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Author Topic: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid  (Read 23271 times)

RPGPundit

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #75 on: April 05, 2021, 06:49:58 PM »
I often get the impression that popular historical discussions are cherrypicking to serve a point (cultural posturing) rather than analyzing the whole of recorded human history to receive insights about what innovations are likely for a civilization to develop.

To use one example: we think of the Aztecs as uniquely cruel and evil in human history, while ignoring or downplaying comparable cultures who practiced human sacrifice or other atrocities (e.g. European witch hunts, the Inquisition, public executions) and not taking into account that the Flower Wars were a recent (and unsustainable) development... like every period of atrocity and religious reformation in recorded history.

But almost all indigenous American civilizations appeared to perform some degree of human sacrifice at most points in their history. And large amounts of human sacrifice were happening before the Aztecs started doing the Flower Wars (in fact, there's some suggestion that at first the Flower Wars might have been started as a way to try to avoid bloodshed; though later the demand for ever more sacrifices probably made it worse than what they were doing before).

There's nothing special about human cultures of all kinds being brutish and murderous. ALL of them were. Only ONE of them had an Enlightenment and developed concepts like fundamental human rights, equality of all human beings, individual rights and liberties, that allowed atrocities to be effectively morally opposed. THAT is the Exceptional thing.

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ScytheSong

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #76 on: April 05, 2021, 06:51:52 PM »
While we're on the topic of why the European conquest of the Americas was so successful, I have a theory that the Reconquista was much more important than what was taught me in school. Granada falls in August, and Columbus sails in October of 1492. If there weren't a bunch of out-of-work soldiers who were prone to see any conflict as an us-or-them for their very souls, I think there would have been a very different result in the New World. If anyone has done any actual scholarship on the topic, I'd be interested to know about it..


It is absolutely and totally linked. There was an enormous incentive for the Spanish Crown to mobilize people and especially soldiers to the Americas because soldiers left with nothing else to fight tend to be a destabilizing influence. It was also seen as an ongoing part of Spanish Catholic Fervor.
The biggest historical error we see pushed in modern history talks about the initial Spanish conquests of the America is to suggest that somehow the religious component was just pure lip-service. It absolutely was not. The religious fervor of the Spaniards was one hundred percent real, born out of centuries of a people struggling to hold on to their religion under the threat of "heathen" Moorish invaders, and then fighting to reclaim all of Spain for Christ. They saw the Americas, and the mandate to convert the people of "the Indias" to the true religion as a sacred and holy mandate. Of course there was also enormous profiteering and personal agendas, but pretending the religious element was just 'all an act' rather than the FIRST reason to be there ends up causing an enormous error of understanding of the motivations for the expansion to the Americas.

Especially after discovering the Aztecs.  I mean, consider how the Aztecs would have looked to devout Catholic spaniards: an empire based on the ritual sacrifice of thousands of people a year to demonic-looking gods. It was literally biblical, it was like they were seeing the cult of Moloch or Baal in real life once more. For them, to crusade to put an end to that which was clearly in their eyes an unquestionable evil of the highest nature would have been self-evidently doing the work of God.

We don't even have to imagine their response to the Aztec religion. Now that you're reminded me of it, I've read an excerpt from the journal Cortez or one of his close companions wrote where he describes Moctezuma showing off the sacrifice chamber at the top of one of the pyramids -- the smell of burnt flesh was said to be like frankincense and the gouts of dried blood as beautiful as a picture of the Blessed Virgin to the Aztecs. Which, of course, led the guy who was writing the journal to completely freak out.

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #77 on: April 05, 2021, 07:38:42 PM »
I often get the impression that popular historical discussions are cherrypicking to serve a point (cultural posturing) rather than analyzing the whole of recorded human history to receive insights about what innovations are likely for a civilization to develop.

Funny how this applies to you.

To use one example: we think of the Aztecs as uniquely cruel and evil in human history, while ignoring or downplaying comparable cultures who practiced human sacrifice or other atrocities (e.g. European witch hunts, the Inquisition, public executions) and not taking into account that the Flower Wars were a recent (and unsustainable) development... like every period of atrocity and religious reformation in recorded history.

An example taken right out of a discussion in another thread where I explicitly stated that the Spanish Conquistadors were evil AF and almost as bad as the Aztecs. And where I also explained why the Aztecs truly were uniquely cruel—to the point were other Mesoamerican tribes, when faced with a technologically superior invading force (the Spaniards), rather than shit on their pants and start running for the hills to gather their forces and unite against this vastly better armed invading army, they actually thought “These people could help us against the Aztecs!” Then united with the Spaniards to defeat the Aztecs and unwittingly gave Spain a foothold in Central America.

THAT’S how bad the Aztecs were!

And this isn’t “posturing” or judging ancient peoples by modern standards. This is what other contemporary Mesoamerican tribes thought of the Aztecs at the time. They were so violent, bloodthirsty and out of control that other tribes sided with a bunch of strange alien invaders with superior weaponry to fight against them, rather than realize the impending doom that was ahead the moment the Spanish set foot at their shores.

But I’m sure me pointing out the FACT that most European cultures (or ANY other culture anywhere for that matter) that practiced human sacrifice usually used volunteers and that human sacrifice was uncommon, while the Aztecs went across sacrificing war prisoners by the thousands, was just me “downplaying” stuff. Cuz that’s what FACTS are: “downplays”.

That's equivalent to assuming that, say, since the Axis Powers were fascists and committed atrocities then they had always been evil... even though those were recent developments that only lasted a few decades and even people within those regimes disagreed with what happened.

The Aztecs even engaged in book burning to erase all evidence of their history prior to the Flower Wars.

All this important political and cultural leadup is completely absent from mainstream school history textbooks.

Who the hell doubts that the Axis Powers were evil? Isn’t that the entire reason everyone calls everyone else a Nazi these days? And how does comparing the Aztecs to the Nazis (a group NOBODY denies was evil) make the Aztecs not evil? Or is it that they’re the wrong color?

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #78 on: April 05, 2021, 08:13:13 PM »
I often get the impression that popular historical discussions are cherrypicking to serve a point (cultural posturing) rather than analyzing the whole of recorded human history to receive insights about what innovations are likely for a civilization to develop.

To use one example: we think of the Aztecs as uniquely cruel and evil in human history, while ignoring or downplaying comparable cultures who practiced human sacrifice or other atrocities (e.g. European witch hunts, the Inquisition, public executions) and not taking into account that the Flower Wars were a recent (and unsustainable) development... like every period of atrocity and religious reformation in recorded history.

Aztecs: We are uniquely cruel and evil

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #79 on: April 05, 2021, 08:19:03 PM »
Hmmm...in the Middle Ages, the Republic of Novgorod, in northern Russia, embraced many Democratic traditions. The Veche was a democratic assembly of normal citizens that elected the Prince of the Republic. In addition to the people electing their ruling Princes, The Posadnik was the mayor of the city of Novgorod, which was also elected by the Veche. Tysiatskii's were an important local military commanders which were elected by the Veche. The Republic of Novgorod organized and maintained such democratic traditions and institutions for some 450 years.

There are also various elements of Democratic thought within the Germanic tribes. If enough people--ordinary people--opposed a Chieftain, the Chieftain was retired, exiled, or killed, and replaced with a chieftain that had more regard and respect for the people. The point being, Germanic peoples were accustomed to enjoying personal freedom, liberty, respect, and protections of traditional tribal laws. Such protections applied to men and women alike.

So, there are certainly more influences of democratic ideals than just from Iceland.
Until William the Bastard, the Saxon nobles elected the King. That isn't democracy or it's a very limited democracy but warm-body democracy has been the exception, not the rule. By the way, that's why Harold couldn't have simply given the throne to William if he had promised to, which he probably hadn't.

For that matter, the Athenians chose most of their office-holders by lottery among the citizenry, which was a very small subset of the population. Yet we call them the first democracy.

I concur with WillInNewHaven here. I did cite medieval Iceland, but I wasn't claiming it ​was the only thing vaguely democratic. My point is that democracy was the exception rather than the rule in medieval Europe. For the most part, medieval Europe was not significantly more democratic or egalitarian than medieval China, medieval India, or other civilization.

Exceptions like Iceland and Novgorod were important for later on during the Enlightenment - but during the medieval period they remained exceptions.

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #80 on: April 05, 2021, 09:03:18 PM »
The "Vibranium" there is irrelevant, unless one of the powers of Vibranium was making Wakandans spontaneously know the Western Scientific Method and how to jump-start Western Industrial Revolution as they did.
Of course, when that's true, it means that stuff like vibranium or other magic-gadgets, if they not only provide a resource but also somehow "enhance" a people to be able to become better than Europeans, is actually SUPER RACIST but NOT the way you think: it's suggesting that Black People or Native Americans or whoever require an artificial deus ex machina to be enhanced because somehow in their native state they would never be the equal to white men.

So is that what the "stuff" in Black Panther, Tikor or Coyote & Crow do?  If so, I think those settings are in some ways more white supremacist than Myfarog.
If not, those settings are obviously racist because they suggest that "we were kings" fantasy that the non-white race in question is actually vastly better mentally and ethically than Europeans and would have created a near Utopia of Supertechnology and Social Justice  if the Evil White Man hadn't come along and ruined it just as it was no doubt about to start happening.

So regardless of what the explanation is, you judge it to be racist. If vibranium enabled the Wakandan advances, then it's racist against blacks because clearly blacks shouldn't need enhancements to equal whites. If vibranium *doesn't* enable advances, then it's racist against white people because it says that blacks are naturally better than whites. I tend to think that you're just seeing racism everywhere.

I don't see any sign that Africans or any other peoples are any less genetically intelligent or capable than white people. The evidence of history is that they lacked the circumstances of Europe that enabled greater technological advances. For technology - the key seems to be first the Eurasian exchange, then the Columbian exchange.

The civilizations along the Eurasian band -- the Mediterranean, Middle East, India, and China -- all grew more advanced than other parts of the world, by exchanging crops, domesticated animals, and other discoveries along an East-West axis. It is difficult to use and adapt along a North-South axis because the climate changes so much - making things difficult for Africa and the Americas. For history prior to 1492, it was mostly a toss-up to say which was the most advanced along Eurasia. In 1000 BC, Egypt was the most advanced. In 0AD, Rome was the most advanced. In 500 AD, China was the most advanced. In 1000AD, perhaps Persia was the most advanced. It was only after 1500AD, that Europe unquestionably pulled ahead to be the most advanced technologically. I think it is fair to say that they benefited greatly from the Columbian exchange - i.e. the influx of new ideas, raw materials, plants, and animals from the Americas.

Based on this, I think it is not racist to suggest that a fictional influx of new ideas - like psychic powers or enhanced abilities - would allow a civilization to grow more advanced technologically. I don't think that Wakanda's history is particularly realistic, but it isn't based on an assumed racial superiority or inferiority. The vibranium meteor is portrayed a chance occurrence. If the meteor had hit elsewhere, things would have gone differently.

----

For the record, yes, vibranium has enabled advances. In Wakanda, after the vibranium-laced meteor fell thousands of years ago, a native plant - the heart-shaped herb - adapted to absorb much of the vibranium that now leeched into the soil. Early peoples discovered that by drinking a concoction of the heart-shaped herb, they gained superpowers - which evolved into the line of Black Panthers. The Black Panthers were not inherently super-smart, but they do have superhuman abilities and super-senses. (There's also sometimes been hints of spiritual effects from it - like T'Challa's out-of-body experience in the movie.)


So if a game setting where DUE TO THE LACK OF JEWS, Aryan Europeans were able to become vastly more advanced and create an ethically superior culture by the 21st century is racist.... How is a setting where DUE TO THE LACK OF WHITE MEN, Native Americans were able to become vastly more advanced and create an ethically superior culture by the 21st not racist?

Please explain the difference.

There is a huge difference between:

1) A game with no fictional premise other than lack of European conquest, which claims that it is a realistic projection that Native America civilizations would develop advanced technology in 700 years.

2) A game where there are superhuman psychic powers, billed as "science fantasy", that has Native America civilizations developing advanced technology in 700 years.


In #1, the game is making a false claim about where Native American civilizations would go. In #2, though, it's just a "what if". I could imagine a series of "what if" games which each had what if there was a fictional source of advancement for different civilizations. i.e. What if India got superhuman powers and technology? What if Australia gained superhuman powers and technology? What if Europe got superhuman powers and technology? These aren't racist, because they aren't saying that the *cause* of the advancement is racial superiority.

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #81 on: April 05, 2021, 09:25:37 PM »
I often get the impression that popular historical discussions are cherrypicking to serve a point (cultural posturing) rather than analyzing the whole of recorded human history to receive insights about what innovations are likely for a civilization to develop.

Funny how this applies to you.

To use one example: we think of the Aztecs as uniquely cruel and evil in human history, while ignoring or downplaying comparable cultures who practiced human sacrifice or other atrocities (e.g. European witch hunts, the Inquisition, public executions) and not taking into account that the Flower Wars were a recent (and unsustainable) development... like every period of atrocity and religious reformation in recorded history.

An example taken right out of a discussion in another thread where I explicitly stated that the Spanish Conquistadors were evil AF and almost as bad as the Aztecs. And where I also explained why the Aztecs truly were uniquely cruel—to the point were other Mesoamerican tribes, when faced with a technologically superior invading force (the Spaniards), rather than shit on their pants and start running for the hills to gather their forces and unite against this vastly better armed invading army, they actually thought “These people could help us against the Aztecs!” Then united with the Spaniards to defeat the Aztecs and unwittingly gave Spain a foothold in Central America.

THAT’S how bad the Aztecs were!

And this isn’t “posturing” or judging ancient peoples by modern standards. This is what other contemporary Mesoamerican tribes thought of the Aztecs at the time. They were so violent, bloodthirsty and out of control that other tribes sided with a bunch of strange alien invaders with superior weaponry to fight against them, rather than realize the impending doom that was ahead the moment the Spanish set foot at their shores.

But I’m sure me pointing out the FACT that most European cultures (or ANY other culture anywhere for that matter) that practiced human sacrifice usually used volunteers and that human sacrifice was uncommon, while the Aztecs went across sacrificing war prisoners by the thousands, was just me “downplaying” stuff. Cuz that’s what FACTS are: “downplays”.

That's equivalent to assuming that, say, since the Axis Powers were fascists and committed atrocities then they had always been evil... even though those were recent developments that only lasted a few decades and even people within those regimes disagreed with what happened.

The Aztecs even engaged in book burning to erase all evidence of their history prior to the Flower Wars.

All this important political and cultural leadup is completely absent from mainstream school history textbooks.

Who the hell doubts that the Axis Powers were evil? Isn’t that the entire reason everyone calls everyone else a Nazi these days? And how does comparing the Aztecs to the Nazis (a group NOBODY denies was evil) make the Aztecs not evil? Or is it that they’re the wrong color?

And ritual cannibalism, do not forget the ritual cannibalism, it wasn't just the priest eating the still beating heart of the sacrificed, the people ate their flesh. Pozole, a traditional dish for the end of harvest was originally made with human meath. And there's reason to think other traditional dishes around México have a similar dark origin.

But the Aztecs were singular in the ammount of human sacrifice they engaged in.
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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #82 on: April 05, 2021, 09:56:32 PM »
Feels like this is all built on the assumption of a lack of internal conflict in the run-up to the creation of the advanced technological state in the setting, and also a bunch of embittered TBP castoffs with an axe to grind about their hobby forsaking their tastes.

Mostly the latter, but a bit of both.
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ScytheSong

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #83 on: April 05, 2021, 09:57:40 PM »
I will say that one of the things that's in the (tiny) amount of actual Coyote and Crow game text that I've seen (a blow-up of the jpeg about equipment) is an explicit call out that gunpowder never made it to the Americas. It also says that most of the "warfare" in North America was isolated small units usually working from ambush, and that the weapons of Cahokia reflect that.

At this time, the one thing that comes close to breaking my willing suspension of disbelief (again, I love me a good counterfactual setting) is the existence of an Azteca Empire -- if c. 1400 is the timing of the meteor strike, the three-way alliance that formed the Aztec Empire in 1427 is significantly less likely to have happened.

Of course, having said that, I'm now coming up with an idea: The Aztec religion, which was already present in the 14th century (and this is as I understand it, so take this with a grain of salt), had as one of its core tenets that human sacrifice was needed to keep the sun from going out and to keep the world in order. So what happens when the sun actually does "go out" and the nature of the world changes due to an asteroid strike? A religious crisis, that's what. So does the religion double down, as people are wont to do, or does it decide that maybe the entire human sacrifice thing was a bad idea? Or do we get a good old fashion schism where some people/groups go one way and others go the other way?

I'd say that the schism is the most likely path, with one group doubling down, and the other group moving away from human sacrifice, but the catastrophe making it impossible for one group to beat the other. Several hundred years later, one group could emerge victorious and (seeing as this is humans we're talking about) takes up wide-scale expansionand forms an Aztec Empire that looks familiar from history, but higher tech -- a hegemonic/tributary empire that takes tribute slaves and defeated enemy warriors and sacrifices them to keep the world turning. Needless to say, these would not be the good guys in my setting.

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #84 on: April 05, 2021, 10:18:59 PM »
Back to the topic at hand:
I don't believe this sort of roleplay is isolated to races. I think this sort of 'worldbuilding power fantasy' is always....kinda pathetic. And il state it with 'my' preferred type of politics so I can argue in good faith. Making a world where all the sins of mankind vanish because we embraced decentralization, and a focus on free trade and individualism I would find as pathetic as a world around how awesome communism is.

I think it very much differs from individual power fantasy because that represents a desire to change the world through yourself or experience a new set of circumstances through yourself. And done moderately, I think is perfectly healthy.
But 'world power fantasy' is I find generally much more of an unhealthy sort of fantasizing because it starts with making assumptions about the world, and I find is a more unhealthy kind of escapism.

Now, this is very different from a 'What if" scenario. 'What if Julius Ceasar was more loyal to the republic' is a very different kind of worldbuilding then 'I wish FDR never poisoned everybody's minds with lies'.

I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with the scenario of 'I want to play in a sci-fantasy world in purely indian trappings'. I think the issue is the execution and the real underlining motivation of its creation. It's the current year. The guy making this isn't doing this out of some deep-seated interest in theoretical sci-fi, but out of racial theory wish fulfillment. Just as most characters can be expressed out of interest or narcissistic wish fulfillment, so can worlds.

For instance, Gurps Infinite Worlds has a world that's 100% communist (Lenin 1) with an alt-history. But it never feels like the author wish fulfillment. Alongside Lenin 1 is Lenin 2 which's a commie ecological hellscape.

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #85 on: April 06, 2021, 02:27:04 AM »
So regardless of what the explanation is, you judge it to be racist. If vibranium enabled the Wakandan advances, then it's racist against blacks because clearly blacks shouldn't need enhancements to equal whites. If vibranium *doesn't* enable advances, then it's racist against white people because it says that blacks are naturally better than whites. I tend to think that you're just seeing racism everywhere.

Have to agree with JH on this - probably best to keep 'racist' to a much narrower definition if it's to be a useful concept at all. Eg within the Black Panther film, Killmonger is a Black Supremacist, he talks a lot like Hitler - he's racist. The racism in the film is more around how he's portrayed sympathetically by the director, who seems to think that gripes over 'over policing' south central Los Angeles is an understandable reason for wanting your own Thousand Year Reich. Black Panther's sister is shown as mildly racist, calling the white CIA agent 'Coloniser' seems to be just a racist slur. But the Wakandan society itself isn't racist - if anything it gets criticised for its *lack* of solidarity with the Black Race. As I said, Wakanda isn't a racist concept, "magical supertech country" isn't a racist concept wherever it's set (and Wakanda is hardly a utopia); the film director seems to be somewhat racist.

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #86 on: April 06, 2021, 05:55:46 AM »

There is a huge difference between:

1) A game with no fictional premise other than lack of European conquest, which claims that it is a realistic projection that Native America civilizations would develop advanced technology in 700 years.

2) A game where there are superhuman psychic powers, billed as "science fantasy", that has Native America civilizations developing advanced technology in 700 years.


In #1, the game is making a false claim about where Native American civilizations would go. In #2, though, it's just a "what if". I could imagine a series of "what if" games which each had what if there was a fictional source of advancement for different civilizations. i.e. What if India got superhuman powers and technology? What if Australia gained superhuman powers and technology? What if Europe got superhuman powers and technology? These aren't racist, because they aren't saying that the *cause* of the advancement is racial superiority.

:rolleyes: OK, sure. In a setting where there is no white men and some kind of magic or super-science that could make a non-European culture outpace the development of the Europeans. But what does that actually achieve? Because the claim always seems to be "and that's why we're BETTER! If we had just had a Magical Wizard come and give up Power-Ups we'd have outpaced Whitey AND we'd have a more virtuous and just society".  It sure looks from here like a ridiculous and self-defeating claim.
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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #87 on: April 06, 2021, 05:58:38 AM »
I will say that one of the things that's in the (tiny) amount of actual Coyote and Crow game text that I've seen (a blow-up of the jpeg about equipment) is an explicit call out that gunpowder never made it to the Americas. It also says that most of the "warfare" in North America was isolated small units usually working from ambush, and that the weapons of Cahokia reflect that.

Yes. And the text also says that thanks to the Super-meteor the Native tribes just plain SKIPPED mining, industrialization and fossil fuels and went straight to having totally environmentally-friendly green energy and 3-d printers that could make anything.

But this totally isn't Leftist Wish-Fulfillment/Revenge Fantasy
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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #88 on: April 06, 2021, 06:01:16 AM »
Back to the topic at hand:
I don't believe this sort of roleplay is isolated to races. I think this sort of 'worldbuilding power fantasy' is always....kinda pathetic. And il state it with 'my' preferred type of politics so I can argue in good faith. Making a world where all the sins of mankind vanish because we embraced decentralization, and a focus on free trade and individualism I would find as pathetic as a world around how awesome communism is.

Yes, absolutely. Libertarian quasi-utopia or Catholic quasi-utopia would be every bit as stupid as (insert race here) quasi-utopia. But the difference is those others would be brutally attacked by the Ruling Left as being "hate speech", while this is lauded as a paragon of social justice.
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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #89 on: April 06, 2021, 06:21:47 AM »
RPGPundit, how would you classify Rifts China and Rifts Japan? And where do you draw the line between "racialist propaganda" and "fanboy authors"? AKA, in games like Legends of the Five Rings or Bushido or those Rifts books, the authors are clearly enamored with the subject matter and back when those books were written, we just called their exuberance awesomesauce, but how would they be seen if published today?