Quote from: RPGPundit;429885My proposal is something totally different: Don't whitewash, and don't turn it into a morality tale of judging how evil and wrong the white patriarchy is or some other bullshit like that.  Look at it as real human problems that were a product of the historical times, but only to the extent that it naturally would come up in the EMULATION of the world. In other words, play the fucking setting for what it is, rather than trying to make a morality-play out of it.

But is putting heavy real world issues like slavery, sexism, racism, and so on into your setting really compatible with the light gonzo fun that the authors seem to have been looking for?  What would Deadlands had felt like if slavery and racism remained issues in the setting?

Paranoia has a twisted take on any number of real-world ideologies and situations, and remains "gonzo fun". I can think of a few other settings that do likewise.

How far do you go with that line of thinking? I mean, what about poverty? Are you not allowed to have poor people in a gonzo setting?

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Speaking for myself, I was not arguing that Deadlands is allowed to have a stupid solution to slavery because it is a silly game.  I think you can still object to the whitewashing and point this out as a flaw in Deadlands.  My point was that you cannot do that on the grounds that Deadlands is in any way a serious game.  If, Pundit, you are now conceding that point (that Deadlands is not a serious setting), feel free to say so.

Quote from: Esgaldil;430014Speaking for myself, I was not arguing that Deadlands is allowed to have a stupid solution to slavery because it is a silly game.  I think you can still object to the whitewashing and point this out as a flaw in Deadlands.  My point was that you cannot do that on the grounds that Deadlands is in any way a serious game.  If, Pundit, you are now conceding that point (that Deadlands is not a serious setting), feel free to say so.

I believe that Deadlands is a game with a split personality.  At its core, it is a gonzo game (which I guess you could call silly), but that for reasons of prevailing design ideology at the time of its creation also tries to be "serious" about its background story, because the authors thought it had to be to be "cool".

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Quote from: RPGPundit;430004Paranoia has a twisted take on any number of real-world ideologies and situations, and remains "gonzo fun". I can think of a few other settings that do likewise.

Years ago, at a convention, author Ken Rolston talked about having a moment of pause when he realized that he was writing up a humorous torture table for Paranoia as he realized he was a member of Amnesty International and was using torture for laughs.  So, yes, I think that even including it in a game like Paranoia runs a risk of it putting a damper on the fun if someone thinks about it too much.

Quote from: RPGPundit;430004How far do you go with that line of thinking? I mean, what about poverty? Are you not allowed to have poor people in a gonzo setting?

Can you think of any gonzo setting that spends any time treating poverty with realistic detail or respect?

Quote from: John Morrow;430026Can you think of any gonzo setting that spends any time treating poverty with realistic detail or respect?

WFRP

...well, detail, anyway.

Pundit - speaking of the difference between detail and respect, can you show me any evidence of this alleged "serious" background in Deadlands?  This may have to remain an area of subjective interpretation, but I'd be happy to reconsider my position if any material anywhere in the Deadlands books supports the thesis that someone was trying to be serious/cool amidst the flying aces and cannibal preachers.

Quote from: rpgpundit;429885my point was that baugh wants to impose 21st century morality by demanding that we look at these issues with a modern liberal agenda; while the authors of deadlands want to impose a 21st century morality by projecting modern values on the past and engaging in revisionist history. They are two sides of the same coin.

My proposal is something totally different: Don't whitewash, and don't turn it into a morality tale of judging how evil and wrong the white patriarchy is or some other bullshit like that.  Look at it as real human problems that were a product of the historical times, but only to the extent that it naturally would come up in the emulation of the world. In other words, play the fucking setting for what it is, rather than trying to make a morality-play out of it.

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...

I just want to shoot zombies in a saloon!

Here's the thing for me - what makes this offensive is that they actually bring up the CSA and slavery, but they make a big deal about how the CSA got rid of slavery - despite it being the whole point for them forming the CSA and being the backbone of their economy.

That's what's so annoying to me.  It comes off as another "noble southerners of the CSA" thing like that Gods and Generals movie.  Don't feed me the "obviously they would have abandoned slavery on their own very soon" nonsense.  It's insulting.

You know what wouldn't have been annoying or insulting - simply not saying anything one way or the other about slavery as part of the core setting.  Maybe with a page or two saying how to handle slavery if you want it to exist in your campaign, options for hand-waving it away if you want, implications one way or the other, at least acknowledging that is a tricky subject, etc.

Quote from: jgants;430079Here's the thing for me - what makes this offensive is that they actually bring up the CSA and slavery, but they make a big deal about how the CSA got rid of slavery - despite it being the whole point for them forming the CSA and being the backbone of their economy.

That's what's so annoying to me.  It comes off as another "noble southerners of the CSA" thing like that Gods and Generals movie.  Don't feed me the "obviously they would have abandoned slavery on their own very soon" nonsense.  It's insulting.

You know what wouldn't have been annoying or insulting - simply not saying anything one way or the other about slavery as part of the core setting.  Maybe with a page or two saying how to handle slavery if you want it to exist in your campaign, options for hand-waving it away if you want, implications one way or the other, at least acknowledging that is a tricky subject, etc.

From what I heard somewhere, the reason they gave up slavery was so the French or someone would support them in a war?  I'm not sure, my memory is very vague, so please correct me if I am wrong.

It seems to me that the film of Wild Wild West is a good example of silly gonzo actions that doesn't ignore racism and slavery.  Indeed, it has a black protagonist - who is at one point mobbed by a crowd at a party looking to lynch him.  It's just that this is all done in a gonzo fashion, rather than turning it serious.  

If they really really wanted the CSA to still be around post-Civil-War, they could just have Jefferson Davis make a deal with some supernatural creature to have zombie hordes fight for him or plenty of other possibilities.

Quote from: John Morrow;430026Can you think of any gonzo setting that spends any time treating poverty with realistic detail or respect?

Why does it need "realistic detail"?! All I'm arguing is that its enough to just have it there.  In RIFTS, for example, the vast majority of common people are extremely poor (and I guess technically, RIFTS does go into some detail about it with the Chi-town Burbs).

The point is to have it there, in no small part so that your PCs can be heroes about it.

If Deadlands really just wanted to have the CSA around for the "gonzo" it would have made far more sense for them to have stayed around as slave-owning villains for heroic PCs to thwart, instead of the very UN-gonzo "shades of grey" pretty much nice guys that theyr'e made out to be in the setting.

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