https://web.archive.org/web/20210308122723/https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3mw5b/how-tabletop-rpgs-are-being-reclaimed-from-bigots-and-jerks

For those who don't want to give Vice the clicks allow me to sum it up;

"Leftist rag online magazine defends Woke garbage rpg and calls those who don't approve of it racist bigots and trolls who deserve to not have a voice in the hobby."

Wokism is woke... and this is a day that ends in "y."

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 15, 2021, 12:28:05 PM
For those who don't want to give Vice the clicks allow me to sum it up;

Quite right, fuck giving money to Identitarian Marxist scum. Points to an archive now.

The whole fiasco about wokes vs. Lovecraft starts with the motto: "Let's Claim Back the Mythos!" Ah. Because they were yours and Lovecraft stole them?

Then it gets truly worse.

Quote from: Reckall on March 15, 2021, 12:36:03 PM
The whole fiasco about wokes vs. Lovecraft starts with the motto: "Let's Claim Back the Mythos!" Ah. Because they were yours and Lovecraft stole them?

   Let's see ... you detest the man (and he did have some detestable ideas, although they're tangled up with matters of upbringing and psychology that might reduce his culpability) but still want to use and make money off his work, while at the same time making it clear that you detest him?

  Seems like there are words for that kind of thing: exploitation, appropriation, etc.

  But what do I know? They are on the Right Side of History. They will bury us. Who is like the Beast? Who can make war against it?

Bryk said she'll keep fighting fascists online as she sees them, and she'll keep writing content warnings and guides for players. "It makes people feel safe, while also making it clear that people who engage with the material in bad faith are not welcome," she said.

Ok, I'm not welcome to play a shitty evil hat game.

I like how they recount the shit show that Vampire 5th was like it was being developed by Jim Goad or someone naughty. It was and continues to be a blundering mess and is distinctly not the work of anyone near the right.

It is refreshing to see them not roll out the trope of gaming conventions being rape festivals at least. Or that they would feature a near-lynching every time a minority appeared.

And bravo Evil Hat, you're really showing us by dunking on a dead man whose work you're shamelessly using.

Who is the audience for this crap?

So. How are tabletop RPGs being reclaimed from the likes of Evil Hat? Lion & Dragon?

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 15, 2021, 12:42:30 PM

Quote from: Reckall on March 15, 2021, 12:36:03 PM
The whole fiasco about wokes vs. Lovecraft starts with the motto: "Let's Claim Back the Mythos!" Ah. Because they were yours and Lovecraft stole them?

   Let's see ... you detest the man (and he did have some detestable ideas

He was even more than a racist. It was Xenophobic. It is hard to deny this: it expresses his ideas in his tales, black on white.

Of course the obvious follow-up is totally ignored: if Lovecraft disparaged, among others, Italians and Asians, how comes that Italy and Japan are two of the countries where his tales are most enjoyed and revered? Maybe because the readers are able to put them in context and just shrug off the offensive parts? Well, no, because...

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, although they're tangled up with matters of upbringing and psychology that might reduce his culpability)

No. Nope. You can't use this justification. SJWs forbid it for... reasons. You can't even point out how Lovecraft recognised many of his racial biases as wrong in his later years, because of... other reasons.

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but still want to use and make money off his work?

Exactly. And that this doesn't give them at least a mantle of coherence. If they were Pontius Pilate, after condemning Jesus they would have gathered the Apostles and made money as the new Messiah.

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  Seems like there are words for that kind of thing: exploitation, appropriation, etc.

I must confess that I bought a single book in the "Let's Claim Back the Mythos" series, "Winter Tide" and I read it with all the openness I could muster. What I found was... baffling.

The sheer description from Amazon should have warned me:

After attacking Devil's Reef in 1928, the U.S. government rounded up the people of Innsmouth and took them to the desert, far from their ocean, their Deep One ancestors, and their sleeping god Cthulhu. (One wonders why) Only Aphra and Caleb Marsh survived the camps (yup, THE CAMPS), and they emerged without a past or a future.

The government that stole Aphra's life (...As a deep one...) now needs her help. FBI agent Ron Spector believes that Communist spies have stolen dangerous magical secrets from Miskatonic University, secrets that could turn the Cold War hot in an instant, and hasten the end of the human race. (because letting instead people to worship Cthulhu will not totally hasten the end of the human race...)

Aphra must return to the ruins of her home, gather scraps of her stolen history, and assemble a new family to face the darkness of human nature. (next on this channel: Sympathy for the Body Snatchers!)

I managed to get to one third of the book before the hypocrisy overwhelmed me. Feel free to take back the Mythos, just don't present the people from Innsmouth as human beings - because truth is: you are not writing about the Mythos anymore. To support the "holy righteousness" that moves you, you had to change the very fundamentals of a key Mythos tale. 

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  But what do I know? They are on the Right Side of History. They will bury us. Who is like the Beast? Who can make war against it?

As I said, I'm more optimistic than this. While SJWs are enjoying their brouhahas in their strictly controlled echo-chambers, Lovecraft is at the peak of his popularity in RPGs, tabletop games, videogames and comics. This is the real reason as why he become a target.

"But players and designers say the content warnings and mature playing guides are working as intended—gatekeeping bad elements of the community and providing a framework for sensitive players to deal with mature narratives in a safe environment."

Wait.  I thought 'Gatekeeping = Bad'? 

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 15, 2021, 12:42:30 PM...{Lovecraft} did have some detestable ideas, although they're tangled up with matters of upbringing and psychology that might reduce his culpability....

Not to mention that much of what was thought to be state-of-the-art science at the time supported those ideas, and that generally the people who most dunk on Lovecraft for his prejudices are also exactly those who seem incapable of considering that Lovecraft's own "lived experiences" might very well have contributed to those opinions.

Plus, as I've said before, it is exactly the point of Lovecraft's horror that our assumptions about the moral and physical nature of what it means to be human are, to use the popular rationalist phrase, "not even wrong". If the religious don't get to complain that Lovecraft scoffs at the ideas of God or the soul, the woke don't get to complain that Lovecraft scoffs at the idea of internal universal human equality.

Evil Hat doesn't want our money. Fine. They don't get our money. That only means we don't buy their products. It doesn't mean we don't get their products; this is the era of Internet.

For those who complain that I'm acting as though I support illegally downloading their materials, let me assure you - I'm not acting. They want a war; economic sabotage is a legitimate war tactic.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on March 15, 2021, 01:32:35 PM
Not to mention that much of what was thought to be state-of-the-art science at the time supported those ideas, and that generally the people who most dunk on Lovecraft for his prejudices are also exactly those who seem incapable of considering that Lovecraft's own "lived experiences" might very well have contributed to those opinions.

  Good point; this was the era when eugenics was the darling of Progressive thought, after all.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 15, 2021, 01:42:29 PM

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on March 15, 2021, 01:32:35 PM
Not to mention that much of what was thought to be state-of-the-art science at the time supported those ideas, and that generally the people who most dunk on Lovecraft for his prejudices are also exactly those who seem incapable of considering that Lovecraft's own "lived experiences" might very well have contributed to those opinions.

  Good point; this was the era when eugenics was the darling of Progressive thought, after all.

He believed the science, right? Isn't that what we are supposed to do, believe the science of the day?

Timeless principles? Nah, those are for suckers.

I'd like to know what Evil Hat produces that is worth spending money on.

Quote"We were in the midst of combat and the GM described someone's jaw getting broken," the company said. "And the vet stopped the game and said 'Hey, you know, I'm cool with most things but I just... I have a thing about teeth.' Clearly having anxiety about it. Now that's not on the list of most people's triggers, but if we'd had a better content discussion ...or had Safety Tools available, then it would have been a much smoother experience for him as well as everyone else in the game."

If only we'd had a conversation about it we wouldn't have had to have a conversation about it!