http://www.dogwithdice.com/whitewolfaredead/

Making the rounds on Facebook today.

V5 now insta-buy.

Quote from: Lurtch;1048058http://www.dogwithdice.com/whitewolfaredead/

Making the rounds on Facebook today.

"White-Wolf tries to be edgy, comes off as tone-deaf jackasses"

... News at 11? Is this even new anymore? It's been happening for thirty years

Fascinating. I was not planning to buy it anyway but the PR disaster looks like it will be fun to watch.

Although I do have one point of contention:

QuoteThe new 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium is fantastic.  Lovecraft was a contentious figure in terms of his  writing – even at the time that he wrote them, his attitudes were racist and backwards, there is no getting away from that – but this game is quick to divorce itself from that as much as possible and focus on the terrifying nature of cosmic fear.

I actually think the opposite. IMO, some of the best neo-Lovecraft fiction are the stories that confront that prejudice directly rather than trying to ignore or whitewash it. For example: Lovecraft Country, The Ballad of Black Tom, The Litany of Earth, and The Black Brat of Dunwich. These stories feature protagonists who are black, female, LGBT or even literally alien. I particularly like the revisionist stories which depict the fish people and god hybrids as persecuted victims. As someone who is legally eligible for disability income, experienced a bull-ridden childhood, struggled with depression in high school, blah blah blah, I found myself empathizing with the plight of these protagonists even if they were otherwise very different from me.

I was beaten to it... I was actually going to post this on the forum after we all laughed at it on Facemuck this morning.

What a load of old dross. SJW cancer now rises to utter buffoonery... Who the hell is this Dog with Dice numptie anyway??

I haven't really be paying much attention to V5 after I read the initial reports. I've already got Vampire the way I want it (through house ruling, etc.). I want to buy it now just to piss that muppet off.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048061I actually think the opposite. IMO, some of the best neo-Lovecraft fiction are the stories that confront that prejudice directly rather than trying to ignore or whitewash it. For example: Lovecraft Country, The Ballad of Black Tom, The Litany of Earth, and The Black Brat of Dunwich. These stories feature protagonists who are black, female, LGBT or even literally alien. I particularly like the revisionist stories which depict the fish people and god hybrids as persecuted victims. As someone who is legally eligible for disability income, experienced a bull-ridden childhood, struggled with depression in high school, blah blah blah, I found myself empathizing with the plight of these protagonists even if they were otherwise very different from me.

I disagree. For some reason, I dig a good pastiche. Xenophobia and all. Kinda throws me back in the era.

Lovecraft Country feels too manufactured for me. I would find a book about a white protagonist infiltrating a Black Panther Mythos Cult equally silly.

Now, I know what many of 'a bunch of Swedish edgelords' defenders will say – that the pre-generated PC in question was not a sexual character and was not a rapist. The character was simply a person who surrounded themselves with children, and drank from them regularly. To that, I respond that in this game the act of drinking blood has always been comparable to a sexual act. In earlier editions it was said to be so pleasurable that  it surpassed a vampire's sexual desire, and was outright addictive to mortals. By framing this character as someone who drinks primarily from children, the game codes that character as somebody who indulges in a predominantly sexual act with children.

Alt-Right Nazis are of course well known for their love of roleplaying vampires who drink the blood of children.

I think the doofus who wrote this article is just trying to get attention.

Edit: Scrolling down, no way can I read the whole thing, but he has a picture of Zak S and appears to be saying Zak and Mark Reinhagen are Nazi sympathisers along with the new Vampire development team. Apparently he's in Europe, so maybe a nice Libel action is called for.

I can't read that thing; it's too long and retarded. However, I skimmed it and wonder if it's nothing more than a marketing gimmick...call a bunch of game designers Nazis to gain attention, then shill some other games you want people to buy. I would call the whole thing lazy if it wasn't insanely long. Seems like some sort of autistic rant, to be honest.

Quote from: Lurtch;1048058http://www.dogwithdice.com/whitewolfaredead/

Making the rounds on Facebook today.

Well, the author does have one point he's getting right. I mean the argument that vampires should be above things like mortal race relations, and be outright terrifying when they slip:).

I mean, let's say you're a vampire who used to be a racist. How do you treat another vampire from the race you were taught is generally inferior, who also has a background you were taught is for weaklings?
Why, you treat him like another vampire, because that's what he is, now;)!
Or else you might learn the painful way that Toreador Celerity works just the same for a black liberal arts major, as it does for you...

Quote from: Azraele;1048060"White-Wolf tries to be edgy, comes off as tone-deaf jackasses"

... News at 11? Is this even new anymore? It's been happening for thirty years

True, that. And they seem to long for the good old nights:D!

Quote from: S'mon;1048065Alt-Right Nazis are of course well known for their love of roleplaying vampires who drink the blood of children.

Yeah, I also wondered at the logic behind that. One of the few things me and Alt-Right Neo-Nazis can probably agree on is how to proceed with people who sexually assault children;)!

Quote...but this game is quick to divorce itself from that as much as possible and focus on the terrifying nature of cosmic fear.

My main point of disagreement here is that you don't actually have to make much of an effort to "divorce" yourself from it. While racism and xenophobia were certainly important sources of HPL's inspiration they are not, contra what you constantly hear from people online, deep aspects of most of his stories, nor central to what makes a story Lovecraftian. As decades of pastiche, as well as less direct influences in popular culture (e.g. Alien or The Thing) have demonstrated, you can write a story (or make a movie) that is very recognizably Lovecraftian without any racist rants included.

The sad part is the writer of the article has learnt nothing about buyer psychology imo. The worst thing to do is tell consumer not to buy a controversial product. If anything it drums up more sales imo. That's what made me get into the Old World of Darkness in the first place. Hardcore D&D in my group trashing the system and telling me not to buy it. Which in turn increased my interest and made me want to buy it even more.

As for TBP it seems they find everything offensive.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1048072My main point of disagreement here is that you don't actually have to make much of an effort to "divorce" yourself from it. While racism and xenophobia were certainly important sources of HPL's inspiration they are not, contra what you constantly hear from people online, deep aspects of most of his stories, nor central to what makes a story Lovecraftian. As decades of pastiche, as well as less direct influences in popular culture (e.g. Alien or The Thing) have demonstrated, you can write a story (or make a movie) that is very recognizably Lovecraftian without any racist rants included.

Worth repeating.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1048072My main point of disagreement here is that you don't actually have to make much of an effort to "divorce" yourself from it. While racism and xenophobia were certainly important sources of HPL's inspiration they are not, contra what you constantly hear from people online, deep aspects of most of his stories, nor central to what makes a story Lovecraftian. As decades of pastiche, as well as less direct influences in popular culture (e.g. Alien or The Thing) have demonstrated, you can write a story (or make a movie) that is very recognizably Lovecraftian without any racist rants included.

I would argue that prejudice is a compelling aspect of writing, given how integral it is to the human experience. Trying to whitewash the fiction destroys that compelling power, or worse it actively plays into prejudice. It is not longer politically correct to be racist against black people, but writing fiction where you just replace them with orcs or fishmen while still playing into the old racist tropes of being "savage" and "stealing our women" is nothing more than a clever deflection of our inherent psychological desire to be prejudiced into a more socially acceptable form.

Telling a story where the (typically white, male and heterosexual) protagonists butcher orcs and fishmen who deserve it for being inherently evil does not teach us anything about the human condition unless you deconstruct that story into a parable for prejudice. It only reinforces our inherent desire to be Daleks, whose warped language literally translates "you are different from me" to "Exterminate!" A more constructive use of our writing ability, and a potentially better depiction of cosmic horror (which by definition is supposed to consider human desire, like prejudice, insignificant), would be to depict the hideous aliens as being people rather than villains and targets of violence (assuming the protagonists are supposed to survive the encounter).

For example, The Song of Saya is a perfect example of what I mean. I cannot reveal much of the plot without spoiling it, but the story could not possibly work if we took the cliche "ugliness equals evil" at face value. It is infamous as "the most fucked up visual novel of all time." You can buy it on J-list or watch a let's play on youtube. The premise and writing proved so compelling that, as of this writing, a group of Russian fanboys have nearly completed a remake and sequel called Derangement.

To clarify, by saying that racism and xenophobia are "not...deep aspects of most of his stories" I mean that they are deep, central aspects of some of his stories (including some his best known), and that they are present in many of his stories but in a more superficial way. As one example, there's a bit in Pickman's Model where Pickman notes to the narrator that "I've got a place that I don't believe three living Nordic men besides myself have ever seen", because the presumably Italian section of the city he's talking about is a mysterious place where civilized "Nordic men" rarely venture. But Pickman's Model would be essentially the same story if that line hadn't been there.

Quote from: Lurtch;1048058http://www.dogwithdice.com/whitewolfaredead/

Making the rounds on Facebook today.