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Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid

Started by RPGPundit, April 01, 2021, 08:33:33 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

jeff37923

Quote from: Reckall on April 03, 2021, 07:56:55 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 03, 2021, 07:46:16 AM
Quote from: Reckall on April 03, 2021, 07:01:07 AM
Meanwhile Extra Credits is getting mauled for their "Evil Races are Bad Game Design" video.

Fun fact: some negative comments are from... black people!  ;D



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_asNhzXq72w

When you see Newspeak like "Bioessentialism" you just know that it will not end well.

OK, I watched the video (because I have gotten a lot of good ideas from Extra Credits before) and my conclusion is that this video was made after reading through some online discussions of racism in RPGs, while having never read or played those RPGs.

Poor form, Extra Credits. Poor form.
"Meh."

ScytheSong

Confession time: I backed and am excited about Coyote and Crow.

The main thing that has me excited is the experience system (that supposedly isn't an experience system, but meh) where each "levelling" event is actually adding to your legend -- the story that people will tell about you for years to come. I want to see how that's accomplished.

It looks like they're using a variant on the Storyteller System (OWoD 2.0, or possibly Revised) only with d12s rather than d10s, which leaves me less than impressed, but means that they have less work to do than if they built a system out of scratch.

I'm all for the alternate history timeline -- it's an interesting counterfactual no matter what the author's reasons for it -- but I'm also someone who unironically loves SkyRealms of Jorune for its gonzo setting, so it might be that my taste is all in my mouth. 

WillInNewHaven

Quote from: jhkim on April 02, 2021, 11:00:42 AM
Quote from: WillInNewHaven on April 02, 2021, 10:37:35 AM
About Myfarog: The setting is racist and intentionally so. The system doesn't seem to have any racist elements, at least that saw and a friend used it for a campaign set in the Fertile Crescent with no echoes of the Thule setting. I don't think the system is anything special but the campaign was good. I never bought any material for the game and I wouldn't recommend the system.

It seems to me that the race rules are fairly, well, racist. Darklings, Weaklings, and Foreigners all have across-the-board penalties compared to Native Thulean characters. Here is the racial mods table from page 8, for example:



Maybe your friend replaced the race rules in the Fertile Crescent campaign?

He evidently did. I imagine that we would have all been some lesser race in a Thule campaign.

GeekyBugle

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 03, 2021, 03:34:43 PM
Quote from: Reckall on April 03, 2021, 07:56:55 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 03, 2021, 07:46:16 AM
Quote from: Reckall on April 03, 2021, 07:01:07 AM
Meanwhile Extra Credits is getting mauled for their "Evil Races are Bad Game Design" video.

Fun fact: some negative comments are from... black people!  ;D



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_asNhzXq72w

When you see Newspeak like "Bioessentialism" you just know that it will not end well.

OK, I watched the video (because I have gotten a lot of good ideas from Extra Credits before) and my conclusion is that this video was made after reading through some online discussions of racism in RPGs, while having never read or played those RPGs.

Poor form, Extra Credits. Poor form.

They jumped, the shark, drank the koolaid a while back, IIRC a video about how a WWII PvP Vidya where you could end up playing as a bad guy would somehow turn you into a neo badguy.
Quote from: Rhedyn

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Reckall

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 04, 2021, 02:11:17 AM
Quote from: jeff37923 on April 03, 2021, 03:34:43 PM
Quote from: Reckall on April 03, 2021, 07:56:55 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 03, 2021, 07:46:16 AM
Quote from: Reckall on April 03, 2021, 07:01:07 AM
Meanwhile Extra Credits is getting mauled for their "Evil Races are Bad Game Design" video.

Fun fact: some negative comments are from... black people!  ;D



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_asNhzXq72w

When you see Newspeak like "Bioessentialism" you just know that it will not end well.

OK, I watched the video (because I have gotten a lot of good ideas from Extra Credits before) and my conclusion is that this video was made after reading through some online discussions of racism in RPGs, while having never read or played those RPGs.

Poor form, Extra Credits. Poor form.

They jumped, the shark, drank the koolaid a while back, IIRC a video about how a WWII PvP Vidya where you could end up playing as a bad guy would somehow turn you into a neo badguy.

I really liked their historical videos. The serie about Catherine the Great made me buy some books. They were creative, informative and fun.

The first time that I felt a chilly wind was when they pushed out a video about "Representation of women in videogames". It was unneeded and full of crap. I'm now wondering if it is their videogame branch that went rogue and got woke. All their biggest fiascoes are born from it.
For every idiot who denounces Ayn Rand as "intellectualism" there is an excellent DM who creates a "Bioshock" adventure.

BoxCrayonTales

Quote from: Reckall on April 04, 2021, 04:41:12 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 04, 2021, 02:11:17 AM
Quote from: jeff37923 on April 03, 2021, 03:34:43 PM
Quote from: Reckall on April 03, 2021, 07:56:55 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 03, 2021, 07:46:16 AM
Quote from: Reckall on April 03, 2021, 07:01:07 AM
Meanwhile Extra Credits is getting mauled for their "Evil Races are Bad Game Design" video.

Fun fact: some negative comments are from... black people!  ;D



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_asNhzXq72w

When you see Newspeak like "Bioessentialism" you just know that it will not end well.

OK, I watched the video (because I have gotten a lot of good ideas from Extra Credits before) and my conclusion is that this video was made after reading through some online discussions of racism in RPGs, while having never read or played those RPGs.

Poor form, Extra Credits. Poor form.

They jumped, the shark, drank the koolaid a while back, IIRC a video about how a WWII PvP Vidya where you could end up playing as a bad guy would somehow turn you into a neo badguy.

I really liked their historical videos. The serie about Catherine the Great made me buy some books. They were creative, informative and fun.

The first time that I felt a chilly wind was when they pushed out a video about "Representation of women in videogames". It was unneeded and full of crap. I'm now wondering if it is their videogame branch that went rogue and got woke. All their biggest fiascoes are born from it.

Even their so-called educational videos may not be as accurate as they claim. Their video on some native American folklore, the Wendi-go, depicted it as a deer skeleton monster when that's actually from online misinterpretations of the monster made by non-native people. Five minutes on Google scholar would've showed that was wrong.

TobiasP

Quote from: jhkim on April 03, 2021, 03:12:02 PM

Yeah, I agree that Coyote & Crow is certainly in the genre of Wakanda. As for whether it will be good - I'm not familiar with Swordfall, but it's a first-time Kickstarter and a first-time game design from the author. I think it's likely to have problems. But I think the concept as presented in the preview is cool and could be turned into a good game in the right hands. Contrary to Pundit, I don't think the concept is disgusting hideous racialism.


The core fantasy of Coyote & Crow is that Native Americans are the only ethnic group and they own all the land. I realize there are also psychic powers and whatever else but fundamentally it looks like a fantasy about race.

RPGPundit

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 03, 2021, 02:25:47 PM


It seems really racist to assume that non-white people wouldn't develop guns and democracy on their own.


Guns weren't invented by white people. They were invented by the Song Chinese. But of course, many many cultures would NOT come up with Gunpowder; because it requires a complex background of certain resources, the previous development of certain technologies, and the prior discovery of certain knowledge.
A civilization that didn't come up with basic mining probably won't come up with gunpowder, for example.

As for democracy, it isn't particularly racist to think that democracy might never have been developed elsewhere. I mean, perhaps, over the course of thousands of years, it might have again with all the right conditions. But it's clearly super rare: in all of 200000 years of human history only ONE civilization (the West) came up with Democracy.
It is vastly harder to come up with (in the sense of requiring more complex and delicate preconditions) than even gunpowder.
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Quote from: jhkim on April 03, 2021, 03:12:02 PM
Quote from: TobiasP on April 03, 2021, 02:16:11 PM
Coyote and Crow looks like basically a Black Panther knock off. Native American culture was very primitive and low tech. The culture we associate with native Americans involved furs, primitive weapons, people worshipping the great coyote spirit, et cetera. If Native Americans had developed an advanced culture then they wouldn't be doing any of  that stuff, they would be fighting with aircraft carriers like everyone else. But if you made an RPG where Native Americans wear normal military uniforms and ride around in aircraft carriers, it wouldn't like real world Native American culture. So they have to invent this kind of fantasy ultratech to explain why there's this high tech civilization that still uses tomahaks. Black Panther basically invented this style, for much the same reasons.

Black Panther wasn't actually woke though. It was a movie about two men fighting for control of the kingdom. The movie was about masculinity as much as race. At the end of the movie Wakanda decides they need to engage with the rest of the world. This is actually a really good message! Will Coyote and Crow have a good message? We'll find out. My guess is it will go like Swordfall: A lot of cool art and not much else.

Yeah, I agree that Coyote & Crow is certainly in the genre of Wakanda. As for whether it will be good - I'm not familiar with Swordfall, but it's a first-time Kickstarter and a first-time game design from the author. I think it's likely to have problems. But I think the concept as presented in the preview is cool and could be turned into a good game in the right hands. Contrary to Pundit, I don't think the concept is disgusting hideous racialism.

The point of the people who made it was to suggest that white people were the source of all their problems and without them they would have had a super-society. That's exactly the argument of Myfarog.

Quote
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 02, 2021, 05:27:02 PM

I mean, it's very simple: Imagine if someone (maybe Varg) made an alt-history game where he invented some calamity that made all the Jews die or disappear in the middle ages, and then claimed that in the 21st century Super State where the Jew-free Aryans were able to bring about a worldwide alliance now expanding out to the stars.
Would or would that not be racist?

But by your logic, Wakanda is exactly this hideous, disgusting racialism. Coyote & Crow is a direct parallel to it, as TobiasP wrote.

1) Unlike the rest of Africa, Wakanda was not invaded and conquered by white people
2) Wakanda developed its own technology and society more advanced than Europe

By your logic, this is racialist propaganda that white people are evil devils who held back Africa. Now, one could say, "it's not *because* Wakanda wasn't conquered by whites that it is advanced - it is advanced because of the fictional vibranium". But if one grants that to Wakanda, then one would have to grant the same thing to Coyote & Crow. The advances are due to the psychic powers from the Awis, not because of the lack of white people.

Yes, Wakanda has partly got the same anti-white fantasy (I mean, we KNOW what happened to lands that weren't conquered by Europeans in Africa and Asia: nothing special; not one turned into an Enlightened semi-utopian super-state, and the ones that fared best were the ones who enacted huge reforms by themselves to become MORE LIKE EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION and thus enjoy the benefits of those advances), but at least it doesn't make all the Europeans die from a meteor or just 'no one knows' (which is what fascists say when they make someone disappear) like Coyote & Crow does, or describe Europeans as "subhuman" who need to be exterminated as a story feature the way Myfarog does of all non-aryans.

I notice you didn't respond to my question to you, though, so I'll repeat it:
Imagine if someone (maybe Varg) made an alt-history game where he invented some calamity that made all the Jews die or disappear in the middle ages, and then claimed that in the 21st century Super State where the Jew-free Aryans were able to bring about a worldwide alliance now expanding out to the stars.
Would or would that not be racist?

LION & DRAGON: Medieval-Authentic OSR Roleplaying is available now! You only THINK you\'ve played \'medieval fantasy\' until you play L&D.


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Check out my short OSR supplements series; The RPGPundit Presents!


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Also available in Variant Cover form!
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RPGPundit

Quote from: TJS on April 02, 2021, 05:56:01 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on April 02, 2021, 05:11:43 PM
Quote from: TJS on April 02, 2021, 05:56:24 AM
I can't for the life of me understand why people have can't wait for the game to be released to condemn it.

I think that if Kickstarter has taught us nothing, waiting until it may or may not be released is a fool games.

Best get your condemnation in early.
If it never ships than who cares?  It seems pointless to condemn content if it never arrives.

In that case the story would not be about the continent about the failure to be any.

Because it would mean that the hobby has a problem with Race-grifting con-artists.
LION & DRAGON: Medieval-Authentic OSR Roleplaying is available now! You only THINK you\'ve played \'medieval fantasy\' until you play L&D.


My Blog:  http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/
The most famous uruguayan gaming blog on the planet!

NEW!
Check out my short OSR supplements series; The RPGPundit Presents!


Dark Albion: The Rose War! The OSR fantasy setting of the history that inspired Shakespeare and Martin alike.
Also available in Variant Cover form!
Also, now with the CULTS OF CHAOS cult-generation sourcebook

ARROWS OF INDRA
Arrows of Indra: The Old-School Epic Indian RPG!
NOW AVAILABLE: AoI in print form

LORDS OF OLYMPUS
The new Diceless RPG of multiversal power, adventure and intrigue, now available.

BoxCrayonTales

Quote from: RPGPundit on April 04, 2021, 02:41:29 PM
As for democracy, it isn't particularly racist to think that democracy might never have been developed elsewhere. I mean, perhaps, over the course of thousands of years, it might have again with all the right conditions. But it's clearly super rare: in all of 200000 years of human history only ONE civilization (the West) came up with Democracy.
It is vastly harder to come up with (in the sense of requiring more complex and delicate preconditions) than even gunpowder.
You mean the Ancient Greeks developing one form of democracy? The West isn't a monolithic civilization. It's a bunch of civilizations, and was hugely influenced by the Eastern and Mesopotamian civilizations via the Silk Road.

wmarshal

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 04, 2021, 03:18:02 PM
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 04, 2021, 02:41:29 PM
As for democracy, it isn't particularly racist to think that democracy might never have been developed elsewhere. I mean, perhaps, over the course of thousands of years, it might have again with all the right conditions. But it's clearly super rare: in all of 200000 years of human history only ONE civilization (the West) came up with Democracy.
It is vastly harder to come up with (in the sense of requiring more complex and delicate preconditions) than even gunpowder.
You mean the Ancient Greeks developing one form of democracy? The West isn't a monolithic civilization. It's a bunch of civilizations, and was hugely influenced by the Eastern and Mesopotamian civilizations via the Silk Road.
Athens became a democracy in 507 BC. Rome became a republic two years earlier in 509 BC. I don't think one came assume with certainty that Rome was only a democracy because of the Greeks. I think that there was "something in the air" as to how the city-states developed in the Mediterranean that allowed a few to begin experimenting with democracy beyond tribal and village councils, that eventually led to democratic states. If someone can point to examples of democratic governance in the ancient world beyond the tribal/village level outside of Europe I'd be very much interested in learning about it. It's been a subject I've had some interest for since I was in college many decades ago. I asked a history professor of Chinese descent if he knew of any examples, and he came up with nothing. More progress in history since then may have revealed an example, or he might not have known because his focus was on ancient Chinese philosophy as a historical topic rather than governance.

(I don't say this to pound my chest to say "Hooray, I'm part of the West, and we invented democracy!" Nobody alive today invented democracy. We've inherited it. At best some of us have expanded or reformed it, but I think it's also quite possible we may turn away from it.)

I think we (and I include myself) sometimes forget that democracy is not the norm of human governance throughout history, and until fairly recently it wasn't even that common.

Could democracy have developed in the Americas in the 700 year period where the native people advanced from Neolithic technology to what we have to call science-fiction levels of technology? Perhaps, but what I find even more difficult to believe is that on the technological front they compressed about 5,000 years of technological advancement in only 700 years, especially with the presence of psionics. Psionics is basically science-fiction magic, and the existence of magic would retard the advance of science and technology.

The real problem with the setting isn't whether or not it's ideas for how technological and societal advancement would progress. If someone wants to suspend their sense of disbelief that's not really a big deal. We all do it in games and fiction all the time. The real problem is that they've created a setting centered on getting rid of the unwanted Other, being non-Native Americans. They even did it clumsily. Nothing prevents them from having a setting with advance technology centered on the Americas 50,000 years in the past. Plenty for fiction has supposed advanced civilizations existing a very long time ago, that then later fell before the current ones we know about. But that wouldn't have the same jump to the creators endorphin levels of removing the Other, and this project does seem to very much be motivated by bigoted thinking that wants to imagine a alternate "current" world as a kind of racist wish fulfillment without having to consider non-Native Americans.

At least since Star Trek science-fiction has included the idea of multiple races being part of the future. Science fiction that was all-white was either pre Star Trek laziness in that regard, or deliberate racism. Coyote and Crow is making the deliberate step to exclude non-Native Americans. This goes beyond imagining an alternate history where the Americas weren't colonized by the European powers.

Ratman_tf

Quote from: wmarshal on April 04, 2021, 04:28:03 PM
The real problem with the setting isn't whether or not it's ideas for how technological and societal advancement would progress. If someone wants to suspend their sense of disbelief that's not really a big deal. We all do it in games and fiction all the time. The real problem is that they've created a setting centered on getting rid of the unwanted Other, being non-Native Americans.

Yeah. I don't even mind that angle, (It's about offsensive as acat with a Hitler moustache) but it really shouldn't be glossed over that the setting is based on a racist premise.
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TobiasP

Quote from: RPGPundit on April 04, 2021, 02:54:01 PM

Because it would mean that the hobby has a problem with Race-grifting con-artists.

We're obviously in for a lot of RPGs with explicitly left wing themes. I just hope they don't get D&D.

crkrueger

Ever since Shadowrun, Native American futurism has been interesting to me.  I kind of doubt this game will be worth it, but will take a look if it ever hits the Trove.  I'm thinking the White "Cherokee" Connor Alexander is going to take his million dollars and vanish, but who knows.
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