The constant "science bad!" Message pretty well everything the put out post-WtA did nothing to help. Sometimes it was blatant, sometimes relatively subtle, but it was always there. The writers' near-total ignorance of science and technology did nothing to help the situation; neither does their long-standing refusal to apply any degree of logic to their settings.

Quote from: Whitewings;910844The constant "science bad!" Message pretty well everything the put out post-WtA did nothing to help. Sometimes it was blatant, sometimes relatively subtle, but it was always there. The writers' near-total ignorance of science and technology did nothing to help the situation; neither does their long-standing refusal to apply any degree of logic to their settings.

Sit down son and I will tell you the tell of how logic defeated Mage: The Awakening.  I made a sexy goth chic who makes bone weapons and armor that is more durable than steel.  I, however, needed none of that for I moved out of the city.  While I lived alone to quiet study the others played politics.  While I try to achieve mastery the others got into conflict for their masters.  While I achieved archmastery the others laid six feet under.  At the end the masters feared me and the players cried.  Simply because I avoided the other mages who blindly follow idealologies that only got in their way.

Quote from: Whitewings;910844The constant "science bad!" Message pretty well everything the put out post-WtA did nothing to help. Sometimes it was blatant, sometimes relatively subtle, but it was always there. The writers' near-total ignorance of science and technology did nothing to help the situation; neither does their long-standing refusal to apply any degree of logic to their settings.

This was more of a 90s thing than a White Wolf thing. Millenialism had everyone distrusting the "authorities" and Science for being the man.

Their was a pagan revival with lots of white folks becoming "Wiccan" or obsessed with Celtic culture and the like. It's more a product of its time than any sort of agenda.

It's why the 20th anniversary stuff started pulling away from that.

Man, I lived through the nineties, don't let my baby face fool ya.  That is one hell of a dumb statement.  I also bought an assload of RPGs in the nineties, and white wolf pretty much was the only one that was rabidly anti-science.

Quote from: Spike;910882Man, I lived through the nineties, don't let my baby face fool ya.  That is one hell of a dumb statement.  I also bought an assload of RPGs in the nineties, and white wolf pretty much was the only one that was rabidly anti-science.

Yeah. it did seem to be their "thing" even early on. Like Badwrongfun it wasn't JUST them but they exemplified it and some others seemed to be aping them not the other way around. I mean, Hell, 1st Edition Exalted started with a "Don't believe what the scientists tell you..." bit though its more excusable as a framing mechanism based on the premise that Creation was the "Pre World of Darkness" and other Sword and Sorcery stories had similar preambles but it still rang as "Same Old Shit" from the pale Lupine.

Thing is, I don't mind a fictional setting being "anti science" where science as we know it is wrong. Other things don't work like they do in the real world afterall and any world where there's vampires, werewolves, mages, etc, science in the real world sense at least has some major holes in its picture of how the Universe works. It was the preachiness and implicit assumption that it wasn't just the setting biut this was how the real world worked that bugged allot of people I think. Same thing with allot of their games politics, come to think of it.

Quote from: Anglachel;910781Context: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?786912-Gathering-People-scammed-by-Richard-Thomas-Onyx-Path

Look at the first moderator responding.  That tells you everything you need to know.

Quote from: yosemitemike;911295Look at the first moderator responding.  That tells you everything you need to know.

This does not come within a parsec of surprising me.

Quote from: Spike;910882Man, I lived through the nineties, don't let my baby face fool ya.  That is one hell of a dumb statement.  I also bought an assload of RPGs in the nineties, and white wolf pretty much was the only one that was rabidly anti-science.

Right, so X-Files, Shadowrun, Deadlands, Captain Planet, The Matrix, and the like didn't exist in the 90s...:rolleyes: You sure you lived through the same Decade I went to Highschool in?

Edit Post: Your also misremembering, it wasn't all Science, it was the "Man's" Science. Nockers, Sons of Ether/Virtual Adepts, Glass Walkers, Artificers, and Techno-Tremere existed..

If you didn't use the man's science you were good...mostly....But reject any corporate or governmental science.

Shadowrun was anti-corporate, not anti-science. Deadlands wasn't anti-science at all. The others weren't RPGs. And in White Wolf, real science, as in the stuff that we have in our world, the body of knowledge generated by rational inquiry, was wrong, evil or both. Nockers weren't scientists; they were tinkerers. The VAs were hackers, not scientists, and the Sons of Ether were defined by their application of outmoded, eccentric or just plain wrong theories. The Glass Walkers were just as big on spiritualism as any other tribe; they simply used different trappings and dealt with newer spirits, like Television or Automobile. Science and technology are two different things.

Quote from: Whitewings;911344Deadlands wasn't anti-science at all.

Deadlands is the game where scientists are driven slowly insane by the demons whispering in their ear to inspire their creations. Their inventions run burning human souls, and are part of a plot to guide humanity into ultimately building the ghost rock bombs that will wipe out civilization and bring the Reckoners into the world.

Quote from: Baulderstone;911403Deadlands is the game where scientists are driven slowly insane by the demons whispering in their ear to inspire their creations. Their inventions run burning human souls, and are part of a plot to guide humanity into ultimately building the ghost rock bombs that will wipe out civilization and bring the Reckoners into the world.

All scientist by innate nature or where there "Mad Scientists"?  Serious question. I hadn't heard anything about Deadlands being Anti Science by nature but there were villains tampering with typical pulp "things man was not meant to know" such as combing the supernatural (which was corrupting in a horror setting) to technology. The impression I had more some humans were recklessly dabbling in things it didn't fully understand, and there was going to be a backlash less the "Science/Technology is Evil".

Quote from: Nexus;911406All scientist by innate nature or where there "Mad Scientists"?  

Only scientists that work with ghost rock are corrupted but that's where you get the mad scientist gizmos so that will include almost all PCs.

Quote from: Nexus;911406All scientist by innate nature or where there "Mad Scientists"?  Serious question. I hadn't heard anything about Deadlands being Anti Science by nature but there were villains tampering with typical pulp "things man was not meant to know" such as combing the supernatural (which was corrupting in a horror setting) to technology. The impression I had more some humans were recklessly dabbling in things it didn't fully understand, and there was going to be a backlash less the "Science/Technology is Evil".

Only the mad scientists. The problem is the Reckoners, the evil demonic entities that created ghost rock in the first place. The game isn't anti-science at all since there's nothing wrong with normal inventions or progress. Technology itself isn't evil, but it often can be used by evil people or entities.

In the possible-future Deadlands Hell on Earth, people have discovered the truth about mad science and given it up but not before the creation of the ghost rock bombs that eventually destroyed everything. And technology can be your best friend or worst enemy there; you've got General Throckmorton's automatons in Denver threatening to sweep over the Wasted West, yet one of your best allies could be the sentient AI in the last communications satellite up in orbit. A small army of cyborgs might just invade and conquer everything, but on the other hand the city of Junkyard (with it's spook-juice-production facilities) remains the best hope for mankind not to be swallowed up by all the crazy, evil shit that's running around.

Quote from: yosemitemike;911408Only scientists that work with ghost rock are corrupted but that's where you get the mad scientist gizmos so that will include almost all PCs.

Thanks. I don't think that's "anti science" though but more here's weird dangerous fringe things for PCs to recklessly exploit to get power. At a price. Many Fantasy setting could be considered "anti magic" if the criteria was just there's a form of it that's bad news. But the (NPC) working on a better steam engine or telegraph is going to go insane and dooming the world to slow stagnation and stasis under the thrall of the Weaver, Banality r\ or something similar by definition. Deadlands sounds "anti" bizarre demonic/necromantic whatever mineral energy source more than anti science overall.

Quote from: Nexus;911413Thanks. I don't think that's "anti science" though but more here's weird dangerous fringe things for PCs to recklessly exploit to get power. At a price. Many Fantasy setting could be considered "anti magic" if the criteria was just there's a form of it that's bad news. But the (NPC) working on a better steam engine or telegraph is going to go insane and dooming the world to slow stagnation and stasis under the thrall of the Weaver, Banality r\ or something similar by definition. Deadlands sounds "anti" bizarre demonic/necromantic whatever mineral energy source more than anti science overall.

Deadland's message is extremely simple.

DO work on innovations to help mankind.

DON'T play around with rocks infused with the ghosts of the damned by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

That is all.