Mage: the Ascension and Social Justice Warriors

[jhkim]

I wonder ... is it just that Beast has abandoned the few shreds of 'humanity' that most of the WoD uses to make its monsters somewhat playable?

I'm not familiar with Beast yet, but it seems to me that the Sabbat did this a long time ago. Plenty of the Sabbat paths are solidly inhuman.

[crkrueger]

Rand Brittain used to be a mod, based on this reply, I can see he wouldn't fit in very well as one now.

The root of the problem that I'm having with the text is that, from a neutral standpoint, Beasts and Heroes are both pretty bad, and Beasts are almost invariably worse, both because they hurt everybody indiscriminately (not just Beasts) and because they unquestionably start the aggressions between themselves and their Heroes.

However, the authorial voice pretty obviously regards the Beasts as sympathetic, and it switches interchangably between playing them up as cool predators and shrugging off the moral nastiness of what they're doing. At the same time, the authorial voice pretty obviously loathes the Heroes, to the point where I can almost see the drops of spittle on the pages of the book that talk about them. The author is so clearly in the tank for the nightmare-beasts and against the people who rise up to fight them, so determined to make Heroes unworthy of even a scrap of empathy, that I, and evidently not just I, can't help but reject the text and root for the Heroes.

To illustrate what I mean by counter-example, Requiem and Awakening are both very self-aware about what their protagonists are. Vampires are alluring predators who are also slaves to their hunger and more than a little pathetic. Mages are occult seekers who should know better, but mostly don't. I don't get that feel from Primordial. I don't get the feeling that the authors thought that Beasts should try to be "better," or that they should be anything but even more beastly than they already are.

It feels like the text is working out some old grudge that I don't share, and reading it makes me very uncomfortable.

I just don't get it.

Beasts are literally monsters.  Beings whose existence means they will inflict pain and suffering on others, it's not what they do, it's who they are.  They are an existential threat to humanity.  

Heroes are made in response to Beasts and are single-minded engines of Beast Destruction (they can't be bargained with, they can't be reasoned with, they don't feel Pity or Remorse, or Fear and they will not stop until the Beasts are dead).

In the text, Beasts are sympathetic, Heroes are rabidly anti-sympathetic.  Doesn't this go completely against a more post-modern approach of no stark absolutes, no black and white, just a universe of grey?

Is the game some kind of extended metaphor for the different?  Born as an existential threat to the Herd, if they act as they are, as they were born to be, they are hunted by those who rise to exterminate them?

The trope of the Monster Hunter being just as inhumane as the Monster isn't a new one, really the only difference between the two is that Monsters kill humans and Monster Hunters kill Monsters.  The predator is similar with different prey.

One way or another, this game seems to be hitting people where it hurts, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[The Butcher]

One way or another, this game seems to be hitting people where it hurts, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Rand's spot-on on Requiem and Awakening, and his point applies to pretty mych every other nWoD game, and most oWoD ones as well. Prometheans want to be human, but unwillingly sow discord and hatred wherever they go; Forsaken Werewolves patrol the spirit border, at the expense of their own comfort, humanity and life; Changelings are abuse victims huddled together; not sure about Geists, Mummies or Demons.

I suspect Beast's problem here might be a lack of focus?