will continue playing the original orange book version and not worry about any changes made to the setting in the current iteration of the game.  And our group will likely go on as it has, everyone gathering to escape reality into a fictional universe and have some fun together.

But the SJW's are trying to save all the souls that clearly aren't as racist as yours and mine, Toric. This is the new "Satanic Panic" - only more organized, more nebulous, and with more crazy.

Welcome to the RPGsite!

Quote from: Bren;1104696:rolleyes: What tripe. Try reading the actual articles of secession the various rebel states issued. They all list their desire to maintain slavery in the slave states, and in some cases they wanted to expand slavery, as reason for secession.

I was talking about the North, The Union. Slavery was a non-issue for them until it became conveniently an issue. ...after they were losing the war ...after half of Lincolns cabinet, and the Northern state Senators, Congressmen, and State Legislatures pressed the President to sue for a truce and re-establish the peace at the cost of recognizing the right for the Southern States to withdraw from the United States, and permanently splitting the Union. Only after all of that and two years of war did the North actually abolish slavery, and with a presidential directive no less, not by a vote, or act of congress.


Fact: A fight was about whether the Union retained control of its government and military bases in the states that succeeded from the Union started the Civil War, not in an altercation over slaves.

The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia (the Confederate Army did not yet exist), and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. Following the declaration of secession by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, its authorities demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On December 26, Major Robert Anderson of the U.S. Army surreptitiously moved his small command from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island to Fort Sumter, a substantial fortress built on an island controlling the entrance of Charleston Harbor. An attempt by U.S. President James Buchanan to reinforce and resupply Anderson using the unarmed merchant ship Star of the West failed when it was fired upon by shore batteries on January 9, 1861. South Carolina authorities then seized all Federal property in the Charleston area except for Fort Sumter.

During the early months of 1861, the situation around Fort Sumter increasingly began to resemble a siege. In March, Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, the first general officer of the newly formed Confederate States Army, was placed in command of Confederate forces in Charleston. Beauregard energetically directed the strengthening of batteries around Charleston harbor aimed at Fort Sumter. Conditions in the fort, growing increasingly dire due to shortages of men, food, and supplies, deteriorated as the Union soldiers rushed to complete the installation of additional guns.

The resupply of Fort Sumter became the first crisis of the administration of the newly inaugurated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln following his victory in the election of November 6, 1860. He notified the Governor of South Carolina, Francis W. Pickens, that he was sending supply ships, which resulted in an ultimatum from the Confederate government for the immediate evacuation of Fort Sumter, which Major Anderson refused. Beginning at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, the Confederates bombarded the fort from artillery batteries surrounding the harbor. Although the Union garrison returned fire, they were significantly outgunned and, after 34 hours, Major Anderson agreed to evacuate. There were no deaths on either side as a direct result of this engagement, although a gun explosion during the surrender ceremonies on April 14 caused two Union deaths.

Following the battle, there was widespread support from both North and South for further military action. Lincoln's immediate call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion resulted in an additional four southern states also declaring their secession and joining the Confederacy. The battle is usually recognized as the first battle that opened the American Civil War.

Seven Southern States did succeed from the Union directly on account of the election of Abraham Lincoln and his platform of abolitionists who advocated eliminating slavery. These included South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and and Texas and they all had succeeded by February 1st, 1861.  

The other four States below the Mason-Dixon line Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina succeeded primarily because of States right issues, primarily objecting to the presence of Federal Military bases within the State, and whether the State legislature controlled making the laws for the state, or the Federal (Union) Government did.

In several states, effective secession in most of the state critically destabilized or virtually eliminated state government control over a region where people widely rejected secession, favoring the Union over their state. This was particularly true of Virginia, leading to the creation of a Union West Virginia. The same effect occurred in part of Tennessee and in other areas, but did not actually result in any split of other Confederate states.

Fact: The South was not unified over slavery as the issue that lead to succession. Behind the scenes, slavery was economically viable for the Southern States, and the North had introduced heavy industrialization, factories, and mass manufacturing facilities instead with its indentured servitude that in many ways resembled slavery, and Northern business leaders had been pressuring the South to Industrialize as well, and the Southerners resented such demands.

It was the same in the North as well. There were many Northerners that supported maintaining slavery as a legal institution as well, and this is one of the more interesting stories that you will see Union supporters completely ignore, or gloss over, with their fingers continually pointing south of the Mason Dixon line.  

Elsewhere, especially in the North overwhelming Union military intervention and mass arrests of elected lawmakers blocked the secessionist Maryland legislature even from considering the question. The Delaware legislature did, quickly and overwhelmingly rejecting secession. The unorganized Indian Territory did not document secession and was not unanimous in its orientation, but generally supported the Confederacy.

Quote from: tenbones;1104700Precisely no one I know stopped playing Deadlands because they thought the way Deadlands handled "slavery" in the CSA was too unrealistic. No one cared. My evidence: everyone still playing Deadlands. Are there people that did stop? Maybe. But Deadlands proved to be ridiculously successful for Pinnacle regardless.

I had never even considered that someone might be offended by how the game handled slavery and the CSA until today when I read Shane's post and this thread here.  In our games, I guess it never came up, or it just proved to not be an issue to anyone I was playing with.

Quote from: JRR;1104703The Corwin amendment, and indeed, Lincolns own words say different.  

"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution--which amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express
and irrevocable."

No objection to slavery, yet he went to war over it?

The Union fought to prevent secession.  The Confederacy seceeded to preserve their ability to own black people. See the Cornerstone speech, articles of secession, An Address to the Citizens of Alabama on the Constitution and Laws of the Confederate States of America, and the Constitution of the Confederacy.

QuoteBut there is a real world "cost" to keeping the CSA, and it's one I don't have to pay...someone else does. And I don't want that. Having characters loyal to the CSA...not just "Southerners" but actual loyalists to the cause, even if anti-slavery but loyal for some reason... can be *incredibly* uncomfortable for others at the table. Especially those of African-American descent. Imagine the GM having to roleplay those voices. That's not fun. That's not what our game's about. It's not what we *want* our game to be about.

What?  The CSA in the game had abolished slavery.  Am I wrong?

Quote from: tenbones;1104708But the SJW's are trying to save all the souls that clearly aren't as racist as yours and mine, Toric. This is the new "Satanic Panic" - only more organized, more nebulous, and with more crazy.

Yeah, I guess.  I guess I'm not as aware of the SJW stuff as some.  After seeing this thread and the excitement on some other sites about the change to the fictional history of a game to make it "less offensive" to people, I feel like maybe I should go bury my head deeper in the sand.  I've always just though that I should treat people with decency and leave it at that.  But some of this stuff boggles my mind.

Quote from: tenbonesWelcome to the RPGsite!

Thanks!

Back East: the South was published in 1999 and was pretty much the most detailed "setting bible" for Deadlands' Confederacy. It said and portrayed quite a bit of things which even by the standards of the time raised a lot of world-building issues and even in the context of a fictional setting did not make sense.

The Articles of Secession IRL outlined explicit reasons for why the Confederacy went to war, as well as a line by line reading of the Confederate Constitution shown they prioritized preserving slavery over individual autonomy to state and local governments. The Deadlands authors said that real-world history is the same as it is up to July 4th, 1863 which is the major supernatural divergence point. What this means is that slavery, white supremacy espoused in the Cornerstone Speech, systemic torture and breaking up of families, and the lingering fears of black rebellions a la Nat Turner used as justification for said cruelties, are all explicitly canon within the world of Deadlands.

Furthermore, the Abrahamic God exists in Deadlands and grants powers to the Blessed, one of the supernatural background options. He gave said holy powers to members of the Confederate Army's Chaplains in 1863, which was 2 years before the fictional nation counterpart seriously considered manumission of slaves. Which regardless of whether or not the author's intended it, reads as having the major force for Good in the setting be backing a system of race-based chattel slavery. Furthermore, nowhere in Back East is the term State's Rights used, meaning that the Confederacy went from fighting for an evil cause to nothing at all in 1865.

So combined with the above, along with the fact that many people who still fly the Confederate flag today and historically have had sympathies to racist causes* it comes off as more than a bit worrisome when they're a playable group which includes "good guys" among their number. The Texas Rangers' equipment requisition perks, the Rebel Yell Edge, and other in-game options require a Confederate allegiance or active participation to gain their benefits.

*Nazis marching in Charlottesville, the United Daughters of the Confederacy spreading propaganda that "slaves didn't want to be free," the KKK, and so on and so forth

Quote from: Libertad;1104715So combined with the above, along with the fact that many people who still fly the Confederate today and historically have had sympathies to racist causes (Charlottesville, United Daughters of the Confederacy spreading propaganda that "slaves didn't want to be free," etc) it comes off as more than a bit worrisome when they're a playable group which includes "good guys" among their number.

Great post! Speaks to my concerns as well.
When I first played Deadlands I knew little about it, just expected 'Wild West + Horror'. At the first session the GM/Group gave me an overview of the setting... but kinda batted away my questions about the Confederacy. What little they said about it had it coming across as a cop-out... and as much like 'pandering' as anything in the OP's statement... kinda like, 'We want to play as Nazi's so we're just going to ignore all that icky stuff about the Holocaust.'

The rationale at the time by some of the designers was that making a non-racist Confederacy would be more inclusive to various kinds of gamers and that they didn't want to have widespread systemic racism in the setting. The Deadlands Player's Guide as well as the Back East books encourage and claim that racism is the product of "individual villains" rather than organizations, governments, and institutions.

Regardless of their reasoning at the time, this ignored the fact that a lot of people are distinctly uncomfortable with this as it lines up with literal Lost Cause mythos which is propagated by racist groups and like Shane most recently said goes against their desire for being inclusive to many players.

Secondly, systemic racism still does exist in Deadlands, and not just against black people. The US and Confederate governments were engaged in long bloody wars with the Native American nations, often casting them as savages. Chinese immigrants were segregated into their own towns, and one of the immigrant factions encourages assimilation into white society as a means of social mobility even in the current year of the supposedly 'post-racial' setting. There are a few non-villainous NPCs in the various mega-adventures who have bigoted attitudes towards whites, Natives, and Chinese, while the Last Sons in particular dispenses with the post-racial attitude to play up resentments between white settlers and the Sioux/Cheyenne. There's even a Masonic lodge in one of the sidequests which is heavily implied to be a White's Only establishment. In Grim Prairie Trails, a pseudo-Monster Manual for Deadlands, has a subplot where one of the big rail companies is hiring a bounty hunter to scalp Apaches for money given that said tribe is regularly attacking their rail lines, while the Union in Nevada is using experimental jet packs to indiscriminately slaughter Apache villages, civilians included.

Quote from: Libertad;1104715Back East: the South was published in 1999 and was pretty much the most detailed "setting bible" for Deadlands' Confederacy. It said and portrayed quite a bit of things which even by the standards of the time raised a lot of world-building issues and even in the context of a fictional setting did not make sense.

The Articles of Confederation IRL outlined explicit reasons for why the Confederacy went to war, as well as a line by line reading of the Confederate Constitution shown they prioritized preserving slavery over individual autonomy to state and local governments. The Deadlands authors said that real-world history is the same as it is up to July 4th, 1863 which is the major supernatural divergence point. What this means is that slavery, white supremacy espoused in the Cornerstone Speech, systemic torture and breaking up of families, and the lingering fears of black rebellions a la Nat Turner used as justification for said cruelties, are all explicitly canon within the world of Deadlands.

Furthermore, the Abrahamic God exists in Deadlands and grants powers to the Blessed, one of the supernatural background options. He gave said holy powers to members of the Confederate Army's Chaplains in 1863, which was 2 years before the fictional nation counterpart seriously considered manumission of slaves. Which regardless of whether or not the author's intended it, reads as having the major force for Good in the setting be backing a system of race-based chattel slavery. Furthermore, nowhere in Back East is the term State's Rights used, meaning that the Confederacy went from fighting for an evil cause to nothing at all in 1865.

So combined with the above, along with the fact that many people who still fly the Confederate flag today and historically have had sympathies to racist causes* it comes off as more than a bit worrisome when they're a playable group which includes "good guys" among their number. The Texas Rangers' equipment requisition perks, the Rebel Yell Edge, and other in-game options require a Confederate allegiance or active participation to gain their benefits.

*Nazis marching in Charlottesville, the United Daughters of the Confederacy spreading propaganda that "slaves didn't want to be free," the KKK, and so on and so forth

None of what you are saying here is going to be changed by PEG's retcon of the setting history.  They are going to have the CSA ultimately lose the war in 1871.  So it seems likely that real-world history will remain the same up until 1863 when magic and monsters were unleashed on the world. So all of what you said happened in the real-world prior to 1863 is still a thing in Deadlands, even with the change to canon.  Then the Civil War rages on until 1871 in the new canon.  Presumably there will still be Blessed preachers in the south in the new canon.  Some of those preachers were likely at the very least CSA sympathizers, if not outright supporters.  Not sure how the change to the setting history changes any of that.

We're still talking about a fictional setting here.  Spells granted by the Abrahamic God, the dead rising at Gettysburg, etc.  I still have a hard time seeing how so many take offense to this portrayal.

As far as "good guys", are we sure there were no good guys in the south back in 1870?  I mean, I don't know.  It was 150 years ago and I wasn't there.  Were some of the causes championed by the south "evil"?  Sure.  But it certainly doesn't mean every person in the south was evil.  And I would hazard a guess that there were plenty of "evil" people residing in the north back in that time period as well.

And if you're playing with players who have sympathies to racist causes, that problem exists whether you are playing Deadlands or D&D.  I suspect most groups would remove those sorts from their games if made aware of it.

Deadlands is still a game, with a fictional setting.  And I would guess that most groups playing it aren't focusing on racist elements, slavery, and other offensive things.  If there are groups doing that, I would think those groups would disintegrate pretty quickly.

Quote from: Libertad;1104718The rationale at the time by some of the designers was that making a non-racist Confederacy would be more inclusive to various kinds of gamers and that they didn't want to have widespread systemic racism in the setting. The Deadlands Player's Guide as well as the Back East books encourage and claim that racism is the product of "individual villains" rather than organizations, governments, and institutions.

Regardless of their reasoning at the time, this ignored the fact that a lot of people are distinctly uncomfortable with this as it lines up with literal Lost Cause mythos which is propagated by racist groups and like Shane most recently said goes against their desire for being inclusive to many players.

Damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Which is why I'd prefer they stuck to their guns, so to speak. Because chasing inclusivity and psychological comfort means they will never be done changing the game to appease everyone, and wind up just pissing everyone off in the end.

I'm offended by the cultural appropriation and slander of one of my ancestors, both in the original game timeline and the new one!

Am I doing that right?  First time trying to play that card.  :p

Quote from: Toric;1104719None of what you are saying here is going to be changed by PEG's retcon of the setting history.  They are going to have the CSA ultimately lose the war in 1871.  So it seems likely that real-world history will remain the same up until 1863 when magic and monsters were unleashed on the world. So all of what you said happened in the real-world prior to 1863 is still a thing in Deadlands, even with the change to canon.  Then the Civil War rages on until 1871 in the new canon.  Presumably there will still be Blessed preachers in the south in the new canon.  Some of those preachers were likely at the very least CSA sympathizers, if not outright supporters.  Not sure how the change to the setting history changes any of that.

We're still talking about a fictional setting here.  Spells granted by the Abrahamic God, the dead rising at Gettysburg, etc.  I still have a hard time seeing how so many take offense to this portrayal.

As far as "good guys", are we sure there were no good guys in the south back in 1870?  I mean, I don't know.  It was 150 years ago and I wasn't there.  Were some of the causes championed by the south "evil"?  Sure.  But it certainly doesn't mean every person in the south was evil.  And I would hazard a guess that there were plenty of "evil" people residing in the north back in that time period as well.

And if you're playing with players who have sympathies to racist causes, that problem exists whether you are playing Deadlands or D&D.  I suspect most groups would remove those sorts from their games if made aware of it.

Deadlands is still a game, with a fictional setting.  And I would guess that most groups playing it aren't focusing on racist elements, slavery, and other offensive things.  If there are groups doing that, I would think those groups would disintegrate pretty quickly.

It is still entirely possible that Hensley and co. may pull a "Civil War wasn't about slavery" card, but I think that'd be a pretty big flub on account that he indicated being very aware of how people, African-Americans in particular, felt about said government's legacy. Given his in-depth reading on the subject manner as well as some high-profile events in recent years has more or less brought the nation's modus operandi to the public consciousness.

As for good guys in the Confederacy...The Free State of Jones was formed of people in Mississippi who fought against the Confederacy. And there were a lot of southern Appalachian hillbillies who resented the Planter Class and signed on with the Union. And while they may not exactly be heroic depending upon what they did after their decision, there were quite a few deserters who realized that they were fighting in the interests of the rich slave-holding elites rather than any noble ideal.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1104720Damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Which is why I'd prefer they stuck to their guns, so to speak. Because chasing inclusivity and psychological comfort means they will never be done changing the game to appease everyone, and wind up just pissing everyone off in the end.

The official Savage Worlds Facebook group has reacted in overwhelmingly positive numbers to this decision, with only a precious few disagreeing. Overall it's been a net gain so far.

Quote from: Libertad;1104718Secondly, systemic racism still does exist in Deadlands, and not just against black people. The US and Confederate governments were engaged in long bloody wars with the Native American nations, often casting them as savages. Chinese immigrants were segregated into their own towns, and one of the immigrant factions encourages assimilation into white society as a means of social mobility even in the current year of the supposedly 'post-racial' setting. There are a few non-villainous NPCs in the various mega-adventures who have bigoted attitudes towards whites, Natives, and Chinese, while the Last Sons in particular dispenses with the post-racial attitude to play up resentments between white settlers and the Sioux/Cheyenne. There's even a Masonic lodge in one of the sidequests which is heavily implied to be a White's Only establishment. In Grim Prairie Trails, a pseudo-Monster Manual for Deadlands, has a subplot where one of the big rail companies is hiring a bounty hunter to scalp Apaches for money given that said tribe is regularly attacking their rail lines, while the Union in Nevada is using experimental jet packs to indiscriminately slaughter Apache villages, civilians included.

Yes, terrible people do terrible things to other people.  Sadly this has happened throughout history, not just in this country and not just in the 1800's.  Again, this is still just a game though.  I would assume that most games have the PC's portraying heroes, not those involved in indiscriminate killing of entire ethnic groups, or enslaving others or segregating people into towns based on their skin color.  Most gaming groups are playing heroes fighting monsters and evil.  Those Apache-killing jet-pack using Union soldiers?  Sounds like a possible adventure hook to me.  Help an Apache village fend off these dudes trying to wipe out the village.

Every roleplaying game has conflicts like this, has terrible villains doing terrible things, has entire racial groups that dislike or outright hate other groups.  Old-school AD&D had this built in, various racial animosities.  Star Wars has already been mentioned in this thread as well.  I'm not sure how Deadlands having evil characters who are clearly racist is offensive.  Those perpetrating this stuff are generally villains in the setting.

Quote from: Toric;1104724Yes, terrible people do terrible things to other people.  Sadly this has happened throughout history, not just in this country and not just in the 1800's.  Again, this is still just a game though.  I would assume that most games have the PC's portraying heroes, not those involved in indiscriminate killing of entire ethnic groups, or enslaving others or segregating people into towns based on their skin color.  Most gaming groups are playing heroes fighting monsters and evil.  Those Apache-killing jet-pack using Union soldiers?  Sounds like a possible adventure hook to me.  Help an Apache village fend off these dudes trying to wipe out the village.

Every roleplaying game has conflicts like this, has terrible villains doing terrible things, has entire racial groups that dislike or outright hate other groups.  Old-school AD&D had this built in, various racial animosities.  Star Wars has already been mentioned in this thread as well.  I'm not sure how Deadlands having evil characters who are clearly racist is offensive.  Those perpetrating this stuff are generally villains in the setting.

I don't think we're in disagreement on the use of racism as an antagonistic force in games. My point in regards to this was that Pinnacle's initial desire for a "racism-free setting" was undermined by its own world-building. And specifically in regards to the Confederacy ended up parroting real-world racist groups in trying to be "not-racist," which in turn was what many people took offense towards and for justified reasons.

Quote from: Libertad;1104723It is still entirely possible that Hensley and co. may pull a "Civil War wasn't about slavery" card, but I think that'd be a pretty big flub on account that he indicated being very aware of how people, African-Americans in particular, felt about said government's legacy. Given his in-depth reading on the subject manner as well as some high-profile events in recent years has more or less brought the nation's modus operandi to the public consciousness.

As for good guys in the Confederacy...The Free State of Jones was formed of people in Mississippi who fought against the Confederacy. And there were a lot of southern Appalachian hillbillies who resented the Planter Class and signed on with the Union. And while they may not exactly be heroic depending upon what they did after their decision, there were quite a few deserters who realized that they were fighting in the interests of the rich slave-holding elites rather than any noble ideal.

Exactly.  So we can agree that a player could play a "good guy" from the south.  Obviously there are plenty of cases of those who disagreed with the Confederate cause.  And this problem isn't unique to Deadlands.  Anyone playing an old west rpg, Boot Hill, Coyote Trail, Aces & Eights, etc. would potentially be running into this problem.

Quote from: Libertad;1104725I don't think we're in disagreement on the use of racism as an antagonistic force in games. My point in regards to this was that Pinnacle's initial desire for a "racism-free setting" was undermined by its own world-building. And specifically in regards to the Confederacy ended up parroting real-world racist groups in trying to be "not-racist," which in turn was what many people took offense towards and for justified reasons.

You can never be woke enough, why bother trying? Now that they bent the knee on this they'll keep finding "reasons" to be fake offended in behalf of someone else.

Quote from: Libertad;1104718Regardless of their reasoning at the time, this ignored the fact that a lot of people are distinctly uncomfortable with this as it lines up with literal Lost Cause mythos which is propagated by racist groups and like Shane most recently said goes against their desire for being inclusive to many players.

So how many of these offended Players are going to now rush to play Deadlands because of the retcon? How many of those offended Players were paying customers to begin with?

Quote from: Libertad;1104725I don't think we're in disagreement on the use of racism as an antagonistic force in games. My point in regards to this was that Pinnacle's initial desire for a "racism-free setting" was undermined by its own world-building. And specifically in regards to the Confederacy ended up parroting real-world racist groups in trying to be "not-racist," which in turn was what many people took offense towards and for justified reasons.

I never took it as parroting real-world racist groups, but maybe I didn't think about it hard enough to draw that conclusion.  I still admit surprise that this many people took offense to the fictional Deadlands history.

That said, I still don't see how Pinnacle's retcon of Deadlands history is going to change any of this.  If the south loses in 1871, the only thing that changes is that the CSA isn't a power.  There will still be potential racism in anyone hailing from the south (and the north), still be evil people doing evil things.  And of course terrible people doing terrible things to others outside of the CSA as well.  To me, that was always fodder for drama and adventures for the PC's to help those in need.

But I'm not the target audience of this new edition of Deadlands with changed history.  I will continue to play the original version and will continue to run games that feature heroes fighting evil men and monsters against the backdrop of the provided setting.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1104728You can never be woke enough, why bother trying? Now that they bent the knee on this they'll keep finding "reasons" to be fake offended in behalf of someone else.

Quote from: jeff37923;1104729So how many of these offended Players are going to now rush to play Deadlands because of the retcon? How many of those offended Players were paying customers to begin with?

Because pro-Confederate sympathies piss off political centrists in addition to the mainstream left and far-left, especially outside of the South. Deadlands' whitewashed Confederacy has been the greatest hurdle in new players in trying said setting, and it's not an understatement to say that it's the issue gamers by and large have in regards to Deadlands. More so than its handling of many other issues, in part because the Lost Cause looms largest in the minds of many Americans.

We may never truly know due to the confidentiality of sales figures, but on anecdotal evidence I've seen people reluctant to try Deadlands before now much more interested in the setting due to this change.

Quote from: Manic Modron;1104712The Union fought to prevent secession.  The Confederacy seceeded to preserve their ability to own black people. See the Cornerstone speech, articles of secession, An Address to the Citizens of Alabama on the Constitution and Laws of the Confederate States of America, and the Constitution of the Confederacy.

It was actually pretty crazy for the south to secede at all, as slavery would not have been abolished by the election of Lincoln.
It was insane to believe they could win a war with the north.
The Dredd Scott decision had ensured that owning slaves was a right guaranteed by the Constitution.
It would have taken a Constitutional amendment to abolish slavery (or for each State to abolished it in turn).
Many scholars believe that slavery as an institution would have been voluntarily abolished entirely by the States by around 1880 at the latest.

Quote from: jeff37923;1104729So how many of these offended Players are going to now rush to play Deadlands because of the retcon? How many of those offended Players were paying customers to begin with?

Probably close to zero.  It sounds like most of the people who are happy with this upcoming retcon were already playing Deadlands.

Quote from: DocJones;1104735It was actually pretty crazy for the south to secede at all, as slavery would not have been abolished by the election of Lincoln.
It was insane to believe they could win a war with the north.
The Dredd Scott decision had ensured that owning slaves was a right guaranteed by the Constitution.
It would have taken a Constitutional amendment to abolish slavery (or for each State to abolished it in turn).
Many scholars believe that slavery as an institution would have been voluntarily abolished entirely by the States by around 1880 at the latest.

Expanding slavery into the territories was a big issue for the South, which they were concerned about even if slavery was preserved in the existing slave states. They wanted to enter new markets so that they could get even richer. Although it was a political pipe dream, the Confederacy had plans to form a "Tropical Empire" in Latin America (https://mentalfloss.com/article/20360/confederacys-plan-conquer-latin-america) of new slave states should they have successfully seceded.

Quote from: Libertad;1104734Because pro-Confederate sympathies piss off political centrists in addition to the mainstream left and far-left, especially outside of the South. Deadlands' whitewashed Confederacy has been the greatest hurdle in new players in trying said setting, and it's not an understatement to say that it's the issue gamers by and large have in regards to Deadlands. More so than its handling of many other issues, in part because the Lost Cause looms largest in the minds of many Americans.

We may never truly know due to the confidentiality of sales figures, but on anecdotal evidence I've seen people reluctant to try Deadlands before now much more interested in the setting due to this change.

Without even really knowing how the so-called change is going to ultimately manifest?  As I have said numerous times already, I don't see how this change is going to make the game "more inclusive" or eliminate racism.  You yourself mentioned earlier that there are Chinese immigrants segregated into their own towns, Apaches slaughtered, mega-villains with bigoted attitudes, etc.  Is this retcon going to remove all of that?  Seems to me that would neuter the setting, making it free of conflict, aside from just simple monster-bashing.  Still can't believe this is such an issue for people.  Deadlands has always seemed to have over-the-top villains to me, almost caricatures of evil, to be taken on by the player characters.

There's a difference between including racist content as a feature of the world vs. repeating real-world racist propaganda as an objective fact within a world.

And like I said in an earlier post, it'd be pretty foolish to pull a "well actually the Confederacy was right and noble all along" card given the statements by Shane Lacy Hensley about the discomforts many gamers had with it. So he is at the very least aware of Neo-Confederate rhetoric and how it harmed his game line. In the end, time will tell, but if that's the plan then the Facebook update was much ado about nothing.

Quote from: Libertad;1104741There's a difference between including racist content as a feature of the world vs. repeating real-world racist propaganda as an objective fact within a world.

And like I said in an earlier post, it'd be pretty foolish to pull a "well actually the Confederacy was right and noble all along" card given the statements by Shane Lacy Hensley about the discomforts many gamers had with it. So he is at the very least aware of Neo-Confederate rhetoric and how it harmed his game line. In the end, time will tell, but if that's the plan then the Facebook update was much ado about nothing.

So the problem people have with the game is that the south was somehow portrayed as noble and good and abolished slavery themselves eventually?  So when the retcon happens, they will be happy returning to the CSA being defeated (although later than in the real-world) and just still bigots and racists that still wish they had slaves?  The problem isn't the portrayal of racism, but the fact that the CSA came to their senses and abolished slavery themselves in the original fiction?

Even in the original alternate history of the game, there had to still be plenty of southerners who would have disagreed to giving up slavery after their government abolished it.  So still plenty of evil people to contend with.  In the retcon, it is going to go back closer to historical real-world history where the south is defeated.  But of course there will still be plenty of southerners who are unhappy with how things have turned out, that slavery was abolished, etc.  Still plenty of evil people to contend with in this case as well.

I guess I fail to see how there is much difference in either option.  There will still be those offended by the racism either way it would seem.  To me, terrible people doing terrible things are fodder for the PC's to smack around in the game.  My players, when presented with the alternate history, would take it in stride.  It's fiction and does nothing to change real-world history.  Maybe it comes down to how individual GM's run their games?  I dunno, but I'll stop beating a dead horse as I clearly don't get how this is a thing.

Quote from: Libertad;1104734Because pro-Confederate sympathies piss off political centrists in addition to the mainstream left and far-left, especially outside of the South. Deadlands' whitewashed Confederacy has been the greatest hurdle in new players in trying said setting, and it's not an understatement to say that it's the issue gamers by and large have in regards to Deadlands. More so than its handling of many other issues, in part because the Lost Cause looms largest in the minds of many Americans.

We may never truly know due to the confidentiality of sales figures, but on anecdotal evidence I've seen people reluctant to try Deadlands before now much more interested in the setting due to this change.

So I have to take your word for it? Sorry I don't operate like that, So far in this same thread there are people who play/played Deadlands and disagree with you, so in my eyes your argument is the Phantom audience argument, done to death with Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, and comics. Said audience remains a phantom, a figment of the imagination of the fauxtrage merchants.

Don't get me wrong, I don't give a rats ass about Deadlands, never played it, it's the censorious twats gaining terrain that irks me.

And, my experience leads me to believe said phantom audience will fail to materialize this time too.

Quote from: Toric;1104743So the problem people have with the game is that the south was somehow portrayed as noble and good and abolished slavery themselves eventually?  So when the retcon happens, they will be happy returning to the CSA being defeated (although later than in the real-world) and just still bigots and racists that still wish they had slaves?  The problem isn't the portrayal of racism, but the fact that the CSA came to their senses and abolished slavery themselves in the original fiction?

Even in the original alternate history of the game, there had to still be plenty of southerners who would have disagreed to giving up slavery after their government abolished it.  So still plenty of evil people to contend with.  In the retcon, it is going to go back closer to historical real-world history where the south is defeated.  But of course there will still be plenty of southerners who are unhappy with how things have turned out, that slavery was abolished, etc.  Still plenty of evil people to contend with in this case as well.

I guess I fail to see how there is much difference in either option.  There will still be those offended by the racism either way it would seem.  To me, terrible people doing terrible things are fodder for the PC's to smack around in the game.  But I'll stop beating a dead horse as I clearly don't get how this is a thing.

Don't worry, they'll go to complaining about the blacks not being portrayed as marysues/martystues, perfect in every sense and ever present in all halls of power, then not enough latinos, asians, LGBTQWERTY, etc.

There's a reason you never bend the knee to the SocJusCult

Quote from: Libertad;1104737Expanding slavery into the territories was a big issue for the South, which they were concerned about even if slavery was preserved in the existing slave states. They wanted to enter new markets so that they could get even richer. Although it was a political pipe dream, the Confederacy had plans to form a "Tropical Empire" in Latin America (https://mentalfloss.com/article/20360/confederacys-plan-conquer-latin-america) of new slave states should they have successfully seceded.

This is very interesting considering what happened in 1898.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War

Quote from: RandyB;1104597Then why not do something radical and have the CSA win the war? Surely a historian with those credentials understands that the CSA would leave the USA to govern itself while the CSA did the same.

That would require balls.

The CSA winning its freedom and pushing to create further slave states in the Caribbean and into Mexico would have turned the CSA into a very dangerous and vital force in the setting. If the CSA is victorious, you now have a dangerous mortal enemy in the setting. As originally written, the CSA was rather dull and the retcon will be PC nonsense.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1104614Fuck him and fuck his game.

Exactly. This is nothing but Shane kneeling to PC bullshit. His "explanation" was so laughable. His dickless "I changes it cuz I owns it" makes it even more obvious that Pinnacle is running scared thanks to SJW screeching.

Of course, you can never kneel deep enough to appease SJWs, but if you kneel to them once, the screech mob knows you're an easy target for future harassment and demands.

Dance Shane dance! Let's see what you gotta "fix" next to keep the freaks appeased!

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104683I'm unsure how any attempt to create an even semi-historical game setting is going to survive this kind of retroactive Puritanism, to be honest.

Over at Boardgame Geek, there was a thread a few months ago where someone mused that game designers would stay away from making historical or faux-historical games in the future because of the culture of PC bullshit. Of course, the screech mob quickly began screeching...thus proving the point.  

Quote from: Antiquation!;1104686Protect your ass and ride out the wave.

LOL. The last will and testament of a plate of mutton chops.

Make sure to slather yourself in mint sauce.

Quote from: Toric;1104743Even in the original alternate history of the game, there had to still be plenty of southerners who would have disagreed to giving up slavery after their government abolished it.  So still plenty of evil people to contend with.  In the retcon, it is going to go back closer to historical real-world history where the south is defeated.  But of course there will still be plenty of southerners who are unhappy with how things have turned out, that slavery was abolished, etc.  Still plenty of evil people to contend with in this case as well.

I've got to assume that slavery is alive and well in both the old and new versions of Deadlands, since most of the tribes of the Sioux Nations follow the "old ways".

Quote from: Toric;1104740As I have said numerous times already, I don't see how this change is going to make the game "more inclusive" or eliminate racism.  You yourself mentioned earlier that there are Chinese immigrants segregated into their own towns, Apaches slaughtered, mega-villains with bigoted attitudes, etc.  Is this retcon going to remove all of that?

For myself, I didn't take the intent of the statement to be to 'eliminate racism' from the setting... only the a-historical bits that align with actual real-world racist apologetics... namely that the actions of the CSA weren't really about slavery.
I don't eschew prejudice from games I run, it's a fact of life that people are generally prejudiced toward strangers and people who are 'different'. A game without such elements would be waaay to Disney for my tastes.
I'm not easily offended and I wasn't by Deadlands either... but I thought it was a stupid fence position to take and it DID work against my liking the game (along with other stuff... like being too gonzo).
The CSA were and remain the bad guys in that war and to paint them as otherwise just struck me as lame. Not that I think there weren't good people there, even well-meaning slave-holders who didn't know anything different. I'd have no problem with a 'good' PC from the CSA in a game... or a reformed one... but I'd still prefer to keep the general portrait of that faction as rebel slavers.
Just as an aside: If I were playing in a game set in ancient Rome I'd expect some PCs might obtain slaves... and I'd argue against anyone demanding we expurgate that element from the setting.

Who gives a shit what the developer does with the fluff?

Quote from: cranebump;1104759Who gives a shit what the developer does with the fluff?

Seems like a lot of folks on this site like to bag on Blue Rose... is that just because of the mechanics?

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104598People who don't find the Confederacy an enjoyable element to include in their own games have always been free to do that. People who object to the basic element of the Confederacy not yet being defeated in the Deadlands setting strike me as, by definition, being the people who weren't playing the game to begin with, so the contention that it's "getting in the way of their enjoyment" seems like a category error.

Nope, we were always playing the game, just we adjusted it to play in the style of The Outlaw Josey Wales rather than the Lost Cause Wankmob that the game accrued over the years like dogshit on a shoe.

Barry

Quote from: Spinachcat;1104752Of course, you can never kneel deep enough to appease SJWs, but if you kneel to them once, the screech mob knows you're an easy target for future harassment and demands.

Dance Shane dance! Let's see what you gotta "fix" next to keep the freaks appeased!

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, this part is turning out to be true. Already I'm seeing folks at TBP demanding genuflection and apologies from Shane regarding how he even deigned to think how the CSA could survive the Civil War. I'm open to this change. I never thought it made sense that somehow the South would speed ahead over 100 years in terms of race relations. He'd have been better off explaining that he was making the change because upon further reflection the original idea of the CSA in Deadlands didn't make much sense, and he has interesting ideas on how to introduce Arthurian legend. Unfortunately some at TBP seem to be smelling blood, and a "step in the right direction" is no longer enough, but apologies and struggle sessions will be in order.

Quote from: wmarshal;1104766Sadly, but not unexpectedly, this part is turning out to be true. Already I'm seeing folks at TBP demanding genuflection and apologies from Shane regarding how he even deigned to think how the CSA could survive the Civil War. I'm open to this change. I never thought it made sense that somehow the South would speed ahead over 100 years in terms of race relations. He'd have been better off explaining that he was making the change because upon further reflection the original idea of the CSA in Deadlands didn't make much sense, and he has interesting ideas on how to introduce Arthurian legend. Unfortunately some at TBP seem to be smelling blood, and a "step in the right direction" is no longer enough, but apologies and struggle sessions will be in order.

Never, ever bend the knee or apologize to the socjus cult. Only one answer will get them off your back "Go fuck yourself asshole!"

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104750This is very interesting considering what happened in 1898.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War

What specifically, beyond that there were at times a real potential for the US to spread its borders south, rather than simply its influence? The 1846 war with Mexico raised similar concerns over slavery in the newly gained territories and allegedly played a part in where the new borders were drawn.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1104770Never, ever bend the knee or apologize to the socjus cult. Only one answer will get them off your back "Go fuck yourself asshole!"

They're probably saying the same thing about you. Meanwhile, those of us in the middle, who are tired of both your bitching would like you all to go to an island somewhere and just tongue kiss and get it over with.

Quote from: cranebump;1104772They're probably saying the same thing about you. Meanwhile, those of us in the middle, who are tired of both your bitching would like you all to go to an island somewhere and just tongue kiss and get it over with.

Classic response from someone who really isn't "in the middle"...

Quote from: jhkimRather, it was the opposite that the fictional CSA was too nice. By having the fictional CSA abolish slavery on their own, and overlooking other prejudices, the original Deadlands seemed to be whitewashing historical reality.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104704I would have more sympathy for this kind of criticism if it wasn't so often used as one fork of a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose kafkatrap. Write out a controversial historical reality in one's setting in an effort to free the game from that baggage, you're accused of whitewashing history. Leave it in for the sake of creating dramatic conflicts for your PCs, you're accused of creating a hostile gaming environment for players assumed to identify with the situational underdogs. Ya cain't win.

Generally speaking, sure, you can never please everyone. Conservative players might offended by approaches that please liberal players, and vice-versa.

However, I think there are plenty of ways to support playing black characters in the old west without editing out the existence of historical racism. The main thing is to think about supporting non-white characters and build them into your approach, rather than having them be a sidebar or afterthought. Historical games like Harlem Unbound have been praised for highlighting play of black characters, while also including anti-black racism in the setting.

Many years ago, I played a black cowboy loosely based on Nathan Love in the GURPS Old West game. In GURPS, this is inherently balanced because I got to take the prejudice as Disadvantages -- so I had fewer other sorts of disadvantages than other PCs. I thought it was handled fine. Earlier this year, I played in an Old West superheroes game where one of the PCs was a Captain America analog who was black, who became superpowered from mostly-lethal experiments used on slaves in the South. He faced prejudice, but he had powers enough to fight against it, and the support of the others - so the struggle against the system was one of the themes of that game.

Having the CSA makes for fine drama -- but it seems to me that the drama depends on keeping the racism, not editing it out.

Quote from: Toric;1104707I haven't touched Classic Deadlands in many years, probably since the early 2000's, maybe 2001 or 2002.  So it's been 17+ years since I've run it or played it.  I DID run a little Reloaded more recently but not for any length of time.  I don't recall ever having an issue at the table regarding the portrayal of the CSA.  We probably had some players who played characters from the CSA but I don't believe any of them were portraying their characters as flagrant racists.

This is interesting, and to me it speaks directly to the issue. Can you remember anything about what CSA characters were like? Were they counter-rebelling against the CSA, like in the Free State of Jones?

For example, I had a character once who was a Nazi, but he was a disloyal Nazi officer who was working against the system from within. (This was in an Amber Diceless campaign, so the focus soon shifted beyond Earth into the wider magical reality.) I would find it really weird to play in a game where there were Nazis, but they weren't racist.

I own every edition of Deadlands, every supplement, every pdf, to Hell on Earth, and Lost Colony.

I've been running Deadlands with the Confederacy having long been defeated since about 2004 or so, when it came to Savage worlds. Mainly, because the Confederacy having been alive and kicking made telling classic Western stories far to difficult, and involved having to suspend a lot of disbelief to make it work.

Tombstone is my favorite Western movie, and it just doesn't work in Deadlands with the Confederacy still around. It doesn't make sense for the Earps to move from the Union, to the Confederacy and become a law men, while an active war is going on. Nor becoming friends with Doc Holiday sometime in the past, while their two countries were mutually at war with one another.

Furthermore, every story that could be told in the Original Deadlands setting has been done. The last 4 plot point campaigns were all about taking down the number 1 servitors of the Reckoners and more or less saving the West. There was nowhere else to go with the setting. This reboot offers new possibilities and new story potential.

Overall I'm looking forward to the new edition.

Quote from: cranebump;1104772They're probably saying the same thing about you. Meanwhile, those of us in the middle, who are tired of both your bitching would like you all to go to an island somewhere and just tongue kiss and get it over with.

Quote from: Brad;1104773Classic response from someone who really isn't "in the middle"...

OK, now I'm getting all hot and bothered thinking about tongue-kissing Brad. I'll be "in the middle" for you, honey!  :D

Quote from: wmarshal;1104766Sadly, but not unexpectedly, this part is turning out to be true. Already I'm seeing folks at TBP demanding genuflection and apologies from Shane regarding how he even deigned to think how the CSA could survive the Civil War. I'm open to this change. I never thought it made sense that somehow the South would speed ahead over 100 years in terms of race relations. He'd have been better off explaining that he was making the change because upon further reflection the original idea of the CSA in Deadlands didn't make much sense, and he has interesting ideas on how to introduce Arthurian legend. Unfortunately some at TBP seem to be smelling blood, and a "step in the right direction" is no longer enough, but apologies and struggle sessions will be in order.

....

[/shocked]

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1104777....

[/shocked]

The thread wasn't in Tangency so I had hope. Stupid me.

QuoteGeekyBugle
Who the fuck cares? If it offends you, or makes you uncomfortable the solution is easy, do not buy the fucking thing or play it.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1104660I really do wish more people followed this advice.

Problem is there are A-LOT of nuts out there who bitch incessantly about games they have not and WILL NOT ever buy. And they DO NOT CARE if you change it to what they demand.

Quote from: tenbones;1104705Isn't that what jhkim just did? Isn't that why this whole thing happened? Isn't that exactly the reason why it's being changed?

In general, yes; Mr. Kim himself I don't think did that. Indicating that one understands how an accusation can be made doesn't amount to making it oneself.

Quote from: Simlasa;1104761Seems like a lot of folks on this site like to bag on Blue Rose... is that just because of the mechanics?

Blue Rose has become emblematic of a particular, rather advocacy-dense approach to gaming and storytelling which a lot of people on this site don't share, for various reasons. In itself it's a workable version of the d20 mechanics.

Hensley's reason for the original version of the CSA may have been to not deal with slavery.  However, the in-game rationale was always sound from a position of cold, calculated realpolitik.

The goal was...drag out the Civil War into a Cold War for decades.
To do that...the South needed to not lose.
To not lose, the South...1. Needed Britain and France fully on board.
To not lose, the South...2. Needed manpower invested in the gov't.
To get Britain and France on board...they got rid of slavery.
To get manpower invested in the gov't...they freed the slaves.

As a result, the Cold Civil War gripped the globe almost a century earlier than in our world, technological weaponry and Ghost Rock weaponry increased.  As a result, WWI was darker and more violent, as was WWII, Vietnam and all other historical wars, including the paranoia and fear.  When WWIII hit, it was with Ghost Rock Nuclear bombs that began the Reckoning.  Mission Accomplished.

You can argue whether or not the rationale makes sense.  What you can't argue is that they didn't put a lot of thought into it.

Now, in the retconned version, the North and South are one USA...but they still each have their own secret X-files intelligence agency?  Who's running Fort 51 and Roswell?  Are they taking a page from Delta Green with competing intergovernment agencies?

If so, what's the agenda of the Southern version?  What's the point of getting rid of the CSA if there is still a secret CSA behind the scenes fighting the North from within the USA?

Quote from: Orphan81;1104775I own every edition of Deadlands, every supplement, every pdf, to Hell on Earth, and Lost Colony.

I've been running Deadlands with the Confederacy having long been defeated since about 2004 or so, when it came to Savage worlds. Mainly, because the Confederacy having been alive and kicking made telling classic Western stories far to difficult, and involved having to suspend a lot of disbelief to make it work.

Tombstone is my favorite Western movie, and it just doesn't work in Deadlands with the Confederacy still around. It doesn't make sense for the Earps to move from the Union, to the Confederacy and become a law men, while an active war is going on. Nor becoming friends with Doc Holiday sometime in the past, while their two countries were mutually at war with one another.

Furthermore, every story that could be told in the Original Deadlands setting has been done. The last 4 plot point campaigns were all about taking down the number 1 servitors of the Reckoners and more or less saving the West. There was nowhere else to go with the setting. This reboot offers new possibilities and new story potential.

Overall I'm looking forward to the new edition.

I am going to use this to further reinforce my observation bias that Deadlands fans do not really have an issue with this change.

I like to think that Shane himself no longer liked the CSA in his setting so he decided to remove them. I'm guessing Dark Ages is fleshing out enough lore that the CSA is no longer needed to fill out a conflict vacuum.

Quote from: jhkim;1104774Generally speaking, sure, you can never please everyone. Conservative players might offended by approaches that please liberal players, and vice-versa. However, I think there are plenty of ways to support playing black characters in the old west without editing out the existence of historical racism.

I agree completely; you have a very reasonable take on the subject. To depict a situation of prejudice is not to endorse the viewpoint of the prejudiced characters.

Unfortunately that style of take is not what gets trotted out. It's not "conservatives preferring accuracy" vs. "liberals preferring erasure"; it's the fact that it doesn't matter what you do, there'll be some faction of SJ advocate willing to drag you over the coals for it if they can figure out a way how. This is what I meant by the kafkatrap.

Quote from: Libertad;1104718The Deadlands Player's Guide as well as the Back East books encourage and claim that racism is the product of "individual villains" rather than organizations, governments, and institutions.

Actually true too. To a point. A person can own a slave and not be racist at all. So a government, organization, or institution can be free of racism.

The problem is when the "individual villains" gain some control or say over part or all of an organization that you get things going to hell. And do not think for one second that this is limited to just slavery. There are modern factories whos owners look down on the workers no differently than slaves and some even consider the worker a... parasite. No. I am not joking.

And lets face it. ANY organization is at risk of being co-opted. And being co-opted does not necessarily make the organization forever "evil". You just have to surgically remove the cancer festering in the body. Which is sadly usually easier said than done.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1104752Of course, you can never kneel deep enough to appease SJWs, but if you kneel to them once, the screech mob knows you're an easy target for future harassment and demands.

Dance Shane dance! Let's see what you gotta "fix" next to keep the freaks appeased!

Quote from: wmarshal;1104766Sadly, but not unexpectedly, this part is turning out to be true. Already I'm seeing folks at TBP demanding genuflection and apologies from Shane regarding how he even deigned to think how the CSA could survive the Civil War. I'm open to this change. I never thought it made sense that somehow the South would speed ahead over 100 years in terms of race relations. He'd have been better off explaining that he was making the change because upon further reflection the original idea of the CSA in Deadlands didn't make much sense, and he has interesting ideas on how to introduce Arthurian legend. Unfortunately some at TBP seem to be smelling blood, and a "step in the right direction" is no longer enough, but apologies and struggle sessions will be in order.

He's claiming those people who bashed him over the CSA will continue to do so, it appears he's right.
He said a ton would accuse him of pandering, it appears he's right. (Or course his explanation of the change didn't help.)

No matter what he does, people are going to shit all over him...but I'm betting most of those who are aren't big Deadlands peeps.

I have no idea what is happening in Dark Ages and what the fuck the Morgana Effect is, but apparently it's something that is compelling enough to reboot the whole damn thing (which would be a good idea anyway since everything's practically been done. Did anyone think he was going to get away with Deadlands WWI and WWII anyway?)

Going back to 400 or so, Dark Age Arthur and rebooting from there lets him avoid a huge swath of historical landmines and rewrite whatever he feels like.

Quote from: cranebump;1104772They're probably saying the same thing about you. Meanwhile, those of us in the middle, who are tired of both your bitching would like you all to go to an island somewhere and just tongue kiss and get it over with.

Sorry happily married for over 20 years, not gonna break my votes of fidelity over some "middle ground" guy and much less with some dangerhair or her soyboys.

The really funny thing Is that I'm a classical liberal, so I'm really in the middle, just not willing to bury my head in the sand while they fuck over the world. Just remeber my words: "You'll be made to care"

I just wanted to play my games and read my comics/books.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1104788He's claiming those people who bashed him over the CSA will continue to do so, it appears he's right.
He said a ton would accuse him of pandering, it appears he's right. (Or course his explanation of the change didn't help.)

Its called pre-empting. Its a business tactic. "Hey customers! Im going to make these major changes in the setting of this long running product. See there were people complaining before. And others will complain now that we are making these changes to appease those complaints! Just ignore those creeps that were playing the game WRONG! and buy our product!"

Quote from: Rhedyn;1104784I am going to use this to further reinforce my observation bias that Deadlands fans do not really have an issue with this change.

I like to think that Shane himself no longer liked the CSA in his setting so he decided to remove them. I'm guessing Dark Ages is fleshing out enough lore that the CSA is no longer needed to fill out a conflict vacuum.

This right here. I've seen a lot of people in this thread even claiming how horrible this change is, despite not even being Deadlands fans in the first place. Complete with the guy earlier in the thread who had no idea how magic works, but was pretty sure he did, claiming Blessed were powered by Spirits.

The fans who are upset about this are in the minority by far. The vast majority of Deadlands fans are excited about this change, and part of it is because it shakes up a setting that's been around for 25 years and was starting to get stale.

Shane Hensley is one of the best people in the RPG industry, a class act whose always welcomed everyone from all sides of the political spectrum to game at his table. This really shouldn't be a controversial change, I've seen people talking about how it "invalidates 25 years of product and history!" which is frankly ridiculous. I hate Vampire the Masquerade 5th edition and happily still run 20th anniversary. There was a portion of gamers who disliked the change from Classic to Savage Worlds and still ran Classic. Nothing is stopping people from using the previous version of Deadlands, and it's not like Pinnacle is going to stop selling those products either.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1104789I just wanted to play my games and read my comics/books.

That alone brands you as an enemy in their eyes.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1104789"You'll be made to care"

Quoted for truth.

Is it so bad that it's the retconning that offends me?  Not really a Dead Lands guy but man I hate retconning.  Couldn't they have just kept the time line and finally had the CSA lose the war?

Why are we buying Deadlands again?

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104674It's a running-gag memetic shorthand for the imagined shrieks of outrage to which most excessively SJ-conscious screeds against any particular pop-culture entertainment can be reduced.

Not sure where it started, although Gamergate is a good bet.

Ah, I see. Thanks.

Never was a fan of the system yet like Rifts liked the background. Will I purchase the new edition unsure at the moment. I wonder which faction will take over from the CSA.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1104796Why are we buying Deadlands again?

From Wikipedia:
Deadlands is a genre-mixing alternate history role-playing game which combines the Western and horror genres,[1] with some steampunk elements. The original game was written by Shane Lacy Hensley and published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group in 1996.

The eight-times Origins Award-winning setting has been converted to many other systems over the years and is available in the original Classic Rules, the revised Classic Rules, d20 System, GURPS, as well as a Savage Worlds version called Deadlands: Reloaded.


Awards
Deadlands, its supplements and spin-offs have won nine Origins Awards:

Best Role-playing Rules of 1996 for Deadlands[9]
Best Graphic Presentation of a Role-playing Game, Adventure, or Supplement of 1996 for Deadlands[9]
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures Rules of 1997 for Deadlands: the Great Rail Wars[10]
Best Roleplaying Adventure of 1997 for Independence Day[10]
Best Trading Card Game of 1998 [11]
Best Graphic Presentation of a Card Game of 1998[11]
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Figure Miniature of 1998 for Hangin' Judge[11]
Best Vehicle Miniature of 1998 for Velocipede[11]
Roleplaying Game Supplement of 2007 for Deadlands: Reloaded [12]

Quote from: jhkim;1104774This is interesting, and to me it speaks directly to the issue. Can you remember anything about what CSA characters were like? Were they counter-rebelling against the CSA, like in the Free State of Jones?

For example, I had a character once who was a Nazi, but he was a disloyal Nazi officer who was working against the system from within. (This was in an Amber Diceless campaign, so the focus soon shifted beyond Earth into the wider magical reality.) I would find it really weird to play in a game where there were Nazis, but they weren't racist.

I distinctly remember someone playing something akin to the cultured southern gentleman.  I don't believe the character had strong feelings one way or another regarding the CSA government, he just played up the dignified southern man angle.  He had gone west seeking his fortune further from the ravages and influences of two countries at war.  There was no played up racist angle.  As I recall he looked down his nose at anyone not as cultured as he was but there was nothing offensive about him.

I also believe I once had a player play a former slave.  All I recall is his character was resentful of the south in general, rightfully so despite the alternate history of a supposedly more honorable south.

Never did our games stray into objectionable territory as I recall.  We didn't dwell on the minute political details of the setting, instead focusing nearly entirely on pulpy adventure against the backdrop of the provided setting.   Bashing monsters and foiling the plots of evil men and women.

Quote from: Libertad;1104715Furthermore, the Abrahamic God exists in Deadlands and grants powers to the Blessed, one of the supernatural background options. He gave said holy powers to members of the Confederate Army's Chaplains in 1863, which was 2 years before the fictional nation counterpart seriously considered manumission of slaves. Which regardless of whether or not the author's intended it, reads as having the major force for Good in the setting be backing a system of race-based chattel slavery. Furthermore, nowhere in Back East is the term State's Rights used, meaning that the Confederacy went from fighting for an evil cause to nothing at all in 1865.

Do you really think God gives a damn about slavery? Read the Old Testament. God's chosen, the Hebrews, enslaved tons of people.

I've been a Deadlands fan for a long time. The lack of slavery in the South never really bothered me, because they were still a bunch of racist, evil twats regardless. They could have kept slavery, and I still wouldn't care.

Because it's not real. And I'm an adult.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1104796Why are we buying Deadlands again?

I bought the original, and liked it so much I bought it again 2nd hand after losing my originals. It's a neat game and a neat setting.
Wasn't interested in the other games in the line. I've got other games if I want to run post-apoc or noir or whatever.

Hensley was right about one thing. Deadlands is his baby.

Since abortion is legal, it's his right to kill it.

Quote from: Orphan81;1104791The fans who are upset about this are in the minority by far. The vast majority of Deadlands fans are excited about this change, and part of it is because it shakes up a setting that's been around for 25 years and was starting to get stale.

Not sure I totally agree.  Certainly the fans who love this change amongst online communities are in the majority online.  But fans of RPGs that participate and post in online communities are in the minority of the total number of people who play RPGs.  I suspect that many, many fans of Deadlands are like I was 24 hours ago, not aware that this was a big deal to a certain group of players and are happily playing their games without a ton of knowledge of this subset of players who consider the alternate CSA history objectionable.  Probably many who play Deadlands, whether Classic or Reloaded, have had experiences similar to mine, where this has never been the focus of their campaigns and thus has never been an issue.

Quote from: Omega;1104779Problem is there are A-LOT of nuts out there who bitch incessantly about games they have not and WILL NOT ever buy. And they DO NOT CARE if you change it to what they demand.

I just don't get why people are so interested in telling others how to live their lives. I'm not a huge fan of D&D, and while I may try to recruit players to another game, I don't try to make the game go away just because it doesn't trip all of my hammers.


I know it is just how people are, and why you see bumper stickers that say Friend's don't let friends drive Fords (Chevrolets) or why people worry about who is kissing who behind closed doors.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1104810I just don't get why people are so interested in telling others how to live their lives. I'm not a huge fan of D&D, and while I may try to recruit players to another game, I don't try to make the game go away just because it doesn't trip all of my hammers.

Roughly speaking, there are a set of people who buy into the idea that there is territory in a war of ideas. So, if other people are playing RPGs in the wrong way, then they'll try to spread their ideas and take over the hobby. From this view, the other side needs to be actively opposed, rather than tolerated.

It's roughly the same logic regardless of whether they're conservatives or liberals. The other side's ideas are poison, and can't be allowed to fester. So, rather than just positively promoting your way of play -- it's important to attack the other side and show how awful they are, rather than stick to what your side is.

They're right in some sense that people do gossip and talk about ideas and people. But mostly I feel this is bullshit. If someone's ideas are actually good, then they can promote them for themselves. They don't have to go on about how bad the other side are.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1104796Why are we buying Deadlands again?

Magic.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1104808Hensley was right about one thing. Deadlands is his baby.

Since abortion is legal, it's his right to kill it.

And ultimately, that is the thing. It is Hensley's intellectual property to do whatever with and all we can do is comment on it.

My own commentary is that I wonder if he thinks that this will increase sales or not, because I have yet to see an instance where concern trolling of a product has led to the product being changed to remove the offending bits and the resulting changes have led to higher product sales or increased profitability for the business.

I fell out of love with Deadlands almost a decade ago. It had nothing to do with what they did with the Confederacy. I'm not inclined to jump back in now, and it has nothing to do with what they are doing with the Confederacy. These days, if I want 'weird west' with Savage Worlds, I'll go totally gonzo and play Savage Rifts.

Quote from: jeff37923;1104817And ultimately, that is the thing. It is Hensley's intellectual property to do whatever with and all we can do is comment on it.

My own commentary is that I wonder if he thinks that this will increase sales or not, because I have yet to see an instance where concern trolling of a product has led to the product being changed to remove the offending bits and the resulting changes have led to higher product sales or increased profitability for the business.

I think the majority of people must buy the core books unaware of the background other than its a supernatural western setting. Up until a few months ago I myself was totally unaware of the Confederacy element in the setting. And its inclusion would not have been an issue had I bought the game way back.

Im really sick of various venues and product being changed to meet the demands of insane people who apparently cannot tell fiction from reality and think that "reading or playing thing = You WILL become that thing!" its like this recent crackheaded piece by Extra Credits on how playing on a a Nazi or terrorist side in a game will make you susceptible to and may even want to become one! No. Im no joking.

Quote from: Omega;1104820Im really sick of various venues and product being changed to meet the demands of insane people who apparently cannot tell fiction from reality and thing that "reading or playing thing = You WILL become that thing!" its like this recent crackheaded piece by Extra Credits on how playing on a a Nazi or terrorist side in a game will make you susceptible to and may even want to become one! No. Im no joking.

Eclipse Phase 1e had a PC/NPC faction called Ultimates that were all about self-perfection and being smugly superior assholes. Over the course of 1e, more materials were released and they were clearly set up to be fascist. Come 2e, and the Ultimates are not considered an appropriate PC faction. But... they put in a sidebar about a fragment of them that still aim for perfection without believing themselves to be superior and are almost a transhuman warrior monk/wandering samurai type.

This thread reminds me of the inverse one on TBP about people screaming about the CSA and how wrong it was to exist.

Y'awl don't play the game. It's not like Deadlands Classic will ever go out of print (they always print more when needed). PEG always updates settings when they revisit them. In Rippers Resurrected, using ripper-tech no longer damns you while it did in the first version. This was done so more character concepts could use ripper-tech (monster parts you rip out and put into yourself).

But yeah, all the pearl-clutching from people who will never play the game because you already have a 200 session OSR sandbox prepared are totally irrelevant. You can speculate on the wider effects of such a change, but your personal dislike of it is just virtue signaling.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104781Blue Rose has become emblematic of a particular, rather advocacy-dense approach to gaming and storytelling which a lot of people on this site don't share, for various reasons. In itself it's a workable version of the d20 mechanics.

I always liked Blue Rose. I like it more than anything else that has been released from Green Ronin before, or since. Haven't tried The Expanse yet though, really looking forward to giving it a go.

After the mythic age gave way to history, the great city of Aldis was founded. It became a center of learning and the arcane arts. Artists, crafters, scholars, diplomats, healers, and adepts of the arcane arts made their way from all across Aldea to learn and teach. Their skill and knowledge allowed the city to thrive. As its influence spread, Aldis became capitol of a mighty realm.

Six hundred years ago the Shadow Wars began. the Sorcerer Kings warred against one another for more than two hundred and fifty years , each seeking dominance, and eventually the Imperial Throne. In their quest for power they raised armies of the unliving. Using the flesh-shaping arts they produced aberrations and shadowspawn   to fill their ranks, Ogres, night people, troglodytes, and night mare creatures with no name.

I kind of like to think of it as mythic fantasy from the age of Charlemagne, with a healthy dose of Sorcerors and Wizardry thrown, in addition to the historical religion from early Europe. It's a great setting to run as an alternate Europe, where magic and enchantments twisted the fabric of reality there into Althea.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1104752LOL. The last will and testament of a plate of mutton chops.

Make sure to slather yourself in mint sauce.

To be fair, I would probably pair well with a mint sauce. :p

Quote from: jhkim;1104813Roughly speaking, there are a set of people who buy into the idea that there is territory in a war of ideas. So, if other people are playing RPGs in the wrong way, then they'll try to spread their ideas and take over the hobby. From this view, the other side needs to be actively opposed, rather than tolerated.

It's roughly the same logic regardless of whether they're conservatives or liberals. The other side's ideas are poison, and can't be allowed to fester. So, rather than just positively promoting your way of play -- it's important to attack the other side and show how awful they are, rather than stick to what your side is.

They're right in some sense that people do gossip and talk about ideas and people. But mostly I feel this is bullshit. If someone's ideas are actually good, then they can promote them for themselves. They don't have to go on about how bad the other side are.

Are you serious? The people that complain about this by far the most are the SJW's. It's their metahobby within the hobby. Deconstructing the conceits of any-and-all RPG's is a thing. Even in their own respective turf - like WoD. Watching them virtue signal non-stop about the horrors of Rape(tm) and Sexual Assault(tm) while Vampire is pretty fucking rapey and the gyrations of those internal fights... we can go down the list of popular deconstruction-isms that have emerged since this ideology took firm hold.

Mind you - none of this is true or done with the intentions as leveled by the SJW's - these are just what SJW's have argued in their faux outrage in the last few years.

D&D
Problematic appropriation of cultures (i.e. Kitchen sink analog cultures are appropriating real-world issues without addressing those cultures oppression), Orientalism (Oriental Adventures - because saying Lands to the East in Latin is racist, but saying Lands to the East in Greek is not), Representation issues of POC and Alphabet People (not enough of them), Colonial Thematic issues (Maztica), Orc are analogs to "Black people" - because of D&D's inherent roots in Tolkien (who was apparently racist), The Transgender Elf issue, Drow are Evil because they are Black which is racist, Half-Orcs/Elf as playable races endorses rape, Grotesque Misogyny in defining gender-specific stats as an example of D&D's inherent patriarchal view etc. I could go on...

World of Darkness
Vampire is a Rape Simulator, Werewolf culture is intensely Misogynist, WoD is pro-White Supremacy (Get of Fenris, Nazis, oh my!) Racism galore - Gypsy. Cultural appropriation. Transphobia - Tzimisce. Publishers of new WoD are white supremacists because . Orientalism (Kuei-Jin). Rapey Fae (Changeling: The Lost) etc. etc.

Call of Cthulhu
Racist by association (Lovecraft). Racist by setting conceit (everyone in the 20's was a raging racist). Orientalism (which is just more racism). etc.

Deadlands
Pro-Confederate States of America - because Deadlands acknowledges they exist, Whitewashing Slavery, Racism (because you can actually play someone from the South or CSA), Orientalism and Cultural Appropriation (Chinese representation in the game is caricatures), Misogyny and Patriarchy - it's the Wild West. Not enough Alphabet representation.

I could list more... but you know. And who on the other side is complaining about any of this shit being *real* or even impactful? Practically no one. What people on the other side complain about is the level of outrage levied at not just these games - but pretty much all entertainment these days being infected by these SJW asshats and their retarded ideas. I mean retarded in the exact multi-dimensional manner it can be applied - "less advanced in mental, physical, or social development than is usual for one's age. Very foolish or stupid."

Quote from: tenbones;1104847I could list more... but you know.

Some of your explanations are completely wrong, but even if you were RIGHT, that doesn't mean that there aren't things that are presented badly and could be improved.  Have you ever read an adventure and didn't have some thoughts about how it could have been improved?  What's wrong with trying to make the game better?

Quote from: Omega;1104820Im really sick of various venues and product being changed to meet the demands of insane people who apparently cannot tell fiction from reality and think that "reading or playing thing = You WILL become that thing!" its like this recent crackheaded piece by Extra Credits on how playing on a a Nazi or terrorist side in a game will make you susceptible to and may even want to become one! No. Im no joking.

I used to love Extra Credits. They had some interesting and insightful things to say about video games. Their video about Choice and Conflict (https://youtu.be/lg8fVtKyYxY) remains my favorite, as I think it applies to all games.
But Gamergate broke their brains, and now they're a bunch of ideological shills.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1104836This thread reminds me of the inverse one on TBP about people screaming about the CSA and how wrong it was to exist.

Y'awl don't play the game. It's not like Deadlands Classic will ever go out of print (they always print more when needed). PEG always updates settings when they revisit them. In Rippers Resurrected, using ripper-tech no longer damns you while it did in the first version. This was done so more character concepts could use ripper-tech (monster parts you rip out and put into yourself).

But yeah, all the pearl-clutching from people who will never play the game because you already have a 200 session OSR sandbox prepared are totally irrelevant. You can speculate on the wider effects of such a change, but your personal dislike of it is just virtue signaling.

As to this thread being the inverse of the TBP thread, nobody has caught a ban on this thread. So if by "inverse" you mean "better" then, yes, this thread is better than the one on TBP because the mods don't ban members on a weak ass technicality for interrupting their Two Minutes of Hate with a different point of view.

I don't even hate the change.  I'm more in the wait and see camp, but I'm glad this site allows push back and criticism.

Quote from: wmarshal;1104852As to this thread being the inverse of the TBP thread, nobody has caught a ban on this thread. So if by "inverse" you mean "better" then, yes, this thread is better than the one on TBP because the mods don't ban members on a weak ass technicality for interrupting their Two Minutes of Hate with a different point of view.

I don't even hate the change.  I'm more in the wait and see camp, but I'm glad this site allows push back and criticism.

The sad part is before the guards willingly handed over the keys and joined the inmates in making TBP an incredibly regressive and intolerant forum they did allow push back and criticism. Yet somehow we are the worst forum out of the two.

The biggest hypocrites though are the social chameleons who when they have a cause come here and try to get validation and support then turnaround and then attack this place when they no longer need an echo chamber and validation.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104850Some of your explanations are completely wrong

Which ones? I started watching this crap more closely in the past year and I'd say everything he points out is an accurate portrayal of how RPGs are being attacked by progressive ideology.

So, which ones?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104850What's wrong with trying to make the game better?

Nothing, as long as the people trying to make the game better have some understanding of the idea of "game" and "better".  It's a low bar, but plenty on his list are from people that failed to clear it.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104837I kind of like to think of it as mythic fantasy from the age of Charlemagne, with a healthy dose of Sorcerors and Wizardry thrown, in addition to the historical religion from early Europe. It's a great setting to run as an alternate Europe, where magic and enchantments twisted the fabric of reality there into Aldea.

That's a good take on the idea, and I have to admit I've read and enjoyed my share of the work of Mercedes Lackey (which is one of the original fiction inspirations for the game and the genre).

However, to get a sense of why the game annoys me personally to the extent that it does, I can do no better than to quote Dan Davenport's original review on the game back when it first came out:

Quote from: Dan DavenportBlue Rose is very, very much about the acceptance of alternate sexual preferences. If this were simply a side-note to the setting as a whole, it really wouldn't warrant mentioning; however, Blue Rose beats the reader over the head with its message of tolerance to the point of being cloying: a major god has a young male god as his gay lover and is the patron of gay couples, a mother in the game fiction prays that this god watch over her gay son and his lover, fully half of all Sea-Folk are gay, clothing styles are fully androgynous, and so on. Conversely, conservative religious values (represented by the Jarzoni) are objectively closed-minded and bad.

Speaking as one of those conservative religious people, I have no problem with the existence of a game that advocates LGBT values, but I resent being cast by proxy in the role of moral villain for daring to disagree with those values. Now as long as simply refusing to play the game wasn't taken in itself as an unforgiveable attack, that was nobody's problem but mine. But, as already noted in this thread, people are being made to care. The neutral space for "live and let live" is shrinking every day.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104862That's a good take on the idea, and I have to admit I've read and enjoyed my share of the work of Mercedes Lackey (which is one of the original fiction inspirations for the game and the genre).

However, to get a sense of why the game annoys me personally to the extent that it does, I can do no better than to quote Dan Davenport's original review on the game back when it first came out:

Speaking as one of those conservative religious people, I have no problem with the existence of a game that advocates LGBT values, but I resent being cast by proxy in the role of moral villain for daring to disagree with those values. Now as long as simply refusing to play the game wasn't taken in itself as an unforgiveable attack, that was nobody's problem but mine. But, as already noted in this thread, people are being made to care. The neutral space for "live and let live" is shrinking every day.

  Seconded. I was looking at Blue Rose when it came out with the expectation that I could just ignore or rework the 'problematic' parts of the setting; I do it all the time when reading or watching things like Star Trek. :) But what I saw of the setting wound up so heavy-handed in promoting its values, and in casting my own as the bad guys, that I couldn't get into it. The Kickstarter for the 2nd Edition doubled-down on this to the point that I haven't bought a Green Ronin product since, and I'd been keeping up with Mutants & Masterminds.

Quote from: jhkimRoughly speaking, there are a set of people who buy into the idea that there is territory in a war of ideas. So, if other people are playing RPGs in the wrong way, then they'll try to spread their ideas and take over the hobby. From this view, the other side needs to be actively opposed, rather than tolerated.

It's roughly the same logic regardless of whether they're conservatives or liberals. The other side's ideas are poison, and can't be allowed to fester. So, rather than just positively promoting your way of play -- it's important to attack the other side and show how awful they are, rather than stick to what your side is.

Quote from: tenbones;1104847I could list more... but you know. And who on the other side is complaining about any of this shit being *real* or even impactful? Practically no one. What people on the other side complain about is the level of outrage levied at not just these games - but pretty much all entertainment these days being infected by these SJW asshats and their retarded ideas.

On this site, I see a lot of people who seem to think that RPG publications are impactful -- at least enough to spend a while complaining about it. In just the last few weeks, we've seen complaints about gaming products like:

5E Essentials Kit -- for it's married co-kings subplot
Consent in Gaming -- for its advice on gaming
Cyberpunk Red -- for implied stuff about gender
SWORD DREAM -- for the philosophy behind whatever they produce
CoC: Berlin - The Wicked City -- about the LGBT characters and culture portrayed
Cthulhu Confidential -- for it's comments about "straight white guys"

Quote from: jhkim;1104866On this site, I see a lot of people who seem to think that RPG publications are impactful -- at least enough to spend a while complaining about it. In just the last few weeks, we've seen complaints about gaming products like:

5E Essentials Kit -- for it's married co-kings subplot
Consent in Gaming -- for its advice on gaming
Cyberpunk Red -- for implied stuff about gender
SWORD DREAM -- for the philosophy behind whatever they produce
CoC: Berlin - The Wicked City -- about the LGBT characters and culture portrayed
Cthulhu Confidential -- for it's comments about "straight white guys"

Weird.  It's almost like there's a pattern.

Quote from: jhkim;1104866On this site, I see a lot of people who seem to think that RPG publications are impactful -- at least enough to spend a while complaining about it.

It's not the publications in themselves which "have" an impact, or about which we're complaining. It's the pre-existing attitudes whose existence they confirm and reinforce -- which in themselves are less about the values they promote and uphold than about the critical breakpoint of how one should ethically address differences in such values within the community.

Put bleakly, "live and let live" only works as a way to handle disagreement as long as it isn't itself one of the things you disagree on. That condition seems to be eroding.

But this is beginning to veer outside the topic of specific game-related activity (for which I admit my share of responsibility), so I suggest we pull back to focus more on the games themselves.

Quote from: wmarshal;1104852As to this thread being the inverse of the TBP thread, nobody has caught a ban on this thread. So if by "inverse" you mean "better" then, yes, this thread is better than the one on TBP because the mods don't ban members on a weak ass technicality for interrupting their Two Minutes of Hate with a different point of view.

I don't even hate the change.  I'm more in the wait and see camp, but I'm glad this site allows push back and criticism.

Right, but the people complaining are very similar, just opposing viewpoints.

The opinion itself has never been a problem but the antics are annoying.

"Oh I'll never buy products from these SJW-apologist. I never did, but I super won't in the future!"

Is the same as:

"Oh I'll never buy products from these Southern-apologist. I never did, but I super won't in the future!"

It's virtue signalling.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1104850Some of your explanations are completely wrong, but even if you were RIGHT, that doesn't mean that there aren't things that are presented badly and could be improved.  Have you ever read an adventure and didn't have some thoughts about how it could have been improved?  What's wrong with trying to make the game better?

I'm not explaining anything. I'm telling you what I've actually seen and participated in.

You tell me how any of these things make things BETTER. To WHOM? And in what manner is this being delivered to us? Are you that ignorant and obtuse?

Quote from: jhkim;1104866On this site, I see a lot of people who seem to think that RPG publications are impactful -- at least enough to spend a while complaining about it. In just the last few weeks, we've seen complaints about gaming products like:

FUN! Let's play Context Is King!

Quote from: jhkim;11048665E Essentials Kit -- for it's married co-kings subplot

- Set in a setting where Gnomes don't have kingdoms. This isn't a kingdom. The writers either know nothing about the setting which has been fairly established in terms of norms for 30+ years- decided to shoe-horn and extreme outlier for the singular purposes of putting forth their ideological agenda for WHOM?

Quote from: jhkim;1104866Consent in Gaming -- for its advice on gaming

- Where the writers decided to put forth their ideological views on things that do not matter to anyone with a shred of common sense for the purposes of establishing "behavior standards" free of context. NO better! To insulate people from engaging with others that might have different beliefs, or opinions, FOR WHOM?

Quote from: jhkim;1104866Cyberpunk Red -- for implied stuff about gender

Where people are outraged that CPR isn't representing their enough. Despite these conceits being part of the game LITERALLY since its inception in 1991.  Fake outrage. FOR WHOM?

Quote from: jhkim;1104866SWORD DREAM -- for the philosophy behind whatever they produce

Here you have a point. Because people, now tired of the ideology of the shitheads making this game have finally are making their attempt at creating their shit-show of a product make fun of it. I'm not one of them. I say let them eat their own shit-cake. If they like it. Great. Game on.

Quote from: jhkim;1104866CoC: Berlin - The Wicked City -- about the LGBT characters and culture portrayed
Cthulhu Confidential -- for it's comments about "straight white guys"

Because the writers decided to put forth their ideological views on things that do not matter to anyone with a shred of common sense for the purposes of injecting that ideology into every gaming nook and cranny for WHOM?

Quote from: Rhedyn;1104873"Oh I'll never buy products from these SJW-apologist. I never did, but I super won't in the future!"

Did you miss the posts where people who have bought product are commenting? I, for one, did buy Deadlands. Twice. Plus sourcebooks.

I find it amusing that people pretending to care on this thread defend, passive-aggressively, the notion that these ideas injected into entertainment designed to be consumed by us implies that if you DON'T like these ideas - then you are by default presumed to be a racist/misogynist/racist/bigot/etc.

As if that is some kind of rampant consumer practice among those that actually 1) engage in this hobby 2) create content for this hobby 3) actually want to encourage people to do 1) and 2) have actually been those things to the degree that SJW's pretend.

That's a funny game to watch. But it's not fun to play.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1104885Did you miss the posts where people who have bought product are commenting? I, for one, did buy Deadlands. Twice. Plus sourcebooks.

/raises hand.

Present and accounted for. I like Blue Rose too. Does that count?

Quote from: tenbones;1104890/raises hand.

Yeah. I used to own Deadlands (forget the edition, 2nd I think). I still have my copy of GURPS Deadlands lying around somewhere too, and a couple supplements. I've toyed with the notion of running a game using GURPS 4th, but I don't know how interested any of my players would be in the setting.

As I said earlier, I'm not particularly miffed about the setting change, silly as I think it is. Like tenbones supposing I got the new edition (unlikely; not because of the setting change but a simple lack of interest) I would just alter it to taste, and frankly my GURPS Deadlands stuff isn't flying out the window or anything.

I can say with confidence I know absolutely nothing about Blue Rose and really couldn't possibly care less about that, although the complaint referenced by Stephen earlier makes it sound a little odd.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1104885Did you miss the posts where people who have bought product are commenting? I, for one, did buy Deadlands. Twice. Plus sourcebooks.

Commenting? Yes. Complaining? Rarely.

Also, buying the book isn't the same as actually playing the game. Those that buy a game and never play it are unlikely to buy a new edition anyways.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1104899Those that buy a game and never play it are unlikely to buy a new edition anyways.

I know this to be false.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1104873Right, but the people complaining are very similar, just opposing viewpoints.

The opinion itself has never been a problem but the antics are annoying.

Just stop with this BS argument. No one on this thread is saying Shane can't make the change. No one is demanding Shane change it back. The "antics" in question are nothing alike.

1) I'm not, never will say Shane can't make whatever changes he wants.
2) I'm not going to ever ask/wish Shane change it "back" - the changes he's proposing literally has very little effect to what was already established.

3) The Antics - This is the issue. While I'm totally taking Shane at his word... the perception of it, as Shane acknowledges is coming from people largely LARPing in their own misbegotten minds that anything in this setting is actually "bad" outside the context of the game and their tastes. To the point they're willing to brigade it.

And yes... this will not suffice for those people on the Left. It never suffices for reasons, like this fake outrage, has *nothing* to do with the game or the setting. That's what I wish people that created content and consumed content understood first and foremost before voting with their dollars.

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.

I always thought the Deadlands 'intolerable apologia' was that the South would abolish slavery yet keep on fighting for independence. I guess they really cared about those cotton export tariffs!

Conversely I'm fine with a war-drags-on scenario, especially with supernatural evil influence. Heck I'd even be ok with the supernatural evil influence making the CSA more Nazi-like, for those who get their history from Quentin Tarantino*. Supernatural evil influence making the South Nicer, OTOH...

*Or John Oliver.
[video=youtube;gIqxBn1oLAY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIqxBn1oLAY[/youtube]

Quote from: S'mon;1104910I always thought the Deadlands 'intolerable apologia' was that the South would abolish slavery yet keep on fighting for independence. I guess they really cared about those cotton export tariffs!

  I don't buy the abolitionism happening without serious internal disruptions throughout the Confederacy, to the point of an even further breakup (which was a danger the Confederacy faced in real-world history), but if they somehow get past that, I actually can believe they'd still maintain the struggle for independence due to a resentment of Northern attempts to forcibly keep them in the Union.

In my mind - I would have simply rationalized it to be that the South got a lot of Ghostrock, this allowed them to catch up to manufacturing power of the Union. That plus the supernatural reality made slavery non-profitable. They have goddamn steam-mechs in Deadlands. What do you need slaves for?

I'd also have taken a page from Shadowrun and created some magic-styles specific to the native African/West-Indies cultures and did something more with that to give the emancipated slaves a core "thing" to make it useful for gaming content. Much like they did with the Native American tribes.

Lots of ways to split that hair and re-create the South into something cool without sacrificing their intents.

Hank Williams Jr. sang, "if the south would've won, we'd of had it made".

"This game I bought once or never played and just let sit on my shelf and collect dust is changing! Grr those SJW's they ruined something I didn't have much interest in to begin with, but I see all potential progressive changes as bad no matter what!"

Yeah, The arguments I'm seeing against the change basically boil down to this. Either people who never played Deadlands.. or people who bought the Corebook and maybe a supplement and haven't touched it in years. I've got tons of RPG books I've bought, that I either never played, or are just collecting dust on my shelf or Drive thru rpg library. I'm seeing a lot of looking for excuses to get angry against the SJW's from people who don't even have a dog in the race.

I got banned from RPG net years ago for not touting the party line, I'm certainly not an SJW. But the complaints I'm seeing here seem to boil down to the other side equivalent of Virtue Signaling.

Quote from: S'mon;1104910I always thought the Deadlands 'intolerable apologia' was that the South would abolish slavery yet keep on fighting for independence. I guess they really cared about those cotton export tariffs!

To a certain extent the wealth of "King Cotton" was the only reason the southern states thought they could make secession viable at all, so slavery being the only way to maintain cotton production at the necessary levels, no, it seems highly unlikely they would have freely abandoned it had they managed even to hold their own against the North. There was a point near the end of the historical war where the Confederacy was considering arming their slaves to make up for their manpower losses, but I think by the time they were desperate enough to actually follow through, it wouldn't have made any difference. Conceivably, a new battlefront against a genuinely inhuman and objectively evil supernatural threat might have changed their perspective enough to do that, but such foes not existing in real life, that's never going to be more than a plausible inference.

(I do remember a quote I read, attributed to a Confederate official, which if true may explain some of the conflict. This man apparently said, during the arguments about whether slaves should be armed or not, "If slaves make good soldiers, then our entire theory of slavery is wrong." Which is a telling insight into how people who thought of themselves as decent honourable Christian gentlefolk could nonetheless countenance slavery, and why holding onto it became such a core point: it wasn't just about rejecting the supposed Federal overreach of the anti-slavery administration, but about preserving their own sense of identity, about holding onto a justification without which their culture couldn't survive either economically or psychologically. Human beings will quite frequently let themselves lose literally everything else before they will willingly admit to being, not just wrong, but in the wrong.)

Quote from: Orphan81;1104916The arguments I'm seeing against the change basically boil down to this.

I'll plead an admittedly narrow distinguo here: A criticism of the change isn't the same as an argument against it.

As a specific instance of property rebooting, I, and I suspect most of my fellow critics, freely grant the right of the designer to do what he wants with the property and freely concede that it makes no direct personal difference to most of us either way. Likewise, if Hensley's right about how little difference this will make to actual gameplay in practice, then it may be one of the few examples of managing to "Woken" a property without cutting into its bottom line. But the fundamental error in philosophy behind the change -- the idea that the right and moral thing to do with art is to continually revise it to match the pieties of the day, so as to escape condemnation -- is one that I think is still worth publicly calling out and objecting to, as it is reinforced every time another creator does this.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104918To a certain extent the wealth of "King Cotton" was the only reason the southern states thought they could make secession viable at all, so slavery being the only way to maintain cotton production at the necessary levels, no, it seems highly unlikely they would have freely abandoned it had they managed even to hold their own against the North. There was a point near the end of the historical war where the Confederacy was considering arming their slaves to make up for their manpower losses, but I think by the time they were desperate enough to actually follow through, it wouldn't have made any difference. Conceivably, a new battlefront against a genuinely inhuman and objectively evil supernatural threat might have changed their perspective enough to do that, but such foes not existing in real life, that's never going to be more than a plausible inference.

(I do remember a quote I read, attributed to a Confederate official, which if true may explain some of the conflict. This man apparently said, during the arguments about whether slaves should be armed or not, "If slaves make good soldiers, then our entire theory of slavery is wrong." Which is a telling insight into how people who thought of themselves as decent honourable Christian gentlefolk could nonetheless countenance slavery, and why holding onto it became such a core point: it wasn't just about rejecting the supposed Federal overreach of the anti-slavery administration, but about preserving their own sense of identity, about holding onto a justification without which their culture couldn't survive either economically or psychologically. Human beings will quite frequently let themselves lose literally everything else before they will willingly admit to being, not just wrong, but in the wrong.)

Good post! Yes, I have a similar perspective.

On a side note, I think a Wild West setting works best when it accords most closely to historical reality. Maybe history + magic. My objection to Deadlands' alt-history meant I never got to play the game - my friend Judith offered but I turned it down once I realised the setup. This new history sounds a bit more plausible & for me more playable.

So, er, Yaay for Social Justice?! :D

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104862But, as already noted in this thread, people are being made to care. The neutral space for "live and let live" is shrinking every day.

Not shrinking here. On WOTC they kicked me off their message boards for refusing to bow to the awokened. All they did with this for themselves by instituting a policy of repression was to lose a customer for allowing my first amendment rights to free speech be violated on their message boards. The woke crowds can't do that here. Even though they are welcome to post here as well, and participate in the discussions here, they will not be allowed or permitted to censor me. I say live and let live, and we have room for that on this message board, and that's the way it is.

...Also have to say I find your sig interesting.

"Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian. Well, in this document (His handwritten biography) he calls her a slut and says she tried to seduce him. It's completely at odds with the impression most people have of him," says the historian Laura Trombley, who this year published a book about Lyon called Mark Twain's Other Woman.

"There is a perception that Twain spent his final years basking in the adoration of fans. The autobiography will perhaps show that it wasn't such a happy time. He spent six months of the last year of his life writing a manuscript full of vitriol, saying things that he'd never said about anyone in print before. It really is 400 pages of bile."

Even before writing his biography He used to write poisonous hateful letters to celebrities, business leaders, editors of his time, and to his creditors. His wife Olivia would sneak out to the mailbox, grab the letters before the postman could take them, and destroy the letters. She successfully kept this a secret, and didn't tell anyone while she was alive.

Mark Twain's real biography
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/after-keeping-us-waiting-for-a-century-mark-twain-will-finally-reveal-all-1980695.html

Quote from: S'mon;1104921So, er, Yaay for Social Justice?! :D

Well, as the French say, even a blind pig occasionally finds an acorn. :)

The problem is, like here in Texas... there's a serious pig-problem. Not an acorn problem.

But whatever. I have my fence. The pigs can go around and destroy everyone elses property. Even though they're cute, smart and destructive. They're also tasty.

Quote from: Orphan81;1104916"This game I bought once or never played and just let sit on my shelf and collect dust is changing! Grr those SJW's they ruined something I didn't have much interest in to begin with, but I see all potential progressive changes as bad no matter what!"

Yeah, The arguments I'm seeing against the change basically boil down to this. Either people who never played Deadlands.. or people who bought the Corebook and maybe a supplement and haven't touched it in years. I've got tons of RPG books I've bought, that I either never played, or are just collecting dust on my shelf or Drive thru rpg library. I'm seeing a lot of looking for excuses to get angry against the SJW's from people who don't even have a dog in the race.

I got banned from RPG net years ago for not touting the party line, I'm certainly not an SJW. But the complaints I'm seeing here seem to boil down to the other side equivalent of Virtue Signaling.

I'm glad you found a way to feel superior to both "sides".

Quote from: Orphan81;1104916I got banned from RPG net years ago for not touting the party line, I'm certainly not an SJW. But the complaints I'm seeing here seem to boil down to the other side equivalent of Virtue Signaling.

Ha. That could be true, except for the fact that is being overlooked, and that's that I don't have a dog in this fight. preferring to run and play Aces & Eights instead of Deadlands. I don't own anything from Pinnacle, Shanes' sales or lack thereof will have zero impact on my future gaming. My observations and comments are presented here in that context.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1104922(Twain) used to write poisonous hateful letters to celebrities, business leaders, editors of his time, and to his creditors. His wife Olivia would sneak out to the mailbox, grab the letters before the postman could take them, and destroy the letters. She successfully kept this a secret, and didn't tell anyone while she was alive.

I like this woman already. :)  I certainly never thought of Twain as any kind of genteel; I actually have had something of a personal grudge against him ever since finding out that his work "The Mysterious Stranger" was what tipped my first serious girlfriend into the camp of atheism, which paved the way for other sufficient convictions that guaranteed she and I (a fairly serious albeit incompetent Roman Catholic) would never have been able to make a permanent go of it.

My life is boring enough that the worst damage I've ever done is generally by failing to keep my foot out of my mouth at a critical moment, and the worst damage ever done to me was by people who didn't care about the effect their words had. The sigged quotation is basically a reminder to myself to think as much as possible about whether what I want to say is worth saying before I say it.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1104911I don't buy the abolitionism happening without serious internal disruptions throughout the Confederacy, to the point of an even further breakup (which was a danger the Confederacy faced in real-world history), but if they somehow get past that, I actually can believe they'd still maintain the struggle for independence due to a resentment of Northern attempts to forcibly keep them in the Union.

They'd keep fighting the Union even after freeing their own slaves because as traitors they've already gone past the point of no return. It's hard to imagine them going back to the Union with the line "Sorry about the hundreds of thousands killed and wounded. How about we shake hands and let bygones be bygones?" Yes, it'd the starting of the Civil War an even more stupid move on the part of the CSA, but war aims often change from what they were at the beginning. The CSA couldn't know that the USA would go relatively easy on the South compared to their worst fears.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1104941My life is boring enough that the worst damage I've ever done is generally by failing to keep my foot out of my mouth at a critical moment, and the worst damage ever done to me was by people who didn't care about the effect their words had. The sigged quotation is basically a reminder to myself to think as much as possible about whether what I want to say is worth saying before I say it.

Heh, when confronted by a certain kind of fool, my response has changed to asking them, seemingly out of the blue, "Have you read Mark Twain recently?"  "No?"  "You probably should."  Then leave it at that. It's applicable to more than just your sigged quote, too. :)

Old Skool is best skool! :D

Honestly though, I get their ret-con point. It was something that caught me in the originals, especially the USA v. CSA logistics differential and the power shift from ghost rock. Just more, and interconnected, rail lines alone would have powered the USA to rapid victory with ghost rock. So this is just some overdue house cleaning in my view, albeit for different reasons.

But I am not interested in this "Which alt history is permissible?" paradigm fight for Let's Pretend! If you have people who cannot handle your Let's Pretend! let them use their safeword of "No thank you, :) " and let them politely walk away. If they spazz out with a 'psychological emergency' then you use your safeword of "No thank you, :)" and usher them away from your table, calling emergency medical services as necessary from their 'potential threat to themselves and others' breakdown. :) Very simple.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1104932I'm glad you found a way to feel superior to both "sides".

Your damn straight I did. I've liked plenty of your posts before this Ratman, but here's where I have to firmly disagree with you, particularly with the personal attacks you made against Shane Hensley.

Quote from: Orphan81;1104988Your damn straight I did. I've liked plenty of your posts before this Ratman, but here's where I have to firmly disagree with you, particularly with the personal attacks you made against Shane Hensley.

Fair enough.

I'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.  

And that's the shame.

Quote from: wmarshal;1104766Already I'm seeing folks at TBP demanding genuflection and apologies from Shane regarding how he even deigned to think how the CSA could survive the Civil War.

And so it begins!

Popcorn for everybody!!!

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1104789I just wanted to play my games and read my comics/books.

Spoken like a true Nazi!!! :D

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1104796Why are we buying Deadlands again?

It's D&D in the Old West. You run around a Hollywood version of the Old West with steampunk, I mean, ghost rock, and shoot monsters and you got a wizard and a cleric in the party too.

It's quite fun with the right group. Neither the Classic nor Savage Worlds are a good system/setting fit, but like Rifts, the setting concept is flavorful enough for most players to overlook the system issues and just get on with "Silverado with Monsters"

The Alt-History elements were always wonky, and most Deadlands GMs I knew ditched the Alt-bits for just running Hollywood Westerns. Very few games I played ever took place east of Nebraska so the USA/CSA civil war was entirely background.

Quote from: tenbones;1104927The problem is, like here in Texas... there's a serious pig-problem.

How is that possible with so many rib joints?

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.  

And that's the shame.

Exactly, and sadly only he will pay the price.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105008And so it begins!

Popcorn for everybody!!!

Called it!

QuoteGeekyBugle: I just wanted to play my games and read my comics/books.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105008Spoken like a true Nazi!!! :D

All hail Moctezuma! Kukulcan Vult!

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105008How is that possible with so many rib joints?

Maybe they need some new recipes as to how to cook pork?

I've given this some thought. I have Deadlands Reloaded, Hell on Earth (R) and Lost Colony.

I don't need any more products to make my own Wierd West sandbox.

So I don't really care what Hensley does or why he does it. I wasn't buying any more books anyway.

Quote from: S'mon;1104921On a side note, I think a Wild West setting works best when it accords most closely to historical reality. Maybe history + magic.

I have the same preference. I'd thought Deadlands was closer to that when I first signed on to play. The CSA stuff was just the first part of what put me off... and what finally sent me out the door had more to do with the GM's wife infusing his game with her fan-fiction.
Something like Aces High (BRP) is more my speed... and I can borrow from 2nd hand Deadlands books I picked up if I want ideas for a bit more steampunk.

Quote from: jhkim;1104866On this site, I see a lot of people who seem to think that RPG publications are impactful

It is hilarious you know because all the things you listed. Someone apparently thought RPGs were impactful enough to want to co-opt them and use them as a platform for their agenda.
(Though far as I know Berlin: Wicked City is actually fairly accurate of the time and location it is set in and posters here only spoke up because it initially looked like yet another agenda insert. Possibly same with Essentials.)

Quote from: Chris24601;1104606It's kinda akin to saying you can't include Nazis in a game called "World World II: Allied Special Forces" (side-bar: I would TOTALLY play that game) isn't it?

No... it's like saying you can't play Wehrmacht or SS Troops serving Nazi Germany in a game set in 1965.

I mean, dude, you know that in the real wild west there was no CSA, right? That the period that most people think of as THE "Wild West" really started after (and in many ways BECAUSE) of the end of the Civil War, right?

Also, a reminder, everyone: keep this to the subject of gaming.

Quote from: Orphan81;1104916"This game I bought once or never played and just let sit on my shelf and collect dust is changing! Grr those SJW's they ruined something I didn't have much interest in to begin with, but I see all potential progressive changes as bad no matter what!"

Yeah, The arguments I'm seeing against the change basically boil down to this. Either people who never played Deadlands.. or people who bought the Corebook and maybe a supplement and haven't touched it in years.

Um. Did you conveniently miss the various posters mentioning just how much they have played the game? Guess so.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1105048No... it's like saying you can't play Wehrmacht or SS Troops serving Nazi Germany in a game set in 1965.

In regard to that, I think it's a strength of the RPG hobby that you can play truly abhorrent characters (once in a while) which gives you a perspective on (failing) human nature. Vampire was all about that (well, that and the edgelord stuff :-).

Regarding Deadlands, I've no strong opinion on the matter. I'm just curious how all of this hoopla will shake down for Shane Hensley.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1105048I mean, dude, you know that in the real wild west there was no CSA, right? That the period that most people think of as THE "Wild West" really started after (and in many ways BECAUSE) of the end of the Civil War, right?

That's the issue. There are very few gamers that want to play in an actual "real" wild west. There isn't a single "real" wild west game that's even close the popularity of Deadlands. The wacky alt-history stuff was the main appeal.

Next, the new version of Space: 1889 won't have spaceships because spaceships didn't exist in the real 1889.

Now that you mention it, a James Bond game set in an alternate 1962 where the Nazis won WW2 sounds pretty cool.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1105048No... it's like saying you can't play Wehrmacht or SS Troops serving Nazi Germany in a game set in 1965.

I mean, dude, you know that in the real wild west there was no CSA, right? That the period that most people think of as THE "Wild West" really started after (and in many ways BECAUSE) of the end of the Civil War, right?

It's fun to see Pundit so torn. While this change is mainly because actual people expressed real concern to Shane at conventions, it's also making the setting more historically accurate and make a lot more sense.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1105048No... it's like saying you can't play Wehrmacht or SS Troops serving Nazi Germany in a game set in 1965.

I mean, dude, you know that in the real wild west there was no CSA, right? That the period that most people think of as THE "Wild West" really started after (and in many ways BECAUSE) of the end of the Civil War, right?

No. It's like saying you're doing an RPG where the conceit of WWII is magic appears and the Nazis didn't get crushed for and existed into 1965.

No one is saying, or implying, anything about Deadlands is supposed to be *REAL*.

Quote from: tenbones;1105083No one is saying, or implying, anything about Deadlands is supposed to be *REAL*.

But it uses real historical elements in a way that is being argued to offend a portion of the target audience base in a way the rest of the audience base is supposed (in both senses of the term) to object to.

Parallel example: One of the criticisms I have of the Unisystem game Armageddon is that, as a Catholic, I find its in-setting metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the afterlife, angels, God and religion offensive. As a result, while I own the game and enjoy ransacking it for ideas, I would never play it straight as written. But does anyone think for a second that no matter how much I, or other Christian gamers, berated C.J. Carella over this, that (a) he would be at all likely to release a greatly-revised version of the game which got the theology correct, or (b) a large chunk of the game's fanbase wouldn't immediately accuse him of "pandering to religious nutjobs" if he did?

Now in practice of course I've never called for a boycott of the game, or publicly berated Mr. Carella in any forum over it. I think the game's in-setting metaphysics are wrong but I can see why, for the purposes of creating an entertaining game (and for staying out of real-world theological disagreements!), Mr. Carella used the concepts he did. The point of the comparison is not to claim that I have just as much of a case as people offended by a "redeemed" CSA, but to highlight the basic inconsistency: If using fictionalized versions of real-world elements in a way that offends the portion of the fanbase affected by, or invested in, those elements is objectively wrong, then Deadlands is far from the first, only or worst offender of this type. Conversely, if it's not objectively wrong -- and anyone with an investment in free speech has to lean more towards this stance than the opposite, I think -- then some skepticism about the reasons for both what critics choose to get upset about, and what creators choose to apologize for and self-correct, is merited.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1105073Next, the new version of Space: 1889 won't have spaceships because spaceships didn't exist in the real 1889.

No, 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.

I wonder if the closest parallel in the hobby's history might be TSR's sidelining demons and devils during 2nd Edition.

Instead 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.

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?

Probably there aren't enough resources available to support a new timeline in full without detracting from the support for existing setting/timelines. The whole point of a reboot or upgrade is to reallocate resources to the new product line.

Planned obsolescence is a thing in RPGs too.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105089But it uses real historical elements in a way that is being argued to offend a portion of the target audience base in a way the rest of the audience base is supposed (in both senses of the term) to object to.

Stipulated. 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? At that point I'm being forced to deal with their entire misperception of history, philosophy, religion, logic and a whole host of stuff that are red flags that should preclude them from gaming in general. OR at least they should be excusing themselves from consuming such content.

But that only reveals the REAL deeper problem: It's the pretext that somehow the fact that this fictional view of the game setting somehow changes reality. That someone is going to believe that whatever fictional narrative purported in Deadlands is somehow going to make people operate from it as if it *might* be true. This is the Satanic Panic Defense.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105089Parallel example: One of the criticisms I have of the Unisystem game Armageddon is that, as a Catholic, I find its in-setting metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the afterlife, angels, God and religion offensive. As a result, while I own the game and enjoy ransacking it for ideas, I would never play it straight as written. But does anyone think for a second that no matter how much I, or other Christian gamers, berated C.J. Carella over this, that (a) he would be at all likely to release a greatly-revised version of the game which got the theology correct, or (b) a large chunk of the game's fanbase wouldn't immediately accuse him of "pandering to religious nutjobs" if he did?

This is an *excellent* point to compare the two. So let's do a consistency check...

For the record - I'm a former Catholic, raised in it, even went to Jesuit University - but not Catholic or Christian anymore. I'm saying this only to tell you that I really understand where you're coming from. But at no point *ever* do I draw any kind of direct correlation between my beliefs (I'm not an Atheist), or the entertainment I consume - unless the product is designed explicitly by the creators to offend.

But here is where the rubber hits the road. My individual desire is to consume something for my own personal edification and entertainment. I do not presume others can read my mind, nor should others presume to read mine. If something I'm going to consume is clearly not designed to intentionally shit upon me, then I don't ever assume the product is necessarily a reflection of the creator's beliefs. It stands on its own.

When it comes to religion - which is what makes your point so crystal to me - that strikes about as deep as one can get when its comes to personal beliefs. And as someone that has grown up steeped in religion, I really really understand how it motivates people and informs their paradigm. And to this day - I am very cognizantly aware of it. That is precisely why I think the reaction to Deadlands, and Insectional Politics is idiotic.

Because I've never accepted literalism in my religious views, but I understand the power of them. I know that most entertainment interactions with those ideas are FICTION by intent and they're intended for the edification and entertainment of their consumers. I don't identify with the entertainment personally. I identify with my beliefs - but those believes do not define me. The problem is Intersectionality is trying to have its cake and eat it too. It's codifying it's claims as reality in a literal sense like a religion, and demanding that its paradigm must define the collective minds that partake in it. Classic fundamentalism.

The Deadlands setting is representative of History as a fictional agent to be entertainment. Period. It's not a call to re-write history to justify the CSA, or imply anything other than to acknowledge that due to the conceits of the setting and its time period, that it's accounted for, for the purposes of the GAME.

If someone is offended by someone's ideas, or ideas presented in a product - you only have to 1) not consume it 2)spend some effort to see whether there is any value in engaging in it for *whatever* reason floats your boat. If one's beliefs are so sacrosanct that they can't stand up to their use as a work of fiction, context not withstanding, then that's says more about you than anything else. Assuming of course we agree people should be free to think whatever they want. If you disagree with that basic premise (and I'm not saying you are) - then that's pretty much the end of the disucssion, heh. But otherwise... we're have everything to talk about then!

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105089Now in practice of course I've never called for a boycott of the game, or publicly berated Mr. Carella in any forum over it. I think the game's in-setting metaphysics are wrong but I can see why, for the purposes of creating an entertaining game (and for staying out of real-world theological disagreements!), Mr. Carella used the concepts he did.

And here is where you prove our larger point. The LARGER point. It's not that some people aren't going to pearl-clutch THEIR beliefs about Christian cosmology and find outrage at any presentation of their religion in a manner different than theirs as evil. It's that there are larger frameworks at play here that may have nothing to do with you. (Which is how you get hundreds/thousands of different denominations of the same religion).

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105089The point of the comparison is not to claim that I have just as much of a case as people offended by a "redeemed" CSA, but to highlight the basic inconsistency: If using fictionalized versions of real-world elements in a way that offends the portion of the fanbase affected by, or invested in, those elements is objectively wrong, then Deadlands is far from the first, only or worst offender of this type. Conversely, if it's not objectively wrong -- and anyone with an investment in free speech has to lean more towards this stance than the opposite, I think -- then some skepticism about the reasons for both what critics choose to get upset about, and what creators choose to apologize for and self-correct, is merited.

And 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 think we're both smart enough to realize no one has it right. The best case is to use a taxonomy of principles and virtues and ply them together.

People on the left with their Intersectional Religion, a system that is literally retarded and incapable of that kind of scalable thought, as a CONCEIT of it's construction. It makes precisely zero predictions about what their Utopia looks like or operates from. They merely want to control people's thoughts and behaviors. The ignorant - like in all religions, just march to the step of those leading the parade.

That is what is at the heart of this.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1105097I wonder if the closest parallel in the hobby's history might be TSR's sidelining demons and devils during 2nd Edition.

They 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.

The 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.

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...

;)

Unlike other Steampunk RPGs that kept the CSA alive, Deadlands had one of the better rationales. Though even with supernatural horrors attacking, the south would have been just as likely to offer freedom for military service as they were in the real timeline, which is not likely. The reckoners would have had to burn some serious mojo or leave a big enough pile of dead planters and politicians to convince them otherwise. I'm not as familiar with the dirty details of the setting to know if that happened. Some of the kumbaya stuff I've seen mentioned about  the Deadlands South, would require more mojo and an even larger pile of bodies to get over the racism of the past. And with no CSA, Deadlands can go wild, wild, weird west and have still have all sorts of bad guys to mow down by the wagonload.

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.

Those new rules for taking awkward selfies and having sex with chunky chicks in corsets is totally gonna sell that new edition! :)

Castle Falkenstein is a much better choice for "Steampunk con RPG" as Space:1889 was built to appeal to the alt-history crowd who really want to play out the UK in its steampunk glory. Falkenstein is more accessible for the steampunk crowd who are more into costumes and the anime and the few Hollywood visions, and less about the alt-history aspect.

Spinachat,

 You don't KNOW "Steampunk" - I live it at conventions....where women (and sometimes men) are gorgeous, glamorous, brilliant and swashbuckling.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;1105253You don't KNOW "Steampunk" - I live it at conventions....where women (and sometimes men) are gorgeous, glamorous, brilliant and swashbuckling.

Are you saying chunky chicks in corsets can't be gorgeous & glamorous?! :eek: Fie on thee, Koltar! :p

Edit: Google confirms (https://www.hipsandcurves.com/plus-size-isabelle-double-steel-boned-underbust-corset-black) my view (slightly NSFW).

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105222Castle Falkenstein is a much better choice for "Steampunk con RPG" as Space:1889 was built to appeal to the alt-history crowd who really want to play out the UK in its steampunk glory. Falkenstein is more accessible for the steampunk crowd who are more into costumes and the anime and the few Hollywood visions, and less about the alt-history aspect.

I totally agree. But Space: 1889 isn't really a Steampunk setting as the term is commonly used, and should be left to be what it is.

Quote from: jhkim;1104691Maybe this is just an issue with phrasing, but I think slavery was most certainly the central issue of the Civil War. Is that what you mean by it being the underlying problem? The North wasn't explicitly abolitionist until the Emancipation Proclamation, but the rebellion was clearly about concerns that the North would continue to dominate and restrict slavery until the system was untenable.

If memory serves, also this was at the point that the North had begun rapidly industrializing, and the South didn't believe they could compete without a slave based economy.

Quote from: Koltar;1105253You don't KNOW "Steampunk" - I live it at conventions....where women (and sometimes men) are gorgeous, glamorous, brilliant and swashbuckling.

Then you know all about the Steam-nookie-punk at cons. As for gorgeous & glamorous, perhaps you're using the Midwest definition which includes extra "cushion for the pushing". :eek: :D

I'm gonna go with my years of Steampunk & Dieselpunk LARPS. Damn fine cosplayers across the board. Steampunk & Deadlands has inspired some highly creative costuming over the years.

Hence, the innumerable selfies.

But Koltar, as a Steampunk fan, why do you think Space:1889 could be a good entry point for other fans versus other steampunk inspired RPGs, especially Falkenstein?

Personally, I'm surprised there hasn't been an OSR Steampunk. Or a OSR Steampunk Ravenloft, aka Jules Verne meets Masque of Red Death. I could see that doing well with the steampunk crowd.

Quote from: tenbones;1105104Because I've never accepted literalism in my religious views, but I understand the power of them. I know that most entertainment interactions with those ideas are FICTION by intent and they're intended for the edification and entertainment of their consumers. I don't identify with the entertainment personally. I identify with my beliefs - but those believes do not define me. The problem is Intersectionality is trying to have its cake and eat it too. It's codifying it's claims as reality in a literal sense like a religion, and demanding that its paradigm must define the collective minds that partake in it. Classic fundamentalism.

The Deadlands setting is representative of History as a fictional agent to be entertainment. Period. It's not a call to re-write history to justify the CSA, or imply anything other than to acknowledge that due to the conceits of the setting and its time period, that it's accounted for, for the purposes of the GAME.

If someone is offended by someone's ideas, or ideas presented in a product - you only have to 1) not consume it 2)spend some effort to see whether there is any value in engaging in it for *whatever* reason floats your boat. If one's beliefs are so sacrosanct that they can't stand up to their use as a work of fiction, context not withstanding, then that's says more about you than anything else. Assuming of course we agree people should be free to think whatever they want. If you disagree with that basic premise (and I'm not saying you are) - then that's pretty much the end of the disucssion, heh. But otherwise... we're have everything to talk about then!

Ehh? Portraying the CSA as successful, even in a game, is definitely fiction. I'm good with exploring aspects of that to understand the implications better. Deliberately marketing this while focusing specifically on the group of people that do want to re-write history is another thing entirely, and was a deciding factor on my decision not to buy Deadlands in the first place. Have to say that I find it interesting though that by all indications here from GMs who actually run Deadlands, that the game wasn't used as a vehicle by the southern apologists, to further any of their actual agendas, nonetheless that element is being removed by the game creator conveniently at a time when there is a general public protest by what basically amounts to non-gamers (the sjw).

My take on this presented as a metaphor, ...it's as if Patricia Pulling targeted Deadlands instead of D&D and was successful in getting the creator to remove the fictional history of the CSA, even though she, and the people that follow her are never ever going to buy a single copy of the game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1105048No... it's like saying you can't play Wehrmacht or SS Troops serving Nazi Germany in a game set in 1965.

..with the reason stated being that you can't expect a Jew to be able to handle the GM portraying a Nazi NPC in 1965. I don't get it.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1105289..with the reason stated being that you can't expect a Jew to be able to handle the GM portraying a Nazi NPC in 1965. I don't get it.

Well you know how no Jewish actor, producer, director or viewer would touch The Man in the High Castle? Yes, just like that.

Quote from: S'mon;1105294Well you know how no Jewish actor, producer, director or viewer would touch The Man in the High Castle? Yes, just like that.

Makes sense.

[video=youtube;lnah81kES_s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnah81kES_s[/youtube]

Quote from: RPGPunditNo... it's like saying you can't play Wehrmacht or SS Troops serving Nazi Germany in a game set in 1965.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1105289..with the reason stated being that you can't expect a Jew to be able to handle the GM portraying a Nazi NPC in 1965. I don't get it.

There's a disconnect between these posts. RPGPundit refers to playing Wehrmacht, while Alexander is talking about Nazis NPCs. As far as I've seen, the key problem with the CSA isn't that the CSA still exists -- but that they have given up slavery and are played as PCs. In Post #134 (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41148-Deadlands-is-retconning-the-Confederacy-so-they-lost-the-war-and-aren-t-playable&p=1104802&viewfull=1#post1104802), Toric described a CSA PC from his Deadlands experience:

Quote from: Toric;1104802I distinctly remember someone playing something akin to the cultured southern gentleman.  I don't believe the character had strong feelings one way or another regarding the CSA government, he just played up the dignified southern man angle.  He had gone west seeking his fortune further from the ravages and influences of two countries at war.  There was no played up racist angle.  As I recall he looked down his nose at anyone not as cultured as he was but there was nothing offensive about him.

Within the parallel, what would a non-offensive, non-racist Nazi PC look like? I'm trying to picture someone playing a 1965 Nazi as a sophisticated German officer without strong feelings one way or the other about the Nazi government, and without playing up the racist angle.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1104593I'm not a Deadlands fan, but I am a Savage Worlds fan, so I saw this. The bit about "[t]he folks who accused of us being Southern apologists for the last twenty years would continue doing so" suggests, taking it at face value, that this isn't an 'appease the activists' move, but "this is something that isn't really essential to the setting as it has evolved, and has gotten in the way of a lot of people's enjoyment, so why not get rid of it?"

The problem is that people who are vocal about not liking the change are getting kicked out of Facebook groups and banned on RPG.NET.

A french player got banned for asking why Americans were still so sensitive about a 140 year old issue. He called the RPG.NET SJW Squad pussies.

Quote from: Sunsword;1105323The problem is that people who are vocal about not liking the change are getting kicked out of Facebook groups and banned on RPG.NET.

I do not see either of those things as being a problem. It's the equivalent of being told you are no longer allowed to swim in the sewer or play in a burning house.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1105326I do not see either of those things as being a problem. It's the equivalent of being told you are no longer allowed to swim in the sewer or play in a burning house.

Fair enough.

Quote from: Sunsword;1105323The problem is that people who are vocal about not liking the change are getting kicked out of Facebook groups and banned on RPG.NET.

A french player got banned for asking why Americans were still so sensitive about a 140 year old issue. He called the RPG.NET SJW Squad pussies.

The French player was NOT calling the SJWs pussies. This is the text he was banned for:

"I'm not saying you are wrong or a bunch of pussies, or that we are an insensitive remorseless lot. I guess it has to do with school, éducation, politics and so on. I don't have the reason to this "différence", I'm just amazed that it's so clear."

He was trying to make clear he wasn't insulting the SJWs with his questions regarding why this is a sensatige issue to Americans, and he used a bit of off-color language. However, that was all that was needed (using a gendered slur) to give the mod an excuse the ban this user. Given that this word has been used before by the cool kids on rpg.net without any sanction given I'm sure the real reason was that the mod couldn't tolerate any wrongthink going on at rpg.net, and banning the French user was an easy method to achieve this.

Here's an example of the Wyzard engaging in some sort of self-indulgent fiction writing and using the term:
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/in-which-i-screw-around-with-review-some-tft-solo-modules.803555/page-2#post-21073733

Here's another example of the term being used. In this same thread the same mod that banned the French player is engaging with the poster who used the word pussies without any worries:
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/boring-personal-shit-in-which-i-make-questionable-life-choices.780903/page-14#post-20392226

Referencing the word pussies is only a ban worthy offense when it suits the political needs of a mod.

The big purple is a puissant and tumescent place... of its own delirium. :p Let us not go there, for it is a silly place.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1105073That's the issue. There are very few gamers that want to play in an actual "real" wild west. There isn't a single "real" wild west game that's even close the popularity of Deadlands. The wacky alt-history stuff was the main appeal.

Next, the new version of Space: 1889 won't have spaceships because spaceships didn't exist in the real 1889.

Now that you mention it, a James Bond game set in an alternate 1962 where the Nazis won WW2 sounds pretty cool.

The real wild west was WAY more interesting than a wild west where the civil war was still going on.
In the real wild west you had all kinds of confederates (Democrats) fighting with the forces of order and progress (Republicans).

The wild west was the much messier AFTERMATH of the civil war. If the civil war was still happening, that wouldn't be happening.

Also, you're trying to make it sound like the central divergent point of deadlands was "It's like the wild west but we get to play gallant and heroic confederate officers and deny the reality of slavery", rather than "it's like the wild west but with evil supernatural monsters and forces".

Quote from: Rhedyn;1105077It's fun to see Pundit so torn. While this change is mainly because actual people expressed real concern to Shane at conventions, it's also making the setting more historically accurate and make a lot more sense.

I'm not the teeny tiniest bit torn. Look back at my record, on my blogs and on almost any other deadlands thread in the history of this site: it has ALWAYS been my unequivocal position that the alt-history of Deadlands was moronic, and that it was little more than an attempt to whitewash the CSA and free it from the stain of slavery. Always.

The author may be finally doing it for all the wrongest reasons, but it's still a plus that he's doing it, because the previous setting was both moronic and disgusting.

Quote from: tenbones;1105083No. It's like saying you're doing an RPG where the conceit of WWII is magic appears and the Nazis didn't get crushed for and existed into 1965.

No, it's like a setting where the Nazis weren't crushed because magic appears and then we all learn they were actually really wonderful and noble and gallant people and they quickly freed the Jews and even let them be SS officers.

I disagree with the change, for both an in-game and out of game reason.

In-game, the presence of ghost rock and its steampunk super-weapons in primarily confederate areas would have instantly restarted the war.  It would be like Germans stumbling across Hitler's secret atomic UFO fleet a week after WWII ended; you can bet they wouldn't have stayed surrendered at that point.  A better way to eliminate the CSA would have been for all the freaky things going on to make them realize, "Holy shit, the dead are rising and literally Satan has showed up in California, we have to drop this whole war thing right now and stick together or we're all fucked."  A peaceful-ish resolution to the war would then have been less likely to reignite with the abrupt addition of super-powerful weapons, and the CSA would still be gone.

Out of game, the change accomplishes none of the stated goals.  If a GM is the sort of person to go on a weird racist tangent, making the confederacy lose isn't going to change that.  Billy Bob the former confederate soldier can show up and be racist just as easily as Billy Bob the current confederate soldier.  Anyone who's going to use a wild west setting as an excuse to be really cringey about minorities is STILL going to be cringey about minorities after this retcon.  It took the country a century after the end of the war to get less shitty to minorities, north and south alike, Deadlands isn't exactly going to be awash with affirmative action in the 19th century, regardless of the existence or lack thereof of the CSA.  The only actual solution, both before and after the retcon, is to find a GM who isn't an ass.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1105351No, it's like a setting where the Nazis weren't crushed because magic appears and then we all learn they were actually really wonderful and noble and gallant people and they quickly freed the Jews and even let them be SS officers.

What percentage, in your estimation, of the populace of the 3rd Reich were more than mere tag-alongs?
Anyway, if THAT was problem, you'd only have to retcon out the noble and gallant part.

Also, lets not forget that the CSA isn't vanishing from Deadlands.

The South losing the Civil War doesn't mean you can't have Southern PCs and NPCs.  It doesn't mean there isn't a whole load of Southerners looking for ghost rock with the firm intention of restarting the war so the South rises again.

All the characters in Tarantino's HATEFUL EIGHT (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69UwVX6Riv8) can easily be in any Deadlands game.

Considering how few Southerners owned slaves and how many poor Southerners suffered in the post-Civil War era, you could easily see CSA storylines in Deadlines involving Southern NPCs loyal to their states and southern culture without a concern for slavery issues.

So lets get this straight. The setting allready has some alternate timelines right? (Something I was not aware of till this thread.)

Then what is the problem aside from it seems to be changing the core setting, and may or may not be for PC reasons? I mean in Gamma World, Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance this would be a Tuesday. :rolleyes:

I know all too well changing an established setting can be an irk point. In part because more oft than not its to gouge the players to buy the setting material all over again. Or the changes just feel wrong somehow.

Quote from: Omega;1105410In part because more oft than not its to gouge the players to buy the setting material all over again.

Really triggers my synapses.

"This new edition of this rpg will be different."
"OMG NOOOOOOO!"
"You could always just keep playing the older edition if you want."
"OMG NOOOOOOO!"

Gamers. LOL.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1105412Really triggers my synapses.

Same. I dont mind when it is just adding new areas or updating/advancing the timeline. Or the changes to the land make some sort of sense and do not just jettison the old for something new. Dragonlance is possibly a good example of that. Probably Forgotten Realms as well. The setting advances and sometimes gets turned on its head. But it is still the same setting. As opposed to say Gamma World or many other RPGs where each iteration is a reboot. Players and DMs can and will get tired of that. (unless they hated the original iteration, (or one of the following iterations))

Example the 5e Sword Coast book just updates the region. You can play 5e without it. Though pretty sure the Adventurers League and probably some or all the modules makes use of it. Without 100% needing it.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1105416"You could always just keep playing the older edition if you want. Unless you want to run organized play in which case you are hosed. Fork out da monay bitches!"
"OMG NOOOOOOO!"

Gamers. LOL.

Fixed that for you.

Quote from: Omega;1105419Fixed that for you.

Organized Savage Worlds play? Yeah OK. Let's pretend that is a national thing.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1105404What percentage, in your estimation, of the populace of the 3rd Reich were more than mere tag-alongs?
Anyway, if THAT was problem, you'd only have to retcon out the noble and gallant part.

Who the fuck ever portrayed the CSA as noble or gallant?  Individual characters, sure, but even the game points out that it's a terrible place.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1105438Who the fuck ever portrayed the CSA as noble or gallant?  Individual characters, sure, but even the game points out that it's a terrible place.

I'm sure it happened at a few home games. Certainly nothing for shane to have bent over backwards for the pearl clutching easily offended members of the hobby imo. I respect the guy for sticking to his guns even if I lost most of my respect for him doing so. What's next Savage Rifts no longer has Fascists and Nazis because it makes many uncomfortable like the CSA did in Deadlands.

Quote from: sureshot;1105440I'm sure it happened at a few home games. Certainly nothing for shane to have bent over backwards for the pearl clutching easily offended members of the hobby imo. I respect the guy for sticking to his guns even if I lost most of my respect for him doing so. What's next Savage Rifts no longer has Fascists and Nazis because it makes many uncomfortable like the CSA did in Deadlands.

They have already removed the CS characters and added a Do Gooder fort that all PCs are assumed to have joined. It seems jarringly out of place in the Rifts setting, at least as I've played it. Outside of that, they did a pretty good job with it.

I'm not at the point of losing respect for these creators. All of the larger companies are doing stuff like this. They have to mollify these loud activists and the new highly sensitive audience that listens to them. If you've got people counting on your paycheck, that's an easy choice to make.  I'd hope that most of the Cancel people aren't claiming anyone on their taxes and don't know any better, but that's probably not true.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1105351No, it's like a setting where the Nazis weren't crushed because magic appears and then we all learn they were actually really wonderful and noble and gallant people and they quickly freed the Jews and even let them be SS officers.

Well that's not the Deadlands *I* have been reading. I don't agree with the assumptions either. But I shrug and treat it like 19th Century Rifts. Magic happens. CSA becomes like the Coalition and says "humans" are more important than the monsters.

Again - that's the basic angle they took it for ulterior reasons. I'm like "whatever" and I play my NPC's as individuals with their motivations informed by whatever I feel is necessary. I don't (and I assume you don't either) look at everyone and everything as a monolith. Not all Nazis were Jew-hating monsters. Not all Confederates were slave-owning black-owners. Sure a lot were... but the game is the interaction between PC's and NPC's. That is where the GM's job is to make interesting despite the collective assumptions.

The larger point is pretending ANY of this content has some impact on real life is where the insanity begins.

I actually don't mind the change and really don't care what reason drives it. It's the supposed consumers he's placating that really drive me nuts here. I find it ironic that these same people (many of whom frequent TBP) never batted the slightest eyelash when Modiphius announced they were going to make John Carter of Mars. John Carter is noble, gallant and a former captain of the Confederacy. This game is frequently celebrated at TBP. But yet many of these people were so woke that way back when original Deadlands was first released, the very existence of the CSA was a deal breaker.

 I'm just going to go ahead and call bullshit on the entire narrative.

Quote from: tenbones;1105462Not all Nazis were Jew-hating monsters. Not all Confederates were slave-owning black-owners.

You couldn't be a good Nazi without being Jew-hating, and in some regards monstrous. You could be a Nazi party member like Schindler, but not a good Nazi. The CSA by contrast was not a totalitarian state and did not have any particular enforced ideology, although the desire to continue slavery was the main reason for its existence.

Quote from: S'mon;1105472You couldn't be a good Nazi without being Jew-hating, and in some regards monstrous. You could be a Nazi party member like Schindler, but not a good Nazi. The CSA by contrast was not a totalitarian state and did not have any particular enforced ideology, although the desire to continue slavery was the main reason for its existence.

If you've abandoned the CSA for the Weird West, I doubt you're a "good" southerner.

Quote from: Omega;1105419Fixed that for you.

"organised play"? You mean, the game company organises a game session for you? Why would you do that? If you don't have a regular crew of gamers, then have an open game table at the local game store. People will come along, and if you're at any good at running it, some will stick around.

It's all very odd to me. You'll see me mocking editions of D&D or Traveller past 1st, but I'm not going around complaining about them and flailing around hysterically about them. I just don't play them, and offer my own games. And people come play, and I'm not even that great a GM, I'm sure other better GMs would attract players even more.

As Yoda said, do or no do, there is no whinge.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1105528"organised play"? You mean, the game company organises a game session for you? Why would you do that? If you don't have a regular crew of gamers, then have an open game table at the local game store. People will come along, and if you're at any good at running it, some will stick around.

It's all very odd to me. You'll see me mocking editions of D&D or Traveller past 1st, but I'm not going around complaining about them and flailing around hysterically about them. I just don't play them, and offer my own games. And people come play, and I'm not even that great a GM, I'm sure other better GMs would attract players even more.

As Yoda said, do or no do, there is no whinge.

Convention shit, I'd guess.

I'm not one for crowds though, so I can't be sure.

Quote from: S'mon;1105472You couldn't be a good Nazi without being Jew-hating, and in some regards monstrous. You could be a Nazi party member like Schindler, but not a good Nazi. The CSA by contrast was not a totalitarian state and did not have any particular enforced ideology, although the desire to continue slavery was the main reason for its existence.

Yeah. But why is the narrative ALWAYS coming back to the implied framing of THIS narrative?

We both know why. And the longer we as players, consumers, creators allow it to continue... it'll just keep making it harder for us to have good stuff.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1105506If you've abandoned the CSA for the Weird West, I doubt you're a "good" southerner.

Well that's one reason it makes better play to have the Civil War be over. Equally true of Union ex-soldiers. In a historical Wild West setting you can have ex-CSA and ex-USA soldiers who aren't deserters!

Quote from: Rhedyn;1105432Organized Savage Worlds play? Yeah OK. Let's pretend that is a national thing.

Hey! It could happen! :D

I wonder how long before the SJWs target Dust Adventures (https://www.modiphius.com/dust-adventures.html), which features (among other things) playable Germans in an extended WW2. Apparently the Germans gave the Nazis the boot at some point, but isn't that akin to the Confederacy giving slavery the boot of its own accord?

Quote from: Dan Davenport;1105569Apparently the Germans gave the Nazis the boot at some point, but isn't that akin to the Confederacy giving slavery the boot of its own accord?

Not necessarily.  The Nazis were never elected to power - even when they fully controlled society at their peak the Nazi Party membership was ~8 million (compared to a German population of 80 Million).  If the Germans overthrew the Nazi party (as was attempted a few times) and killed Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officials, a Germany minus the Nazis might work.  If instead Hitler and all his lieutenants just said 'we were wrong about the final solution and we're good guys now', it wouldn't.  

I'm not familiar with the setting of Dust Adventures, but it is possible they screwed up in extending the war.  It's hard for the bad guys to be redeemed without a major change.  If Germany had been defeated, purged, but a shooting war erupted with the Soviet Union and they were back to war with the Allied Powers (as some people seemed to think was reasonable) you have an interesting alternate history, but you're probably going to still have a squick factor for the German units that people don't like.

Quote from: sureshot;1105440What's next Savage Rifts no longer has Fascists and Nazis because it makes many uncomfortable like the CSA did in Deadlands.

The setting "fix" in Savage Rifts is laughably weak. What made Rifts badass was there were no "good nations". Tolkeen goes wonky with evil magic and the Coalition is both the heroic saviors of the human race and its oppressors. Half the people fighting the Vampire Kingdoms are almost equally bad! In original Rifts, you can travel every corner of the world, mixing it up with the good, the bad and the ugly. The PCs can easily be aiding ARCHIE in one adventure and opposing him in another.

Kevin Siembieda's system may be messy, but his settings kick ass with hard questions which make for excellent roleplaying.

If I ran Savage Rifts, I'd only use the original setting materials.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;1105569I wonder how long before the SJWs target Dust Adventures (https://www.modiphius.com/dust-adventures.html), which features (among other things) playable Germans in an extended WW2. Apparently the Germans gave the Nazis the boot at some point, but isn't that akin to the Confederacy giving slavery the boot of its own accord?

If Dust becomes popular, the REEEEE clowns will freak the fuck out. Yes, you're right. The "Not Nazis" with all the kewl "Not Nazi" gear and costumes are playable. Of course, in real life, Germans rebelling against the Reich didn't want more war and were working with the Allies to undermine the Nazis. But none of that matters to the REEEEE clowns because like most Americans, they don't know jack shit about history and assume "German = Nazi".

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105659If I ran Savage Rifts, I'd only use the original setting materials.

That is the *best* way to run it.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105659The setting "fix" in Savage Rifts is laughably weak. What made Rifts badass was there were no "good nations".

Well, there was Lazlo, which I tend to remember because it was set on the ruins of Toronto (a place of personal interest, see at left). But I never followed the setting's metaplot so I have no idea if the place survived.

QuoteBut none of that matters to the REEEEE clowns because like most Americans, they don't know jack shit about history and assume "German = Nazi".

That, or they automatically dismiss any attempt to distinguish them as a "#NotAllGermans" backlash. :)

Quote from: tenbones;1105755That is the *best* way to run it.

That's why Palladium agreed to it. So people would buy their books for the setting.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1105758Well, there was Lazlo, which I tend to remember because it was set on the ruins of Toronto (a place of personal interest, see at left). But I never followed the setting's metaplot so I have no idea if the place survived.

I don't think we ever got a whole Worldbook on Lazlo. I imagine Siembieda would grey they place up with some dissident factions. And there's the fact that Lazlo has been very non-interventionalist in it's policies. (Exceping the Xiticics wars) That can be viewed at least as selfish, since they let other nations take the hits while they cluck their tongues from a safe distance.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105659Kevin Siembieda's system may be messy, but his settings kick ass with hard questions which make for excellent roleplaying.

The setting may be sophomoric in tone, but it's never boring. :)

Slight digression, but...

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1105573Not necessarily.  The Nazis were never elected to power

That's blatantly untrue.  They won the 1933 election to become the largest parliamentary party in Germany, with approximately 45% of the vote and Reichstag, allowing Hitler to be appointed Chancellor.  Official party membership may have been 10% of the population, but they were elected by a sizable lead.  The next largest party, Social Democrats, got less than 20% of the vote.  

 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election

Official party membership and support are not the same thing.

Disclaimer:  Factual correction does not mean support.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;1105569I wonder how long before the SJWs target Dust Adventures (https://www.modiphius.com/dust-adventures.html), which features (among other things) playable Germans in an extended WW2. Apparently the Germans gave the Nazis the boot at some point, but isn't that akin to the Confederacy giving slavery the boot of its own accord?

I don't have the game - but from brief reading on the game, yes, it seems like there are similarities. It's an alternate history where the Axis are made more palatable by having them reject Nazism. As this review puts it,

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16626.phtml

QuoteBrutal as the world of Dust might be, it no longer contains Nazis, the driving force behind other RPGs like Achtung Cthulhu (also from Modiphius) or Weird Wars (once for d20 and now mostly for Savage Worlds). Jews are not persecuted, the occupation of France and even the UK is substantially milder than the one under the Nazi regime and even the Germans try to clean up their former Nazi mess within their Axis superstructure. Only the SSU is ideologically dedicated to a cause (communism, for those that missed the memo). The Axis is a war alliance of convenience between more or less noble nations not unlike those seen in the European continent in centuries past, while the Allies are steadily becoming a crumbling affair and appear to be losing. War atrocities are still committed from all sides (and their mercenaries), idem for the weirdness that all sides bring to the theatres of operations, which however are not ideologically charged.

Note how it describes this alternate Axis as an alliance between "more or less noble nations", and how there are war atrocities from "all sides". Again, I don't have the actual game, so I don't have an opinion about it myself yet. But it does seem like there are similarities to Deadlands original handling of the CSA.

Quote from: deadDMwalkingNot necessarily. The Nazis were never elected to power

Quote from: Brendan;1105935That's blatantly untrue.  They won the 1933 election to become the largest parliamentary party in Germany, with approximately 45% of the vote and Reichstag, allowing Hitler to be appointed Chancellor.  Official party membership may have been 10% of the population, but they were elected by a sizable lead.  The next largest party, Social Democrats, got less than 20% of the vote.  

 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election

Official party membership and support are not the same thing.

When I read the Wikipedia article you link to, it's clear that the 1933 election was after the Nazis had already seized power, in the Machtergreifung on Jan 30. There was an enormous amount of violent political suppression by the SA and SS before and during the election. The Reichstag fire was 6 days earlier, and the Reichstag Fire Decree allowed the government to arrest thousands of communists. There is every reason to think that the elections were not free or fair, and thus the percentages in that election don't accurately represent the views of the civilian population.

That said, in the larger point, I think there are similarities. I can see parallels between non-Jew-hating, non-Nazi German PCs in Dust versus non-racist, non-slavery-supporting CSA PCs in Deadlands.

Quote from: jhkim;1105943I don't have the game - but from brief reading on the game, yes, it seems like there are similarities. It's an alternate history where the Axis are made more palatable by having them reject Nazism. As this review puts it,

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16626.phtml



Note how it describes this alternate Axis as an alliance between "more or less noble nations", and how there are war atrocities from "all sides". Again, I don't have the actual game, so I don't have an opinion about it myself yet. But it does seem like there are similarities to Deadlands original handling of the CSA.




When I read the Wikipedia article you link to, it's clear that the 1933 election was after the Nazis had already seized power, in the Machtergreifung on Jan 30. There was an enormous amount of violent political suppression by the SA and SS before and during the election. The Reichstag fire was 6 days earlier, and the Reichstag Fire Decree allowed the government to arrest thousands of communists. There is every reason to think that the elections were not free or fair, and thus the percentages in that election don't accurately represent the views of the civilian population.

That said, in the larger point, I think there are similarities. I can see parallels between non-Jew-hating, non-Nazi German PCs in Dust versus non-racist, non-slavery-supporting CSA PCs in Deadlands.

The Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag as early as 1932.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1932_German_federal_election

My point is that one can't claim that they didn't have popular German support, or were "never elected".  Just like Communism, Nazi-ism took power largely through democratic means.  Only once they had a very clear hold on state power did they do away with the competition.  

But we're going further off the rails of the conversation.

Quote from: Brendan;1105949Just like Communism, Nazi-ism took power largely through democratic means.  

Communism in Venezuela? Not in USSR, anyway! According to my GCSE history class the Bolsheviks had a violent revolution to overthrow the Kerensky government.

Quote from: S'mon;1105961Communism in Venezuela? Not in USSR, anyway! According to my GCSE history class the Bolsheviks had a violent revolution to overthrow the Kerensky government.

Well if you want to use either of those in a game you must remember that they all are socialists at the end of the day. Which means you need to find their similarities and differences to better represent them ingame.

Quote from: Brendan;1105949The Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag as early as 1932.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1932_German_federal_election

My point is that one can't claim that they didn't have popular German support, or were "never elected".  Just like Communism, Nazi-ism took power largely through democratic means.  Only once they had a very clear hold on state power did they do away with the competition.

So, do you accept my point that the 1933 elections were full of violence, corruption, and intimidation? As far as I can see, there is overwhelming evidence that the Nazis were using a massive campaign of force to influence that election.

And now are you arguing that while the Nazis might have been violent in 1933, but in 1932 they were lawful and democratic?

The Nazis were always violent - since before the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. At best, they put on a show of following the rule of law. But they would turn to violence, lies, and threats whenever it suited them. They had broad support from a significant fraction of the country - maybe 25-30%. But they didn't come into power by peaceful democracy. The same is true of communist rise to power in the USSR and China. In all these cases, the country was full of unrest, making it easy to subvert the democratic process.

Quote from: jhkim;1105972So, do you accept my point that the 1933 elections were full of violence, corruption, and intimidation? As far as I can see, there is overwhelming evidence that the Nazis were using a massive campaign of force to influence that election.

And now are you arguing that while the Nazis might have been violent in 1933, but in 1932 they were lawful and democratic?

The Nazis were always violent - since before the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. At best, they put on a show of following the rule of law. But they would turn to violence, lies, and threats whenever it suited them. They had broad support from a significant fraction of the country - maybe 25-30%. But they didn't come into power by peaceful democracy. The same is true of communist rise to power in the USSR and China. In all these cases, the country was full of unrest, making it easy to subvert the democratic process.

This is drifting further and further off topic, so I'm not going to continue going into it here.  If you want to start a separate thread in Pundit's private forum, I'll do my best to elaborate on my position there.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1105404What percentage, in your estimation, of the populace of the 3rd Reich were more than mere tag-alongs?

This is off topic, but 99.9%.  Anyone who didn't directly oppose Hitler during his regime was guilty of all the crimes against humanities of the German people.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105406Also, lets not forget that the CSA isn't vanishing from Deadlands.

The South losing the Civil War doesn't mean you can't have Southern PCs and NPCs.  It doesn't mean there isn't a whole load of Southerners looking for ghost rock with the firm intention of restarting the war so the South rises again.

Exactly. One reason why the historical wild west is WAY more interesting than the "alt history where the non-racist wonderful CSA survives and keeps doing good things for black people" nonsense is that you can have former Confederates doing all the sorts of things they actually did in the Wild West, plus magic.

Quote from: tenbones;1105462Well that's not the Deadlands *I* have been reading. I don't agree with the assumptions either. But I shrug and treat it like 19th Century Rifts. Magic happens. CSA becomes like the Coalition and says "humans" are more important than the monsters.

Again - that's the basic angle they took it for ulterior reasons. I'm like "whatever" and I play my NPC's as individuals with their motivations informed by whatever I feel is necessary. I don't (and I assume you don't either) look at everyone and everything as a monolith. Not all Nazis were Jew-hating monsters. Not all Confederates were slave-owning black-owners. Sure a lot were... but the game is the interaction between PC's and NPC's. That is where the GM's job is to make interesting despite the collective assumptions.

The larger point is pretending ANY of this content has some impact on real life is where the insanity begins.

No, I look at these things as an historian. There is NO WAY that the CSA would have abolished slavery while still at war or any time soon after the war. For starters, this would have immediately caused the CSA to crumble as many (most? All?) of its own states would secede from the Confederacy. The idea that the CSA would suddenly not only make black people free but also completely legally equal and even be able to serve as CSA Army OFFICERS (or, say, representatives in government) is absurd whitewashing.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1106016No, I look at these things as an historian. There is NO WAY that the CSA would have abolished slavery while still at war or any time soon after the war. For starters, this would have immediately caused the CSA to crumble as many (most? All?) of its own states would secede from the Confederacy. The idea that the CSA would suddenly not only make black people free but also completely legally equal and even be able to serve as CSA Army OFFICERS (or, say, representatives in government) is absurd whitewashing.

That's why I say *I don't agree with its assumptions either*. I was just offering up a way to make the shit-pill taste better. Whitewashing aside - I'm not going to sweat Shane for making the decision he made, at least until he tells us we're assholes (or worse) simply not for agreeing with him, when I don't even think *he* disagrees it's a-historical.

SJW's want it both ways for outrage purposes.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1106014This is off topic, but 99.9%.  Anyone who didn't directly oppose Hitler during his regime was guilty of all the crimes against humanities of the German people.

Is this appropriate for the RPG section of the forum?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1106122Is this appropriate for the RPG section of the forum?

If the other trending topics in this subforum were book titles...

The Intersection Between BDSM and Tabletop Gaming.

Monte Cook and the Doctrine of Maoism.

Is Murderhobo a Slur?

Yeah, I'd say it's an entirely appropriate line of discussion for this non-political subforum.

Well, the Political Correctness Plague was Pundit's foretold 'next wave of the war' against his bete noire, "The Storytelling Swine." Now how much of that is precognition, prediction, projection, or wanton chaos magick from the bowels of Alan Moore, is up for debate. :p (I do wish it was a wizard war, tho. Then we can thrash a bitchin' speed metal accompanying soundtrack. :cool: )

Quote from: Libertad;1106196If the other trending topics in this subforum were book titles...

The Intersection Between BDSM and Tabletop Gaming.

Monte Cook and the Doctrine of Maoism.

Is Murderhobo a Slur?

Yeah, I'd say it's an entirely appropriate line of discussion for this non-political subforum.

This isn't a non-political subforum though.  According to The Rules at the top of the site politics are fine so long as they are directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming.

Quote from: rgalex;1106222This isn't a non-political subforum though.  According to The Rules at the top of the site politics are fine so long as they are directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming.

Exactly, and I'm fine with that, so long as Pundit is consistent.

I'm not fine with it and I wish we had a Politics in Gaming subforum, but I understand RPGPundit's reasoning for keeping these threads in the main forum.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1106310I'm not fine with it and I wish we had a Politics in Gaming subforum, but I understand RPGPundit's reasoning for keeping these threads in the main forum.

#MeToo

Like I said in the petition page. Having a subform would in no way stop the usual suspects from derailing threads over and over.

They'd either just keep up the off topic political spiel or shift gears back to endless derailing with storygamer derailing like before.

And as said. How are you going to keep politics out of discussing games when it is creeping progressively into games on nearly every front now? Chaosium, Paizo, WOTC, Savage Worlds, an ever growing portion of the OSR, etc ad nausium. Next will be Traveller if it hasn't been infected with this disease yet.

All that said. As others have pointed out earlier in this thread. This Deadlands background change may not be SJW fronted. It does not quite have the usual red flags. And just seems to be done for other reasons that might be for good or ill totally unrelated to being PC.

Quote from: Omega;1106388And as said. How are you going to keep politics out of discussing games when it is creeping progressively into games on nearly every front now? Chaosium, Paizo, WOTC, Savage Worlds, an ever growing portion of the OSR, etc ad nausium. Next will be Traveller if it hasn't been infected with this disease yet.

You could just accept that producers of gaming content make what they want to make and ignore it if it doesn't appeal to you.  Decrying every new publication as proof that the SJWs have come to dominate the hobby is silly.  Just make what you want to make!  And if you don't want to put in the work to make things that appeal to you (and people like you), then accept that you're no longer relevant and don't worry about all the kids and their newfangled gaming values.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1106459You could just accept that producers of gaming content make what they want to make and ignore it if it doesn't appeal to you. Decrying every new publication as proof that the SJWs have come to dominate the hobby is silly.

Silent dissent is the same as silent agreement.

Closing our eyes and hoping the world will revert to sanity isn't a plan.

It's easy for you because your side of the culture war benefits from our hobby being dominated by SJWs (and publishers who appease them). If no dissent is voiced, then the SJW-RPG becomes the new norm and dissenters either accept their place and behave, or leave the hobby.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1106459Just make what you want to make!  And if you don't want to put in the work to make things that appeal to you (and people like you), then accept that you're no longer relevant and don't worry about all the kids and their newfangled gaming values.

I fully agree! It's why I'm in playtesting on 3 different RPGs.

And by "no longer relevant", I hope everyone understands that means "NO LONGER WELCOME".

Quote from: Omega;1106388Like I said in the petition page. Having a subform would in no way stop the usual suspects from derailing threads over and over.

And you might be right. I just like the idea of the Main Forum being nonpolitical RPGing only and we could discuss the culture war in RPGing in a separate forum. But I understand your reasoning and the thinking behind Pundit's decision.

Quote from: Omega;1106388How are you going to keep politics out of discussing games when it is creeping progressively into games on nearly every front now? Chaosium, Paizo, WOTC, Savage Worlds, an ever growing portion of the OSR, etc ad nausium. Next will be Traveller if it hasn't been infected with this disease yet.

Old games are a (mostly) safe bet for nonpolitical RPG discussions.

There are numerous small publishers whose RPG products aren't political screeds shoved into games. Those publishers should be highlighted and promoted. For instance, Palladium Books.

Quote from: Omega;1106388This Deadlands background change may not be SJW fronted. It does not quite have the usual red flags. And just seems to be done for other reasons that might be for good or ill totally unrelated to being PC.

I agree, but the timing smells like the usual shit. The "big tell" will be how the new CSA post-war history and PCs are presented. As I said a dozen pages ago, CSA winning, CSA losing, CSA keeps fighting are all potentially interesting choices, its just what's done with that choice.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1106221Well, the Political Correctness Plague was Pundit's foretold 'next wave of the war' against his bete noire, "The Storytelling Swine." Now how much of that is precognition, prediction, projection, or wanton chaos magick from the bowels of Alan Moore, is up for debate. :p (I do wish it was a wizard war, tho. Then we can thrash a bitchin' speed metal accompanying soundtrack. :cool: )

That wizards war IS happening, under the surface. But the magicians on the side of Establishment are absolutely pathetic compared to the magicians on the Deplorables side.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1106241Exactly, and I'm fine with that, so long as Pundit is consistent.

I did state it was off topic, which meant no one was allowed to respond to me here. If they want to start a thread about German war guilt and why it means the EU is evil, they could start that thread on the RPGPundit's forum, and I might leave it open.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1106550That wizards war IS happening, under the surface. But the magicians on the side of Establishment are absolutely pathetic compared to the magicians on the Deplorables side.

Hot damn! :cool: Someone fire up the 'beta' for posterity, we're gonna shred! We're gonna fuckin' blow even their great grandkids' minds! This one goes out for you, Bubbles! Hit it! :cool:

[insert bitchin' playlist here]

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1106459You could just accept that producers of gaming content make what they want to make and ignore it if it doesn't appeal to you.

https://kotaku.com/dungeons-dragons-stumbles-with-its-revision-of-the-ga-1819657235
https://www.autosave.tv/2018/09/24/that-orcward-moment-racial-coding-in-dungeons-and-dragons/
https://blacknerdproblems.com/why-i-didnt-play-dungeons-and-dragons-and-why-i-started/
https://mthrisho.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/dungeons-and-dragons-is-way-more-racist-than-you-realize/
http://www.dyedwards.com/2018/02/28/representation-in-gaming-does-dd-have-a-race-problem/
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/zak-has-nothing-to-do-with-this-book.853000/

Good advice.