Currently I am running Arkham Horror. It is a fun pulp game set in the Cthulhu setting and based on the boardgame.

I was underwhelmed when I read it the first time because it had the same woke nonsense which you can read nowadays in Cthulhu RPGs.
I mean stuff like "Lovecraft was bad" and stuff about safety... You know the drill.

But then I read a part which convinced me to give it a try:
It said that the authors don't want racism, sexism,... be part of the game.
And that is something I like since I am universalist (that means I like the opposite of identity politics).

And the game itself was awesome when I tried it first. Indeed the -isms as a factor of the usual Cthulhu game were a bit tiring for me.

That doesn't mean that I don't like the normal Cthulhu games which try to be historically accurate but I prefer this "woke" version.

To me, not wanting to put an emphasis on isms and identities is the opposite of woke.  For me, something like the Aurora Blue scenario for CoC which puts a heavy emphasis on identities and isms including multiple flashbacks for each character that are all about their "live experience" of being marginalized is woke.  Woke types are obsessed with this sort of thing.  They cram it into everything they do. 

If they put a single line of text apologizing for Lovecraft, then that's a good reason to avoid them on principle.  Such a line doesn't automatically make the game bad, by any means, but it does mean that they are doing something offtopic for a game about Lovecraft's creations.  No one writing a novel about history should be like "ok this is a story about peasants but understand that peasantry was MORALLY WRONG and the idea of a king is OFFENSIVE TO DEMOCRACY", and for the most part they don't.  If anyone ever feels the need to, it's because they are trying to shove some anti-white knife in your butt, they want to get their politics out in whatever way they think you'll find acceptable.

Don't give them credit for this. The classy way to handle this, which many games have done in the past, is to just say "hey, this takes place in a different time that had much different cultural expectations from our own. You can choose to involve those issues if all the players are okay with it. You can also downplay them or ignore them if you don't want to deal with it or it makes someone uncomfortable." No "X card", no "lines and veils" or "safety tools", just a disclaimer about the setting and what your options are.

If a book mentions safety or has pronouns it is an auto avoid.

Being a huge Lovecraft fan (I have a sleeve of Mythos tattoos, own many books and editions) if a game bashes the author inspiration source, why did you bother writing it.

I wanted to like this game too, but I will just stick with older editions of CoC.

What's the difference in the setting between this and straight Call of Cthulhu?

They added a few new gods and cults. There's a whole bunch of novels as well.

Quote from: JeremyR on April 04, 2025, 12:23:01 AMThey added a few new gods and cults. There's a whole bunch of novels as well.

The new gods are rather lame. Their motivations are too simple (hunger, power,...)

Quote from: grimshwiz on April 03, 2025, 09:34:54 PMIf a book mentions safety or has pronouns it is an auto avoid.

Kind of interesting is that the game doesn't use pronouns. I can even understand the safety stuff since there are roleplayers who are snowflakes and weirdly like horror themes.

Quote from: yosemitemike on April 03, 2025, 05:28:40 PMTo me, not wanting to put an emphasis on isms and identities is the opposite of woke. 

For me too.
Ain't it ironic that in the standard CoC games players are usually obsessed with it? But all in all due to that simple box I can simply tell players that we leave these topics out of our game. Of course I can do that with standard CoC games as well but the players tend to try to be historically accurate

Quote from: grimshwiz on April 03, 2025, 09:34:54 PMIf a book mentions safety or has pronouns it is an auto avoid.

Being a huge Lovecraft fan (I have a sleeve of Mythos tattoos, own many books and editions) if a game bashes the author inspiration source, why did you bother writing it.

I wanted to like this game too, but I will just stick with older editions of CoC.

Yep, me too. I've been sticking with 6th ed for years now. Chaosium and their woke BS can suck a kettle of dicks. They've thrown HPL and Sandy Petersen under the bus, just like what WoTC did to EGG and other classic creators.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 03, 2025, 03:51:54 PMCurrently I am running Arkham Horror. It is a fun pulp game set in the Cthulhu setting and based on the boardgame.

I was underwhelmed when I read it the first time because it had the same woke nonsense which you can read nowadays in Cthulhu RPGs.
I mean stuff like "Lovecraft was bad" and stuff about safety... You know the drill.

But then I read a part which convinced me to give it a try:
It said that the authors don't want racism, sexism,... be part of the game.
And that is something I like since I am universalist (that means I like the opposite of identity politics).

And the game itself was awesome when I tried it first. Indeed the -isms as a factor of the usual Cthulhu game were a bit tiring for me.

That doesn't mean that I don't like the normal Cthulhu games which try to be historically accurate but I prefer this "woke" version.

That bold part is what they say though. It's pretty standard fare for woke games to put this in, only to devolve into bashing white men etc. Perhaps you don't know the history, but the problem of "sexism in gaming" was the rallying cry at the start of all this, leading to several gaming forums becoming unhinged feminist purity spirals. Seriously, it was as if you had to pledge your allegiance to hard-core feminism in order to discuss games online (I am not even exaggerating, see some of the classic links others have posted on here). I'd argue that tabletop RPGs were actually a kind of a canary in the coalmine, as cancel culture became a thing there well before it seeped into the rest of society. So, great if it's a well-functioning game, but to many of us the blurbs you provide here are more red flags than anything else.

Quote from: blackstone on April 04, 2025, 11:05:00 AM

Quote from: grimshwiz on April 03, 2025, 09:34:54 PMIf a book mentions safety or has pronouns it is an auto avoid.

Being a huge Lovecraft fan (I have a sleeve of Mythos tattoos, own many books and editions) if a game bashes the author inspiration source, why did you bother writing it.

I wanted to like this game too, but I will just stick with older editions of CoC.

Yep, me too. I've been sticking with 6th ed for years now. Chaosium and their woke BS can suck a kettle of dicks. They've thrown HPL and Sandy Petersen under the bus, just like what WoTC did to EGG and other classic creators.

Yep that is what I was referring to and I know Arkham Horror rpg doesn't have pronouns, but still bashes their inspiration.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 03, 2025, 03:51:54 PMBut then I read a part which convinced me to give it a try:
It said that the authors don't want racism, sexism,... be part of the game.

Which implies there WAS all these mean ol -isims in the game. Which is a flat out lie.

They always lie and the AH RPG is trash.

Yeah, there's really no excuse for throwing a dead artist under the bus while you profit from his life's work. Politics aside, it's just small-minded and unseemly; extremely bad form.

As far as racism/sexism disclaimers go, I can understand why game authors feel they have to address it, especially in a (pseudo-)historical game. That said, how you go about it makes a lot of difference. Blanket statements about how isms have "no place at the game table" are pointless grandstanding. That's the kind of thing I think Omega is talking about, and I agree. Its gauche at best, and propaganda at worst. Something along the lines of "hey, people in the 20s were pretty racist, but you might want to tone that down for your game" is just advice, probably good advice. I'll tend to give that a pass. From the OP, it's not clear to me which one they were doing.

Of course there's also the approach of "things used to be different; deal with it". That's is fine, too, but I can recognize that it's not for everyone.

Quote from: Omega on April 04, 2025, 04:43:27 PM

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 03, 2025, 03:51:54 PMBut then I read a part which convinced me to give it a try:
It said that the authors don't want racism, sexism,... be part of the game.

Which implies there WAS all these mean ol -isims in the game. Which is a flat out lie.

They always lie and the AH RPG is trash.

Standard procedure: make up a problem and then proceed to "solve it".

Story of the last 15 years of gaming: "Blacks and women were abused all the time by gamers, and we will do something about it! If you disagree you don't belong here!" Then proceed to tank the whole business.