Quote from: Cranewings;427346I'm not sure that writing good rules for the game was anywhere on their agenda.

Wonder how many rpg companies actually make "writing good rules" a priority in the first place.

From all outward appearances, WotC, Paizo, White Wolf, Palladium, Mongoose, etc ... along with many 3PP companies, don't seem to really give a damn as long as there's enough "completionists" buying their books.  For all we know, the "completionists" may very well not even read most of the rpg books they buy.

As long as the gearheads (ie. who place a premium on "writing good rules") are a small enough minority in the overall sales of rpg books, most rpg companies will continue cranking out crappy rulesets and even implicitly giving the "middle finger" to the gearheads.  Basically all they're saying is:

"The customers can fuck off because they can't do anything about it.  Ha Ha Ha!"

I for one make a point of thoroughly checking the rules part of the books to make sure they're watertight.

On one occasion I made a classic conversion mistake of copy pasting the old system rules into the new. I'm very embaressed about that and have since corrected it on the blog.

Quote from: John Morrow;427253Yes, I think that was Deadlands does is implausible and silly, but I don't think the motivation was malicious or racism nor the result inherently racist.  That is, of course, unless you are willing to apologize the Bruce Baugh and help him finish his New Horizons supplement for Spirit of the Century so that pulp games like that don't get away with sweeping their racism under the carpet or can explain why sweeping racism and historically inconvenient or unpleasant facts under the carpet to make a setting fun to adventure in is wrong sometimes and right other times because, clearly, it's not a matter of absolute principle for you and others.

Your comparison isn't apt.

No one is demanding that Deadlands be all about the racism all the time.  Nor does worrying about accurate portrayal of history equal "Bruce Baugh is right".  The fact that you have juxtaposed two extremes of stupidity doesn't prove your point.

Now, had Deadlands simply IGNORED the issue, I might have been inclined to feel that you have something of a point (I'd still be arguing that you could get more gaming meat out of a setting that included those elements of history as roleplay fodder, but had they simply ignored it, that would then leave things up to the choices of the individual GMs running the setting). But that's explicitly not what they did; instead they addressed the issue in the most immature and asinine way possible, by essentially whitewashing it and superimposing 1990s society on the 1880s.

And that's the crux of my issue with it.

RPGPundit

What exactly is the standing of black people in Deadlands' confederacy?

My issue with it, and most of the stuff to come out of the 1990s is simply that "less is more" was an extremely unpopular concept at the time.  What is the opposite of "reducto ad absurdium" I wonder?  Everything was so over the top and absurd that it was hard to get into anything.

I don't think that putting modern values onto a historical or quasi-historical setting is inherently wrong.  Shakespeare gave Elizabethan values to ancient Romans and Greeks, and Tolkien gave nineteenth century English values to prehistoric hobbits.  There is great value in fiction that is based on research and historical imagination and tries to show the perspective of alien times and places, but that is very hard even for most novelists, and should not be the aim of every game system not set in the gamers' own time and place.

Deadlands does not try to be a game for examining history or speculating about alternate history.  It uses flimsy excuses to stack a half dozen fantasy ideas on top of each other, shake vigourously, and watch them fight.  I suspect that the only reason that real places and dates are used at all is because there is so much recognition from the fictional accounts of the Wild West.

Quote from: RPGPundit;427417Your comparison isn't apt.

It's not perfect, but I think it is an appropriate comparison.

Quote from: RPGPundit;427417No one is demanding that Deadlands be all about the racism all the time.  Nor does worrying about accurate portrayal of history equal "Bruce Baugh is right".  The fact that you have juxtaposed two extremes of stupidity doesn't prove your point.

I think the underlying problem is the same, which is that history contains a lot of nasty stuff (particularly racism and sexism) that's at odds with the rollicking good times tone of a lot of genres and historical periods if you look at them from a certain perspective.  There was a lot of racism in pulps that goes beyond what was even considered moderate in their day.  The same goes for the Victorian period, and so on.  Most games whitewash this or shuffle it away from the players in some way, whether it's acknowledging the good and the bad of the period like Space: 1889 does, by altering the game setting to be friendlier to 21st Century sensibilities, or by ignoring it entirely.

Perhaps both Bruce Baugh's reaction to Spirit of the Century and Deadlands are two extreme cases, but they are the opposite extremes, and that's what's relevant.  In other words, one the one hand, you complain about dwelling on the sins of the past while, on the other, you also complain about hand-waving those sins away.  So how exactly should a setting handle these issues?  What's "just right", Goldilocks?

Quote from: RPGPundit;427417Now, had Deadlands simply IGNORED the issue, I might have been inclined to feel that you have something of a point (I'd still be arguing that you could get more gaming meat out of a setting that included those elements of history as roleplay fodder, but had they simply ignored it, that would then leave things up to the choices of the individual GMs running the setting). But that's explicitly not what they did; instead they addressed the issue in the most immature and asinine way possible, by essentially whitewashing it and superimposing 1990s society on the 1880s.

As if most games don't superimpose modern American (or Western European) society on historical periods and fantasy settings that emulate historical periods?  And unless you are playing a game with real history buffs or a GM who tells the players how to play toward historical accuracy, how many groups do you think really react in period to things like race, sex, class, or even being called a "bastard" by an NPC?  The reality, for better or worse, is that most games (and fiction and movies) set in historical periods depict modern people in period costumes with perhaps a few historically accurate quirks.  If that's an unforgivable sin, then we should be insulted by just about any game that tries to deal with a historical period.  And I think it's entirely understandable why they didn't want to get "gaming meat" out of slavery and racism in a horror western game with undead card sharks.  

Maybe it's both immature and asinine but so are a lot of things in role-playing, and that doesn't make it automatically offensive or insulting.  What makes it insulting to you is that they echoed a political stance that you found offensive (and that I agree is pretty absurd), which, whether you like it or not, is really not that different than Bruce Baugh being troubled that pulp games like Spirit of the Century sweep the racism that many pulps oozed under the carpet to sanitize the setting for modern players.  The problem is that there is no one right way to handle those issues that isn't going to offend or insult someone, either because it spends too much time on it or too little time on it.  Every Goldilocks has their own "just right" for these things.

Quote from: RPGPundit;427417And that's the crux of my issue with it.

Don't gloss over how you go from your problem being addressing "the issue in the most immature and asinine way possible" to "Is there any group that shouldn't feel insulted by the Deadlands setting?"  You just want to downplay that you, like Mr. Baugh, are offended at and insulted by the cheap and easy way a serious historical racial problem is being downplayed in a role-playing product.

Quote from: John Morrow;426222And don't think that there aren't people with political agendas for pushing science education that's explicitly hostile to religion, making civil rights issues a primary focus of US history, and so on.

...and?  Religion has no place in schools.  That fact that it stands in opposition ideologically to science doesn't make it 'explicitly hostile'.  That is a ridiculous claim; science classes are, if anything, simply indifferent.  I think that is what infuriates the various religious factions more than anything.  As to the other matter, civil rights simply are a large part of American history.

QuoteThe question is, who gets to decide what your children are taught?  You?  Someone in Washington, DC?  Someone in the UN?  And what can you do about it if their agenda doesn't match yours?

No, not some ideological boogey-man.  The actual answer is 'educators' decide what is taught.  And you can do the same thing about it that people have always done: home-schooling.  If someone wants to fill the heads of their children with ideology instead of education, it's hard work and in as much as you clearly don't feel children's education should be filled with mush-headed leftist ideas, I don't think it should be filled with proto-fascist rightist ideas.

QuoteDo you have a problem with older white people being comfortable or maybe you think they all need to be punished for the sins of their race?  And, of course, you expect them all to allow others to punish them and ruin their lifestyle without complaint, right?

Or, just maybe, there is some kind of middle ground that is being excluded?  Weren't you complaining about logical fallacies in another thread?

Maybe 'older white people being comfortable' shouldn't include casual racism and sexism as an inherent need.  Just maybe they aren't guaranteed the right to a 'lifestyle' that is absolutely prevented from disruption as society progresses.

Or maybe we can just elect them back to the aristocracy and have done with the Great American Experiment.  Because your argument sounds a good deal like someone who wants a return to an elite ruling class.

As for the history tangent a few important points:

1. If slavery really was just a tangential issue for the South, why didn't they outlaw slavery in an attempt to curry favor with the UK and France. Getting rid of slavery would've got them an intervention that would've won them the war. Why didn't they?

2. For a group that cared so much about "state's rights" they sure loved shoving their pro-slavery line down the north's throat at every opportunity (Dredd Scott decision, Fugitive Slave Act, etc. etc.) the South was trying a lot harder to export slavery beyond the bounds of the south (in ways that often trampled all over states rights) while the main Northern attempt to limit slavery (the Free Soil/no slavery in the territories line the Lincoln etc. were espousing) had nothing at all to do with state's rights since it was all about non-state territories. If anything the South didn't secede to keep the Federal government from restricting states rights so much as secede to ensure that they'd be part of a national government that would go again states rights in a pro-slavery direction (see the Confederate Constitution in which states weren't allowed to restrict slavery on their own).

3. What specifically was Lincoln proposing prior to secession that limited state's rights aside from the not recognizing the right to secede?

There's nothing wrong with wanting a less centralized government, but that is a very very very different thing from some of the Confederate apologism we've seen on this thread.

If Slavery was such a minor issue for the South, how come their declaration of secession is 100% about Slavery?

Quote from: South Carolina's Declaration of SecessionThe General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

Their complaint isn't that the states don't have enough rights, it's that the states are exercising their rights in non-slaveholding states in ways that the slave holding states don't like. That's what the complaint always was - that the federal government wasn't cracking down on the states enough, and that fugitive slaves weren't being sent back to the slaveholding states to be returned to their owners or killed.

The whole idea of "states rights" as a rallying cry for Confederacy is historical revisionism developed much later. After "We want our slaves back!" stopped being a socially acceptable thing to say.

-Frank

Exactly, for the most part the North was pretty willing to compromise about the slavery issue along states rights lines, what blew up the pre-Civil War compromise was the south being unwilling to compromise and demanding pro-slavery policy be extended north over the protests of the local state governments. Saying that states rights was a higher priority than slavery for the south is deeply ignorant at best.

Quote from: StormBringer;427477...and?  Religion has no place in schools.

Nonsense.  Not only was it an integral part of schools for much of the existence of the United States but if you look outside of the United States at various countries around the world that are often held up as more progressive and advanced nations than the United States by those on the left, their governments often fund religious schools.  For example, the Australian government funds Catholic schools because Australian courts rules that it did not constitute an establishment of religion.  New Zealand funds Catholic school salaries and learning materials.  Canada has state-funded Catholic schools.  The government in the UK funds Catholic schools.  The government of France funds Catholic schools.  Norway funds religious schools.  Do I need to go on?  So how do all of those countries manage to get buy without treating Christianity as if it has cooties?

Quote from: StormBringer;427477That fact that it stands in opposition ideologically to science doesn't make it 'explicitly hostile'.  That is a ridiculous claim; science classes are, if anything, simply indifferent.  I think that is what infuriates the various religious factions more than anything.

Nonsense.  What infuriates them is people teaching their children that their religion is wrong and their politics are wrong.  Is that really that difficult to understand?  Are you any happier when the shoe is on the other foot, as it is in Texas, and children are being taught ideas that you probably don't approve of?

Quote from: StormBringer;427477As to the other matter, civil rights simply are a large part of American history.

So are plenty of other things from religion and what dead white guys did to NASCAR and sock hops.  Given limited time, the question is what the schools focus on.  And when you politicize eduction, something that both left and right are currently engaged in, then what you talk about is going to be filtered through a political lens, with everyone selecting the facts that show their side in the most positive light.

Quote from: StormBringer;427477No, not some ideological boogey-man.  The actual answer is 'educators' decide what is taught.

And who are these "educators"?  Mystic all-seeing objective brains in a jar that have no agenda and mean only the best for children?  Or are they people who, like all people, have their own biases and agendas?

Quote from: StormBringer;427477And you can do the same thing about it that people have always done: home-schooling.

And I'll accept that's a fair alternative the day that parents who choose to homeschool or send their children to private schools (religious or not) can receive vouchers to help them pay for that education.

Quote from: StormBringer;427477If someone wants to fill the heads of their children with ideology instead of education, it's hard work and in as much as you clearly don't feel children's education should be filled with mush-headed leftist ideas, I don't think it should be filled with proto-fascist rightist ideas.

Well, if the schools started teaching religion and right-wing ideas, you could always do the same thing about it that people have always done: home-schooling, right?

Quote from: StormBringer;427477Or, just maybe, there is some kind of middle ground that is being excluded?  Weren't you complaining about logical fallacies in another thread?

I gave what I suggested as the middle ground earlier in the thread.  Perhaps you missed it.  But as a free clue, "If you are religious and don't like it, then the Hell with you," is not the "middle".  

Quote from: StormBringer;427477Maybe 'older white people being comfortable' shouldn't include casual racism and sexism as an inherent need.  Just maybe they aren't guaranteed the right to a 'lifestyle' that is absolutely prevented from disruption as society progresses.

It doesn't "include casual racism and sexism as an inherent need" except in the minds of the far-left which need someone to blame and hate and a convenient straw man to knock down.  And while they might not be guaranteed the right to a lifestyle that isn't disrupted, nobody else is entitled to improve their lifestyle at their expense through the force of government.

Quote from: StormBringer;427477Or maybe we can just elect them back to the aristocracy and have done with the Great American Experiment.  Because your argument sounds a good deal like someone who wants a return to an elite ruling class.

You were saying something about excluded middle arguments a moment ago?

Obviously from the position of the South, slavery was the primary issue, it was the basis of their entire economy, which is why they didn't just free the slaves to get Britain and France on their side.  Winning the war was meaningless without the ability to keep the slave economy.

However, saying the South seceded because of slavery doesn't mean Lincoln went to war to abolish slavery, that's as much revisionist history as saying the south were concerned with state's rights.  Lincoln went to war to stop them from seceding, period.

Quote from: John Morrow;427618So how do all of those countries manage to get buy without treating Christianity as if it has cooties?

Because the Christians in those other countries aren't raging assholes that vomit hatred and intolerance while demanding everyone bows to their superior morality and scream like spoiled infants because the laws aren't exactly modelled on their particular interpretation of the Bible, and then have a complete meltdown about being 'persecuted' despite being the vast majority religion?

Or, to put it more simply, you are arguing in favour of a much more Liberal Christianity right now.

QuoteAre you any happier when the shoe is on the other foot, as it is in Texas, and children are being taught ideas that you probably don't approve of?

It has nothing to do with my approval, it's that they are wrong.  Rabbits don't chew their cud, the earth wasn't made in six days, and donkeys don't speak.  Further, the Texas textbook folks aren't arguing to have classes more inclusive of conservative ideas, they are re-writing history in an attempt to remove any hint of progressive ideas from the curricula because the whole conservative ideology is dying out from attrition and irrelevance.

QuoteSo are plenty of other things from religion and what dead white guys did to NASCAR and sock hops.  

There's your problem; history has not been written exclusively by white Christian men.

QuoteAnd who are these "educators"?  Mystic all-seeing objective brains in a jar that have no agenda and mean only the best for children?  Or are they people who, like all people, have their own biases and agendas?

Those two magic words don't exonerate all culpability.  The agenda that teaches only white Christian history is far more damaging than any of the invented 'political correctness' you care to rail against.

QuoteAnd I'll accept that's a fair alternative the day that parents who choose to homeschool or send their children to private schools (religious or not) can receive vouchers to help them pay for that education.

Why should they get vouchers?  What happened to limited government and personal responsibility?  Stop looking for a government handout and take the responsibility for raising your kids they way you want instead of whining about it.

QuoteWell, if the schools started teaching religion and right-wing ideas, you could always do the same thing about it that people have always done: home-schooling, right?

I am all for schools teaching religion.  But you don't want that.  When you say 'religion', you mean 'very specific sects of Protestant Christianity'.  If the schools started teaching Pastafarianism or Hindu myth, you would be up in arms and taking to the streets.

QuoteI gave what I suggested as the middle ground earlier in the thread.  Perhaps you missed it.  But as a free clue, "If you are religious and don't like it, then the Hell with you," is not the "middle".  

You don't have a middle ground, John.

QuoteIt doesn't "include casual racism and sexism as an inherent need" except in the minds of the far-left which need someone to blame and hate and a convenient straw man to knock down.  And while they might not be guaranteed the right to a lifestyle that isn't disrupted, nobody else is entitled to improve their lifestyle at their expense through the force of government.

Except the wealthy.  The wealthy are allowed to improve their lifestyle through force of the government, right?  Or did you really think they "worked hard" to get all that money?  I would ask what you think the underlying cause of the recent recession is, but I have a feeling it would include more conservative boogey-men like the Fair Housing Act or some other non-sense about how the government forced - forced I tell you! - all those helpless banks to give mortgages to people with bad credit.

As reality has a well-known liberal bias, I will leave you to your bizarro alternate reality where rich white people are being savagely repressed by the hordes of poor folks and have no protections against the depredations.  I mean, it is the ultimate role-playing game, I suppose.

QuoteYou were saying something about excluded middle arguments a moment ago?

Yes, I was.  I was saying that seems to be the only argument of which you are capable.

Quote from: CRKrueger;427638However, saying the South seceded because of slavery doesn't mean Lincoln went to war to abolish slavery, that's as much revisionist history as saying the south were concerned with state's rights.  Lincoln went to war to stop them from seceding, period.

That last sentence is a good deal more interesting to me.  I was reading a bit not too long ago that the Founding Fathers probably couldn't have imagined needing to have any kind of guidelines for secession in the Constitution, because they never would have imagined the United States being a unified country where the individual states were 'administrative zones' that would need to secede.  Of course, others couldn't have imagined there would be a strong enough central government to secede from, but the end result is roughly the same.

Interesting stuff, and far more engaging than the actual secession, in my mind.