Quote from: Dumarest;963040I can't tell if you're pulling my leg or the setting is really that stupid.

normally, I'd say both, because it is funnier that way, but yeah, JD was replaced by a demon who serves the Horseman War, and is keeping the civil war going. or at least he was, one of the last published adventures has JD being assassinated, but the people who took over (and weren't demons this time) decided to keep the south separate from the north.

Quote from: CRKrueger;963060I figured Dumarest would prefer a short version.

Oh, no doubt. Sadly, while the setting of Deadlands is fun the metaplot takes a lot of twists and turns and it's way too complicated for its own good. I think most people ignore the biggest chunk of it in favor of just playing Cowboys vs Zombies, or whichever other part of the Weird West they prefer.

Quote from: Brand55;963071Oh, no doubt. Sadly, while the setting of Deadlands is fun the metaplot takes a lot of twists and turns and it's way too complicated for its own good. I think most people ignore the biggest chunk of it in favor of just playing Cowboys vs Zombies, or whichever other part of the Weird West they prefer.

The crazy, convoluted metaplot is part of the fun.  Looking at it over all three gamelines I've come to appreciate the method to the madness.  It's gonzo that doesn't wear a clown suit screaming GONZO!!1!!, so a lot of people get thrown by the tone.  It's definitely not for everyone, but the slavery complaint always makes me laugh, it's like someone calling the Three Stooges "sizist" because Moe beats up on Curly or an egyptologist complaining that the funeral wrapping are incorrect in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.  The weirdest part is, the game does have a rationale that makes sense, considering the setting we're talking about, but it's kind of spread across different books, but there's no way to have a sane conversation about it over the internet.

For RPGing a bad setting is one where the PCs know way more about the setting than the players or the players know way more about the setting than the characters.

It can be really annoying grappling with a world when you have to constantly ask the GM what your PC knows about basic stuff or to pretend that you don't know a lot of stuff that you really do know.

Of course this varies from group to group but it's why a lot of popular media settings (players know too much) or sci-fi settings (players don't know basic day to day stuff that their PCs know) are often a struggle. This is also why the standard "you're a bunch of hicks from a small vanilla fantasy village and there's a big fucked up wilderness outside of that" works well since players know standard fantasy village stuff and neither of them know about what's in the big fucked up wilderness (unless it's really cliched in which case the players know and the PCs don't which is a problem).

Quote from: Herne's Son;963022I know most of the fans say that the 90s was the "Golden Age" for Glorantha, but I think the setting pretty much peaked in the 80s. Back then, it was a really awesome sword & sorcery setting, with some unique ideas about cults and monsters and things. But since the early 90s, it's been all navel gazing and anthro-wankery. Now it takes itself way too seriously, and current attitudes about the setting have basically ruined it for me.

Correct. The RQ2 boxed sets were a lofty peak of table top rpg, generally. Then it turned into a shitty fan-fic thesis in speculative anthropology. Luckily all the good stuff still exists, so you can just buy and play it.

GURPS, yuck. Just, no. It is soulless. Useful sourcebooks to mine for other games though.

D&D 3+ and d20. Way overcomplicated for little ROI.

WoD. 2nd edition (the first round of hard covers) was best. Back when they didn't try to make all the games consistent with each other. Vampires as presented in Vampire were not exactly the same as Vampires presented in Werewolf and vice versa. Then it all devolved into hopeless levels of pretension, and D&D with fangs.

Quote from: CRKrueger;963076The crazy, convoluted metaplot is part of the fun.  Looking at it over all three gamelines I've come to appreciate the method to the madness.  It's gonzo that doesn't wear a clown suit screaming GONZO!!1!!, so a lot of people get thrown by the tone.  It's definitely not for everyone, but the slavery complaint always makes me laugh, it's like someone calling the Three Stooges "sizist" because Moe beats up on Curly or an egyptologist complaining that the funeral wrapping are incorrect in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.  The weirdest part is, the game does have a rationale that makes sense, considering the setting we're talking about, but it's kind of spread across different books, but there's no way to have a sane conversation about it over the internet.

Deadlands was definitely guilty of the '90s trend of going overboard on metaplot, but it saved by the fact that all the big setting secrets are right in the core book. The GM knows who the Reckoners are, what they are up to, how they make themselves more powerful, and concrete steps PCs can take to weaken them. The game line does hold back mysteries at times to get you to buy the next book, but it didn't do it with the BIG secrets.

That saves it from being one of those '90s games that never got around to releasing the information a GM needed to actually understand the setting or being one that built up a stupid reveal that annoyed all the fans.

Quote from: CRKrueger;963076The crazy, convoluted metaplot is part of the fun.  Looking at it over all three gamelines I've come to appreciate the method to the madness.  It's gonzo that doesn't wear a clown suit screaming GONZO!!1!!, so a lot of people get thrown by the tone.  It's definitely not for everyone, but the slavery complaint always makes me laugh, it's like someone calling the Three Stooges "sizist" because Moe beats up on Curly or an egyptologist complaining that the funeral wrapping are incorrect in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.  The weirdest part is, the game does have a rationale that makes sense, considering the setting we're talking about, but it's kind of spread across different books, but there's no way to have a sane conversation about it over the internet.

The problem is that, in the real world, the rhetoric of white supremacists includes the fake-history claim that the Civil War wasn't about slavery and it was just purely coincidental that all the Confederate States were slave-owning, that slave ownership was explicitly protected as constitutional right in the Confederate constitution, and that slavery was mentioned as a primary cause in most of the declarations of secession. So when you have a game setting that seems to say, "Actually, the Confederacy could have trivially given up slavery, but the Civil War would still have happened." the echo of that rhetoric is really hard to ignore.

It's like creating a game where demonic forces were threatening the planet in the 1930s and the only way to stop the destruction of the planet was by sending those carrying the mystically empowered bloodlines dating back to the founders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel to the abandoned cities of the Martian invaders from War of the Worlds using dimensional portals that were later disguised as gas chambers in order to prevent a mass panic. It's not that there's nothing interesting that could arise from such an alt-history setting; it's that your alt-history of a fake Holocaust has some rather troubling associations with racist rhetoric in the real world.

It just doesn't matter how much it "makes sense" in the context of the setting or how cool it is to have General Anne Frank lead the mecha legions based on tripod-technology through the Portals of Hell during the Invasion of Gehenna.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;963111The problem is that, in the real world, the rhetoric of white supremacists includes the fake-history claim that the Civil War wasn't about slavery and it was just purely coincidental that all the Confederate States were slave-owning, that slave ownership was explicitly protected as constitutional right in the Confederate constitution, and that slavery was mentioned as a primary cause in most of the declarations of secession. So when you have a game setting that seems to say, "Actually, the Confederacy could have trivially given up slavery, but the Civil War would still have happened." the echo of that rhetoric is really hard to ignore.

This is incorrect on a few points.  It WAS about Slavery, but it wasn't about the PEOPLE.  It was about the ECONOMICS.  See, you can't tax slaves, but you can free people. So slave owning was a losing proposition for the government, and the North knew it.  It also didn't help that the Plantation model of farming was destructive to the land in general.  So as rose coloured glasses you want to make up the whole abolishing of slavery, it has very little to do with the people being enslaved, but more about the money generated by it.

Like most things in life.

Now as for the Civil War still happening, actually probably.  Because the South was very resentful of the North, which they saw as soft and unworthy to own the land they got.  In some parts, they still believe this.  They'd likely would have found another excuse.  But there's no way of really knowing.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;963111It's like creating a game where demonic forces were threatening the planet in the 1930s and the only way to stop the destruction of the planet was by sending those carrying the mystically empowered bloodlines dating back to the founders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel to the abandoned cities of the Martian invaders from War of the Worlds using dimensional portals that were later disguised as gas chambers in order to prevent a mass panic. It's not that there's nothing interesting that could arise from such an alt-history setting; it's that your alt-history of a fake Holocaust has some rather troubling associations with racist rhetoric in the real world.

I'd play that.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;963111It just doesn't matter how much it "makes sense" in the context of the setting or how cool it is to have General Anne Frank lead the mecha legions based on tripod-technology through the Portals of Hell during the Invasion of Gehenna.

Does it matter if it's fun?

Keep it on point. If you want to debate the wisdom of Deadlands taking up the topic, fine. But no more derails into the root causes of the Civil War. If you want to discuss that topic take it somewhere else.

Apologies.  I've said my piece on which game/setting I think is overhyped.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963114This is incorrect on a few points.  It WAS about Slavery, but it wasn't about the PEOPLE.  It was about the ECONOMICS.  See, you can't tax slaves, but you can free people. So slave owning was a losing proposition for the government, and the North knew it.  It also didn't help that the Plantation model of farming was destructive to the land in general.  So as rose coloured glasses you want to make up the whole abolishing of slavery, it has very little to do with the people being enslaved, but more about the money generated by it.

Like most things in life.

Similarly, the 3/5ths compromise is often touted as an example of southern racism, when it's not.  It's the *north* that didn't want slaves to be counted as people, because that would give the south more representation at the federal level.  The south wanted slaves counted as people, but, again, not for any altruistic or principled reasons.

Quote from: robiswrong;963119Similarly, the 3/5ths compromise is often touted as an example of southern racism, when it's not.  It's the *north* that didn't want slaves to be counted as people, because that would give the south more representation at the federal level.  The south wanted slaves counted as people, but, again, not for any altruistic or principled reasons.

No more derails into this topic guys. Keep it on RPGs. Like I said, if you want to argue about whether Deadlands should have tackled the subject, that is fine. But this is taking the thread well outside the realm of RPGs.

Apologies.  I've deleted my post.... feel free to delete your response and this.

Dragonlance: Its still really propular despite the best efforts of the original writers and later writers to ruin it utterly. But the setting itself is so bog standard boring.