One reason why I don't particularly like modern games. I have no trouble asserting my superiority as a Cimmerian over the puny civilized mongrels, but calling normal people chattel quickly leads you to cross the bridge of immaturity to the land of the anemone penises.

And of course it happens more often in games than books or movies. In the latter you might remotely identify with the wish-fulfillment character, in a RPG you _are_ the character to a certain degree. Don't tell me "Neo" isn't the personified pseudo-outcast teenager...

Quote from: DrewThe Hero's Journey isn't the only story out there.

There's a long tradition of protagonists starting off with powerful, sometimes unique abilities that set them apart from the world. As has been said these attributes can provide all sorts of conflict and hooks that rely less on the setting than they do the inherent condition of the characters existence.

It was only a matter of time before RPG's eventually latched on to this. Claiming that it's "anti-human" is ridiculous, unless you want to make a case that all super-powered characters somehow undermine our precious mortality. Exalted is similar to playing a 10th level Wizard, or Spider-Man, and I don't see games featuring them being decried as the foul scribblings of those who would deny us our essential worth.

No, its not. Because whether you start them at 1st level, or already at 10th, those characters evolved into being what they are.

There's obviously other stories than the hero's journey, and no one is arguing you can't start out by playing someone who's already "made it".  That's not what makes it anti-human.

What does make it anti-humanity are when you get these characters that are superior in every way to human beings just by virtue of some kind of birthright, and humans are just there to be stomped on and shat upon.

Its not about whether you start as godlike beings or not. Its about certain geeks wanting to pretend that they aren't human because of deep-rooted issues with their own humanity, and engaging in escapism about their own fantasies of how they should be entitled to be special and to rule over others just because they're a special fucking snowflake, and not have to work hard for those things like the rest of us do.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Erik BoielleA tenth leveller is still gonna know he's Significant, while the Commoners arn't.

Only in the sense that I know I'm significant in comparison to others in certain fields because of my accomplishments.  
And not in the sense that Joe Swine thinks he's Significant just because he's him, and thinks he's different from all the other unwashed masses.

That's the difference.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditOh please. :rolleyes:

Yes, and in Vampire someone could theoretically want to help with human-empowerment too.. only they don't, they play a "superior-in-every-way-being" that gets to pose around and act beautiful and powerful and feels like it deserves to rule even though its done nothing to earn it....

Hey, now, that's not what *I did! I perished in self-hating fire, taking as many of the devil-spawn with me as I could.

Quote from: RPGPunditYes, and in Vampire someone could theoretically want to help with human-empowerment too.. only they don't, they play a "superior-in-every-way-being" that gets to pose around and act beautiful and powerful and feels like it deserves to rule even though its done nothing to earn it, because the players are a gang of neurotic little fuckwits. And that's exactly what people do with Nobilis.

...Except that the Nobilis do not rule common mortals, and are explicitly forbidden to harm innocents. Most of the time they are simply not concerned with humanity, unless humanity is in some way related to their Estates. But if a Noble wishes to track down the Serpent who offered that apple to Eve, to investigate what has happened to the Sable Gardens that once were Eden, and to attempt the reconciliation of the Light and the Dark so that homo sapiens might have a chance to become miraculous again... Well, as said, that's a worthy challenge.

Quote from: DrewIt's also worth noting that mortals receive their Celestial Exaltation as a result of defining themselves heroically in life. A peerless warrior may become a Dawn Caste, or the worlds greatest mortal sage may become a Twilight. The game assumes your character has already done what was necessary to attract the attention of the Gods, and your story begins after the divine spark has attached itself to your soul. The Exaltations are not predestined, nor do they select random people off the street.

From what little I've read and understood about Exalted, that doesn't seem to be true.  There's shitloads of exalteds out there who were nobodies until they suddenly became the Great Pasty-Faced Master Who Blows Up Cities.

Hence that famous quip in someone's .sig about it being really embarrassing having your entire army being massacred by a 14 year old farmgirl with a hoe who's just exalted and declared herself the Invincible Spear Princess or some shit like that...

So basically, you're lying to us now.

RPGPundit

Right on, Sosthenes.

On a related note, I'm reading Rifts right now, and everyone is UBER-SPECIAL TO THE MAX... but then it's so completely over the top and fictional, there's no harm to it at all. Rifts is self-ironic. SenZar probably is, too. WoD games are dead serious.

Quote from: RPGPunditFrom what little I've read and understood about Exalted, that doesn't seem to be true.  There's shitloads of exalteds out there who were nobodies until they suddenly became the Great Pasty-Faced Master Who Blows Up Cities.

I've read the First Edition core book and essentially that's it in a nutshell.

Quote from: DrewAbsoloutely. For some games it's appropriate, for others less so. It's how someone could correlate power disparity and dramatic significance with "anti-humanism" that surprises me.

That's not what we're equating here, dipshit.

We're equating unearned power and an attitude where the PCs are constantly reminded by the game designer that they're better than mere humanity with anti-humanism.

Next you're going to try to claim that WW isn't anti-science, anti-christian and anti-western-civilization either.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Pierce InverarityRight on, Sosthenes.

On a related note, I'm reading Rifts right now, and everyone is UBER-SPECIAL TO THE MAX... but then it's so completely over the top and fictional, there's no harm to it at all. Rifts is self-ironic. SenZar probably is, too. WoD games are dead serious.

I seem to recall a Vagabond OCC that looked pretty Everymanish to me.

Quote from: WarthurAnd then they gave us the answer in Hunter: the Reckoning - the Hunters aren't just normal humans, they're people who are Chosen by the voices in their head and get special powers to go hunt vampires. Yet again, the White Wolf "You Are Special" motif rears its head.

Hell, even the crapfest by crapmaster Bruce Baugh that so many here mistakenly like; Adventure!, premises that you can't be a normal human Pulp hero. No, you have to receive weird cosmic beams in order to be that, and all the pulp heros are actually not normal humans anymore.

Fucking gang of cunts...

RPGPundit

Quote from: jrientsI seem to recall a Vagabond OCC that looked pretty Everymanish to me.

Now show me hordes of Vagabonds proclaiming that they're inherently superior to humans and we can talk. More likely, you'll find a bunch of guys singing "Gypsies, tramps and thieves".

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThis is true, ditto the part about all WoD games sharing this set-up, and Zachary also explained the reasons as to why.

I'd add though that that doesn't make these games "anti-humanistic." It makes them anti-"rabble." As in, some people are infinitely more special (deeper, more complex, clued in) than The Masses.

So, contra Pundy, WoD games aren't Foucauldean, they're Ayn Randean.

Randean thought would usually imply that there's a certain class of human that's just better people than a certain other class.
Whereas what happens in WW is that the "rabble" is usually defined as human, and the "special people" are almost always defined as "not human" (or at least, "not human anymore").

This is way more disturbing, because it means that these snotnosed little fuckers not only think they're better than normal people, they don't really want to be human anymore.

RPGPundit

Quote from: SpikeLeaving aside the Foucaldean, which I'm a tad unclear on, I will say that Ayn Rand's heroes were always 'self made'... in fact that seems to be the entire point, that they were SELF motivated to be something other than bleating sheep.

Not to derail the thread again, but um... sort of.  There's a kind of protestant determinism in Rand's philosophy, by which if you are one of the "special people" who are willing to be "self-made men" you will automatically become a "person of importance" and obviously won't remain among the rabble.

Its that uniquely american-protestant idea that if you're poor its ALWAYS because you deserve it, and probably because some cosmic force is punishing you for being a bad person, thus poor people aren't just poor or lazy, they're EVIL.

Also, as for Atlas Shrugged, this is all I have to say about it:



RPGPundit

Quote from: jrientsI seem to recall a Vagabond OCC that looked pretty Everymanish to me.

God yes. SUCH a loser class. Mind you, I'd play one for the challenge of it.

After I'm done with Glitter Boyz, Techno-Wizards, Cyber-Knights....