Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092358Nobody, and I do mean NOBODY can misinterpret the world of Conan this bad by accident. This is all part of the Baizuo invasion of our hobbies.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3518[/ATTACH]

To see the image in all it's glory https://twitter.com/GeekyBugle01/status/1140494349890936832

OK, so they got Howard's view pretty much exactly back to front - they think Howard = White = Good = Civilisation, which is pretty much the exact opposite of his view. In REH the dusky Stygians and Zamorans are Civilised = Decadent = Bad, and Civilisation is corrupting the white Hyboreans, while the white Cimmerians are still Savage = Good. The non-white Picts will one day conquer everything due to their resolute savagery and refusal to embrace corrupting Civilisation.

I think maybe the Baizuo can't get their head around REH's anti-civilisation theme. Which is ironic as its modern incarnation derives from Rousseau (though it goes back at least as far as Tacitus) and in the "Oh poor virtuous natives" version is a left-wing trope.

Quote from: pdboddy;1092378Click on the twitter link, and click on the image there.  It's pretty readable, as I am half blind and I can read it.  It's very obviously the part that says RACE.

Re-read my post. I stated I found it, and where, in more detail than you just did. Note that the OP never mentioned "race" or even gave a hint about what topic it was that caused the contentless outrage.

Quote from: S'mon;1092379OK, so they got Howard's view pretty much exactly back to front - they think Howard = White = Good = Civilisation, which is pretty much the exact opposite of his view. In REH the dusky Stygians and Zamorans are Civilised = Decadent = Bad, and Civilisation is corrupting the white Hyboreans, while the white Cimmerians are still Savage = Good. The non-white Picts will one day conquer everything due to their resolute savagery and refusal to embrace corrupting Civilisation.

Agree. You can look at it through a racial lens, since REH's protagonist and the kingdom he eventually led were white... but that's more writing about what you know or what's familiar than anything else. Nobody expects someone from Kenya to write a story about a someone of Scandinavian descent in Chicago, or to draw from the urban legends of the Pacific NW, after all. Fantasy is escapism is self-insertion. Though it's a lot more cultural than racial, because it goes back to the cultures that REH was exposed to, interested in, and even idolized.

It's curious the excerpt follows the very inaccurate statement about the correlation between skin color and civilization/savagery with this: "Howard gives us one answer these questions." (About the natural state of humanity.) That that's a contentless assertion, because it doesn't lay out what answer REH gives. But it says a lot by implication, because it not only inserts the loaded and false statement about black/white in between the question being raised and the non-answer, but it follows the answerless answer by suggesting the GM should find a different one, implying Howard's was wrong. So aside from that one easily disproven assertion, it's all innuendo and juxtapositions, and nothing direct.

Keep in mind that it may also be a rather sad attempt at outrage advertising. But more likely its another little SJW screed in an otherwise probably pretty by the numbers book.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1092369Baizuo is how some Chinese people online derisively refer to Western liberals. It means "white left" and "laugh at the silly dickheads"  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baizuo.

Even China ridicules SJWs?!  The rest of the world is going to punk us when the soyboys and dangerhairs are in charge.

Quote from: S'mon;1092379OK, so they got Howard's view pretty much exactly back to front - they think Howard = White = Good = Civilisation, which is pretty much the exact opposite of his view. In REH the dusky Stygians and Zamorans are Civilised = Decadent = Bad, and Civilisation is corrupting the white Hyboreans, while the white Cimmerians are still Savage = Good. The non-white Picts will one day conquer everything due to their resolute savagery and refusal to embrace corrupting Civilisation.

I think maybe the Baizuo can't get their head around REH's anti-civilisation theme. Which is ironic as its modern incarnation derives from Rousseau (though it goes back at least as far as Tacitus) and in the "Oh poor virtuous natives" version is a left-wing trope.

You could tell interesting stories by confronting REH's anti-civilization theme. Much as how some neo-Lovecraft writers directly confront Lovecraft's racism by, among other things, depicting the deep ones and the Whateley children as the heroes/victims of the story. The Sinking City game coming out this year or so aims to depict a racially-charged blood feud between the Jermyns and the Marshes.

I wish it mentioned why Stygia is unsullied by invasion. It's because everyone is fucking terrified of them.

Wow. They totally missed what REH was all about from his writings. He truly believed that barbarism was the natural state of man and civilization was the corrupting factor.
It's quite obvious to me that none of them there at Paizo has read one of REH's Conan stories or the various essays about REH and the world he created.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1092390You could tell interesting stories by confronting REH's anti-civilization theme. Much as how some neo-Lovecraft writers directly confront Lovecraft's racism by, among other things, depicting the deep ones and the Whateley children as the heroes/victims of the story. The Sinking City game coming out this year or so aims to depict a racially-charged blood feud between the Jermyns and the Marshes.

There is actually enough depth and nuance in REH's writings to address a wide variety of themes. But it does not support either simplistic pre-WW2 racism or simplistic modern "anti" racism. "Barbarism will always triumph" is a fairly gloomy view albeit with plenty of historical antecedent.

Quote from: Pat;1092370Would it be that hard to actually include a barely readable image, or did you think you might miss a few clicks on your precious Twitter feed?

And apparently what's got you outraged is the last couple sentences. Couldn't you quote that sentence or two, instead of forcing us to read through all kinds of unrelated shit while trying to figure out exactly what's got you upset?

If you want to be a professional outragist, at least make it easy for us to know what's got your chainmail bikini in a bunch.

Oh! Is it possible to include a barelly readable image? Because I haven't found a way, the site shrinks every image.

As for the rest of your comment blow me.

Quote from: S'mon;1092400There is actually enough depth and nuance in REH's writings to address a wide variety of themes. But it does not support either simplistic pre-WW2 racism or simplistic modern "anti" racism. "Barbarism will always triumph" is a fairly gloomy view albeit with plenty of historical antecedent.

It's a cycle.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3521[/ATTACH]

Quote from: Spinachcat;1092375Not if you played black guys before 2016. History is now recorded in years BT (Before Trump) and AT (After Trump).

Oh, I've been doing it since the mid-90s, when I started playing.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1092375Only if you promise to live in perpetual victimhood. Otherwise you make the baizuo sad.

Damn, I'm doing it wrong; I haven't played my race card ever.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1092375However, I highly recommend SPEARS AT DAWN for everyone who likes OSR games, regardless of your woke/not woke status or your white/not white skin. Kevin Crawford did a great job creating a very workable sandbox setting combining African myths and D&D tropes.

How does it compare to Pundy's own Arrows of Indra, which does OSR Indian myth/history? I mean in terms of OSR mythical games grounded in real stuff.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092409As for the rest of your comment blow me.

Next time learn how to post, you little baby.

First of all, I'm posting below the text from the opening image. This is from "World of Conan" -- a free RPG by Simon Carryer released in 2010 but no longer available from the original link. (ref)  Note that the first section is pretty much exactly Robert E. Howard's writing - with just two slight changes of wording to make it scan more easily as an excerpt from his longer essay on the world.(ref)

QuoteWORLD OF CONAN

The kingdoms of the world are clearly defined. The kingdoms of the Hyborians--Aquilonia, Nemedia, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Koth, Ophir, Argos, Corinthia, and one known as the Border Kingdom--dominate the western world. Zamora lies to the east, and Zingara to the southwest of these kingdoms--people alike in darkness of complexion and exotic habits, but otherwise unrelated. Far to the south sleeps Stygia, untouched by foreign invasion, but the peoples of Shem have exchanged the Stygian yoke for the less galling one of Koth.

The dusky masters have been driven south of the great river Styx, Nilus, or Nile, which, flowing north from the shadowy hinterlands, turns almost at right angles and flows almost due west through the pastoral meadowlands of Shem, to empty into the great sea. North of Aquilonia, the western-most Hyborian kingdom, are the Cimmerians, ferocious savages, untamed by the invaders, but advancing rapidly because of contact with them; they are the descendants of the Atlanteans, now progressing more steadily than their old enemies the Picts, who dwell in the wilderness west of Aquilonia.

The Hybori peoples are the possessors of a civilization so virile that contact with it virtually snatched out of the wallow of savagery such tribes as it touched. The most powerful kingdom is Aquilonia, but others vie with it in strength and mixed race; the nearest to the ancient root-stock are the Gundermen of Gunderland, a northern province of Aquilonia. But this mixing has not weakened the race. They are supreme in the western world, though the barbarians of the wastelands are growing in strength.

In the north, golden-haired, blue-eyed barbarians, descendants of the blond arctic savages, have driven the remaining Hyborian tribes out of the snow countries, except the ancient kingdom of Hyperborea, which resists their onslaught. Their country is called Nordheim, and they are divided into the red-haired Vanir of Vanaheim, and the yellow- haired Aesir of Asgard.

Now the Lemurians enter history again as Hyrkanians. Through the centuries they have pushed steadily westward, and now a tribe skirts the southern end of the great inland sea--Vilayet--and establishes the kingdom of Turan on the southwestern shore. Between the inland sea and the eastern borders of the native kingdoms lie vast expanses of steppes and in the extreme north and extreme south, deserts. The non-Hyrkanian dwellers of these territories are scattered and pastoral, unclassified in the north, Shemitish in the south, aboriginal, with a thin strain of Hyborian blood from wandering conquerors. Toward the latter part of the period other Hyrkanian clans push westward, around the northern extremity of the inland sea, and clash with the eastern outposts of the Hyperboreans.

-- Adapted from "The Hyborian Age" by Robert E. Howard

RACE

Howard's Conan stories are a fantasy of a world where race is a real tangible thing, where one's ancestry is an indelible marker of one's true nature. It asks what value civilization has against the untold millennia of humanity's prehistory. It asks what is the natural state of humankind: civilized society, or howling barbarism? In the world of Conan, these two are absolute values, with civilization represented by "whiteness", and "blackness" representing savagery. Howard gives us one answer to these questions, in Conan. Maybe with this game you can give a different answer?

I do think dredging up a small paragraph from a no-longer-available PDF from 2010 seems like reaching for outrage.

Quote from: S'mon;1092379OK, so they got Howard's view pretty much exactly back to front - they think Howard = White = Good = Civilisation, which is pretty much the exact opposite of his view. In REH the dusky Stygians and Zamorans are Civilised = Decadent = Bad, and Civilisation is corrupting the white Hyboreans, while the white Cimmerians are still Savage = Good. The non-white Picts will one day conquer everything due to their resolute savagery and refusal to embrace corrupting Civilisation.

I think maybe the Baizuo can't get their head around REH's anti-civilisation theme. Which is ironic as its modern incarnation derives from Rousseau (though it goes back at least as far as Tacitus) and in the "Oh poor virtuous natives" version is a left-wing trope.

Yeah, I think the last paragraph is off-base. On the other hand, Howard genuinely was very racist - which readers could correctly infer from the sample of his writing that is quoted. The latter paragraph does grossly misinterpret him.

Quote from: jhkim;1092445First of all, I'm posting below the text from the opening image. This is from "World of Conan" -- a free RPG by Simon Carryer released in 2010 but no longer available from the original link. (ref)  Note that the first section is pretty much exactly Robert E. Howard's writing - with just two slight changes of wording to make it scan more easily as an excerpt from his longer essay on the world.(ref)


I do think dredging up a small paragraph from a no-longer-available PDF from 2010 seems like reaching for outrage.



Yeah, I think the last paragraph is off-base. On the other hand, Howard genuinely was very racist - which readers could correctly infer from the sample of his writing that is quoted. The latter paragraph does grossly misinterpret him.

They aren't quoting him, they are reinterpreting his writing.

My most sincere apologies for not knowing it was from 2010 oh all knowing being.