So, I read Evil Hat's infamous "Fate of Cthulhu".Fair warning: not all of it and not in a single sitting. I was actually stunned for 1d8 hours by the infamous two pages where they "tackle Lovecraft's racism!" I then skimmed the rest.

I will say straight away that "Fate of Cthulhu" should be cancelled by SJW, because that part of the book was incredibly "problematic". These woke wannabes packed more problematic content in two pages than Ben Shapiro in one year of videos, and no one does seem to realise that - Evil Hat much less than everybody else.

Out of the gate they ridicule themselves by stating that (drumroll) Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a racist and an anti-Semite. No way! Can you see R'lyeh up there on your high horse?

I don't know why they choose to blurt out this statement like if they were the very first to say it. The game is from 2019. You can find videos of people like Alan Moore or T. S. Joshi elaborating about Lovecraft's racism in 2013/14. Debates about his racism actually go back to the 1940s. His own Jew wife gives testimony about Lovecraft's world views as late as the 1950s. So? Where are the news?

IMHO, this is an indirect attack to Chaosium, who never pointed out Lovecraft racism in CoC. But, if so, this is still a non-problem. If you read Lovecraft you know that he was a racist. If you never read him, either you have a racist Keeper (and that's a problem of your Keeper and not of the game anyway) or the only racism you can find in CoC and other Lovecraftian games is a correct portrayal of the problem in a given historical period (something that, I agree, in a game requires a general consensus).

The real problem, here, is that their statement is truly troubling. "Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a racist and an anti-Semite." Anti-Semitism is already a form of racism, so, why the redundancy? To compound the problem, Lovecraft's xenophobia is not mentioned. Hey! I'm Italian! Lovecraft clearly throws under the bus "the Italo-Semitico-Mongoloid" Lower East Side". I want to be offended too! Are you telling me that Lovecraft disgust towards immigrants is fine with you?

My humble opinion again: Evil Hat believes that anti-Semitism is a stronger "brand" of racism. "Racism" is condemned but generic; "anti-Semitism" awakens stronger sentiments. Or maybe Evil Hat simply didn't thought things through. Or maybe they are just ignorant. Either way, they fall in a dire fumble: there is anti-Semitism and there is "the rest": Blacks, Asians & co are all grouped in a separate class. Meanwhile, white immigrants can suck wind and die. Were I a SJW I would cancel them right there.

And when you think that it can't get worse, it does.

"We could give a litany of examples, but they are easy to find with a simple Internet search."

First: N............no? I bought your book, I want to hear your opinion. I can look on the internet just fine without giving you any money. Are you conning me?

Second: Fine, I'll look on the internet. And I find opinions ranging from Moore and Joshi, to Michel Houellebecq and Ben Shapiro; and from his wife's memoirs to the exchange of letters with his friends. And I come out from my research with the understanding that "racism" is only part of a much vast and complex discourse on Lovecraft and his works. Much complex that what Evil Hat are trying to sell. Nice self-goal (not to mention what you will see in a min...)

"Look up the name of his cat, for instance"

No. Enough. If you are unable to do it yourself, why you published a book people have to pay for? My next book: "Vegan Diet for Star People from Vega". $39. Contents: "It is all on the internet. Check there!"

"In recent years, many writers, including writers of color"

...You need to specify this because writers of color are special, I guess. Nice crypto-racism right there. Why no mention of, let's say, Japanese writers? Or, more importantly, Israeli writers like Hunter C. Eden? It seemed a big thing only a few paragraphs ago. Maybe you don't mention them because it turns out that Jews can appreciate Lovecraft just fine? (much more than you, it seems, and much more able than you in understanding how his "anti-Semitism" was actually not so clear-cut: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/my-favorite-anti-semite-h-p-lovecraft). Or maybe because in Israel they consider anti-Semitic the very works by authors of color you are pimping? https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-does-hbos-anti-racist-lovecraft-country-stumble-into-anti-semitic-tropes/

(Incidentally, I found those links while doing the internet research you asked for. Strange how things turn out sometimes...)

All of this for a game that is:

"More Aliens and Terminator, less Shadow over Innsmouth, it's a game where instead of becoming a howling fool when faced with the terrifying truth of nightmare creatures from beyond space and time, you pick up a twelve-gauge and do what needs doing. Your job is to save the future, not to sit in a corner screaming and clawing your eyeballs out."

I.e. whose designers either don't understand or don't want to contemplate that Lovecraft's main poetic was Cosmic Horror - not racism. People who, instead of creating their own mythology which expresses their own views, never in the life will ditch Lovecraft. Because Lovecraft sells a lot, especially today. And, sure, Lovecraft must burn in Hell, but one must be crazy to ditch the Lovecraft train when you can jump on it, lazily repaint it with "progressive" ideas and rush to a publisher with your uncreative RPG.

What a pathetic, ignorant mess. And in two pages! That's the real mind bending" reality behind "Fate of Cthulhu": a game that wants to be "woke" and ends up being lazy, derivative, anaemic, hypocrite. And racist.

Really Reckall,

This surprised you? This was always going to happen.

It's hypocritical of them to complain about the source author but sell a game and make money from that author's creation.

They had to 'justify' it somehow, so they changed it thereby making it 'clean'.

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
All of this for a game that is:

"More Aliens and Terminator, less Shadow over Innsmouth, it's a game where instead of becoming a howling fool when faced with the terrifying truth of nightmare creatures from beyond space and time, you pick up a twelve-gauge and do what needs doing. Your job is to save the future, not to sit in a corner screaming and clawing your eyeballs out."

I.e. whose designers either don't understand or don't want to contemplate that Lovecraft's main poetic was Cosmic Horror - not racism. People who, instead of creating their own mythology which expresses their own views, never in the life will ditch Lovecraft. Because Lovecraft sells a lot, especially today. And, sure, Lovecraft must burn in Hell, but one must be crazy to ditch the Lovecraft train when you can jump on it, lazily repaint it with "progressive" ideas and rush to a publisher with your uncreative RPG.

I agree with the premise of picking up a 12 gauge in a RPG setting.

In general Cosmic horror is the lamest sort of Horror.

The Evil Hat deal is they sell what is essentially a monetized version of F.U.D.G.E which did the -/+ dice pool thing. F.U.D.G.E. used to be free. I think I downloaded it from AOL back in 1995 or something.

So they make up some backgrounds here and there. But mostly they ape stuff, or do the PD tango.

How much does Dracula cost? Oh PD? Yah I'll have some Dracula. How much is Tarzan? Yah! How much is the Phantom? Oh he's still a royalty entity? Let's make up the Shade Who Travels.

Then they take that thing that they either mined from PD or made a parody/bad-copy of or declared a generic genre that is generic and they try to critique and decolonize it to get the INCEL cooties and bad-history vibes off of it.

Then they make a brainless half baked power-rush monty haul smash and grab that they try to ironically cult-market to GEEK INC.

Thus you get a Cthulhu in name only game where you power up and eat the old ones to gain their power and t-pose for dominance because you are the change you have been waiting for and if not then go cry you pissbaby.

That is the Evil Hat thing. That is what they do. Taxidermy if you are lucky, and a Crank Yankers prank call puppet show if not so lucky.

Also they try to get things pulled off of one book shelf.

They do try to follow the trends though which is why they have a blades in the dark stealth dungeon treachery game now.

Quote from: Shasarak on July 27, 2021, 05:47:47 PM

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
All of this for a game that is:

"More Aliens and Terminator, less Shadow over Innsmouth, it's a game where instead of becoming a howling fool when faced with the terrifying truth of nightmare creatures from beyond space and time, you pick up a twelve-gauge and do what needs doing. Your job is to save the future, not to sit in a corner screaming and clawing your eyeballs out."

I.e. whose designers either don't understand or don't want to contemplate that Lovecraft's main poetic was Cosmic Horror - not racism. People who, instead of creating their own mythology which expresses their own views, never in the life will ditch Lovecraft. Because Lovecraft sells a lot, especially today. And, sure, Lovecraft must burn in Hell, but one must be crazy to ditch the Lovecraft train when you can jump on it, lazily repaint it with "progressive" ideas and rush to a publisher with your uncreative RPG.

I agree with the premise of picking up a 12 gauge in a RPG setting.

Remember, this is a game that invites you to pick up a twelve-gauge and do what needs doing in the same chapter where they pimp a book about how "the poor people of Innsmouth were misunderstood and severely mistreated by the racist Feds."

Can these guys have one idea instead of always chasing the nearest woke concept the way one chases cats?

Quote
In general Cosmic horror is the lamest sort of Horror.

Some like it, some don't. There are a lot of alternatives and styles. CoC itself doesn't force Cosmic Horror on the players. You can run classic occult/horror adventures and never worry about Azathoth.

(You can run your "Terminator vs. Cthulhu" campaign with CoC, BTW, maybe with the help of Pulp Cthulhu. No need to waste money on "Fate of Cthulhu").

I will say again what I always say whenever complaints of Lovecraft's opinions come up: Any social justice crusader who dismisses a religious person's dislike for Lovecraft's work because it contradicted their beliefs about humanity has no grounds to complain when they discover Lovecraft's work contradicts their beliefs about humanity too.

It's precisely the point of cosmic horror that none of our moral sentiments, of any kind, mean anything to the universe in the end. People upset about this haven't really grasped the genre yet, I think.

Hey C'thulhu!





The STARS ARE WRONG, Bitch!

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on July 27, 2021, 07:06:24 PM
I will say again what I always say whenever complaints of Lovecraft's opinions come up: Any social justice crusader who dismisses a religious person's dislike for Lovecraft's work because it contradicted their beliefs about humanity has no grounds to complain when they discover Lovecraft's work contradicts their beliefs about humanity too.

It's precisely the point of cosmic horror that none of our moral sentiments, of any kind, mean anything to the universe in the end. People upset about this haven't really grasped the genre yet, I think.

   Most of them embrace (at least intellectually) the very emptiness and meaninglessness with which Lovecraft tantalized and terrified his audiences. I think that's part of the reason his violation of their own beliefs irks them so much. Heretics are worse than pagans.

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
What a pathetic, ignorant mess. And in two pages! That's the real mind bending" reality behind "Fate of Cthulhu": a game that wants to be "woke" and ends up being lazy, derivative, anaemic, hypocrite. And racist.

You should post this as a review on TBP.  :-)
 

Hmmm. Play a game based on the fiction written by a guy who named his cat n****r, or play a game made by a bunch of people who think black people are like orcs.

Choices, choices.

It does sound very much like "Lovecraft Country - the RPG", which would mean a hard pass for me.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 27, 2021, 09:38:43 PM
Hmmm. Play a game based on the fiction written by a guy who named his cat n****r, or play a game made by a bunch of people who think black people are like orcs.

Choices, choices.

"The Name of the Cat" (an unpublished masterpiece by Umberto Eco...) is another fumble-prone topic. First, Lovecraft gave that name to his cat when he was nine and when the word was commonly used even in the literary world, not necessarily with negative undertones. "The N****R of the Narcissus" is the original title of the novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1897.

But, more importantly, Lovecraft gave that name to a cat, the creatures that he loved the most for all his life. So... what do we make of this? Could a use of the word towards a beloved creature be defined "hateful"? As usual, nothing in HPL is so clear-cut - an heretic concept to some.

Quote from: Reckall on July 28, 2021, 06:10:56 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 27, 2021, 09:38:43 PM
Hmmm. Play a game based on the fiction written by a guy who named his cat n****r, or play a game made by a bunch of people who think black people are like orcs.

Choices, choices.

"The Name of the Cat" (an unpublished masterpiece by Umberto Eco...) is another fumble-prone topic. First, Lovecraft gave that name to his cat when he was nine and when the word was commonly used even in the literary world, not necessarily with negative undertones. "The N****R of the Narcissus" is the original title of the novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1897.

But, more importantly, Lovecraft gave that name to a cat, the creatures that he loved the most for all his life. So... what do we make of this? Could a use of the word towards a beloved creature be defined "hateful"? As usual, nothing in HPL is so clear-cut - an heretic concept to some.

   He was nine, he obviously meant to name the cat N***A

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
So, I read Evil Hat's infamous "Fate of Cthulhu".Fair warning: not all of it and not in a single sitting. I was actually stunned for 1d8 hours by the infamous two pages where they "tackle Lovecraft's racism!" I then skimmed the rest.

Cancel Evil Hat. As well as The Design Mechanism.