I mostly agree with you, so I'll only pick a few points.

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on July 30, 2021, 12:26:52 PM
I thought this was just part of one page, and a small "digest-sized" page at that?  Regardless...

You are right. I bought the .PDF because I thought it was the honest thing to do (sometimes I feel like an undercover agent who is forced to use drugs in his line of work ) and the rant was on page six.

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

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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.

The failure, here, is that they didn't actually do the "internet research" they boast they did (either that, or why they are so sure about the findings?) - before telling you "Do our homework!"

I did. And the very first thing I searched with Google was "Lovecraft Israel" - because I realised that I never researched the opinion of Israeli writers and intellectuals. The result were those two links (just two examples among others) and the amazing discovery that Jews like Lovecraft just fine. They point out how his anti-Semitism was actually confused and bizarre (he "adopted" and groomed Robert Bloch - a Jew! - for example) and how (drumroll) the fish-men from Innsmouth are fish-men from Innsmouth, and nothing else.

And I thought "How many times people spoke about Lovecraft for Jews without researching actual Jewish literature on the matter?"

Fanaticism is only the highway to fumble. This is just another sad example.

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"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.

Good point.

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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.

And Chaosium pushed out "Pulp Cthulhu" for this. Still, "Fate of Cthulhu" could be a good source of ideas. Except that...

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In terms of Fate stuff... it's functional, but sparse.

[...]

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.

Exactly. When I read the book, at the end I only had the impression of a wasted potential. But I fully agree with palaeomerus about how Evil Hat creates their products (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/so-i-read-fate-of-cthulhu-and-it-was-problematic/msg1180961/#msg1180961)

Quote from: Reckall on July 30, 2021, 01:14:34 PM
Exactly. When I read the book, at the end I only had the impression of a wasted potential. But I fully agree with palaeomerus about how Evil Hat creates their products (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/so-i-read-fate-of-cthulhu-and-it-was-problematic/msg1180961/#msg1180961)

Absolutely, but that's what most publishers do: they see what consumers like that's publicly available, make a game around it, and sell it to their fanbases.  Because the random person out there isn't picking up Fate of Cthulhu, or Dark Albion, or Godbound, or M&M, or whatever that isn't D&D.  Fanbases keep writers and publishers going. 

Fate of Cthulhu was Evil Hat cashing in on Cthulhu for a broader appeal, but also appeasing their fanbase by throwing out a "this game involves drug use, but we don't condone drugs" style disclaimer to pre-emptively protect themselves from hatemail from their fanbase.  Meanwhile, all the other publishers out there who use themes from the Mythos apparently have fanbases that can distinguish between a derivative artist and the source material without any immediate projection on said derivative works. 

(For shits and giggles, go Google Tcho-Tcho and Delta Green and see how many people are uncomfortable with the idea of a group of fictional Asians corrupted by the mythos as being racist.  Because apparently Asians are immune to mythos corruption in their minds.)

Right. Only a racist would think that fictional species could ever be used as racist allegories (intentionally or unintentionally), regardless of how many points of similarity (racial coding) they could list off.

EDITED  I touched the poop. Please delete or ignore.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:24:37 PM
Right. Only a racist would think that fictional species could ever be used as racist allegories (intentionally or unintentionally), regardless of how many points of similarity (racial coding) they could list off.

I agree with BoxCrayonTales.  Just like Dogs hear the Dog whistle, the Racists hear the Racism.

Yep. If you took something that was racist against a real group of people but replaced references to those people with some fictional species, but otherwise left the specific racist stereotypes completely intact, then the racism would vanish.

Thats true.  You can see real life examples of that in the "news" right now.

Except against real races not imaginary ones so it does not rile up the "Orcists"

Quote from: Shasarak on July 30, 2021, 10:29:48 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:24:37 PM
Right. Only a racist would think that fictional species could ever be used as racist allegories (intentionally or unintentionally), regardless of how many points of similarity (racial coding) they could list off.

I agree with BoxCrayonTales.  Just like Dogs hear the Dog whistle, the Racists hear the Racism.

The idea that the Mythos can corrupt a human society is a source of horror (I would say, a powerful one). Inevitably, a depiction of this in writing or in RPGs is going to involve depicting a given community and its members in a pretty negative light. I mean, that's the whole point.

Lovecraft wrote about an instance of this corruption spreading from a Pacific Island society to New England. He is actually saying that in this sense there is nothing special about New England white anglo-saxon protestants. They can get corrupted too.

I guess Lovecraft might have said "Even New England WASPS". But emphasising Lovecraft's racism misses the point. Even our (or rather, his) notions of racial superiority are meaningless when confronted with the Mythos. A New England WASP is no better or safer than an Asian or an African or anyone else.

I checked the whole "the Tcho-Tcho are racist!" thinghie, and I found on Reddit an answer so sane that I'll simply link it (it is also refreshing to see that it was acclaimed).

https://www.reddit.com/r/DeltaGreenRPG/comments/cdim98/the_tcho_tcho_what_the_fuck/
(Answer by Late-Term_Aborter)

"I understand that accepting the message that we cannot blindly tolerate all other cultures without looking at them critically feels like a concession to right-wing racism, but it isn't, and it shouldn't have to be. [...] The tcho-tcho are the boogeymen in a cautionary tale about ensuring you know the facts about the political and cultural relationships in other places, before taking a stance on the issues there."

The post is much longer, elaborate, and definitely worth reading.

Quote from: Shasarak on July 30, 2021, 10:45:56 PM
Thats true.  You can see real life examples of that in the "news" right now.

Except against real races not imaginary ones so it does not rile up the "Orcists"

I don't know how to parse this because it has nothing to do with what I said.

Anyway, there's absolutely no possibility that real racists might use fantasy as a racist dogwhistle, or that people who don't consider themselves racist could accidentally internalize racist messages without realizing it, or that writers might use racial caricature in fantasy as a form of satire. Human beings are perfectly good or perfectly evil, there's no nuance, no shades of grey, no complexity, no flaws, no limitations. Obviously our tribe is the correct one and all others are stupid and wrong.

Quote from: Reckall on July 31, 2021, 06:22:36 AM
I checked the whole "the Tcho-Tcho are racist!" thinghie, and I found on Reddit an answer so sane that I'll simply link it (it is also refreshing to see that it was acclaimed).

https://www.reddit.com/r/DeltaGreenRPG/comments/cdim98/the_tcho_tcho_what_the_fuck/
(Answer by Late-Term_Aborter)

"I understand that accepting the message that we cannot blindly tolerate all other cultures without looking at them critically feels like a concession to right-wing racism, but it isn't, and it shouldn't have to be. [...] The tcho-tcho are the boogeymen in a cautionary tale about ensuring you know the facts about the political and cultural relationships in other places, before taking a stance on the issues there."

The post is much longer, elaborate, and definitely worth reading.

So do we exterminate the xenos scum or try to civilize them?

Quote from: Marchand on July 30, 2021, 11:42:28 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on July 30, 2021, 10:29:48 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:24:37 PM
Right. Only a racist would think that fictional species could ever be used as racist allegories (intentionally or unintentionally), regardless of how many points of similarity (racial coding) they could list off.

I agree with BoxCrayonTales.  Just like Dogs hear the Dog whistle, the Racists hear the Racism.

The idea that the Mythos can corrupt a human society is a source of horror (I would say, a powerful one). Inevitably, a depiction of this in writing or in RPGs is going to involve depicting a given community and its members in a pretty negative light. I mean, that's the whole point.

Lovecraft wrote about an instance of this corruption spreading from a Pacific Island society to New England. He is actually saying that in this sense there is nothing special about New England white anglo-saxon protestants. They can get corrupted too.

I guess Lovecraft might have said "Even New England WASPS". But emphasising Lovecraft's racism misses the point. Even our (or rather, his) notions of racial superiority are meaningless when confronted with the Mythos. A New England WASP is no better or safer than an Asian or an African or anyone else.

And this is obviously a "corruption" that can be easily categorized as bad, evil, and wrong. Because the point of cosmic horror is that anything non-human is automatically evil and should be exterminated. Humanity fuck yeah!

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 31, 2021, 08:35:44 AM
And this is obviously a "corruption" that can be easily categorized as bad, evil, and wrong. Because the point of cosmic horror is that anything non-human is automatically evil and should be exterminated. Humanity fuck yeah!

Although as is often pointed out, there are plenty of instances in Lovecraft of humans winning temporary local victories over the Mythos (torpedoing the Deep Ones, ramming Cthulhu with a boat etc.), as a general point it isn't even a war. It's more like we're an ants' nest on land earmarked for construction. We could be wiped out at any moment for reasons that are totally beyond our comprehension. Whatever Mythos entity was responsible might not even realise they'd done it, and if they did, they almost certainly wouldn't give a damn.

That's classic Lovecraft anyway. If somebody wants to play a game where humanity can somehow win against the Mythos, then whatever floats their (Cthulhu-ramming) boat.

Or the fish freaks were just full of shit when they said they were superior. You guys take everything in those stories at face value regardless of which characters are saying what. It's entirely possible that the narrators are unreliable.

There's this commentary on every story HPL ever wrote written by someone going under the alias Leila Hahn. There's a section for "The Shadow over Innsmouth": https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/lets-read-everything-howard-phillips-lovecraft-ever-wrote.19724/post-11844622

Hahn points out that the story sends mixed messages and notes that the information we hear comes from unreliable sources. Namely an old drunkard and a fish-man. Not exactly the most impartial sources, but that's what we got. Hahn still gets an analysis out of this.

Hahn also points out similarities in the way the fish freaks are described and certain racist propaganda, and notes the story itself uses the fake out that Innsmouth was mixing with non-white people before revealing that it was actually fish people. Of course, as we know the story itself can't possibly have any racist parallels whatsoever because it's fantasy and Hahn is a racist for making these connections. But even tho Hahn is a racist, I don't dismiss Hahn's work out of hand. HPL was also a racist, but we're still discussing his work.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 31, 2021, 10:28:28 AM
Or the fish freaks were just full of shit when they said they were superior. You guys take everything in those stories at face value regardless of which characters are saying what. It's entirely possible that the narrators are unreliable.

There's this commentary on every story HPL ever wrote written by someone going under the alias Leila Hahn. There's a section for "The Shadow over Innsmouth": https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/lets-read-everything-howard-phillips-lovecraft-ever-wrote.19724/post-11844622

Hahn points out that the story sends mixed messages and notes that the information we hear comes from unreliable sources. Namely an old drunkard and a fish-man. Not exactly the most impartial sources, but that's what we got. Hahn still gets an analysis out of this.

Hahn also points out similarities in the way the fish freaks are described and certain racist propaganda, and notes the story itself uses the fake out that Innsmouth was mixing with non-white people before revealing that it was actually fish people. Of course, as we know the story itself can't possibly have any racist parallels whatsoever because it's fantasy and Hahn is a racist for making these connections. But even tho Hahn is a racist, I don't dismiss Hahn's work out of hand. HPL was also a racist, but we're still discussing his work.

I already wrote in-depth about Leila Hahn, in a very long post that originated... uhm... from a post of yours:

https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/no-we-weren-t-stupid-for-40-years/msg1176317/#msg1176317

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 31, 2021, 08:35:44 AM
Anyway, there's absolutely no possibility that real racists might use fantasy as a racist dogwhistle, or that people who don't consider themselves racist could accidentally internalize racist messages without realizing it, or that writers might use racial caricature in fantasy as a form of satire.

So what if racists implant dog-whistles in their fiction?  The only people who will notice are other racists.  Everyone else will just read the fiction.  If you can hear the whistle, you're the dog.

Writers have always used caricature in satire since time immemorial (it's kind of required), and I don't see why any particular subject of caricature is off limits.  Did Chaucer use class, age, or occupation as the basis for his satire? (Yes)  Did he use race? (Yes.  The Miller is Irish and the Merchant Jewish)  Should we cancel Chaucer now?  Caricature is based on stereotypes, and stereotypes that don't fit a person's experiences will be rejected by them, even as caricature.   

And people can't "accidentally internalize" racist messages when that subject is a fictional race.  They can't when it is a real race, either, but that's not the point here.  You cannot create a "racist" via a fictional creation.  Racism occurs when a person believes that one group of people is superior to another group of people just because of their race.  That isn't "accidental."  This argument is the kind of mental gymnastics that defines the modern leftist's irrationality.  No matter what fictional situation concerning a fictional race a book or RPG sets up, it cannot make you racist towards a real human population.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 31, 2021, 05:43:26 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 31, 2021, 08:35:44 AM
Anyway, there's absolutely no possibility that real racists might use fantasy as a racist dogwhistle, or that people who don't consider themselves racist could accidentally internalize racist messages without realizing it, or that writers might use racial caricature in fantasy as a form of satire.

So what if racists implant dog-whistles in their fiction?  The only people who will notice are other racists.  Everyone else will just read the fiction.  If you can hear the whistle, you're the dog.

Writers have always used caricature in satire since time immemorial (it's kind of required), and I don't see why any particular subject of caricature is off limits.  Did Chaucer use class, age, or occupation as the basis for his satire? (Yes)  Did he use race? (Yes.  The Miller is Irish and the Merchant Jewish)  Should we cancel Chaucer now?  Caricature is based on stereotypes, and stereotypes that don't fit a person's experiences will be rejected by them, even as caricature.   

And people can't "accidentally internalize" racist messages when that subject is a fictional race.  They can't when it is a real race, either, but that's not the point here.  You cannot create a "racist" via a fictional creation.  Racism occurs when a person believes that one group of people is superior to another group of people just because of their race.  That isn't "accidental."  This argument is the kind of mental gymnastics that defines the modern leftist's irrationality.  No matter what fictional situation concerning a fictional race a book or RPG sets up, it cannot make you racist towards a real human population.

Therefore, anybody who claims Rowling's goblins, Tolkien's dwarves, or Lucas' toydarians share any resemblance to racist stereotypes of Jews is a racist. Describing fictional species in exactly the same way that European colonizers described non-white people is not racist because it's fiction, and anybody who criticizes that kind of language is a racist.