Quote from: DocJones on July 27, 2021, 09:10:14 PM

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.  :-)

I wonder what would happen if I posted on TBP the words of Jew intellectuals who happen to love Lovecraft. Hunter C. Eden, for example:

I don't believe Lovecraft's fictional universe to be an elaborate racist metaphor. With a few minor exceptions (like "The Horror at Red Hook," a tedious and nonsensical screed masquerading as a horror story), when Lovecraft's racial attitudes appear in his work, they tend to surface as little asides: Just so you know, these depraved cultists are mulattoes. You roll your eyes, think, "Get over it, Howard," and then you're back with the warped fish men of Innsmouth and the Escherian geometry of Cthulhu's tomb. It's not Protocols of the Elders of Zion or The Turner Diaries; it's the literary equivalent of a cringeworthy reference to "darkies" by an older relative who you otherwise love spending time with.

Posting this, simply pointing out how these are the words of a Jew horror writer, and nothing else. Banning me would mean banning a Jew. It could be worth it.

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 06:00:20 PM
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."

Obviously the correct takeaway is that these fish monsters should be exterminated to prevent them from tainting our pure human bloodlines with their piscine filth and poisoning our society with their filthy idolatry.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 29, 2021, 07:13:53 AM

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 06:00:20 PM
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."

Obviously the correct takeaway is that these fish monsters should be exterminated to prevent them from tainting our pure human bloodlines with their piscine filth and poisoning our society with their filthy idolatry.

But... but... The young girl from Innsmouth in "Winter Tide" had her life destroyed by the bad Feds. They put her in a camp in the desert. They even forbade the worshipping of her beloved god Cthulhu... How can someone be so bigoted 

Why?

Easy.

Dead people cant fight back.

And pissing on their grave will make the real fans scream.

Which will generate free advertising.

Quote from: Reckall on July 29, 2021, 08:20:46 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 29, 2021, 07:13:53 AM

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 06:00:20 PM
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."

Obviously the correct takeaway is that these fish monsters should be exterminated to prevent them from tainting our pure human bloodlines with their piscine filth and poisoning our society with their filthy idolatry.

But... but... The young girl from Innsmouth in "Winter Tide" had her life destroyed by the bad Feds. They put her in a camp in the desert. They even forbade the worshipping of her beloved god Cthulhu... How can someone be so bigoted 

Obviously the filthy fish monster deserved it.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 29, 2021, 10:35:01 AM

Quote from: Reckall on July 29, 2021, 08:20:46 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 29, 2021, 07:13:53 AM

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 06:00:20 PM
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."

Obviously the correct takeaway is that these fish monsters should be exterminated to prevent them from tainting our pure human bloodlines with their piscine filth and poisoning our society with their filthy idolatry.

But... but... The young girl from Innsmouth in "Winter Tide" had her life destroyed by the bad Feds. They put her in a camp in the desert. They even forbade the worshipping of her beloved god Cthulhu... How can someone be so bigoted 

Obviously the filthy fish monster deserved it.

Which is why I feel that "The Doom that Came to Innsmouth" is more honest.

All I'm gonna say is that it's easy to beat up a dead guy since he can't defend himself.

It's especially easy when he was a neurotic shut-in who was flat fucking terrified of anything outside of Rhode Island.

Quote from: Reckall on July 29, 2021, 11:08:04 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 29, 2021, 10:35:01 AM

Quote from: Reckall on July 29, 2021, 08:20:46 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 29, 2021, 07:13:53 AM

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 06:00:20 PM
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."

Obviously the correct takeaway is that these fish monsters should be exterminated to prevent them from tainting our pure human bloodlines with their piscine filth and poisoning our society with their filthy idolatry.

But... but... The young girl from Innsmouth in "Winter Tide" had her life destroyed by the bad Feds. They put her in a camp in the desert. They even forbade the worshipping of her beloved god Cthulhu... How can someone be so bigoted 

Obviously the filthy fish monster deserved it.

Which is why I feel that "The Doom that Came to Innsmouth" is more honest.

Yep. Kill all those disgusting fishies.

What I couldn't figure out about this game is how you would play it since it's a lot of investigation and very quickly you become horribly mutated. How are you supposed to talk to normal people if you have giant bug eyes and a bunch of tentacles

Quote from: PencilBoy99 on July 29, 2021, 03:24:56 PMHow are you supposed to talk to normal people if you have giant bug eyes and a bunch of tentacles

You can both start complaining about shoggoths. Nobody likes those bastards.

(If a movie is ever made of At the Mountains of Madness, I want to see at least one scene where one of the human characters saves an Elder Thing from a fatal fall into the abysses under the city, and then the Elder Thing saves the humans from the shoggoths by sacrificing itself. To me, the most moving paragraph of the whole story -- almost of Lovecraft's entire oeuvre, is this one:)

QuotePoor devils! After all, they were not evil things of their kind. They were the men of another age and another order of being. Nature had played a hellish jest on them - as it will on any others that human madness, callousness, or cruelty may hereafter dig up in that hideously dead or sleeping polar waste - and this was their tragic homecoming. They had not been even savages-for what indeed had they done? That awful awakening in the cold of an unknown epoch - perhaps an attack by the furry, frantically barking quadrupeds, and a dazed defense against them and the equally frantic white simians with the queer wrappings and paraphernalia ... poor Lake, poor Gedney... and poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last - what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn - whatever they had been, they were men!

I say kill the starfish heads too. All xenos scum are the same.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 29, 2021, 06:13:51 PM
I say kill the starfish heads too. All xenos scum are the same.

You seem suspiciously soft on Xenomorphs.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on July 29, 2021, 05:12:41 PM
To me, the most moving paragraph of the whole story -- almost of Lovecraft's entire oeuvre, is this one:)

QuotePoor devils! After all, they were not evil things of their kind. They were the men of another age and another order of being. Nature had played a hellish jest on them - as it will on any others that human madness, callousness, or cruelty may hereafter dig up in that hideously dead or sleeping polar waste - and this was their tragic homecoming. They had not been even savages-for what indeed had they done? That awful awakening in the cold of an unknown epoch - perhaps an attack by the furry, frantically barking quadrupeds, and a dazed defense against them and the equally frantic white simians with the queer wrappings and paraphernalia ... poor Lake, poor Gedney... and poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last - what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn - whatever they had been, they were men!

That's one of the worst paragraphs he ever wrote

I re-visited most of his stories about 5 years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well almost all of them have held up, but that shit about the Elder Things being a bunch of brave pioneers with tentacles had me begging for the Shoggoth to show up and clean house.

Yup. Filthy starfish heads are xenos scum. I say kill 'em all.

Kill all the damn xenomorphs too

I thought this was just part of one page, and a small "digest-sized" page at that?  Regardless...

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
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).

It's a difference of fanbases, publisher views, and so forth. 

Evil Hat has a rep as a "progressive" or "SJW" publisher or whatever.  They attract like-minded fans.  Said fans want Cthulhu stuff, but... they don't want to feel guilty for wanting it.  Evil Hat throws a disclaimer in the middle of the text (which, honestly, belonged at the front, but this way they can virtue signal how they force readers to confront a dead man's racism.  Before everybody moves on to time travelling to shoot Cthulhu with a gun or whatever) and now the fanbase can get back to their games of blood pollution, mental disturbance tourism, and whatever other problematic issues they clutch their pearls over in public.

Chaosium and others meanwhile assume their fanbases don't give a shit if Lovecraft was racist, homophobic, or cannibalistic.  The Mythos has had over a century of development by other people, and (honestly) is better than just what HPL left us with.  Put another way, nobody has problems with the idea of insular town of white people breeding with Deep Ones, but some folks consider it racist that there's also an insular town of Native Americans breeding with Deep Ones.  At that point I don't think the problem is on the publishers' sides.

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
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?

I'm guessing the author considers Lovecraft's anti-Semitism to be more philosophical based than racial?  Or, more likely, it's a good "double-up" sound bite.  Like pro-choice activists talking about "rape and incest" when discussing abortion, which implies that incest babies are separate rape babies, and will be aborted regardless of the mother's choice (or it's a redundant "double up" that sounds good). 

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
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

I'd say it depends on how HPL saw the topic (were Jews a race, or people who practiced a religion), but I suspect neither the author nor the fanbase really care.

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
And when you think that it can't get worse, it does.

I'll cut Evil Hat a little slack here since we can't have it both ways.  We can't complain "you wasted X pages with this" and "we want you to waste more pages backing up what you say in those already wasted pages".

Is it lazy writing?  Oh hell yeah, the book is full of it, but I didn't buy a game book to hear somebody tell me an artist was racist, I bought it for a freaking game (which I'll deal with later).

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
"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."

"You don't sit in a corner screaming and clawing out your eyeballs.  You run around screaming and clawing out other people's eyeballs."

Granted, the book won't brag about that because it basically runs counter to their whole "mental illness isn't to be shamed" shtick if people turn into threatening monsters when they finally lose it.

Quote from: Reckall on July 27, 2021, 05:28:03 PM
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 -like- time travellers shooting Cthulhu in the face some times.  Some times I want serious, grim, nihilism in my games instead.  The Mythos supports both.  Remember, in his first (and only) canonical appearance, Cthulhu was defeated by a couple of guys ramming him with a boat.  Granted it was a big boat, but still.

Anyways...

Once people get past the disclaimer page (or two, or less) in the book, what is there to talk about in terms of actual game content?

I'd break it down into three pieces: player facing stuff, GM facing stuff, and Fate stuff.

In terms of Fate stuff... it's functional, but sparse.  Really, it should've been released as another expansion book for Fate, like Worlds of Fate or something.  People could pick it up, learn the basics of the system and play with it, but it feels like the inclusion was just an excuse to pad the page count.  I'd guess this was an experiment at releasing a new line of "self-contained" Fate system-setting books, where Evil Hat could reprint its "less supported" version of the system with new art, in order to attract new customers while saving a few bucks on releasing books with more pages.

Player facing stuff (i.e. the stuff players see when playing in this specific campaign), is disappointingly sparse.  See, PCs are supposed to get k3w| p0w3rz and such from their time travel, and a few are included.  But not nearly enough.  Now, I'll admit that Fate is an established system by this point, and there's plenty of books out there with Fate powers to play with, but what's presented here is rather limited and a little uninspired.  Less words on the system (which is covered in much better detail in the Fate Core rulebook already anyway) and more words here would've been appreciated.

GM facing stuff is... tough.  See, the campaign idea is you travel back in time and stop the Mythos future.  And there's some okay support for that, and it feels decent enough actually.  And you don't just have one horrible future to fight, but four!  And they're all pretty different (although you could probably massage a couple to work together if you try hard enough).  The problem is... how many groups will play variations on the same, very specific, theme four times?  So I fear a lot of this book is relegated to "reading it was fun, but it'll never get played".  Which is a shame, since it is a pretty fun read (provided you like "time travel mutants use their super powers to fight the Mythos as they slowly degenerate into more monsters" as a premise).   I wonder if maybe some of the campaigns had been combined and developed further (with the other two saved for a future release) if the product as a whole would've been strengthened.

tl;dr - the virtue signaling is present, but easily ignored.  The game itself is okay, but should have been better.