TheRPGSite

(This is my first post on the RPG site; I just registered. I hope it's okay to post this here - I see other people post about their design. If not, remove this post).

I'm currently designing a set of games about the shoah - the Nazi holocaust of WWII. The first, Kristallnacht, is in playtest; the second, Judenrat, is in design; and the third, How Not To Care, is in planning.

You can read more about the project on this blog:

We All Had Names (http://weallhadnames.wordpress.com/)

Feel free to comment on the blog, or mail me at matthijs1000 {at} hotmail {dot} com.

You still getting the grant from the government for this one?

I've told people a few times about this, that there was a guy getting a government grant to write an rpg about the Holocaust, but I don't think anyone really believed me.

My only comment on the game, is "oy, vey."

The whole idea just seems monstrously wrong - to do that as an RPG.

One of the players in my game , in REAL life -  lost most of her original family in the Holocast.

- Ed C.

I don't know if I'd go to "monstrously wrong" this early in my knowledge of the game, but I get the distinct impression that at no point would the word "fun" come up.

I mean, the only ways I can see to play it are a) straight-up earnest genuine emotional exploration, or b) black comedy.

And even I'd be uncomfortable playing a Holocaust RPG as black humor. Frankly, I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of involving the Holocaust in my leisure and recreational activities, you know? At least there's an underpinning of humor in the rest of the Nazi shit ("Are we the baddies?", bad accents, playing them absurdly over the top)....

I don't know, the foreign RPG market always seems really foreign to me. Especially their microgames and LARPs. Still, all power to you. Write the best horrifically depressing trio of RPGs you can!

(http://www.pen-paper.net/images/rpgdb/ww06903.jpg)

Quote from: Sosthenes(http://www.pen-paper.net/images/rpgdb/ww06903.jpg)

Wraith book, I'm guessing?

Well, sure. Wraith prevented suicide only because you worried being dead would be as depressing as playing.

Ape,
 Its like this.... I've heard the player talk sometimes ...then stop.  She doesn't what her real age is. Because she was adopted.

 You know that whole six degrees of seperation thing ?  Because of her  I am less than three steps or people from folks that were killed in that.....

  I've known this person since I was a teenager.

Just telling our favorite Aussie on here in an e-mail  that I don't see any possible FUN in this potential game.

 At least with GURPS:World War II, I caould run a scenario where the players liberate a camp near the end of the war.

 This is one of those RPGs where maybe someone should ask themselves ahead of time:   "Is making this game really such a good idea?"

- Ed C.

Quote from: Christmas ApeWraith book, I'm guessing?

Yep, rather controversial in its day...

IMHO not good material for a role-playing game. I'm not saying that this is a topic you have to avoid generally or that it can only be viewed one way, as Roberto Benigni's La Vita e Bella clearly showed, but this is certainly not my kind of tabletop game. Even within the framework of simming, thematic games or whatever you call it this day and hour, I think this specific theme is too problematic and dangerously close to devolve into Hostel-like depravity or wannabe ham actors who degrade the pain of the victims with their angsty faux-suffering.
I wouldn't play a "Sophie's Choice" RPG either, but at least that kind of treatment is a bit 'safer'.

I don't see how it could be fun. IF it were fun, then it's doubly offensive. Those are my people.

What is the authors background? Why would he think this is a good idea?

Thanks for all your replies!

A few answers:

- Yes, I'm receiving an arts grant for this project.
- I've thought more than twice about whether it was a good idea, and I firmly believe it is.
- The games are meant to help us learn/understand some of the events surrounding the Kristallnacht, the problems of the Judenräte, and the many reasons people didn't interfere with or stop the events as they unfolded.
- I have spoken to Jewish people about this, including people who very much understand the real horrors of the actual events, and have received enthusiastic help and information.

I quite respect that not all RPGers will be interested in trying this out. It's a very different sort of game from what we usually play, and it certainly doesn't come under the heading of "fun". (I do design and play fun games as well).

At the same time, I think when people first hear of the game, they get an idea of what it plays like that is very inaccurate. I suggest taking a look, specifically, at the design notes for "Kristallnacht" to get a better understanding.

Quote from: Matthijs Holter(This is my first post on the RPG site; I just registered. I hope it's okay to post this here - I see other people post about their design. If not, remove this post).

I'm currently designing a set of games about the shoah - the Nazi holocaust of WWII. The first, Kristallnacht, is in playtest; the second, Judenrat, is in design; and the third, How Not To Care, is in planning.

You can read more about the project on this blog:

We All Had Names (http://weallhadnames.wordpress.com/)

Feel free to comment on the blog, or mail me at matthijs1000 {at} hotmail {dot} com.

I wasn't able to make heads or tails out of your blog; what were you looking for with this post?

If it's feedback, you might want to provide a brief description of your game or something.

My immediate reaction is that this is treacherous terrain. When making a game or any kind of entertainment you run a risk of trivializing your subject matter.

This is true even if that's not your intention -- as the designer you may not be able to tell if you've made a terrible mistake or not.

Posting to game design boards and asking for feedback is a good place to start but beware of echo-chambers; some of the links on your blog go to places with (as I understand it) histories of not providing appropriate negative feedback.

One more thought: No one undertakes a project like this without some kind of agenda -- what's yours?

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Matthijs HolterThanks for all your replies!

A few answers:

- Yes, I'm receiving an arts grant for this project.
- I've thought more than twice about whether it was a good idea, and I firmly believe it is.
- The games are meant to help us learn/understand some of the events surrounding the Kristallnacht, the problems of the Judenräte, and the many reasons people didn't interfere with or stop the events as they unfolded.
- I have spoken to Jewish people about this, including people who very much understand the real horrors of the actual events, and have received enthusiastic help and information.

I quite respect that not all RPGers will be interested in trying this out. It's a very different sort of game from what we usually play, and it certainly doesn't come under the heading of "fun". (I do design and play fun games as well).

At the same time, I think when people first hear of the game, they get an idea of what it plays like that is very inaccurate. I suggest taking a look, specifically, at the design notes for "Kristallnacht" to get a better understanding.

Wow. How did I ever guess you weren't Jewish yourself?

Two things:

The method of roleplay has been, is, and will be used for dead fucking serious stuff involving big decisions about people getting killed in the real world.

Nearly every military planning exercise is a form of roleplaying.
Psyiachtrists use it to treat patients.
Government agencies use it to exercise stuff like disaster relief.
It´s used as an educational tool for better understanding how things came to be.
All been done all valid and important.

BUT:
This site is about the Method of Roleplay used as a leaisure activity. We call those things RPGs, although we don´t have a monopoly on that term or the method itself.

SO:
Is your project meant as an unsupervised leisure activity?

We only talk about those here. Please clarify.

This may sound "dumb" - but I don't really see any GAME in this at all.

Most people want to have FUN in a game, not experience horror of that kind or feel that they are being preached to about it all.

 The only way I copuld "game" this sort of thing - is if I could KILL the Nazis before the camps started up .  Or better yet - that magic thing a majig from that awful movie MILLENIUM is used to transport all those people to a better safer place in the future.  You don't alter history - but through superscience you save maybe millions of lives.

- Ed C.

Quote from: SettembriniBUT:
This site is about the Method of Roleplay used as a leaisure activity. We call those things RPGs, although we don´t have a monopoly on that term or the method itself.

SO:
Is your project meant as an unsupervised leisure activity?

We only talk about those here. Please clarify.

Maybe it's meant to be art? Since he's getting an art grant from the government to do it?

Maybe he's posting in this forum because he wants to make use of "Theories based on what we know to work, to make new games, new mechanics, new settings, new whatever."

The "whatever" part being the point in question.

Best regards,
Ole Peder

Scary stuff.  There are (at least) two categories in which people could be offended and hurt by this.

First:  They can be offended by the mere notion of making a game about this.  I think that's got to be about their expectations of what such a game would be like.  If I were a holocaust survivor and I thought people were going to be "killing the Jews and taking their stuff" while cracking Monty Python jokes ... yeah... that'd piss me off.

Second:  They can be offended by the actual game when it is produced.  They can play through it and feel that it gives a message that is hurtful or dismissive or disrespectful or ... whatever.


I think (and, for the sake of people not getting their feelings hurt, I hope) that Matthijs may be shielded from much of the offense he might give if he (say) made this game in Amercia, simply because the expectations of what topics can be respectfully taken on by an RPG are different in his neck of the woods.

Whether people will actually find the end product respectful ... well, I expect that's up to him.  It's quite a challenge.  But then, I didn't think that one could make a game that would treat Vietnam respectfully, but the Vietnam vets (and there have been more than a few) who've played carry apparently speak quite highly of it.  So ... y'know ... I feel like I can be hopeful.

Anyway ... scary project, Matthijs!  Brave of you to take it on.  Now don't screw it up. :D

Without clear mission statement, it´s without value to talk about it.
Maybe we can get more info and then come back to the issue.

Right now, we have: nothing.

QuoteScary stuff.  There are (at least) two categories in which people could be offended and hurt by this.

That´s a pretty big issue. All of the serious uses of the MoR I know of, are very, very (very) clearly only to be used in supervision of a trained (in the subject at hand) person.
In fact, there´s laws about that stuff regarding it´s use in government agencies and education.
Also, the aims and goals of the particular run of the MoR simulation must be very clear.

The MoR is powerful, as the message can get out of hand quickly.

In short:
"Do not try this at home."

Quote from: TonyLBSecond:  They can be offended by the actual game when it is produced.  They can play through it and feel that it gives a message that is hurtful or dismissive or disrespectful or ... whatever.

I'm honestly grappling with how a game about the Holocaust could be both fun, and not dismissive and disrespectful to the victims. By this I mean actual fun, not "we had an impromptu, untrained, and disturbing therapy session with dice and put the 'Fun!' label on it because 'randomized therapy kit' would never sell and is an awful fucking idea".

I'm open to your thoughts, good sir, but bear in mind my user title up there. I ain't into your emotional spelunking, save as a little in-character drama while gribbly-hunting on the fourth moon, y'know?

Quote from: Christmas ApeI ain't into your emotional spelunking, save as a little in-character drama while gribbly-hunting on the fourth moon, y'know?

Well then, it's probably not your kind of fun, y'know?  Not really my kind of fun either (I'm totally into misery, but not so much into despair).  It might be somebody else's, though.

Quote from: TonyLBWell then, it's probably not your kind of fun, y'know?  Not really my kind of fun either (I'm totally into misery, but not so much into despair).  It might be somebody else's, though.

I can see that. I wouldn't have really high hopes for any game whose primary audience is "people who get off on imagining despair", however, particularly in commercial circles.

It's Schindler's List without that whole "redemption" angle*, you know? Which just makes it some kind of emotional Faces of Death; a Hostel of the soul, if you will.

* Am I assuming here? Sure. But if there's a reliable mechanic for "compassionate German in a position of power", a chance to actually play the odds towards survival? It's not a Holocaust RPG anymore, IMO...it actually goes downhill into "grotesque parody of a Holocaust RPG". "Oooops, sorry, no Oscar for you! Onto the train! :haw:"

Not right, man. Not right at all.

Quote from: Christmas ApeAm I assuming here? Sure. But if there's a reliable mechanic for "compassionate German in a position of power", a chance to actually play the odds towards survival? It's not a Holocaust RPG anymore, IMO

Hrm ... maybe I'm closer to a despair junky than I thought.  My first thought, reading that, is this:  Well, sure you should be able to play a compassionate German in a position of power.  That doesn't mean that you're going to be able to say "No, this has to stop," and make it stick, though.  Maybe all you get to do is choose which hundred people to brutally murder in order to keep yourself in a position to save one.

>shudder<

Okay, no.  Not a despair junky.  Not fun for me.  I can understand the harsh beauty of that from the outside, but my central nervous system rebels at the idea of being part of that, even in imagination.  That coffee's just way too bitter for me.  But some people like their black as sin, so ....

Quote from: TonyLBWell then, it's probably not your kind of fun, y'know?  Not really my kind of fun either (I'm totally into misery, but not so much into despair).  It might be somebody else's, though.

Someone else's fun?

If this isn't trivializing, it's going to be politicized in a questionable way. The fact that this is being written by a norwegian, funded by the norwegian government kind of infuriates me.

Quote from: Abyssal MawWow. How did I ever guess you weren't Jewish yourself?

To be fair (and, in saying that, I realise I'm not being particularly fair at all), this project reminds me very much of the same kind of morbid fascination that people who write and/or play violent post-apocalyptic RPGs -- you know, the kind where society has fallen and barbarism of the most venal kind is explored in depth. T. Willard's Year of the Zombie comes to mind.  These games are written by people who obviously haven't gone through the horrors they're playing with, too.  It's personal entertainment born of someone else's misery, and I think it's a bad idea in any case.

!i!

Quote from: TonyLBHrm ... maybe I'm closer to a despair junky than I thought.  My first thought, reading that, is this:  Well, sure you should be able to play a compassionate German in a position of power.  That doesn't mean that you're going to be able to say "No, this has to stop," and make it stick, though.  Maybe all you get to do is choose which hundred people to brutally murder in order to keep yourself in a position to save one.

See, I'm 90% sure that Temple, over on rpg.net, was involved in a playtest for the first of these, and it was a three-player diceless 'talky' RPG with three roles per scene....Jew, Nazi officer, bystander or something similar. It was all very tightly set up, as with most mini-games, and all about shitty things happening to you. So my "mechanic for compassionate German" was more talking about a "do YOU get saved by someone?" thing. Which would be repellent and parodic at best, IMO.

The idea of letting you play that role? Urrrrgh. I'm okay with the occasional lose-lose scenario in play, but when both options are that fucking bad? It's like the worst of Vampire's ST advice all rolled up in evil shit, like the worst pig in a blanket ever.

I don’t think it’s meant to be fun. Engaging, educational and emotionally involving, yes. “Fun”, no.

Taking classes, seeing or reading a documentary, going to a museum or art gallery, visiting the cemetery, working out, all these (admittedly very varied) things are done as “leisure activities", in the sense that you do them in your spare time, and you don’t have to.

They’re not necessarily done for amusement, but they can be involving, emotionally engaging, educational, mind-expanding, healthy, etc. “Fun” doesn’t have to be the sole aim of the stuff we do in our spare time.

The blog (http://weallhadnames.wordpress.com/) isn’t very difficult to get your head around. Segments are posted in reverse chronological order (last post shows first), in addition to being sorted thematically. What it does lack, however, is a good FAQ, an expanded version of the “About this blog”-part or some other condensed presentation of the project.

I think that would be useful when presenting it in places like this, as others have mentioned above.

(I’m a friend of the author. I have so far not playtested the game. There are some playtest reports/reflections in the blog. Yes, Temple took part in one of them, in February.)

It seems some of you haven't had a look at his design blog, linked in his original post. The game's not meant to be fun, plainly. It's an exploration of these things. Some examples...

   After talking to a friend, I’ve picked up the idea of having a debrief after all. However, the questions must be very open-ended.

Things like:

    * How was this experience for you?
    * What did it feel like playing the different characters?
    * Were there things that happened in the game, or that you did, that made a particular impression on you?
    * Did you relate personally to any of the events in the game? Which ones, and why?

These questions say, implicitly: You should be affected by this experience, it should leave an impression on you, and there are things here that you need to relate personally to. By asking these questions, I’m not saying how people should be affected - but I’m saying they should be affected somehow.
And earlier I think he comes closest to the truth of the matter,

   Reading the start of this paper. It’s about Schindler’s List. Strongly critical. “Spielberg evades representing the reality of the Holocaust altogether by creating a story viewers can easily accept and interpret”.

Thinking: How can I represent the Holocaust? I know how. It’s easy, it goes like this.

The participants are given character descriptions, one each. Read them, understand them, become them.

The first scene is short. The participants can speak and act in character whenever they choose to do so. The characters are searched, all their possessions removed. They’re marched into the gas chamber. The gas is turned on and they die.

The participants are given new character descriptions, one each. Read them, understand them, become them.

 The second scene is short. The participants can speak and act in character whenever they choose to do so. The characters are searched, all their possessions removed. They’re marched into the gas chamber. The gas is turned on and they die.

The participants are given new character descriptions, one each. Read them, understand them, become them.

The third scene is short.

The fourth scene is short.

They’re all short. There’s just so many of them.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. I think it’s because it’s true.
Essentially this is roleplaying as... well, not quite "group therapy", but something close. The cynical part of me says that it's middle-classed kids who've led such comfortable lives they've never had any strong emotions. No great happiness, no great fear or anger. And so they seek vicarious experiences which they can conveniently turn on or off. It's the same reason they take drugs, or bonk madly - they're desperately seeking actual strong emotion.

I remember once on rpg.net there was an article about a LARP where they went into a fallout shelter and locked themselves in for the weekend. "Oh, everything has been nuked... what now? Explore how you feel." Juhana someone wrote it, can't recall his name. Anyway, it was the same kind of thing. Vicarious, superficial, in the guise of profundity. And extremely depressing.

I mean, the guy's obviously not a fuckwit. It's not like you'll be roleplaying SS guards, and whoever throws the most babies on the electric fence gets extra XP. It's an attempt to explore this horrible experience of others.

I wouldn't call it a "roleplaying game", though. I don't know what it is, except as I said, a person with a too-comfortable life in desperate search of a deep experience. But of course it's actually extremely superficial. And depressing.

Quote from: Matthijs Holter- The games are meant to help us learn/understand some of the events surrounding the Kristallnacht, the problems of the Judenräte, and the many reasons people didn't interfere with or stop the events as they unfolded.

Some of the discussion in this thread seems to miss the point that this project is supposed to be educational rather than pure entertainment, much like, say, the Europa LARP about political refugees hoping for asylum: we are not talking about an adventure game for "a fun night with the guys" here. It's not inherently any more offensive than a stage play about the Holocaust.

Quote from: GrimGentIt's not inherently any more offensive than a stage play about the Holocaust.

Correct.

Quote from: GrimGentSome of the discussion in this thread seems to miss the point that this project is supposed to be educational rather than pure entertainment, much like, say, the Europa LARP about political refugees hoping for asylum: we are not talking about an adventure game for "a fun night with the guys" here. It's not inherently any more offensive than a stage play about the Holocaust.

It's "educational art", which is a whole different category, really... We're not talking about facts here, but emotionally understanding it. By the _participants_ , which is quite different from a stage play or movie which is primarily centered on a passive audience.

On the other hand, reading the design notes it might be actually done like a play, rather scripted. So it's education through method acting...

I think it's time for me to preach the One True Way of gaming: Cheetoism (http://cheetoism.pbwiki.com/)

   The Cheetoist Philosophy

We game for the snacks. And also the dice. But mostly, just to hang out with friends and tell tall stories.

Rpg books are just a bunch of guidelines for how to tell your tall stories, and give you a fair excuse to roll lots of dice and eat cheetos. To make your games more fun, talk to your group.

[...]

My purpose with this wiki is to provide practical advice to roleplaying gamers in support of the Cheetoist philosophy. If you game purely for the game itself, for competition, as group therapy, or education, then you are a crazy person and should go elsewhere.

Quote from: SettembriniIs your project meant as an unsupervised leisure activity?

Yes, definitely. However, it will also be possible to use for educational purposes, for example.

I need to emphasize again, though, that it is not meant as fun or entertainment. In the same way that the comic book "Maus" isn't meant as fun or entertainment, although many comic books are; and in the same way that "Der Untergang" isn't, although many movies are.

And, again, I completely understand that many people who see RPGs as primarily a source of fun and entertainment wouldn't participate in Kristallnacht.

Quote from: -E.I wasn't able to make heads or tails out of your blog; what were you looking for with this post?

I'm hoping for specific feedback from those who read the blog and/or play the games. I see that I need to provide better descriptions of the games; I'll post them on the blog tonight or tomorrow.

QuoteMy immediate reaction is that this is treacherous terrain. When making a game or any kind of entertainment you run a risk of trivializing your subject matter.

That is very true, and I agree that I need more people to look at it from many angles. This is another reason to post about the project here. I don't know most people here, and will get direct and noncensored feedback. I will also be contacting non-RPGers, will talk more to people with a Jewish background, and establish contact with institutions that work with Holocaust history.

QuoteOne more thought: No one undertakes a project like this without some kind of agenda -- what's yours?

That's very hard to answer. The idea, since I first got it, has stuck in my mind and won't go away. I think it is primarily a project of learning, of trying to understand and get to grips with something that for me, personally, is probably the most incomprehensible part of our history. It is a way for me to learn, and hopefully help others to learn as well.

If it's not fun, then it won't do very well. On the other hand, it's important to have a sufficiently broad and robust conception of what "fun" is. There are plenty of kinds of mediated satisfaction that we conventionally refer to as "fun" that aren't obviously and immediately pleasurable. This game may be one such type of fun (as are most competitive sports, or the movie Requiem for a Dream, or the critical analysis of a paper on Kant, for example).

Quote from: Matthijs HolterAnd, again, I completely understand that many people who see RPGs as primarily a source of fun and entertainment wouldn't participate in Kristallnacht.

...

So it's not only our North American friends who are oblivious to the humour of understatement and irony?

Quote from: TonyLBFirst:  They can be offended by the mere notion of making a game about this. (...) Second:  They can be offended by the actual game when it is produced.

Good points.

The first part I have little control over; the only thing I can do is try to present the project, the methods and the subject matter clearly, and let people make up their own minds.

The main problem, as I see it, is that if I call it a "game", the connotations of that word aren't all applicable to We All Had Names. It might be better for all involved if I call it an "interactive story" or similar, to show there are no win conditions, it's not primarily a "fun" activity, it's not about using game systems against each other etc.

The second part is much more my responsibility. So far, those who have played the game haven't been offended - it seems to have been a learning experience, something that spawns further thought and debate about the Shoah/Holocaust.

I am at all times trying to show the appropriate respect to the subject matter and the people involved.

Quote from: JimBobOzSo it's not only our North American friends who are oblivious to the humour of understatement and irony?

I'm sure you understand that the only way for me to talk about this project right now is by being completely serious at all times. Forgive me if that means some of my posts are unintentionally funny. I'm walking in a minefield here, and must try to communicate as clearly as I can.

Quote from: JimBobOzI think it's time for me to preach the One True Way of gaming: Cheetoism (http://cheetoism.pbwiki.com/)

(I've heard of Cheetoism before - in fact, I've posted about your page elsewhere, it's good. Of course, this project is as far from Cheetoism as you can get.)

Quote from: Matthijs HolterI'm sure you understand that the only way for me to talk about this project right now is by being completely serious at all times. Forgive me if that means some of my posts are unintentionally funny. I'm walking in a minefield here, and must try to communicate as clearly as I can.

I don't know how it goes in Europe these days, but you should take a less reverential and deferential tone towards the subject matter. If you're going to use the Holocaust, use it to do something interesting, not just another "Jewish people being killed is bad and I feel sorry for them" thing - which isn't actually "thought or debate on the Holocaust" except in the tritest way.

By contrast with this deference-pretending-to-be-insight, you should check out Primo Levi and Giorgio Agamben (both Italians).

If it's not a game, what's it doing here in the Game Design and Theory Forum?

You don't get to call it a "roleplaying game" when you're asking for feedback, and then if someone says that making it a "game" trivialises it, say, "oh but it's not a game, anyway." You can't have it both ways.

Either it's a game, in which case it's necessarily superficial and triviliasing and insulting, or else it's not a game, in which case it doesn't belong in roleplaying game forums.

It's offensive to me as a Jew because it's trivialising and a shallow bit of intellectual masturbation. It's offensive to me as a roleplayer because it's not fun.

If you want strong emotions and "to understand", then go and have a life. Join the Red Cross and go and help out in Darfur, Sudan, or something. Fall in love and get your heart broken. Smuggle yourself into a country as an illegal immigrant and struggle to live on one-fifth minimum wage while evading immigration authorities. Forget your "interactive story" - live a real life with real fears, real loves, real hates, real passions.

No Jew would ever write this thing, any more than a woman would write one about rape victims. I think that tells you something.

Hold on there, JB. I know Jews who would write RPGs about the Holocaust. Now they might not write this RPG, but the topic of the Holocaust is not off-limits to RPGs.

I've tried to explain the project in brief here (http://weallhadnames.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/what-is-this-project-about/).

JimBobOz, what is your opinion of films, comics novels about the Holocaust?

Quote from: PseudoephedrineIf you're going to use the Holocaust, use it to do something interesting, not just another "Jewish people being killed is bad and I feel sorry for them" thing - which isn't actually "thought or debate on the Holocaust" except in the tritest way.

I'm hoping to do that with the third game, How Not To Care; the main point there is to understand the reasons why so many didn't interfere with the events, and then see whether we use those same reasons not to interfere in real-world crises today.

QuoteBy contrast with this deference-pretending-to-be-insight, you should check out Primo Levi and Giorgio Agamben (both Italians).

Thanks for the pointers! I certainly will!

Quote from: JimBobOzNo Jew would ever write this thing, any more than a woman would write one about rape victims. I think that tells you something.

Man, I think that using your jewish identity as an ideological bludgeon that way is very poor form.  You do not speak for all jews.

I said Jews would not write "this thing." It's not an rpg, he says.

And maybe you know Jews who'd write an rpg about the Holocaust - they say. Well, let's see them do it, then. Lots of people think and say they'd be okay doing something - then when they go to do it, it's a different matter.

"I totally would do it... just, um, I have to wash my hair tonight."

Mattijs is Norwegian, yeah? So he could write an rpg about the German occupation of his country and Quisling and his buddies. "Let's explore collaborating with the Gestapo to drag dissenters off to basements and beat them to death with rubber hoses. Just to make it extra real, we'll get you to roleplay your grandmother, she was alive then, yeah?"

But I guess that "experience" wouldn't be vicarious enough for him. He needs a bit of distance.

Quote from: TonyLBMan, I think that using your jewish identity as an ideological bludgeon that way is very poor form.  You do not speak for all jews.

I speak for them more than you can. Or Mattijs.

And hey, I'm not stopping any Jewish roleplaying gamers popping up to post here saying they think it's a smashing idea.

Anybody?

Quote from: JimBobOzI speak for them more than you can.

The FUCK?

Assume much, do you?

Quote from: JimBobOzMattijs is Norwegian, yeah? So he could write an rpg about the German occupation of his country and Quisling and his buddies.

I did consider this, along the way. There are many things about this part of our (Norwegian) history that we need to re-examine, and it's very possible that I will go into that later. (While she was alive, I also spoke to my grandmother about the German occupation, the bombing of Northern Norway and the Nazi torturers).

I'm sorry, but you're very much misunderstanding - and misrepresenting - my motivations here. You're free to do so, of course.

Quote from: TonyLBThe FUCK?

Assume much, do you?

I'm Jewish Tony. He's certainly echoing my sentiments. Well, I double posted.

Quote from: Matthijs HolterJimBobOz, what is your opinion of films, comics novels about the Holocaust?

Like any other topic, some are good, some are bad. Comic books in particular are generally bad - the medium is inherently trivialising. The same goes for game mechanics. Words and photographic images are different, because they present people's thoughts and actual physical selves. Comic book-type images trivialise things - that's why for example South Park can present a kid kicking a baby out the window and it's funny, but if shown on film - even with a realistic-looking yet fake baby - it'd be horrifying.

I've had a good part of my life with this stuff around me. To be honest, I think very little new can be said. People suffered. Other people inflicted that suffering. The suffering was bureaucratic, systematic, and at the same time random and arbitrary. In this, it is not particularly different from any one of scores of other genocides you might consider - Armenian, Chechen, the several Rwandan, Zanzibar, or whatever. Those wouldn't be fun or productive, either.

Anyway, it's not a roleplaying game, you said - so what's it doing here?

Well, I'm part Romani, and I certainly don't have objections to the project in itself.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine... but the topic of the Holocaust is not off-limits to RPGs.

Or any other media, IMO.

I'm just trying to figure this out. I think this kind of subject matter or slavery for instance -Slave Ship the RPG - is something best left to the individual group to explore if thats what they want.

But I also think why not a published rpg? Is it the subject matter that I find so intrusive into my escapist gaming?

Not making much sense here...I'll post more when I have something constructive to say.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: TonyLBThe FUCK?

Assume much, do you?

I'm Jewish, Tony. He's certainly echoing my sentiments.

(inadvertently double-posted)

Quote from: JimBobOzMattijs is Norwegian, yeah? So he could write an rpg about the German occupation of his country and Quisling and his buddies. "Let's explore collaborating with the Gestapo to drag dissenters off to basements and beat them to death with rubber hoses. Just to make it extra real, we'll get you to roleplay your grandmother, she was alive then, yeah?"

But I guess that "experience" wouldn't be vicarious enough for him. He needs a bit of distance.

There have been two or three Norwegian LARPs using the historical background of Norway during the occupation. "1942 - Noen å stole på?" is the most renowned, I think. Couldn't find any info in English, I'm afraid. From the Norwegian LARP-forum dedicated to 1942 (http://laivforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=62):

"1942 - noen å stole p" is without a doubt the strongest, most painful, most brutal and most thought-provoking LARP I have ever attended. And that is actually meant in a positive way.

There are many individuals I wish to thank, personally, organizers as well as players. But my gratitude is basically rooted in two things: that you treated the era, environment and the characters with respect and solemnity. And that you dared.

(...)" (Eirik Fatland, my translation)

Quote from: JimBobOzComic books in particular are generally bad - the medium is inherently trivialising.

I see. I disagree strongly.

QuoteAnyway, it's not a roleplaying game, you said - so what's it doing here?

I didn't say that.

Quote from: JimBobOzAnyway, it's not a roleplaying game, you said - so what's it doing here?

No. You've (repeatedly) said it's not a roleplaying game. He's expressed uncertainty as to how he should label it:

Quote from: Matthijs HolterThe main problem, as I see it, is that if I call it a "game", the connotations of that word aren't all applicable to We All Had Names. It might be better for all involved if I call it an "interactive story" or similar, to show there are no win conditions, it's not primarily a "fun" activity, it's not about using game systems against each other etc.

He's using "[RPG]Theories based on what we know to work, to make new games, new mechanics, new settings, new whatever", to quote from the forum description. It's fairly obvious why he posts here. Utilizing techniques from RPGs is an integral part of his project. Whether you label that as a "game" or as "an interactive story" is of less consequence.

Ok, what's going on here is that we've gotten locked into an intellectual dead end where everybody just waves their group identifications at one another ("I'm a Jew", "I'm gay", "I'm Romani") as if this was a jurisdictional problem and we simply needed to sort out which ethnic group ought to be responsible for the production of Holocaust RPGs.

Non-Jews making RPGs about the Holocaust is not bad. Either the Holocaust is a universally bad thing, which everyone can appreciate intellectually, or else it just happened to the Jews and is solely their concern (maybe the Germans too).

The former means that the event is _public_ - the individual person's background matters less than the arguments, insights and artifacts they produce about it.

The latter means that the event is _private_, in which case, it's unreasonable to expect anyone but Jews to care about it. It's their business, not anyone else's.

It seems obvious to me which is preferable, but YMMV.

In short, either the Jewishness or not of the author has nothing to with their right to publish things about the Holocaust or the merit of the work itself, or else we start getting into ethically questionable territory.

If you've spent any time here, you might know that JimBob and I agree on very little.

Except this.

I am not Jewish. But this just doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps it's a European thing. Is there a desire to relive this kind of horror in small groups?

That is, I can see if you wanted to write a book or script that explored this topic so you could work through your feelings on the topic. I can see wanting to get that published so that other people can read it and experience it in some way.

But what is gained by having people sit around and do these things together? To me it gets to what JimBob said about people needing some kind of experience - but it's more.  They need to show everyone else they can experience it as well.  And they want everyone to know just how emotional they can get over it; how deeply they can feel about it.

It's quite odd to me.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineIn short, either the Jewishness or not of the author has nothing to with their right to publish things about the Holocaust or the merit of the work itself, or else we start getting into ethically questionable territory.

Thanks for posting this! As I understand it, Jewish historians have expressed concern that so few non-Jews are writing about the Shoah/Holocaust. I believe that writing, thinking and talking about the Shoah is something that everyone should be able to do - and probably should do.

Quote from: Matthijs HolterThat's very hard to answer. The idea, since I first got it, has stuck in my mind and won't go away. I think it is primarily a project of learning, of trying to understand and get to grips with something that for me, personally, is probably the most incomprehensible part of our history. It is a way for me to learn, and hopefully help others to learn as well.

I'd consider this a red-flag, and probably a good reason to step away from the project until you're more-clear about your own reasons.

It's clear you're trying to tackle serious subject matter seriously -- but if you're not able to understand your own reasons for doing this (and doing this in a game format) it's very likely that you'll be unaware of places where whatever your actual agenda is creeps into the game.

I also notice that you cite Wikipedia -- if you're going to be appropriately serious about this I'd cite more respectable sources... and lots of them.

You may have done an enormous amount of primary research (it doesn't come across in what I've read), but if your familiarity with the material is at the wiki-pedia level that could be a deal-breaker.

In an earlier post you mentioned comic books and tv-shows. I'm sure you're aware that in most cases where those are considered appropriate (e.g. MAUS) the level of scholarship and the relationship to the events portrayed may be well beyond the Wikipedia level.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: James J SkachI can see if you wanted to write a book or script that explored this topic so you could work through your feelings on the topic. (...) But what is gained by having people sit around and do these things together?

A good question. I'm not sure I have a quick and easy answer.

I believe it can be easier for people to try to handle the subject matter in a group than alone. Sitting down alone to write or read about the topic isn't for everyone.

Having people around you to help you think, understand your own reactions, relate your experiences to real/everyday life can help make the experience into something you can learn from, I hope.

Quote from: James J SkachIs there a desire to relive this kind of horror in small groups?

Y'know one of the first phrases that comes to my mind about the Holocaust?  "I can't imagine."

Literally.  I cannot imagine that.  I don't have the mental tools to even begin to get my mind wrapped around it.

I can imagine the ovens, I can imagine the barbed wire, I can imagine the starvation and the torture and the dying.  But I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to walk and breathe and struggle in that hell made by human hands.  I ....

Truth be told, I'm not sure I want to be able to imagine this.  Speaking as just a scrap of human flesh trying to live my life and not succumb to despair, I'm not sure I want to understand those depths more fully.  I do not know that I have the strength to go there, and come back again.

But for people stronger than me, more dedicated than I dare to be to the act of memory and the embrace of tragedy, I think that coming together and being part of these stories in a respectful and powerful way could be a potent bridge to the past.

Quote from: -E.if you're going to be appropriately serious about this I'd cite more respectable sources... and lots of them.

Oh, certainly; Wikipedia was just for purposes of cut'n'paste right now.

Between my keyboard and the computer screen I have "Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising" by Israel Gutman.

Behind me on the shelf are approx 20 books, in addition to several leaflets. They include Staub's "The Roots of Evil", Perechodnik's "Am I a Murderer?", "In the beginning was the Ghetto", a book about Anne Frank, two books by Chaim Potok and a few Norwegian autobiographies.

Downstairs in the reading room are several books about the Lodz and Warsaw ghettoes.

So I'm doing research, and will include a bibliography. (I won't cite references along the way, as that will break up the flow of the text).

Quote from: Matthijs HolterA good question. I'm not sure I have a quick and easy answer.

I believe it can be easier for people to try to handle the subject matter in a group than alone. Sitting down alone to write or read about the topic isn't for everyone.

Having people around you to help you think, understand your own reactions, relate your experiences to real/everyday life can help make the experience into something you can learn from, I hope.

Then I would back away from anything that makes this appear as a leisure activity. I don't know what that would do to your funding, but I'd run away from it as fast as I could.

I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of established ways to use this approach, this "interactive storytelling," to provide an educational basis for understanding the horror - particularly with, say, high school kids.

But to look at this as something to be published for the general public goes beyond a kind of "tipping point" for me. Whether it's for profit or not, it carries with it this kind of commericalized trivializing that you're just not going to get away from.

At least, I'd bet that's how it would get taken here in the States.  I can't speak for the entire United States, but that's just my sense of it. It might be different in Europe. I know my German-Immigrant In-Laws see many things very differently from me, including the Holocaust and the War.

Quote from: TonyLBBut for people stronger than me, more dedicated than I dare to be to the act of memory and the embrace of tragedy, I think that coming together and being part of these stories in a respectful and powerful way could be a potent bridge to the past.

Okay, Tony for me personally, this is where it gets all kind of dodgy. Maybe it's gaming as opposed to other media, but this strikes me as bit...*shrug* I'll get back to you.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: TonyLBY'know one of the first phrases that comes to my mind about the Holocaust?  "I can't imagine."

Literally.  I cannot imagine that.  I don't have the mental tools to even begin to get my mind wrapped around it.

I can imagine the ovens, I can imagine the barbed wire, I can imagine the starvation and the torture and the dying.  But I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to walk and breathe and struggle in that hell made by human hands.  I ....

Truth be told, I'm not sure I want to be able to imagine this.  Speaking as just a scrap of human flesh trying to live my life and not succumb to despair, I'm not sure I want to understand those depths more fully.  I do not know that I have the strength to go there, and come back again.

But for people stronger than me, more dedicated than I dare to be to the act of memory and the embrace of tragedy, I think that coming together and being part of these stories in a respectful and powerful way could be a potent bridge to the past.

I forget the name of the book and the author (jesus my memory is getting bad), but I seem to recall his name was Victor?

Go. Read. But why on god's green earth would you have to get together with others to do this?  It seems that something this deeply horrifying is something to tackle yourself, and then maybe, maybe in an educational or group setting to discuss.  But to make it some kind of ruled interaction? I don't know...

This whole thing is revolting and heartbreaking all at once. The idea that it gets' compared to Maus is bullshit. Spiegelman was a Jew born in 1948. When his older brother was a toddler, he was poisoned by his aunt to avoid being taken by nazis while living in the Warsaw ghetto. Spiegelman never got over a sibling rivalry with a brother he never knew. To put it mildly, he had a personal stake in writing about the holocaust. What is your reason?

Obviously nobody is going to stop you from writing anything you like, but why do you think it's a good idea? Who is the person being educated here, and *how* are they being educated?

The involvement of the notoriously anti-Jewish Norwegian government is especially suspect. Is this just another leftist "See how thoughtful and humanist we are" type deal?

Has Yad Vashem or the Simon Wiesenthal Center been contacted? Senter mot antisemittisme?

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe involvement of the notoriously anti-Jewish Norwegian government is especially suspect.

Ahem. Labeling the Norwegian government as "notoriously anti-Jewish" is ridiculous. Going for "notoriously anti-Israeli" would be far-fetched as well, given Norway's historical support for the country*, but may be what you're aiming at. You're probably thinking of them recognizing Mahmoud Abbas' (failed) coalition-government with Hamas? Or the Minister of Finance giving support for a boycott of Israeli goods? Conflating Israel as a political entity with Jews in general has always struck me as somewhat dubious. But I shouldn't sidetrack further.

*A support no less strong in the Labour party, which is now part of the coalition in power.[/SIZE]

Quote from: Abyssal MawSpiegelman was a Jew born in 1948.

I don't want to restrict the Holocaust to being of interest only to people with the right credentials.  I don't want only Jews who were personally impacted to write about it or read about it or think about it.  I don't want the memory of this to fade into history as the last effected people die off one by one.  I want it remembered, always.  I want it understood as a human tragedy, not merely a Jewish one.

Is it so hard to understand that by insisting on this as a private tragedy you risk making it less than it is?

Quote from: Abyssal MawHas Yad Vashem or the Simon Wiesenthal Center been contacted? Senter mot antisemittisme?

Contacted? For what reason AM.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: JimBobOzNo Jew would ever write this thing, any more than a woman would write one about rape victims. I think that tells you something.

This, I think, is the heart of the matter.

!i!

Now that I see were this is going, I urge everyone to make his intellectual and emotional explorations of the shoah in reviewed or supervised media.

So that you can engage or indulge in the discussion that has sprung up about the particular artistic entry.

I cannot see any merit in using Roleplaying as a medium for that. Reading a book, visiting a museum, and the public debate surrounding it will yield better results that are more profound for your personal development.

Blatantly said, if a Spielberg movie doesn´t deliver, and your only answer is RPGs, then youre media use habits are sorely fucked up.

That all said: I can see great and real art coming from this. Like the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. School kids are using it as a playground, totally oblivious to the place. Or tourists taking pictures with themselves in front of it. When you watch that from the outside, it´s a crass statement. And I, as an observer are also part of it, if seen by another person.
So, to make real art out of it, please make some youtube videos of those college kids who play your game. This will be a grandiose artistic statement and snapshot of human nature and the culture or remembrance.

While I'm not a big fan of psychological role-playing (and this is certainly more that than a RPG, although with little to no therapeutical value), I would like to know a little more from Matthijs about the topics we haven't addressed here, i.e. the parts where it's not about the concentration camps.

What are the other parts about? How do your players experience the nature of passivity?

I wouldn't be interested in playing something like that, being rather conservative when it comes to what I consider 'art', but I'd like to know about the techniques involved. Matthijs?

Everyone, thanks for your replies so far. I'm going to take a break and sleep on this, and hopefully be back with more answers to the different questions tomorrow.

I am one of the playtesters of this game. I found it to be an engaging and emotionally challenging experience. It taught me a lot about myself, and also something about history.

The beta version of the game that I played was divided into different episodes. We were four players, and we had different characters to play for each episode. I was the gamemaster of one of the episodes, and I also played a jewish woman being forced across the german/polish border by soldiers, a relative of hers living in safety, receiving letters about her plight and discussing what to to, and a German SS officer during the Kristallnacht. The episodes were rather strictly structured by the text of the game. Game mechanics like stats and dice-rolling were totally absent, the focus being on immersing in the characters and/or the situations.

The game really hit me in the gut. I certainly did not find it to be trivialising, or "fun" in a narrow sense of the word.

I find it hard to take offense at Matthijs for not having personally lived through the Holocaust. On the contrary, I think it is important that those of us who are too young to remember it still makes an effort to learn about it and pass history on. We are the ones who'll have to teach our children and grandchildren. We sould not forget.

(I have also participated in the larp "1942" mentioned earlier in this thread. Incidentally, I played a jew, a norwegian jewish refugee on the run from the nazis. I spent four days hiding in an attic, hiding from the German soldiers and dreaming about running off to Palestine with my fiancee. No-one that participated in this game found it to be light-hearted.)

Quote from: SettembriniI cannot see any merit in using Roleplaying as a medium for that. Reading a book, visiting a museum, and the public debate surrounding it will yield better results that are more profound for your personal development.

Why?

I am not saying that you are wrong, but you are not presenting any arguments for your point of view here.

I have read books and watched films about the holocaust. Playing these games is not horsing around with what you've read in books. It is neither trivializing nor disrespectful. It is grappling with history at a direct and personal level. I hope lots of college kids will play Kristallnacht, perhaps even at school. I think it will be a very effective tool of education.

In addition to reading books, of course.

Quote from: Eric PerdueTha game really hit me in the gut. I certainly did not find it to be trivialising, or "fun" in a narrow sense of the word. This is not D20 Holocaust.

No one is suggesting it is.

What we're trying to find out is whether its "The Forge Presents: Holocaust!"

You see, D20 fans would never stoop to creating a game about the fucking Holocaust just to feel all smart about themselves. But I certainly wouldn't put it past some of the Swine. Hell, White Wolf did so already.

So I don't see where you get D20 involved in this fiasco. Its the Swine who like to pull shit like this, not us.

In the end, my question to the author would be: what the fuck is the point? I mean, literally: what is the goal of the "game"?
Why is the Norwegian government paying you?
What do they expect in return?
What will they use the "game" for, if anything?
What do you "do" in the game?

I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt, since this might only be a "roleplaying game" in the same sense that the stuff psychologists designed to help therapy patients is a "roleplaying game", as in, nothing at all like what we do. (in which case I'd have to wonder why the fuck the original poster is writing here, though?)

On top of that, I really have to question what the author's qualifications are for writing such a game? I don't mean: was he or his family personally a victim of the Holocaust; I mean more like: is he an historian? Sociologist? Pyschologist? Political scientist? Does he have some kind of academic background that makes him able to write this "game" in a serious and professional way? Or did he just read a lot of Ron Edwards' essays?

Those are the sort of things I would like answers to.  I won't jump to conclusions on what the guy is doing with this, but I'm highly cynical about it, especially having family members who died in the camps.  I'm particularly cynical with the angle the game might take; be it "You too can play a Jewish victim!", or "Norwegians were heroic resistors all", or "only Jews were victims", or "everyone was a victim, not just the Jews"; ie. all of the questions surrounding the "victim game" and the "blame game" that gets endlessly circulated in talking about the Holocaust...

RPGPundit

QuoteTha game really hit me in the gut. I certainly did not find it to be trivialising, or "fun" in a narrow sense of the word. This is not D20 Holocaust.

Now, this is the ultimate thread:

Thematic Gaming evangelism, D20 bashing, the Shoah, Roleplaying as Art, the root of evil in the real world and not the very least the SS*.

I will now respectfully bow out of this discussion, as I fear a combination of flameworthy material of the most magnificent order has been presented in a stupendeously offensive and pretentious way.

I leave with repeating my notion that educational roleplaying should always happen under trained supervision.

Respectfully,

Settembrini

* Why always the SS? Makes you wonder.

Quote from: Eric PerdueTha game really hit me in the gut. I certainly did not find it to be trivialising, or "fun" in a narrow sense of the word. This is not D20 Holocaust..

"...And it was totally intense! We're totally going to do a podcast about how kick-ass it was when my Jewish woman totally poisoned her three small children to avoid being captured by the nazis, and then performed an abortion on herself before shooting herself in the face.. FOR LOVE. We totally engaged the premise! This is what story is all about! Awesome! Hey Matthis, sign me up for three copies, I've got to get this into the hands of those d20 cretins. We're going to educate the world!"

That's what trivialization means, guys.

Quote from: RPGPunditWhat we're trying to find out is whether its "The Forge Presents: Holocaust!"

No, we're not.

QuoteYou see, D20 fans would never stoop to creating a game about the fucking Holocaust just to feel all smart about themselves.

Yes, they might.

Look, keep your personal agenda out of this.

!i!

Quote from: RPGPunditWhat we're trying to find out is whether its "The Forge Presents: Holocaust!"

It is not. I think. I am not a Forge-head myself, but  have played a fair number of Forge games, and Kristallnacht is not like them at all. I'll leave it to Matthijs to elaborate on this.

Quote from: RPGPunditYou see, D20 fans would never stoop to creating a game about the fucking Holocaust just to feel all smart about themselves. (...) So I don't see where you get D20 involved in this fiasco.

I don't get d20 involved in "this fiasco". That is precisely my point.

Anyway, I think we should not let this thread deviate into a discussion about d20. I would not have mentioned it if I had known it would cause such reactions. Let's stick to the game in question.

As far as qualifications goes, all I know is that Matthijs is a great games designer. I don't think most historians or sociologists would be able to make something like this, even if they know a lot about the Holocaust. Writing academic papers and role-playing games are two completely different things.

I'll say that Kristallnacht clearly is a role-playing game. But it is a different role-playing game than most or all games I know about, hence my comment about d20.

Quote from: Eric PerdueI don't get d20 involved in "this fiasco". That is precisely my point.

Anyway, I think we should not let this thread deviate into a discussion about d20. I would not have mentioned it if I had known it would cause such reactions. Let's stick to the game in question.

But you did mention it. You mentioned it as if to say "D20 is a stupid game, and this game is a serious game that is Art and would never be stupid the way D20 is".  That's precisely what you meant, wasn't it?
That's precisely the attitude that makes me very cautious about this game: it strikes me as very likely that its been designed by people who want to feel smart and good about themselves while playing a game, and think they're better people for making RPGs "serious", and its really all about that, and the Holocaust is nothing more than your solemn vehicle by which to show off how "serious" you can be at RPGs.

QuoteAs far as qualifications goes, all I know is that Matthijs is a great games designer. I don't think most historians or sociologists would be able to make something like this, even if they know a lot about the Holocaust. Writing academic papers and role-playing games are two completely different things.

Yes, they are. So writing an RPG about a subject that is serious and NOT A FUCKING GAME should probably not be done, unless you also happen to be a historian, sociologist or psychologist who's planning to use the damn thing for purposes other than to let you and your artsy buddies feel all sophisticated.

Because otherwise you're going to end up with a game that trivializes many issues surrounding the holocaust, while at the same time being extremely pretentious about being an RPG about the holocaust. Very bad combination.

QuoteI'll say that Kristallnacht clearly is a role-playing game. But it is a different role-playing game than most or all games I know about, hence my comment about d20.

Right, yes. "different". The way Shab al-hiri Roach or My Life With Master is different.  :rolleyes:

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditBut you did mention it. You mentioned it as if to say "D20 is a stupid game, and this game is a serious game that is Art and would never be stupid the way D20 is".  That's precisely what you meant, wasn't it?

Maybe he meant that it's not going to be like Choice and Blood, the crass "d20 Abortion" supplement from Louis Porter, Jr. Designs.  You see, people do this sort of stupid shit with d20 too, a fact that has an established track record.  In fact, when I first heard about this Holocaust/Shoah project, I had assumed, like many, that it was LPJD that was doing it, and that it was another of his d20 supplements.

The system it uses isn't the issue.  The sides chosen in your imaginary war aren't the issue.  Kick that shit to the curb and stop bending this thread to your inane agenda.

!i!

Quote from: RPGPunditBut you did mention it. You mentioned it as if to say "D20 is a stupid game, and this game is a serious game that is Art and would never be stupid the way D20 is".  That's precisely what you meant, wasn't it?

No, it is not. I have gamemastered, played in and enjoyed lots of d20 campaigns in my time, the last one being finished about six months ago. D20/D&D in its various incarnations is the single game system I have played the most. It like it. But not for all uses. I would, for example, be catious about a d20 game about the Holocaust, just as I am sceptical about d20 Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia. D20 seems to me to be better suited to fantasy than attempts at realism.

I got the impression that several of the sceptical comments in this thread was founded on a similiar scepticism. That was the reason for my comment about d20.

I see now that is has been interpreted as d20-bashing, which was not my intention.

Quote from: Eric PerdueI would, for example, be catious about a d20 game about the Holocaust, just as I am sceptical about d20 Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia. D20 seems to me to be better suited to fantasy than attempts at realism.

Oh, so you are talking about system and not strictly content.  Okay, you're on your own here.

!i!

Quote from: Eric PerdueNo, it is not. I have gamemastered, played in and enjoyed lots of d20 campaigns in my time, the last one being finished about six months ago. D20/D&D in its various incarnations is the single game system I have played the most. It like it. But not for all uses. I would, for example, be catious about a d20 game about the Holocaust, just as I am sceptical about d20 Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia. D20 seems to me to be better suited to fantasy than attempts at realism.

I got the impression that several of the sceptical comments in this thread was founded on a similiar scepticism. That was the reason for my comment about d20.

I see now that is has been interpreted as d20-bashing, which was not my intention.

See when you say all this, all you really end up saying is "I would trust White Wolf's system/Ron Edwards' stuff/Vince Baker/whatever to do a Holocaust RPG".  You're still saying as long as its not "stupid" like D20 its ok.

Whereas I'm saying I don't trust ANY system or design theory to do this right. And in fact, I'm convinced that if the designer is taking a Big Model/Game Theory/Forgian- whatever pov as his base, this game will be a disaster waiting to happen, in part because Theory Swine believe they're "elite" and intellectual enough to pull this shit off.

RPGPundit

With all due respect to Pundit, who can find d20 bashing in even more places than me...I'm actually more interested in this statement from Mr. Perdue:

Quote from: Eric PerdueI am one of the playtesters of this game. I found it to be an engaging and emotionally challenging experience. It taught me a lot about myself, and also something about history.

So an RPG about the Holocaust taught you something about yourself? Oh yeah, and something about history (as an afterthought, almost!).

See, this is the fear I have - trivialization of one of the most horrific human tragedies so the players can learn something about themslevs.

That's just...crass.

What you should have learned about yourself is that you had to experience the holocaust through a supposed RPG in order to learn something about yourself. That's far more...jesus..I'm actually at a loss for words.

Quote from: TonyLBY'know one of the first phrases that comes to my mind about the Holocaust?  "I can't imagine."

Literally.  I cannot imagine that.  I don't have the mental tools to even begin to get my mind wrapped around it.

Which is, of course, part one of the two-part "argument" of the Holocaust deniers:

1) "I can't imagine it."

2) "It can't have happened." (Sometimes, as we know, part 2 is left purposely unstated.)

I am not saying you're one of them, Tony. In fact, I'm sure you're not. I am saying that this kind of thinking is misguided.

We've all seen the photos and the footage. That gets rid of all that BS. It's right there, no imagination required.

Which in turn makes RPGs on the subject redundant, in fact obscenely presumptuous. As if the "imagination" or the "psychological subtlety" of a middle-class leisure society subjectivity were required to make sense of what would otherwise be "inexplicable" or "abstract."

Nothing's more educational on the matter than a nice factual history book with lots of illustrations. Or the interviews in Lanzmann's Shoah. Or Night and Fog by Resnais.

When it comes to actual atrocities, stick to the documentary format.

Quote from: James J SkachSo an RPG about the Holocaust taught you something about yourself? Oh yeah, and something about history (as an afterthought, almost!).

See, this is the fear I have - trivialization of one of the most horrific human tragedies so the players can learn something about themslevs.

That's just...crass.

What you should have learned about yourself is that you had to experience the holocaust through a supposed RPG in order to learn something about yourself. That's far more...jesus..I'm actually at a loss for words.

Right on, James. Right on. It's shameless.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWe've all seen the photos and the footage. That gets rid of all that BS. It's right there, no imagination required.

You've seen the photos of the suffering, and that's as far as you choose to go in imagining the plight of the victims?  You know what it looked like.

Okay.  I guess I can't really criticize, since there are lines beyond which I don't want to imagine, too.  But I think that your argument that there is no further understanding to be gained than to know the bald facts is a bit odd.

Quote from: TonyLBYou've seen the photos of the suffering, and that's as far as you choose to go in imagining the plight of the victims?  You know what it looked like.

Okay.  I guess I can't really criticize, since there are lines beyond which I don't want to imagine, too.  But I think that your argument that there is no further understanding to be gained than to know the bald facts is a bit odd.

We're not talking about understanding, Tony. We're talking about using a leisure imaginative activity to get vicarious thrills while simultaneously shitting on an entire group of people's history.

"Its a game".

Quote from: TonyLBOkay.  I guess I can't really criticize, since there are lines beyond which I don't want to imagine, too.  But I think that your argument that there is no further understanding to be gained than to know the bald facts is a bit odd.

No.

I am saying the facts are fully sufficient for understanding. I am saying that storygames-type imagination is a pathetic substitute for the impact of actual reality.

Quote from: TonyLBOkay.  I guess I can't really criticize, since there are lines beyond which I don't want to imagine, too.  But I think that your argument that there is no further understanding to be gained than to know the bald facts is a bit odd.

Get a fucking grip Tony. A leisure activity? Bollocks to that. Educational tool in a school or college? Nope. How the hell is this going to do anything that a good book won't? Playing the part of a protagonist is going to help how exactly? You can't put yourself into that position in a roleplaying game and thus anything you do will be tripe. Offensive fucking tripe. If my great grandmother was still with us, i'd point this out and give her a fucking lighter.

Quote from: Abyssal MawWe're not talking about understanding, Tony. We're talking about using a leisure imaginative activity to get vicarious thrills while simultaneously shitting on an entire group of people's history.

I assume you haven't read the blog entries or this discussion very carefully. Doing so, and dismissing it as being not your cup of tea, an intellectual wank for middle class people with no real life experience or even a bit offensive, I can understand. And even relate to. These are absolutely legitimate questions that my good friend Matthijs should be asked, and should ask himself. I'm guessing that's part of his reason for starting this thread.

Labeling it "monstrous" or as "shitting on an entire group of people's history", I don't quite get. Your heavy-handed rhetorical style may be your stab at a forum persona or something. But quips like "the notoriously anti-Jewish Norwegian government" or on how "monstrous" this art concept is just seems a little... clueless.

Maybe RPG or activities utilizing RPG-techniques can be a vehicle for exploring subjects like this one. Maybe they cannot. As others have mentioned, we seem to accept fictional exploration/treatment of the Holocaust in movies, books, dramas and comics. Maybe RPGs are inherently different from these other media in this regard. Maybe they're not. Let's look at the play test results. Let's examine the actual methods that are proposed. Let's not dismiss the idea off-hand, solely based on our prejudice.

***

Quote from: RPGpunditBut you did mention it. You mentioned it as if to say "D20 is a stupid game, and this game is a serious game that is Art and would never be stupid the way D20 is". That's precisely what you meant, wasn't it?

Dear John; how's life? I've gotten my ass over to Brazil. Did a crime-story in Natal, been lounging in Salvador for about a month. Think I'll head on over to Surinam and the Guyanas before Venezuela.

You're an incredibly smart guy, but your single-minded rants on The Forge and d20 do tend to make you come off as sort of a one-trick pony. A lot of us have sort of been there, done that, and moved on. You know?

I don't quite recall the English expression, but in Norway we call quotes like the one above "putting words in people's mouths."

Quote from: olepederLabeling it "monstrous" or as "shitting on an entire group of people's history", I don't quite get. Your heavy-handed rhetorical style may be your stab at a forum persona or something. But quips like "the notoriously anti-Jewish Norwegian government" or on how "monstrous" this art concept is just seems a little... clueless..

It's clueless to think you can tell me how your country is perceived by MY people. Believe me, Norway gets a special mention in the big list of "places we shouldn't ever go back to".

I'll grant that the norwegians generally don't discriminate and foster hate against Jews for racial reasons. Just political ones, right.

Anyhow, I know I'm not prone to being charitable to forgies on general principles but this, this takes the fucking cake.

Quote from: Abyssal MawWe're not talking about understanding, Tony. We're talking about using a leisure imaginative activity to get vicarious thrills while simultaneously shitting on an entire group of people's history.

You really think they have bad intentions? I took the general promise as touchy-feely art guys trying to emphasize. Not in the best taste, but I think they mean well.

Quote from: SosthenesYou really think they have bad intentions? I took the general promise as touchy-feely art guys trying to emphasize. Not in the best taste, but I think they mean well.

Well, I do take it as them trying to empathize and be touchy feely as well.  And also to insert other "Approved Moral Teachings" in there as well--I mean, I've seen the actual play reports for games like I imagine this one to be.

My point is: it's undescribably tacky, awful, and insulting to do this. It's either going to be maudlin and awful, or all "dark and intense" awful, and it's being played as ...a game? That is so fucked up. The holocaust is not an ABC Afterschool Special, it's not up for interpretation, and any take on it will necessarily be revisionist. And how in the hell are these people authorities? And whats the point? Are they trying to excuse theirselves? Is this some kind of "see, we're totally blameless about how we acted in October of 1942.. look, we had a game commissioned, and we all played it and everyone agreed, man...IN-tense! So yeah. Vidkun Quisling? Our bad. Now then, we've got a check for 100 million euros we'd like to send to a terrorist group that has vowed to exterminate all Jews.. who should we make this out to?"

It's so fucking awful, I can't even really begin to describe what a shitty thing this is. If the norwegian government will approve a game about space aliens, or dinosaurs or whatever, I highly recommend he write about that instead. Because the dinosaurs are already dead and the space aliens don't care.

Quote from: Abyssal MawAre they trying to excuse theirselves? Is this some kind of "see, we're totally blameless about how we acted in October of 1942.. look, we had a game commissioned, and we all played it and everyone agreed, man...IN-tense!.

Hmm? I don't think any participant in that "game" is an octogenarian.

The "revisionism" argument doesn't really do it for me. Any movie or play that has the Holocaust as a topic (or even barely touches it) has the same problem, and I think that some of those have been pretty good.

It's just that people at a gaming table (or dark room, art dorm whatever) aren't able to get anything near their self-described goal. The "target" they're aiming for is so far out, that the try itself can only cause damage. Concentration camps, the Trail of Tears, Nanking, Hiroshima -- simply no _use_ in gaming that. Actually, if this really were a Forgite game, it would be better. Some kind of mechanics to measure suffering or similar shite -- at least it would turn the experience in some kind of allegory, abstract enough that something could be gained from it (like the better movies do). Instead, I kinda see it as really forced empathy without any resolve. Suffering porn.

I sincerely hope that the author proves me wrong in that regard.

Only if failure in mechanic leads to horrible starvation, torture, human misery, and, finally, death.  Otherwise, it's play acting to try to feel that? As you said, it's impossible.

That only leaves the "I want to learn something about myself/humanity." To which I say - Bullshit. Find another way - this ain't it.

I think a pretty key question in assessing this whole project is: what exactly is this "game" supposed to teach?

RPGPundit

This is about as close as I can get for comfort, to anything like "roleplaying" the Holocaust:

Holocaust ID Cards (http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/resource/idcards.pdf) (680k PDF)

The idea is that at the US Holocaust Museum main exhibit, each visitor is assigned an "ID card" that allows them to trace the fate of one person who was a victim of the Holocaust. Some of them live, some of them die. Some are Jews, some aren't.

I do find the idea of anyone privately "roleplaying" Holocaust experiences under the pretense of gaining greater insight vaguely troubling, perhaps even obscene. I'm not offended by (in fact I greatly appreciate) other fictional or fictionalized treatments, from Maus to The Pianist to Europa, Europa to Life is Beautiful.

Perhaps the reason why I'm troubled by the idea is that, if it weren't about a historical event--if it were an entirely fictional RPG where the PCs either "happened to become victims in the course of play", or where the point of the game was to play victims of genocide...I'd find any focus on playing out the sufferings to be rather narcissistic puffery. The taint is inescapable, and when it's combined with the actuality of the event, it stops being somewhat laughable and becomes obscene.

All of the above comes after only a glance through the blog and a look at a related thread on storygames. If there were a better overview of how the "game" works, it might affect my opinion, but those are my initial thoughts.

Strangely, if this were presented not as a game (or even a "private interactive story") but as a framework for some kind of improvisational drama with or without audience participation, I'd give it a lot more leeway.

Quote from: James J SkachThat only leaves the "I want to learn something about myself/humanity." To which I say - Bullshit. Find another way - this ain't it.

That's actually the biggest danger, the mere thought that you truly _understand_ it. Going in even thinking that you're capable of that is beyond me.

That's why I don't understand the concentration camp part. What would you expect to learn from that? That it was bad? No shit, Sherlock!
Things surrounding the camps (the aforementioned live of Jews before the Holocaust and the intentional "ignorance" of the general populace) might lead you to know some facts that you missed in school, but why should a game be a better medium to get that along than a book or good documentary? If you're interested enough to participate in such a morbid experiment, I think you should be interested enough to be able to focus on more traditional teaching material. I'd say that even a play with a script would be better for that, plus you'd influence an audience, too. What does improvisation and freedom of form _get_ you here? Honestly?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWhich is, of course, part one of the two-part "argument" of the Holocaust deniers:

1) "I can't imagine it."

2) "It can't have happened." (Sometimes, as we know, part 2 is left purposely unstated.)

I am not saying you're one of them, Tony. In fact, I'm sure you're not. I am saying that this kind of thinking is misguided.

We've all seen the photos and the footage. That gets rid of all that BS. It's right there, no imagination required.

 Whats really messed up - I can imagine it .  Thats why I know its a BAD idea for an RPG.  Don't remember what author or book it was - but some autobiography of a Holocaust survivor  - GOT to me  and I was there in the scene. His writing was that evocative. Damn images have stuckj with for years. Every time I see a movie or show with a fictionalized scene set at those camps - I get a little twisted up inside,  nauseous and angry at the same time.

 Still think this whole game (or whatever dumb made-up phase they decided to use instead) is a bad idea.

Its like a perversion of the RPG.

 I know the guy is getting paid to do this ...but it needs re-thinking. Hell, even getting paid to design such a thing seems wrong.

- Ed C.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaTo be fair (and, in saying that, I realise I'm not being particularly fair at all), this project reminds me very much of the same kind of morbid fascination that people who write and/or play violent post-apocalyptic RPGs -- you know, the kind where society has fallen and barbarism of the most venal kind is explored in depth. T. Willard's Year of the Zombie comes to mind.  These games are written by people who obviously haven't gone through the horrors they're playing with, too.  It's personal entertainment born of someone else's misery, and I think it's a bad idea in any case.

!i!

Hey, umm, Ian.  I'm writing a post-apocalypse RPG.  

Could you maybe just think for a sec, and not lump me in with some pretentious shithead who's exploiting the deaths of over 6 million people for his own personal entertainment and pseudointellectual wankery?

I'm usually one to shrug off a slight like that, but that was pretty harsh.

Quote from: Abyssal MawIt's clueless to think you can tell me how your country is perceived by MY people.

It is also clueless for you to think that you can tell how all jews think just because you're jewish.  Like I said to JimBob, I think that using your jewish identity as a rhetorical bludgeon is a really bone-headed move.


Now I understand that for people who believe that RPGs cannot possibly address this type of topic in a respectful manner, even proposing an RPG address it is the same as proposing that it approach it disrespectfully.

I hope that those same people can understand that there are folks who do not share their baseline assumptions.  Matthijs clearly feels that RPGs have at least the potential to address this in a respectful way.  While you may disagree with him in the strongest terms, I think that calling his actions "monstrous" just because you think they're misguided is pretty small-minded.

Quote from: TonyLBIt is also clueless for you to think that you can tell how all jews think just because you're jewish.  Like I said to JimBob, I think that using your jewish identity as a rhetorical bludgeon is a really bone-headed move.


Now I understand that for people who believe that RPGs cannot possibly address this type of topic in a respectful manner, even proposing an RPG address it is the same as proposing that it approach it disrespectfully.

I hope that those same people can understand that there are folks who do not share their baseline assumptions.  Matthijs clearly feels that RPGs have at least the potential to address this in a respectful way.  While you may disagree with him in the strongest terms, I think that calling his actions "monstrous" just because you think they're misguided is pretty small-minded.

I suspect "respect" is the furthest thing from his mind. Respect would mean leaving this particular topic alone.

Bottom line: Matthis is looking for a gripping, controversial,  "serious" topic for his story game, and he doesn't really even think about the casual pain and insult this heaps upon the families and graves of better men than him. Or you.

And if you really want to "show this down", then you bring your Jews, and I'll bring mine and we'll see who feels like what.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI suspect "respect" is the furthest thing from his mind. Respect would mean leaving this particular topic alone.

With your assumptions, yes.  With his assumptions, no.  You two are having a disagreement, and a heated one (at least on your side), but that's a shitty reason to assume malice.

Quote from: TonyLBWith your assumptions, yes.  With his assumptions, no.  You two are having a disagreement, and a heated one (at least on your side), but that's a shitty reason to assume malice.

It's not an assumption of malice. It is malice itself.

It maybe unintended malice, (it seems that he's trying to do some kind of touchy feely 'good thing')  but that does not change it's essential nature.

Also, why is this game about germany and not about the norwegian nazi collaboration?

Why is the second game about the Judenrate? That's an extremely touchy subject itself.

Why is the third one called "how not to care"?

There's a very revisionist "Jews probably had it coming...it's the human condition. Say how can we relate this to current day politics?" taint to this when you look at the big picture.

It stinks.

What I want to know is why the OP posted this thing here. JimBob mentioned this some time ago on another thread. But why post on this site?

Regards,
David R

Maybe because he knows people here won't hold back on their comments & criticisms.

BTW, AM, I'm Jewish, and although I'm pretty uncomfortable with this project in the way I described upthread, I don't agree at all with turning this into a specifically "Euros vs. Jews" thing. Rather I find it borders on an invitation to engage in onanistic "misery tourism" that trivializes the actual experiences and events. I wouldn't be any less uncomfortable regardless of the ethnic background of the game designer, or if the game was about the Khmer Rouge or the genocide in Rwanda.

There's just something about the idea of a group of people acting out these sorts of events in order to stimulate their own emotional response, that I find (as I said above) either pathetic and risible in the case of fictional suffering, or repulsive in the case of actual atrocities. Add in an external audience, as with a film or play, and somehow that changes everything--perhaps because the external audience validates the act and "keeps it honest" (i.e., non-onanistic).

Quote from: Elliot WilenMaybe because he knows people here won't hold back on their comments & criticisms.

BTW, AM, I'm Jewish, and although I'm pretty uncomfortable with this project in the way I described upthread, I don't agree at all with turning this into a specifically "Euros vs. Jews" thing. Rather I find it borders on an invitation to engage in onanistic "misery tourism" that trivializes the actual experiences and events. I wouldn't be any less uncomfortable regardless of the ethnic background of the game designer, or if the game was about the Khmer Rouge or the genocide in Rwanda.

There's just something about the idea of a group of people acting out these sorts of events in order to stimulate their own emotional response, that I find (as I said above) either pathetic and risible in the case of fictional suffering, or repulsive in the case of actual atrocities. Add in an external audience, as with a film or play, and somehow that changes everything--perhaps because the external audience validates the act and "keeps it honest" (i.e., non-onanistic).

Fair enough Elliot. And really, your'e right about that, and more exacting about what makes this upsetting. The awfulness is just killing me, here.  I should probably get out of this thread.

Elliot, alsolutely, only that IMO the crucial difference between a film and an RPG that matters here is that the former is so evidently a re-presentation, not an enactment. A film doesn't claim it could deliver to you the actual experience of X.

Instead, your experience of a film will only ever be the experience of somebody else's take on X. And that gets rid of the presumptuousness (on the part of the RPG designer) and the emotional obscenity (on the part of the players) we're talking about here.

Quote from: Elliot WilenMaybe because he knows people here won't hold back on their comments & criticisms.

Of course, but I find it amusing that for a site that is supposed to be about "mainstream" rpgs we sure do stray out of the reservation....

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Abyssal MawI should probably get out of this thread.

I hope you don't. IMO you're making a lot of sense and you're needed to stop this thread from going off on stupid flights of fancy. Not that you care this coming from me and all that.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Elliot WilenMaybe because he knows people here won't hold back on their comments & criticisms.

BTW, AM, I'm Jewish, and although I'm pretty uncomfortable with this project in the way I described upthread, I don't agree at all with turning this into a specifically "Euros vs. Jews" thing. Rather I find it borders on an invitation to engage in onanistic "misery tourism" that trivializes the actual experiences and events. I wouldn't be any less uncomfortable regardless of the ethnic background of the game designer, or if the game was about the Khmer Rouge or the genocide in Rwanda.

There's just something about the idea of a group of people acting out these sorts of events in order to stimulate their own emotional response, that I find (as I said above) either pathetic and risible in the case of fictional suffering, or repulsive in the case of actual atrocities. Add in an external audience, as with a film or play, and somehow that changes everything--perhaps because the external audience validates the act and "keeps it honest" (i.e., non-onanistic).

Someone, somewhere (recently) on a very similar subject (Wraith, I believe) said that a group mature enough to role-play the Holocaust would be mature enough not to.

While I don't subscribe to absolutes I think it's a good point to make, and it stands along with Sett's point that the *real* art in this endeavor will come from video taping people playing this atrocity.

Especially if they imagine they're doing something deep and worthwhile.

I predict that it'll be unwatchably horrible -- onanistic seems to be a horribly appropriate term.

To the OP: My last post, which you read and responded to made two points. The second (and lesser one) you responded to -- you're reading more than Wikipedia (good for you!)

The more important point, which you skipped, I'll make again: if you're not real clear about your reasons for doing this you're likely to come up with something awful.

My guess is that you have some kind of agenda -- or some underlying belief about this material and at some level your game is going to end up as a statement of that belief.

If you've got something to say, figure out what it is and try saying it. If it turns out not to be something you'd prefer to have your name attached to (when put in plain text) then you're better off not making a game.

I'm guessing again, but I suspect that'll be the case (if it wasn't, I think you'd be more intuitively clear about your reasons for doing this).

Recommendation: stop and think.
-E.

Okay you know what I think this whole teaching thing is bullshit. I'm not knocking any playstyles but if the OP had come out and said,  "Look I'm gonna make a game based on the Holocaust and it's just a setting where you could run investigative type adventures or survival/escape type stuff whatever". This whole hiding behind a way to understand...to teach...to remember...is utter bullshit to me.

I think it's dishonest. I think it's pretentious. No amount of research can justify a project like this in the way how the OP has presented his case. Much better I think to say..."look I see this as just another setting" than try to disguise the whole project as some kind of noble endevour.

I think what the OP is really doing is trying to cover his ass because if he did say something like that it would really bring out the pitchforks (and rightly so) ...but at least it would have the merits of candour and perhaps honesty. I'm irritated that the concept of fun is being mangled to suit a provocative project only because the OP does not have the guts to say, "hey I believe rpgs can be about subjects like this and yeah it may be in bad taste but some folks may find this fun"

Rant over.

Regards,
David R

A note: to be clear, Mattijs did not say that it was not a game. I was wrong. But he strongly implied that here (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=114748&postcount=36).

Quote from: MattijsThe main problem, as I see it, is that if I call it a "game", the connotations of that word aren't all applicable to We All Had Names. It might be better for all involved if I call it an "interactive story" or similar, to show there are no win conditions, it's not primarily a "fun" activity, it's not about using game systems against each other etc.

Reading him literally, he is saying that it is a game, but it would be bad marketing to say so. Reading him more sympathetically, he is saying it's not really a game.

I would say that it's not a "game" because a game is an activity with three characteristics: it's for recreation, it's got some choices in it and some chance (uncertain outcome). This is not for recreation. There are no chances and the outcome is certain. All that's left is "choices." An activity composed simply of choices may be fulfilling and interesting, but it's not a game. You need it to be recreational and have some chance in there, too.

It's not a game, so I don't see why it's here. Or you could say that Mattijs does think it's a game, and is just worried about the marketing, but I think that's a very ungenerous reading of him. He doesn't seem that clueless.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen[...] I don't agree at all with turning this into a specifically "Euros vs. Jews" thing. Rather I find it borders on an invitation to engage in onanistic "misery tourism" that trivializes the actual experiences and events. I wouldn't be any less uncomfortable regardless of the ethnic background of the game designer, or if the game was about the Khmer Rouge or the genocide in Rwanda.

I agree with all this. Reading this as Norwegian anti-semitism is, I think, going too far. "Onanistic misery tourism" is a wonderful phrase, and very much what I was trying to say earlier.

I also agree that the Holocaust is not unique in this respect, that it'd be pointless and tasteless to do this kind of thing with it. I said that earlier but everyone focused on the Jewish thing. Genocide did not begin or end with Treblinka. Why not give this treatment to, say, Srebenica in the 1990s? Let's roleplay young Moslem men saying goodbye to their wives and mothers and sisters as the UN troops draw up lists for the Serbs outside town!

I think the key thing here is that it's not a roleplaying game. I think I can rephrase what I was saying in my thread about my Roman game, about why I'm setting aside historical figures.

I want them to be able to do stuff that matters.

PCs should be able to do things. In Mattijs' thing the PCs will be powerless, their only choices being Sophie's Choice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_Choice_%28film%29). To me that is the absolute opposite of what rpgs are about. The PCs should always have a chance to make a difference. Escape from Sobibor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_sobibor) or Uprising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uprising_%28film%29) could be interesting rpgs about the Holocaust; Auschwitz Chimneys could not be. The issue is whether PCs can make a difference. PCs should not have to be passive observers of their fates. That doesn't mean they should always succeed, but just that their success or failure should be obviously at least partly affected by their decisions and actions. They should not be powerless and irrelevant.

Ever see the DM of the Rings (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?cat=14) webcomic? The authour presents us with Lord of the Rings as a D&D campaign. The players are pissed off all the time because nothing they do matters - they're just spectators to the grand history of the true heroes, Gandalf &c. The players respond by having their characters just kill the bad guys in mid-sentence, trying to force their will onto the world. "We will be important whether you like it or not, you bastard."

If Mattijs' thing does not allow for the PCs to try to escape, or for them to make shivs to stab SS guards, take their weapons and lead an uprising, or at the very least hide in the sewers and sneak out at night to steal things, then it's not what any of us would call a "roleplaying game", because the PCs are powerless. If we want passive entertainment or learning we can just watch tv or read a book. We don't need to sit around with a bunch of geeks "experiencing" things.

Quote from: Elliot WilenThere's just something about the idea of a group of people acting out these sorts of events in order to stimulate their own emotional response, that I find (as I said above) either pathetic and risible in the case of fictional suffering, or repulsive in the case of actual atrocities. Add in an external audience, as with a film or play, and somehow that changes everything--perhaps because the external audience validates the act and "keeps it honest" (i.e., non-onanistic).

I agree with this, too.

Occupation 1942, Juhana's fallout shelter weekend, and now this - there seems to be this long Scandanavian tradition of "rpgs" where your characters suffer passively. And people wonder why they have a high suicide rate despite their excellent social welfare policies. Seems to me they've got a preference for melancholy.

It's not a roleplaying game, and it's a pointless wank. Onanistic Misery Tourism!

Elliot has used such a better term.  Onanistic Misery Tourism is perfect.

I think in simpler terms (imagine that JimBob, an American even!):

To me, these people are using the death of 6 million people to "learn something about themselves."

Tony - I give you exhibit A in helping you understand condemnation.  If you can't condemn this, I have little hope, my friend.

And before you say "well you just disagree that a role-playing game can be used in this manner," no, that's not it.  Let's say, for the sake of argument, that a role-playing game can be used to evoke deep emotional interaction.

That does not mean this is a valid use of that. If you have to resort to using the starvation, torture, mutilation, and death of 6 million people to fool yourself into thinking it gives you any understanding of their plight all in an attempt to learn somthing about yourself...well..as I said to my wife, what the fuck kind of human being are you?

Quote from: James J SkachElliot has used such a better term.  Onanistic Misery Tourism is perfect.

If you have to resort to using the starvation, torture, mutilation, and death of 6 million people to fool yourself into thinking it gives you any understanding of their plight all in an attempt to learn somthing about yourself...well..as I said to my wife, what the fuck kind of human being are you?

1) Maybe the game should be called OMT?

2) Don't leave us hanging -- what the fuck kind human being did she say she was? ;)

-E.

So it seems thergsite has reached a consensus on this. Except for TonyLB, who is doing as he does with the Forge - he won't praise it, but he'll defend it from others' attacks. He who sits on the fence gets it up the arse!

The consensus seems to be

• It's not a game.
• As a way to learn something about yourself, there are much better ways.
• It's in bad taste.

There's also the idea that it sounds really depressing, but apparently that's the aim, so...

Some people are expressing it more negatively than that, and seeing anti-semitism and so on, and some express it humorously but precisely (thanks, Elliot!), but that seems to be about the consensus.

We still await TonyLB and Pseudoephedrine's Jewish friends who think it's a smashing idea and would like to write something like that themselves. I expect to see them about the same time we see that Belgian girl write an rpg about being shut in a paedophile's dungeon for six months, or someone from Srebenica in Bosnia write about that, or someone from Haditha in Iraq write an rpg about US Marines coming and raping a 14 year old girl, then murdering her and 23 members of her family and neighbours to cover it up.

"Who wants to play the girl?"
"I dunno. Can she be a ninja?"

Quote from: J ArcaneHey, umm, Ian.  I'm writing a post-apocalypse RPG.

I haven't seen what you're working on, so I'm not automatically lumping you in.  Is it a morbid exploration of the most venal descent into barbarism possible?  If not, you're golden.

Gamma World didn't explore the depths of human depravity.  Twilight: 2000 didn't, though it walked that line a time or two.  The Morrow Project excaped that trap.  But there are a few too many post-apoc games out there that smack of excuses for revenge-porn -- Eye-for-an-Eye dialed up to 11.  And that's really at the heart of what most of us in this thread find appalling: Finding entertainment and amusement in human misery and despair.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaI haven't seen what you're working on, so I'm not automatically lumping you in.  Is it a morbid exploration of the most venal descent into barbarism possible?  If not, you're golden.

Gamma World didn't explore the depths of human depravity.  Twilight: 2000 didn't, though it walked that line a time or two.  The Morrow Project excaped that trap.  But there are a few too many post-apoc games out there that smack of excuses for revenge-porn -- Eye-for-an-Eye dialed up to 11.  And that's really at the heart of what most of us in this thread find appalling: Finding entertainment and amusement in human misery and despair.

!i!

I see what your at now.  No, I don't really go in for the human depravity angle, the game's actually intended to be pretty optimistic when it comes to humanity.   Doctor Who is actually kind of a big inspiration where my treatment of people is concerned.  

I'm big on the importance of human potential, that we're this species with a pretty impressive capability for good or evil, but I consider it far more important to focus on the good, rather than wallow in the evil.  I'm not saying the latter needs to be ignored, but spending a bunch of effort on portraying humanity is a bunch of awful horrid creatures really doesn't help anything.

Quote from: -E.Someone, somewhere (recently) on a very similar subject (Wraith, I believe) said that a group mature enough to role-play the Holocaust would be mature enough not to.

Yes. I've been thinking that, in a way, there's nothing wrong with writing this "game" or whatever-you-call-it, nothing wrong with reading it--and I think that reading it could be quite powerful. But actually playing it would be at least as wrong as playing Greg Costikyan's Violence (http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/20/violence_satirical_r.html).

What do I mean by wrong? From what I understand of the game--which still isn't much--if someone invited me to play it, even in a way that implied the subject would be treated with all the gravity it deserves--I'd be taken aback. If someone told me they'd actually played the game as a "consumer", I'd be appalled. (Playtests I may consider wrong-headed since IMO they're superfluous for a game that shouldn't be played, but in my book they're not the same as playing the game to play the game.)

With that in mind I think that a set of death camp rules would perhaps be best presented in D20/OGL format, though with exactly the same outcome: no matter who you are, whatever your personal history (perhaps generated lifepath style), your ability scores, your class and level, you die.* In other words it should be a travesty of a game with no play value whatsoever, but with the familiar RPG mechanics juxtaposed to emphasize just that.


*In reality people do make it through, sometimes through connections, sometimes through determination, though mainly through luck. Trying to balance the game in a way that gives the PCs a fair chance, to make actual play enjoyable, would (again) be obscene.

Just to clear something up: It seems people believe that the games takes place inside a concentration camp. It does not.

Quote from: Eric PerdueJust to clear something up: It seems people believe that the games takes place inside a concentration camp. It does not.

This is what I mean by dishonesty. Granted I only briefly glanced at the link..... be upfront about the project.

Regards,
David R

Humans are by far my favourite species.

The Pundit

...



... ...



... ... ...



*shakes head in disbelief*

Quote from: Eric PerdueJust to clear something up: It seems people believe that the games takes place inside a concentration camp. It does not.

Sorry to quote you twice but what is this game about anyway? What are the rules like? What are possible pc goals? Who are the antagonist (:rolleyes: )? Enough talk about why this game should or should not be made but rather about the game itself.

Edit: Looking through the design blog I find the idea of basing an rpg on Judenrat particularly offensive.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Elliot WilenThis is about as close as I can get for comfort, to anything like "roleplaying" the Holocaust:

Holocaust ID Cards (http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/resource/idcards.pdf) (680k PDF)

The idea is that at the US Holocaust Museum main exhibit, each visitor is assigned an "ID card" that allows them to trace the fate of one person who was a victim of the Holocaust. Some of them live, some of them die. Some are Jews, some aren't.

Yeah, I went to the Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum as part of a fieldtrip. I thought that it was a worthwhile experience and most of my fellow gradeschoolers were mature enough to learn from it too.

Each page in the booklet was keyed to an exhibit, so as you move through the museum, the exhibits cover the Holocaust on a grand scale but booklet covers the same time period on a personal scale.

My character was a young boy and a half-breed (a half-breed like me!) From what I knew of history, I suspected that he wouldn't last long but the booklet advised us to try to identify with our characters so I looked up his home on a map and tried to see how he would fit in with larger world described by the first exhibit. I even learned to pronounce his impossible surname.

On the next page, he died. There wasn't any description except to say that the Nazis were responsible. (Duh!) Anyway, despite it's flaws, I think that the first two pages were worth reading, much more so then the general text that filled the remaining six pages. I could see a RPG treatment succeed if it was as an adjunct to serious study as in the US Holocaust Museum.

Quote from: Matthijs HolterThanks for all your replies!

A few answers:

- Yes, I'm receiving an arts grant for this project.
- I've thought more than twice about whether it was a good idea, and I firmly believe it is.
- The games are meant to help us learn/understand some of the events surrounding the Kristallnacht, the problems of the Judenräte, and the many reasons people didn't interfere with or stop the events as they unfolded.
- I have spoken to Jewish people about this, including people who very much understand the real horrors of the actual events, and have received enthusiastic help and information.

I quite respect that not all RPGers will be interested in trying this out. It's a very different sort of game from what we usually play, and it certainly doesn't come under the heading of "fun". (I do design and play fun games as well).

At the same time, I think when people first hear of the game, they get an idea of what it plays like that is very inaccurate. I suggest taking a look, specifically, at the design notes for "Kristallnacht" to get a better understanding.

I've no doubt that you think you are doing this for good inentions, but exactly what do you expect players to do in this game? Suffer terrible emotional trauma? I certainly wouldn't want to recreate the experience of being in a concentration camp as any form of entertainment.

Quote from: JimBobOzWe still await TonyLB and Pseudoephedrine's Jewish friends who think it's a smashing idea and would like to write something like that themselves.

TonyLB is a Jew.

Quote from: hgjsTonyLB is a Jew.

A plot twist :eek:

Regards,
David R

Quote from: hgjsTonyLB is a Jew.

He always seemed treyf to me. Not fit for consumption. Maybe it was just the smell of the Forge.

But hey, why doesn't he ask his bubba what she thinks of this? She could come watch him and his gamer buddies rolling dice and eating cheetos, and he could say, "hey, someone's doing something like this but for the Shoah. Well okay it's a bit different... more respectful. Really."

Anyway, whether he's got a bit chopped off his willy or not, fact remains that as usual he's not actually praised anything, just defended it from attackers.

Again, I await the legions of Jewish gamers who think it's a smashing idea and will write something like it. Not, "it could be useful", or "an interesting read", but people who actually like it and will play it. Why not give us an Actual Play, bubeleh Tony?

Quote from: JimBobOzHe always seemed treyf to me. Not fit for consumption. Maybe it was just the smell of the Forge.

I had intended to stay way the fuck out of this clusterfuck.  In fact, JB, I largely have agreed with your points, but you are *really* being an amazing asshole here.  How Jewish does Tony have to be to have an opinion?  Why are you more Jewish than he is?  How do you know this?  Why do you think that you have the right to insult him in this manner?

For that matter, what kind of test is there for being able to have an opinion on this topic?  I am not a Jew.  Should that matter?  If I happen to have a graduate degree in History (with a specialization in Modern Europe) and teach on the university level, does that change things?

Just interested.


TGA

I have no idea, but that was a hilarious use of the word treyf.

I read a commentary article in Newsweek or thereabouts, maybe it was The Economist, on how anger has become a fashionable form of rhetoric in the US. Everyone should be very upset all the time whilst communicating, because it signals some form of gravitas. I think this discussion has suffered due to this phenomenon.

That being said, I think there have been many good, well-reasoned criticisms. Even though it’ll hurt, somewhat in the fashion that the game hopefully will hurt to play, I believe Matthijs (and those of us who are interested in the project) have a lot to gain by taking these into consideration. Not falling into the same communicational trap that some people here seem to have a tendency towards.

(I tend to disagree with a lot of Abyssal Maw’s statements here (I’m sure he feels likewise about mine), and I suspect that we’ll find ourselves diametrically opposed politically. But I believe his upset about this project is genuine. This upset needn’t necessarily be respected, but it should definitely be registered.)

I think a lot of the problem boils down to a very limited conception of what roleplaying games can/should be. Even a couple of the more critical participants here seem open to the possibility that this could be ok as an art project (but then you shouldn’t fucking come here and talk about it, mind you…). It’s just not a game. Because games are supposed to be fun.

The comparison with the cards at the Holocaust museum is excellent. These might as well have been play aids in Matthijs' game, from what I know about the project.

But I do feel that criticisms such as: ”why isn’t this only emotional masturbation?”, “if it is emotional masturbation, something you do mainly to learn more about yourself, why choose this particular subject, this particular form?”, “how do Jews feel about the project?”, “is this tasteless emo-turism?” are completely legitimate.

I’m a liberal soul, trust my friend and don’t really share the concern. So I say go ahead. But I fully understand that people can react this way, and think it should be brought into consideration.

And by the way; saying “Quisling” doesn’t work like a magical word that’ll make all Norwegians bow their heads in shame and go away. In which country do you think he’s most reviled? In which country do you think kids learn the most about him in school? I don't believe sin transfers through blood. Not that I'm related to Vidkun. “MY people”? Who’s that? Israelis? People of American citizenship? Every person in the world who considers himself a Jew? Or just the “realest” ones? You seem to have a pretty tribalistic mindset.

Quote from: J ArcaneHey, umm, Ian. I'm writing a post-apocalypse RPG.

Could you maybe just think for a sec, and not lump me in with some pretentious shithead who's exploiting the deaths of over 6 million people for his own personal entertainment and pseudointellectual wankery?

I'm usually one to shrug off a slight like that, but that was pretty harsh.

But it's not harsh for you to dismiss another human being as a "pretentious shithead who's exploiting the deaths of over 6 million people for his own personal entertainment and pseudointellectual wankery"?

Quote from: JimBobOzOccupation 1942, Juhana's fallout shelter weekend, and now this - there seems to be this long Scandanavian tradition of "rpgs" where your characters suffer passively. And people wonder why they have a high suicide rate despite their excellent social welfare policies. Seems to me they've got a preference for melancholy.

Heh. Good point.

Quote from: olepederI think a lot of the problem boils down to a very limited conception of what roleplaying games can/should be. Even a couple of the more critical participants here opens for the possibility that this could be ok as an art project (but then you shouldn't fucking come here and talk about it, mind you...). It's just not a game. Because games are supposed to be fun.

Who exactly is this part addressed to ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RWho exactly is this part addressed to ?

Regards,
David R

Mainly JimBob. I apologize for the generalizations.

Quote from: olepederI read a commentary article in Newsweek or thereabouts, maybe it was The Economist, on how anger has become a fashionable form of rhetoric in the US. Everyone should be very upset all the time whilst communicating, because it signals some form of gravitas. I think this discussion has suffered due to this phenomenon.

Careful. Not all of us are North American around here, and some of us are politically far to the left of you. You don't want to expose yourself to the very critique of cultural tribalism you yourself use to dismiss the argument of others.

QuoteThis upset needn't necessarily be respected, but it should definitely be registered

I'd like to hear more about the "registering" part, in a concrete and detailed fashion. Until then, it's unclear how your "respect" is different from a shrug.

Onanistic misery tourism. Well, I guess I can't wait for the inevitable podcast gushing.


Pigs.

Quote from: olepederMainly JimBob. I apologize for the generalizations.

No need to apologize. I just thought it was directed at me and you had something you wanted to say. My mistake.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Abyssal MawI have no idea, but that was a hilarious use of the word treyf.

I suppose.  If your idea of humor is for someone to insult another's identity just because you don't agree with their opinion.

To each his own...


TGA

A few questions olepeder. Are there any Jews in your playtest groups? Have the designers interviewed any Jews ? Have you contacted any Jewish orgs and talked about this game? Is all the research coming from books?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: olepederI read a commentary article in Newsweek ......


(I tend to disagree with a lot of Abyssal Maw's statements here (I'm sure he feels likewise about mine), and I suspect that we'll find ourselves diametrically opposed politically. But I believe his upset about this project is genuine. This upset needn't necessarily be respected, but it should definitely be .......

Two things: 1) NEWSWEEK magazine is often WRONG about things or just has shoddy writing in general. For that matter a "commentary" article is hardly an authoratitive source of anything.

2) You're just mistaken or wrong about the need to respect why someone is upset.   This isn't a stubbed toe that we're talking about - it was the calculated and intentional murdering of millions of people.

- Ed C.

You have to admit though, it *is* kinda starting to look like the plot to The Producers.

"So.. most of these games don't make any money?"

"Yes, but.. well.. we may be able to get one funded by the Norwegian government.. it will have to be a surefire failure, though"

"How can we insure that we make the worst game possible? What would would it even be about..? It's going to have to be totally awful!"

"Wait... I HAVE AN IDEA!"



I remember the last time I sorta went off about something like this-- on not quite as offensive a subject, but still.. And these guys kept showing up to tell me about how the reason behind all of this stuff was fun. Always. Fun fun fun. Thats the whole motivation behind all of this stuff.

It's such a lie.

Its more likely that the Norwegian government, being full of eurotrash-nannystaters, required that any RPG that qualified for an "Art Grant" had to be "ART", and about a serious topic. And possibly, educational.  God forbid that it be fun, because that might cause people to want sugary foods (and we all knows those will soon be outlawed for people's own good).

In any case, the designers of the game were probably just thinking: What topic can we be really "serious" and pseudo-intellectual enough that it will guarantee that we get considered Art and get paid? In which case, the holocaust was a pretty obvious choice.

Anyways, all of this is just going to add ammo to my arguments about RPGs and "Art".  For a while now, whenever I argued "RPGs are not Art!" some dude would say "yes they are, the scandinavian governments even subsidize them as art!".  Now I can say, "Yes, and look where thinking of RPGs as Art leads you..."

RPGPundit

Actually, in an art context I could see it happen. But I mean real art, honest to goodness contemporary art-art. Like, running it at Documenta, with hapless gallery visitors, in some kind of performance set-up. That could work--but precisely because emo-tourism aka subjectivity wankfests went out of fashion among artists with van Gogh, even as the general public thinks/suspects it's still all about cutting your ear off. So, you'd have a built-in estrangement effect. That said, you can achieve similar results with less sensationalist subject matter.

In an art context- if he were to write a book, paint a painting.. it's totally not a problem. Although that can still suck. I think people have a right to suck at art, though.

In an interpretive medium, specifically one being used for  this kind of vicarious emotional self-stimulation, it runs into issues. I am especially skeptical because of the way that particular community of jackasses loves to enthuse about how 'dark' and 'intense' and 'tragic' they are.  

Like I said..

I'm just waiting for the podcasts. I'm waiting for some guy to say he was "'rocking out' with WAHN..I love when my character fails!!!" or something. That's like the center square on my bingo card of awfulness.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI am especially skeptical because of the way that particular community of jackasses loves to enthuse about how 'dark' and 'intense' and 'tragic' they are.

Foul.  Ten yard penalty.  That's a tendency that's not particular to nor particularly prevalent in any single community.

!i!

Quote from: olepederBut I do feel that criticisms such as: "why isn't this only emotional masturbation?", "if it is emotional masturbation, something you do mainly to learn more about yourself, why choose this particular subject, this particular form?", "how do Jews feel about the project?", "is this tasteless emo-turism?" are completely legitimate.

I'm a liberal soul, trust my friend and don't really share the concern. So I say go ahead. But I fully understand that people can react this way, and think it should be brought into consideration.

I hesitate to post with more than one point (historically, the least interesting is the one that gets read), but hope springs eternal.

There are several non-Americans responding here; the tone you're detecting may have more to do with your subject matter than the nationality of your respondents.

My main point is that you chose to phrase what you call criticisms as questions.

Are you aware that you did that? Do you know *why* you did that?

Questions can imply criticism, but the rather straight-forward discussion here hasn't been heavy on implication.

I think it's clear that the folks involved in this project, from the author on out, are fairly un-reflective; this isn't a good topic to approach if you're blind to where you're coming from and how your coming off.

I believe you when you say some of the criticism here "should" be considered -- but I don't see any evidence you (collectively -- talking about the people in the project) have a degree of self-awareness that might be required to actually consider it.

And if you're trying to understand why you might encounter an angry tone here, instead of turning an irrelevant Economist article, I suggest you consider that not really having an understanding of the project you're involved in might have something to do with your reception.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityCareful. Not all of us are North American around here, and some of us are politically far to the left of you. You don't want to expose yourself to the very critique of cultural tribalism you yourself use to dismiss the argument of others.

Indeed. I beg your pardon.

Quote from: olepederThis upset needn’t necessarily be respected, but it should definitely be registered

Quote from: Pierce InverarityI'd like to hear more about the "registering" part, in a concrete and detailed fashion. Until then, it's unclear how your "respect" is different from a shrug.

Yeah, I've been thinking a bit about the phrasing of that one. I believe people’s feelings and opinions should be taken into account, universally. No matter who they are, or how fucked up their opinion is. That is what I meant by "registered." This might as well be framed as ”respected." I do not, however, believe that all these feelings and opinions should necessarily be allowed to limit a project you believe in. That's what I meant but "needn't necessarily be respected." I'm hoping this clarified my previous statement somewhat.

Quote from: David R.Are there any Jews in your playtest groups? Have the designers interviewed any Jews ? Have you contacted any Jewish orgs and talked about this game? Is all the research coming from books?

1) I don't know that there have been so far. 2) I don't think he has yet, comprehensively. 3) Now, he has. I think that is one of the important outcomes of this discussion. (Yeah, sure, feel free to lunge at that one. To me it illustrates the value of communication, more than my friend being an asshole for not getting the written approval of Jewish organizations before starting to do research and play tests.) 4) So far, I think it has. As previously stated, here, elsewhere and face-to-face with my friend, I hope that will change. It might've been important for him to do thorough research and real play tests before presenting it to outsiders, I'm guessing.

Quote from: Abyssal MawIn an art context- if he were to write a book, paint a painting.. it's totally not a problem. Although that can still suck. I think people have a right to suck at art, though. In an interpretive medium, specifically one being used for this kind of vicarious emotional self-stimulation, it runs into issues.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I think this may be a major source of our differences; the disagreement as to what constitutes art.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI am especially skeptical because of the way that particular community of jackasses loves to enthuse about how 'dark' and 'intense' and 'tragic' they are.

Which community? Norwegian roleplayers? Forgeites? Norwegian angsty Forgeite roleplayers? Do they exist? Are they a community? Where can I meet them? I'd really like to know, cause' it'd be fun to do an article on them for one of our local fanzines. I'm seeing it right now; me striding into a community of jackasses who love to enthuse about how 'dark' and 'intense' and 'tragic' they are. I'm mean, I could really give them the shit-stick in my piece, right? It'd be pretty cool, revealing those wanky Norwegian "artistes" for who they really are!

Quote from: Abyssal MawI remember the last time I sorta went off about something like this-- on not quite as offensive a subject, but still.. And these guys kept showing up to tell me about how the reason behind all of this stuff was fun. Always. Fun fun fun. Thats the whole motivation behind all of this stuff.

It's such a lie.

Who has ever said that this game is supposed to be fun? Have you even read any of the responses of the author?

Quote from: Abyssal MawI'm just waiting for the podcasts. I'm waiting for some guy to say he was "'rocking out' with WAHN..I love when my character fails!!!" or something.

As previously stated; I think a lot of this discussion boils down to differing perceptions of the potential of roleplaying as a medium. I was enormously impressed by the movies "La vita e bella" and "The Pianist". I have no trouble imagining that a role playing game could impress me similarly, with the same subject matter.

Quote from: RPGpunditIts more likely that the Norwegian government, being full of eurotrash-nannystaters, required that any RPG that qualified for an "Art Grant" had to be "ART", and about a serious topic. And possibly, educational. God forbid that it be fun, because that might cause people to want sugary foods (and we all knows those will soon be outlawed for people's own good).

In any case, the designers of the game were probably just thinking: What topic can we be really "serious" and pseudo-intellectual enough that it will guarantee that we get considered Art and get paid? In which case, the holocaust was a pretty obvious choice.

I actually thought something along the same lines. But I happen to have known the author for 11 years. And I'm fairly sure his mind doesn't work quite that way. This is a project he cares about. For other reasons than governmental grants. I'll leave it for him to fend against the rest of your criticism.

There is one designer. One author.

Quote from: -E.There are several non-Americans responding here; the tone you're detecting may have more to do with your subject matter than the nationality of your respondents.

Yes, absolutely. As I've said earlier: I apologize for having made generalized statements.

Quote from: -E.My main point is that you chose to phrase what you call criticisms as questions.

Are you aware that you did that? Do you know *why* you did that?

Good observation. No, I wasn't especially aware of that. Maybe it’s because I'm viewing this as a dialogue from which we all can learn?

Quote from: -E.I think it's clear that the folks involved in this project, from the author on out, are fairly un-reflective; this isn't a good topic to approach if you're blind to where you're coming from and how your coming off.

Myself, I can't really say I'm involved in the project. But having spent a lot of time with the author during the past 11 years, I'd have to argue against us being un-reflective. I think both he and I have a tendency to be overly reflective. And interested in reflection. That's probably part of the reason for him posting here, in a forum in which he knew he was bound to get (constructive) flame.

Personally, I tend to have more respect for someone who will reply "I'm not really sure. I have to think this through", when posed with a difficult question, than a know-it-all.

Quote from: -E.I believe you when you say some of the criticism here "should" be considered -- but I don't see any evidence you (collectively -- talking about the people in the project) have a degree of self-awareness that might be required to actually consider it.

Well, y'know. What can I say. You and I know each other through a few posts on this forum. If we were to meet, you might feel differently. Or you might have your opinion re-enforced. It's not really for me to tell. Personally, I find that I spend a bit too much time on my self-awareness. I should probably focus more on others.

I've learned stuff by participating in this thread. Just like I usually do, or intend to, when I engage in an ethical debate. I wish to learn, reflect and grow in conversation. I don't really see the point of merely trumpeting my views.

Quote from: -E.And if you're trying to understand why you might encounter an angry tone here, instead of turning an irrelevant Economist article, I suggest you consider that not really having an understanding of the project you're involved in might have something to do with your reception.

Absolutely. That's a valid point. Rhetorically, it was probably a dumb-ass move to drag that whole thing into the discussion anyhow.

(I'm not involved in the project. I'm just interested. And I've been drinking with the author for the better part of my life.)

Quote from: JimBobOzWe still await TonyLB and Pseudoephedrine's Jewish friends who think it's a smashing idea and would like to write something like that themselves.

As I said upthread, either the Holocaust is a public event, in which case, one's Judaism is immaterial to one's right to engage with it, or else it's just something that happened to a bunch of Jews, and as a non-Jew, there's no particular reason I should care that it happened.

I offered you a choice then, and you didn't pick one, but it really is that stark a dichotomy. I favour the former choice, but you and Abyssal Maw seem to be favouring the latter.

QuoteBut it's not harsh for you to dismiss another human being as a "pretentious shithead who's exploiting the deaths of over 6 million people for his own personal entertainment and pseudointellectual wankery"?

The truth can hurt.  

The fact that you don't realize this, only solidifies my own opinion of this disgusting display.

How about you shill this filth somewhere else, thanks.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineAs I said upthread, either the Holocaust is a public event, in which case, one's Judaism is immaterial to one's right to engage with it, or else it's just something that happened to a bunch of Jews, and as a non-Jew, there's no particular reason I should care that it happened.

I offered you a choice then, and you didn't pick one, but it really is that stark a dichotomy. I favour the former choice, but you and Abyssal Maw seem to be favouring the latter.

I favor it not being used as anyone's playground or political platform.

I'm positive it's going to get made.

I'm also positive its going to be laughably horrible.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI favor it not being used as anyone's playground or political platform.

Unless you think we shouldn't mention the Holocaust when we talk about why genocide is bad, you _do_ think it's appropriate for use by political programs.

Now, you probably meant that you don't want it used in a tasteless and tacky way for shallow ends. I sympathise with that, certainly. But I think we have to judge those instances as particular instances, rather than universally ruling them out.

QuoteI'm positive it's going to get made.

I'm also positive its going to laughably horrible.

Yeah probably. I'm not defending this particular game too hard. But the discussion so far has focused on how Matthias' game is bad for abstract reasons, backed by some categorical bans ("Because he is not a Jew, he does not have the right or the correct appreciation needed for this issue").

I think it's more useful, to Matthias and to ourselves as people who wish to be accurate and honest in our intellectual activity, to focus on the particular problems of this particular game, and leave the universal declarations aside.

Quote from: olepederMyself, I can't really say I'm involved in the project. But having spent a lot of time with the author during the past 11 years, I'd have to argue against us being un-reflective. I think both he and I have a tendency to be overly reflective. And interested in reflection. That's probably part of the reason for him posting here, in a forum in which he knew he was bound to get (constructive) flame.

Personally, I tend to have more respect for someone who will reply "I'm not really sure. I have to think this through", when posed with a difficult question, than a know-it-all.

I'm basing my understanding of the level of self-awareness here on the answer to a question about agenda.

I wasn't asking anyone to be a know-it-all; I was asking a question that, I think, would have been something that would have come up and been a primary point of consideration at the very outset of the project: "Why am I doing this?"

It -- apparently -- was not. The (very brief and vague) answers given here have ranged from trying to understand the Holocaust to, perhaps, trying to educate others.

I've looked at the blog; nothing there seems to help either.

If the people involved in the project are as reflective as you say, then I would  expect to see something in the design posts about how the nature of the outcomes are going to be fictional works rather than naturalistic -- the players aren't going to "get an understanding" of the Holocaust; they're going to read the author's understanding, presented in "choose your own adventure" book style.

Since the author's beliefs and agenda are going to be explicitly and incontrovertibly worked into the game (this would be less-true in a traditional rpg), I'd think it would be very important to have an explicit and conscious understanding of what those beliefs and agendas are.

Or at least that's what I'd expect from someone who was interested in reflection to the point of maybe being overly reflective.

In my experience absence of clarity around motives -- especially for people who consider themselves reflective -- is an indicator that there's a problem.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.In my experience absence of clarity around motives -- especially for people who consider themselves reflective -- is an indicator that there's a problem.

I agree to a certain extent. I agree that for the end product, he should be able to provide these answers. As for a work-in-progress, I think he should be allowed leeway, and I also believe it reflects favorably on his efforts that he's able to say "I'm not really sure."

I'm also uncertain whether a total clarity around motives should, must, or even can, precede a creative endeavor.

I'll leave it to Matthijs to elaborate further. I think this discussion has been important to the process.

Quote from: olepeder1) I don't know that there have been so far. 2) I don't think he has yet, comprehensively. 3) Now, he has. I think that is one of the important outcomes of this discussion. (Yeah, sure, feel free to lunge at that one. To me it illustrates the value of communication, more than my friend being an asshole for not getting the written approval of Jewish organizations before starting to do research and play tests.) 4) So far, I think it has. As previously stated, here, elsewhere and face-to-face with my friend, I hope that will change. It might've been important for him to do thorough research and real play tests before presenting it to outsiders, I'm guessing.

(Bolding mine) Why would I attack you for this ? Like you, I think  feedback  is important but I also think who gives it is equally if not more important. I object to the design philosophy of the game not to the idea of the game itself. Some may find my views as repulsive as your game.

Regards,
David R

Quotethe players aren't going to "get an understanding" of the Holocaust

And that's really it, isn't it?  The very idea that the players will get any real "understanding" of what Holocaust victims went through, just because of some maudlin playacting they did around the dinner table, is insulting, and trivializing, and utterly offensive.  

It serves no purpose whatsoever, other than pandering to the pretensions of it's audience.

Hi. I participated in a playtest too. I suspect, as others have suggested, that many of the posters here assume a more traditional RPG form and base their comments on that. The first part/the first game in the series, which I played in, left me a very different impression than the one given by the critics on this thread. My impression was something more like a short scenario with customized rules and heavy scripting. I found it a very effective way of doing it, and I assume it will carry over into the finished product.

I'm writing a master's thesis in the history of ideology, a subject founded after the war specifically to study the destructive and creative power of ideas. Naturally, I brought some perspectives from my work to the table.

Other posters here says that the reality of the holocaust is unimaginable. We experience the evidence, but we aren't capable of imagining it. What I think they mean, or at least what I mean when I say something similar, is that we have difficulty finding meaning in it. When we see the absolutely horrific mess left behind by the things people are capable of doing to each other, it's hard, or maybe impossible, to imagine the steps, the sequence of thoughts that led there. We just can't empathise, and probably shouldn't. I've spoken to my grandfather about the war, and one of the many things I'm still processing from those conversations is this - He couldn't, or wouldn't accept that there was nothing technically, physically wrong with the people who perpetrated the atrocities of the war. He was a surgeon for all of his working life, and knows his medicine, and he is convinced that these people had to have "something wrong with their head".

The past couple of years, I've been working on material which present me with similar questions to the ones the facts of the holocaust forces on us. I have to read the stories of children locked up and whipped, mentally and physically tormented for years, and it tears me up inside. But what really stops me, the stuff I can't get my head around, are the texts written by the people who arranged for this to happen, who wrote the laws which alloved it to take place. I'm left trying to follow how you get from a charitable, genuinely good wish to help the poor and mistreated to founding institutions which became living nightmares for those who got caught in them.

Taking part in the first chapter of Matthijs' game helped me to some understanding of what enabled this and the many other truly vile examples of human behaviour you come across when reading history. Changing roles between scenes, I was placed in several kinds of positions. The challenge, the actual gameplay, consisted of playing out scenes between as little as two characters, both faced with some choices in what to do and say, but severely constricted by the circumstances given. This game showed me conversations which lead to being a small but willing, even enthusiastic part in something terrible, and ones which led to submission or desperate resistance. In those scenes which worked best from my point of view, the ways ahead become painfully clear without much need for couching or explanation. It turned out to be possible to mentally walk along a string of thoughts which, in one case, could lead a clerk at the german embassy in Paris to refuse a jewish-german citizen's plea for help. Same for the path which led that young man to bring a gun to the meeting, eventually drawing it and firing it at the clerk. It was a very disturbing experience, even more so in hindsight.

Science has been working on explaining the facts for sixty years, since the documentation of the holocaust sank in. History, psychology, philosophy, medicine, anthropology, everyone has grappled with it, or aspects of it. The consensus reached fits fairly well with what I went trough while testing this game. It happens in little baby steps. You swallow one lie, and then another one, and then another one, and in the end you find yourself agreeing on the absolute and obvious necessity of doing something so terrible, it defies the understanding of those who have not been pushed trough the same sick line of reasoning.

With some of the experiences of Matthijs' playtest, I could go back to the writings of my hard-working, compassionate doctors and lawyers, connecting some of the dots which led from their efforts to help the most exposed victims of the industrial revolution to salted whips, strap boards and isolate cells for children.

While I understand the argument that games should be fun and all that, I think it is posed on the assumption that this game would be using a style which has been developed for fun games. I'm pretty sure it won't; you can stop worrying about that at least. I don't limit my "leisure" activites to fun. The world is full of terrible things, and I can't bring myself to ignore them just because they can't be presented in a fun way. I think it's worth my tax money to find out if a game can bring something to the literature on the holocaust other media can't.

The rants against onanists and vicarious thrills seems to miss the point to me. Everyone brings something different to a game. I can easily imagine a bunch of nazi twats having heaps of "fun" playing SS troops in GURPS:WWII. Doesn't mean there's something wrong with the GURPS line, does it? RPGs can't recreate reality, or even create a very convincing simulation. The charge of "pseudointellectual wankery", "emotional masturbation" and all the rest, applies as much to any other material on the holocaust you can name.

As for the need to consult the opinions of the jewish organizations, I'm left uncomprehending. Does the fact that someone from your ethnic group suffered in the camps award you a historic event as a kind of communal intellectual property? It seems deeply disrespectful to the survivors, to reduce their suffering to a function of an ethnicity, religion, ideology, or whatever other silly label the nazis invented to mark them as candidates for extermination.

Communists died, gays, travelling people of all kinds, resistance fighters, anarchists, terrorists - the list goes on. Should their modern successors get to veto when, how and why something is said about the complete failure of humanity which led to all this suffering and death? Norwegians died in those camps too. They didn't die just for being norwegians, mind, because the nazis thought of Norwegians as blond aryan viking giants, prime breeding stock. So they died as "race traitors". I'm pretty sure I'd qualify as a norwegian "race traitor". Does that give me some special authority in this matter? I don't think so.

QuoteThe rants against onanists and vicarious thrills seems to miss the point to me. Everyone brings something different to a game. I can easily imagine a bunch of nazi twats having heaps of "fun" playing SS troops in GURPS:WWII. Doesn't mean there's something wrong with the GURPS line, does it? RPGs can't recreate reality, or even create a very convincing simulation. The charge of "pseudointellectual wankery", "emotional masturbation" and all the rest, applies as much to any other material on the holocaust you can name.

Bzzt.  Wrong answer.  You lose 200 points, for utterly missing the source of the criticism, as well as groundlessly slandering other games.

GURPS WWII doesn't pretend to anything higher than being a game.  It doesn't make any highminded claims that playing it will somehow elp you "understand" anything.  

That's where the pretension lies, that's where the offense lies.  

It's pretty pathetic when the author has to have all his pet shills leap to his defense like this really.  But really, with a defense like that post, I guess  it doesn't realy do him any good in the long run anyway.

I feel sick jsut reading that.  Congratulations, you've made the Holocaust apologist game.

At least when DitV revels in simulating Mormon lynch mobs, it has the decency to couch it in fiction.

Quote from: J ArcaneBzzt.  Wrong answer.  You lose 200 points, for utterly missing the source of the criticism, as well as groundlessly slandering other games.

Confused. How is what I wrote a slander on GURPS?

QuoteGURPS WWII doesn't pretend to anything higher than being a game.  It doesn't make any highminded claims that playing it will somehow elp you "understand" anything.

That's where the pretension lies, that's where the offense lies.

I don't think any game can pretend to create or even help understanding? Understanding a subject is something you do by yourself, *using* materials you *choose*. Why is it offensive to attempt to create such materials?

QuoteIt's pretty pathetic when the author has to have all his pet shills leap to his defense like this really.  But really, with a defense like that post, I guess  it doesn't realy do him any good in the long run anyway.

I wonder why you think I am his "pet shill"? If the game I played had been offensive to me, I would have said so, and explained why.

QuoteI feel sick jsut reading that.  Congratulations, you've made the Holocaust apologist game.

Still don't get it. What is apologist about what I described?

QuoteAt least when DitV revels in simulating Mormon lynch mobs, it has the decency to couch it in fiction.

I only know that game from a few descriptions and web discussions. I don't see the relevance or connection here at all. Could you explain?

Anders. I would like you to just tell us very concisely, in your own terms, what the "message" being taught here in this game is.

Quote from: Abyssal MawAnders. I would like you to just tell us very concisely, in your own terms, what the "message" being taught here in this game is.

Why on earth would I do that? It's not my game. I didn't write it. It's in playtest. I've tried to give an idea of the shape of it, and how one playtest of one part of it worked for me. I don't see the point of second-guessing the author and then cutting that up small to feed it to you piece by piece.

I'm not even sure you can pack much of a message in an RPG. Players will always screw with it to the point where your "message" wouldn't be recognized by its own mother. Matthijs is welcome to try to preach, but I predict that if nazis play it, they won't get the same message as if, say, communists play it.

Or did you see some particular message here which you wanted to point out to me?

Monsieur Arcane beat me to the point...

Quote from: Anders NygaardThe rants against onanists and vicarious thrills seems to miss the point to me. Everyone brings something different to a game. I can easily imagine a bunch of nazi twats having heaps of "fun" playing SS troops in GURPS:WWII. Doesn't mean there's something wrong with the GURPS line, does it?

WTF?

Let's assume that you can learn something about yourself through an RPG.
I've said it in previous posts; it's not a prevalent way to play, particulalry in the US, but I'll grant that some people feel they can use RPG's successfully in this way. OK? Clear?

To use this episode of history is not the proper tool for that exploration.  The fact that you can't understand why it's not is actually the exact reason for the dismay. You simply cannot, in any way, understand the way in which these people were treated.  That's what people mean when they say it's almost unimaginable.  It's because you simply can't understand it.  Surely not by trying to imagine yourself in that role - it's just not possible.

So get off the argument that this criticism is only about people who dont' think you can get any emotional reflection from an RPG; or that they can't be used to learn something about the player.  I'll grant that some people do and try.

I'm saying that even if you can do this, the Holocaust is beyond this capabililty.  That to do so will result, not matter how good the rules or system or how constricted the script, in a maudlin masturbatory pseduo intellectual wankery - it's inevitable; the moment you make this attempt to vicariously understand the victims of the Holocaust in a personal way, you've lost.

Oh, BTW.  Congratulations.  You've successfully compared yourself to Nazi twats having fun playing SS troops in GURPS WWII. If that's your standard/defense, good luck with that.

Quote from: Anders NygaardRPGs can't recreate reality, or even create a very convincing simulation. The charge of "pseudointellectual wankery", "emotional masturbation" and all the rest, applies as much to any other material on the holocaust you can name.

Can you read your own statement here?  RPG's can't recreate reality.  In this case, the gap is so large as to result in pseudo-intellectual wankery/emotional masturbation. Are you saying that this applies to any other Non-RPG material about the holocaust, or just RPG material? The former is a joke of an argument, that latter is most likely true, if there's any other material out there that attempts to teach the pariticipant something about themselves by prostituting the deaths of 6 million people.

Wonderfully put James, and your last paragraph segues nicely into another point:  this is exactly the kind of shit all those MADD housewives were freaking out about in the 80s.

People who have so thoroughly lost the ability to seperate reality from the game, that they actually treat an RPG experience as if it were somehow analogous to a real life one.  

The motivations are different.  The root causes are different.  But the result is pretty fucked up regardless.

Quote from: olepederI read a commentary article in Newsweek or thereabouts, maybe it was The Economist, on how anger has become a fashionable form of rhetoric in the US. Everyone should be very upset all the time whilst communicating, because it signals some form of gravitas. I think this discussion has suffered due to this phenomenon.

I know the most common response it to say that not everyone here is American. While others here may be (unintentionally) willing to throw the American posters under the bus by not addressing the root of your argument, I'm not one to let that stand - mostly because I am American.

You're mistaking disgust for anger.

I'm not angry you want to make this game, or have this game made, or help it by playtesting - I'm disgusted.

To be disgusted requires judging.  I know it's not common in Europe where everything is supposed to be a big multicultural melting pot where everyone's point of view is valid, but there are a few of us left here in the US that think it's OK to judge - even condemn.

See how I did that?  See how I generalized a bunch of biases to dismiss the criticisms?  It's a bogus argument.  It's not bogus because people other than Americans post here, its' simply a bogus argument on it's face.

Now you've apologized (kind of) for making generalizations - I just want to know if those generalizations for which you were apologizing were simply that people not of America also responded, or just that you recognized that your general bias against Americans had reared its ugly head before you could leash it?

Quote from: James J SkachI know the most common response it to say that not everyone here is American. While others here may be (unintentionally) willing to throw the American posters under the bus by not addressing the root of your argument, I'm not one to let that stand - mostly because I am American.

You're mistaking disgust for anger.

I'm not angry you want to make this game, or have this game made, or help it by playtesting - I'm disgusted.

To be disgusted requires judging.  I know it's not common in Europe where everything is supposed to be a big multicultural melting pot where everyone's point of view is valid, but there are a few of us left here in the US that think it's OK to judge - even condemn.

See how I did that?  See how I generalized a bunch of biases to dismiss the criticisms?  It's a bogus argument.  It's not bogus because people other than Americans post here, its' simply a bogus argument on it's face.

Now you've apologized (kind of) for making generalizations - I just want to know if those generalizations for which you were apologizing were simply that people not of America also responded, or just that you recognized that your general bias against Americans had reared its ugly head before you could leash it?

I'm angry that I'm being dismissed so readily. Perhaps it's my "tribalist mindset". But disgust is what I'm really kinda feeling.

But yeah, I think you nailed it, James.

Also, did anyone else notice how my direct query got deflected so quickly?

Quote from: Anders NygaardWhy on earth would I do that? It's not my game. I didn't write it. It's in playtest. I've tried to give an idea of the shape of it, and how one playtest of one part of it worked for me. I don't see the point of second-guessing the author and then cutting that up small to feed it to you piece by piece.

I'm not even sure you can pack much of a message in an RPG. Players will always screw with it to the point where your "message" wouldn't be recognized by its own mother. Matthijs is welcome to try to preach, but I predict that if nazis play it, they won't get the same message as if, say, communists play it.

Or did you see some particular message here which you wanted to point out to me?

I bolded the money quote.

And no, I wanted you to tell me what the message was in your terms.

Quote from: Anders Nygaard.......

..........
Science has been working on explaining the facts for sixty years, since the documentation of the holocaust sank in. History, psychology, philosophy, medicine, anthropology, everyone has grappled with it, or aspects of it. The consensus reached fits fairly well with what I went trough while testing this game. It happens in little baby steps. You swallow one lie, and then another one, and then another one, and in the end you find yourself agreeing on the absolute and obvious necessity of doing something so terrible, it defies the understanding of those who have not been pushed trough the same sick line of reasoning.

................

...... "race traitors". I'm pretty sure I'd qualify as a norwegian "race traitor". Does that give me some special authority in this matter? I don't think so.

 First off WTF???   No I'll write it out WHAT THE Fuck!!???

 Science has been working on explaining the facts for sixty years??

 I'll help you with that one : Some people chose to do evil things in the early 1930s. Nobody stopped them. People who chose to do GOOD things weren't able to get organized and have their act  tgether till the early 1940s.

 Its just that simple.

 Its all about humans choosing to do inhumane things...and no one stopping them in time.  Then honorable humans discover the true scope of things...are a bit shocked and the phrase "Never again" gets a whole new meaning.

It doesn't take a damn consensus to match up with you play-acted iun a game !!! There are still Holocaust survivors around. Many also were videotaped or recorded sharing their eyewitness testimony before they died in recent years.  Oh....another thing - a friend of mine never got to meet a chunk of her family because they were killed by the Nazis.  I don't need scientific paper or studies - I'm less than three steps from people who died in that ...that..years-long atrocity.

 Oh and Norwegian is NOT a "race" its just a nationality. Ony race on this planet is called human, which sometimes does some pretty SHITTY things to itself.  Now I'm really pissed ..cuz this whole game crap is making me feel ashamed that I'm supposedly 50% Norwegian.

- Ed C.

 (Don't even get me started on the crap GURPS reference . Jerk should look over on those forums and see the arguments against playing Nazis....)

I want to thank everyone again for their comments.

Here's what's currently happening.

- I'm rethinking the concept. Labeling it a "game", with the connotations people have to that word, is misleading. I believe the focus must be on education, and that it's probably best suited for use in a classroom situation. I realize that such a concept isn't what this forum is about, and I will take the debate elsewhere, as has been strongly suggested by others on this thread.

- I'm getting in touch with various Jewish groups and institutions focusing on Holocaust education - in Norway, the U. S. and the U. K., for starters. I will be asking for their opinions and guidance on the project, and will attempt to meet and speak to survivors or their relatives.

- I'm thinking long and hard about my personal motivations for the project, and will be prepared to discuss those with the groups, institutions and individuals mentioned.

I applaud your decisions and you ability to really listen to the crticisms presented here.

You've changed my opinion of you with this post. Not that my opinion matters to you.

Good luck finding a respectful way to teach future generations about the horrors of our past.

Quote from: Matthijs Holter- I'm getting in touch with various Jewish groups and institutions focusing on Holocaust education - in Norway, the U. S. and the U. K., for starters. I will be asking for their opinions and guidance on the project, and will attempt to meet and speak to survivors or their relatives.

- I'm thinking long and hard about my personal motivations for the project, and will be prepared to discuss those with the groups, institutions and individuals mentioned.

I want to suggest you talking to Yad Vashem and the Wiesenthal Center again. Those are the only two that matter. If theyre ok with whatever you are doing, I don't think anyone in the world (certainly not me) would complain. If they are specifically not included (perhaps because of the pervasive anti-Israel bias that seems to be popular with Norwegian leftists), then we'll all know whats up with this.

Yad Vashem: http://www.yadvashem.org/
Wiesenthal Center: http://www.wiesenthal.com/

Quote from: James J SkachLet's assume that you can learn something about yourself through an RPG.
I've said it in previous posts; it's not a prevalent way to play, particulalry in the US, but I'll grant that some people feel they can use RPG's successfully in this way. OK? Clear?

Fair enough. "Learning about myself" is not exactly my concern either. I try to understand the subjects I explore for that understanding's own sake. I guess, in the widest possible sense, this might lead to some sort of self-insight, but that's incidental.

QuoteTo use this episode of history is not the proper tool for that exploration.  The fact that you can't understand why it's not is actually the exact reason for the dismay. You simply cannot, in any way, understand the way in which these people were treated.  That's what people mean when they say it's almost unimaginable.  It's because you simply can't understand it.  Surely not by trying to imagine yourself in that role - it's just not possible.

We're not in disagreement here, I think. Of course you can't relive this terrible suffering, or understand what that's like. I think I said as much. But my business is not some sort of learning by immersion. I try to understand *why* things happened. To do that, you have to try to follow the reasoning which enabled them to happen. For me personally, I hope to avoid falling into the same trap. Human beings did these things; I'm a human being. How do I avoid becoming part of something like it? How can I stop it happening again?

QuoteSo get off the argument that this criticism is only about people who dont' think you can get any emotional reflection from an RPG; or that they can't be used to learn something about the player.  I'll grant that some people do and try.

I'm saying that even if you can do this, the Holocaust is beyond this capabililty.  That to do so will result, not matter how good the rules or system or how constricted the script, in a maudlin masturbatory pseduo intellectual wankery - it's inevitable; the moment you make this attempt to vicariously understand the victims of the Holocaust in a personal way, you've lost.

Yeah. If you try to do this with evoking emotion as the main goal. Like you, I don't think that's a good idea at all.

QuoteOh, BTW.  Congratulations.  You've successfully compared yourself to Nazi twats having fun playing SS troops in GURPS WWII. If that's your standard/defense, good luck with that.

No, I most definitely have not. I am not a nazi. Quite the opposite.

Nazi twats would play as nazis no matter what game you fed them. Emo jerks who wanted to pretend to be suffering would try to do that with any damn game you could come up with.

QuoteCan you read your own statement here?  RPG's can't recreate reality.  In this case, the gap is so large as to result in pseudo-intellectual wankery/emotional masturbation. Are you saying that this applies to any other Non-RPG material about the holocaust, or just RPG material? The former is a joke of an argument, that latter is most likely true, if there's any other material out there that attempts to teach the pariticipant something about themselves by prostituting the deaths of 6 million people.

Why is the gap larger than in a hollywood movie? If you seriously believe that any medium is capable of accurately capturing what it was like to be present at and a part of the holocaust, we've got a whole different discussion going. All ways of representing are inaccurate in some way, leaves things out, and carries the fingerprints of the authors. What fills the gap is the people using the representation. The representation - a movie, a book, a game - doesn't become wankery until you fill the gap with wankers. (If the author is also a wanker, I assume like will attract like. But for the purposes of discussion and common civility, let's assume we're dealing with an author who can be trusted with the material).

I may have misunderstood the accusation; I thought we were discussing reproductions - material which we can use as tools for understanding, transform our perspective on the actual event. We pretend that representations are "real" and accurate to be able to interpret them. But an author who honestly thinks he can recreate an event so well that his readers understand it as if they were really there is clearly not to be trusted. If a movie patron can't understand the distinction between what's on the cinema screen and what he himself experiences on his own body, things are probably not well with his mind.

I think prostitution of the holocaust is a legitimate and extremly important concern with any treatment of the matter. A legitimate treatment of the holocaust must hold the potential to deepen our understanding of what took place. You don't stir this stuff just for shits and giggles. Just "learning about yourself" is definitely not good enough. Studying atrocities leaves you with a a dose of cynisism about "human nature" and similar fine and noble sentiments. You might call that cynisism "learning about ourselves" - I certainly think that knowing what perfectly ordinary people are capable of coming up with, and how we do it, counts as an important self-insight. Playtesting this game reminded me of it and got me with my guard down. I'm pretty sure that effect is not predictable or completely reproducible.

Quote from: KoltarIts all about humans choosing to do inhumane things...and no one stopping them in time.  Then honorable humans discover the true scope of things...are a bit shocked and the phrase "Never again" gets a whole new meaning.

I really don't think it's that simple. Nor did all the people who have been researching and studying the evidence over the years. You're leaving a lot of questions unanswered here. Where did they come up with the idea in the first place? How did they convince themselves that these horrific acts were right, just and good? You've got two sides fighting for what they believe is the ultimate good - and one side is fucked up beyond belief, apparently beyond comprehension. In the end, they had a choice, and made the wrong ones. But how did they create their options?

QuoteIt doesn't take a damn consensus to match up with you play-acted iun a game !!! There are still Holocaust survivors around. Many also were videotaped or recorded sharing their eyewitness testimony before they died in recent years.  Oh....another thing - a friend of mine never got to meet a chunk of her family because they were killed by the Nazis.  I don't need scientific paper or studies - I'm less than three steps from people who died in that ...that..years-long atrocity.

It takes lots of people remembering, seeing all that evidence, and thinking about it. Let's not play the "less steps removed from the holocaust than you"-game. It's frankly disgusting, and no one wins.

QuoteOh and Norwegian is NOT a "race" its just a nationality. Ony race on this planet is called human, which sometimes does some pretty SHITTY things to itself. Now I'm really pissed ..cuz this whole game crap is making me feel ashamed that I'm supposedly 50% Norwegian.

Exactly. "Jewish" is not a race either. Humans died in the camps. So humans have a right to understand what the hell happened. It was a rhetorical question, intended to point out that there's no one "race" or other imaginary category which gets to veto what is said about this subject. Sorry for the confusion.

Quote(Don't even get me started on the crap GURPS reference . Jerk should look over on those forums and see the arguments against playing Nazis....)

You and others seem to have gotten that one backwards. These hypothetical players are not nazis for playing that excellent line of sourcebooks. I meant to convey the idea that nazis who chose to play GURPS:WWII would probably play a pretty sick game, regardless of what the authors' intentions were.)
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Quote from: Matthijs HolterI want to thank everyone again for their comments.

Here's what's currently happening.

- I'm rethinking the concept. Labeling it a "game", with the connotations people have to that word, is misleading. I believe the focus must be on education, and that it's probably best suited for use in a classroom situation. I realize that such a concept isn't what this forum is about, and I will take the debate elsewhere, as has been strongly suggested by others on this thread.

- I'm getting in touch with various Jewish groups and institutions focusing on Holocaust education - in Norway, the U. S. and the U. K., for starters. I will be asking for their opinions and guidance on the project, and will attempt to meet and speak to survivors or their relatives.

- I'm thinking long and hard about my personal motivations for the project, and will be prepared to discuss those with the groups, institutions and individuals mentioned.

Hope this discussion has been of useful to you. I'd like a follow up to your "project" if you ever finish it and perhaps some examples of how it's used.

Regard,
David R

I would argue with some of the things that have been written since I posted but Matthijs's last post renders those issues somewhat moot.

IMO relabelling and (re)purposing the project as an educational tool, rather than a private activity of "playing Holocaust", goes a long way.

Matthijs, I want to commend you for seeking commentary here, especially because you probably knew this would be a highly critical, even hostile forum.

Of course I personally reserve final opinion on the project while it develops, but at this point I think additional criticism and counter-criticism (etc.) is likely to be redundant. So having said my piece I'm going to try to avoid posting further in this thread.

I do want to say, though, that while Jewishness isn't a prerequisite for having a legitimate opinion on this subject (or being Cambodian isn't a prereq for talking about the Khmer Rouge), hearing the voices of the victimized group is almost essential to forming a legitimate opinion. Otherwise it's far too easy to assume you "know it all", which is arrogance.

By "getting in touch" you're taking an important step in the right direction.

Quote from: The Good AssyrianI had intended to stay way the fuck out of this clusterfuck.  In fact, JB, I largely have agreed with your points, but you are *really* being an amazing asshole here.  How Jewish does Tony have to be to have an opinion?  

There are no degrees of Judaism. You either are or you aren't.

I was expressing surprise that he's Jewish, because I've heard nothing of this before. Certainly many people keep all sorts of aspects of their lives private online, and in even more cases, it just doesn't come up.

Nor did I say that anyone had to be Jewish to have an opinion of it. What I did say was that no Jew would write this thing.

His Jewishness or not came up when I said, "No Jew would write this thing." He took that to mean, "no Jew would like it", which is a different thing. He missed the point - Jewish or not, Tony hasn't written this thing. Nor has he expressed plans to play it. So my point stands. No Jew would write this thing, or play it. If Tony wants to prove me wrong by writing the Zyklon B supplement for it, or by toodling off to his group and playing it, and writing about the experience afterwards, I'll be interested to see that and publicly say, "I was wrong, yids will write and play this."  

Pseudoephedrine also claimed that he knew heaps of Jews who'd write it or play it. We haven't heard from them, either. Perhaps we will?

Until then, I can continue to say, "No Jew would write this thing, or want to play it. That tells you something."

Quote from: olepederI think a lot of the problem boils down to a very limited conception of what roleplaying games can/should be.

It's the Cheetoist philosophy. Roleplaying games are a social creative hobby. being miserable together I suppose could be said to be "social", but only by such a stretching of the word that it's in danger of tearing into little pieces to be consumed by Forger babies. Exploring the depths of human misery and suffering could also be said to be "creative", but again it's a fucking stretch.

This thing is a roleplaying game in the same sense that going on Dr Phil is psychotherapy. It kind of resembles it in some ways, but in the most important ways is different. And most importantly, it's profoundly superficial.

The PCs are powerless. The essence of an rpg session is that you get to do stuff. Here, you don't get to do anything - you're suffering passively. You're taking away the most important part of an rpg. To say that this indicates a narrow conception of what an rpg is, is like saying that if we take away the ball from football players and tell them to play football anyway, and they complain, they have a narrow conception of what football is. The essence of football is that there's a ball which is passed around; the essence of roleplaying is that there's the power to do stuff which is passed around. Take it away and it's not a game anymore.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineAs I said upthread, either the Holocaust is a public event, in which case, one's Judaism is immaterial to one's right to engage with it, or else it's just something that happened to a bunch of Jews, and as a non-Jew, there's no particular reason I should care that it happened.

I offered you a choice then, and you didn't pick one, but it really is that stark a dichotomy.

I didn't pick one because like most dichotomies, it's a false dichotomy. I recognise them pretty quickly now after some time of reading RPGPundit's posts, he's fond of them.

It also is irrelevant to my point. My point is not that "you non-Jews couldn't possibly understand!" I have many times spoken against the absurdity of personal experience being the only qualification for intelligent comment on things.

What I am saying is that no Jew would write this thing, or want to play it, and that tells you something. The reason is that roleplaying is a medium which is inherently trivialising of things, like comic books or cartoons are. I know a thousand anime geeks will now leap up to tell me I'm wrong, but I'm right. I'll give the same example again: on South Park, they kick a baby out the window, and it's funny. It would never be funny on film. The cartoon medium trivialises the scene, makes the abhorrent acceptable, even funny. Likewise, the roleplaying medium.

No Jew would want to trivialise the Holocaust. A Jew would understand that the roleplaying medium will in fact trivialise it. That is, a person with even a touch of real understanding and real experience will know that this is not a way to share it. If they didn't understand its trivialising nature, a quick chat with their old grandmother would help them. Now, these guys say it's some kind of art project to help them understand the Holocaust, and understand themselves. I say that trivialising things is not a way of understanding them or yourself. It's like saying that watching Grey's Anatomy will give me insights into my love life.

The Holocaust, as I said, was not a unique event. That's why I suggested the Quisling government and Nazi collaboration as a topic closer to home for them - it's also a horrific event involving human suffering and collaboration with evil, and one which they can write more intelligently about. Or they could write about Rwandan and Burundi genocides, or Kurds under the Ba'athists, or Manideans under Iran, or women in rural Pakistan, or Amerindians locked up in reservations dying of smallpox, or Easter Islanders deported from home for slavery in Peruvian mines, and so on and so forth.

Or they could even trouble themselves to remember that while 6 million Jews died, 6 million Romani, Soviets, homosexuals, Quakers and so on also perished.

Or they could remember the Germans in the Great War, that on the third day of their invasion of Belgium they massacred a village of hundreds of people. Or their deportations and massacres in the Ukraine. Or perhaps Stalin's deportations of millions of Chechens and Volga Germans, the collectivisation leading to the famine of tens of millions. Or maybe Mao's Great Leap Forward (into mass death and famine) Or how about Pol Pot's Year Zero, a quarter of the country's population dead in four years. Or...

Why choose the Jewish Holocaust, particularly? That's what makes me uneasy. It's like these guys are choosing to educate themselves - but the topic they choose for their education just shows how ignorant they are, how little they know of the world and its history.

It's so middle-class comfortable kids wanting strong emotions... It's just embarassing.

Quote from: AndersCommunists died, gays, travelling people of all kinds, resistance fighters, anarchists, terrorists - the list goes on. Should their modern successors get to veto when, how and why something is said about the complete failure of humanity which led to all this suffering and death?

No. But if you're trying to get an insight into the experiences of group X, it's wise to consult group X about it.

"What's suffering child abuse like? Let's explore it!"
"I dunno. We could ask a victim of it."
"Why would we ask them?"

No-one's said that Jews should get to veto your thing. We've said that if you want insight into the experience of group X, the best thing to do is to talk to group X. Not to sit around with people from group Y.

I'm not sure why that's considered a revolutionary thought.

If you want to understand an experience someone had, ask them about it. Ask a variety of those people, since everyone has their own experience. Don't sit around with a bunch of people who never had that experience, and try to imagine it.

Quote from: Elliot WilenBy "getting in touch" you're taking an important step in the right direction.

Hm. Some of these posts came in a hurry. Parts of what I said might have appeared as if I objected to the opinions Elliot is expressing here and elsewhere in this post. Just to make it clear that I'm not...

I'm surprised no one has referenced this somewhat famous "experiment":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave

The book based on it, that fictionalized it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_%28book%29

Or the TV movie made out of the book :
http://imdb.com/title/tt0083316/

http://imdb.com/title/tt0083316/trivia

 It basically describes a High School teacher that starts a "mind Game" with his students where they wind up emulating Hitler Youth.

 
- Ed C.

QuoteIMO relabelling and (re)purposing the project as an educational tool, rather than a private activity of "playing Holocaust", goes a long way.

Bollocks.  To borrow JimBob's phrase, this game is as much educational as Dr. Phil is legitimate therapy.  

If anything, casting it as some kind of "educational tool" is even more poisonous, for the very reasons I've already stated.  

It's a playacting game.  Not real life.  Period.

Orson Welles in The Stranger comes to mind Koltar esp the "dinner table scene" with regards to the links you posted.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: JimBobOzNo. But if you're trying to get an insight into the experiences of group X, it's wise to consult group X about it.

You'll find no disagreement from me on this. I guess I got the wrong impression. Sorry.

Quote from: Anders NygaardIt takes lots of people remembering, seeing all that evidence, and thinking about it. Let's not play the "less steps removed from the holocaust than you"-game. It's frankly disgusting, and no one wins.


Exactly. "Jewish" is not a race either. Humans died in the camps. So humans have a right to understand what the hell happened. It was a rhetorical question, intended to point out that there's no one "race" or other imaginary category which gets to veto what is said about this subject. Sorry for the confusion.

No. This is where you are dead fucking wrong. You have no idea what the significance of this particular event means to us. Hopefully you can understand that whatever "general tragic statement about humanity" this means to you, it means something very intense and specific and personal to me. We have concerns about our collective safety and our right to exist that continue to this very day. The phrase "wiped off the map" isn't some dim historical thing for us. You don't get to absolve yourself from the legacy of this particular event by picking the approved political party either. I don't care if it's nazis, socialists, or Jostein Gaarder advocating hatred and discrimination by policy, it doesn't matter.

But this is not a general historical event where "humans" suffered. It was a lot more specific than that.

Quote from: J ArcaneBollocks.  To borrow JimBob's phrase, this game is as much educational as Dr. Phil is legitimate therapy.  

If anything, casting it as some kind of "educational tool" is even more poisonous, for the very reasons I've already stated.  

It's a playacting game.  Not real life.  Period.

I'm going to prematurely break my self-promised silence to suggest that you only read the first half of my sentence.

I'm basing my opinion of this project, to a large degree, on the quote that JimBob included in this post (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=114731&postcount=27) upthread. IMO if such a thing were sincerely presented as an activity for a group of friends to engage in, in private, it would be highly questionable with regard to taste and propriety. On the other hand if it were an activity as part of a class on the Holocaust, it could be much more acceptable, even valuable. I'd compare the material I linked to from the Holocaust museum: if they were framed as "roleplaying scripts" for groups of people to read to each other so they can help themselves "experience being a victim", it would be groteseque. But as part of a public museum exhibit, the approach is respectful and powerful.

I want to agree with Eliot- if this were a well developed thing as part of a museum exhibit, and it were done respectfully.. than it might be ok.

However, I'm seeing a lot of things revealed from this guys friends who popped up here-- And it's giving me some serious doubts as to their motivations and what they were trying to do. This has the stink of present-day politics to it. Considering that, and a few hinted statements by some of the "playtesters", and the current situation in Norway, I am especially worried that this will be used as an ideological bludgeon of some kind.

I think it is remarkable, that the author has encountered new arguments on theRPG site.

Makes you wonder.

Wonder about the people he talked to beforehand.
Wonder about his intellectual upbringing.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI want to agree with Eliot- if this were a well developed thing as part of a museum exhibit, and it were done respectfully.. than it might be ok.

However, I'm seeing a lot of things revealed from this guys friends who popped up here-- And it's giving me some serious doubts as to their motivations and what they were trying to do. This has the stink of present-day politics to it. Considering that, and a few hinted statements by some of the "playtesters", and the current situation in Norway, I am especially worried that this will be used as an ideological bludgeon of some kind.

How can I put those worries to rest? Again, I don't think the game in itself can be used as an ideological bludgeon. No matter what they think over at the forge, games can't do that.

I think someone else mentioned this too, but I can't imagine what you mean by "the current situation in Norway". The current government coalition majority is the labour party, which were involved in the creation of the state of Israel trough the Secretary-General in 1947. They're hardly anti-semites. Why not bring the sources of your suspicions out in the open instead of meeting hints with hints, so we can be sure there are no misunderstandings?

That said, I'm not involved in writing this game; I took part in one playtest and keep up with the development blogs. I don't want to drown out Matthijs' talking about his own game. Apologies if I have.

Quote from: SettembriniI think it is remarkable, that the author has encountered new arguments on theRPG site.

Makes you wonder.

Wonder about the people he talked to beforehand.
Wonder about his intellectual upbringing.

Not really.

I do wonder about yours.

Regards,
David R

David, you keep making smug statements. He's referring to the fact that this kid has had this thing "in development" for a long time now, and talked it up in other places. Until now, I suspect that nobody expressed anything but enthusiasm about how "awesome" it would be, but maybe that's just talking about the government grant.

And all I can say to Anders is that my community is very concerned about Norway lately. Elsewhere there's the usual european hijinks with the spray-painted gravestones and the random violent attacks.. but in Norway it takes the form of Aftenposten articles that we all take very seriously.

Quote from: Abyssal MawDavid, you keep making smug statements. He's referring to the fact that this kid has had this thing "in development" for a long time now, and talked it up in other places. Until now, I suspect that nobody expressed anything but enthusiasm about how "awesome" it would be, but maybe that's just talking about the government grant.

Maybe. But Sett's smug comments adds nothing to this conversation except I suppose reinforcing whatever warped perception he has of certain gamers. This kid came here for a reason. I suspect because he wanted some harsh criticism about his project. He got it.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: JimBobOzOr they could even trouble themselves to remember that while 6 million Jews died, 6 million Romani, Soviets, homosexuals, Quakers and so on also perished.

You left out the Poles.

RPGPundit

Concerning the worries about the game being used as an "ideological bludgeon", I agree with Anders. I have played games that, unlike this one, were meant to be ideological bludgeons. It didn't work. The players came up with their own interpretations anyway. Games are a poor medium for conveying predetermined messages.

Besides, based on my knowledge of the author, I am confident that he would not try to make such a game.

(Or whatever he decides to call it. Based on the beta version I playtested, the main difference from traditional RPGs is that player choice, and GM choice, is very limited. The game is heavily scripted, the scenes are set in advance by the playtext, and the plot is pretty much decided in beforehand. While I have labelled it a game, I have learned from this discussion that such a label may be more misleading than clarifying. I agree with Ole Peder that the comparison with the cards at the Holocaust museum is probably a better one than the comparison with, say, D&D, Gurps or whatever.)

Quote from: James J SkachYou simply cannot, in any way, understand the way in which these people were treated. That's what people mean when they say it's almost unimaginable. It's because you simply can't understand it. Surely not by trying to imagine yourself in that role - it's just not possible.

I agree. Books, while being a good medium for learning historical facts, cannot give you such an understanding as you describe. Neither can games. Actually, I believe really understanding an event of this scale that you did not participate in yourself is impossible. But it is always possible to understand a bit more than what you did before.

That is the goal of all educative activity, I guess.

Quote from: Matthijs HolterI want to thank everyone again for their comments.

Here's what's currently happening.

- I'm rethinking the concept. Labeling it a "game", with the connotations people have to that word, is misleading. I believe the focus must be on education, and that it's probably best suited for use in a classroom situation. I realize that such a concept isn't what this forum is about, and I will take the debate elsewhere, as has been strongly suggested by others on this thread.

- I'm getting in touch with various Jewish groups and institutions focusing on Holocaust education - in Norway, the U. S. and the U. K., for starters. I will be asking for their opinions and guidance on the project, and will attempt to meet and speak to survivors or their relatives.

- I'm thinking long and hard about my personal motivations for the project, and will be prepared to discuss those with the groups, institutions and individuals mentioned.

Outstanding.

In this spirit let me try to frame something that's troubling me and that your subsequent investigation and discussion may illuminate:

My understanding of your game/whatever-it-is is that it follows the "choose your own adventure" format with multiple-choice options and pre-selected outcomes.

This kind of format tends to *heavily* reflect the biases of the author while at the same time implying that the chooser's choice in some way matters.

Playing "what if" with the Holocaust is a particularly repulsive pass-time; in many cases the kinds of choices people were forced to make were nearly unimaginable for us (now, generations removed and able to understand the whole picture).

I understand that you're trying to address this by presenting at least some kind of philosophical, theological, and cultural framework for the players to help influence their choices (Something along the lines of "Your character believes X, Y, and Z").

My point is that by

1) Giving them a set of finite choices that you, with decades of hindsight have created and
2) Asking them to make them with the knowledge that the game-author has already stacked the deck

may be selling out the whole concept of trying to understand or empathize with people in such a situation from the word go.

I don't think you can escape this, really... and if you were just writing a book at least there wouldn't be any pretense or implication that the choices and outcomes presented were anything but the author's ideas.

Trying to summarize succinctly: You've created a somewhat crude Holocaust simulation that invites people to imagine what it might be like to make unimaginable choices; I think the nature of your medium ("choose your own adventure") may compromise that vision by framing those choices as discreet, "imaginable" and in some way fatalistic.

People playing your game may *imagine* that they are -- in some small way -- able to empathize or understand what it must have been like... and my suspicion is that that won't be the case at all.

Anyway, good luck. I hope I'm wrong.
-E.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI want to suggest you talking to Yad Vashem and the Wiesenthal Center again.

Thanks for the suggestion and links. I have now mailed them both with the revised project description, asking them if they'd be so kind as to look through the different pieces and provide feedback and commentary.

(E. is making a very important point here; however, I will answer him on the blog, since I believe this debate has been judged off-topic for the forum).

Quote from: Matthijs Holter(E. is making a very important point here; however, I will answer him on the blog, since I believe this debate has been judged off-topic for the forum).

Huh? I didn't see anything E's post that would be off-topic for this forum.

RPGPundit

Perhaps the OP would be better off writing a novel. RPG's won't change the world m'fraid.

Having read the website, my impression of this project is that it is much more roleplaying in the sense of acting, rather than in the sense that people here usually mean the word.

If I understand correctly the game is a graph, like a choose-your-own-adventure, where you advance from scene to scene play-acting each one.

I see this as fundamentally different from our idea of an RPG.

First: My Jewish friends don't post on this website, and because they're my pals, I'm not going to wander up to them and ask to pop up and say "Hey, I'm Jewish and I approve". You got burnt on the "No Jews would write this game" thing with TonyLB, JimBob, and your answers to it so far are the most mealy-mouthed bullshit I've ever seen from you. "Well, TonyLB didn't actually write this thing so even though he approves of it in concept, it doesn't count."

Second: The dichotomy _is_ there. You're talking about Jews (without qualifications) automatically adhering to certain positions and viewpoints. You use the term "a person with real understanding and experience" as if it were identical to the word "Jew" in your last post, and you've managed at points to turn the discussion about the merits and demerits of the game into a debate about whether people are Jewish "enough".

Everything you've said so far seems to come from the idea that Jews "own" the Holocaust as a historical event in a way that no one else does. For example, there are plenty of "middle class comfortable kids" who also happen to be Jews. If they were to play this game, would they be "misery tourists" like the non-Jews are accused of being?

Once again, either we evaluate people on the merits of their arguments and artifacts, or else we sink into parochial gatekeeping. Matthias' RPG might be shit, but that has nothing to do with him being Jewish or not, Norwegian or not, or anything else.

Third: I think the whole "trivialisation" element is simply untrue. Games _can_ trivialise, but I don't see why they're _inherently_ trivialising. You bring up South Park, but SP is a comedy show, not a cartoon meant to be taken seriously. You're confusing a part - what a comedic cartoon does - with the whole - what cartoons do. As a counter-example, people take the death of Bambi's mother quite seriously, despite that it happens in a cartoon.

In regards to RPGs, I said earlier on in this very thread (and many times before) that we need a sufficiently robust understanding of "fun". I think that's what's going on here. If your paradigm of "fun" is South Park, then yes, anything fun is going to trivialise some other thing. But if your understanding is that "fun is satisfaction" (which is something I've argued for before in the past) then there's no reason that it automatically trivialises whatever it deals with. There are plenty of satisfying non-trivial experiences we have, and gaming can be one of them.

QuoteWhy choose the Jewish Holocaust, particularly? That's what makes me uneasy. It's like these guys are choosing to educate themselves - but the topic they choose for their education just shows how ignorant they are, how little they know of the world and its history.

That last sentence doesn't make sense. If they're ignorant, we should encourage them to learn about the things they're ignorant of. I still don't see how making a so-so RPG about the Holocaust means they don't know anything about it.

QuoteThird: I think the whole "trivialisation" element is simply untrue. Games _can_ trivialise, but I don't see why they're _inherently_ trivialising. You bring up South Park, but SP is a comedy show, not a cartoon meant to be taken seriously. You're confusing a part - what a comedic cartoon does - with the whole - what cartoons do. As a counter-example, people take the death of Bambi's mother quite seriously, despite that it happens in a cartoon.

In regards to RPGs, I said earlier on in this very thread (and many times before) that we need a sufficiently robust understanding of "fun". I think that's what's going on here. If your paradigm of "fun" is South Park, then yes, anything fun is going to trivialise some other thing. But if your understanding is that "fun is satisfaction" (which is something I've argued for before in the past) then there's no reason that it automatically trivialises whatever it deals with. There are plenty of satisfying non-trivial experiences we have, and gaming can be one of them.

It's not an issue of fun.  It's an issue of someone's made-up playacting being treated as a substitute for real life.

That's what makes it inherently trivializing.  The very idea that such a game would offer events that are in any way meaningful in comparison to actual experience is ridiculous.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineYou got burnt on the "No Jews would write this game" thing with TonyLB, JimBob, and your answers to it so far are the most mealy-mouthed bullshit I've ever seen from you. "Well, TonyLB didn't actually write this thing so even though he approves of it in concept, it doesn't count."

Bollocks. I said that no Jew would write or play this, and this remains true. If TonyLB or any other Jewish gamer wants to disprove me, and write even one paragraph for Mattijs, or post an actual play report, I'll be surprised, but will gladly say I was wrong.

Going, "oh, interesting" is really not the same thing as producing or participating.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineEverything you've said so far seems to come from the idea that Jews "own" the Holocaust as a historical event in a way that no one else does.

Each group or individual does "own" their experiences to a great degree, yes. That does not mean that other individuals or groups are incapable of understanding or empathy. We have our reason and our human fellow-feeling to help us do that.

What I mean is simply that if you want to know about the experience of Group X, it's best to simply talk to members of Group X, rather than sit around with some pieces of paper imagining it.

If all these guys were dealing with was "facts", then certainly they could learn all they wanted from books. But their aim is to get the same feeling that victims had. That's plain from the blog posts they've got. If you want to know about feelings, the best thing to do is to talk to people who've had them. I would not ask a Catholic priest what a loving marriage was like, nor would I ask a Sunni Moslem what taking communion was like, still less would I ask an American how it feels to live in a constitutional monarchy.

If they want to know how it felt for Jews in the Holocaust, they should ask some. I still wonder why they chose the Jewish Holocaust, specifically. I've listed several other genocides or instances of oppression they could have chosen. Was the choice arbitrary? I'd be asking the same whichever they'd chosen.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineFor example, there are plenty of "middle class comfortable kids" who also happen to be Jews. If they were to play this game, would they be "misery tourists" like the non-Jews are accused of being?

Again, I don't believe any Jew would play this thing. To me it's like saying, "if a Jew were to take a big shit on a Torah scroll, then...?" I simply can't imagine it happening, and don't believe it ever would happen. "if the moon were made of green cheese, then -" But it's not.

Show me a Jew playing this thing, and let that Jewish gamer describe their experiences with it. I can't.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineMatthias' RPG might be shit, but that has nothing to do with him being Jewish or not, Norwegian or not, or anything else.

It's very simple.

Mattijs' thing is about imagining the feeling of being a victim of the Jewish Holocaust. It's not about intellectual understanding, but about feeling. He proposes to do that on the basis of imagination only; but he needs imagination combined with the memories of those who actually had those experiences. He's only got half of what he needs.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThat last sentence doesn't make sense. If they're ignorant, we should encourage them to learn about the things they're ignorant of.

I've encouraged them to learn. I told them to talk to people who've actually had the experience they're trying to reproduce the feeling of in their onanistic misery tour.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI still don't see how making a so-so RPG about the Holocaust means they don't know anything about it.

Then you've not spoken to any Holocaust victims about their experiences, either.

When you look into the eyes of a victim of the Holocaust, or a victim of child sexual abuse, or a victim of a suicide bombing, or a victim of US Marines murdering an entire family, when you see the bleak pain in their eyes - you'll realise that the only thing which can be said is, "never again."

Yeah well. This was a trmendously painful topic for me. I'm glad that it's kinda over now.

Quote from: RPGPunditHuh? I didn't see anything E's post that would be off-topic for this forum.

RPGPundit

That's not exactly what I meant. As I understand it, this whole project would be off-topic here, now that I no longer wish to classify it as a "game".

Quote from: Matthijs HolterThat's not exactly what I meant. As I understand it, this whole project would be off-topic here, now that I no longer wish to classify it as a "game".

Ah, well, yes. That would probably be true.

RPGPundit

Quote from: JimBobOzor a victim of US Marines murdering an entire family, when you see the bleak pain in their eyes - you'll realise that the only thing which can be said is, "never again."

Or, perhaps, the eyes fo the victims of the holocaust who miraculously survived to be liberated by US armed forces.  Or maybe the eyes of the people as they jumped from the World Trade Center just before thy hit the ground?  Would that suffice you self-important blowhard piece of shit?

Give it rest JimBob.  It's about the Holocaust.  Can you leave your horribly prejudiced ignorant view of Americans aside for one thread?  Cause, ya know, it's not like the Australians are a bunch of saints, or the Jews don't live in glass houses, or..pick one, but make it your own instead of using an argument about 6 million people dying in a horrible human tragedy to display your ugly bias.

Unless you're trying to make a point by showing what this will inevitably devolve into when a fuckhead with a hard-on prejudice about something gets a hold of it. Like a denier showing how it was all just ahorrible accident due to string of really bad individual choices made all along the way.

Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry to everyone else; I just let one or two of these flow by in the interest of keeping this thing on track (IMHO there was actual progress made), but this was just one step too far for me. I'm tired and I let his flame bait get the best of me.

Quote from: James J SkachOr, perhaps, the eyes fo the victims of the holocaust who miraculously survived to be liberated by US armed forces.  Or maybe the eyes of the people as they jumped from the World Trade Center just before thy hit the ground?  Would that suffice you self-important blowhard piece of shit?

Give it rest JimBob.  It's about the Holocaust.  Can you leave your horribly prejudiced ignorant view of Americans aside for one thread?  Cause, ya know, it's not like the Australians are a bunch of saints, or the Jews don't live in glass houses, or..pick one, but make it your own instead of using an argument about 6 million people dying in a horrible human tragedy to display your ugly bias.

Unless you're trying to make a point by showing what this will inevitably devolve into when a fuckhead with a hard-on prejudice about something gets a hold of it. Like a denier showing how it was all just ahorrible accident due to string of really bad individual choices made all along the way.

Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry to everyone else; I just let one or two of these flow by in the interest of keeping this thing on track (IMHO there was actual progress made), but this was just one step too far for me. I'm tired and I let his flame bait get the best of me.

FWIW, I found that offensive too, but I'm kind of exhausted.

Quote from: James J SkachOr, perhaps, the eyes fo the victims of the holocaust who miraculously survived to be liberated by US armed forces.  Or maybe the eyes of the people as they jumped from the World Trade Center just before thy hit the ground?  Would that suffice you self-important blowhard piece of shit?

Mattijs' thing isn't about the liberation of the camps, it's about people forced to live in ghettos and help the Nazis kill each-other, or die in the camps. His thing is about despair, not hope.

But that's an excellent question. If Mattijs wants to write about the Holocaust, then he should mention hope, too. But he wants to focus on misery.

I didn't mention the WTC victims because I'd already mentioned many others.

Quote from: James J SkachCan you leave your horribly prejudiced ignorant view of Americans aside for one thread?  

You're picking out one example I gave. I mentioned Marines at Haditha, but I also mentioned suicide bombers, Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi, Arab victims in Zanzibar, women in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Romani, homosexuals, Soviets and so on in Nazi Europe, Bosniaks in Srebenica as victims of Serbs and the UN, Chechens and Volga Germans in the USSR, Khmer under Pol Pot, Chinese under Mao, and so on and so forth. In this thread I've been pretty consistent in listing atrocities carried out by quite a wide variety of groups.

Here, I can add some Australian ones, too. In Australia our native population is impoverished and miserable. Our government has cut funding and failed to act because Australians are racist and don't care about brown people. People will not employ Aboriginals, and then complain that Aboriginals are lazy and living on the dole. They then express surprise that the blackfellahs are impoverished and miserable. A widespread disease is trachoma, a disease of the eyes which can be prevented by dailing washing - but that's right, citizens of a First World nation, not all of them have access to clean drinking water. Even pissy little Sri Lanka got rid of this disease, but we can't - because Aussies don't care.

As late as the 1930s massacres were carried out against the natives, and no-one was prosecuted. As late as the 1970s children were taken off Aboriginal women to be put in white homes and get a token level of education and become servants. And now it looks like the government's planning to do the same child-stealing shit again, as you can see here in the ABC news (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/25/1961711.htm). It's fucking barbaric.

The Australian government detained refugees on an offshore island in a legal limbo so that they couldn't appeal the dodgy and inhumane government decisions made against them - they created an offshore legal limbo to avoid the oversight of the court system. I'm sure the USA got the idea for Guatanamo's prison from Australia, we had it first.

It's one Ministry, by the way - the Ministry of Immigration and Aboriginal Affairs. Imagine in the USA having the Immigration and Naturalisation Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (or whatever it's called these days) as one agency. We're treating our own citizens as foreigners. They're all darkies, after all, yeah? :rolleyes:

This, I think, does not really compare with the Holocaust. As horrendously as we're treating these people, we're not raping or murdering them. If we start stealing the blackfellahs' children again, then we can start calling it genocide - the UN calls it genocide when you steal children and destroy a culture, since you're destroying them as a race, as a people. That kind of genocide I would say is to Nazi-style genocide what manslaughter is to murder - it's a lesser form of the same thing. But still, that's what it is.

We're not there yet, but you never know. But there you are, it's a criticism of my own country for its human rights violations. So I'm not picking on your USA. I pretty consistently say things against any country which has commited atrocities or violated human rights. It's just that you pay no attention unless the phrase "USA" appears in the text. So take your wounded national pride and nurse it back to health. I criticise all peoples and governments doing nasty shit, and most of all my own.  

Why did I focus on the Holocaust? Well, because that's what this thread's about... Sorry to be on-topic. But I did suggest Mattijs consider some other atrocities around the world, too.

Get over yourself. It's not all about you. Read the fucking thread, and you'll see I've mentioned many different countries' atrocities, any which seemed comparable in scale or nature to the Holocaust.

It's a nice try Kyle, but it's bullshit.

I didn't say anything the first time, cause you mentioned a bunch of others.  But in all of thsoe cases, you're comparing apples and oranges.  I know I know, it's hard to say that if you're the people to whom it happens.  But the matters are so different, they don't belong in the same sentence.

Quote from: Kyle AaronWhen you look into the eyes of a victim of the Holocaust, or a victim of child sexual abuse, or a victim of a suicide bombing, or a victim of US Marines murdering an entire family, when you see the bleak pain in their eyes

Hmmm..Nazi's? Check.  US Marines? Check.  You mention the generic Child Abuse and Suicide Bombings, but without attribution to the offenders.  No UN peacekeepers for the former, or Al Qaeda for the latter - why is that, Kyle So we're only left with Nazi's and US Marines being shown as similar. Yeah...right...no bias there.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI expect to see them about the same time we see that Belgian girl write an rpg about being shut in a paedophile's dungeon for six months, or someone from Srebenica in Bosnia write about that, or someone from Haditha in Iraq write an rpg about US Marines coming and raping a 14 year old girl, then murdering her and 23 members of her family and neighbours to cover it up.

If I'm not mistaken, and I could be given the amount you write in posts and having only so much patience, that makes two references to the US in Iraq.  Other than the specific subject at hand, the Nazis and the Holocaust, that's the most mentions – certainly of the scale of the Haditha incident versus the level of the discussion of genocide (and I'm not counting what I could be taking too personally the mention of the illegal immigrants).

So why is that, Kyle? Wouldn't be your America-hating bias, would it? Don't answer – it's a rhetorical question - and I couldn't stand the holier-than-thou lecture that's just another smoke screen.

Quote from: Kyle AaronEven pissy little Sri Lanka got rid of this disease, but we can't - because Aussies don't care.

We're not pissy...just got ourselves into a shithole, of our own making :grumpy:

Regards,
David R

I have just finished reading this entire thread and created an account specifically because of this topic.  After all of the reading, I would like to make a few comments, if I may.

I believe the reason that Jews and Jewish organizations are brought up in this thread for reference and design is not because we have a "monopoly" on the Shoah.  However, as has been pointed out, 6 million of our people (which was the vast majority were wiped out.  As has been stated, that is equivalent to the sum total of all other nationalities, religious groups and ethnicities combined.  Therefore, we tend to pay particularly close attention, as a group, to anything involving this atrocity.

The comment that Jewish is not an ethnicity is false.  Judaism is a religion, certainly, but it is also very much an ethnicity because most of us are descended from the 6 million people who stood at Mount Sinai and accepted the Torah.  There have been conversions and (more recently) intermarriages, but most of the stock still comes from that group.  More specifically, almost all of us (from a percentage standpoint) come from the tribe of Judah.  There are even genes specifically found only in our Kohanim (descended from Aaron, Moses' brother) or, more broadly, in Ashkenaz or Sephardic Jews.

To bring both of those points to a head, one cannot imagine this horrible time and life if one has not lived it.  One is less likely to be able to imagine it if one did not personally lose family to it, as I and many others did.  One is even further removed if one did not lose a majority of one's racial, ethnic or religious group to it.  These are all great reasons for trying to spread a modicum of understanding.  Here is the catch: if you are not exceedingly familiar with the history of Jews starting with... let's say Abraham, then you are missing most of the significance of this event for that group of people.  Additionally, if you are not familiar with the 613 mitzvos (commandments) given to Jews, you will miss much of the significance of the smaller, although equally painful, details of the Shoah.  This means, sadly, that many, many, many Jews would not be able to grasp this event's impact on a personal level to the extent that they might if they would increase their knowledge of Torah, Talmud and history.  How much less so those who are not of the group.  Certainly, this point goes for all groups affected, but I am focusing on the Jews for aforementioned reasons.

Now, I will make challah and ensure to say very special blessings for those of you who could not understand the objections earlier to understand them now.  On a personal note, for the Jews who have posted on the thread, if there is anything you desire (to marry, have a child, have more money to make ends meet, recover from an illness, etc.) please provide me with your Hebrew name (or that of the person for which you would like me to pray) and the reason.

Have a wonderful Shabbos.

P.S. It is quite true that if Yad Vashem is okay with it, then many others will be as well.

But GoodJewishGirl, are you a gamer?

If not, we don't care what you think.

Either way, shabbat shalom. Or as my woman always replies to me, "yay! it's the weekend."

It was the stuff I wrote. I always seem to draw out the female jewish demographic who post in purple. Always.

Regards,
David R

Closing thread due to the rather bizarre necromancy.