Quote from: rmeints;1039683Let me expand on that just a bit, without hopefully sounding too petty, too trite, or attempting to grandstand.

We at the Chaosium have overhauled all manner of things within the company over the last 3 years. In some respects, almost everything.

We have seriously and intentionally "upped" our game. Our books are now all full color hardcover books. We pay more attention to art, editing, and layout. We have tried to communicate and connect more with the RPG community, which is our family. We listen. We respond. We pay our creatives on time and in full. We reach out to our critics and try to understand what they are telling us. We make mistakes. We are not perfect. We strive to have fun. We have always invested ourselves in our games, as many of you have. In the end, we only wish we had more time to talk with you all more.

Quote from: grodog;1039690Rick:  you've all done a great job with Chaosium, and it's wonderful to see the company back on track!

Allan.

Quote from: rmeints;1039681That was not intentional. Many small details in the campaign have been modified to fix plot holes, inconsistencies, and other issues reported.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1040016But not to whitewash elements that certain ideological sectors of society have declared "offensive"?

Quote from: rmeints;1040278I can't say I know exactly what you are getting at, but the answer to what I believe you are asking is "no".

Quote from: rmeints;1040278I can't say I know exactly what you are getting at, but the answer to what I believe you are asking is "no".

QuoteMasks assault you with scores of two-dimensional NPCS, illogical motives (take for example the dancing girl Yalesha, who'se behaviour is so illogical we lost at least three seances trying to figure what she was up to - why would an unclad woman seek help from total strangers found in a bar, risking her life for noughts?) and excessive violence. Passing through an episode without massive shoot-outs (shoot the zombie, shoot the shantaks, etc.) is quite impossible. After three painful episodes of the most linear sort trying to find where ANOTHER cult was hidden by ANOTHER vile member of a stereotypical ethnic groups (this book suffering both from extreme cultural reductionnism and scores of the "little n*gger servant" colonial syndrome), we decided it was too much after stepping into a strange pyramid where any simpleton could conjure Nyarlathotep (with a so kitsch dialogue, you'd believe yourself in "The Mummy II") with a simple ligthting of a candle.

QuoteFor starters, most of us propably agree, that Lovecraft was a raving racist and this has heavily influenced his work. ("degenerate" people in many stories meaning not "mutant" but "Person of Color", harmful stereotypes all around, hidden implications of race-mixing being a horrific thing etc).

 And secondly, the campaign heavily borrows many of the themes of such stories, as well as from tales and movies in the vein of Indiana Jones, where we find simillar racism (There is a reason India banned Indiana Jones 2 for quite some time. The movie does not paint people from the region in a very good light).
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QuoteNew York - A cult made up mostly of black Americans of African descent that uses its time for murder and bloody rituals, burried deep within Harlem and controled by what one could describe as a "stereotypical Voodoo priest" (another very harmful trope)

London - As above, with a bigger number of wealthy white individuals and corruption involved for a change.

Egypt - As above, but the culprits are not immigrants but natives, strongly suggesting the players to fear for every person they meet to be a cultist, continuing the "evil arab" trope from Indiana Jones & co.

Kenia - First we have evil men from India (the only people from this part of the world notably), then the completely mind-blowing masses of cultists at the mountain (again - all natives will be suspected) in a state of complete madness.

The side adventure "The Game Lodge" adds to the pile of problems with pygmy-like human-eating creatures.

Kenia is a racist mess :/

QuoteIncluding People of Color and people native to the countries where the action takes place brings a new perspective into the game. But beware that this can also lead to severe racism between investigators.

Make the non-black portion of the cult in New York much bigger, including more whites from the working class, but also some rich people interested in the occult. There was a huge following of occult themes in that time, with secret organizations and simillar groups being quite popular.

While leaving the center of worhip somewhere deep within Harlem makes sense (it is well hidden that way), let there be an unusual number of white peiple visiting compared to the rest of the neighborhood.

Take out the stereotypical evil voodoo priest

What we have in the Campaign is more reminiscent of a xenophopic nightmare made real, immigrants bringing with them an evil religion that seeks to destroy the good Americans. Nyarlatothep does not stop making people mad just because they are rich or white. Showing this blasphemous cult also attracting what one would call "good citizens" makes clear that nobody is safe from the horrors it brings. Do not make this "Horror at Red Hook 2.0".

QuoteDo not make it seems like most african tribes are wild barbaric cultists, except for a few enlightened ones. That is very lazy racism.
Don't make M'Weru into a walking stereotype. She is presented as a vile, manipulative evil woman that uses her powers to control a white man and helps create some pregnancy horror. This idea in itself is overly sexist and racist at the same time, and should be handled with care.
Obviously the amount of power she has in her cult could easily lead her to live as basically what is described above, but I think it serves the plot to give her some personality outside of "suductive evil witch". I'm not yet sure how to best accomplish this without changing major aspects of her.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1042004@51: That's why I'm not too worried about them making a Bowlderized version of MoN: I don't think it's practically possible. The only way to make it "unproblematic" by 2018 standards would be to write an entirely different campaign.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1042942Well this - http://www.hplhs.org/dartmon.php - could be interesting. Apparently the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society is adapting MoN as a radio drama. Their adaptation of Call of Cthulhu as a 20s era silent movie was excellent. I'll probably have to check this out.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1043275I'm really not sure if CoC is a game for people who can't handle Lovecraft's world views.