Quote from: Chris24601 on March 18, 2021, 03:23:58 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 18, 2021, 01:58:26 PM
So not only can you judge the game by not reading anything about it, you also claim to speak for your Lakota player without speaking to them - and neither of you having read anything about the game?!?

Who said I didn't speak to them?

What you said was this: "I have an actual member of the Lakota in my gaming circles and they'd find this game ridiculously offensive... i.e. they're being portrayed as magic noble savages vs. the people they actually were.". Your wording was "they'd" -- i.e. "they would find it offensive" as opposed to "they do find it offensive".

So to rephrase this: What did they actually read or hear about the game, and what did they say about it?

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 18, 2021, 03:23:58 PM
Yet you presume you know my friend and what she thinks better than I do because you know their racial background?

You are behaving like exactly the sort of Wokist garbage my friend would kick the shit out of if you pulled your self-righteous moralizing about Native Americans in front of her.

Again, you're speaking here about what your friend "would" do. I don't give a shit about either what you think she thinks, or about what I think she thinks. People should speak for themselves.

If she has read the actual game preview and has an opinion, or just has an opinion in general, I'd welcome hearing about it.

But what anyone thinks she'd think is just a projection.

Quote from: jhkim on March 18, 2021, 03:48:56 PM
So to rephrase this: What did they actually read or hear about the game, and what did they say about it?

- That the dude should stop appropriating non-Cherokeee music for his stupid kickstarter video (the author is Cherokee).

- That the art is the same "faggy hipster" style as every woke project they've ever seen.

- That Native American-themed magitech looks like the guy ripped off Black Panther (and wonders how they got all that metal given the land was sacred and mining taboo).

- That the game seems to think all the Native Americans had the exact same cultural and spiritual practices despite consisting of hundreds of tribes covering hundreds of thousands of square miles.

- That with its focus on supernatural threats based off Native American lore that will inevitably have a magic system that fetishizes their spirituality.

- She wonders if they're going to gloss over all the Pre-Columbian slavery the Cherokee engaged in (noting that the author is Cherokee) or if whatever kept Europeans from coming to the Americas magically instilled the Christian values that actually ended the practice into the Native Americans.

- She wants to know how exactly technology advanced so far given the endemic inter-tribal warfare and revenge raids they all engaged in.

- They thought the promo description seems to act like tribal affiliations work like Vampire the Masquerade clans.

- And (jokingly) that they'd like Connor Alexander's stupid topknot as a scalp for her wall (note: she does not have a wall for scalps).

Good enough for you, cupcake?

Quote from: jhkim on March 18, 2021, 03:48:56 PMAgain, you're speaking here about what your friend "would" do.

That's because you're not actually present for her to do it right this second. Proper grammar requires use of future tense for a hypothetical future event.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 18, 2021, 04:40:04 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 18, 2021, 03:48:56 PM
So to rephrase this: What did they actually read or hear about the game, and what did they say about it?

- That the dude should stop appropriating non-Cherokeee music for his stupid kickstarter video (the author is Cherokee).

- That the art is the same "faggy hipster" style as every woke project they've ever seen.

- That Native American-themed magitech looks like the guy ripped off Black Panther (and wonders how they got all that metal given the land was sacred and mining taboo).

- That the game seems to think all the Native Americans had the exact same cultural and spiritual practices despite consisting of hundreds of tribes covering hundreds of thousands of square miles.

- That with its focus on supernatural threats based off Native American lore that will inevitably have a magic system that fetishizes their spirituality.

- She wonders if they're going to gloss over all the Pre-Columbian slavery the Cherokee engaged in (noting that the author is Cherokee) or if whatever kept Europeans from coming to the Americas magically instilled the Christian values that actually ended the practice into the Native Americans.

- She wants to know how exactly technology advanced so far given the endemic inter-tribal warfare and revenge raids they all engaged in.

- They thought the promo description seems to act like tribal affiliations work like Vampire the Masquerade clans.

- And (jokingly) that they'd like Connor Alexander's stupid topknot as a scalp for her wall (note: she does not have a wall for scalps).

Good enough for you, cupcake?

Thanks, this at least shows that unlike you, they've read at least some of the material.

1) The preview doesn't say much about the societies of the different regions, but I don't see anything that implies that all the societies are the same.

2) I don't see any mention of a magic system at all. My understanding is that the supernatural will be optional in the game, not a necessary focus. From the designer Q&A:

QuoteThe other part of the supernatural comes from real Native legends along with ones of our own creation. And those are in the book, but they only exist if the Story Guide chooses to include them. They aren't canon in every campaign. Is the Stone Man real? Or is that just a story? A rumor? Story Guides can decide.

3) The game is set around the year 2100. I doubt it will cover pre-Columbian Cherokee slavery any more than Shadowrun or Gamma World covers 1600s era European slavery.

4) There's no mention of tribal affiliation that I see in the description of character creation. There are six Archetypes (like Warrior, Tinkerer, and Scout); and fifteen Paths (like Beaver, Stag, and Spider) that define superhuman powers caused by the Awis effects. Neither of these are associated with tribe as far as I can tell.

Quote from: jhkim on March 18, 2021, 01:58:26 PM

Quote from: Omega on March 17, 2021, 09:09:17 PM
I'd lay good money on the odds being that all it was with C&R is someone saw Black Panther and thought "gosh we can profit off this if we reskin it to some other culture!". Business 101. If its popular, reskin it and sell it too!

I'd agree that this is true - but that's also the basis of hordes of genre fiction and RPGs. The OSR is all about taking old-school D&D and reskinning it in different ways to make a profit. Pundit's "Lords of Olympus" game is explicitly about taking Amber Diceless and reskinning it to Greek gods. Coyote & Crow isn't an exact parallel to Wakanda - but sure, it shares some themes of an indigenous high-tech society based on a weird-science impact from outer space (vibranium vs awis).

That is what I pointed out earlier in the thread and some examples like Captain Canuck which has Canada as a world government, or any number of books, comics, etc that have touched on this one way or another. Marvel has done at least one where Egypt never declined and became a world power. War Gods of Aegyptus seems to be set in a world where Egypt is the only civilization. Russia used to crank these out fairly regularly.

And that is not even touching on reskins of other product. Or ones merely inspired by. Usually the closer the new one is to the old the less likely its inspired and more like copying.

These sorts of "what if" settings are really common all on their own.

I bet the authour is a furry, too. This is why I don't believe in tolerance.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-19/furry-world-helps-people-to-be-themselves-new-research/13250090

Quote from: jhkim on March 18, 2021, 06:24:18 PM
Thanks, this at least shows that unlike you, they've read at least some of the material.

And yet we both agreed it is absolutely going to be woke garbage... I just didn't have to waste my time confirming what is blatantly obvious from who was touting it.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on March 18, 2021, 08:34:34 PM
I bet the authour is a furry, too. This is why I don't believe in tolerance.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-19/furry-world-helps-people-to-be-themselves-new-research/13250090

There is a picture of her in the article wearing a t-shirt that says 'furrywoke' on it...

Thanks for the laugh, that article was hilarious.

Quote from: jhkim on March 18, 2021, 06:24:18 PM


3) The game is set around the year 2100. I doubt it will cover pre-Columbian Cherokee slavery any more than Shadowrun or Gamma World covers 1600s era European slavery.

Without the West, why would they end slavery? No other civilization ever fully ended slavery. And what great change in their religious structure would make the Americas slavery-free in that world? What could you make to explain the turn against slavery, which wouldn't look like a drag-show version Christianity+Enlightenment-Masonic-Universalism?

Or are they just going to pretend that North America had no slaves before the Evil White Men came? Maybe no human sacrifice either?

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 19, 2021, 11:45:14 AM

Quote from: jhkim on March 18, 2021, 06:24:18 PM


3) The game is set around the year 2100. I doubt it will cover pre-Columbian Cherokee slavery any more than Shadowrun or Gamma World covers 1600s era European slavery.

Without the West, why would they end slavery? No other civilization ever fully ended slavery. And what great change in their religious structure would make the Americas slavery-free in that world? What could you make to explain the turn against slavery, which wouldn't look like a drag-show version Christianity+Enlightenment-Masonic-Universalism?

Or are they just going to pretend that North America had no slaves before the Evil White Men came? Maybe no human sacrifice either?

Of course they are. Eliminate the "source of all evil", and you've found Yogi Bear's Perfect Place.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 19, 2021, 11:45:14 AM
Without the West, why would they end slavery? No other civilization ever fully ended slavery. And what great change in their religious structure would make the Americas slavery-free in that world? What could you make to explain the turn against slavery, which wouldn't look like a drag-show version Christianity+Enlightenment-Masonic-Universalism?

Or are they just going to pretend that North America had no slaves before the Evil White Men came? Maybe no human sacrifice either?

And let's not leave out the constant state of low-level war with their neighbors that would make the Battletech Successor States proud. As my Blackfoot friend stated; some other tribes weren't even considered people; they were vermin.

While the diseases didn't help, what really put the nail in the coffin for the Native Americans was that if you wanted to push out one tribe, you just needed to make a deal with a rival tribe because they had zero loyalty to their rival vs. the colonial powers.

And because my friend knows how the Woke game is played; they wanted to know just how the Cherokee author thinks its okay to appropriate Lakota and First Nations cultural elements as his own, comparing it to a Spaniard claiming French wine and German sauerkraut as part of their heritage because they live on the same continent.

And the fact that this setting will almost certainly gloss over the slavery (including what in modern times would be sex slavery), human sacrifice, endemic tribal warfare and the glaring cultural divides between tribes is why my friend pretty much loathes projects like this... Native Americans are not seen as actual people by the Woke, they're magic fairies who would live in a perfect kumbaiya utopia if not for Western civilization showing up.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 19, 2021, 11:45:14 AM

Quote from: jhkim on March 18, 2021, 06:24:18 PM
3) The game is set around the year 2100. I doubt it will cover pre-Columbian Cherokee slavery any more than Shadowrun or Gamma World covers 1600s era European slavery.

Without the West, why would they end slavery? No other civilization ever fully ended slavery. And what great change in their religious structure would make the Americas slavery-free in that world? What could you make to explain the turn against slavery, which wouldn't look like a drag-show version Christianity+Enlightenment-Masonic-Universalism?

Or are they just going to pretend that North America had no slaves before the Evil White Men came? Maybe no human sacrifice either?

I have no idea what the authors are going to do on this point. The previews are short, and very little of society is described. If I were doing a similar project, I can think of a number of possibilities.

1) One of the premises is psychic powers from the Awis event. It could be that telepaths become a greater influence on society, and telepaths are more empathetic to the suffering of others - because they have to see slaves as people just like them. Telepathy could not just jump-start understanding of psychology, it could also change social values to see all people as being potential equals.

2) The Awis event also created great natural disasters across the continents. It is relatively easy for the natural disaster to have the greatest effect on the concentrated agricultural slave-holding states like the Aztecs - and less on the more scattered states that depend more on hunting. As the major slave-holding states crumble, new states formed by ex-slaves could have opposed values. One also saw political and social upheaval, for example, in Europe after the Bubonic Plague when concentration of workers vastly decreased. In Coyote & Crow, I think the collapse of the old Aztecs could see the rise of new states - like the collapse of the Western Roman Empire saw a change in values in Europe.

3) In the Coyote & Crow setting, when some slaves get superhuman powers, it would drastically complicate keeping up the traditional divide of slave and free. Those with greater powers would tend to rise to greater influence. By disrupting the old traditions, it gives space for new philosophical divides - such as those driven by telepathy.

4) The powers would also naturally give rise to new religious movements. Particularly given superhuman powers, it's possible that a highly persuasive religious leader could arise among oppressed peoples with more egalitarian values (like Algonguian-speakers). There are more developed religions other than Christianity - like Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. I think a more developed Native American religion might take some inspiration from modern-day Native American religions (which have some Western influence) but also from pre-Christian Asian religions like Buddhism and Hinduism.

5) For effect on slavery, one can look at the incomplete non-Western antislavery movements. For example, Korea had an antislavery movement going back to the late 1700s. Partly this was from disruption in war and in advances in agriculture that made slaves less economical - combined with growing criticism of the ruling class. In Korea, the antislavery and liberal movement was tied to increase in the power of the king compared to nobles (yangban). Among Native Americans, this might show as a post-apocalyptic merging of more egalitarian Algonquian-speaking values with Haudenosaunee-like councils and federal political structure.


Of course, these are just options that I might do - and those can be combined in different ways.

Overall, I think particularly in a game with superhuman powers, it's easy to picture more advanced philosophies arising that aren't just variants of Christianity+Enlightenment-Masonic-Universalism. There could be science conducted more through a pursuit of personal psychic growth, for example -- rather than by experimentation and peer-reviewed publication. Depending on the specifics, telepathy could lead to horrible mind-control states like Traveller's Zhodani -- but it could also lead to a more enlightened recognition of universal humanity.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 19, 2021, 01:28:51 PM
And because my friend knows how the Woke game is played; they wanted to know just how the Cherokee author thinks its okay to appropriate Lakota and First Nations cultural elements as his own, comparing it to a Spaniard claiming French wine and German sauerkraut as part of their heritage because they live on the same continent.

And the fact that this setting will almost certainly gloss over the slavery (including what in modern times would be sex slavery), human sacrifice, endemic tribal warfare and the glaring cultural divides between tribes is why my friend pretty much loathes projects like this... Native Americans are not seen as actual people by the Woke, they're magic fairies who would live in a perfect kumbaiya utopia if not for Western civilization showing up.

You're speaking about what the yet-unpublished game will be like as "fact", which doesn't fit the definition. As for how the game will be - maybe it'll suck. I don't know the author's work. I do think a lot of non-native people don't see Native Americans as actual people, but at best as mouthpieces to push their own politics - but that isn't restricted to the Woke.

To keep this on the RPG topic -- what are RPG treatments that handle Native Americans well, which might be a model?


Personally, I don't know of any that I'd really recommend. GURPS Aztecs is at least historically accurate, but it is hard to run adventures in. I'm intrigued by some of what I've seen from Totems of the Dead, but I've never played it. Both Shadowrun and Deadlands seem pretty heavily in the "noble savage" / "magic fairy" category of portrayal - literally with the Ghost Dance. Maztica is pretty involved, but I think suffers from not having a clear center. It's not historically accurate, but it's also not a recognizable fantasy genre. The adventures felt kind of flat to me.

Of these, only GURPS Aztecs is historically accurate - but really, I don't think historically accurate is very important per se. Most European-themed games aren't historically accurate, and gloss over a lot of the ugly realities of the times.

I've run a couple games featuring Native Americans, but rarely using published material. I had a long-running Runequest campaign that I called "Vikings & Skraelings" about alternate history Icelandic colonies in the New World. (ref) More recently, I've run some adventures set in my son's Incan-inspired D&D5 setting.

Quote from: jhkim on March 19, 2021, 05:07:21 PM
You're speaking about what the yet-unpublished game will be like as "fact", which doesn't fit the definition.

If I hand you a sandwich that smells like dog feces, do you have to take a bite before you know it's filled with shit?

Everything I've seen posted by and about Connor "Topknot" Alexander is 100% Wokist victim mentality snowflake. He self-identifies as a Far Left Punk activist.

Here are some pull quotes straight from the SJW's mouth (and a few comments from me in bold)...

"In the gaming world we're dealing with a microcosm of what the rest of the nation is dealing with. That is, Natives in gaming are working in a space dominated by whites and white culture." - because the fact that you get all these free publicity interviews is proof that you are oppressed by the system; try endorsing the Roman Catholic position on sexuality on any public media outlet and see how fast you're perma-banned, then talk to me about cultural domination.

"I wanted to create a world that wasn't rooted in our real now, which can sometimes be really depressing, but a world that, while maybe not a utopia, at least offered a world where Natives were charting their own path and aren't living under this horrible trauma." - You hear that? Native Americans are traumatized by having a better standard of living than 95% of the planet and all those tax free casinos. It's HORRIBLE!!!

"We've created a d12 based system unique for this game." - not directly related to Wokism, but the only people I've ever seen try to develop d12 based games invariably seem to think they're sending some sort of message by using the "discriminated against" die... as if a chunk of plastic has feelings.

"One, the system needed to be Native built. We didn't want to build on the backs of others. It was important this be ours. Second, it's a system that we think helps tell stories rather than crunch numbers, which is at the heart of what we're trying to put out there. We want a system that encourages people to tell stories." - despite it probably having 10x the accessibility if you did so, you couldn't build it to be compatible with 5e because d20s are racist I guess? Likewise, sure sign of Wokist agenda in gaming is when their primary focus is to make sure the game is about creating stories.

In other words, C&C is utterly incapable of being anything other than a crap sandwich for the same reason that everything run by the SJWs turns into a crap sandwich.

You can go ahead and bite down to assure yourself... I'm good with using the unique SJW stench as my cue to not even touch the crap sandwich.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 19, 2021, 01:28:51 PMAnd let's not leave out the constant state of low-level war with their neighbors that would make the Battletech Successor States proud. As my Blackfoot friend stated; some other tribes weren't even considered people; they were vermin.

While the diseases didn't help, what really put the nail in the coffin for the Native Americans was that if you wanted to push out one tribe, you just needed to make a deal with a rival tribe because they had zero loyalty to their rival vs. the colonial powers.

And because my friend knows how the Woke game is played; they wanted to know just how the Cherokee author thinks its okay to appropriate Lakota and First Nations cultural elements as his own, comparing it to a Spaniard claiming French wine and German sauerkraut as part of their heritage because they live on the same continent.

And the fact that this setting will almost certainly gloss over the slavery (including what in modern times would be sex slavery), human sacrifice, endemic tribal warfare and the glaring cultural divides between tribes is why my friend pretty much loathes projects like this... Native Americans are not seen as actual people by the Woke, they're magic fairies who would live in a perfect kumbaiya utopia if not for Western civilization showing up.

Pretty much what I've heard as well no matter where been and I used attend a con that happened to also co-incide with a bit NA gathering at the Thunderbird Hotel. Really NA culture mirrors that of other tribal cultures like that in the UK and related lands, Africa, and even Asia. Seems to be a recurring theme with tribal civilizations, especially the nomadic ones. But even some of the more settled ones were sniping at eachother.

One of the problems of settling and making a city is... it makes you an easy to find target and unless well defended. Thats that once someone decides you need to go... because.

As for the image of the magical native. Thats partially on them for fostering this image way back. Since then its swung back and fourth from complaining about it to demanding it be depicted. When not bitching about ANY representation at all. Theres a reason why there was a dearth of NA characters for spans in media. People got tired of it. And exact same thing with the handicapped. Someone bitches till people just say fuck it and you are not in hardly anything for another span.

But odds are high that each iterations had its share of white knights to "speak for you!" too.

We saw this back in the 90s with RPGs now and then. Just not as wide spread far as I ever saw.

Quote from: Omega on March 20, 2021, 06:11:16 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 19, 2021, 01:28:51 PMAnd let's not leave out the constant state of low-level war with their neighbors that would make the Battletech Successor States proud. As my Blackfoot friend stated; some other tribes weren't even considered people; they were vermin.

While the diseases didn't help, what really put the nail in the coffin for the Native Americans was that if you wanted to push out one tribe, you just needed to make a deal with a rival tribe because they had zero loyalty to their rival vs. the colonial powers.

Pretty much what I've heard as well no matter where been and I used attend a con that happened to also co-incide with a bit NA gathering at the Thunderbird Hotel. Really NA culture mirrors that of other tribal cultures like that in the UK and related lands, Africa, and even Asia. Seems to be a recurring theme with tribal civilizations, especially the nomadic ones. But even some of the more settled ones were sniping at each other.

I think recurring warfare is a characteristic of nearly all human civilizations. The nations of Europe constantly fought with each other for centuries, well into the period where they didn't call themselves "tribal" and used "tribal" to describe people of their colonies. Two of their most devastating wars were fought in the first half of the 20th century. From my reading, the nations of medieval North America fought wars with each other roughly as much as the nations of medieval Europe fought wars with each other -- which is to say, a lot. It's impossible to compare precisely, of course, but it seems roughly on the same scale - more in some places, less in others.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 19, 2021, 07:53:00 PM
Here are some pull quotes straight from the SJW's mouth (and a few comments from me in bold)...

"In the gaming world we're dealing with a microcosm of what the rest of the nation is dealing with. That is, Natives in gaming are working in a space dominated by whites and white culture." - because the fact that you get all these free publicity interviews is proof that you are oppressed by the system; try endorsing the Roman Catholic position on sexuality on any public media outlet and see how fast you're perma-banned, then talk to me about cultural domination.

"I wanted to create a world that wasn't rooted in our real now, which can sometimes be really depressing, but a world that, while maybe not a utopia, at least offered a world where Natives were charting their own path and aren't living under this horrible trauma." - You hear that? Native Americans are traumatized by having a better standard of living than 95% of the planet and all those tax free casinos. It's HORRIBLE!!!

"We've created a d12 based system unique for this game." - not directly related to Wokism, but the only people I've ever seen try to develop d12 based games invariably seem to think they're sending some sort of message by using the "discriminated against" die... as if a chunk of plastic has feelings.

"One, the system needed to be Native built. We didn't want to build on the backs of others. It was important this be ours. Second, it's a system that we think helps tell stories rather than crunch numbers, which is at the heart of what we're trying to put out there. We want a system that encourages people to tell stories." - despite it probably having 10x the accessibility if you did so, you couldn't build it to be compatible with 5e because d20s are racist I guess? Likewise, sure sign of Wokist agenda in gaming is when their primary focus is to make sure the game is about creating stories.

In other words, C&C is utterly incapable of being anything other than a crap sandwich for the same reason that everything run by the SJWs turns into a crap sandwich.

You can go ahead and bite down to assure yourself... I'm good with using the unique SJW stench as my cue to not even touch the crap sandwich.

I've bitten into this exactly as much as you now have -- I've read the preview. I don't know how the resulting game will be - I'll wait for reviews for that. But prior to this, you and your friend were complaining about a lot of things that didn't exist - like complaining about it's magic system, for example, or saying how tribal affiliation worked like Vampire clans.

Now you're at least complaining about stuff that is in there - like how it uses a d12. I agree with that - using a d12 usually seems like a gimmick. I don't see an SJW connection, though. Other RPGs using a d12 include Dominion, Tephra, and Fray.