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Author Topic: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid  (Read 23266 times)

SHARK

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #120 on: April 06, 2021, 03:45:23 PM »
Greetings!

Yeah, a game setting that promotes only Native Indians throughout the Western Hemisphere which never has contact with white Europeans, so conveniently gets rid of the white race, and any European influence.

The game setting also therefore gets rid of hundreds of millions of Latinos.

*SNAP*

Just like that.

No Latinos.

Nah, they wouldn't want anyone to think this game is a fucking racist power-fantasy.

*Laughing* ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
"It is the Marine Corps that will strip away the façade so easily confused with self. It is the Corps that will offer the pain needed to buy the truth. And at last, each will own the privilege of looking inside himself  to discover what truly resides there. Comfort is an illusion. A false security b

This Guy
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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #121 on: April 06, 2021, 03:46:02 PM »
I'm sure other people have asked this before but why do you write all of your posts like emails?
I don't want to play with you.

Pat
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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #122 on: April 06, 2021, 03:46:55 PM »
I didn't say it was. I was talking about the all-American part. That was literally the one thing I addressed, I didn't say a thing about wish fulfillment. Not once. You're just displaying your inability to follow a discussion.

Plus, it's not pedantry to talk about the topic of a conversation. It's literally the point.

Further pedantry, appalling. Who cares about the all-American part next to the powers?
If you're just trying to be an asshole, you should try to make sure the shoe fits when you try to insult someone. When it clearly doesn't, it just makes you sound stupid.

wmarshal

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #123 on: April 06, 2021, 03:47:45 PM »
I think we’re missing the forests for the trees. I don’t think what’s significant is that it’s wish-fulfillment fantasy instead of revenge fantasy. It looks like it’s racist wish-fulfillment fantasy. If someone wrote an alternate setting where a pagan Europe developed super science because Christianity was averted by having the Jews never return from exile and eventually assimilate like so many other exiled communities, there’d be no doubt this person was writing racist wish-fulfillment.

The bolding is mine above. Your assumption is that the advances are because of real-world beliefs about history. i.e. Stan Lee really believed that an African country would develop super-science if only not for white people. But in super-science settings like Wakanda and Makasing (from Coyote & Crow), the premise isn't that they realistically developed super-science. The super-science comes from overtly fictional divergence from the real world, like vibranium and/or space-borne psychic powers.

A better parallel might be a Marvel Universe alternate timeline - what if the ancient Norse inherited technology from the Asgardian aliens who had lead them in the past? Then there could be a viking-themed super-science world with dragon-prowed nuclear aircraft carriers, power-armored berserkers and so forth. Giving vikings *fictional* Asgardian alien technology isn't the same thing as believing that the real-world vikings were genetically superior supermen who lost out only because they were Christianized.
I don’t think that’s what the Coyote and Crow crew are doing here. They aren’t just imagining a world where Native Americans avoided the impacts of colonization through super science. They are eliminating the other. For your example to hold true to what Coyote and Crow are doing the Norse don’t just inherit super science and maintain their pagan ways. They also have to somehow avoid contact and interaction with Christianity. To maintain that the Norse maintain their culture pure and unchanged while existing alongside Christianity is hardly believable. That’s why the author of racist Cyber-Norseland would change history to keep the Jews exiled. It’s a far more believable alternate history. What Coyote and Crow are doing is the same thing in terms of the setting they’re trying to achieve. It’s a different flavor of racism of the pure blood.

This Guy
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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #124 on: April 06, 2021, 03:48:39 PM »
If I were trying to be a real asshole, I would be both stupid and not care about whether the shoe fits or not because my egotistical worldview would assume it obviously does. In this regard I think I'm doing real well!
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wmarshal

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #125 on: April 06, 2021, 03:49:19 PM »
I'm sure other people have asked this before but why do you write all of your posts like emails?
Who is that question to? The board in general?

This Guy
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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #126 on: April 06, 2021, 03:49:42 PM »
Oh, Shark, sorry for lack of clarity.
I don't want to play with you.

ScytheSong

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #127 on: April 06, 2021, 03:52:28 PM »
Yeah. You aren't describing Coyote and Crow. As I said earlier, the text plainly says that combat has been mostly small groups and ambushes, not that they have been living in harmony.

Which is completely unlike how tribes interacted historically.

So. I'm not sure what you're going for here. You claimed that it's unrealistic for all the tribes to be coexisting peacefully. When I point out that Coyote and Crow talks about intertribal conflict as ongoing with small-scale warfare being relatively common, you say that isn't historical either -- a claim that is easily debunked if you have paid any attention to Native American history at all.

I can't tell if you're deliberately shifting the goalposts or if I just don't get what you're saying.

This Guy
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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #128 on: April 06, 2021, 03:53:51 PM »
So. I'm not sure what you're going for here. You claimed that it's unrealistic for all the tribes to be coexisting peacefully. When I point out that Coyote and Crow talks about intertribal conflict as ongoing with small-scale warfare being relatively common, you say that isn't historical either -- a claim that is easily debunked if you have paid any attention to Native American history at all.

I can't tell if you're deliberately shifting the goalposts or if I just don't get what you're saying.

Just let 'em post through their feelings.
I don't want to play with you.

SHARK

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #129 on: April 06, 2021, 03:58:40 PM »
I'm sure other people have asked this before but why do you write all of your posts like emails?

Greetings!

Yes, others have asked me that in the past, for sure. It is a style I embraced as being what I would like to think is a bit more respectful and formal, while also being more personal. I have always used such a style since the first days of using AOL. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
"It is the Marine Corps that will strip away the façade so easily confused with self. It is the Corps that will offer the pain needed to buy the truth. And at last, each will own the privilege of looking inside himself  to discover what truly resides there. Comfort is an illusion. A false security b

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #130 on: April 06, 2021, 04:00:27 PM »
Greetings!

Yes, others have asked me that in the past, for sure. It is a style I embraced as being what I would like to think is a bit more respectful and formal, while also being more personal. I have always used such a style since the first days of using AOL. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Cool, thanks for answering.
I don't want to play with you.

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #131 on: April 06, 2021, 04:22:16 PM »
I think we’re missing the forests for the trees. I don’t think what’s significant is that it’s wish-fulfillment fantasy instead of revenge fantasy. It looks like it’s racist wish-fulfillment fantasy. If someone wrote an alternate setting where a pagan Europe developed super science because Christianity was averted by having the Jews never return from exile and eventually assimilate like so many other exiled communities, there’d be no doubt this person was writing racist wish-fulfillment.
I actually brought that up before. I just think it's important to make a consistent argument is all.
To a certain extent its just sad that Wakanda and stuff like it became such a massive racially charged cliche.

Like holy hell, this sort of story was a cliche in 1961 when Wakanda was first written:
Quote
Black Panther: 'To me he was more than a father, he was like a god!'
Ben: 'Look kiddo, why don't you save yourself the trouble? I know the rest of the story by heart! Everything was hunky-dory until the greedy ivory hunters made the scene!
Wakanda wasn't actually secreted away, hidden utopia through all of history. It was revolutionized by the Black Panther after foreign invaders were driven off by him and he reverse-engineered their technology (Klaw). Also, the black panther was a genius who revolutionized his nation by his very words 'For a lark'. And they made money by TRADING vibranium. Its not the core technology for everything in the friggin world. And then at the end of the story he becomes a superhero in the service of all mankind.

It was an anti-colonialism story to be sure, but it was one with a twist and a whole lot less bitterness that was attributed to it later to fit our more bitter times.

Brad

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #132 on: April 06, 2021, 04:30:22 PM »
So. I'm not sure what you're going for here. You claimed that it's unrealistic for all the tribes to be coexisting peacefully. When I point out that Coyote and Crow talks about intertribal conflict as ongoing with small-scale warfare being relatively common, you say that isn't historical either -- a claim that is easily debunked if you have paid any attention to Native American history at all.

I can't tell if you're deliberately shifting the goalposts or if I just don't get what you're saying.

The only reason most tribes didn't have balls-out warfare and enslave other tribes is because they lacked the means to do so; this is indisputable. You give some Comanches rifles and horses, they start murdering people and stealing their shit. If you gave them tanks 100% they're blitzkrieging all over the map. Trying to say that, oh yeah, all these tribes have now advanced technologically but instead of engaging in actual battles and stuff, they just do small skirmishes and pretty much co-exist in the same areas as they would have without the tech is fucking stupid as hell. Unless you want to say everyone has unlimited resources and holodecks where they can act out all sorts of perverse shit, but even then they'd probably get bored of that after a few years and resume the slavery. Hence my statement that the setting makes no sense from a historical viewpoint is valid. It's so implausibly stupid given what we know about real history. Just like removing slavery from Deadlands but pretending the Civil War would have been fought in exactly the same manner is dumb as fuck.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

wmarshal

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #133 on: April 06, 2021, 04:50:35 PM »
@Brad: Are you referring to v1 of Deadlands where the CSA abolished slavery on their own, but continued to fight the drawn out war? Or are you referring to v2 of Deadlands where the CSA is defeated, but the Civil War took longer?

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Racialist Propaganda RPGs are Always Stupid
« Reply #134 on: April 06, 2021, 04:56:51 PM »
It's so implausibly stupid given what we know about real history. Just like removing slavery from Deadlands but pretending the Civil War would have been fought in exactly the same manner is dumb as fuck.

Il argue that wanting a sci-fi universe but with Native American trappings isn't necessarily in any way wrong. It's a kitche idea that doesn't inherently have any real issues.
Its more just an idea brought to prominence because of current year politics and the like. A lighthearted kitche cartoony version of a real-world element isn't necessarily problematic, its just how its creators present it as a work with any sort of cultural merit.

I'd say it would be just a mediocre idea I wouldn't be interested in (because I hate the idea of spirituality somehow lending itself to ecological balance), if the creators weren't pinning it as some work of cultural importance. To a certain degree, I feel this is just cynical opportunism that makes money through controversy. This sort of product wouldn't really make anybody notice if it was a Christian Wakanda or a Scandinavian Wakanda.

By virtue of even discussing it I think we kinda just work as free marketing for mediocrity. We are the 'haters' that SJWs need to give money to mediocre projects like this.