QuoteAh, noble!  Good one.

Finding proper sacrifice for Kamehamehamema, Overlord of Seas is always noble endevour.

QuoteNeural density?  WTF?

There is some element to that, but not on this level. And if last neural density upgrade was 6000 years ago in Mesopotamia then Iraqi people should have densest brain, because there is negligible influx of Mesopotamian DNA to Europe since this period - Europeans are mix of paleolithic hunter (so called Cro-Magnids), neolithic farmers from Anatolia (that were not kin to Mesopotamians) and Siberian Ancestral North Eurasians (culturally dominant element probably kept in some lores as various Hyperboreans and so on - also large part of Native American DNA is theirs) and in NE East Asian DNA that came with Finno-Ugric folk.

So nope in no way Mesopotamian neural density mutation would explain Europeans getting dominant umph over world in last millenium.

QuoteAnd no horses.

Which is something oft overlooked as people assume horses were in the Americas before Europeans came along. Sure a few civilizaions had pack animals of various sorts. But few, if any, had riding animals. Which vastly limits the spread of knowledge to just foot travel essentially.

Indeed. It also vastly limits usefulness of those damned wheels overall - considering Native Americans were able to design child toys with wheels, but without horses there were limited usefulness for adult size.

QuoteWhat..? You mean Apaches riding across the plains with Henry rifles wasn't a common occurrence until a few hundred years after they met the Europeans? Surely you jest, sir!

The people writing this game probably don't even know the current map of Europe has only been around for like 20 years, if that.

I must say that's would be good augury for this game - if they will just add horses without explanation because of Western tropes, or not.

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse on March 10, 2021, 10:05:53 PM
The Spaniards steamrolled the central Native Americans even though they were greatly outnumbered.

You left out a LOT there.

Like how Cortez was obscenely lucky because the Aztecs were awaiting the return of Quetzacoatl. Or how the subject peoples that the Aztecs had conquered were good and pissed off and easily swayed to Cortez's side. When Cortez landed his forces fought three pitched battles with the Tlaxcalans before they decided 'yeah, this sucks, we'll join up with you instead of getting good and smoked', which gave him MORE troops (even if they were cannon fodder; quantity has a quality all its own, after all).

And then Cortez's boss in Cuba sends another 1400 troops to collect his wayward boy (remember, Cortez wasn't exactly following orders when he came to pillage), the reinforcements got stomped and the survivors recruited by Cortez and his Tlaxcalan auxiliaries.

Regarding Coyote & Crow,

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 10, 2021, 07:30:05 PM

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on March 10, 2021, 03:35:46 AM
As far as I understand - world was generally nuked into Long Night by asteroid in this version, somewhere around 1000 BC. That's quite plausible to nuke most Eurasian powers.
Bit like this setting I've once read about when Black Plague killed 99% of Europeans, and Asian powers recolonized Europe.

You could have santa claus kill every last white person, and it wouldn't have made America sufficiently rich in certain resources required to produce a sufficiently advanced civilization, nor the kind of groundwork of concepts required to create a society that has concepts of the Rights of Man, the Scientific Method, or the Universality of God. You aren't going to get there when you're having huge trouble getting around to inventing the wheel.

It is a complete fantasy...

Yes, I agree. I mean, "fantasy" is right there on the cover. This is a science fantasy game, where there are purple marks on people, animals, and plants since the asteroid strike - granting superhuman powers, like targeting hover drones with your clairvoyance. Is your complaint about Gamma World that realistically radiation won't make plants into sentient thinking characters?

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse on March 10, 2021, 10:05:53 PM

Quote from: TJS on March 10, 2021, 08:47:43 PMIt would still seem unlikely without some kind of further contrivance that the Americas would outstrip the old world in terms of technological advancement.

It would require early contact with the Greco-Roman world and substantial crossbreeding (as happened with the Germanic peoples) in order to ensure a higher level of neural density similar to Europeans, otherwise they'd get steamrolled regardless of their population. The Spaniards steamrolled the central Native Americans even though they were greatly outnumbered. In fact, the British steamrolled much of the world despite being greatly outnumbered. Crossbreeding over many generations in former colonies has enabled previously enslaved populations to throw off their former masters and become autonomous. The French terrorized, exploited, and interbred with the Vietnamese for a century before the Vietnam war, and so it was that the Americans faced what was in essence an angry wasps' nest that had some fairly intelligent leaders.

Cloyer - I don't agree about your real-world theories, but to keep this on the topic of gaming - would it satisfy you that the same asteroid strike that granted clairvoyance and other psychic powers also changed neural density? It seems reasonable to me.

(Edited out, because it's the wrong forum.)

QuoteI'm about 99% convinced that Cloyer is a Leftist Troll cosplaying what he/she/it thinks a conservative believes with the hope of scoring virtue points by proving how awful conservatives are when people agree with them... only to be frustrated because the response to their professions of belief has actually been more along the lines of "fuck off you waste of human skin."

The remaining 1% odds is that they really are a spiteful loser who thinks genetics and not cultural norms you are raised with are the primary determinant of probability of success in life. They're not "right-wing"; they're just the mirror of the same idiocy of the Left who also thinks genetics trumps everything.

All evidence is that variances in human neural density are trivial factors compared to the values acculturated in a given group. Compare the many many successes of blacks in the United States just a few generations removed from Africa that they had between the Civil War and the advent of Johnson's New Deal programs designed to destroy the cultural elements that made them successful.

It wasn't genetics that let them progress greatly despite discrimination against them; it was the American Judeo-Christian values (including having a married mother and father raising their children) they grew up in.

The reason Pundit's analysis of why the Americas wouldn't be "Wokeanda" if the Europeans hadn't colonized them has zero to do with genetics and everything to do with the underlying cultures... the European culture built a world so abundant in resources and quality of life that self-loathing racists have the free time to make up their idiotic games instead of being beaten by a taskmaster and told to get back to work plowing the fields or mining by hand.

It was a combo of Germanic, Greco-Roman and Christian cultural elements that allowed such massive advances over the rest of the world (even the Dark Ages had their purpose in stripping away the overly centralized Roman authorities in favor of local and more responsive government that gave people more freedom to innovate while still having the roads, horses and a mostly common language needed to share the best ideas among a larger population).

Even more in the case of America it was the self-selection of risk takers who chose to endure long and dangerous sea voyages and uncertain conditions with limited resources on arrival in the hope of a better life that led to a culture of innovative risk takers with strong Judeo-Christian beliefs (as many of the risk takers were seeking a better life because of religious persecution in their former homes).

Basically, America had a talent stack that was unique in history that allowed it to become the superpower it did. Getting the same sort of talent stack anywhere else is just SJW magical thinking.

I'm bit more cynical about nature / nurture dynamics (especially since social trends can change inborn trends - the most grandiose example is Neolithic population of East Asia ancestral to Chinese, Koreans and Japanese changing probably due to social inflicted selection their neurochemistry in quite significant way) though of course even if someone is biological racist then argument about mutation from Mesopotamia 6000 years ago being responsible for European mojo is of course idiotic, because we lack any statistically significant genetic link with those people.

But of course even less talented folk can fluorish in healthy culture, and indeed social programs for black Americans turned out to be force of extreme corruption.

Also: please can we not use this ridiculous Judeo-Christian values term. Like rabbinic judaism had any influence on fluorishing of European culture and growth of our values.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on March 11, 2021, 01:33:30 PM
I'm bit more cynical about nature / nurture dynamics

And I'm the opposite because I see it every day in my parish where kids adopted from Africa are flourishing and exceling in our parish school. Having two loving parents raising you matters. Having a culture that promotes reason and morality matters. Environmental factors like pre-natal alcohol and drug use can affect outcomes, but those aren't genetic factors.

QuoteAlso: please can we not use this ridiculous Judeo-Christian values term. Like rabbinic judaism had any influence on fluorishing of European culture and growth of our values.

Its an acknowledgement that Christianity grew out of (non-Rabbinic) Judaism. Jesus was a Jew and the fulfillment of God's Covenant with the Jews, with David and with Abraham.

Pretending that Christianity could have flourished without its Jewish foundations is as ridiculous as this RPG we're discussing that pretends the indigenous populations of the Americas could produce a civilization technologically superior to Western Europe if only they'd not been colonized.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on March 11, 2021, 08:59:52 AM
I must say that's would be good augury for this game - if they will just add horses without explanation because of Western tropes, or not.

I had thought that horses actually evolved in the Americas and had migrated to Asia before becoming extinct in the Americas some 6000-13000 years ago or so.
That they didn't become extinct because of "reasons" might be an explanation.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 11, 2021, 03:06:39 PM
Pretending that Christianity could have flourished without its Jewish foundations is as ridiculous as this RPG we're discussing that pretends the indigenous populations of the Americas could produce a civilization technologically superior to Western Europe if only they'd not been colonized.

Have you read the Kickstarter? That's not the premise of the game. In the game, there is a major difference in that a giant object struck the Earth that has caused global disaster as well as strange effects including psychic powers such as clairvoyance - and hints of the supernatural such as spirits. It's not a realistic alternate history, but rather post-apocalyptic science fantasy.

Quote from: DocJones on March 11, 2021, 03:21:16 PM

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on March 11, 2021, 08:59:52 AM
I must say that's would be good augury for this game - if they will just add horses without explanation because of Western tropes, or not.

I had thought that horses actually evolved in the Americas and had migrated to Asia before becoming extinct in the Americas some 6000-13000 years ago or so.
That they didn't become extinct because of "reasons" might be an explanation.

As far as I have seen, there is no mention of horses and I don't see any horses in the art. The game diverges from real-world history around the year 1400, so horses in the Americas were long extinct by that time.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 11, 2021, 08:45:49 AM
I'm about 99% convinced that Cloyer is a Leftist Troll cosplaying what he/she/it thinks a conservative believes with the hope of scoring virtue points by proving how awful conservatives are when people agree with them... only to be frustrated because the response to their professions of belief has actually been more along the lines of "fuck off you waste of human skin."

Cloyer Bulse has been around for a while, and he's never shown signs of trolling to me. He has posted before about his genetics theories, but he claims they're not connected to race per se in that . This was a post of his from 2019, for example, on the same neural density idea. He believes that the gene spreads through different races.

https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/sjws-are-liars!-the-hobby-always-welcomed-everyone!/msg1097614/#msg1097614

I don't mean to debate his views - but just that he seems to be consistent and not trolling.

Quote from: DocJones on March 11, 2021, 03:21:16 PM
I had thought that horses actually evolved in the Americas and had migrated to Asia before becoming extinct in the Americas some 6000-13000 years ago or so.
That they didn't become extinct because of "reasons" might be an explanation.

Given that the most likely reason was over-hunting by the newly arrived humans c. 12,000 years ago, their not becoming extinct pretty much negates the presence of indigenous peoples in the Americas (and their fantasy Wokeanda) as well.

The idea that indigenous populations were somehow more virtuous than the European colonist flies in the face of all evidence. They were just as horrible as any other humans, including hunting many species to extinction not just for food but as sport.

In fact the ONLY culture in human history that's given a damn about preserving other species is that of the Western European Christians (something about being a good steward in that book of morality they follow).

Realistically, a game set in an alternate history world where Europeans were wiped out would be a slave-based economy with Iron Age technology with the only variations depending on when your alternate history wiped out European culture.

ETA: and no, I haven't read the Kickstarter because I have no desire to even give them page views. Any game who's core premise is how magically great things would be without "Whitey" around can rightly fuck themselves with a chainsaw.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 11, 2021, 04:19:51 PM
Realistically, a game set in an alternate history world where Europeans were wiped out would be a slave-based economy with Iron Age technology with the only variations depending on when your alternate history wiped out European culture.

ETA: and no, I haven't read the Kickstarter because I have no desire to even give them page views. Any game who's core premise is how magically great things would be without "Whitey" around can rightly fuck themselves with a chainsaw.

If you don't want to read it, that's fine -- but if you're not going to read it, I don't think you can make claims about what it's about.

Are you interested in talking about realistic alternate histories without Europeans? GURPS Alternate Earths has an alternate timeline called "Ezcalli" that is set in 1840, and diverges when Carthage successfully makes colonies in the New World in 580 BC. With Carthage gaining from its colonies, Rome falls apart more thoroughly - and Europe doesn't receive most of Roman culture. Instead, Roman culture and Christianity are maintained in northern Africa, while Europe has Carthaginian and New World influence (notably the potato). Europe is then conquered by successive waves of Mongols. In 1840, the world superpowers are the Aztecs, the Songhay Empire, and the Mongol Khanates. Here's a variant of their map of the world:


Source: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/a-map-thread.10468/page-57#post-341952

Technology is only slightly behind our own 1840, with a number of specific variances. Then again, the creators don't pitch it as very realistic - but a key problem was they were contractually required that they cross-sell the GURPS Aztecs book, and thus have Aztecs in 1840 that are at all recognizable as Aztec. If one rewrites the Aztec culture, many ideas in it intriguing, and might be useful for a Europe-missing alternate history.

If we were to just cause Europe to disappear in 580 BC or so? For the Americas, the most likely result is eventual colonization by Asia rather than colonization by Europe. They'd still be wiped out by disease and colonized, unfortunately. It's interesting to ask how the rest of the world would advance, though.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 11, 2021, 08:45:49 AM

Quote from: TJS on March 11, 2021, 12:12:47 AM

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse on March 10, 2021, 10:05:53 PM
...Discredited Racist Bullshit Theories...

Neural density?  WTF?

The reason Pundit's analysis of why the Americas wouldn't be "Wokeanda" if the Europeans hadn't colonized them has zero to do with genetics and everything to do with the underlying cultures... the European culture built a world so abundant in resources and quality of life that self-loathing racists have the free time to make up their idiotic games instead of being beaten by a taskmaster and told to get back to work plowing the fields or mining by hand.

Well, culture AND the fact that America without the columbian exchange was missing a lot of vital ingredients that would be necessary for the development of a stable advanced civilization: like a better food source than maize, the horse, etc.

QuoteIt was a combo of Germanic, Greco-Roman and Christian cultural elements that allowed such massive advances over the rest of the world (even the Dark Ages had their purpose in stripping away the overly centralized Roman authorities in favor of local and more responsive government that gave people more freedom to innovate while still having the roads, horses and a mostly common language needed to share the best ideas among a larger population).

LOL "germanic". No.
Greco-Roman and Christian sure. Other than destroying the Roman Empire there's not much else the Germans contributed, at least until the Reformation. But the roots of the West's Success were the Greeks, Romans and Jews (via Christianity).

Quote from: TJS on March 11, 2021, 12:12:47 AM

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse on March 10, 2021, 10:05:53 PM

Quote from: TJS on March 10, 2021, 08:47:43 PM....I think you could do it with earlier vikings.  Get germanic or norse ships over to North America earlier and have them bring horses and iron working and you've probably got a chance for that to trickle out across the Americas. European crops such as wheat would probably help as well.

It would still seem unlikely without some kind of further contrivance that the Americas would outstrip the old world in terms of technological advancement.

It would require early contact with the Greco-Roman world and substantial crossbreeding (as happened with the Germanic peoples) in order to ensure a higher level of neural density similar to Europeans, otherwise they'd get steamrolled regardless of their population. The Spaniards steamrolled the central Native Americans even though they were greatly outnumbered. In fact, the British steamrolled much of the world despite being greatly outnumbered. Crossbreeding over many generations in former colonies has enabled previously enslaved populations to throw off their former masters and become autonomous. The French terrorized, exploited, and interbred with the Vietnamese for a century before the Vietnam war, and so it was that the Americans faced what was in essence an angry wasps' nest that had some fairly intelligent leaders.

The main issue is that isolated populations evolve more slowly than those that have immediate access to trade routes. Being overrun and enslaved is the primary means by which genes have spread historically due to forced interbreeding. The latest version of the gene that causes increased neural density comes from Mesopotamia and appeared between 5 and 6 thousand years ago and has been quickly spreading outward since then.

Quote from: "Wicked Woodpecker of West"....Yup. As traditionalist and volkist I'm great supporter of ethnic fantasies even if they have jackshit to do with real possibilities of the world....

If that is what it were, then certainly. But more likely it is just white liberals making a game about their "people of color" pets in order to proselytize their ideology.

QuoteCoyote and Crow is a tabletop role playing game set in an alternate future of the Americas where colonization never occurred. Instead, advanced civilizations arose over hundreds of years after a massive climate disaster changed the history of the planet. You'll play as adventurers starting out in the city of Cahokia, a bustling, diverse metropolis along the Mississippi River. It's a world of science and spirituality where the future of technology and legends of the past will collide.

The phrase "science and spirituality" makes me think of the junk science and the "spiritual but not religious" nonsense of the radical leftists. I've sat in on these sorts of courses at the university, so I know it's just political propaganda.

Neural density?  WTF?

He's claiming, apparently, that certain races have sufficiently lower neural density and are therefore inherently less intelligent and generally inferior to others (guess which ones?) that have "high neural density". And I'm glad you posted this, because he did it in such a sneaky sort of way that I almost missed it completely.

This fucking site: every day I get a handful of reports of people bitching about how they didn't like something someone said to them, like I would give a fuck, and yet not one report on the neo-nazi bullshit.

A ban for him.  And to the "volkist" Anti-Semite Woodpecker. Jews, by the way, contributed vastly more to the development of the modern West than Germans.

Anyone else wants to try to change my point, against the kind of racial-supremacy utopian fantasizing, be ready for the same, no warning.

I don't give a fuck what type of racial supremacist you are: Aztec, Apache, White, Black or Green, try to push your garbage theories here and you'll be banned.

Quote from: jhkim on March 11, 2021, 12:53:59 PM
Regarding Coyote & Crow,

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 10, 2021, 07:30:05 PM

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on March 10, 2021, 03:35:46 AM
As far as I understand - world was generally nuked into Long Night by asteroid in this version, somewhere around 1000 BC. That's quite plausible to nuke most Eurasian powers.
Bit like this setting I've once read about when Black Plague killed 99% of Europeans, and Asian powers recolonized Europe.

You could have santa claus kill every last white person, and it wouldn't have made America sufficiently rich in certain resources required to produce a sufficiently advanced civilization, nor the kind of groundwork of concepts required to create a society that has concepts of the Rights of Man, the Scientific Method, or the Universality of God. You aren't going to get there when you're having huge trouble getting around to inventing the wheel.

It is a complete fantasy...

Yes, I agree. I mean, "fantasy" is right there on the cover. This is a science fantasy game, where there are purple marks on people, animals, and plants since the asteroid strike - granting superhuman powers, like targeting hover drones with your clairvoyance. Is your complaint about Gamma World that realistically radiation won't make plants into sentient thinking characters?

I can imagine some kind of weird radiation that could make plants into thinking characters. But there's no conditions in the past, without adding "magic" or "alien level scifi" or "vibranium", that allows the Americas to develop an advanced and humane civilization without the Columbian Exchange.

And even there, the fundamental result for the "humane" part has to be "the Aztecs (or whoever) suddenly develop values that are LIKE THE EUROPEANS for no reason".

But instead of saying "this is fantasy wish fulfillment, we know it would never have been that way", the entire POINT of this type of game is to try to claim that the world would be a utopia if the "evil white man" had just disappeared. Very very dangerous thinking.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on March 11, 2021, 08:59:52 AM
Indeed. It also vastly limits usefulness of those damned wheels overall - considering Native Americans were able to design child toys with wheels, but without horses there were limited usefulness for adult size.

QuoteWhat..? You mean Apaches riding across the plains with Henry rifles wasn't a common occurrence until a few hundred years after they met the Europeans? Surely you jest, sir!

The people writing this game probably don't even know the current map of Europe has only been around for like 20 years, if that.

I must say that's would be good augury for this game - if they will just add horses without explanation because of Western tropes, or not.

At a guess... terrain has some factor in why they did not make use of the wheel more. Wheels are not very practical on rough terrain, or even moderate terrain. Great for flat stretches and plains. But approaching useless as you get into real wilderness. For the wheel to become useful you need eventually paths cleared or actual roads. And someone to make a connection that wheels can make moving materials easier.

Also keep in mind that even long after being introduced to wheels and wagons that alot of tribes never adopted it. Probably for that pesky terrain reason.

But yeah odds are the people making this game are just trying to cash in. I'll be surprised if it is even remotely researched past a superficial google glossing over.

It also reads like a weak minority-flip of Black As Fuck where the only metahumans are black.

As said. Its not a new idea and can and has been done well. Just we aint seein that likely anymore.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 11, 2021, 07:30:40 PMI can imagine some kind of weird radiation that could make plants into thinking characters. But there's no conditions in the past, without adding "magic" or "alien level scifi" or "vibranium", that allows the Americas to develop an advanced and humane civilization without the Columbian Exchange.

And even there, the fundamental result for the "humane" part has to be "the Aztecs (or whoever) suddenly develop values that are LIKE THE EUROPEANS for no reason".

But instead of saying "this is fantasy wish fulfillment, we know it would never have been that way", the entire POINT of this type of game is to try to claim that the world would be a utopia if the "evil white man" had just disappeared. Very very dangerous thinking.

1: I think it could happen. There were some fairly advanced civilizations in the americas. Problem is. Each seemed to be in one way or another somehow very specialized and whatever advanced techniques they used. Were practically one-trick ponies. And then they die out or were exterminated by other civilizations. Much like say the mongols or vikings. They excelled in some areas but were oft way behind in practically everything else for one reason or another.

It is also hard to develop a civilization when everyone seems hellbent on genociding everyone else well before those pesky europeans arrived.

2: Thats a bit harder. But there were some large tribal unions that could have solidified into something more. But never did. It likely would not have been like europe. But likely would have some simmilarities. The Aztecs or Incas could have. But it would be some weird values akin to say feudal Japan.

3: Exactly. This is why it raises some red flags right off. And even if it is not an agenda platform it is still a cash-in on BAF and Black Panther.