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.

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.

It is a difficult line to negotiate. Many things could make cool and interesting setting particularly alt-history that might touch in sensitive subjects and, I hate to use the word, problematic topics. I'm not an advocate of "PC" to the excessive level its been taken too in recent times but there is a point of being insensitive to real world issues. Its is something to consider especially when weaving real world issues into fiction.

Its also a subjective line. Where is lies is going to vary from person to person for a number of reason. So I also think there is some, not to say burden, but responsibility perhaps to think a little before taking offense and not assuming the creator(s) are automatically assholes or their work should be censored in some fashion. Otherwise they're can be a significant chilling effect that road blocks potentially interesting, entertaining idea right out of the gate or even before they're seen. Two examples that come to mind are The Thunderplains in The Strange (published but more or less disavowed) and Switch's original concept in The Matrix.

Edit: Whoops, I missed the mod call. If this post is too off topic, delete it or I will.

For mechanics, Shadowrun -- and it only got worse over time in subsequent hands. As for its setting, there is an initial charm there that it could never really deliver later in its setting development or metaplot. (Granted most metaplot is not all that great, but my threshold wasn't that high. I just wanted some 'great moments in the future to dick around in!', but sorta got mostly 'meh!' instead.)

Quote from: Opaopajr;963148For mechanics, Shadowrun -- and it only got worse over time in subsequent hands. As for its setting, there is an initial charm there that it could never really deliver later in its setting development or metaplot. (Granted most metaplot is not all that great, but my threshold wasn't that high. I just wanted some 'great moments in the future to dick around in!', but sorta got mostly 'meh!' instead.)

I definitely have to agree with this. I was really hopeful that the newest edition would finally deliver a clean system that worked well, but I got so disgusted by the absurd lengths the devs were going to just so hackers could fuck over everyone (but especially street sams) that I haven't looked back. Thank heavens for better options like Interface Zero.

Quote from: Omega;963137Dragonlance: Its still really popular despite the best efforts of the original writers and later writers to ruin it utterly. But the setting itself is so bog standard boring.

Are you sure it's still popular? I'm not sure you can even find any of the RPG books in print, pdf's notwithstanding.


Agreed, however, it's an incredibly boring setting. You either (a) run the the original campaign of the dragon-lance war or (b) do something else that doesn't mean as much, because hey, The big war already happened, or WILL happen. Geh.

Its still got enough of a following that WOTC was seriously considering dropping Forgotten Realms and rebooting Dragonlance for 5e. Then things fell through. Which might have been for the best. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Brand55;963157I definitely have to agree with this. I was really hopeful that the newest edition would finally deliver a clean system that worked well, but I got so disgusted by the absurd lengths the devs were going to just so hackers could fuck over everyone (but especially street sams) that I haven't looked back. Thank heavens for better options like Interface Zero.

Their editing is inexcusable. Lazy reprints, choppy splicing, poor indexing... An utter travesty hard bound and glossed for posterity on how to not handle an IP.

Quote from: Iron_Rain;963327Are you sure it's still popular? I'm not sure you can even find any of the RPG books in print, pdf's notwithstanding.


Agreed, however, it's an incredibly boring setting. You either (a) run the the original campaign of the dragon-lance war or (b) do something else that doesn't mean as much, because hey, The big war already happened, or WILL happen. Geh.

  The 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.

Quote from: Iron_Rain;963327Are you sure it's still popular? I'm not sure you can even find any of the RPG books in print, pdf's notwithstanding.


Agreed, however, it's an incredibly boring setting. You either (a) run the the original campaign of the dragon-lance war or (b) do something else that doesn't mean as much, because hey, The big war already happened, or WILL happen. Geh.

One thing I liked about the Savage Worlds Plot Point Campaigns was that they mostly involved settings that were meant purely for that campaign. 50 Fathoms is a sandbox with an quest to save the world inside it. When you save the world, you are done. They did one companion book that added a little more detail to the main campaign and that is it.

That's how I feel Dragonlance should have been. You play the War of the Lance, then find some other world to play in.

Quote from: Iron_Rain;963327Agreed, however, it's an incredibly boring setting. You either (a) run the the original campaign of the dragon-lance war or (b) do something else that doesn't mean as much, because hey, The big war already happened, or WILL happen. Geh.

If you substitute Middle-earth for Krynn and "ring" for "lance," this is why I have no interest in playing in Tolkien's world.

Quote from: Dumarest;963370If you substitute Middle-earth for Krynn and "ring" for "lance," this is why I have no interest in playing in Tolkien's world.

Tolkien only got about one chapter into the sequel before realizing it was a bad idea. That says a lot.

I'll throw in another for Deadlands. What a silly mess.

Quote from: Iron_Rain;963327Are you sure it's still popular? I'm not sure you can even find any of the RPG books in print, pdf's notwithstanding.


Agreed, however, it's an incredibly boring setting. You either (a) run the the original campaign of the dragon-lance war or (b) do something else that doesn't mean as much, because hey, The big war already happened, or WILL happen. Geh.

Actually the Taladas setting is excellent and I played a few games in the pre-Catastrophe time period where the preist king embarkes on a religious inspired genocide of certain races and it was a lot of fun.

Quote from: Baulderstone;963368One thing I liked about the Savage Worlds Plot Point Campaigns was that they mostly involved settings that were meant purely for that campaign. 50 Fathoms is a sandbox with an quest to save the world inside it. When you save the world, you are done. They did one companion book that added a little more detail to the main campaign and that is it.

That's how I feel Dragonlance should have been. You play the War of the Lance, then find some other world to play in.

That's what we did, except it went, play the War of the Lance without the book characters, head to Taladas, then end up on another world.

Quote from: Baulderstone;963374Tolkien only got about one chapter into the sequel before realizing it was a bad idea. That says a lot.

Yeah, that after Morgoth and Sauron, Sauron's Offspring doesn't have the same punch in a new novel...and that's really all it says.  

The Fourth Age is wide open. Set it in FA...around 124 I think...all the Fellowship are dead or West, all the named Noldor are gone except maybe Glorfindel and Maglor the minstrel.  All that's left to do is :

• Retake Moria, the greatest dungeon in history.
• Cleanse what's left in the lands of Mordor.
• Cleanse and retake Angband.
• Rebuild the rest of the Reunited Kingdom.
• Head to Umbar the southernmost city of the Reunited Kingdom...then start walking south or east...for a couple of decades.
• Quest to find the underwater ruins and treasures of Beleriand, or Numenor.
• Sail West until you find Aman, or the other side of the world.
• Find the lost Palantir.
• Now that the over-arching threat of Big Bad Evil is gone, have fun dealing with petty human evil as the Dunlendings/Rohirrim/Easterlings/Southrons/Gondorians each play their own versions of Game of Thrones amongst themselves and against each other.
• Eldarion just offered title and lands in the Trollshaws, all you have to do is claim it and keep it.

Even if you think the First, Second and Third Age are ruined for gaming by the novels and canon, it's really hard to see the Fourth Age as anything other than one of the greatest settings ever for PC adventure.

Quote from: CRKrueger;963076but there's no way to have a sane conversation about it over the internet.

Alexander proves my point.  Justin's self-satisfying polemic is irrelevant, because it doesn't matter why the war started or how it began...because all of that is the same as Real Earth.  Deadlands does not change the Civil War's casus belli one bit.  The Deadlands timeline diverges July 1st 1863*, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, when dead soldiers begin to rise and both sides temporarily cease fire, which prevents the victory of the North and allows the South to continue.

Why did they free the slaves?

• The same reason Cleburne in Real History wanted the South to: soldiers and labor.
• The same reason other southerners in Real History wanted: to remove the only obstacle England and France had to supporting the South.
• The Reckoners wanted to keep the South a nation and keep America broken into multiple nations.

Why do the Reckoners want America fragmented?  
Imagine WWI and WWII fought with mad science and no Real World USA involvement...the most horrific thing imaginable?  Yeah they thought so too.

You want to crucify Shane for not detailing this all in the main book instead of waiting until the supplement Back East: The South and others to lay it all out, go ahead.

You want to argue the history as it applies to the Real World, go ask Ken Hite, he wrote Back East: The South along with Stephen Long.

The point is, the setting does have reasons, and they have absolutely nothing to do with the classic Real World Civil War apologist arguments you hear about the topic of why the Civil War started.

Ok Brendan, I kept it to Deadlands, but enough Deadlands because...

Quote from: CRKrueger;963076there's no way to have a sane conversation about it over the internet.

...and...

Quote from: 3rik;963385Deadlands. What a silly mess.

*actually it changes a little earlier with some Reckoner-controlled mayhem in the Spirit World that allows the dead to rise, but's that's got nothing to with the decisions of anyone in the physical world.