Quote from: Telarus;820150Meh. Monte & company stuck their foot in their mouth by poorly amalgamating "native culture" (as if it was only one culture) into a poor stereotype, and got called on it.

Personally, I think culture is, y'know, Transmitted. Many of us are gorging on burritos, doing yoga, and popping sushi into our mouths with chopsticks. But it's on you if you fuck up the re-transmission of something people love and care about (like their spirituality). And it's on you if you're a screeching monkey about it and refuse to acknowledge the mistake.

It kinda sounds like Monte & company went with a "white vision" of native culture, which basically screams "you're not a person worth considering" to a whole bunch of people.

So on a scale of One to Five Armies (:cool:), how badly mangled is the "Thunder Plains" setting?

the thing is making it about white views on the matter makes perfect sense hell its not even just white views theres not a whole lot of American indian people in the world so theres not a whole lot to draw on there for shared imagination whereas whats there is what most people imagine

chopsticks best way to eat

Experiment: Go to an Indian Reservation and start asking bystanders "I'm here to investigate the HARM done to you by Monte Cook and his hot wife's imaginary spaceman game! Tell us about the REAL HARM that The Strange did to you!"

Watch everyone slowly back away from you, baffled, having no idea what the fuck you are jabbering about.

Everyone.

that sounds fun but im on completly the wrong continante

I can't even type out a response. It's so absurd on so many levels.

Gamers don't hate American Indians. Considering all the time we've spent adding them to our games, including parts in our settings and otherwise, I believe one could argue that gamers appreciate American Indians. Even revere the culture.

Once again, the outrage has missed the mark on accomplishing ANYTHING.

You are not going to convince any angry white gamers that they should start "respecting Indians" by screaming at them.

You are not going to convince anyone of your position comparing free speech published in a book to genocide.

You are not going to accomplish anything from your couch. Screaming and spitting does not create momentum.

If there are truly American Indian gamers who are concerned that current trends are negatively stereotyping them, then instead EDUCATE the gamers! Make a game that speaks to what you are trying to accomplish. Lead by example. That whole diatribe includes little information on exactly WHAT is offensive. Just that using it was offensive. Make a sincere argument and you may find some people taking your seriously.

Gah, what a horrible joke on the real tragedies suffered by the American Indians. A small chapter in an RPG is hardly the tip of the iceberg.

Quote from: Telarus;820150It kinda sounds like Monte & company went with a "white vision" of native culture, which basically screams "you're not a person worth considering" to a whole bunch of people.

It doesn't really scream that. It may however, scream "opportunity!" to professional victims who have Twitter alerts set up, sending smoke signals about possible far away problematic buffalo rumblings.

And if a white person has a creative vision which to a non-white seems very "white", then that's cool with me.

have a look at this quote from one of the signers

A game about cultures should respect real cultures. A game about fiction should be more creative than stereotypes.

holy shit you idiot the whole point of the setting is sterotypes

Quote from: The_Shadow;820169It doesn't really scream that. It may however, scream "opportunity!" to professional victims who have Twitter alerts set up, sending smoke signals about possible far away problematic buffalo rumblings.

And if a white person has a creative vision which to a non-white seems very "white", then that's cool with me.

heh thats funny

Quote from: tuypo1;820171have a look at this quote from one of the signers

A game about cultures should respect real cultures. A game about fiction should be more creative than stereotypes.

holy shit you idiot the whole point of the setting is sterotypes

heres the very first comment from somebody who signed



Racism in Gaming is unacceptable and this imagery promotes racist violence against natives, especially children. This is disgusting and needs to be removed now!

wont somebody please think of the children

and the violence concern is just silly in fact i dont think i have ever seen a western without natives on the good side as well as the bad (although to be fair i have not seen many westerns) so unless cook knows something i dont im sure there will be plenty of local allies.

this guy is just showing his own racism

I'm sick and tired of rpgs reaching to racist stereotypes and butchering rich an complicated culture and mythology into bunch of simple things every white idiot can easily comprehend.


If it's not OK for "Chief Wahoo" to be used, it's sure as hell not OK to charicature Native American culture.

does that not fall under charicature. i dont auctualy expect that sort of name to be honest there will be some sentance names and whatnot things like running bull but i dont think things like chief wahoo are thought of enough to make a recursion

Quote from: tuypo1;820129oh god who gave this woman a doctorate

https://twitter.com/nativeapprops

it would be fun to play the strange outside this chicks office or something

also there are still people bitching about the redskins

At least the original complaint came from actual, you know, indigenous people instead of a bunch of white hipster guys.

i honestly think thats somehow worse like it means the social justice warriors are winning or something i dont know

Quote from: tuypo1;820220i honestly think thats somehow worse like it means the social justice warriors are winning or something i dont know

I dunno: there are media awareness groups out there who look for this sort of thing. They often just ask that the designers do a bit of research before making any generalizations in their works, especially if they're making a buck. Which is a good thing, if you ask me.

It can be done right: Arrows of Indra and Spears of Dawn. Neither of those authors had the big team or budget that Cook had.

This kind of thing can evolve into literal, naked shakedowns as Al Sharpton is known to have specialised in. Make a "donation" or we make trouble. Not saying this is necessarily the case here, but that's why a very close eye has to be kept on the SJWs.

Part of the problem is that The Strange recursions are not based on alternate worlds, but alternate worlds amalgamated from the imaginations of people on earth, so having a more stereotypical or archetypal depiction is more fitting to the realm.

As for the whole SJW discussion, a few days ago there was an actual interesting dialog between Patton Oswalt and Salon about this subject, especially since PO feels Salon is becoming a little too much like the SJW view.  It's a really interesting article, so I wanted to share the link.  

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/11/salons_patton_oswalt_peace_summit/