TheRPGSite

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?? :D

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...:p

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.

(https://openexpoeurope.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wtfamireading.jpg)

When I look at this nonsense, as well as the stunt that TBP tried to pull on Mr. Macris I wonder how many times these clowns will be able to attack people before they are made to suffer legal consequences.

They can't just keep turning the firehose  on people forever. Eventually they will target the wrong person.

It can't happen soon enough for me.

Yours, Sir Roderick

Given that a modern ' natzi ' means being an ideological other and/or not submitting oneself to The Mob Cult of Approved Human Thought & Existence, I'm not at all surprised by this event.

Nothing from this group surprises me anymore.

They are either/or ideological zealots jihading within the safety and comforts of western society, against inner tribe (community) dissidents.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048080It is not longer politically correct to be racist against black people

But it is politically correct to racist against white people.

Just a friendly reminder. Please try to steer the topic back to RPGs or this thread will be locked or moved.

"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"
 
What clueless idiot. That's what happens when you judge things out of context. Lovecraft's views where backwards? Here's how Disney comics looked 20 years after Lovecraft's time.

https://inducks.org/fr/richard/barks/censored.html

And this is just an example as there are countless more to find for yourselves.

Quote from: John Scott;1048103And this is just an example as there are countless more to find for yourselves.

There are counter-examples (http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2016/10/disturbed-by-lovecraft). Counter-counter-examples? Racist attitudes have varied wildly across time and space, such as between the North and South United States. Lovecraft's contemporaries were quite disturbed by his statements, if that is worth repeating, but then again he lived in New England. His views might have been normal in the South at the time, but not the North at the time.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048107There are counter-examples (http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2016/10/disturbed-by-lovecraft). Counter-counter-examples? Racist attitudes have varied wildly across time and space, such as between the North and South United States. Lovecraft's contemporaries were quite disturbed by his statements, if that is worth repeating, but then again he lived in New England. His views might have been normal in the South at the time, but not the North at the time.

So Lovecraft was a backward thinking racist while at the same time the society around him and many years after where non racists and enjoyed themselves by reading racist comics!

Only a tool would believe such nonsense are you the author by any chance?

Quote from: John Scott;1048109So Lovecraft was a backward thinking racist while at the same time the society around him and many years after where non racists and enjoyed themselves by reading racist comics!

Only a tool would believe such nonsense are you the author by any chance?

I am not the author and I am not arguing any of that.

Societies are not consistently racist across time and space. Lovecraft's own peers decried his views, so any argument that his views conclusively represented the times he lived are erroneous. Certainly his views must have been held by others at the time, as they are held today, but those views were not held by his own peers. Clearly, we can deduce from this that the entirety of the United States did not share a consistent amount of racism in the early 20th century.

Furthermore, it makes no sense to assume that absolutely everyone was racist to that degree at any point in time. If they were, then there never would have been a civil rights movement. Clearly some of the white people have grown or always been sympathetic towards black people, because otherwise they never would have considered abolishing slavery.

Also the moment that Chaosium is going to strip the rich 1920's setting of it's authenticity to please the lowest common denominator, it's the moment the game will lose it's edge and quality that set it above its competitors for so many years. Same goes for Pendragon rpg.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048110Lovecraft's own peers decried his views, so any argument that his views conclusively represented the times he lived are erroneous.

Who?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048110I am not the author and I am not arguing any of that.

Societies are not consistently racist across time and space. Lovecraft's own peers decried his views, so any argument that his views conclusively represented the times he lived are erroneous. Certainly his views must have been held by others at the time, as they are held today, but those views were not held by his own peers. Clearly, we can deduce from this that the entirety of the United States did not share a consistent amount of racism in the early 20th century.

Furthermore, it makes no sense to assume that absolutely everyone was racist to that degree at any point in time. If they were, then there never would have been a civil rights movement. Clearly some of the white people have grown or always been sympathetic towards black people, because otherwise they never would have considered abolishing slavery.

Got any proof of this disagreement with his views? Which of Lovecraft's peers decried his views?

Quote from: John Scott;1048111Also the moment that Chaosium is going to strip the rich 1920's setting of it's authenticity to please the lowest common denominator, it's the moment the game will lose it's edge and quality

Yeah, I feel the same... We always just played how we thought it should be in order to keep to the authenticity of Lovecraft's stories non-PC tropes and all. It never meant we agreed with it of course in real life. We did the same for Howard's Solomon Kane.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1048115Yeah, I feel the same... We always just played how we thought it should be in order to keep to the authenticity of Lovecraft's stories non-PC tropes and all. It never meant we agreed with it of course in real life. We did the same for Howard's Solomon Kane.

God man it's almost like you were roleplaying or something...

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048107There are counter-examples (http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2016/10/disturbed-by-lovecraft). Counter-counter-examples? Racist attitudes have varied wildly across time and space, such as between the North and South United States. Lovecraft's contemporaries were quite disturbed by his statements, if that is worth repeating, but then again he lived in New England. His views might have been normal in the South at the time, but not the North at the time.

This is a monumentally stupid statement. You have apparently never been to Boston. It is notorious for "voluntary" racial segregation in nieghberhoods and racial problems within the police. They often have racial slurs being thrown at the outfielders at ball games in both Philly and Boston.

Have you heard of any problems in Baltimore over the last couple of years? Do you think that happened overnight?

I assure you "racism" was and still is alive and well in new England and the North in general.

Your argument based on geography of the author is something you dreamed up and can't possibly prove. Sorry, your entire argument is a tired stereotype against the South that has never held up (that the there is no racism in the North, but those Rednecks in the South....). Tired of the stupidity of this argument.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1048115Yeah, I feel the same... We always just played how we thought it should be in order to keep to the authenticity of Lovecraft's stories non-PC tropes and all. It never meant we agreed with it of course in real life. We did the same for Howard's Solomon Kane.

Absolutely! Howard was another writer used as a scapegoat for the simple fact that he was a southerner who lived in the 20's.

Quote from: John Scott;1048119Absolutely! Howard was another writer used as a scapegoat for the simple fact that he was a southerner who lived in the 20's.

Sorry, but the majority of histories humans were just humaning wrong prior to the self perceived & bestowed enlightenment & superiority of modernity.
I mean after all, they didnt have the 'humanities' to instruct them on proper humaning for all those hundreds-of-thousands of years.

Its entirely bizarre for you, or any other to think that these people had it right prior to modern evaluation, approval and the guidebook/classroom instructing environment.

Were you "raised in a barn", or something ? :p

Quote from: S'mon;1048065Edit: 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.

Man, what?  As much as I can tell neither of those guys are far enough to the right to even be called "center-left."

Quote from: The Exploited.;1048112Who?

Quote from: jeff37923;1048113Got any proof of this disagreement with his views? Which of Lovecraft's peers decried his views?

This is explained in the article that I linked to (http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2016/10/disturbed-by-lovecraft). Here is a quotation:

Quote from: Jason SanfordResponse to those who say Lovecraft merely reflected the racism and hatred of his times
H.P. Lovecraft lived in what has been called the nadir of American race relations. Because of this many people attempt to excuse Lovecraft's racism and anti-Semitism as merely being a product of his time.

However, Lovecraft's racism and anti-Semitism went far beyond the norm even of those horrific times. And as times changed, Lovecraft didn't change with them, instead sticking firmly to his racism and anti-Semitism.

Lovecraft's hateful views were a major concern of his wife Sonia Greene, who was Jewish. Sonia was extremely disturbed by Lovecraft's anti-Semitism and repeatedly raised this issue with Lovecraft, as related in this Wired article which states "Greene told a biographer later that she kept reminding Lovecraft about her own background, but it didn't seem to dissuade him from his fear of Jews and other immigrants."

Sonia even once confronted Lovecraft on how she was a member of a group he despised, to which he responded by saying she "no longer belonged to these mongrels."

Despite Sonia repeatedly raising these issues with Lovecraft, she later wrote, "Whenever we found ourselves in the racially mixed crowds which characterize New York, Howard would become livid with rage. He seemed almost to lose his mind."

It's likely even Lovecraft knew his views were not the standard racism and hate of his day. Otherwise, why would he have worked so hard to defend his views? An example of this is related in S.T. Joshi's A Dreamer and a Visionary: H.P. Lovecraft and his Time. Joshi describes how Charles D. Isaacson wrote an essay on racial tolerance which also attacked the film Birth of a Nation for inciting "racial hatred." In response Lovecraft wrote that "Mr. Isaacson's views on racial prejudice … are too subjective to be impartial."

Isaacson responded with an essay attacking Lovecraft, saying that the author "is against tolerance of color, creed and equality, upholds race prejudice…"

The year this exchange took place? 1915. Even that long ago people were willing to call out Lovecraft for his racism.

Lovecraft's friend Wilfred Branch Talman also noted Lovecraft's racism, although unlike with the Isaacson exchange Talman merely dismissed Lovecraft's "racist viewpoint" as being part of the bizarre 18th century aristocratic pose Lovecraft affected. But the fact that Talman even noticed Lovecraft's racism during one of the most racist times in American history speaks volumes about how bad Lovecraft's views were.

The idea that Lovecraft's racism and anti-Semitism wasn't merely a product of his times is also taken up by many of the people who have studied the author's works in recent years. For example, in the intro to The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian Fiction, editor Paula Guran writes "Lovecraft's prejudice seems, at the very least, somewhat more pronounced than many of his contemporaries."

Guran's view is echoed by China Miéville in his introduction to At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition by H.P. Lovecraft, where Miéville writes "Two things are sometimes adduced to excuse (Lovecraft). One is that it was 'the time' -- people were just 'like that' back then. This is an unacceptable condescension to history: people were emphatically not all like that."

As I stated in my original XB-1 essay, despite Lovecraft's racism and anti-Semitism his legacy is secure because of the many authors and creators who have taken his ideas and run with them. In addition, most people are able to appreciate Lovecraft's influence on horror and dark fantasy while also acknowledging the negative aspects of his life and work.

But none of that means we should ignore or excuse his racism and hate.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1048118This is a monumentally stupid statement. You have apparently never been to Boston. It is notorious for "voluntary" racial segregation in nieghberhoods and racial problems within the police. They often have racial slurs being thrown at the outfielders at ball games in both Philly and Boston.

Have you heard of any problems in Baltimore over the last couple of years? Do you think that happened overnight?

I assure you "racism" was and still is alive and well in new England and the North in general.

Your argument based on geography of the author is something you dreamed up and can't possibly prove. Sorry, your entire argument is a tired stereotype against the South that has never held up (that the there is no racism in the North, but those Rednecks in the South....). Tired of the stupidity of this argument.

Then I am ignorant in that particular geographical matter and my statement about levels of racism in the North and South was in error.  (https://www.theroot.com/is-the-south-more-racist-than-other-parts-of-the-us-1820893655)I do not claim to be an expert in these matters, nor do I claim that racism is dead. Indeed, in my last post I stated quite explicitly that racism varies immensely across time and space. I only argue that Lovecraft's racism should not be excused for any reason and that it is not necessarily representative of his historical era. (See the quote from Sanford's article for examples.)

I think confronting and overturning Lovecraft's racism in fiction writing is more productive than ignoring or excusing it, particular given that racism is alive and well today. Given that I have suffered prejudice myself and still suffer self-image problems, I am more inclined to sympathize with Lovecraft's hideously ugly villains and consume revisionist takes on his fiction.

Quote from: John Scott;1048119Absolutely! Howard was another writer used as a scapegoat for the simple fact that he was a southerner who lived in the 20's.

Lovecraft was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. He lived in New England his entire life. He was never a "southerner" and he is not being used as a scapegoat.

You can cite all the evidence you want that absolutely every white person in the 20s was some kind of racist asshole, but that misses the point of my argument. It does not matter if Lovecraft was "a man of his time" (which is contentious, as Sanford attests), it is immoral to excuse racism for any reason. You are just upset that he was a racist nutjob and think that invalidates his contributions, reflects badly on yourself for liking him (although I seriously doubt most here have actually read his work) or something similarly inane. You have the audacity to think those accusing us of being alt-right are utterly baseless, when it is arguments just like yours which the inflame those accursed SJWs.

Lovecraft was racist, his views were not remotely universal, and it is absolutely disgusting to make excuses for him. Lovecraft's racism does not devalue his work or his contributions, quite the opposite. Without Lovecraft's racism, his work arguably would not have been as remotely powerful as it is. Without his racism, we would not have amazing revisionist fiction like The Litany of Earth or The Song of Saya. Excusing Lovecraft's racism is an insult to the literary establishment. Excusing Lovecraft's racism is an insult to S.T. Joshi, an ethnic Indian who fervently studied and defended Lovecraft to point of giving up his award when the bust was replaced by Octavia Butler (I would have preferred Ursula K. Le Guin myself, and her whiteness would have made the award recast look less like an obvious cave to SJWs).

He was a freaking nutjob, all things considered. That is why his work is so enduring. His work is only good because it includes horrible racism and general insanity and self-loathing. That is a fundamental and terrible part of the human experience. So please do not make excuses, because your fervent denial only devalues his work worse than the SJWs ever could.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048129..given that racism is alive and well today.

Indeed.

Look at those decades long cross-demographic crime statistics that have to be plumbed from sources like the NVCS, because law enforcement & official three letter orgs officially documenting some of the most perpetrator revealing facts for public perusal equals ' muh racism '.

...and how if those behaviors were demographic universal habits/behaviors, certain groups would lose the power of the tireless accusation and may earnestly live a life of struggle due to the human 'other'

What about the original article. It seems like just someone with very rigid and elaborate ideology interpreting stuff in ways that meet his worldview. Are the new WW crew actually part of a neo-Nazi party?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048129It does not matter if Lovecraft was "a man of his time" (which is contentious, as Sanford attests), it is immoral to excuse racism for any reason.

Yyyeah because being capable of condemning the majority of human history, probably isnt a broken method.

...and y'know, concepts like advancement and progress based on inheriting the societal achievements of those prior and building on them are counterfeit and/or some form of apologism  

"The lessons we learn sometimes are written on the tombstones of others" <--- Sounds like some Klan grade revisionism propaganda to me :rolleyes:

While an entire decades old political faction that largely influences your ideological positioning so believes said concept(s) to be true that its not only the core engine of its assembly, but is the group header.

/ insert infinite laugh emojis

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1048132What about the original article. It seems like just someone with very rigid and elaborate ideology interpreting stuff in ways that meet his worldview. Are the new WW crew actually part of a neo-Nazi party?

No. Of course they aren't.

Quotewhen the bust was replaced by Octavia Butler

Minor point, but the HPL bust wasn't replaced by Octavia Butler (although some people were pushing for that). The current WFA trophy doesn't depict a person at all, it's a depiction of a tree against a full moon.

Quote from: S'mon;1048065Now, 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.

So by that logic, vampires are rapists.

Are OP doing an Vampire content? Turnabout being fair play after all.

These people are demented. I tried to read the article, but it's such a long nonsensical rant that I had to just skim it. This is another case of the radical left being so intolerant that they eat their own.

Too bad the new Vampire game isn't actually Alt-Right, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Quote from: Sergeant Brother;1048142These people are demented. I tried to read the article, but it's such a long nonsensical rant that I had to just skim it. This is another case of the radical left being so intolerant that they eat their own.

Too bad the new Vampire game isn't actually Alt-Right, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

I don't want an Alt-Right Vampire any more than I want a hard Left Vampire.

Speaking of the new Vampire:

I havent made the time to look into it, anything really noteworthy in change about the game mechanics or setting? I mean 'natzi dog whistle the rpg' aside.

I'm curious how they address The Masquerade in our much more camera riddled and networked society.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1048143I don't want an Alt-Right Vampire any more than I want a hard Left Vampire.

There are numerous RPG's out there written by leftists that push left wing ideology. White Wolf has been doing that for decades. I think it might be refreshing to see a right wing RPG. Not that I demand one, I'm fine if my games are ideologically neutral. Though if there was an RPG that was right wing, I'd buy it.

Caveat: I could not finish the entire article. I have shit to do.

This article stinks of desperation, grasping at imaginary straws and earnestly trying to make their point by pointing at the image of the unfinished book and screaming "Nazi Monsters!". The only saving grace is the somewhat monotone Victorian tone in contrast to what I expected; a hysteric Victorian tone.

Why in the seven FUCKS of demonic WONDER does everything have to be about something? This is exactly like that video making the rounds about people that are "too woke". I don't think I can call myself a liberal anymore. That crowd has gone completely full retard. You never go full retard. My god it's full of dumb.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048129This is explained in the article that I linked to (http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2016/10/disturbed-by-lovecraft).

Lovecraft was racist, his views were not remotely universal, and it is absolutely disgusting to make excuses for him. Lovecraft's racism does not devalue his work or his contributions, quite the opposite. Without Lovecraft's racism, his work arguably would not have been as remotely powerful as it is. Without his racism, we would not have amazing revisionist fiction like The Litany of Earth or The Song of Saya. Excusing Lovecraft's racism is an insult to the literary establishment. Excusing Lovecraft's racism is an insult to S.T. Joshi, an ethnic Indian who fervently studied and defended Lovecraft to point of giving up his award when the bust was replaced by Octavia Butler (I would have preferred Ursula K. Le Guin myself, and her whiteness would have made the award recast look less like an obvious cave to SJWs)..

A poorly researched article that the use of easy to find historical evidence discredit it entirely. Again, only a fool or a dishonest person would take Lovecraft out of contex of his era and paint him a bad person while there is plenty of evidence that suggests he was no more of a "racist" than Carl Barks, and that unless you have no sense of humor is at least hilarious! Everything else including your emotional drivel just reinforce my opinion that you and the author want a narrative to justify the lame changes at new CoC and Mask of Nyarlathotep, changes aimed at people like yourself maybe who might be offended by anything that walks on the planet.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1048132What about the original article. It seems like just someone with very rigid and elaborate ideology interpreting stuff in ways that meet his worldview. Are the new WW crew actually part of a neo-Nazi party?

Would be news to me if they were. This article is just one more loon in a vast sea of insane that is the SJW mob.

Quote from: Sergeant Brother;1048145There are numerous RPG's out there written by leftists that push left wing ideology. White Wolf has been doing that for decades. I think it might be refreshing to see a right wing RPG. Not that I demand one, I'm fine if my games are ideologically neutral. Though if there was an RPG that was right wing, I'd buy it.

Brother, let me tell you about ACKS....

Quote from: Sergeant Brother;1048145There are numerous RPG's out there written by leftists that push left wing ideology. White Wolf has been doing that for decades. I think it might be refreshing to see a right wing RPG. Not that I demand one, I'm fine if my games are ideologically neutral. Though if there was an RPG that was right wing, I'd buy it.

The hilarious thing is that it appears they still are pursuing a left wing perspective..

It seems they're just not doing it in the right way, or using the right language to keep America's neo-puritan faux-left happy.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048107. Lovecraft's contemporaries were quite disturbed by his statements, if that is worth repeating, but then again he lived in New England. His views might have been normal in the South at the time, but not the North at the time.

No, Lovecraft had views that were literally xenophobic - a terror of the other. They bore very little resemblance to contemporary racist views in the Southern USA from what I can tell, and only slightly more resemblance to the views of Northerners.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;1048128Man, what?  As much as I can tell neither of those guys are far enough to the right to even be called "center-left."

Someone just linked above to Raggi linking to Zak going all SocJus on The Escapist for hiring someone with unapproved views. It is hilarious the approved SJWs are calling him a Nazi now - but also defamatory. I expect Reinhagen is much the same, but apparently he's not keen on Antifa violence (because it's bad for the Left) - which makes him Literal Hitler to the SJWs.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048129This is explained in the article that I linked to (http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2016/10/disturbed-by-lovecraft).

OK, lets say that your argument and evidence support that Lovecraft was a racist. Why should we care?

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1048132What about the original article. It seems like just someone with very rigid and elaborate ideology interpreting stuff in ways that meet his worldview. Are the new WW crew actually part of a neo-Nazi party?

Go on, take a guess. :rolleyes: :D

Quote from: Sergeant Brother;1048142These people are demented. I tried to read the article, but it's such a long nonsensical rant that I had to just skim it. This is another case of the radical left being so intolerant that they eat their own.

Too bad the new Vampire game isn't actually Alt-Right, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Vampires are Degenerate. Werewolves, OTOH... :D

Quote from: John Scott;1048148Once again, only a fool or a dishonest person would take Lovecraft out of contex of his era and paint him a monster while there is plenty of evidence that suggests he was no less of a bad person than...

I don't think Lovecraft was a bad person. But he was at least borderline mentally ill. He was literally, medically, xenophobic.

And it empowered his writing.

Quote from: Azraele;1048152Brother, let me tell you about ACKS....

There's nothing in ACKS that's more right-wing than OD&D or AD&D. Or tons of retro-clones, especially those that share ACKS's swords & sorcery vibe.

Right-wing RPGs were sort of a thing in the '80s; GDW (Twilight: 2000, Space: 1889, Traveller 2300 et al) and West End Games (The Price of Freedom) are the ones I recall. GDW's Traveller: The New Era from 1990 was all about killing indigenous people/aliens and taking their stuff with the approval of the Kantian Categorical Imperative, it was very right-wing in a very specifically American Right-Liberal/Republican sort of way, like a Rambo movie. It had a bunch of ends-justify-means stuff explaining why the Good Guys are GOOD AND JUSTIFED which rather reminds me of reading The Antifascist Handbook.

As well as ACKS (Autarch), I expect the Troll Lord Games guys vote Republican too along with a fair number other publishers, but it doesn't mean their games content is any different from centre-left publishers. You have the more extreme far left companies like Evil Hat, then really you have everyone else without a lot of difference.

Quote from: S'mon;1048168There's nothing in ACKS that's more right-wing than OD&D or AD&D. Or tons of retro-clones, especially those that share ACKS's swords & sorcery vibe.

Right-wing RPGs were sort of a thing in the '80s; GDW (Twilight: 2000, Space: 1889, Traveller 2300 et al) and West End Games (The Price of Freedom) are the ones I recall. GDW's Traveller: The New Era from 1990 was all about killing things and taking their stuff with the approval of the Kantian Categorical Imperative, it was very right-wing in a very specifically American Right-Liberal/Republican sort of way, like a Rambo movie.

I was just referring to it's author, Alexander Macris being a self-proclaimed "Ayn Rand libertarian" (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39234-ACKS-is-now-a-forbidden-topic-in-TBP). If I recall correctly, he once referred to the mechanics as celebrating the moment in human history when free enterprise began to replace feudalism.

One reason I don't like about talking articles like these is that you give the prat a lot of attention and traction to his site...

Lets hope it wakes up a few minds and shows what a mutant he is.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048129Lovecraft was racist, his views were not remotely universal, and it is absolutely disgusting to make excuses for him. Lovecraft's racism does not devalue his work or his contributions, quite the opposite. Without Lovecraft's racism, his work arguably would not have been as remotely powerful as it is. Without his racism, we would not have amazing revisionist fiction like The Litany of Earth or The Song of Saya. Excusing Lovecraft's racism is an insult to the literary establishment. Excusing Lovecraft's racism is an insult to S.T. Joshi, an ethnic Indian who fervently studied and defended Lovecraft to point of giving up his award when the bust was replaced by Octavia Butler (I would have preferred Ursula K. Le Guin myself, and her whiteness would have made the award recast look less like an obvious cave to SJWs).

His expressed some racist views. I do not think his views were universal, however they passed as acceptable if they were shared in the company of people in which he'd have that sort of conversation. It is the same reason why those racist Disney cartoons (and many others to follow from WB) were common - racist, yes. But acceptable by enough of the population that was fine with that being a source of comedic entertainment.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048129He was a freaking nutjob, all things considered. That is why his work is so enduring. His work is only good because it includes horrible racism and general insanity and self-loathing. That is a fundamental and terrible part of the human experience. So please do not make excuses, because your fervent denial only devalues his work worse than the SJWs ever could.

His works are enduring and continue to sell because they are excellent stories. That's why there are Penguin Classics versions of them. Also why many well know authors speak so well of him and his stories.

How is the view you just expressed so different than an SJW viewpoint?

Quote from: Azraele;1048170I was just referring to it's author, Alexander Macris being a self-proclaimed "Ayn Rand libertarian" (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39234-ACKS-is-now-a-forbidden-topic-in-TBP). If I recall correctly, he once referred to the mechanics as celebrating the moment in human history when free enterprise began to replace feudalism.

Sure - but you could say the exact same thing about 1e AD&D.

Quote from: Lynn;1048174His works are enduring and continue to sell because they are excellent stories.

This is it...

Everyone knows that Lovecraft was a racist. But the guy was a freaking creative genius and his influence will be felt in horror and Sci-Fi forever.

You don't need to like someone or agree with their real world beliefs to enjoy their work. I'm looking at you Steve Jobs who was a complete scumbag incidentally.

Vampire the RPG.
"I exist only by drinking the blood of the living... but I, like, feel totally bad about it and stuff."
"Hey yeah let's put that in the game mechanics."

Do we need a socioeconomic and textual analysis of this to know that it's dumb? It's Vampire! Vampire is thespy, and thus inherently wrong.

I haven't gotten through the article on Vampire, so no comments about that right now. But I've done a lot of Lovecraft-based games, so I'm interested in that.

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.

I'm not familiar with the fiction in question - I haven't read any direct neo-Lovecraft fiction. I agree with the general strategy, though, within gaming. I dislike games that try hard to be Lovecraftian but gloss over the racism. His xenophobia was a core part of many stories, and I like games that run with that aspect of it.

Quote from: S'mon;1048163I don't think Lovecraft was a bad person. But he was at least borderline mentally ill. He was literally, medically, xenophobic.

And it empowered his writing.

I think we're all agreed that Lovecraft was racist. The issue is about how to do games that are based on Lovecraft. A lot of games do gloss over that aspect, which I think you agree empowered his writing. I think it's more interesting to take it and explore it, as BoxCrayonTales says.

For example, my last Call of Cthulhu campaign was set in the 1950s after a devastating war with the Deep Ones - known as the "Deep War". The Allies in this war were the key naval powers: the U.S., England, Germany, and Japan. This meant that the U.S. was now allied with Nazi Germany, and the PCs missions had them working with them some. It was weird and a little uncomfortable - which I think is good for a Lovecraftian horror game.

Quote from: S'mon;1048163I don't think Lovecraft was a bad person. But he was at least borderline mentally ill. He was literally, medically, xenophobic.

And it empowered his writing.

I should have used "" that's not what I meant. You probably right, he had a rough childhood but I also believe that he was an honest person.

Quote from: John Scott;1048189I should have used "" that's not what I meant. You probably right, he had a rough childhood but I also believe that he was an honest person.

By all accounts he was a decent bloke and well liked (by people who enjoyed his work) it's obvious by the correspondence he had with them.

But he was a troubled man... It's no wonder he had a fear of strangers as he was mentally abused by his mother who pounded a lot of strange ideas into his head as a kid. It should also be noted they he was changing his beliefs as he got older. He did marry a Jewish woman.

After reading all of that I'll say this- Zak and I do not get along. We've had it out here and elsewhere and he took a shot at me on Twitter a couple of weeks ago which I actually appreciate because it showed the true colors of a third party. With almost a decade of animosity between us I don't think he deserves that snarky commentary. He has proven himself a creative member of the gaming community and I do not believe the smears in this article nor do I believe he deserves unending ridicule. I get the irony of this situation and we are not going to be pals, but even I don't think he needs this. Big Purple chewed him up enough in their huge thread.

Any of the criticism in the article could be leveled at the whole of White Wolf's games. In whatever incarnation they might be. Not just Vampire 5th Edition.

I think it's really dishonest to try and claim that Vampire 5th is the only incarnation of the White Wolf games with questionable content and ideas behind it.

Quote from: bat;1048195After reading all of that I'll say this- Zak and I do not get along. We've had it out here and elsewhere and he took a shot at me on Twitter a couple of weeks ago which I actually appreciate because it showed the true colors of a third party. With almost a decade of animosity between us I don't think he deserves that snarky commentary. He has proven himself a creative member of the gaming community and I do not believe the smears in this article nor do I believe he deserves unending ridicule. I get the irony of this situation and we are not going to be pals, but even I don't think he needs this. Big Purple chewed him up enough in their huge thread.

I just wanted to say I applaud this display of maturity and pushback against libel, even (especially!) for a rival. :) We degrade all of ourselves to let such misbehavior go unchallenged.

kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya! :)

The author used the word "fuck" 18 times. That's fucking amazing.

Quote from: Aglondir;1048217The author used the word "fuck" 18 times. That's fucking amazing.

Because he fights the fucking MAN, man!

Quote from: Azraele;1048170I was just referring to it's author, Alexander Macris being a self-proclaimed "Ayn Rand libertarian" (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39234-ACKS-is-now-a-forbidden-topic-in-TBP). If I recall correctly, he once referred to the mechanics as celebrating the moment in human history when free enterprise began to replace feudalism.

Hmm, I can't recall saying that, but it does sound like something I would say!  But maybe not about ACKS. ACKS is set in Late Antiquity - feudalism hadn't yet begun.

As far as being an Ayn Rand libertarian, I am one; ACKS - well, all of the PCs in ACKS would have been called looters & moochers by Ayn Rand. She didn't think much of conquerors and kings. "Entrepreneur Executive Boss" would be more her taste.

ACKS is a fantasy game inspired by the hero's journey of fictional protagonists like Conan and Aragorn, or real-world protagonists like Aurelian or Alexander.  I don't worry about how it ties into contemporary political norms anymore than I worry about who Scipio and Hannibal would have voted for in 2016. I just enjoy imagining a world where magic is real, chaos and evil threaten civilization, and heroes must rise and save the realm through daring, cunning, and skill.

Quote from: amacris;1048225Hmm, I can't recall saying that, but it does sound like something I would say!  But maybe not about ACKS. ACKS is set in Late Antiquity - feudalism hadn't yet begun.

As far as being an Ayn Rand libertarian, I am one; ACKS - well, all of the PCs in ACKS would have been called looters & moochers by Ayn Rand. She didn't think much of conquerors and kings. "Entrepreneur Executive Boss" would be more her taste.

ACKS is a fantasy game inspired by the hero's journey of fictional protagonists like Conan and Aragorn, or real-world protagonists like Aurelian or Alexander.  I don't worry about how it ties into contemporary political norms anymore than I worry about who Scipio and Hannibal would have voted for in 2016. I just enjoy imagining a world where magic is real, chaos and evil threaten civilization, and heroes must rise and save the realm through daring, cunning, and skill.

Nothing like getting a response from the author. In our mutual defense, you say a lot of stuff that's worth reading.

Quote from: jhkim;1048188I think we're all agreed that Lovecraft was racist. The issue is about how to do games that are based on Lovecraft.

I always just ran the Chaosium adventures (in my hardback Call of Cthulu 2e from Games Workshop) as written. I don't generally find Lovecraft scary but I did manage to scare myself running The Haunted House in a freezing house in Sheffield, 1996, for my fiancee as a solo player. Unlike me she wasn't scared at all. :D

At the time I ran CoC I wasn't aware of Lovecraft's xenophobia. If I had been when I ran The Secret of Castronegro ca 1986 I can imagine I could maybe have added an extra edge to it (it has ghouls, and Mexicans). But really the kind of purity/corruption/alien threat themes you see in HPL are not very different to classical horror themes, including swords & sorcery - REH's swords & sorcery is definitely principally horror. What makes HPL different from typical fantasy horror is not Fear of the Other, it's the Fear of the Uncaring Universe, a universe without any Providence or divine protection for humanity.

Quote from: bat;1048195After reading all of that I'll say this- Zak and I do not get along. We've had it out here and elsewhere and he took a shot at me on Twitter a couple of weeks ago which I actually appreciate because it showed the true colors of a third party. With almost a decade of animosity between us I don't think he deserves that snarky commentary. He has proven himself a creative member of the gaming community and I do not believe the smears in this article nor do I believe he deserves unending ridicule. I get the irony of this situation and we are not going to be pals, but even I don't think he needs this. Big Purple chewed him up enough in their huge thread.

The normal SJW approach is that if you disagree with them, you're a Nazi. That's their standard modus operandi.
Zak's case is interesting in that he doesn't actually disagree with them on the issues, he just has an obnoxious personality.
Which to them makes him a Harasser and, by osmosis, now a Nazi.
So you don't have to like him or agree with him to see this is obviously wrong and unfair.

So heres a question.

The article is obviously tortured dishonest badly written garbage.

Reading through the long thread on RPGnet it's clear that most of the arguments against White Wolf are incredibly thin and based on the desire to believe it's written to appeal to Nazi's.  (When it looks like the game will most likely take a left wing slant as all WW games before it).

Why then do this crowd want to believe the game is written to appeal to Nazis?  What do they really have against WW that they should twist things this badly to make this out?

Quote from: S'mon;1048231I always just ran the Chaosium adventures (in my hardback Call of Cthulu 2e from Games Workshop) as written. I don't generally find Lovecraft scary but I did manage to scare myself running The Haunted House in a freezing house in Sheffield, 1996, for my fiancee as a solo player. Unlike me she wasn't scared at all. :D

At the time I ran CoC I wasn't aware of Lovecraft's xenophobia. If I had been when I ran The Secret of Castronegro ca 1986 I can imagine I could maybe have added an extra edge to it (it has ghouls, and Mexicans). But really the kind of purity/corruption/alien threat themes you see in HPL are not very different to classical horror themes, including swords & sorcery - REH's swords & sorcery is definitely principally horror. What makes HPL different from typical fantasy horror is not Fear of the Other, it's the Fear of the Uncaring Universe, a universe without any Providence or divine protection for humanity.

It's a lot more complex than "xenophobia". After all, one of his best (and longest) stories, At the Mountains of Madness, is largely about how the Elder Things (which are extremely far from being human) are "men", because they are rational, intelligent, beings.

Similarly, the story many people point to as exhibiting his "xenophobia", The Shadow over innsmouth, the narrator at the end realizes that he's actually one of them, and maybe they aren't so creepy after all. Which sets the tone for a lot of later Deep One stories by Derleth and Lumley, where they are portrayed more as creep humans than anything else.

Quote from: TJS;1048237Why then do this crowd want to believe the game is written to appeal to Nazis?  What do they really have against WW that they should twist things this badly to make this out?

I think many people don't seem to understand is that many on the left, truly believe that everyone on the right are literal Nazis.  Not just as a name, but actual goose stepping, sieg heiling, toothbrush mustache wearers. It's gone beyond demonizing your opponents by using hyperbole to the point of almost hysteria.

Quote from: JeremyR;1048239I think many people don't seem to understand is that many on the left, truly believe that everyone on the right are literal Nazis.  Not just as a name, but actual goose stepping, sieg heiling, toothbrush mustache wearers. It's gone beyond demonizing your opponents by using hyperbole to the point of almost hysteria.

Yes. It's always a tug-of-war of the slippery slope between left and right. Nobody wants to give any ground for fear of extending the sphere of influence of the other side, that's why you have to call them by their worst names.

There's racism in Lovecraft. You might find elements of it in what - 5% of his written pages? 10%? So why does so much of the discussion focus on that?
When discussion goes back to, yeah, I don't like the racism, let's not be racist, but let's focus on the good stuff, we'll be getting there. I do think that's happening.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1048194By all accounts he was a decent bloke and well liked (by people who enjoyed his work) it's obvious by the correspondence he had with them.

But he was a troubled man... It's no wonder he had a fear of strangers as he was mentally abused by his mother who pounded a lot of strange ideas into his head as a kid. It should also be noted they he was changing his beliefs as he got older. He did marry a Jewish woman.

and thats the thing all these loon detractors keep missing and instead incessantly screech "RACIST!". More to the point Lovecraft was A: a bit xenophobic, or at the very least fairly put off by customs and manners he was not used to. And B: in his writings and apparently his personal correspondence he more just did not like the reserved, sometimes surly, isolationist attitude of some immigrants. Which was more pronounced back then from accounts of family born back then, and hate to say it. But it still going on now-a-days. Perhaps moreso as various SJW groups push for increasing segregation and isolation of each culture by incessantly screeching "APPROPRIATION!"

And indeed as he got out and met people his views changed. Gosh. Just like a real human being might! That monster! :rolleyes:

Quote from: JeremyR;1048239I think many people don't seem to understand is that many on the left, truly believe that everyone on the right are literal Nazis.  Not just as a name, but actual goose stepping, sieg heiling, toothbrush mustache wearers. It's gone beyond demonizing your opponents by using hyperbole to the point of almost hysteria.

It doesn't apply here though.  They're not taking people with right wing beliefs and exaggerating it.

In this case they're making it up out of whole cloth.  They're not besmirching their political opponents - they're throwing their allies under the bus.

Which is why I'm curious why they're doing it.  Is it perhaps some sort of personal or professional jealousy related to the historical relations between the rpgnet moderation staff and Onyx Path?

Or is it just White Wolf's history of producing games with sexual content and metaphors running crash into this neo-puritan version of the left which is profoundly uncomfortable with any sort of sexual content at all?

Or is is because White Wolf games have always had something of left wing bent, but this particular crowd of American progressives are unable to handle anything coming from a left that doesn't precisely fit their narrative and their terms of reference?*  (They therefore feel they are unable to control).

*(Posters on RPGnet insist that the onus is on the Swedish developers - separated from the USA by geography, culture and native language to avoid any misunderstanding by being familiar with and using the terms of reference of their subculture- American progressives bear no responsibility for any misunderstandings that may arise.)

In any case, it's clear that the stuff with Zak S is personal - the political element there is clearly just a smokescreen.  This White Wolf business reeks of the same - which just has me wondering if there's some history here that would offer a simple explanation for the rabid dishonesty and bad faith.

Quote from: JeremyR;1048238It's a lot more complex than "xenophobia". After all, one of his best (and longest) stories, At the Mountains of Madness, is largely about how the Elder Things (which are extremely far from being human) are "men", because they are rational, intelligent, beings.

Similarly, the story many people point to as exhibiting his "xenophobia", The Shadow over innsmouth, the narrator at the end realizes that he's actually one of them, and maybe they aren't so creepy after all. Which sets the tone for a lot of later Deep One stories by Derleth and Lumley, where they are portrayed more as creep humans than anything else.

Subtlety is lost on these nuts.

Quote from: TJS;1048245It doesn't apply here though.  They're not taking people with right wing beliefs and exaggerating it.

In this case they're making it up out of whole cloth.  They're not besmirching their political opponents - they're throwing their allies under the bus.

Which is why I'm curious why they're doing it.  Is it perhaps some sort of personal or professional jealousy related to the historical relations between the rpgnet moderation staff and Onyx Path?

Or is it just White Wolf's history of producing games with sexual content and metaphors running crash into this neo-puritan version of the left which is profoundly uncomfortable with any sort of sexual content at all?

Or is is because White Wolf games have always had something of left wing bent, but this particular crowd of American progressives are unable to handle anything coming from a left that doesn't precisely fit their narrative and their terms of reference?*  (They therefore feel they are unable to control).

*(Posters on RPGnet insist that the onus is on the Swedish developers - separated from the USA by geography, culture and native language to avoid any misunderstanding by being familiar with and using the terms of reference of their subculture- American progressives bear no responsibility for any misunderstandings that may arise.)

In any case, it's clear that the stuff with Zak S is personal - the political element there is clearly just a smokescreen.  This White Wolf business reeks of the same - which just has me wondering if there's some history here that would offer a simple explanation for the rabid dishonesty and bad faith.

Why do you assume it has to be one or another of these? And even more, that it has to be the same for everyone in their crowd;)?

You also have to remember that TBP is a front for the old White Wolf and Onyx Path crown. And that they were going to attack anything new White Wolf put out. No matter what.

This type of venom and dishonesty is not anything new from that crowd. A bunch of entitled brats who believe that only they are the ones anointed to write for those properties. No matter who might actually own them.

New White Wolf committed a sin in their eyes. By choosing writers and other talent from outside of their sick little clique. And for them, that is heresy at the highest level.

One fact that will never change is this. That clique is the same group that ran White Wolf into the ground. And who sold it off to a MMO company that also ran it into the ground.

Also. Mark Rein-Hagan is also involved with Vampire 5th Edition. They actually went back to the original author and brought him back into the fold. So whatever Vampire 5th Edition was going to be. It certainly would not be built based on the input of those writers that drove the property to faiilure.

Quote from: AsenRG;1048252Why do you assume it has to be one or another of these? And even more, that it has to be the same for everyone in their crowd;)?

Well that's easily answered.

I'm not.  In no way did I imply that it was an exclusive list.  And of course they're not mutually exclusive options - surely I don't need to spell out things that are just common sense?

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1048253You also have to remember that TBP is a front for the old White Wolf and Onyx Path crown. And that they were going to attack anything new White Wolf put out. No matter what.

This type of venom and dishonesty is not anything new from that crowd. A bunch of entitled brats who believe that only they are the ones anointed to write for those properties. No matter who might actually own them.

New White Wolf committed a sin in their eyes. By choosing writers and other talent from outside of their sick little clique. And for them, that is heresy at the highest level.

Yes I was wondering about that.  I just wasn't sure that there was any of that crowd still around or if they were ever involved in anything more than the exalted line..  I seem to remember a bunch of them were chased off because they got accused of harassment or something.  It's hard to keep track of all these forum dramas.

But that's probably the core of it.  Jealousy and sour grapes.

At least it fits.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1048253You also have to remember that TBP is a front for the old White Wolf and Onyx Path crown. And that they were going to attack anything new White Wolf put out. No matter what.

This type of venom and dishonesty is not anything new from that crowd. A bunch of entitled brats who believe that only they are the ones anointed to write for those properties. No matter who might actually own them.

New White Wolf committed a sin in their eyes. By choosing writers and other talent from outside of their sick little clique. And for them, that is heresy at the highest level.

One fact that will never change is this. That clique is the same group that ran White Wolf into the ground. And who sold it off to a MMO company that also ran it into the ground.

Also. Mark Rein-Hagan is also involved with Vampire 5th Edition. They actually went back to the original author and brought him back into the fold. So whatever Vampire 5th Edition was going to be. It certainly would not be built based on the input of those writers that drove the property to faiilure.

This guy gets it.

Even though I think V5 is going to suck, I may end up buying it just to spite RPG.net

Quote from: TJS;1048255Well that's easily answered.

I'm not.  In no way did I imply that it was an exclusive list.  And of course they're not mutually exclusive options - surely I don't need to spell out things that are just common sense?

Actually, you did imply it by beginning your sentences using "or":).
But the question itself was a rhetorical one. In fact, it wasn't really a question, and more like an answer.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1048253You also have to remember that TBP is a front for the old White Wolf and Onyx Path crown. And that they were going to attack anything new White Wolf put out. No matter what.

This type of venom and dishonesty is not anything new from that crowd. A bunch of entitled brats who believe that only they are the ones anointed to write for those properties. No matter who might actually own them.

New White Wolf committed a sin in their eyes. By choosing writers and other talent from outside of their sick little clique. And for them, that is heresy at the highest level.

One fact that will never change is this. That clique is the same group that ran White Wolf into the ground. And who sold it off to a MMO company that also ran it into the ground.

Also. Mark Rein-Hagan is also involved with Vampire 5th Edition. They actually went back to the original author and brought him back into the fold. So whatever Vampire 5th Edition was going to be. It certainly would not be built based on the input of those writers that drove the property to faiilure.

Alas, that doesn't sound really far-fetched;).

If the original "Get Woke, Go Broke" crew hates this, I will give it a flip-through in the store.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;1048267If the original "Get Woke, Go Broke" crew hates this, I will give it a flip-through in the store.

   I don't know, it feels more like the Revolution devouring its own to me. :) But I've never had more than a passing interest in the World of Darkness, and at the moment, I find my tastes leaning much more heroic and superversive than the market in general, much less the 'edge' promoted by WW/OP.

Quote from: Omega;1048244And indeed as he got out and met people his views changed. Gosh. Just like a real human being might! That monster! :rolleyes:

Yeah, God forbid people have a change of heart as they get older.:rolleyes:

I'm glad some of my views have changed over the years!

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1048261This guy gets it.

Even though I think V5 is going to suck, I may end up buying it just to spite RPG.net

I do find it interesting that someone was saying nothing in Vampire the Requiem (the other vampire game) allowed you to play vampire Nazis. Then someone posted a list of things that did just that, including a whole sub-faction of one of the major groups (of player characters) that was pro-Neo Nazi (they're in the Carthians book, for anyone who cares).

Then, a day later, the person who brought that up is permabanned. (The person only had 1 post and looks like they registered just for that... but interesting how they not only banned the person, they deleted the person's comment.)

Sure looks biased as hell.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1048261This guy gets it.

Even though I think V5 is going to suck, I may end up buying it just to spite RPG.net

Why is it going to suck? Ken Hite is the main writer and he's brilliant.

Quote from: Lurtch;1048284Why is it going to suck? Ken Hite is the main writer and he's brilliant.

Some of the earlier concepts that were being talked about sounded very silly...

It depends how much influence Hagen and Hite will actually have and if they've revised some of the earlier aspects that were being proposed.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1048253You also have to remember that TBP is a front for the old White Wolf and Onyx Path crown. And that they were going to attack anything new White Wolf put out. No matter what.

This type of venom and dishonesty is not anything new from that crowd. A bunch of entitled brats who believe that only they are the ones anointed to write for those properties. No matter who might actually own them.

New White Wolf committed a sin in their eyes. By choosing writers and other talent from outside of their sick little clique. And for them, that is heresy at the highest level.

One fact that will never change is this. That clique is the same group that ran White Wolf into the ground. And who sold it off to a MMO company that also ran it into the ground.

Also. Mark Rein-Hagan is also involved with Vampire 5th Edition. They actually went back to the original author and brought him back into the fold. So whatever Vampire 5th Edition was going to be. It certainly would not be built based on the input of those writers that drove the property to faiilure.

On the contrary. Have you even looked at the rpg.net thread on the article. Within a few posts Darren McClennan, of all people is there to attack the article.  (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?831024-An-article-about-Nu-White-Wolf-and-their-target-audience-Nazis&p=21989448#post21989448)

"I am taking this article with a big grain of salt; just for instance, I don't believe that Zak S has identified with GamerGate or it's aims. There's plenty of material for stuff he has done, but confusing the issue doesn't help matters at all."

And Stephen Lea Sheppard... (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?831024-An-article-about-Nu-White-Wolf-and-their-target-audience-Nazis&p=21989527#post21989527)

"Brujah has always been Clan Ideologues With Crowbars. Past clanbooks had Nazi skinheads as pregen characters -- of course, Nazis weren't see as a going political concern back then."

"That does read to me less like he's saying "Nazis are a thing right now, so we need to market to them" and more like he's saying "Nazis are a thing right now, so we are going to put them in our game since our game is set in the present, and since our game is about vampires, vampires are going to use and promote Naziism to advance their own interests because that's how vampires would probably relate to Naziism.""

Then JustJo stepped into ban a guy who was defending the article.

If anything, the moderation staff is unusually protective of White Wolf.

Quote from: JeremyR;1048238Similarly, the story many people point to as exhibiting his "xenophobia", The Shadow over innsmouth, the narrator at the end realizes that he's actually one of them, and maybe they aren't so creepy after all. Which sets the tone for a lot of later Deep One stories by Derleth and Lumley, where they are portrayed more as creep humans than anything else.

He always leaves a shadow of the doubt over everything which is part of the horror. Zadok Allen is an old unreliable drunk, yet he has a grand tale to tell of the history of the town.

That is just one interpretation of the ending of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Another is that having reached the point where he is clearly physically transforming into a Deep One, he has a very sudden reversal in his thinking. He could have changed his mind using rationality - but you never see those steps, as with all the rest of the meticulous reporting throughout the story. The transformation into a Deep One biologically overwrites a part of his personality, and he is no longer the same person as he was, but an 'other'.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1048213I just wanted to say I applaud this display of maturity and pushback against libel, even (especially!) for a rival. :) We degrade all of ourselves to let such misbehavior go unchallenged.

kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya! :)

We are all in this together and we should play fair, regardless of differences. Zak can be difficult and I believe he has stated that once exposed/defrocked/proven to be this or that that you are done, over, no soup for you. But I don't believe that. People can see the errors of their ways and there is a word called redemption, whether public or personal. And this blog post is late in tearing into him, like I said, Big Purple did it first and showed no mercy, this is a pale tantrum in comparison and in the end discredits Zak to shill something else? That is just lame and should have no traction.

Someone should ask on that TBP thread if the Garou are the ICE of the Spirit world? And should they be killed for it?

I see the little muppet has pulled the article... Due to 'harassment'. Haw haw haw...

If you want to read the (now removed) article, check this cached version...

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CboU6p6vRl8J:www.dogwithdice.com/whitewolfaredead/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Quote from: The Exploited.;1048378I see the little muppet has pulled the article... Due to 'harassment'. Haw haw haw...

Quote from: The little muppet(Due to) vitriolic responses to the article from at least one popular feminist gaming critic (the article has been removed)

(Parenthetical portions mine, to explain context)

Huh? Why would a feminist critic have a problem with an SJW attack piece?

Quote from: AsenRG;1048266Actually, you did imply it by beginning your sentences using "or":).
But the question itself was a rhetorical one. In fact, it wasn't really a question, and more like an answer.
).

Aaaah.  So you're just a dick.  No worries.  I'll add you to my list.

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

45 pages of now locked thread at TBP and this is the gist of it.  A dice example of "1,4,8,8", a couple of dubious NPCs in early playtest materials, and a statement that demographically 1 in 4 Swedish purchasers of V5 will be in favor of deporting immigrants, but despite many posters asking for examples nothing that concretely supports any claim that NuWW are neoNazis or support same.  Lots of evidence that they are tone deaf jackasses though.

I still have no interest in V5. I still have my V:tM 1e and 2e rulebooks somewhere in storage if I ever get the itch to run the game again. But really I have kind of moved on.

Quote from: DavetheLost;104838945 pages of now locked thread at TBP and this is the gist of it.  A dice example of "1,4,8,8", a couple of dubious NPCs in early playtest materials, and a statement that demographically 1 in 4 Swedish purchasers of V5 will be in favor of deporting immigrants, but despite many posters asking for examples nothing that concretely supports any claim that NuWW are neoNazis or support same.  Lots of evidence that they are tone deaf jackasses though.

I still have no interest in V5. I still have my V:tM 1e and 2e rulebooks somewhere in storage if I ever get the itch to run the game again. But really I have kind of moved on.

I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Seriously, Vampire was awesome back in the 1990's.

Shame that Revised ended all that and it seems that V5 will be the final nail in the coffin.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1048390I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Seriously, Vampire was awesome back in the 1990's.

Shame that Revised ended all that and it seems that V5 will be the final nail in the coffin.

Why?

Quote from: TJS;1048386Aaaah.  So you're just a dick.  No worries.  I'll add you to my list.

Maybe I am. And you definitely can't take criticism, so I'll add you to my IL, too:).

Quote from: DavetheLost;1048389Lots of evidence that they are tone deaf jackasses though.

Some posters have already mentioned that this isn't much of a change...;)

Quote from: The Exploited.;1048378I see the little muppet has pulled the article... Due to 'harassment'. Haw haw haw...

What kind of harrassment?

Quote from: Aglondir;1048385(Parenthetical portions mine, to explain context)

Huh? Why would a feminist critic have a problem with an SJW attack piece?

Maybe he means TBP under "feminist critic";)?
What I don't understand is why anyone would pull a piece due to criticism. But that's a different question.

Quote from: AsenRG;1048404What kind of harrassment?.

Not too sure, but here's what he said on his site where the article was:

'Due to –

    actual harassment and abuse directed to people who work both in and outside of the gaming community including, employees of White Wolf Publishing and Onyx Path Publishing and others not related to either company,
    fictitious and unsubstantiated claims of campaigns of harassment allegedly taken by staff of this site against members of the above, namely Mr Dawkins and Mr Webb which are known to be false,
    vitriolic responses to the article from at least one popular feminist gaming critic,
    threats of personal violence and death directed at myself and my loved ones, including at least one received from a known staff of the above,
    emails from individuals fortuitously claiming to represent White Wolf Publishing containing purported legal threats,
    other attempts to silence voices of criticism and enquirey,

This page has now been removed'

Quote from: The Exploited.;1048511Not too sure, but here's what he said on his site where the article was:

'Due to –

    actual harassment and abuse directed to people who work both in and outside of the gaming community including, employees of White Wolf Publishing and Onyx Path Publishing and others not related to either company,
    fictitious and unsubstantiated claims of campaigns of harassment allegedly taken by staff of this site against members of the above, namely Mr Dawkins and Mr Webb which are known to be false,
    vitriolic responses to the article from at least one popular feminist gaming critic,
    threats of personal violence and death directed at myself and my loved ones, including at least one received from a known staff of the above,
    emails from individuals fortuitously claiming to represent White Wolf Publishing containing purported legal threats,
    other attempts to silence voices of criticism and enquirey,

This page has now been removed'

Brushing off other people's claims of harassment as "fictitious and unsubstantiated" in the same breath as claiming to be a victim of a harassment campaign themselves is especially great.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1048516Brushing off other people's claims of harassment as "fictitious and unsubstantiated" in the same breath as claiming to be a victim of a harassment campaign themselves is especially great.

Looks like he's ran off with his tail between his legs! :D

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1048390I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Seriously, Vampire was awesome back in the 1990's.

Shame that Revised ended all that and it seems that V5 will be the final nail in the coffin.

Looking at any edition, Vampire holds no appeal to me. I don't know what the appeal is anymore. Other RPGs like Urban Shadows and Feed have implemented the same basic concepts with far more elegance.

Quote from: Sergeant Brother;1048145There are numerous RPG's out there written by leftists that push left wing ideology. White Wolf has been doing that for decades. I think it might be refreshing to see a right wing RPG. Not that I demand one, I'm fine if my games are ideologically neutral. Though if there was an RPG that was right wing, I'd buy it.

Lion & Dragon (https://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/) is right wing only in the sense that it is traditional OSR, depicting a Medieval-Authentic style and setting. Much like what happened with Kingdom Come: Deliverance, that is enough for some people to call it 'right-wing' in this day and age.

Quote from: S'mon;1048175Sure - but you could say the exact same thing about 1e AD&D.

Why do you think the Seattle crew despise it?

Quote from: amacris;1048225Hmm, I can't recall saying that, but it does sound like something I would say!  But maybe not about ACKS. ACKS is set in Late Antiquity - feudalism hadn't yet begun.

Ironically, that quote of "celebrating the moment when free enterprise began to replace feudalism" WOULD apply to Lion & Dragon (https://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/).

Anyone have a copypasta of the page before it got removed?  Before the whole site seemed to disappear?

EDIT: Got it.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180708153619/http://www.dogwithdice.com/whitewolfaredead/

Apparently Nazis.

Yeah, the article is just ridiculous beyond belief.

Quote from: Aglondir;1048385(Parenthetical portions mine, to explain context)

Huh? Why would a feminist critic have a problem with an SJW attack piece?

Apparently the context is here https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AnnaKreider/posts/517uEdxnPxh

Quote from: fellowhoodlum;1048747Apparently the context is here https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AnnaKreider/posts/517uEdxnPxh

"Naming me is a clear attempt to get even by encouraging others to harass me"

Setting the incitement bar pretty low now, eh.

It feels to me as if recently the SJWs have been a bit short of viable targets, and so increasingly turning on each other as in this fracas. Pundit you need to step up your game if you want them to deem you Worthy of Destruction and unite vs a common enemy!

Quote from: S'mon;1048755It feels to me as if recently the SJWs have been a bit short of viable targets, and so increasingly turning on each other as in this fracas. Pundit you need to step up your game if you want them to deem you Worthy of Destruction and unite vs a common enemy!

I'm perfectly happy with letting them destroy themselves.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1048766I'm perfectly happy with letting them destroy themselves.

Yeah, it's rude to interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake.

Quote from: fellowhoodlum;1048747Apparently the context is here https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AnnaKreider/posts/517uEdxnPxh

"Me: Cool. Are you open to some strongly worded criticism? Because here are the mental health consequences I'm personally already suffering, and here are the harms that I've been made aware of."

Mental Health Consequences?!? How does she manage to even survive in the real world?!?

Quote from: NYTFLYR;1048789Mental Health Consequences?!? How does she manage to even survive in the real world?!?

By being a professional victim.

Quote from: NYTFLYR;1048789"Me: Cool. Are you open to some strongly worded criticism? Because here are the mental health consequences I'm personally already suffering, and here are the harms that I've been made aware of."

Mental Health Consequences?!? How does she manage to even survive in the real world?!?

The thing is, she wasn't always like this.  I knew Anna back in our college days.  Her husband was part of my gaming circle of friends.  We've gamed together, we've been to friends weddings together, etc.  She was fine back then, maybe a little uptight, but cool to hang out with.  

Now though?  Now she's a woman-appearing-person.  I read her blog over the years and it was like watching a train wreck happen in real-time.  People compare 4th wave feminism to cancer.  Seeing Anna change over the years, yeah... it's kinda like that.

A woman-appearing person...

I noticed they're pretty free with calling men "he"... LOL

What is this bizarro drug these people are on? It apparently makes them incapable of dealing with life... incites cannibalism, delusions of importance,  and a endless Outrage (which is the cheap knock-off of actual Rage).

Of note - she gets upset and put-out about him calling her response "vitriolic". Then she apologize after the face that when reading her own posts it suggests to herself that it was overly aggressive (because reasons) - but doesn't go so far to admit to an outsider, it might sound vitriolic. And that's just based on what she *didn't* post, because she clearly said a lot more.

the level of self-importance these people assign to themselves is insane.

[video=youtube;2m-e4PgiVfM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m-e4PgiVfM[/youtube]

Quote from: rgalex;1048808The thing is, she wasn't always like this.  I knew Anna back in our college days.  Her husband was part of my gaming circle of friends.  We've gamed together, we've been to friends weddings together, etc.  She was fine back then, maybe a little uptight, but cool to hang out with.

Good to know.

QuoteNow though?  Now she's a woman-appearing-person.

And what the hell is that WAP thing supposed to mean?

QuoteI read her blog over the years and it was like watching a train wreck happen in real-time.  People compare 4th wave feminism to cancer.  Seeing Anna change over the years, yeah... it's kinda like that.

I think you mean 3rd wave feminism:)?

Quote from: tenbones;1048833A woman-appearing person...

I noticed they're pretty free with calling men "he"... LOL

What is this bizarro drug these people are on? It apparently makes them incapable of dealing with life... incites cannibalism, delusions of importance,  and a endless Outrage (which is the cheap knock-off of actual Rage).

Dunno, but I'd bet on hallucinogens mixed with uppers;).

Quote from: AsenRG;1048855I think you mean 3rd wave feminism:)?

Really?  Did Google lie to me.  It says 4th wave started in 2012 and is all social media influenced.  3rd wave was/is the 90s variety, which didn't seem to make as many problems.  Oh well, whichever it is that added all this insufferable inter-sectionalism, everything is sexist, everything is racist, etc etc etc shit. :)

I made it halfway... errgh.

Lovecraft's writing is actually quite shit. The world he paints is the ramblings of a deranged, lost person. Never really got on with that view of the world: nothing is ever unbeatable, there's always a way. Fuck, my own life is proof positive of that, will be even more so five/ten years down the line, guaranteed.

The racism adds nothing to his work. Anyone saying that (anything even remotely near that) sounds like they, like Paula Deen, would love to travel back to a time when Blacks were the minstrel-prancing help at parties, serving peach cobbler to "well-heeled" folk via hands gloved in white. Cut that shit out.

What I did like from the stories inspired by his dreary take on life that seethed with lunacy was nothing to do with him. Anchorhead. An adventure game I highly recommend to all: they re-released it recently in a paid, graphical version on Steam but you could quite easily grab a copy of the .z8 file off the web and run it with the Gargoyle interpreter (I customized the coloring on mine: a nice two-color green/black -- made reading and typing at two in the morning a lot more bearable... Ahem...). Game's actually genuinely unnerving, puzzles are generally good (some are a bit what-the-shit), you can put yourself in an unwinnable state or lock off score points if you do things in the wrong order though.

Also, when talking about these idiots, call them far-right or white supremacists. This covert word sabotage has got to stop.

With regards to the article, this guy is in his feels. He's ranting, that's fine. Problem is the people behind OPP (those the author is championing) are objectively evil because Beast: The Primordial was a thinly veiled justification for child molestors, rapists, abusers and trenchcoat mafia types. It's really uncomfortable reading. No wonder that one of the biggest voices in the SJW crowd and the lead designer on that game was outed for molesting a girl back in the day. Worst part was that the guy never denied it -- again, he never denied it. And once that hit the web, the team at RPG.net quickly shut it down, banned people talking about, deleted posts and threads, then did a half-hearted "apology" and announced he'd "resigned" from being staff member on the site. Like a republican caught getting his cock sucked by a coke-addled twink in a dirty motel somewhere, the response by the SJW crowd was very similar: fake left. That's not to mention the fact that they have been repeatedly alleged to not pay their freelancers on time or at all but that's for another thread...

Malcolm X warned us about this shit decades ago. Decades ago.

"It is the white liberal who usually poses as the friend of the Negro, who actually differs from the white conservative and in the same way that the fox differs from the wolf. Their appetite is the same, their motives are the same: it is only their mannerisms and methods that differ."

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1048868Lovecraft's writing is actually quite shit. The world he paints is the ramblings of a deranged, lost person. Never really got on with that view of the world: nothing is ever unbeatable, there's always a way. Fuck, my own life is proof positive of that, will be even more so five/ten years down the line, guaranteed.

Nahh

And it just keeps getting more fucked up. (https://www.geeknative.com/61962/white-wolf-just-told-alt-right-fck-off/)

With the accompanying Reddit Thread. (https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/8ylj6q/white_wolf_just_told_the_altright_to_fck_off/)

Why? Just so that you can read it all in glorious Technocolor.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1048868Lovecraft's writing is actually quite shit. The world he paints is the ramblings of a deranged, lost person. Never really got on with that view of the world: nothing is ever unbeatable, there's always a way.

This "unbeatable hopelessness" thing sounds more like the revisionist modern version of the Cthulu mythos.

Lovecraft by contrast teaches us to hit Cthulu in the face with a boat.

Quote from: S'mon;1048877This "unbeatable hopelessness" thing sounds more like the revisionist modern version of the Cthulu mythos.

Lovecraft by contrast teaches us to hit Cthulu in the face with a boat.

I see it as a bunch of PR, basically a motivational spiel that Cthulhu and his ilk use to keep their spirits up each time their plans are foiled. "Sure, we lost THIS time (and all those times before), but what are the odds we fail 10,308,482 times in a row?! We HAVE to win sooner or later!"

Quote from: rgalex;1048857Really?  Did Google lie to me.  It says 4th wave started in 2012 and is all social media influenced.  3rd wave was/is the 90s variety, which didn't seem to make as many problems.  Oh well, whichever it is that added all this insufferable inter-sectionalism, everything is sexist, everything is racist, etc etc etc shit. :)

You are basically correct.  3rd wave feminism was still in many ways an intellectual movement.

Quote from: rgalex;1048857Really?  Did Google lie to me.  It says 4th wave started in 2012 and is all social media influenced.  3rd wave was/is the 90s variety, which didn't seem to make as many problems.  Oh well, whichever it is that added all this insufferable inter-sectionalism, everything is sexist, everything is racist, etc etc etc shit. :)

Not sure about the waves, but I do remember feminists going absolutely nuts on rpg.net in 2010-2011, and maybe before.

Quote from: rgalex;1048857Really?  Did Google lie to me.  It says 4th wave started in 2012 and is all social media influenced.  3rd wave was/is the 90s variety, which didn't seem to make as many problems.  Oh well, whichever it is that added all this insufferable inter-sectionalism, everything is sexist, everything is racist, etc etc etc shit. :)

Intersectionalism definitely existed in the 3rd wave version and was a major feature:). You could argue for the other two as well, there were certainly signs of them, though you can also say it did get worse post-2012;).
We got way too serious about my comment, though. It was a joke meant to remind you that you can't heap all the responsibility for those trends on the heads of the current version.

Quote from: Trond;1048901Not sure about the waves, but I do remember feminists going absolutely nuts on rpg.net in 2010-2011, and maybe before.

I'm not sure rpg.net ever had enough women to be able to go nuts. The population was like,

Male - 85%
Transgendered - 11% (entirely M2F)
Furries - 6%
Women - 1%
* does not add to 100% because of overlap and membership of multiple groups

Quote from: AsenRG;1048927Intersectionalism definitely existed in the 3rd wave version and was a major feature:).

1990s Feminist Political Correctness was quite different in several ways, and was definitely not dominated by Intersectionality. The cultural Marxist totem poll of victimhood status did exist (so eg feminist organisation NOW supported OJ Simpson, because he's black, rather than the family of the white wife he murdered - the man he murdered was of course of no interest), but the made up genders stuff wasn't much of a thing, and there was not a general recognition that a man identifying as a woman had higher status than an actual woman. There was also less of an emphasis on victimhood and mental illness as status markers generally.

I remember at my University about 10 years ago, it was quite confusing when visiting speakers started using "Radical Feminist" as a derogatory term - they became the even more derogatory TERFs when transgenderism became dominant in 2012. In the 1990s Left it was still Good to be a Radical Feminist.

Quote from: S'mon;10489531990s Feminist Political Correctness was quite different in several ways, and was definitely not dominated by Intersectionality.

Dominated, no. But it was a principle to be observed. Or did that part also creep in circa the new millennium?

QuoteThe cultural Marxist totem poll of victimhood status did exist (so eg feminist organisation NOW supported OJ Simpson, because he's black, rather than the family of the white wife he murdered - the man he murdered was of course of no interest), but the made up genders stuff wasn't much of a thing, and there was not a general recognition that a man identifying as a woman had higher status than an actual woman. There was also less of an emphasis on victimhood and mental illness as status markers generally.

The emphasis on these varied, and it started to shift towards the "new crazy" circa the new millennium, when the 3rd wave became the 3.5wave, IMO. At least from what I was able to tell.

QuoteI remember at my University about 10 years ago, it was quite confusing when visiting speakers started using "Radical Feminist" as a derogatory term - they became the even more derogatory TERFs when transgenderism became dominant in 2012. In the 1990s Left it was still Good to be a Radical Feminist.

:D
Yeah, I can imagine that would be confusing;).

Still, that's definitely a more serious tone than the whole movement deserves:p!

Quote from: rgalex;1048808The thing is, she wasn't always like this.  I knew Anna back in our college days.  Her husband was part of my gaming circle of friends.  We've gamed together, we've been to friends weddings together, etc.  She was fine back then, maybe a little uptight, but cool to hang out with.  

Now though?  Now she's a woman-appearing-person.  I read her blog over the years and it was like watching a train wreck happen in real-time.  People compare 4th wave feminism to cancer.  Seeing Anna change over the years, yeah... it's kinda like that.

I am sorry that you feel that you've lost a good friendly acquaintance. :( Personal recommendation: don't feel shut out of her 'new exciting life', and leave the door open if she ever needs a 'quiet listening ear'. :) She is dancing upon eggshells among the (self-)righteous, and in the end ALL fail this dance, especially those who protest the loudest.

A lot of 'wokeness' comes from idealistic conversions, and there's nothing more insufferable than a recent convert -- of ALL stripes -- especially to 'the faithful'. It comes from zeal untempered by practicable humanity (usable in the real world without exhausting contortions). It is a violent phase that commonly passes once the lens of humane-ness within an ideology extends to all it gazes upon... and realizes sometimes that it too, the lens, needs to be switched out. The world and its beings are too big for any singular ideology to encapsulate without harm somewhere.

There is no perfect in this world. :) But the struggle for ideals, tempered with applied wisdom, is still worthwhile. May she be met in happier circumstance again. :)

------------
(edit: and as much as I'd love to jump in this discussion between 3rd & 4th gen Feminism, esp. regards terms, transsexuality, transgender, et alia, I don't feel this would be a fruitful discussion here. Too hot, too moderated, and more importantly too distracting to this topic. Best advice: the "Us v. Them" cake is a lie... on all sides. ;) Let it go. )

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1048931I'm not sure rpg.net ever had enough women to be able to go nuts. The population was like,

Male - 85%
Transgendered - 11% (entirely M2F)
Furries - 6%
Women - 1%
* does not add to 100% because of overlap and membership of multiple groups

Almost all transsexuals are men pretending to be women.

It's a mental illness.

Quote from: Lurtch;1048968Almost all transsexuals are men pretending to be women.

It's a mental illness.

There was this weird Tangency thread years ago which revealed that all the posters with "feminine" usernames and girly avatars were in fact transsexuals. At that time the whole trans thing wasn't yet part of our daily cultural discourse. So it was a headscratching moment for me - these people are 0.2% of the general population, yet they are 10% of rpgnet posters, and many are either mods or have the ear of mods? It was like going to a cooking class and realising that it's been taken over by fanatical Theosophists. Why did they choose to gather there, what has Theosophy got to do with cooking, and why are they so angry?

Quote from: The_Shadow;1048979There was this weird Tangency thread years ago which revealed that all the posters with "feminine" usernames and girly avatars were in fact transsexuals. At that time the whole trans thing wasn't yet part of our daily cultural discourse. So it was a headscratching moment for me - these people are 0.2% of the general population, yet they are 10% of rpgnet posters, and many are either mods or have the ear of mods? It was like going to a cooking class and realising that it's been taken over by fanatical Theosophists. Why did they choose to gather there, what has Theosophy got to do with cooking, and why are they so angry?

Transgenderists really like roleplaying? At least the idea of it.

BTW I noticed that the media comes up with f2m transgenders to match the m2fs, but I never encounter them IRL or even on the Internet. It's always m2f.

Quote from: S'mon;1048990Transgenderists really like roleplaying? At least the idea of it.

BTW I noticed that the media comes up with f2m transgenders to match the m2fs, but I never encounter them IRL or even on the Internet. It's always m2f.

I've read estimates that it's 70/30 split but I'm willing to bet real money that they are trying to balance out those numbers. I bet it's more 90/10. It's men that are more likely to have this mental illness than women.

Quote from: Lurtch;1048992I've read estimates that it's 70/30 split but I'm willing to bet real money that they are trying to balance out those numbers. I bet it's more 90/10. It's men that are more likely to have this mental illness than women.

I think there are different sorts of mental problems and social influence at work, and some may be relatively sex-balanced, but by far the most common seems to be middle aged heterosexual men with an autogynephilia fetish. These also tend to be by far the most aggressive and politically active, and the ones physically attacking lesbian 'terfs'. They tend to have pretty macho dispositions, moreso than most men, which in conjunction with a victimhood claim makes a powerful combination.

Read White Wolf's response and all the comments to it available at the time on Facebook, and I can safely say that the community just did far more harm to itself than any real or imagined Nazis.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048129This is explained in the article that I linked to (http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2016/10/disturbed-by-lovecraft). Here is a quotation:

Quote from: Jason SanfordSonia was extremely disturbed by Lovecraft's anti-Semitism and repeatedly raised this issue with Lovecraft, as related in this Wired article which states "Greene told a biographer later that she kept reminding Lovecraft about her own background, but it didn't seem to dissuade him from his fear of Jews and other immigrants."

Sonia even once confronted Lovecraft on how she was a member of a group he despised, to which he responded by saying she "no longer belonged to these mongrels."

Funny how people can hold their prejudice in the face of obvious counter-examples. Funny how people drop their prejudice once they feel you're one of them.

Just goes to show how none of this is rational.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1048129It does not matter if Lovecraft was "a man of his time" (which is contentious, as Sanford attests), it is immoral to excuse racism for any reason.

I agree.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1048141So by that logic, vampires are rapists.

Well, yeah.

That's what's so crazy: It's acceptable to play a blood sucking rapist with consent violating powers and impulse control issues who preys on the innocent and might accidentally murder you at a moment's notice.

But god forbid they're a bigot.

I'm also disturbed by Ken Hite's 180 from "all vampires are rapists" to "empowering undead predator". Seems a paycheck was all it took to change his mind.

Quote from: S'mon;1048163I don't think Lovecraft was a bad person. But he was at least borderline mentally ill. He was literally, medically, xenophobic.

Maybe, but there comes a point where he needs to be held accountable for his actions regardless.

I think many of the loudest SJWs are mentally ill (or worse exploiting the mentally ill) but that doesn't excuse the damage they cause.

Quote from: amacris;1048225As far as being an Ayn Rand libertarian, I am one; ACKS - well, all of the PCs in ACKS would have been called looters & moochers by Ayn Rand. She didn't think much of conquerors and kings. "Entrepreneur Executive Boss" would be more her taste.

ACKS is a fantasy game inspired by the hero's journey of fictional protagonists like Conan and Aragorn, or real-world protagonists like Aurelian or Alexander.  I don't worry about how it ties into contemporary political norms anymore than I worry about who Scipio and Hannibal would have voted for in 2016. I just enjoy imagining a world where magic is real, chaos and evil threaten civilization, and heroes must rise and save the realm through daring, cunning, and skill.

So the game you wrote and enjoy playing is outright antithetical to the political values you hold in real life.

I'm the same way. So are most gamers I know.

Quote from: JeremyR;1048239I think many people don't seem to understand is that many on the left, truly believe that everyone on the right are literal Nazis.

Which includes any leftists who are slightly more to the right. Especially them.

Quote from: Tanin Wulf;1048282I do find it interesting that someone was saying nothing in Vampire the Requiem (the other vampire game) allowed you to play vampire Nazis. Then someone posted a list of things that did just that, including a whole sub-faction of one of the major groups (of player characters) that was pro-Neo Nazi (they're in the Carthians book, for anyone who cares).

Then, a day later, the person who brought that up is permabanned. (The person only had 1 post and looks like they registered just for that... but interesting how they not only banned the person, they deleted the person's comment.)

Wow.

It's nice to see they're selectively deleting posts for reasons other than doxxing though, as there's something I've been meaning to do...

Quote from: DavetheLost;104838945 pages of now locked thread at TBP and this is the gist of it.  A dice example of "1,4,8,8", a couple of dubious NPCs in early playtest materials, and a statement that demographically 1 in 4 Swedish purchasers of V5 will be in favor of deporting immigrants,

Also "Blood and Souls", which is a quote from Elric of Melnibone. You know, the guy who White Wolf is named after.

Seriously, I'm surprised they weren't attacked for having 'white' in the company name.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1048516Brushing off other people's claims of harassment as "fictitious and unsubstantiated" in the same breath as claiming to be a victim of a harassment campaign themselves is especially great.

Funny how they can't seem to stick to their own principles.

Quote from: S'mon;1048753"Naming me is a clear attempt to get even by encouraging others to harass me"

Setting the incitement bar pretty low now, eh.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure that was his intent, as he didn't name her in his initial flounce, yet included it later.

But Anna also claims she hasn't received any harassment due to this. So intention doesn't matter?

Quote from: NYTFLYR;1048789"Me: Cool. Are you open to some strongly worded criticism? Because here are the mental health consequences I'm personally already suffering, and here are the harms that I've been made aware of."

Mental Health Consequences?!? How does she manage to even survive in the real world?!?

Quote from: rgalex;1048808The thing is, she wasn't always like this.  I knew Anna back in our college days.  Her husband was part of my gaming circle of friends.  We've gamed together, we've been to friends weddings together, etc.  She was fine back then, maybe a little uptight, but cool to hang out with.  

Now though?  Now she's a woman-appearing-person.  I read her blog over the years and it was like watching a train wreck happen in real-time.  People compare 4th wave feminism to cancer.  Seeing Anna change over the years, yeah... it's kinda like that.

That's sad and terrifying.

Quote from: jeff37923;1048873And it just keeps getting more fucked up. (https://www.geeknative.com/61962/white-wolf-just-told-alt-right-fck-off/)

So a bunch of gamers asked a publisher to disavow the groups they oppose, but not violence, racism, sexism, harassment, or doxxing. That's because they're not actually against those concepts when it comes to what they consider acceptable targets, which is the whole problem.

White Wolf is done though, because no matter how many times they denounce Nazis it will never be enough. At least those with an honest interest in social justice are starting to clue into the fact that the radical elements tied to their movements are a liability.

Social justice is a good thing.

I just don't see you how you'd ever expect that in a game where you play monsters who exist by drinking the blood of the living - yes, even if they feel bad about it afterwards - and where you can only level up by taking down more powerful vampires, but the whole vampire system prohibits that. It's like a monster parable of exploitative capitalism, or something. If you want social justice, play a vampire hunter.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1049012Social justice is a good thing.

I just don't see you how you'd ever expect that in a game where you play monsters who exist by drinking the blood of the living - yes, even if they feel bad about it afterwards - and where you can only level up by taking down more powerful vampires, but the whole vampire system prohibits that. It's like a monster parable of exploitative capitalism, or something. If you want social justice, play a vampire hunter.

Can you define social justice for me?

Quote from: Lurtch;1049014Can you define social justice for me?

Is it when you get a closed-minded social group to form a mob and then go out seeking to force what you've collectively decided is justice upon others?

Quote from: Lurtch;1049014Can you define social justice for me?

There are different levels depending on where your country is. For example, in Iraq it'd be, "How about we don't machinegun people into ditches?" And in my country in the Northern Territory there are youths in juvenile detention facilities, a recent report showed that the percentage of those in detention who were indigenous was... 100%. So for the Northern Territory, "social justice" would start with "how about we don't lock up everyone with dark skin just for the sheer hell of it? And how about we lock up a few of the misbehaving white kids, too?" And here down in Melbourne, well considering the wealth of the state, maybe we shouldn't have people sleeping on the streets; among the chronically homeless here, mostly it's the mentally ill who are broken enough that it ruins their lives, but not so broken that they might kill themselves or others tomorrow (the usual threshold to get them committed).  

Different places have different issues. It's all about improving from wherever you are. I realise that in the United States the dominant strain of thought is to just let people die in the street, and if the end result of the free market is having to get into a bare-knuckled steel cage death match to get a job, then all is right and good with the world - but I'd rather live in a civilised country.

But again, I can't see what this has to do with a game where you play a guy who exists by drinking the blood of the living. We're not some crazy Scandanavians playing We All Had Names and engaging in angsty thespy agonising over death and suffering. As the sig says:

"Don't let yourself get too worried about all this talk about roleplaying [...] the ultimate object of all this is for everyone to have fun, not to recreate some form of high dramatic art." - Dungeoneer

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1049009Maybe, but there comes a point where he needs to be held accountable for his actions regardless.

HPL's actions? What are you talking about? Just his writing?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1049029There are different levels depending on where your country is. For example, in Iraq it'd be, "How about we don't machinegun people into ditches?" And in my country in the Northern Territory there are youths in juvenile detention facilities, a recent report showed that the percentage of those in detention who were indigenous was... 100%. So for the Northern Territory, "social justice" would start with "how about we don't lock up everyone with dark skin just for the sheer hell of it? And how about we lock up a few of the misbehaving white kids, too?" And here down in Melbourne, well considering the wealth of the state, maybe we shouldn't have people sleeping on the streets; among the chronically homeless here, mostly it's the mentally ill who are broken enough that it ruins their lives, but not so broken that they might kill themselves or others tomorrow (the usual threshold to get them committed).  

Wow, Australia sounds more fucked up than America could ever hope to be!

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1049012If you want social justice, play a vampire hunter.

But it's only a game... I like playing vampires with no morals.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1049012Social justice is a good thing.

The quest for Social Justice generally seems to do more harm than good. Treating societal ills pragmatically on a case by case basis seems to work better, especially when one does a utilitarian cost-benefit check on proposed actions.

For instance here in London they periodically reduce 'stop and search' because it has disparate racial impact. Then lots more people get stabbed to death, mostly the same people who were being disparately impacted by the policy, so they ramp up stop and search, and the stabbing rate falls. Then social justice advocates point out it has disaparate racial impact, and the cycle repeats.

Quote from: S'mon;1049043For instance here in London they periodically reduce 'stop and search' because it has disparate racial impact. Then lots more people get stabbed to death, mostly the same people who were being disparately impacted by the policy, so they ramp up stop and search, and the stabbing rate falls. Then social justice advocates point out it has disaparate racial impact, and the cycle repeats.

Free range, non-profiled stabbings must hurt less though, right?

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1049009Maybe, but there comes a point where he needs to be held accountable for his actions regardless.

Umm, Lovecraft's been dead a while, you're not going to hold him accountable for anything.  Hold his reputation accountable?  How are you going to do that?

• Burn his books?
• Enact a law that says all HPL works must say HP Lovecraft, RACIST on the cover?
• Institute a massive database of all literary purchases and shame anyone who buys one into suicide?

Yes, I'm being purposefully ridiculous, but the idea itself is ridiculous.

Quote from: S'mon;1049030HPL's actions? What are you talking about? Just his writing?

Sorry, my point was that the mentally ill need to be held accountable for the damage they cause eventually, and in the process of making it my segue from HPL to modern SJWs got short circuited.

But that's actually a very illuminating question, as what was the actual result of his xenophobia? Did people die? Were people fired? Were people harassed for their beliefs? Of course not. So it's hard to argue that he should be held accountable for causing any harm.

Quote from: S'mon;1049043The quest for Social Justice generally seems to do more harm than good.

That's only because morally driven movements attract so many narcissists and sociopaths who thrive on their own self-righteousness. But lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as there's plenty of injustice which needs to be addressed, and we shouldn't stop fighting just because Social Justice Warriors are trying to take over.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1049087Umm, Lovecraft's been dead a while, you're not going to hold him accountable for anything.  Hold his reputation accountable?  How are you going to do that?

• Burn his books?
• Enact a law that says all HPL works must say HP Lovecraft, RACIST on the cover?
• Institute a massive database of all literary purchases and shame anyone who buys one into suicide?

Yes, I'm being purposefully ridiculous, but the idea itself is ridiculous.

Reeducation camps, obviously.:rolleyes:

I'm not sure at what point performative pearl clutching about HPL became its own little sub-hobby within SF fandom. Maybe sometime in late 00's? Everyone always knew that Lovecraft racist and xenophobic, and this was often one of things that was talked about when discussing his work, but it didn't used to be the only thing.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1049095I'm not sure at what point performative pearl clutching about HPL became its own little sub-hobby within SF fandom. Maybe sometime in late 00's? Everyone always knew that Lovecraft racist and xenophobic, and this was often one of things that was talked about when discussing his work, but it didn't used to be the only thing.

I am not OK with calling the man a racist. A xenophobe? Sure. But what is a racist even? How many people of all creeds were so-called "racists" in his time, by popular definition?

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1049132I am not OK with calling the man a racist. A xenophobe? Sure.

That's pretty much my feeling too. There's no indication he subscribed to any Nazi style ideology, which is what the r-word implies.

Quote from: S'mon;1049133That's pretty much my feeling too. There's no indication he subscribed to any Nazi style ideology, which is what the r-word implies.

I find it amazing how up in arms SJWs are about Lovecraft but embrace Margaret Sanger... a true racist and Nazi sympathizer

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1048868Lovecraft's writing is actually quite shit. The world he paints is the ramblings of a deranged, lost person. Never really got on with that view of the world: nothing is ever unbeatable, there's always a way. Fuck, my own life is proof positive of that, will be even more so five/ten years down the line, guaranteed.

Lovecraft's wrote about cosmic horror (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror), which is not the same as the horror of daily life. If the stars are right, then the world ends. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxv7h3m6eLU)

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1048868The racism adds nothing to his work. Anyone saying that (anything even remotely near that) sounds like they, like Paula Deen, would love to travel back to a time when Blacks were the minstrel-prancing help at parties, serving peach cobbler to "well-heeled" folk via hands gloved in white. Cut that shit out.

I never said anything like that. If you read what I said in context, I was praising the anti-racist revisionist takes on his work where his racism was pointed out in the story and his monsters were revealed as innocent people persecuted by racists, cultists, and racist cultists. Just read The Litany of Earth (https://www.tor.com/2014/05/14/the-litany-of-earth-ruthanna-emrys/) if you want to understand my point.

Furthermore, it is possible write stories where the characters have different values than yourself without endorsing those values. If you are trying to write accurate historical fiction, then many of your characters have to hold repulsive values by modern standards (e.g. slavery, patriarchy, pedophilia, etc) or else your story will be inaccurate. (If you are not trying to be accurate, then all bets are off.)

The same applies to xenofiction. Three Worlds Collide (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8) is a good example of how alien morality can become.

Quote from: S'mon;1048877This "unbeatable hopelessness" thing sounds more like the revisionist modern version of the Cthulu mythos.

Lovecraft by contrast teaches us to hit Cthulu in the face with a boat.

Quote from: Brand55;1048879I see it as a bunch of PR, basically a motivational spiel that Cthulhu and his ilk use to keep their spirits up each time their plans are foiled. "Sure, we lost THIS time (and all those times before), but what are the odds we fail 10,308,482 times in a row?! We HAVE to win sooner or later!"

Were the stars right at the time or was Cthulhu sleepwalking, as it were? Was he even trying to attack the boat or did he want to give them a hug and a pleasant "hello"? Unlike Nyarlat, not every deity is actively malevolent. Are the cults actually losing every time a group of investigators stop them (then die or go crazy for their efforts), or were their attempts doomed to failure even without the investigators showing up? If we are trying to be consistent about cosmic horror, then neither side should be making any difference. I believe tvtropes calls what you guys are talking about "Lovecraft Lite (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovecraftLite)."

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1049132I am not OK with calling the man a racist. A xenophobe? Sure. But what is a racist even? How many people of all creeds were so-called "racists" in his time, by popular definition?

I think he was racist but a very specific kind of racist that wouldn't have made as much sense to people outside New England Yankees at the time. But his writing definitely suggests he saw people of other races and even other white ethnic groups that were not derived from England as inferior. I don't think that means we can't read his stories and enjoy them. His racism is pretty quirky and rooted to a particular time and place (directed at anyone who can't trace their lineage to the mayflower). It was pretty obvious to me reading his stuff as a kid. But I was still able to understand that much of it was a product of when it was made, and that you can't expect every great work to abide by all our modern sensibilities). If you read anything historical, you regularly encounter things like that.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1049161I think he was racist but a very specific kind of racist that wouldn't have made as much sense to people outside New England Yankees at the time. But his writing definitely suggests he saw people of other races and even other white ethnic groups that were not derived from England as inferior. I don't think that means we can't read his stories and enjoy them. His racism is pretty quirky and rooted to a particular time and place (directed at anyone who can't trace their lineage to the mayflower). It was pretty obvious to me reading his stuff as a kid. But I was still able to understand that much of it was a product of when it was made, and that you can't expect every great work to abide by all our modern sensibilities). If you read anything historical, you regularly encounter things like that.

I get where you're coming from, but I still don't like the word. Its usage is mostly political.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1049161But I was still able to understand that much of it was a product of when it was made, and that you can't expect every great work to abide by all our modern sensibilities). If you read anything historical, you regularly encounter things like that.

Indeed. This is the key bit of subtlety that is lost on some folks lately. Instead, everything is either pure or impure, and the reader's job is simply to stamp any given work as one or the other.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1049161I think he was racist but a very specific kind of racist that wouldn't have made as much sense to people outside New England Yankees at the time. But his writing definitely suggests he saw people of other races and even other white ethnic groups that were not derived from England as inferior. I don't think that means we can't read his stories and enjoy them. His racism is pretty quirky and rooted to a particular time and place (directed at anyone who can't trace their lineage to the mayflower). It was pretty obvious to me reading his stuff as a kid. But I was still able to understand that much of it was a product of when it was made, and that you can't expect every great work to abide by all our modern sensibilities). If you read anything historical, you regularly encounter things like that.

You've very clearly also stated the difference between scholars and many of the pseudo-scholars that are present in academia, which is now a long time problem. I recall it again and again when I was at university in the early 80s and it permeates university now in the United States (long before the internet gave it a home).

Scholars can separate themselves from the work or study, and can admire the work but not the morals (or person) of the author or creator. It would be hypocritical for scholars to judge other scholars contrary to this view.

Scholars recognize that people are the products of their time, and at any time, there are ranges of belief and expression.

Lovecraft is a very easy target for the pseudo-scholar crowd.

Remember when Vampire was actually cool and interesting and not full of shitty metaplot and idiotic political controversies?

If so, then you might like this story, which has just started with more chapters on the way!

Appalachian Backyard LARP: It's Vampire the way it used to be and the way you like it!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314730/chapters/35531592

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1049182Remember when Vampire was actually cool and interesting and not full of shitty metaplot and idiotic political controversies?

If so, then you might like this story, which has just started with more chapters on the way!

Appalachian Backyard LARP: It's Vampire the way it used to be and the way you like it!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314730/chapters/35531592

I was only 5 in 1991; so no, not really

But I will read that. I've got such a soft spot for vampire fiction <3

Quote from: Azraele;1049183I was only 5 in 1991; so no, not really

But I will read that. I've got such a soft spot for vampire fiction <3

I wasn't even born yet in 1991. I was born in 1993, so it's before my time as well.

But early Vampire was awesome until the metaplot fucked it up.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1049184I wasn't even born yet in 1991. I was born in 1993, so it's before my time as well.

But early Vampire was awesome until the metaplot fucked it up.

Not bad, I didn't realize it was a story about a normal person LARPing, rather than a period story about vampires.

I might advise you to show and not tel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show,_don%27t_tell)l when it comes to the writing. You're very much "telling" the story here, it's better to remove the narrator as a translator for the events; it makes your writing more immediate and gripping.

You might work on your opening. Compare you opening line to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

I couldn't stop reading after that line. Good opening lines are great for hooking new readers into the time/effort investment of reading the entire work.

I would also avoid cliches where possible. I counted twice in the writing where you used a common figure of speech rather than just describing what was happening in plain language. Cliches are the enemy of great writing; you want to be as original as possible to both draw your reader into your world and paint a good mental picture for them.

Good luck as you keep writing. I'll be reading!

Quote from: Azraele;1049195Not bad, I didn't realize it was a story about a normal person LARPing, rather than a period story about vampires.

I might advise you to show and not tel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show,_don%27t_tell)l when it comes to the writing. You're very much "telling" the story here, it's better to remove the narrator as a translator for the events; it makes your writing more immediate and gripping.

You might work on your opening. Compare you opening line to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

I couldn't stop reading after that line. Good opening lines are great for hooking new readers into the time/effort investment of reading the entire work.

I would also avoid cliches where possible. I counted twice in the writing where you used a common figure of speech rather than just describing what was happening in plain language. Cliches are the enemy of great writing; you want to be as original as possible to both draw your reader into your world and paint a good mental picture for them.

Good luck as you keep writing. I'll be reading!

Thanks for the advice, I will definitely keep those things in mind!

... and now I feel old again. :(

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1049184I wasn't even born yet in 1991. I was born in 1993, so it's before my time as well.

But early Vampire was awesome until the metaplot fucked it up.

I was a total burnout by 1993... I am an actual Methusaleh.


That awesomesauce part of Vampire without the metaplot. It's all right there! Just ignore all the rest and play ball!

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1049009So the game you wrote and enjoy playing is outright antithetical to the political values you hold in real life.

I'm the same way. So are most gamers I know.

It's true. I also don't enjoy hiking through the wilderness, crawling through caves, or risking my life either! But in games, bring it on.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1049214... and now I feel old again. :(

You feel old? I've got tattoos that are almost as old as Doc Sammy.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1049132I am not OK with calling the man a racist. A xenophobe? Sure. But what is a racist even? How many people of all creeds were so-called "racists" in his time, by popular definition?

Well he wrote this:

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove's fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.

Pretty damn racist and if he were alive now I'd feel pretty bad about giving him money. But he's dead so I don't see how it hurt anyone to enjoy his writing and make use of his ideas.

Lovecraft was a racist. So are most rappers. Whatevs. Welcome to humanity.

Quote from: tenbones;1049217That awesomesauce part of Vampire without the metaplot. It's all right there! Just ignore all the rest and play ball!

Yet another reason I prefer corebooks to game lines.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1049273Lovecraft was a racist. So are most rappers. Whatevs. Welcome to humanity.

That's what I'm saying. The usage is highly dependant on the person's political views, which makes it meaningless. YMMV.


To get back on topic: I liked nWoD. Masquerade fandom was filled with so many weirdos, that I never wanted to be part of it, even though the lore was interesting. There's a lot of good talent involved in V5, so I might buy in.

Quote from: Daztur;1049268Well he wrote this:

*snip*

Pretty damn racist and if he were alive now I'd feel pretty bad about giving him money. But he's dead so I don't see how it hurt anyone to enjoy his writing and make use of his ideas.

It's worth pointing out that he wrote that early on, around 1912 IIRC... and I think his writing shows a degree of softening of such tendencies as time went on. Compare it to the final revelations of the doomed protagonist in In The Walls Of Eryx (1936) and I think some change of attitude can be seen. The ending of The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931) even shows the main character embracing his mixed heritage.

Not that he ever left ALL his bigotry behind, but people can and do change... I certainly wouldn't want to be held to account for the nonsense I said and wrote as a teenager/young adult.

I was blindsided by the rise of White Wolf and WoD. I basically stopped gaming when I started grad school in the early 90s. I started to get back into it around 96, and I can still remember going into a gaming store for the first time in a while and being confronted by a huge wall of White Wolf stuff.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1049317I was blindsided by the rise of White Wolf and WoD. I basically stopped gaming when I started grad school in the early 90s. I started to get back into it around 96, and I can still remember going into a gaming store for the first time in a while and being confronted by a huge wall of White Wolf stuff.

Yeah, I recall my FLGS having to discount that wall of WW stuff (50%!) for several years to get rid of the glut after WW seemingly vanished.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1049266You feel old? I've got tattoos that are almost as old as Doc Sammy.

Ha, yes. I have a couple that pre-date Doc by a several years myself.

Quote from: Zalman;1049362Ha, yes. I have a couple that pre-date Doc by a several years myself.

I wasn't looking to be made to feel old today, but after reading up a bit in the thread to find Doc's age... I feel old.  'Cause my tattoo is older than Doc. :|

Quote from: Daztur;1049268Well he wrote this:

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove's fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.

Pretty damn racist and if he were alive now I'd feel pretty bad about giving him money. But he's dead so I don't see how it hurt anyone to enjoy his writing and make use of his ideas.

There are a lot of hypocritical  lefties making coin of Lovecrafts creations how do you feel about them?

Welp, just saw the AMA (https://youtu.be/kH7Ce1t04_4). White Wolf is done. All their moves will be dictated by the most outraged at this point, and I can't see how they'll weather the storm with Werewolf after this.


And who the hell was this game designed to appeal to anyway? Because it seems intentionally designed to alienate as many potential customers as possible. From the art and font choices to the tone deaf presentation.

And they're competing with their other products and creating significant market confusion in the process. I'm sorry but you need to start consolidating your brand, regardless of how much you like Onyx Path, because not doing so is hurting both of you. People are still uncertain as to whether they should be playing Original Masquerade, Requiem, Masquerade 20th, or Masquerade 5th, or what the differences even are.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1049160it is possible write stories where the characters have different values than yourself without endorsing those values. If you are trying to write accurate historical fiction, then many of your characters have to hold repulsive values by modern standards (e.g. slavery, patriarchy, pedophilia, etc) or else your story will be inaccurate. (If you are not trying to be accurate, then all bets are off.)

It goes well beyond accurate historical fiction and into any with the depth and nuance worth reading.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1049160Were the stars right at the time or was Cthulhu sleepwalking, as it were? Was he even trying to attack the boat or did he want to give them a hug and a pleasant "hello"? Unlike Nyarlat, not every deity is actively malevolent. Are the cults actually losing every time a group of investigators stop them (then die or go crazy for their efforts), or were their attempts doomed to failure even without the investigators showing up?

These are the kind of questions that keep me engaged.

But as I've said on #Reddit, there's a segment of the market who wants certain questions answer (usually moral) rather than asked, and are deeply uncomfortable with any ambiguity regarding those. For these people, Cthulhu needs stats, motives, and an origin story.

Quote from: waltshumate;1049366There are a lot of hypocritical  lefties making coin of Lovecrafts creations how do you feel about them?

I don't give a crap.

Quote from: Simlasa;1049305It's worth pointing out that he wrote that early on, around 1912 IIRC... and I think his writing shows a degree of softening of such tendencies as time went on. Compare it to the final revelations of the doomed protagonist in In The Walls Of Eryx (1936) and I think some change of attitude can be seen. The ending of The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931) even shows the main character embracing his mixed heritage.

Not that he ever left ALL his bigotry behind, but people can and do change... I certainly wouldn't want to be held to account for the nonsense I said and wrote as a teenager/young adult.

Yeah you can see a softening of the racism in his 1930's stuff even compared to his 1920's stuff but it's still there and it drives a good bit of his work.

I don't care about that personally but I'm not going to deny it either. If Lovecraft was alive today and supporting racism with the money I paid him to buy his stuff I might care but he's dead and his writing is out of copyright so nobody's getting hurt and no racism is getting funded so I don't care.

Quote from: Daztur;1049404I don't give a crap.

Yeah you can see a softening of the racism in his 1930's stuff even compared to his 1920's stuff but it's still there and it drives a good bit of his work.

I don't care about that personally but I'm not going to deny it either. If Lovecraft was alive today and supporting racism with the money I paid him to buy his stuff I might care but he's dead and his writing is out of copyright so nobody's getting hurt and no racism is getting funded so I don't care.

So your ok with lefties make a profit from racism, got it.

White Wolf was done a long time ago. All this is just necromancy now.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1049391Welp, just saw the AMA (https://youtu.be/kH7Ce1t04_4). White Wolf is done. All their moves will be dictated by the most outraged at this point, and I can't see how they'll weather the storm with Werewolf after this.

I forgot about Werewolf until you just mentioned it. That is a disaster waiting to happen.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1049391And they're competing with their other products and creating significant market confusion in the process. I'm sorry but you need to start consolidating your brand, regardless of how much you like Onyx Path, because not doing so is hurting both of you. People are still uncertain as to whether they should be playing Original Masquerade, Requiem, Masquerade 20th, or Masquerade 5th, or what the differences even are.

That is why i switched to a different vampire game, one that was not fixated on edition wars or political gobbledygook.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1049391But as I've said on #Reddit, there's a segment of the market who wants certain questions answer (usually moral) rather than asked, and are deeply uncomfortable with any ambiguity regarding those. For these people, Cthulhu needs stats, motives, and an origin story.

The Call of Cthulhu states his motives rather clearly:

Quote[At the proper time,] the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from his tomb to revive His subjects and resume his rule of earth [...] Then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

Cthulhu sounds like a pretty swell dude, all things considered.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1049440White Wolf was done a long time ago. All this is just necromancy now.

Yeah they're in the sandbox at the far end of the playground where the weirdos like FASA play now.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1049446\The Call of Cthulhu states his motives rather clearly:



Cthulhu sounds like a pretty swell dude, all things considered.

Well, Cthulhu never states anything, let alone clearly. That's just what priests trying to impress their cults say.  

It really isn't clear in The Call of Cthulhu that Cthulhu has any need for a human cult or even pays attention to it. There are humans who pick up on his psychic frequency and make religions about it, but I doubt he really cares. He mostly just seems pissed that someone woke him up from his nap.

Quote from: waltshumate;1049431So your ok with lefties make a profit from racism, got it.

It's rather silly to judge the past through the lens of the present.  Sure, we're supposed to be better than that, and many are.  However, if you're pushing to get rid of all that stuff from the past, well, those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.  That's why you keep all those uncomfortable books like 1984 and To Kill a Mockingbird around... because they make you uncomfortable, and if you don't want the world to be like those two books, you need to be reminded of how shitty it can get if you ignore it long enough.

Quote from: pdboddy;1049478That's why you keep all those uncomfortable books like 1984 and To Kill a Mockingbird around... because they make you uncomfortable, and if you don't want the world to be like those two books, you need to be reminded of how shitty it can get if you ignore it long enough.

So is that why schools try to ban those books so often.

Quote from: Baulderstone;1049477Well, Cthulhu never states anything, let alone clearly. That's just what priests trying to impress their cults say. It really isn't clear in The Call of Cthulhu that Cthulhu has any need for a human cult or even pays attention to it. There are humans who pick up on his psychic frequency and make religions about it, but I doubt he really cares. He mostly just seems pissed that someone woke him up from his nap.

That's right. HPL loves to have very disturbing reveals shared by seemingly unreliable sources. In this case, it is "Old Castro", an old sailor cultist. Since the island sank about 150 million years before, real reasons are lost to the depths of history.

Quote from: S'mon;1049133That's pretty much my feeling too. There's no indication he subscribed to any Nazi style ideology, which is what the r-word implies.

Read Lovecraft's correspondence with REH and you'll have indications aplenty.

Quote from: REH Jan 1934You seem to take it for granted that Fascism would guarantee absolute freedom of thought and mental research. I wonder if this faith is justified. I don't notice any hilarious renaissance emanating from Germany or Italy or Austria resulting from the exhilarating freedom of dictatorship. It had always seemed to me, erroneously perhaps, that suppression of speech and thought generally accompanied dictatorship.

Quote from: REHYou accuse me of 'hating human development' because I mistrust Fascism. Well, there can't be much tolerance about a system whose advocates denounce as 'enemies of humanity' anyone who disagrees with them. According to that, you consider as 'enemies of humanity' every man and woman in the world who is not a Fascist. I do not condemn the reforms you say would be possible under Fascism.

Quote from: REHYou say that the type of Fascism you advocate is without despotism and persecution of intellectual freedom; you might as well say you advocate a cobra without its venom, a skunk without its stench, or a leper without his scabs.

The funny part is how REH is also considered a bigot;).

Does it matter? Nowadays every old white male author is considered a bigot.

Quote from: AsenRG;1049653Read Lovecraft's correspondence with REH and you'll have indications aplenty.

The funny part is how REH is also considered a bigot;).

OK so REH definitely considered him pro-Fascist! I guess would need to see the HPL quotes to be sure.

I guess I've seen enough here to change my mind* and say I would consider HPL a racist by any reasonable definition, at least for much of his career.

*It can happen! :)

Quote from: AsenRG;1049653Read Lovecraft's correspondence with REH and you'll have indications aplenty.

Lovecraft died before WWII got going, had no inkling of the horrors that would come to light.
Like a lot of other Americans and Germans, he saw Hitler as a lesser evil in the face of Communism. The list of better educated and informed Americans who threw in with the Nazis early on is pretty long.
 
So what's the point of singling out Lovecraft?
What's the point of flogging the dead when we have plenty of nasty folks right here among the living?

BTW, for anyone interested in a good White Wolf game, buy the original Vampire:the Masquerade. It's a fever dream, but its raw and exciting. It runs fine as is. I see no reason to support the new product. Whatever system wiggles they finally publish won't make up for the lack of clarity of vision that's so strong in the original book.

Or buy Nightbane from Palladium if you want all the horror and kewl monster PCs, but with a tenth of the angst and politics.

Quote from: S'mon;1049723OK so REH definitely considered him pro-Fascist! I guess would need to see the HPL quotes to be sure.

I guess I've seen enough here to change my mind* and say I would consider HPL a racist by any reasonable definition, at least for much of his career.

*It can happen! :)

Spike Lee is a racist and I doubt there will be any calls to burn/ban/shelve any of his work.

Quote from: waltshumate;1049753Spike Lee is a racist and I doubt there will be any calls to burn/ban/shelve any of his work.

What about Einstein?
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44472277

I guess his name needs to be erased from the annals of science.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1049731BTW, for anyone interested in a good White Wolf game, buy the original Vampire:the Masquerade. It's a fever dream, but its raw and exciting. It runs fine as is. I see no reason to support the new product. Whatever system wiggles they finally publish won't make up for the lack of clarity of vision that's so strong in the original book.

Or buy Nightbane from Palladium if you want all the horror and kewl monster PCs, but with a tenth of the angst and politics.

This guy gets it. Vampire: The Masquerade 1E was a masterpiece of RPG's.

Shame that Revised Edition and V5 have shat all over what was once an awesome game.

Seriously, Justin Achilli and Martin Ericsson can go fuck themselves.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1049731BTW, for anyone interested in a good White Wolf game, buy the original Vampire:the Masquerade. It's a fever dream, but its raw and exciting. It runs fine as is. I see no reason to support the new product. Whatever system wiggles they finally publish won't make up for the lack of clarity of vision that's so strong in the original book.

Or buy Nightbane from Palladium if you want all the horror and kewl monster PCs, but with a tenth of the angst and politics.

Nightlife is better, if only because it does not strangle itself with the vampire premise. The kin races (yes, they were called that years before Vampire came out) have a lot more variety. If you cannot stand the late 80s era rules, it is easy enough to recreate the kin races as strains and sub-strains within the freely available game Feed.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1049731BTW, for anyone interested in a good White Wolf game, buy the original Vampire:the Masquerade.

Yep! There is no 5th edition...

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1049791Nightlife is better, if only because it does not strangle itself with the vampire premise. The kin races (yes, they were called that years before Vampire came out) have a lot more variety. If you cannot stand the late 80s era rules, it is easy enough to recreate the kin races as strains and sub-strains within the freely available game Feed.

I ran NightLife with AD&D rules in 1992-3! I was OSR before there was OSR. :D

Quote from: S'mon;1049723OK so REH definitely considered him pro-Fascist! I guess would need to see the HPL quotes to be sure.

I guess I've seen enough here to change my mind* and say I would consider HPL a racist by any reasonable definition, at least for much of his career.

*It can happen! :)

Le gasp! For reals? Someone was persuaded by proof over the Internet?
Pundit, as our resident occultist - is there anything special about the date 20-07-2018:D?

Quote from: Simlasa;1049725Lovecraft died before WWII got going, had no inkling of the horrors that would come to light.
Like a lot of other Americans and Germans, he saw Hitler as a lesser evil in the face of Communism. The list of better educated and informed Americans who threw in with the Nazis early on is pretty long.
 
So what's the point of singling out Lovecraft?
What's the point of flogging the dead when we have plenty of nasty folks right here among the living?

He's the only one of those that still influences the RPG hobby:)?
And my point was simple: much as the SJWs are overreacting, that doesn't mean that they're factually wrong about him being racist. Which S'mon had expressed doubts about.
So I offered him proof.
That was all. I'm not calling for a boycott, and remain a CoC fan...though amusingly, I find the Lovecraft's Mythos part to be the weakest component of it;).

Quote from: waltshumate;1049753Spike Lee is a racist and I doubt there will be any calls to burn/ban/shelve any of his work.

Is he?

Quote from: Simlasa;1049760What about Einstein?
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44472277

I guess his name needs to be erased from the annals of science.

And that's why the SJWs are overreacting;).

Quote from: Simlasa;1049760What about Einstein?
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44472277

I guess his name needs to be erased from the annals of science.

Heck, Little House on the Prairie author isn't safe.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/06/25/laura-ingalls-wilders-name-stripped-from-childrens-book-award-over-little-house-depictions-of-native-americans/

Quote from: Simlasa;1049725So what's the point of singling out Lovecraft?  What's the point of flogging the dead when we have plenty of nasty folks right here among the living?

The dead don't fight back, so it is an easy target. A great many SJWs faux rage on fans of Lovecraft and Lovecraft scholars like S.T. Joshi because fans and scholars like Lovecraft but aren't sufficiently hair pulling and hand wringing over it. Fans and scholars then are 'collaborators'.

Quote from: AsenRG;1049926He's the only one of those that still influences the RPG hobby:)?

Is he? How can we be truly safe without knowing the innermost thoughts of all writers and RPG designers?!!! We need purity tests!

QuoteAnd my point was simple: much as the SJWs are overreacting, that doesn't mean that they're factually wrong about him being racist.

There should be no doubt that he was a racist. My only point has been that people can/do change and that saying you admire Hitler/Nazis in 1933 U.S.A. is a very different thing than saying you admire them in 1945 or 2018.
Heck, Walt Disney went to Bund meetings and was an anti-semite, but 'Uncle Walt' is still an exalted figure these days.

Quote from: Simlasa;1049946Is he? How can we be truly safe without knowing the innermost thoughts of all writers and RPG designers?!!! We need purity tests!

I know you're joking, but I'm not sure SJWs wouldn't try to take you on the joke:).

QuoteThere should be no doubt that he was a racist.

Nerzenjäger and S'mon did express doubt about the "racist" moniker. S'mon in particular mentioned that "he didn't subscribe to a Nazi-style ideology". Except I knew that he did, because of what I've read about REH;).

QuoteMy only point has been that people can/do change

Allegedly true, if uncommon.

Quoteand that saying you admire Hitler/Nazis in 1933 U.S.A. is a very different thing than saying you admire them in 1945 or 2018.

I'm not sure it is all that different, really.
As proven by his letters (that I quoted), RE Howard considered the Nazis power-mad totalitarians in the 30ies, and to say that the man wasn't exactly a paragon of racial equality would probably count as white-washing his memory:D!

QuoteHeck, Walt Disney went to Bund meetings and was an anti-semite, but 'Uncle Walt' is still an exalted figure these days.

I know about Bund. Didn't have any idea anyone considers "Uncle Walt" to be any kind of "exalted figure", though. Outside of kids, most people I know either know nothing about him, ortend to consider him a very successful businessman whose company had a very negative influence on IP laws!

Quote from: AsenRG;1049959S'mon in particular mentioned that "he didn't subscribe to a Nazi-style ideology". Except I knew that he did, because of what I've read about REH;).

QuoteI'm not sure it is all that different, really.

I really don't it's a fair assumption that because someone in early '30s America fell for what Hitler was selling that they must have been  on board for what that eventually led to. Even to Lovecraft, Hitler was merely seen as a regrettable 'lesser evil' in the face of communism.
REH was right in his suspicions... but even he wasn't predicting the Final Solution.

QuoteDidn't have any idea anyone considers "Uncle Walt" to be any kind of "exalted figure"...

Oh, I know a couple adult Disney fanatics and they've exposed me to a LOT more of their tribe. It's a thing.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1049791Nightlife is better, if only because it does not strangle itself with the vampire premise.

Please start a Nightlife thread!!!

Quote from: AsenRG;1049959Didn't have any idea anyone considers "Uncle Walt" to be any kind of "exalted figure", though.

He's got a huge fandom, sometimes almost cult like, among the Disneyana crowd.

He's one of the few Hollywood originators you see lionized in Los Angeles. You won't find much memorabilia about the creators of other studios, but Walt mementos abound.

I recently read that after Pearl Harbor, the US military occupied Disney Studios! Apparently Disney was seen as potentially subversive.

Quote from: Simlasa;1049979I really don't it's a fair assumption that because someone in early '30s America fell for what Hitler was selling that they must have been  on board for what that eventually led to. Even to Lovecraft, Hitler was merely seen as a regrettable 'lesser evil' in the face of communism.
REH was right in his suspicions... but even he wasn't predicting the Final Solution.

I'm not saying "they would have been on board with Holocaust". I'm saying "they would have been on board with a totalitarian regime controlling everything, with all the curtailing of freedoms and violence against undesirables this always implies";).
And anyone that says a totalitarian regime didn't imply that to them is automatically guilty of being so ignorant about politics that he or she should have never voiced an opinion on the subject. (Honestly, I prefer people who were on board with a totalitarian state:)).

QuoteOh, I know a couple adult Disney fanatics and they've exposed me to a LOT more of their tribe. It's a thing.

They have skipped any kind of research, have they?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1050004He's got a huge fandom, sometimes almost cult like, among the Disneyana crowd.

He's one of the few Hollywood originators you see lionized in Los Angeles. You won't find much memorabilia about the creators of other studios, but Walt mementos abound.

The world just proved itself to be a bit more dystopic than even I thought:cool:.

Quote from: S'mon;1050008I recently read that after Pearl Harbor, the US military occupied Disney Studios! Apparently Disney was seen as potentially subversive.

They should have carried on, if you ask me:D!

And almost related to this... did you know that there's a First United Church of Chthulhu (F.U.C.C.)? I didn't, either. But they've got a site (and they're roleplayers, it seems;)).
Also, there's this product on drivethru:
 http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/245735/Dizneyland-fhtagn

They things you learn when you google Disney and Lovecraft as part of the keywords:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;1050017I'm not saying "they would have been on board with Holocaust". I'm saying "they would have been on board with a totalitarian regime controlling everything, with all the curtailing of freedoms and violence against undesirables this always implies";).
!

As would a pile of pro Communist  (or out right Communist) writers of the 20's and 30's, who glorified the Soviet Union, but they do not get vilified for it.

As if small-state liberalism has a long history, compared to paternalistic or outright authoritarian governments. It all makes very much sense viewed through the lense of its time.

As for Lovecraft's views  (as of 1933)  on Nazi's

QuoteAs for Germany today--to call it a "madhouse" is to exaggerated in the grossest fashion. The details of Nazism are deplorable, but they do not even begin to compare in harmfulness with the extravagances of communism. You seem to forget that most of the German people are quietly going about their business as usual, with a much better morale than they had last year. If the Nazi destruction of certain books is silly--& there is no reason to deny that it is--then there is no word to express the abysmal idiocy & turpitude of the bolshevik war on normal culture & expression. Germany has not even begun to parallel Russia in the destruction of those basic values which Western Europeans live by. When I say I like Hitler I do not imply that his is a & blindly against the disintegrative forces which more educated & sophisticated people accept without adequate evidence as inevitable. His neurotic fanaticism, scientific addle-patedness, & crude gaucheries & extravagances are admitted & deplored--& of course it is quite possible that he actually may do more harm than good. Once can scarcely prophesy the future. But the fact remains that he is the sole remaining rallying-point for German morale, & that virtually all of the best & most cultivated Germans accept him temporarily for what he is--a lesser evil at a special & exacting crisis of history. Objections to Hitler--that is, the violent & hysterical objections which one sees outside Germany--seem to be based largely on a soft idealism or "humanitarianism" which is out of places in an emergency. This sentimentalism may be a pleasing ornament in normal times, but it must be kept out of the way when the survival of a great nation hangs in the balance. The preservation of Germany as a coherent cultural & political fabric is of infinitely greater importance than the comfort of those who have been incommoded by Nazism--& of course the number of suffers is negligible as compared with that of bolshevism's victims. If what you say were true--that others could save Germany better than Hitler--then I'd be in favour of giving them a chance. But unfortunately the others had their chance & didn't prove themselves equal to it. [...] Your hatred of Nazism--especially in the light of your extenuation of bolshevism's vastly greater savageries--appears to me to be a matter of idealistic emotion unsupported by historic perspective or by a sense of the practical compromises necessary in tight places. Emotion runs away with you. For example--you get excited about four Americans who were mobbed because they didn't salute the Nazi flag. Well, as a matter of fact, did you ever hear of a nation that didn't mob foreigners who refused to salute its flag in times of political & military emergency? [...] Still--don't get my wrong. I'm not saying that  Adolf is anything more than a lesser evil. A crude, blind force--a stop-gap. The one point is that he's the only force behind which the traditional German spirit seems to be able to get. When the Germans can get another leader, & emerge from the present period of arbitrary fanaticism, his usefulness will be over.

H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 8 Nov 1933, 000-0655, Letters to J. Vernon Shea 202-203