Quote from: fearsomepirate;964040Did you just copy and paste a bunch of random strings from tumblr? Because I said nothing of the kind.

You were just free-associating your thoughts on the inappropriateness of a game set during the historical civil war in a thread talking about the inappropriateness of alt-history? My apologies, then. I assumed you weren't posting a non sequitur. Sorry for misinterpreting your post.

Quote from: CRKrueger;963990Except, Deadlands alternate history doesn't split until Gettysburg, and regardless of what you think of it, they never once claim what's Brady's claiming.

You'll note that I never claimed that Deadlands was saying what Brady claimed, any more than actual Holocaust deniers claim that General Anne Frank traveled through a dimensional portal and is now leading the Invasion of Gehenna. As I said, the element that some people find potentially problematic is the echo of real world racist rhetoric. If it was actually just straight-up mouthing racist rhetoric it would be less "potentially problematic" and more along the lines of "completely unacceptable for any decent human being".

And, as I said, you don't have to be racist to think that General Anne Frank piloting a Martian tripod through the Portals of Hell sounds pretty fucking metal. But that's not a free pass from being problematic.

Some of us are less scared of echoes than you are.

Did I also mention Pathfinder & Golarion? Pathfinder & Golarion. (Inner Sea setting book was one of the few setting books where I just put it back murmurring, "I've worked with dreamscape settings more coherent.") And Pathfinder is pretty much 3.x+, but "plus!" not in a good way, more in "an overflowing pig-trough of a buffet plate" way.

I don't think there's any setting that's overhyped, though some perhaps need to die (Forgotten Realms, Rokugan, Shadowrun's timeline). I've managed to make most settings into something useful, especially if you're willing to ignore "official" details and just go with your own material where things don't match up. I'm a Tolkien fan and I used Middle Earth any way I wanted, and damn was it a lot more gameable.

Systems, Exalted takes the cake. Gave away every book I owned (100% of 1st edition books and at least 60% of 2nd edition), and have never gone back.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;964343You'll note that I never claimed that Deadlands was saying what Brady claimed, any more than actual Holocaust deniers claim that General Anne Frank traveled through a dimensional portal and is now leading the Invasion of Gehenna.

I do note that you continue to refer to this strawman metaphor of yours (awesome that it may be in sheer gonzoness ) instead of what is actually said in the Deadlands texts, possibly because you've never read any of them.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;964343As I said, the element that some people find potentially problematic is the echo of real world racist rhetoric.

Except, of course, that it isn't.  Deadlands doesn't describe the casus belli of the Civil War at all, so there is no way to "echo" anything said by either John Brown or the KKK's grand dunce or anyone else.  As alt-history, it does what all alt-history does, it presumes that history is the same...until it changes...in this case with Gettysburg.

Faced with the economic realities of a Cold War and with an external force manipulating things, the South ends slavery to gain soldiers and labor (which was a historical viewpoint of some) as well as gain international support from Britain and France, who were held back by the South's stance on slavery.

Do we need to attach the full transcript of the Nuremberg Trials to every WWII RPG just to make sure the problematic elements of WWII can't be echoed on some stormfronter's table somewhere?

All you're basically saying is, we can't make a game about that era without a disclaimer essay so everyone can tell without reading a single word of the game text who wears the Black Hat.  Wait, no one's reading the text...ok, we'll put this on the cover...

Spoiler

Then we can check the "Problematic Matter Appropriately Echo-Cancelled" box on Form 757975633-A to send to the Ministry of Truthistory.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;963359The setting is running on the reputation and nostalgia of the original six novels. There have been no less than four attempts at revival (Taladas in 1989, Tales of the Lance in 1992, the Fifth Age in 1996, Dragonlance 3E in 2003), and all but the last have petered out--and the last probably only held out because the goals for a mid-tier company like Margaret Weis Production are considerably less demanding than those of the market leader.

I don't know, I could see a good weird horror game in the Dragonlance world.  Sometimes if the fantasy world is boring, then when the characters go on weird adventures, that means the adventures are outside the norm.  Just plug in adventures that have nothing to do with anything.  The players won't know how to deal with it.  Throw them into a Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure while they are playing a Knight of Solamnia or Cleric of Mishakal.... that would be hilarious.

Quote from: CRKrueger;964678All you're basically saying is, we can't make a game about that era without a disclaimer essay so everyone can tell without reading a single word of the game text who wears the Black Hat.  

Heh, my reaction to being told the Deadlands alt history (which telling long predated the current Hollywood-Obama "Confederates = Nazis" meme) was that they took a historical war between two equally 'shades of grey' factions and turned it into Black Hat Union vs White Hat Confederates. Made it a literal War of Northern Aggression vs the brave (and now not racist) freedom fighters of the Confederacy.
And I didn't like them insulting the Union side like that.

Quote from: S'mon;964706Heh, my reaction to being told the Deadlands alt history (which telling long predated the current Hollywood-Obama "Confederates = Nazis" meme) was that they took a historical war between two equally 'shades of grey' factions and turned it into Black Hat Union vs White Hat Confederates. Made it a literal War of Northern Aggression vs the brave (and now not racist) freedom fighters of the Confederacy.
And I didn't like them insulting the Union side like that.

Let me assure you that you were told wrong. Someone was either ignorant or had an axe to grind; I've seen plenty of both.

What Deadlands does do is present a post-Civil War (North, South, and elsewhere) setting where bigotry of all kinds has lessened quite a bit simply because those aren't the sorts of stories that the game is intended to tell. It's not looking to punish players for wanting to play blacks, women, Native Americans, etc. Bigotry still exists but it's explicitly called out as bad, and it's not meant as an everyday challenge in-setting unless of course the group decides dealing with things like discrimination are interesting and want to explore them. Is that realistic? Not really, no, but then Deadlands is a setting where the dead keep getting back up and automatons with human brains fight actual witches. Realism isn't exactly the point.

I can't believe that there is this much debate on Deadland's back story. It's about as deep as a puddle of rain and can be ignored as such. Deadlands sells itself on capturing the imagery of westerns mixed in with cartoonish horror tropes. It is fun to play as it captured a particular niche. The background is barely worth reading beyond that.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;964732I can't believe that there is this much debate on Deadland's back story. It's about as deep as a puddle of rain and can be ignored as such. Deadlands sells itself on capturing the imagery of westerns mixed in with cartoonish horror tropes. It is fun to play as it captured a particular niche. The background is barely worth reading beyond that.

Blame one keyboard waaaaahrior who keeps trying to make it into something more than it is.  Like you said, it's a vehicle and it's up to gamers to decide how to utilize it or not.

Quote from: S'mon;964706Heh, my reaction to being told the Deadlands alt history (which telling long predated the current Hollywood-Obama "Confederates = Nazis" meme) was that they took a historical war between two equally 'shades of grey' factions and turned it into Black Hat Union vs White Hat Confederates. Made it a literal War of Northern Aggression vs the brave (and now not racist) freedom fighters of the Confederacy.
And I didn't like them insulting the Union side like that.

That's not even close.  Like I said, the rationale for the cause of the war isn't touched on at all.  With a fragmented US, Indian and Mormon nations and the European powers being much more influential in North America there's much less of a monocultural effect on the West.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;964732I can't believe that there is this much debate on Deadland's back story. It's about as deep as a puddle of rain and can be ignored as such. Deadlands sells itself on capturing the imagery of westerns mixed in with cartoonish horror tropes. It is fun to play as it captured a particular niche. The background is barely worth reading beyond that.

It's certainly not in depth, but when most of the criticism of what is there comes from people who obviously haven't read even that, and are just spreading the "common bullshit" about it, it gets tiring, especially when people start erroneously conflating the backstory with real world Southern Apologia.  Shane's one of the nicest guys in the industry, he doesn't deserve that shit, especially when it's just obviously incorrect.

Quote from: GameDaddy;963722I have always liked the Third Imperium. This was like the sophisticated center of known space with all of the available tech and enhancements, and everyhting available for sale that you could possibly want, but that came with a repressive and overly bureaucratic highly centralized but slowly to respond government. The problem with the response, they often use a hammer where a suggestive whisper, or perhaps a touch of diplomacy,  would be just as effective.

That said, I always set my new Traveller campaigns on the fringes of the imperium, or some considerable distance into frontier space, where whoever is the strongest, is the law. There is room for both, the unrestrained freedom of the frontier, where anything goes, but where it can be prohibitively expensive to purchase a new jump drive, or the latest beam lasers and missile systems for example, to the sophisticated and decadent empire, where everything is available, but almost no one is truly free. On the frontier spontaneously rocking and rolling with all guns blazing is a fine way to resolve things, in the core of the empire, to achieve your goal, you are going to have to put together a three part symphony, complete with an interlude, an intermission, and at least two cliffhangers to achieve the same result, ohhhh but the payoff, might just make a trip like this into the imperium a completely worthwhile endeavor.

I've always liked the Third Imperium, too, although I've always played it as indifferent, which is a refreshing break from all of the evil empires and good federations out there.  I wish my group had been more into the setting, so I could have gotten involved in more Imperium-centric roleplaying (with nobles, Imperial society, etc.).

Quote from: S'mon;964706Heh, my reaction to being told the Deadlands alt history (which telling long predated the current Hollywood-Obama "Confederates = Nazis" meme) was that they took a historical war between two equally 'shades of grey' factions and turned it into Black Hat Union vs White Hat Confederates. Made it a literal War of Northern Aggression vs the brave (and now not racist) freedom fighters of the Confederacy.
And I didn't like them insulting the Union side like that.

Sure. Which is why the game made Abraham Lincoln a guy who came back from the dead, yet is still working hard behind the scenes to combat evil, while Jefferson Davis is a demon wearing human skin.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;964732I can't believe that there is this much debate on Deadland's back story. It's about as deep as a puddle of rain and can be ignored as such. Deadlands sells itself on capturing the imagery of westerns mixed in with cartoonish horror tropes. It is fun to play as it captured a particular niche. The background is barely worth reading beyond that.

It's funny because Shane directly addressed why he did this in one of the first books for the game. He said wanted to have a setting where you could play a black character and have it not be a problem. He also explicitly states that the extended length of the Civil War had accelerated women's rights due to male casualties in the war. It makes it clear that women are accepted in any role. He was bending over backwards to make the game "welcoming" as the kids say today, and he has gotten nothing but shit for it.

Quote from: Baulderstone;964772Sure. Which is why the game made Abraham Lincoln a guy who came back from the dead, yet is still working hard behind the scenes to combat evil, while Jefferson Davis is a demon wearing human skin.



It's funny because Shane directly addressed why he did this in one of the first books for the game. He said wanted to have a setting where you could play a black character and have it not be a problem. He also explicitly states that the extended length of the Civil War had accelerated women's rights due to male casualties in the war. It makes it clear that women are accepted in any role. He was bending over backwards to make the game "welcoming" as the kids say today, and he has gotten nothing but shit for it.

My would-be GM didn't mention that about Lincoln & Davis when pitching the game. Is that even in the core book? That does seem more like the modern "Confederacy = Evil" trope which only popularised post-2000 AFAICT. Lincoln as angelic is a much older trope though.

Re bending over backwards to make game welcoming - I think a lot of players don't want semi-historical games/settings to feel too welcoming/inclusive/multicultural. And even those who find female adventurers in Victorian London acceptable may have trouble with a non-racist Confederacy. (I remember briefly playing a black female Majestic 12 agent in a homebrew 1950s setting, our PCs were sent down to I think Louisiana, and it felt weird that the (Chinese female) GM didn't have my PC face any issues of discrimination. Especially as chargen gave me extra points for being non-white & non-male!)

The stupid thing being that none of this backstory is necessary to the Weird West setting where the game is actually played. The outside world could be historically accurate and there would be no problem with PCs in the Weird West being as diverse as they wanted.