# Big Changes At White Wolf Following Controversy



## ASchmidt (Nov 16, 2018)

I worked at CCP on the World of Darkness MMO, specifically on the web portal and social network that was designed to support the game. It's possible something changed since then but the idea that the people I worked with day in and day out on the World of Darkness could be even considered alt-right, fascist, fascist supporting, racist, or anti-LBGT is out right insane. In my first few days there, I was "warned" that the Icelanders might get a bit more friendly when they're drunk than we might expect as Americans and that if you pulled back or seemed uncomfortable, they'd take offense thinking that you were homophobic. This was from the straight guys! I wasn't just out as a gay man while I worked there, I was out as an HIV+ individual in the workplace. One of my co-workers began their transition there. I knew close to a dozen LGBT people working on the project in one way or another and there were enough of us, and we were so accepted, that we were talking about having our own float in the Pride parade in Atlanta (these discussions ended largely because of the layoffs that ultimately killed the WoD project).

Of all the places I've ever worked in my over 30 years in software development, if I could go back to any of them and work there again... it would be CCP/White Wolf (they were merged at the time). It wouldn't even take conscious thought to make that decision.

There were of course (given the size of the group) people who fell on the conservative side of things but they were WAY in the minority and even they were tremendously respectful of the differences and value of every other person there. I never once felt disrespected for being gay, nor did I ever hear of behavior I would have considered disrespectful.

The idea that these charges are being leveled against White Wolf and the people there is mind-blowing to me. I simply cannot imagine the people I worked with being accused of the things they're being accused of.


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## Derren (Nov 16, 2018)

The hysteric internet mob strikes again...


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## Henry (Nov 16, 2018)

That must have been some serious fallout on the product mentioned. I don't follow World of Darkness any more (haven't since the early 2000s, truthfully) and I did catch wind of some potentially poor-taste stuff during the playtest phases through this site, but this recent business sounds like Paradox felt the need to come down on them HARD.

Truthfully, sounds like the REAL end of White Wolf. "Brand Management only?" Ouch.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 16, 2018)

The true key to can talk about intolerance and fanaticism is we have to respect the human dignity. If we don't this then reporting islamophobia, neonazism, xenophobia, racism or homophobia will never be enough, because today the rebel but tomorrow a new tyrant, sometimes worse than the last one. Trust nobody who self-proclaim defender of the freedom but show hate against people with different point of views. Please, do remember Robespierre, Jacobins and the French Terror, the brutal genocide in Lavendée, Mao's cultural revolution or Spanish convents burnt in the 30's years. If we complain about tortures by Spanish Inquisition but we don't help Asia Bibi and we say nothing about capital punishment by the Pakistan anti-blasphemy law then we are a bunch of hypocrites. Without the respect for human dignity, the slave may become a new oppressor, like in the old movie "Conquest of the planet of the apes", or the Honored Mothers from the Frank Herbert's Dune Saga. Do you know George Orwell's Animal Farm? 

Books published by WW have got a lot of subtle propaganda, but this is useless if the Game Masters notice and change it totally, for example in the canon Pentex has a company, Homogeneity Incorporated, who promised to heal homosexuality but really created a special type of fomories, the normalites. In the Storyteller's table the background is changed, and Pentex sends hormones to transexuals to create those fomories. Many readers of WW are too cult to forget the Frankfurt School and Antonio Gramsci's plans to change western society's moral values.  

Have you thought anytime fiction work from current age, for example the teleseries "A Family Guy", "Preacher" or "The tail's maid", in the future will be so rejected like now Herge's "Tintin in the Congo", Disney's "song of the south" or the 1932 cartoon "Trader Mickey" (with Blackafrican cannibals)? Which TV channel would broadcast today Disney's "one of our dinosaurs is missing"? 

If we don't defend the respect of human dignity, they pillar of our rights, then our civilization and society would be like Joffrey Baratheon, that character from "Games of Thrones", so famous because with a crossbow... _oh, sorry, I have to stop. Sansa Stark has asked me to feed her ex-husband Ramsay Bolton's dogs, they are so hungry as if they hadn't eaten in all a week._


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## Jester David (Nov 16, 2018)

Jesus wept! What the heck is going on at White Wolf?!

Okay, I read (and reviewed) the core rulebook and found some of the online controversy had been overblown. But their reaction to concerns online had still been extremely lacklustre. One would assume that they'd spend a little extra time looking at future products and really thinking about what they were adding to their books to avoid causing more drama and concerns. That something this big slipped through shows a staggering lack of oversight.

Plus, one of the big moves in 2nd Edition Revised was purposely not attributing any human tragedies to vampires and other supernatural beings. So that the Holocaust and second world war were not the result of vampire schemes. A big deal was made in _New York by Night_ that White Wolf was NOT going to make 9/11 a vampire's plot. But making the ongoing purges and tensions currently occurring in a real world location the result of vampiric machinations is very much the same thing. It's not okay just because the people being hurt or killed aren't the audience of the game book!



ASchmidt said:


> I worked at CCP on the World of Darkness MMO, specifically on the web portal and social network that was designed to support the game. It's possible something changed since then but the idea that the people I worked with day in and day out on the World of Darkness could be even considered alt-right, fascist, fascist supporting, racist, or anti-LBGT is out right insane.



Read the article please. 
This is about a _different _controversy than the alt-right/ pro-fascist complaint.



Derren said:


> The hysteric internet mob strikes again...



Have you READ the offending passages? 

It's taking the actual arrest and *torture *of human beings whose sole crime is being gay and turning that into a vampire created smokescreen (literally "fake new") to hide the feeding of vampires in the region and the control the nation by vampire clans. 
Read up on the issue. Here's a helpful starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-gay_purges_in_Chechnya

It's _extremely _tone deaf and insensitive to turning real life evil and an ongoing atrocity currently affecting dozens of individuals and their families into a plot point for roleplaying game. To make their suffering part of someone else's entertainment.


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## Dire Bare (Nov 16, 2018)

ASchmidt said:


> The idea that these charges are being leveled against White Wolf and the people there is mind-blowing to me. I simply cannot imagine the people I worked with being accused of the things they're being accused of.




You do realize that CCP has no connection to White Wolf or the World of Darkness anymore, right? CCP sold White Wolf and all of its IP to Paradox. The people working on the World of Darkness now are not the same people who worked on CCP's failed MMO, or even the same people who worked at White Wolf back in the day when it was an independent company.


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## jimmifett (Nov 16, 2018)

Looks like more loud hysterics from ppl that don't even engage in a given hobby, ranting and screaming, have done in another thing that was hurting nobody, like gluten.

Yes, thats a deadpool reference for the sarcastically impaired.


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## Morrus (Nov 16, 2018)

And the usual suspects show up instantly like bad pennies. That’s two of the trifecta. One to go. @_*jimmifett*_ and @_*Derren*_, don’t post again in this thread, please. Jimmifett, it would be nice if you posted about something else sometimes, but since as far as I can make out the only reason you post in this community is to decry any hint of inclusiveness, it's time for you to leave.


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## Jer (Nov 16, 2018)

Jester David said:


> That something this big slipped through shows a staggering lack of oversight.




Yeah, it sounds like the upper management at Paradox agree given the way the press release was written.  I don't think I've ever seen a press release that so blatantly says "We screwed up bigtime, and the folks who are responsible for the screwup are getting replaced".

And wow - the excerpts I read about the Chechnya stuff from the Camarilla sourcebook are just shocking.  That anybody would think it was a good idea to publish something like that in a gamebook in 2018 is mind-boggling.  I thought we left that kind of trivializing of real-world tragedy behind in the 1990s.


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## Winghorn (Nov 16, 2018)

Jester David said:


> It's taking the actual arrest and *torture *of human beings whose sole crime is being gay and turning that into a vampire created smokescreen (literally "fake new") to hide the feeding of vampires in the region and the control the nation by vampire clans.
> Read up on the issue. Here's a helpful starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-gay_purges_in_Chechnya
> 
> It's _extremely _tone deaf and insensitive to turning real life evil and an ongoing atrocity currently affecting dozens of individuals and their families into a plot point for roleplaying game. To make their suffering part of someone else's entertainment.




I was umm-ing and ahh-ing over a big ol' post, but I think this is a better summary than I could come up with.

In any case, I'm real disappointed in the WW team. I was one of the folks who was turned off V5 by all the controversy over the beta (alpha? whatever), but was actually won back by the core book. It was a fairly solid piece of work, and the chapter on ensuring safe and comfortable play was pretty good.

And then they go and do something like this. Bloody hell.


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## CleverNickName (Nov 16, 2018)

This seems like a reasonable response to a reprehensible oversight.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 16, 2018)

I think it should be noted that there had been an announcement prior to the Camarilla release about changes that were going to be made anyway. The likelihood is that sales weren't good enough for Paradox, which could be due to a number of factors (price range, distribution, etc) as well as concerns about controversy. Moreover, they may have surmised that if the new edition remained toxic to a section of vocal fans, building the brand into other media (which was the stated purpose of the new White Wolf company) was increasingly difficult. 

With regards to the Camarilla issue itself, there was a tendency of people to pick sides in tribal way ("Edgelord" v 'SJW") which was flatly inane. To me, it was an in character metaphor - no different to Black Sabbath referencing generals and politicians and 'witches at black masses' and 'sorcerers' in the 'War Pigs' vietnam protest song. I didn't see it as a literal report on what was going on - and so the idea that it was trying to spread 'fake news' is only going to be relevant to those people who think there are literally vampires in the world in the first place. 

The questions I have to people complaining  - about the use of real world Chetchnyan persecution of the LGBT community as a reference point within the fictional world of Vampire - are these: 

1) How much did you actually know about the persecution of LGBT people in Chechnya before it was drawn to your attention by this White Wolf controversy? 
2) What are actually doing about it? 

Join Amnesty, or write letters to news organisations or whathave you. It's quite crazy that people are now citing the Chechnyan and Russian governments for the 'offense' of this written piece. White Wolf have been upturned, but what does this do for anyone?


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## Panda-s1 (Nov 16, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> The questions I have to people complaining  - about the use of real world Chetchnyan persecution of the LGBT community as a reference point within the fictional world of Vampire - are these:
> 
> 1) How much did you actually know about the persecution of LGBT people in Chechnya before it was drawn to your attention by this White Wolf controversy?
> 2) What are actually doing about it?
> ...




1) I've known about it since reports started coming in last year. It was big, heartbreaking news for the LGBT community at the time. How the else would it become a controversy if people didn't know about it?
2) What am _I _actually doing about it? I dunno, supporting my LGBT community, not being a PoS about queer issues and related etiquette. Voting. Man, what have you done about it?

3) (I mean you didn't number this one but w/e) It shows that Paradox Interactive is taking any and all criticism against the new White Wolf seriously and is willing to do something about it.


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## Hussar (Nov 16, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> /snip
> 
> White Wolf have been upturned, but what does this do for anyone?




Well, it sends a pretty clear message to anyone in the future that doing this sort of thing is a BAD idea.  That using ongoing human tragedy for entertainment purposes is maybe not a great idea.

That's certainly a plus.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 16, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> 1) I've known about it since reports started coming in last year. It was big, heartbreaking news for the LGBT community at the time. How the else would it become a controversy if people didn't know about it?



The person who actually started the petition about the contents has actually said he regrets doing so now. Moreover, I knew about it because I am a member of Amnesty, and we get reports like this - but plenty of other people, when asked, didn't know anything at all about it, till they were made aware of this particular White Wolf controversy. 



> 2) What am _I _actually doing about it? I dunno, supporting my LGBT community, not being a PoS about queer issues and related etiquette. Voting. Man, what have you done about it?



As said above, I'm a paid up member of Amnesty and a school teacher. We organise certain charitable events and do letter writing for selected issues. You say 'voting', but which politician raised this issue?



> 3) (I mean you didn't number this one but w/e) It shows that Paradox Interactive is taking any and all criticism against the new White Wolf seriously and is willing to do something about it.



The point I am making is that the anger here may well cause a company to make changes, but this, in itself does nothing to help the victims. If people are angy enough to complain about a fictional representation of events, one would hope they could also channel that concern into the real world issues behind it.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 16, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Well, it sends a pretty clear message to anyone in the future that doing this sort of thing is a BAD idea.  That using ongoing human tragedy for entertainment purposes is maybe not a great idea.
> 
> That's certainly a plus.



I don't agree. I think it's a concern that people will now feel it is too much of a risk to highlight real world events in art. People will feel that the only safe option is to stick with pure escapism, without any cultural reference. 

That is not a good state of affairs.


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## Morrus (Nov 16, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> If people are angy enough to complain about a fictional representation of events, one would hope they could also channel that concern into the real world issues behind it.




If there's one thing that's apparent in today's world, it's that people channel a LOT of concern into real world issues.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 16, 2018)

Morrus said:


> If there's one thing that's apparent in today's world, it's that people channel a LOT of concern into real world issues.



There is certainly a lot of concern - but I tend to find that a lot of it, these days, tends to get channelled into things that don't actually provide much progress. Attacking things that are 'offensive' increasingly seems to end up being tribalised. People petition against media presentation rather than source. 

The Chechnyan and Russian governments said they were offended by this piece of writing, yet they are the ones responsible for the persecution. The book has been removed, the actions against LGBT continue. 

In terms of using real world events for entertainment, it's worth noting that 'entertainment' can mean a lot of things and doesn't mean it is inherently 'making light' of a serious matter in a dismissive way. Notably, Death of Stalin was also banned in Russia this year too.


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## Panda-s1 (Nov 16, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> The person who actually started the petition about the contents has actually said he regrets doing so now. Moreover, I knew about it because I am a member of Amnesty, and we get reports like this - but plenty of other people, when asked, didn't know anything at all about it, till they were made aware of this particular White Wolf controversy.



So now even more people know about it? Why is this a bad thing? What is there to regret?



> As said above, I'm a paid up member of Amnesty and a school teacher. We organise certain charitable events and do letter writing for selected issues. You say 'voting', but which politician raised this issue?
> 
> The point I am making is that the anger here may well cause a company to make changes, but this, in itself does nothing to help the victims. If people are angy enough to complain about a fictional representation of events, one would hope they could also channel that concern into the real world issues behind it.



No I asked what you're doing about it. What have these "charitable events" and letters done? I can escalate this to its inevitable conclusion: Why aren't you in Chechnya doing something about this? Why aren't you taking up arms and overthrowing the government?

Also, idk how you're questioning how voting can affect this issue just because politicians didn't bring up the issue specifically. Voting for LGBT positive candidates, does that help?



TrippyHippy said:


> I don't agree. I think it's a concern that people will now feel it is too much of a risk to highlight real world events in art. People will feel that the only safe option is to stick with pure escapism, without any cultural reference.
> 
> That is not a good state of affairs.





No, no, that's not the controversy. The controversy isn't highlighting a real world event, it's trivializing it. Either you don't get this point and need to better understand the controversy, or you do and should just take your concern trolling elsewhere.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 16, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> So now even more people know about it? Why is this a bad thing? What is there to regret?



The regretful thing is that I don't think people will continue to think about it now that the relevance to a gaming product has been rescinded. 



> No I asked what you're doing about it. What have these "charitable events" and letters done? I can escalate this to its inevitable conclusion: Why aren't you in Chechnya doing something about this? Why aren't you taking up arms and overthrowing the government?



They have provided awareness and funds towards groups that have a lot more know-how about how to pressurise and influence governments - despite it always being an uphill battle - than people who seem to think violent revolution is an answer to everything. 



> Also, idk how you're questioning how voting can affect this issue just because politicians didn't bring up the issue specifically. Voting for LGBT positive candidates, does that help?



What LGBT candidates, that have stood on this platform, are you referring to?



> No, no, that's not the controversy. The controversy isn't highlighting a real world event, it's trivializing it. Either you don't get this point and need to better understand the controversy, or you do and should just take your concern trolling elsewhere.



Firstly, I'm not trolling - and that is immediately trying to use ad hominem here. Secondly, this was not trivialising a real world event - any more than Pan's Labrynth was 'trivialising' the Spanish Ciivil war with a fairy tale, or Black Sabbath was trivialising the Vietnam war by singing about 'witches at black masses', or Death of Stalin was trivialising one of the most murderous regimes in history, or a whole multitude of writings and works. 

This piece was taking a real world event and interpreting it within a fictional setting framework. You could argue that it is clumsy - apparently the editing had been compromised according to some, where it was made more apparent that the statements were being made by an unreliable author. However, it is not 'fake news' to purport that vampires are involved in the situation - it's clearly a work of fiction.


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## Morrus (Nov 16, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> In terms of using real world events for entertainment, it's worth noting that 'entertainment' can mean a lot of things and doesn't mean it is inherently 'making light' of a serious matter in a dismissive way. Notably, Death of Stalin was also banned in Russia this year too.




But that wasn't the case in this instance. The issue here is that Chechnya officials deny these events are happening, and claim reports are merely 'Western propaganda'. This book also denies these events are happening, and says reports are 'Vampire propaganda' to hide the truth. That's not highlighting the events, it's reinforcing the narrative of the perpetrators. 

In this particular instance, that's trivializing the real world issue. Sure, fiction _can_ be used to highlight real issues. This isn't an example of that, though. And those involved have recognised this and acted accordingly.


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## Shasarak (Nov 16, 2018)

I was recently listening to a podcast about what was happening in Chechnya and the other concentration camps around the world like in China and the USA.

Too soon, White Wolf, too soon.


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## Alzrius (Nov 16, 2018)

Morrus said:


> But that wasn't the case in this instance. The issue here is that Chechnya officials deny these events are happening, and claim reports are merely 'Western propaganda'. This book also denies these events are happening, and says reports are 'Vampire propaganda' to hide the truth. That's not highlighting the events, it's reinforcing the narrative of the perpetrators.




No, it isn't. It's exactly the _opposite_ of that.

Making a comparison between "it's all lies from the Western media" and "it's all lies from vampire cabals" rightfully mocks the "Western media" claim, illustrating how those lies are so blatant as to be utterly unbelievable. It _weakens_ the narrative of the perpetrators by pointing out how ludicrous their narrative is, flat-out stating it's no more plausible than if they were saying it was all one big cover-up orchestrated by vampires.


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## Morrus (Nov 16, 2018)

Alzrius said:


> Making a comparison between "it's all lies from the Western media" and "it's all lies from vampire cabals" rightfully mocks the "Western media" claim, illustrating how those lies are so blatant as to be utterly unbelievable. It _weakens_ the narrative of the perpetrators by pointing out how ludicrous their narrative is, flat-out stating it's no more plausible than if they were saying it was all one big cover-up orchestrated by vampires.




Even _they_ don't say that's what they were doing.


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## Calithorne (Nov 17, 2018)

Well, it looks like the political correctness warriors have captured another scalp.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

Morrus said:


> But that wasn't the case in this instance. The issue here is that Chechnya officials deny these events are happening, and claim reports are merely 'Western propaganda'. This book also denies these events are happening, and says reports are 'Vampire propaganda' to hide the truth. That's not highlighting the events, it's reinforcing the narrative of the perpetrators.
> 
> In this particular instance, that's trivializing the real world issue. Sure, fiction _can_ be used to highlight real issues. This isn't an example of that, though. And those involved have recognised this and acted accordingly.



Thats not the case. The book doesn’t deny anything - a fictional character does. And even though there hasn’t been any official statement by the writer, communications with him from other parties involved apparently do point out that the intent was meant to be satirical. 

Those involved have made a business decision, which was part of an overall decision that had been coming since before the book was even released.  While this official statement is an attempt to manage the situation, as a customer I remain concerned at the future implications.


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## Arnwolf666 (Nov 17, 2018)

ASchmidt said:


> I worked at CCP on the World of Darkness MMO, specifically on the web portal and social network that was designed to support the game. It's possible something changed since then but the idea that the people I worked with day in and day out on the World of Darkness could be even considered alt-right, fascist, fascist supporting, racist, or anti-LBGT is out right insane. In my first few days there, I was "warned" that the Icelanders might get a bit more friendly when they're drunk than we might expect as Americans and that if you pulled back or seemed uncomfortable, they'd take offense thinking that you were homophobic. This was from the straight guys! I wasn't just out as a gay man while I worked there, I was out as an HIV+ individual in the workplace. One of my co-workers began their transition there. I knew close to a dozen LGBT people working on the project in one way or another and there were enough of us, and we were so accepted, that we were talking about having our own float in the Pride parade in Atlanta (these discussions ended largely because of the layoffs that ultimately killed the WoD project).
> 
> Of all the places I've ever worked in my over 30 years in software development, if I could go back to any of them and work there again... it would be CCP/White Wolf (they were merged at the time). It wouldn't even take conscious thought to make that decision.
> 
> ...




 Are you anti-alt-right?  and why are you grouping us with fascists and racists. we are the most freedom and liberty group out there that doesn’t want controlled by big government and big business. i think it would be nice if people were not made to feel unwelcome playing a game because of what political party we support. we are not rioting and vandalizing and threatening people like antifa.


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## hawkeyefan (Nov 17, 2018)

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Regardless of whether you think the work is satire or allegory, poorly handled or well portrayed...there’s a lot of negative response. And this isn’t the first time.

So the company is making changes. It’s what companies do when they think there’s money to lose. I can’t really blame them, and it’s not really surprising.


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## Cergorach (Nov 17, 2018)

Henry said:


> That must have been some serious fallout on the product mentioned. I don't follow World of Darkness any more (haven't since the early 2000s, truthfully) and I did catch wind of some potentially poor-taste stuff during the playtest phases through this site, but this recent business sounds like Paradox felt the need to come down on them HARD.
> 
> Truthfully, sounds like the REAL end of White Wolf. "Brand Management only?" Ouch.




First: White Wolf was always edgy and going over the 'line' (HOL anyone?), anyone expecting a political correct RPG is just smoking some stuff that might not even be legal in Amsterdam...

Second: Paradox is a computer game company first and doesn't want to alienate their US customers due to controversy. I suspect that WW would never have cared about this storm in a glass water. These guys handled topics like Auschwitz, etc.

Third: Onyx Path Publishing has been doing great products in the Old World of Darkness for years!

Personally: I (and many with me) were absolutely flabbergasted, why WW would even try to publish a Vampire 5E game themselves. They hadn't done RPG books in many, many years. I suspect that they didn't even have any staff that could actually do a pnp game. And if we remember nWoD, they didn't have anyone who could make a succesfull WoD for many more years... I also detest the graphical design of the 5th edition game, it looks totally cheap with the photographs and what drawn art there is is often drawn by artists that have no business working for big publishers and products.

Imho WW died the first time when they released nWoD, then again before they were taken over by CCP. This is just someone wearing a WW t-shirt trying to make a WoD pnp game with very little talent (imho). The shirt doesn't fit!

What's happening in Chechnya isn't great, but that isn't new. If your from the US, look at your own back yard, in certain African regions this isn't unknown either (plus if your an Albino your sliced and diced). Now, if you want to intervene in Chechnya that might be a mightily bad idea for global 'security', I don't want the folks currently in control of the US and Russia playing chicken with nukes _again_... And other countries won't intervene, because it's been happening for decades in countries where there wouldn't be a danger of another WW for intervening. Hell, in my own backyard (Netherlands), this stuff still happens to a certain degree. Stupid bigots seem to penetrate every layer of society...


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## Cergorach (Nov 17, 2018)

Arnwolf666 said:


> Are you anti-alt-right?  and why are you grouping us with fascists and racists.



Because this is the definition of alt-right we know:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right
Now, I don't know you, so don't take this personally. But that definition get's you tossed right in there with the fascists and the racists...

But maybe let's not try to deteriorate this into a political discussion...


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## Jester David (Nov 17, 2018)

Arnwolf666 said:


> Are you anti-alt-right?  and why are you grouping us with fascists and racists. we are the most freedom and liberty group out there that doesn’t want controlled by big government and big business. i think it would be nice if people were not made to feel unwelcome playing a game because of what political party we support. we are not rioting and vandalizing and threatening people like antifa.




The Southern Poverty Law Center disagrees:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/alt-right

If that doesn't define you... you really might want to find another label apart from "alt-right".


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## Eltab (Nov 17, 2018)

Jester David said:


> The Southern Poverty Law Center disagrees



Without transgressing EnWorld's parameters, SPLC has been chipping away at their own credibility.  They identify with one particular viewpoint and clump all other viewpoints - good, bad, indifferent, awful - together.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2018)

Why don’t we all just let it drop?


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## kenmarable (Nov 17, 2018)

(Edit: Never mind. I’m just not going to bother following this thread, but I can’t delete this message.)


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> Seems pretty straightforward to me. Regardless of whether you think the work is satire or allegory, poorly handled or well portrayed...there’s a lot of negative response. And this isn’t the first time.
> 
> So the company is making changes. It’s what companies do when they think there’s money to lose. I can’t really blame them, and it’s not really surprising.



That is precisely what is going on, but the impact of which is that Vampire is now a dead duck as far as what happens next. The two supplements, Camarilla and Anarchs, will be adjusted, and reprinted, but a number of fans who preordered are already asking for refunds because they've simply been waiting too long. There will be no more books made by Paradox or White Wolf.

There are three supplements scheduled by The Onyx Path, based on a current Kickstarter than is currently raised just over $80,000 - which is not a big total at all. The situation is not good. The game is essentially dead.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

Morrus said:


> Even _they_ don't say that's what they were doing.



Unofficially, the writers did say this. They didn't get to write the corportate statement to the media though.


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## Arnwolf666 (Nov 17, 2018)

Cergorach said:


> Because this is the definition of alt-right we know:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right
> Now, I don't know you, so don't take this personally. But that definition get's you tossed right in there with the fascists and the racists...
> 
> But maybe let's not try to deteriorate this into a political discussion...




liberals can redefine words all they want. just like they did in the oxford dictionary a few years ago.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2018)

Arnwolf666 said:


> liberals can redefine words all they want. just like they did in the oxford dictionary a few years ago.




And you’re done here.  Do not post in this thread again.  This forum prohibits anti-inclusive language and most political and religious discussions- you’ve crossed both lines.  

You might do well to re-examine the rules of using this site:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/misc.php?do=showrules


----------



## Arnwolf666 (Nov 17, 2018)

what did i do. i attacked no one foe their race, gender, nationality, ethnic group, sexual orientation. i even support gay marriage. my group was slandered by calling us fascists which we are not.


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## Jester David (Nov 17, 2018)

Back on topic slightly. 

So... Chechnya itself is super not impressed:
https://en.crimerussia.com/gromkie-...-masquerade-game-for-sultan-ramzan-character/

And there are reports that Russian RPG distributors are being called to courts in Chechnya.

This is really not good.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Back on topic slightly.
> 
> So... Chechnya itself is super not impressed:
> https://en.crimerussia.com/gromkie-...-masquerade-game-for-sultan-ramzan-character/
> ...



The Chechnyan government that actually created a purge of the LGBT community are offended by a book that highlights this? 

Who'd have thought that? 

Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov, in the article, has presided over forced disappearances, torture and whole range of human rights abuses. He has campaigned for a mass detention of LGBT people in Chechnya. He actually denies that gay people _exist_ in Chechnya. 

I'm not surprised he is offended by a book that uses a metaphor of vampires to explain his motivations. I am surprised that people think his offense is somehow justified, or that the people criticising White Wolf are actually in agreement with these persecuters.


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## Jester David (Nov 17, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> That is precisely what is going on, but the impact of which is that Vampire is now a dead duck as far as what happens next. The two supplements, Camarilla and Anarchs, will be adjusted, and reprinted, but a number of fans who preordered are already asking for refunds because they've simply been waiting too long. There will be no more books made by Paradox or White Wolf.
> 
> There are three supplements scheduled by The Onyx Path, based on a current Kickstarter than is currently raised just over $80,000 - which is not a big total at all. The situation is not good. The game is essentially dead.



It’s certainly going to hurt the line for a while, as they have to farm out to licence to other studios.
Even if they can pick up on partially written manuscripts, that’s still going to delay future books as everything is re-edited and new writers hired.

It’s somewhat of a shame. Mechanically, the new game was quite good. I loved a lot of the changes and thought it did a decent job of moving forward from the late ‘90s metaplot. I was rather impressed with how it handled hunger.

But the books were structurally a mess. So much wasted page space, and limited information. It struggled so much while trying to introduce so much lore while also updating existing lore that it was muddled. And so many clans saved for later splatbooks rather than be detailed from the start. 
The uproar is actually emblematic of this. In a book dedicated to the Camarilla they apparently wasted eight pages on Chechnya, despite it not being part of that sect/ faction. It didn’t need to be there, it wasn’t expected content, and it didn’t add much. And now it got them all fired...


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

Jester David said:


> It’s certainly going to hurt the line for a while, as they have to farm out to licence to other studios.
> Even if they can pick up on partially written manuscripts, that’s still going to delay future books as everything is re-edited and new writers hired.
> 
> It’s somewhat of a shame. Mechanically, the new game was quite good. I loved a lot of the changes and thought it did a decent job of moving forward from the late ‘90s metaplot. I was rather impressed with how it handled hunger.
> ...



The way I read it, they were trying to illustrate the monstrous aspects of the Banu Haqim using contemporary events in the telling - and in all good faith, were using the text to genuinely try and highlight the horror of the real world situation to their reading audience. 

While your criticism is interesting, and I could have a worthwhile debate on the things you raise, but at this stage it's all by the by. For me, Vampire was the best single RPG release of 2018. But now it's done.


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## Jester David (Nov 17, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> The way I read it, they were trying to illustrate the monstrous aspects of the Banu Haqim using contemporary events in the telling - and in all good faith, were using the text to genuinely try and highlight the horror of the real world situation to their reading audience.
> 
> While your criticism is interesting, and I could have a worthwhile debate on the things you raise, but at this stage it's all by the by. For me, Vampire was the best single RPG release of 2018. But now it's done.



I liked it a lot more than I expected. But having not looked at my VtM books in a decade, I really felt lost in terms of lore with the new core rulebook. And I still knew a lot of the nouns. 
I can’t imagine how hard it would have been for a straight newcomer.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

Jester David said:


> I liked it a lot more than I expected. But having not looked at my VtM books in a decade, I really felt lost in terms of lore with the new core rulebook. And I still knew a lot of the nouns.
> I can’t imagine how hard it would have been for a straight newcomer.



I'm actually the same. Regardless of controversy, when I read some of the playtest stuff I basically thought meh to a lot of it. Ditto to Vampire 20th, Vampire: the Requiem and Vampire Revised before then. But the final V5 product - particularly the gameplay in the system - was brilliant and it's tone was reminiscent of the original editions of Vampire, but set in the 21st century. 

I remember a reviewer of Wraith: The Oblivion, in the Interactive Fiction journal (of about the mid 1990s), being highly skeptical about White Wolf games generally but as he read through the game being won over by it's qualities. He ended up decrying that the game wasn't commercial enough for White Wolf (he was proved right) and how he wished it had just been produced by a smaller company with integrity, that could develop the game without all the pressures of maintaining sales and a large fanbase. 

I kinda wish the same had happened for this version of Vampire too. I think the commercial pressures and the underlying issues within the existing fanbase has prematurely killed it, sadly. But it's a brilliant game.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2018)

Arnwolf666 said:


> what did i do. i attacked no one foe their race, gender, nationality, ethnic group, sexual orientation. i even support gay marriage. my group was slandered by calling us fascists which we are not.




Remember how I said “don’t post in this thread again”?  And reacquaint yourself with the rules of use, here?  

I even provided a link.

But you:

1) posted in the thread again

2) challenged moderation in thread.

BOTH no-no’s.

Plus, your profile says you’ve been here since 2004, so you should really know better.  Therefore, the slack I was going to cut you before I noticed that fact will not be given.  Have a week off.


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## Keefe the Thief (Nov 17, 2018)

Derren said:


> The hysteric internet mob strikes again...




I though ENworld was a place for discussion, not for drive-by posting. This is a serious problem - marginalizing an ongoing, murderous campaign in such a way. Especially when you know the history of the authors of the book. 

Blaming it on "outrage" is sad and nonsensical.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2018)

Keefe the Thief said:


> I though ENworld was a place for discussion, not for drive-by posting. This is a serious problem - marginalizing an ongoing, murderous campaign in such a way. Especially when you know the history of the authors of the book.
> 
> Blaming it on "outrage" is sad and nonsensical.




Folks, Morrus already asked Darren not to post here again.  Please don’t continue responding to his posts in here.  Thanks!


----------



## barasawa (Nov 17, 2018)

Can't say I've got those particular books yet, and will hold off making my own judgment before reading them. (If I ever get to see the controversial versions.)

However, what's a conflict in the story without a villain to struggle against? 

Of course, Vampires, even in the WW games, aren't exactly paragons of heroics, and at best usually only qualify as antiheroes, or at least not the worst thing out there. 
After all, they regularly assault and even murder people. 
As such, the even worse evils that make them seem to be the lesser evils isn't going to be some jaywalker or even a bank robber. 

But again, I haven't read the actual relevant paragraphs or chapters, just some people giving vague descriptions and saying it's bad for some reason. 

To be honest though, I'm a bit jaded regarding corporate apologies, as well as skeptical when people start screaming about something and I haven't been able to check it out myself.  Too many corporations just treat "apologies" as a way to reduce dissent and outrage. While the furor some people create over events has been many times based on false, or at least misleading and incomplete information.  (Like a particular dev I won't name that got fired for going ballistic on a polite poster that had a differing opinion and politely asked her a question.) 
Since I can't tell from the incomplete and third hand information that's been doled out to us, I'm going to remain neutral at this time, and I'd advise others to do so as well. 

If anyone has the actual pages from those books relevant to the discussion, I'm sure myself and others would appreciate seeing them so we can judge for ourselves. Please do not break any copyright laws, but there is a fair use clause in many countries that may apply. (Just the relevant pages if you can, not the whole book. The whole book would definitely violate copyright laws anywhere.) 
To be honest, I doubt anyone will, and they'd probably be hit with a DMCA even if it's legally fair use where ever they are, and fighting that would be a HUGE and expensive pain. 

Well, thanks for reading my late night ramblings.


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## Morrus (Nov 17, 2018)

Calithorne said:


> Well, it looks like the political correctness warriors have captured another scalp.




"Political correctness warriors" is a clear way to sneak in the term "social justice warriors", which is a derogatory term prohibited on these boards. Rules lawyering your way around insults isn't going to work. Don't post in this thread again, please.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

This has been an emotional thread, and I certainly don't want to add to this more than my final comment. 

If people want to know how this news story has been recieved in Russia, correspondence from a guy called Dmytro Smirnov on the White Wolf facebook page, has it as this, sadly:



> I'm not sure what was the intended message or how it was perceived in the West, but Russian community got those two messages:
> 1. "Russian community is heard. " And it is a good one, the one people in the region struggled to hear for so long.
> 2. "WW is afraid of Kadyrov". One word about a lawsuit and few online threats made company to step back. Did you think that local LGBT thought that you care for them? Well it's vice versa, now they got that Kadyrov can silence everyone, even game company and noone will ever speak about their problems ever.




Please don't argue that this wasn't censorship.


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## Badvoc (Nov 17, 2018)

This makes me sad.  Although I've not played any WoD since its 90's heyday, it's tough to see how far White Wolf have fallen in the years since. 


Games and Politics - rarely, if ever, a happy combination. Whether it's instances of games trying to tackle thorny real world problems, or people trying to push their own political agenda into how others play games, the results are usually predictable.  As much as I'd love to go off on a tangent here about how the RPG community has become increasingly political, and politically polarised, over the last few years - it doesn't serve this discussion particularly well.  There's no justification for ret-conning ongoing, real world atrocities in your game.


I've not read the problematic sections that have sparked this, but "tone deaf" seems an understatement from how the content has been described.  I assume the intent of the writers was to draw attention to atrocities being perpetrated in Chechnya, rather than merely use the situation for shock value.  In that case, they would have been better to include a factual account of the current situation, ascribe it to the real offenders (which is far more horrific than any fictional alternative) and then detail what this means for the vampires in the region.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

Badvoc said:


> There's no justification for ret-conning ongoing, real world atrocities in your game.



It's not ret-conning. Ret-conning means changing a fictional story in a way that breaks continuity. 

What White Wolf did was to interpret real life events through the lens of a fictional world, specifically as seen by a particular fictional character, as a form of metaphor. It's an important distinction. 

I let slide other comments you make, although I'm beginning to find the term 'tone deaf' as vapid as 'sjw' or 'politically correct' these days, I have to say.


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## ASchmidt (Nov 17, 2018)

I'm going to jump back in and first, apologize if what I said way back in the beginning of this thread started a politicization of this discussion. I merely meant that the words that were being thrown at White Wolf (alt-right, fascist, bigoted, etc...) whether they belong together or not, didn't match with what I knew of the people I worked with just a few years ago.

Over the course of this discussion, I've been reading up on some of the people I knew there and what they're up to these days and funny thing, I can't find any of the people I knew that are currently involved with White Wolf's production of V5. Pretty much everybody at Onyx Path is someone I worked with directly but I'm not recognizing names at White Wolf. In fact looking at my LinkedIn, not one of the people I worked with in 2010 and 2011 is at White Wolf. Which is really weird because a lot of the people I worked with were writers and artists for both old World of Darkness and new World of Darkness.

In an odd way I feel better. There's still a lot to discuss here about fiction intersecting with real life events but I'm glad that the people I remember aren't part of this.


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## Parmandur (Nov 17, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Back on topic slightly.
> 
> So... Chechnya itself is super not impressed:
> https://en.crimerussia.com/gromkie-...-masquerade-game-for-sultan-ramzan-character/
> ...




Good Lord.

Words can have consequences.


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## epithet (Nov 17, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Back on topic slightly.
> 
> So... Chechnya itself is super not impressed:
> https://en.crimerussia.com/gromkie-...-masquerade-game-for-sultan-ramzan-character/
> ...




I suppose there's something to be said for pissing off both sides of the conflict.

I'm reminded of _Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter_, which was a popular book that became a move based on the (obviously fictional) premise that the Confederacy was a cover for vampires. There is also a movie in theaters now (_Overlord_?) that is about Nazis creating zombies. I think it is perfectly natural to look at real-world villainy and associate it with horror genre supernatural elements, it makes for a good story. Games and other fiction have to set up Capital-E-Evil so that the heroes can fight against it, because you can't have Bellerophon with the chimaera. Still, it seems like the fallout from using an ongoing, current real-world issue was predictable. We are living in times of elevated sensitivity and maximum scrutiny, where if something could possibly offend it will definitely offend, and there is a cultural inclination to pillory the offender immediately and without reservation or consideration of other factors. It seems like White Wolf should have known better.


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## Jester David (Nov 17, 2018)

epithet said:


> I'm reminded of _Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter_, which was a popular book that became a move based on the (obviously fictional) premise that the Confederacy was a cover for vampires. There is also a movie in theaters now (_Overlord_?) that is about Nazis creating zombies. I think it is perfectly natural to look at real-world villainy and associate it with horror genre supernatural elements, it makes for a good story. Games and other fiction have to set up Capital-E-Evil so that the heroes can fight against it, because you can't have Bellerophon with the chimaera.



Yes and no. 
Yeah, it helps ground things in the real world to use real world evils and factions. Absolutely. But casting the Nazis and Confederacy as evil works because both wars are old now. It'd be like having the Bosnian War (also associated with genocide) being the result of vampires. Enough time has past that it feels less offensive/ tasteless. 

On the other hand, this crisis is STILL ongoing. Right now, as I type this, there is someone being tortured because he had insolence to fall in love with another man. Tortured and likely killed. Making a contemporary crime against humanity part of an escapist fantasy horror game is a little much. It's too soon. 

Even then... if you did a movie that implied the Holocaust wasn't really ethnic cleansing but a cover for Nazi vampires draining a populace to feed their army of undead stormtroopers... that would likely also catch ire. Because it runs a little too parallel to Holocaust denial, which remains a real thing. 
Making that real war crime/crime against humanity the act of monsters... almost makes it less horrible. Because vampires do horrible things. They're monsters. Its not "Nazis did horrible things, like making monsters, because they're evil" and instead "Nazis did horrible things because they were literal inhuman monsters". It's almost forgiving. Which crosses a line.



epithet said:


> Still, it seems like the fallout from using an ongoing, current real-world issue was predictable. We are living in times of elevated sensitivity and maximum scrutiny, where if something could possibly offend it will definitely offend, and there is a cultural inclination to pillory the offender immediately and without reservation or consideration of other factors.



LoL. No. 
People getting upset over offensive things is old hat. Calling that a modern problem just tells me you need to read more history. Go back to Victorian England for a start. 
And pushback against "over political correctness" is a generational thing.Every 15-20 years. Heck, Neil Gaiman's response to seeing the “In these days of political correctness…” is over five years old now.  

The Internet just makes it faster. World-of-mouth is just that bit swifter. And we have more expose to other ideas and stuff beyond out immediate circle of life. 

That said:


epithet said:


> It seems like White Wolf should have known better.



They were already in the spotlight. They likely had been warned. This very much seemed careless.


----------



## epithet (Nov 17, 2018)

Jester David said:


> ...
> People getting upset over offensive things is old hat. Calling that a modern problem just tells me you need to read more history. Go back to Victorian England for a start.
> And pushback against "over political correctness" is a generational thing.Every 15-20 years. Heck, Neil Gaiman's response to seeing the “In these days of political correctness…” is over five years old now.
> ...



All of that is true, and yet there is a heightened element to "political correctness" now that has not been present for most of my lifetime. It's not even political correctness any more, at least not in the way the term was applied in the 1990s. On issues ranging from school bullying to asking someone out on a date, modern society has taken it upon itself to protect us from ourselves in a way that is more energized and vehement than before. No doubt a big factor in that was the presence of entrenched societal ills that resisted for generations any kind of progress or correction, but having broken through on some of those issues I think we have yet to find a new equilibrium point.

The raw nerves and general oversensitivity can be easily seen in the tribalism of American politics, where adherents of each party have demonstrated a willingness to vote for candidates under criminal indictment, or even recently convicted felons, instead of the candidate from the other party. We've been conditioned to regard anything we don't agree with as a threat to our safety or our way of life, requiring immediate and uncompromising political action in opposition to it. It is a cynically effective strategy, as evidenced by the mind-boggling amount of money, most of which came from individual donations, that was spent in the recent election cycle. We, as a society, have been made to fear. If we are secure and comfortable, we're made to fear for other people.

Gay Chechens are worried about survival, not vampire related RPGs. Compared to the reality of their day-to-day existence, a small section in a sourcebook for a relatively obscure game is completely trivial, but we can't easily effect that reality, so we get feisty over the sourcebook. Everyone is looking around them and seeing the decline and fall of Western Civilization packaged into easily consumable media segments. Whenever an outlet presents itself for the venting of that anxiety, proportionality is the last thing anyone's thinking about.


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## Jester David (Nov 17, 2018)

epithet said:


> Gay Chechens are worried about survival, not vampire related RPGs. Compared to the reality of their day-to-day existence, a small section in a sourcebook for a relatively obscure game is completely trivial



That doesn’t make it okay.


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## hawkeyefan (Nov 17, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> That is precisely what is going on, but the impact of which is that Vampire is now a dead duck as far as what happens next. The two supplements, Camarilla and Anarchs, will be adjusted, and reprinted, but a number of fans who preordered are already asking for refunds because they've simply been waiting too long. There will be no more books made by Paradox or White Wolf.
> 
> There are three supplements scheduled by The Onyx Path, based on a current Kickstarter than is currently raised just over $80,000 - which is not a big total at all. The situation is not good. The game is essentially dead.




It’s possible. This may blow over and te game will plug along. Or you could be right, and this could mark an end for this iteration of the game. Likely it’ll be something between those two points.

If it does end or at least result in a reduced product line for the game, that’s a shame for people who are into the game. I personally am indifferent in that I have never really been into Vampire since its debut in the 90s. But I hate to see games fail, or fans of games be denied what they’d like.

But that being said....this was a pretty naive decision on their part. In today’s climate, and having already faced some controversy, they should have been more aware. 

I say that without any personal judgment on te value of the content they created. Art and outrage over art is an old topic at this point, and most folks have long ago decided which side they are on, and no discussion on a message board will change their mind.

That being said, although there is always value in art and in challenging societal norms through art, there are plenty of cases where an artist has considered the impact of their work, and has decided that impact is more negative than positive. For instance, Stephen King will not allow reprinting of his work “Rage” (written as Richard Bachman); for him, the idea that his dtory could have possobly contributed to even the slightest harm to someone invalidates whatever enjoyment it may have brought to however many people possible.

So I think the question here is whether publishing these books as is would somehow bring more positivity to the world than negativity. Does this work have the chance to change the ills it calls attention to? Will it help bring about lasting change in the real world as art often can? Balance that chance against the potential harm it could bring.

I imagine the answer could vary from person to person...but to me it seems pretty obvious.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 17, 2018)

Speculative fictions should can be used as a softer way to talk about serious matters, but a lot of creators want to use their work like propaganda and the public start to be sick of this. Many people wonder about when Kamala Khan, alias Miss Marvel, the comic superheroine with Pakistani origin will dare to talk about Asia Bibi and the anti-blasphemy law of Pakistan. 

Do you remember the controversy about that episode of "A Family Guy", Back to the Pilot, with the 9/11 terrorist attack against the Twin Towers? Do imagine how would feel the victims' families.

What if a fan-art module of V5 tells the mason lodges are controlled by vampires (or skrulls), and Lasombra clan has tried for centuries to ruin Catholic countries because Vatican is their archenemy? 

Monsters from RPG franchises do a lot of horrible things, but we can't forget the human dignity of the people from the real life. If we don't respect human dignity denounce fanaticism and intolerance will be useless because who overthrows a tyrant may be worse than the previous, as in the 2006 movie "the land of the blind". We can use speculative fiction, and the RPGs, to talk about conflicts of coexistence and tolerance, but we can't forget the respect of the human dignity or then we could condemn terrorists to be eaten by dogs, like Ramsay Bolton, character from "Game of Thrones". Would do Sansa Stark that if she had been a pious Christian?    

I love the rich mythology by World of Darkness, but also I hate its ideological messages.


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## murquhart72 (Nov 17, 2018)

I may be old and stodgy, but back in my day, folks understood the difference between fantasy and reality and didn't mistake either for the other. When you do, "controversy" tends to be the result and these mentally ill people will insist that their "reality" be reflected in other's fantasy and vice versa.
I know nothing of Chechnya or these products, but anytime a few people successfully demand that entertainment or a game or toy conform to reality, especially to the extent of censoring printed products and halting others, they show how dangerous such thoughts can be.
Skimming through the thread I see buzz words involving "The Gays" (yeah I don't do PC, sorry not sorry). Folks just need to realize some people aren't going to be like them. That doesn't mean they should be treated differently and they certainly shouldn't feel the need for parades. For Dog's sake people can't we all just get along and stop insisting on categorizing each other into unnecessary separation?
Whew, quite a lil' rant there. Time to go get a beer and wait for the Haters...


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## Morrus (Nov 17, 2018)

murquhart72 said:


> Whew, quite a lil' rant there. Time to go get a beer and wait for the Haters...




If you're literally going to admit in-thread that you're trolling, there's only one possible outcome, isn't there? Don't post in this thread again, please. It's Saturday night, guys. Give it a friggin' break.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2018)

> I know nothing of Chechnya or these products, but anytime a few people successfully demand that entertainment or a game or toy conform to reality, especially to the extent of censoring printed products and halting others, they show how dangerous such thoughts can be.




My reading of the discussed controversy is that at least one portion of it is actually the flip side: the product contains plot threads too closely mirroring some RW propaganda targeting marginalized people, just shifting the origins thereof from humans to vampires. 

(Please, correct me if I’m wrong.)

Regardless of some people’s ability or inability to distinguish fact from fiction, that can come off a tad insensitive, if this is the case.  _Especially_ when it involves a current crisis.  And even if not intended.

When that happens, corporations usually react to minimize negative associations.

3 albums were affected by the 9/11 attacks: Slayer’s _God Hates Us All_ had its release date moved from that day.  The Coup’s _Party Music_ was to be released that day, too, and had cover art of the rap duo exploding the WTC towers- it got delayed and released with new cover art.  Dream Theater’s _Live Scenes from New York_ originally had cover art depicting the NYC skyline (with the Statue and the WTC) in flames- it was pulled from shelves and rereleased with different cover art.


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## epithet (Nov 17, 2018)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> ...
> 3 albums were affected by the 9/11 attacks: Slayer’s _God Hates Us All_ had its release date moved from that day.  The Coup’s _Party Music_ was to be released that day, too, and had cover art of the rap duo exploding the WTC towers- it got delayed and released with new cover art.  Dream Theater’s _Live Scenes from New York_ originally had cover art depicting the NYC skyline (with the Statue and the WTC) in flames- it was pulled from shelves and rereleased with different cover art.




Remember the first _Spider Man_ trailer, where he webs a helicopter between the twin towers?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2018)

epithet said:


> Remember the first _Spider Man_ trailer, where he webs a helicopter between the twin towers?




No, despite my historical love of comics, I don’t pay much attention to any of the movies.

...but that sequence wouldn’t surprise me.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> My reading of the discussed controversy is that at least one portion of it is actually the flip side: the product contains plot threads too closely mirroring some RW propaganda targeting marginalized people, just shifting the origins thereof from humans to vampires. (Please, correct me if I’m wrong.)



Well, no. I mean that is my point. 

It's been _argued_ that the product contains material that mirrors real world propaganda from Chechnya, but it's just not true. Nobody in the Chechnyan government has been spinning a line suggesting that their persecution of the LGBT community is due to vampires over-running the country. It would be a crazy piece of propaganda if that was the case. The fact is that persecuters themselves want to censor it too because they find it uncomfortable that this book is, or at least was, highlighting a real world situation that they _deny_ is happening at all. They claim that the vampire book is a work of western propaganda because it discusses the persecution as a real world event - and the vampire metaphor is entirely a secondary issue. 

What White Wolf were trying to do was use their fiction to satirise the situation and highlight the issue - but it was always a patent work of fiction…because vampires aren't real. You could argue that it is insensitive and they shouldn't be doing something that is occuring right now, but the 'World of Darkness' is meant to be a contemporary setting, that encourages a 'mature audience' to reflect on dark aspects of the real world, by way of a supernatural metaphor. I mean, that is the remit of the game - which some may find distasteful, for sure, but they weren't going outside of the remit in writing this material.


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## 5ekyu (Nov 17, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Jesus wept! What the heck is going on at White Wolf?!
> 
> Okay, I read (and reviewed) the core rulebook and found some of the online controversy had been overblown. But their reaction to concerns online had still been extremely lacklustre. One would assume that they'd spend a little extra time looking at future products and really thinking about what they were adding to their books to avoid causing more drama and concerns. That something this big slipped through shows a staggering lack of oversight.
> 
> ...



All I will say on the subject is that horror fiction and the medium has used real world atrocities and villainy as a foundation to be represented as more morally "monstrous" since before it became a genre.

For many of its earliest days in myth, folklore and boogeymen tales, it was quite typical for a real crime or threat to be portrayed not as the work of men vs men but of monsters.

Even as it moved into the printed and later audio and video medium, the use of monsters as a wrapper over or around real world horrors has been common and in many cases the monster is a metaphor that allows the topic to be dealt with. 

Body Snatchers and The Thing play out as the metaphor for an "evil empire" (as some believed), vampires were metaphors for war (Nosferatu), disease or sexual repression, countless other examples and if one wants more modern example  Stephen King is full of plenty. 

I will not defend or condemn the specific case here but the day when horror is prohibited from wrapping demons up in concentration camps and other such things will be a truly horrific day IMO.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2018)

> Nobody in the Chechnyan government has been spinning a line suggesting that their persecution of the LGBT community is due to vampires over-running the country.




_Absolutely NOBODY made that assertion._

The assertion was that the Chechnyan govt (and others) are claiming the stories regarding actual persecution of the LGBT community are largely either false or overblown, and that the WW products are claiming a similar line of in-game propaganda has been created by some factions the vampire community.  This “the vampires are to blame” take on this utterly minimizes the culpability of the RW malfeasors, mostly still at large and free to act.

Can you imagine how some might feel if a product set in the USA similarly claimed all the lynchings and murders of the KKK were attributable to a small cadre of vampires?


----------



## Thomas Bowman (Nov 17, 2018)

That is a part of Russia is it not? The leader of Russia is named Vladimir, what a coincidence, that was Dracula's first name as well!


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 17, 2018)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> _Absolutely NOBODY made that assertion._



People in this thread were saying that - claiming it was 'fake news', for example. I mean, it's not news, it's obviously a work of fiction and is written as an in character piece by a fictional character. It in no way mirrors the denials that the Chechnyan government have been making. 



> The assertion was that the Chechnyan govt (and others) are claiming the stories regarding actual persecution of the LGBT community are largely either false or overblown, and that the WW products are claiming a similar line of in-game propaganda has been created by some factions the vampire community. This “the vampires are to blame” take on this utterly minimizes the culpability of the RW malfeasors, mostly still at large and free to act.



Again, it's a metaphor - just like vampires are a metaphor for all sorts of evil things in the game that are reflections of the real world. It's akin to all sorts of stories. People used to claim that Lady Bathory was a vampire, when she tortured and murdered girls to bathe in their blood. Dracula was based upon a real historical figure - Vlad the Impaler. In Silence of the Lambs, they reference serial killers in the sort of tropes associated with vampires and werewolves. It's the same idea here. 

In this particular written piece, a _vampire character_ is not denying the existance of LGBT persecution (he states it is happening), but is contextualising it as a tactic in a wider vampiric political struggle. That is not the same line purported by the Chechnyan government who are denying the existance of gay people in Chechnya and saying there is no persecution at all.

Moreover, whatever is written, the White Wolf writers are in no way comparable to the people who are actually carrying out real crimes against humanity. At worst, they are guilty of clumsy or crass writing. As we have seen, the Chechnyan government is as likely to use White Wolf's self-censorship of material for their own propaganda purposes too.



> Can you imagine how some might feel if a product set in the USA similarly claimed all the lynchings and murders of the KKK were attributable to a small cadre of vampires?



Yes I can, but it still wouldn't be something I would read as a literal interpretation of events, but as a metaphor. It wouldn't be offensive to me, in the same way that a work of fiction like Tarantino's Django Unchained isn't offensive to me - even though it is clearly referencing real world history in the context of a western fantasy.


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## Jester David (Nov 18, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> I will not defend or condemn the specific case here but the day when horror is prohibited from wrapping demons up in concentration camps and other such things will be a truly horrific day IMO.



Which feels a lot like defending it...


There a huge gulf between something like _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ and this, as the former does use metaphor and analogy to shield itself. There's a separation. It's another to imply that it's not humans committing a very real horror and instead attribute it to a supernatural monster. 
Especially when it feeds into and effectively supports the local denial of said atrocity.

Chechnya has dismissed claims that it is quietly purging LGBTQ individuals, and—like Russia itself—maintains there simply are no homosexuals in the nation. And it has argued that claims that it has been disappearing such individuals are merely western propaganda. 
And then this game comes and outright says that disappearances are really the result of the leader feeding his enemies to vampires. It's not a good take...


At the risk of getting political, I'll bring this closer to home.

Imagine if instead of Chechnya, this had instead referred to the ICE detention camps. Saying these were being used to harvest blood for vampire clans. That the separation parents from kids was a smokescreen for feeding and the creation of ghoul servants. And it referred to a "President Donald" who has a penchant for lavish living and lobbies vampires' interests in Moscow in exchange for immortality. 
(Which is what the Camarilla book said about "Sultan Ramzan" aka Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic.)

It comes off as insensitive to the people affected. Especially those who have lost their life. And it makes a real life problem into fantasy escapism for a roleplaying game. 
It's simply not a good move. And it feeds the state narrative that they're the target of propaganda.


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## Jester David (Nov 18, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> Again, it's a metaphor - just like vampires are a metaphor for all sorts of evil things in the game that are reflections of the real world. It's akin to all sorts of stories. People used to claim that Lady Bathory was a vampire, when she tortured and murdered girls to bathe in their blood. Dracula was based upon a real historical figure - Vlad the Impaler. In Silence of the Lambs, they reference serial killers in the sort of tropes associated with vampires and werewolves. It's the same idea here.



All of which are historical.
It has the value of time and no one still alive being affected.

As [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] says, what would the response be if they claimed the ICE camps were the result of vampires? The attacks and lynchings of Black Lives Matters activists? 

Or, the best one, what would the reaction be if White Wolf had put out a book that said Sandy Hook Elementary massacre was really the result of a rogue vampire pack, and the shooter was a cover? Because like the Chechnya one, that also accidentally overlaps with claims that the story presented by the western media is not the truth and is really propaganda.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 18, 2018)

Jester David said:


> All of which are historical.
> It has the value of time and no one still alive being affected.
> 
> As [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] says, what would the response be if they claimed the ICE camps were the result of vampires? The attacks and lynchings of Black Lives Matters activists?
> ...



Silence of the Lambs wasn't particularly 'historical' when it was written - serial killers were still a thing. Survivors were still alive when they started making Vietnam movies. One could cite The Lord of the Rings as a big fantasy metaphor for World War 2, when it was written, and 'The Two Towers' movie was seen by quite a few people in the aftermath of 9/11 as having some allegorical reference. Casablanca sets up a romance set in the middle of World War 2, while the war was actually happening in the real world, while comedies like Duck Soup were also being banned by fascist governments just prior to this. 

I think there may have been a Sandy Hook reference in a Delta Green scenario actually, although I'd have to double check. It's a curious case anyway, simply because of the vast number of real world conspiracy theories surrounding it. In the case of Vampire: The Masquerade you could refer to Berlin By Night as a contemporary setting which was set in post Berlin Wall times (ie contemporary) and did reference rising neo-nazi groups at the time. 

If they claimed the ICE camps were the result of vampires or the attacks and lynchings of Black Lives Matters activists, I would say the same thing. Vampires are a literary trope - a storytelling metaphor - and if whatever medium is highlighting real world events and bringing an awareness thereof, then I have no problem with it at all. I don't want to tell escapist vanilla fantasy, I want to reference the real world and draw personal values from it. 

And again, the piece in the Camarilla book does not, in any way, overlap with propaganda put out by the Chechnyan government about 'Western propaganda'. Not even by accident, because the basic premise that vampires are real is not something that can be misconstrued as literal. The Chechnyan government are denying the existance of gay people and saying the prosecution of them isn't hapenning. The White Wolf books says it is. That's not an overlap - it's the opposite. 



> And it makes a real life problem into fantasy escapism for a roleplaying game.



No - it makes fantasy less escapist and more socially aware of real life issues.


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## 5ekyu (Nov 18, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Which feels a lot like defending it...
> 
> 
> There a huge gulf between something like _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ and this, as the former does use metaphor and analogy to shield itself. There's a separation. It's another to imply that it's not humans committing a very real horror and instead attribute it to a supernatural monster.
> ...



"There a huge gulf between something like _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ and this, as the former does use metaphor and analogy to shield itself. There's a separation. It's another to imply that it's not humans committing a very real horror and instead attribute it to a supernatural monster. "

In Body Snatchers, it wasnt an oppressive regime of human leaders repressing emotion and free will and reducing people to drones (as the western propaganda of the time portrayed communism) it was alien seed pods.

I dont see that as different as a literary technique for horror than portraying a modern real world horrific program of heinous acts in a fictional world as being done by vampire overlords. 

If you do, we have nothing more to discuss as that is my position and the crux of its foundation.


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## Jester David (Nov 18, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> "There a huge gulf between something like _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ and this, as the former does use metaphor and analogy to shield itself. There's a separation. It's another to imply that it's not humans committing a very real horror and instead attribute it to a supernatural monster. "
> 
> In Body Snatchers, it wasnt an oppressive regime of human leaders repressing emotion and free will and reducing people to drones (as the western propaganda of the time portrayed communism) it was alien seed pods.
> 
> ...



We’re talking about a RPG book. 
Literary techniques for horror don’t apply to the same degree as a movie or novel. 

The vampires in Chechnya don’t represent anything. They’re not an allegory for AIDS or homosexuality or communism or McCarthy.

As I said in another post, this would be like a VtM book attributing Sandy Hook to a vampire in blood frenzy.
This isn’t to say you couldn't do a horror story like that. Or a story where vampirism is being uses as a metaphor for guns and gun violence. 
But a Vampire RPG book attributing a human horror to vampires is just minimizing a human horror.



TrippyHippy said:


> One could cite The Lord of the Rings as a big fantasy metaphor for World War 2, when it was written, and 'The Two Towers' movie was seen by quite a few people in the aftermath of 9/11 as having some allegorical reference. Casablanca sets up a romance set in the middle of World War 2, while the war was actually happening in the real world, while comedies like Duck Soup were also being banned by fascist governments just prior to this.



There’s no allegory here. There’s no metaphor. No layers. No subtext. 
None of those excuses apply.



TrippyHippy said:


> I think there may have been a Sandy Hook reference in a Delta Green scenario actually, although I'd have to double check. It's a curious case anyway, simply because of the vast number of real world conspiracy theories surrounding it.



Please check then. 



TrippyHippy said:


> And again, the piece in the Camarilla book does not, in any way, overlap with propaganda put out by the Chechnyan government about 'Western propaganda'. Not even by accident, because the basic premise that vampires are real is not something that can be misconstrued as literal. The Chechnyan government are denying the existance of gay people and saying the prosecution of them isn't hapenning. The White Wolf books says it is. That's not an overlap - it's the opposite.



The Chechnyan government has maintaining that the western media is committing propaganda against them and making false claims.
Having a Western RPG company slander their leader bolsters their claims that the West is lying about their country and leader.


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## 5ekyu (Nov 18, 2018)

Jester David said:


> We’re talking about a RPG book.
> Literary techniques for horror don’t apply to the same degree as a movie or novel.
> 
> The vampires in Chechnya don’t represent anything. They’re not an allegory for AIDS or homosexuality or communism or McCarthy.
> ...



"Literary techniques for horror don’t apply to the same degree as a movie or novel. "

We will have to agree to disagree on this. I see a setting book for an rpg, especially a storytelling centered rpg, as just as much a work of fiction as the other media. RPGs to me are an interactive, collaborative fiction media.

We will not see eye to eye on this topic.


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## Jester David (Nov 18, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> "Literary techniques for horror don’t apply to the same degree as a movie or novel. "
> 
> We will have to agree to disagree on this. I see a setting book for an rpg, especially a storytelling centered rpg, as just as much a work of fiction as the other media. RPGs to me are an interactive, collaborative fiction media.
> 
> We will not see eye to eye on this topic.



What do vampires represent in the Vampire the Masquerade core rulebook?
What examples of symbolism are in the book?

Now, a campaign, sure. A chronicle or adventure or session can absolutely have depth and layers. But that’s not what we’re discussing.


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## 5ekyu (Nov 18, 2018)

Jester David said:


> What do vampires represent in the Vampire the Masquerade core rulebook?
> What examples of symbolism are in the book?
> 
> Now, a campaign, sure. A chronicle or adventure or session can absolutely have depth and layers. But that’s not what we’re discussing.



Funny, I thought the Chechnya text was in a setting book, note the rule book? I thought I had just referenced a setting book, not a core rulebook.

I had always seen vampires as presented in the core books in 1e znd again in 5e as the manifestation of the duality of man - the internal war between good and evil in all of us made manifest eith quite obvious parallels between the various clans and human vices. That's not even thinly veiled in those books. 

But you know what... we wont agree I have stated my position and I am done with this no-win bear trap of a discussion. You have the floor, enjoy.


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## Jay Verkuilen (Nov 18, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> Silence of the Lambs wasn't particularly 'historical' when it was written - serial killers were still a thing. Survivors were still alive when they started making Vietnam movies.




Very true. 



> One could cite The Lord of the Rings as a big fantasy metaphor for World War 2, when it was written, and 'The Two Towers' movie was seen by quite a few people in the aftermath of 9/11 as having some allegorical reference.




One could, although JRR Tolkien explicitly and repeatedly denied that _Lord of the Rings_ was an allegory for anything, certainly not for World War II. He had a particular dislike for allegory. I think he doth protest a bit too much in some spots, though, most notably "Scouring of the Shire" but he discussed the issue pretty clearly as to why _LotR_ isn't one for World War II. As to _The Two Towers_ as an allegory for the World Trade Center... wow. That's quite a stretch.  



> Casablanca sets up a romance set in the middle of World War 2, while the war was actually happening in the real world, while comedies like Duck Soup were also being banned by fascist governments just prior to this.




Totally agree. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ helped spark the American Civil War.




> No - it makes fantasy less escapist and more socially aware of real life issues.




White Wolf back in the day was no stranger to controversy, but they were often careful, especially as time went on having gotten burned a few times. Back in the day, Rich Dansky, the Wraith developer, was very careful when White Wolf released a book on The Shoah to write an introduction about the topic. He was very sensitive to the issue as he was Jewish and if I recall right had a close connection (related to a Holocaust survivor?---can't remember, this was twenty years ago). One thing that they were careful to try to avoid was making all human tragedies "vampire plots" given how easy it is to trivialize them fictionally that way. Still, overall, a lot of times White Wolf games drew attention to things that probably could have used it. Certainly developers like Bill Bridges were quite open about their political viewpoints. 

The internet of twenty years ago isn't the kind of global water cooler it is today, though. Also, White Wolf in 1998 was an American company and the vast majority of their market was in the USA or a few English-speaking countries. Mostly they sold TTRPGS and also did some book publishing in an area that was very niche. White Wolf today is owned by a Swedish company looking to push White Wolf properties into video games and other areas. I bet there's a lot more going on we don't know about---someone else indicated potential legal action.


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## Jay Verkuilen (Nov 18, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> But you know what... we wont agree I have stated my position and I am done with this no-win bear trap of a discussion. You have the floor, enjoy.




That's awesome!  I have to remember that quote. In fact, I'm going to use it elsewhere.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 18, 2018)

Jester David said:


> The vampires in Chechnya don’t represent anything. They’re not an allegory for AIDS or homosexuality or communism or McCarthy.
> 
> The Chechnyan government has maintaining that the western media is committing propaganda against them and making false claims.
> Having a Western RPG company slander their leader bolsters their claims that the West is lying about their country and leader.



The vampires in Chechnya represent a murderous regime. It’s an obvious and clear allegory. 

The Chechnyan government has now used the fact of White Wolf not publishing as evidence it was all propaganda against them. Go and read my earlier report from a Russian correspondent on this thread. White Wolf removing the text is basically doing his job for him. 

Moreover, it’s not slander to suggest their leader is a monster, when he IS a monster. He is persecuting the LGBT community with torture and murder.  That makes him evil in my book, and well suited to the allegory used. Whether he is offended or not by a written text pointing out this allegory should be the least of our concerns -  he is a monster and the more people who can express that the weaker he will be.

And as others have pointed out,  literary techniques for horror are every bit as relevant to a role playing game as novels or movies or any other creative medium. Silly argument, this.


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## Jester David (Nov 18, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> The vampires in Chechnya represent a murderous regime. It’s an obvious and clear allegory.
> 
> The Chechnyan government has now used the fact of White Wolf not publishing as evidence it was all ppropaganda against them. Go and read my earlier report from a Russian correspondent on this thread.
> 
> ...



In college I had a friend who thought the Britney Spears _Crosroads_ film was a masterpiece and the best film of that year. 
You can find depth in anything. But that doesn't mean it was intended. 
(And, seriously... vampires representing a muderous regime is the shallowest symbolism imaginable. Uwe Boll level filmmaking.)

And even if it _was_ intentional, that doesn't mean you get a free pass to offend. Again, making art doesn’t let you freely use and capitalize on the arrest and torture of innocent people.  
This book crossed. A. Line.
It broke a “rule” they knew back in the 1990s and attributed a modern crime against humanity to a fictional supernatural being. It reduced people to a plot point. For a game. That’s uncool. 

Whether or not you personally agree is irrelevant. Outrage doesn’t have to be unanimous. You don’t get veto privileges over people being upset.


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## ccs (Nov 18, 2018)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> We can use speculative fiction, and the RPGs, to talk about conflicts of coexistence and tolerance, but we can't forget the respect of the human dignity or then we could condemn terrorists to be eaten by dogs, like Ramsay Bolton, character from "Game of Thrones". *Would do Sansa Stark that if she had been a pious Christian?*




Well, given what pious Christians have done to each other, let alone to others, over the past 2k years.....


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 18, 2018)

epithet said:


> I suppose there's something to be said for pissing off both sides of the conflict.
> 
> I'm reminded of _Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter_, which was a popular book that became a move based on the (obviously fictional) premise that the Confederacy was a cover for vampires. There is also a movie in theaters now (_Overlord_?) that is about Nazis creating zombies. I think it is perfectly natural to look at real-world villainy and associate it with horror genre supernatural elements, it makes for a good story. Games and other fiction have to set up Capital-E-Evil so that the heroes can fight against it, because you can't have Bellerophon with the chimaera. Still, it seems like the fallout from using an ongoing, current real-world issue was predictable. We are living in times of elevated sensitivity and maximum scrutiny, where if something could possibly offend it will definitely offend, and there is a cultural inclination to pillory the offender immediately and without reservation or consideration of other factors. It seems like White Wolf should have known better.




If they’d presented the conflict/crisis as a point of potential conflict for PCs to engage with, without presenting it as a conspiracy to mask vampires abducting people, I don’t think there here’d be much outcry. 

I mean, the Brujah exist. There are definately brujah in Chechnya ready to throw down in the name of stopping LGBT folks from being disappeared and killed, and formenting violent action in that vein, and it’s an easy jump to put other vamps in places of opportunism, taking advantage of the government’s oppression for their own ends.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 18, 2018)

Jester David said:


> All of which are historical.
> It has the value of time and no one still alive being affected.
> 
> As @_*Dannyalcatraz*_ says, what would the response be if they claimed the ICE camps were the result of vampires? The attacks and lynchings of Black Lives Matters activists?
> ...




Gorram that one has punch to it. “It’s not crisis actors and false flags, it’s that Obama is a ghoul and the shooting was really a vampire attack!” Would be...very bad. 



mycomics007 said:


> It would appear that all the more noisy hysterics from ppl that don't take part in a given side interest, fuming and shouting, have done in something else that was harming no one, similar to gluten.




Is there a script y’all are reading from?


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## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 18, 2018)

The Christianity shown in the media and the one from real world are very different. Galileo Galiei wasn't sentenced to death, but to recited penitential psalms, and this wasn't bone by him but by his nun daughter. Lavoisier was guillotined but media doesn't tell. Please, real Church isn't like in the "Assasin's Creed" videogames, the emperor's cult from Warhammer 40.000 or the Sigmar's cult from Warhammer Fantasy. If a mason, John Wyck, tells a lot of horrible things about the Vatican Church from his "7th Sea" this doesn't mean real Catholic Church to be like in Umberto Eco "the name of the rose". Do you know anything about the Taiping rebellion in China? Hong Xiuquan self-proclaimed Christ's brother (his family wasn't Christian ever) and 20 millions or more lives were lost. With Mao 100 millions of Chinese lives were lost, and that if we don't count the forced abortions against parents' will. Media will not try to warn you about revolutions may became nightmares as Robespierre's French Terror. Madam Roland before being guillotined said: "Oh liberty, how many crimes are committed in your name!" 

To use speculative fiction to show religion like a menace like the republic of Gilead from Margaret Atwood's "the maid's tale" it isn't only annoying, it may be more dangerous you could imagine or suppose. The worst genocide suffered in Spain wasn't by Inquisition, but by the red terror, the communists who burned convents and tortured in the chekas, but the current media don't tell anti-capitalist/anti-system movement may be so dangerous as religious fanaticism. The stereotype of the religious zealot or the hypocrite preacher is very common in the actual speculative fiction, also in videogames and RPGs, but most of time this is not true, real Christians aren't like Carrie's crazy mother, the character from Stephen King's book, or Joseph "the father" Seed, the main antagonist from "Far Cry 5". But persecution against Christians in other parts of the world, for example the land-grabbing in Pakistan or attacks against Copts temples (and they aren't allowed to rebuilt) is very real, with more mortal victims than racism or homophobia. And Hollywood doesn't tell about this. The fact is a lot of people would want to watch the movie "Gosnell: the trial of America's biggest serial killer" but cinemas didn't want to broadcast it. What is happening?

Now we are in the beginning of the "cultural counter-revolution", a rebellion against the "ministry of post-truth", against the imposition of certain ideas by the main media, and the RPGs also will be affected. People is noticing "ultra-capitalist" Detroit in "Robocop" movies can't be worse very much than real Detroit (closest one in real USA to a post-apocalypse zone), or Cuba or Venezuela. 

Voltaire said: "I would not wish to have to deal with an atheist prince, who would find it to his interest to have me ground to powder in a mortar: I should be quite sure of being ground to powder. If I were a sovereign, I would not wish to have to deal with atheist courtiers, whose interest it would be to poison me: I should have to be taking antidotes every day. It is therefore absolutely necessary for princes and for peoples, that the idea of a Supreme Being, creator, ruler, rewarder, revenger, shall be deeply engraved in people's minds". the character from "Game of Thrones", Joffrey Baratheon, with a crossbow, is a perfect example to explain the reason of this quote. It wasn't G.R.R Martin's goal but "Games of Thrones" shows us as Western civilization would be without Christianity. 

We can, we should, use the speculative fiction to promove values against the hate, intolerance and the fanaticism, but to get this we have to recover the respect of the human dignity. And do you know? I see in the real life Christian believers are more coherent with this. If I see cartoons like "a family guy" are too nasty and rude again I think they have forgotten the respect of the human dignity for people with a different point of view. That isn't acid humor but toxic personality. 

Listen, here in Spain, Ortega Lara, who was kidnapped by a terrorist group, ETA, but found and rescued by the police, when he wanted to participated in an act he met a group of extreme-left radicals who were shouting menace words like "¡Os fusilaremos como en Paracuellos", ( = we will shoot (execute by firearms) you like in Paracuellos (a zone where the communists commited a deadpool for the Spanish civil war)! Do you notice it? If there is a problem about fanaticism and intolerance it isn't because Christians are wolves with sheep's clothing and may back to the old ones but because the anti-Christians and anti-Capitalists regret nothing. The anticapitalism shown in the modern fiction, or the stereotype of religious zealot may be so dangerous as the racism or the homophobia, or worst. Do you remember marvel comics event "Dinasty of M" where the mutants weren't the victims of intolerance but the new tyrants?  

Now it is the time to tell who needs a sermon about respect and tolerance, for a better coexistence, are not us but the hypocrites who self-proclaimed defenders of the freedom but don't allow a different opinion. Trust nobody who doesn't show arguments to explain the reasons of his point of view but only tries to humiliate and psychological mistreat (with "fresh acid humor") who dares to take the opposite to him.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 18, 2018)

Jester David said:


> In college I had a friend who thought the Britney Spears _Crosroads_ film was a masterpiece and the best film of that year.
> You can find depth in anything. But that doesn't mean it was intended.
> (And, seriously... vampires representing a muderous regime is the shallowest symbolism imaginable. Uwe Boll level filmmaking.)



Evidently, you can dismiss everything in a shallow way too, but your perspective doesn’t trump mine.



> And even if it _was_ intentional, that doesn't mean you get a free pass to offend. Again, making art doesn’t let you freely use and capitalize on the arrest and torture of innocent people.



Actually we do get a free pass to offend other people, with words, in a free society. The Chechnyan government think that LGBT people don’t get the freedom to offend them by their existance - and that is why they oppress them. It’s the basis of authoritarianism. 

You are literally arguing against freedom of expression in exactly the same way. People don't have a right to not be offended. They have a freedom to not buy or argue against things they don't like - but they have no protection in law against being offended by words in countries with freedom of speech laws. If that were the case, I could claim that your words were offensive, just because I didn't like them, and try to stop you from speaking too. 



> This book crossed. A. Line.
> It broke a “rule” they knew back in the 1990s and attributed a modern crime against humanity to a fictional supernatural being. It reduced people to a plot point. For a game. That’s uncool.



The ‘rules’ you cite don’t break any law and the offense you claim are evidently in the eye of the beholder. I didn't find it offensive, for the reasons I have already cited. Wanting to censor writing  because you don’t accept or understand a metaphor being used, is uncool.  So is the desire to ban books you don’t like.



> Whether or not you personally agree is irrelevant. Outrage doesn’t have to be unanimous. You don’t get veto privileges over people being upset.



Just because some people find material upsetting, doesn’t mean they get a veto on another’s right to expression. Again you are pushing an authoritarian argument here. Your views are closer to the Chechnyan government than you seem to realise.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 18, 2018)

> Just because some people find material upsetting, doesn’t mean they get a veto on another’s right to expression.




No, but editors, managers, owners, and other superiors in a given hierarchy DO.  And here, they did.

They weighed the two sides and found they’d rather not appear to be tin-eared to the complainers.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 18, 2018)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> No, but editors, managers, owners, and other superiors in a given hierarchy DO.  And here, they did.
> 
> They weighed the two sides and found they’d rather not appear to be tin-eared to the complainers.



Well, actually I think what they have done is made a business decision to draw a line through it and cut some losses. As a customer, I'll be considering my own options about their decisions and the products I have on pre-order with them too. As I stated before, I actually think there are more underlying and unmentioned problems for them in terms of sales.  

Either way, what remains a concern for me is still an issue of censorship in the case at hand, as well as the problem in Chechnya itself which may well fade away now from consciousness now that the book has been rescinded.


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## Panda-s1 (Nov 18, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Is there a script y’all are reading from?




idk if you've heard of that NPC theory nonsense some people believe. Basically it's something like sjw's are actually NPCs because they use the same phrases over and over or something like that (really it's just another excuse to degrade people they don't agree with), but personally I feel like people who buy into that theory believe all the other people who believe it are also NPCs.



TrippyHippy said:


> Either way, what remains a concern for me is still an issue of censorship in the case at hand, as well as the problem in Chechnya itself which may well fade away now from consciousness now that the book has been rescinded.




Oh, no, now the atrocity against LGBT people in Chechnya will be forgotten, if only the internet hadn't gotten outraged over a supplement to an already controversial RPG, how else will people know about what's going on? 

I'll be honest, at this point I can't tell whether or not you've been trolling us this entire time. That or you just honestly don't believe people were talking about what was going on in Chechnya before the v5 controversy. I knew about it.


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## TheIdeaOfGood (Nov 18, 2018)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> The Christianity shown in the media and the one from real world are very different. Galileo Galiei wasn't sentenced to death, but to recited penitential psalms, and this wasn't bone by him but by his nun daughter. Lavoisier was guillotined but media doesn't tell. Please, real Church isn't like in the "Assasin's Creed" videogames, the emperor's cult from Warhammer 40.000 or the Sigmar's cult from Warhammer Fantasy. If a mason, John Wyck, tells a lot of horrible things about the Vatican Church from his "7th Sea" this doesn't mean real Catholic Church to be like in Umberto Eco "the name of the rose". Do you know anything about the Taiping rebellion in China? Hong Xiuquan self-proclaimed Christ's brother (his family wasn't Christian ever) and 20 millions or more lives were lost. With Mao 100 millions of Chinese lives were lost, and that if we don't count the forced abortions against parents' will. Media will not try to warn you about revolutions may became nightmares as Robespierre's French Terror. Madam Roland before being guillotined said: "Oh liberty, how many crimes are committed in your name!"
> 
> To use speculative fiction to show religion like a menace like the republic of Gilead from Margaret Atwood's "the maid's tale" it isn't only annoying, it may be more dangerous you could imagine or suppose. The worst genocide suffered in Spain wasn't by Inquisition, but by the red terror, the communists who burned convents and tortured in the chekas, but the current media don't tell anti-capitalist/anti-system movement may be so dangerous as religious fanaticism. The stereotype of the religious zealot or the hypocrite preacher is very common in the actual speculative fiction, also in videogames and RPGs, but most of time this is not true, real Christians aren't like Carrie's crazy mother, the character from Stephen King's book, or Joseph "the father" Seed, the main antagonist from "Far Cry 5". But persecution against Christians in other parts of the world, for example the land-grabbing in Pakistan or attacks against Copts temples (and they aren't allowed to rebuilt) is very real, with more mortal victims than racism or homophobia. And Hollywood doesn't tell about this. The fact is a lot of people would want to watch the movie "Gosnell: the trial of America's biggest serial killer" but cinemas didn't want to broadcast it. What is happening?
> 
> ...




How about we skip the Christian apologetics? 
Anyone with a mere smattering of historic knowledge knows about the atrocities committed by the church and by civilian authorities in the name of god over the centuries. Not to mention the simple fact that most of the persecution, torture and murder of LGBT people has happened because of religious conviction due to some bronze-age texts still taken literally.

And that's not fiction, that's the bitter truth. It has nothing to do with the question whether a god exists or not, just to clarify. I am not speaking ill of your belief. But when religion (no matter which one) marries power, the result is always bloodshed and minorities will always suffer the fallout the worst.

As for the topic at hand...yeah, it was handled poorly. I'd much rather have preferred a softer touch like they did when they were doing Wraith or when speaking of WW2 or 9/11. 
Still, sometimes I do wonder if we all on both sides do not get a bit too worked up in our outrage...asking for change is much more polite, at least, than clamoring loudly for it.


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## Morrus (Nov 18, 2018)

Please stick to the topic at hand, folks. This isn’t a free for all politics and religion thread.


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## Jester David (Nov 18, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> Actually we do get a free pass to offend other people, with words, in a free society. The Chechnyan government think that LGBT people don’t get the freedom to offend them by their existance - and that is why they oppress them. It’s the basis of authoritarianism.
> 
> You are literally arguing against freedom of expression in exactly the same way. People don't have a right to not be offended. They have a freedom to not buy or argue against things they don't like - but they have no protection in law against being offended by words in countries with freedom of speech laws. If that were the case, I could claim that your words were offensive, just because I didn't like them, and try to stop you from speaking too.




View attachment 103171

Plus, if the best and only defence you can make about something was that it was not illegal to say it, that's probably not a statement worth defending.
(Also... the first amendment is an American law. It doesn't apply here.)

Lastly, this was a corporate created product. The people who made it were employees working for money. It wasn't some artistic endeavour created by an individual, but something created on a word assembly line. The people who paid for its creation and manufacture have every right to withdraw it as not being up to their standards. Because it was their product. 
If the writers _really _have something deep and artistic to say... they still have every right to put out their own product that is all about Vampires in Chechnya. They can release _Chechnya By Night _for the Storyteller's Vault.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 18, 2018)

The RPGs franchises are part of the speculative fiction, and this can be used like a softer way to explain the reality, or also like a dangerous propagandistic weapon. The speculative fiction can used to write satires about some parts of our past and our History, or like a tool to manipulate us. When speculative fiction talk about History can tell us about things we didn't know, or lies about things never happened but are believed by many people. We must be careful when we find lessons about the past, because we need humility and self-criticism, but sometimes we have to stop attempts of manipulation by propaganda war what convert those in guilty feeling and self-deprecation. 

The speculative fiction, and the RPGs, can, should be used to help to raise awareness against fanaticism, intolerance and hate, but for this goal, we also need to defend the respect of the human dignity. Sadly a lot of writers and creators who use their works to report racism, male chauvinism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc.. have forgotten if we don't respect human dignity then maybe we only change a tyrant for other. That is the weak point by White Wolf publishing when they want to use their publications to try open the eyes of the new generations about the injustices in this world and our society. A lot of works of speculative fiction tell us about how the rebel groups defeat the evil lord but not about how to lead a nation. 

Now we are like the years when the North-american natives started to complain about their bad image in the old far west movies. Now it isn't only about things said, but also about things not were told to us. Yes, maybe we are going to see a new wave of "satanic panic" or something like this, but this time somebody will show right arguments to explain the reason of his point of view.

Do you remember the boycott against the movie "the golden compass" and the reasons?


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 18, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> .Oh, no, now the atrocity against LGBT people in Chechnya will be forgotten, if only the internet hadn't gotten outraged over a supplement to an already controversial RPG, how else will people know about what's going on?
> 
> I'll be honest, at this point I can't tell whether or not you've been trolling us this entire time. That or you just honestly don't believe people were talking about what was going on in Chechnya before the v5 controversy. I knew about it.



You have accused me of trolling already on this thread, but looking at your contributions here, I think it's you who seems to be guilty of this. As pointed out before, it's a straight up ad hominem. 

People werenot talking about the situation in Chechnya in any great numbers before this controversy, and I think quite a lot of people would acknowledge this if they are being honest. Good for you, if you knew about it - but I still think that anger against a game company is misplaced, if what they were trying to do was highlight a real world issue.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 18, 2018)

Jester David said:


> View attachment 103171
> 
> Plus, if the best and only defence you can make about something was that it was not illegal to say it, that's probably not a statement worth defending.
> (Also... the first amendment is an American law. It doesn't apply here.)
> ...



I thionk you might want to consider looking over the arguments you have been presenting here and consider that what you have been arguing here is an authoritarian argument. That being that people don't have the right to offend, and if anybody does find offense in something they have a right to shut down freedom of expression. As stated before, that is basically the stance of the Chechnyan government in reference to the LGBT community. People have a right to protest or not buy something, but actually you went beyond this in the arguments you presented on this thread.


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## BMaC (Nov 18, 2018)

I didn't know that Paradox owns White Wolf.  Great to hear that they will be taking a more hands-on approach.


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## Rygar (Nov 18, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> idk if you've heard of that NPC theory nonsense some people believe. Basically it's something like sjw's are actually NPCs because they use the same phrases over and over or something like that (really it's just another excuse to degrade people they don't agree with), but personally I feel like people who buy into that theory believe all the other people who believe it are also NPCs.




I don't think you understand what is meant by calling others "NPC".

It's a reference to video games where an NPC has a script they cannot deviate from that is very limited in scope and repetative.  Like an NPC who praises a captain of the guard with "He's the most honorable warrior in the land!", you expose him as a traitor against the king, and return to the NPC who still declares "He's the most honorable warrior in the land!".  Bethesda games are great examples, because their NPC scripting is such that they almost never acknowledge anything you do, anything that changes, or if they do it's one line and then they completely forget and act like it never happened.

The NPC term being used today in politics is derived from that.  It isn't a "Theory", no one thinks they're bots.  It means that other(s) regard the person in question of being so dogma driven that they're basically scripted and cannot think outside of that script.  It's a statement that there's no value to engaging in further discourse because one party appears to be unable to engage in an exchange of ideas and will just repeat the same rhetoric.  

It's also an example of how political correctness is a futile effort because trying to language police people will simple end up backfiring.  A number of forums now ban you for using the term "SJW" to refer to left leaning persons, the term "NPC" is coined as a replacement.  It is rather ingenius to be honest, because it's a generic term used to describe a key component of most of gaming that is almost impossible to police.  You can't ban the term, and trying to selectively ban people for using it in a way that's "wrong" is going to be virtually impossible and make admins jobs a nightmare.  If an admin tries to ban the term for being used as a replacement for "SJW" then the opposing political groups can simply start reporting anyone who uses the term and make the admin dig through hundreds or thousands of reports.

This forum's an example, Morrus banned "SJW" for referring to left leaning persons, NPC is a replacement term.  He could ban people for using it selectively, but then people can just start reporting every usage of the term on an RPG site forcing him to sift through huge volumes of reports.  Particularly motivated individuals could go another step forward, create shill accounts, and use the term ambiguously to force Morrus to have to read whole threads to figure out context making reports even more painful.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 18, 2018)

We have to respect each other for a better coexistence, but politically correctness is a new tyranny and hypocrite double standard. The true respect to fight intolerance has to be linked with the true moral values. 

Nietzsche said: "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do no become a monster". This happens when victimhood asks all rights but assume no duty. Do you remember the mamluks, the slave warriors who become rules later? Or the githyankis from D&D, slaves who rebelled against mindslayers. 

The mistake by White Wolf and other speculative fiction publishers is only appointing an enemy as the evil lord, but this doesn't help to create a better world if there isn't ethical principles like the Natural Law. Many characters from World of Darkness are monsters or fanatical antagonists because they have forgotten the respect for human dignity. Other mistake from most part of the speculative fiction, and current main media, is showing atheism like a vaccine against the fanaticism, and this is totally false.


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## Shasarak (Nov 18, 2018)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Atheism is a vaccine against Religious fanaticism




Good old Blue jeans, McDonalds and Playboy are working as fast as they can.


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## Panda-s1 (Nov 18, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> You have accused me of trolling already on this thread, but looking at your contributions here, I think it's you who seems to be guilty of this. As pointed out before, it's a straight up ad hominem.
> 
> People werenot talking about the situation in Chechnya in any great numbers before this controversy, and I think quite a lot of people would acknowledge this if they are being honest. Good for you, if you knew about it - but I still think that anger against a game company is misplaced, if what they were trying to do was highlight a real world issue.




Man, you can highlight a real world issue without trivializing it. You can also do better than "the Chechen leaders are actually bad vampires! O:" But also, even if this did increase social awareness to the problem I find it hard to believe people are going think it stopped because WW took it out of one of their books.



Rygar said:


> I don't think you understand what is meant by calling others "NPC".
> 
> It's a reference to video games where an NPC has a script they cannot deviate from that is very limited in scope and repetative.  Like an NPC who praises a captain of the guard with "He's the most honorable warrior in the land!", you expose him as a traitor against the king, and return to the NPC who still declares "He's the most honorable warrior in the land!".  Bethesda games are great examples, because their NPC scripting is such that they almost never acknowledge anything you do, anything that changes, or if they do it's one line and then they completely forget and act like it never happened.
> 
> The NPC term being used today in politics is derived from that.  It isn't a "Theory", no one thinks they're bots.  It means that other(s) regard the person in question of being so dogma driven that they're basically scripted and cannot think outside of that script.  It's a statement that there's no value to engaging in further discourse because one party appears to be unable to engage in an exchange of ideas and will just repeat the same rhetoric.




Okay, I'll remember this everytime I see someone say "Spotted the NPC!" or any other of the garden variety anti-sjw insults.


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## gyor (Nov 18, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Jesus wept! What the heck is going on at White Wolf?!
> 
> Okay, I read (and reviewed) the core rulebook and found some of the online controversy had been overblown. But their reaction to concerns online had still been extremely lacklustre. One would assume that they'd spend a little extra time looking at future products and really thinking about what they were adding to their books to avoid causing more drama and concerns. That something this big slipped through shows a staggering lack of oversight.
> 
> ...




 I think I will avoid the politics for once,  and just point out that the real white wolf is The Onyx Path,  who have been doing all the Chronicles of Darkness,  World of Darkness,  Scion,  Trinity,  and Exalted since the original white wolf died, except for the new V5 V:TM stuff. They are now functionally taking over V5 with their Chicago book which is being kick started right now. 

 Honestly the new white wolf caused nothing,  but problems for Onyx Path, starting with the huge rift it caused between Onyx Path and Developer Hill. 

 I don't why the new White Wolf felt the need for a new edition so soon after v20, and why they felt the need to do it themselves,  Onyx Path has largely done really well,  with a few mistakes that have been learned from,  and the lines and worlds they have been doing keeps growing. It's lead by someone who was apart of the original white wolf,  making Onyx Path more of a spiritual successor to the original white wolf then the new white white wolf ever was. 

 So now it's likely to stay in Onyx Path's hands, which are experienced and popular,  and much better at avoiding political land mines then the new white wolf. 

 I do feel bad for the people who have lost their jobs,  that always sucks. And my full hearted compassion to all gay people who are being abused and murdered.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 18, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> Man, you can highlight a real world issue without trivializing it. You can also do better than "the Chechen leaders are actually bad vampires! O:" But also, even if this did increase social awareness to the problem I find it hard to believe people are going think it stopped because WW took it out of one of their books.



That piece didnt trivialise anything - it presented the full brutality of what was going on - and you have just created a strawman by making up non existant quotes. 

If you find it hard to believe, let me inform you that the Chechnyan government have now used the _withdrawal of text _ from White Wolf as a piece of propaganda to claim that they have won a victory against 'Western Propaganda'. The LGBT people in Chechnya are now less empowered than they were to speak out, as a consequence.


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## ruemere (Nov 18, 2018)

Having read the extensive thread at rpg.net on V5 Anarch and Camarilla guides (https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416/) the offending passage on Chechnya is quoted there) I find the treatment of Chechnya issues distasteful, and the official follow-up with its promise of making amends quite recommendable (statement link: https://www.white-wolf.com/newsblog/a-message-from-white-wolf).

Man-made atrocities should stay man-made, especially if they are recent, or worse, ongoing. Fictionalizing them should not involve shifting blame to supernatural third parties, period.

Lastly, if a writer feels a strong urge to capitalize on recent headlines in their fiction, they should do a serious peer review of their piece first. And this particular case (well, several cases in recent memory of V5, like that sex-changing ritual - search rpg.net forums if you want to find examples) imply that peer review was lacking on several occasions. 

Regards,
Ruemere

PS. More direct links in a post below: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?654998-Big-Changes-At-White-Wolf-Following-Controversy&p=7524497#post7524497


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 18, 2018)

gyor said:


> I don't why the new White Wolf felt the need for a new edition so soon after v20, and why they felt the need to do it themselves,  Onyx Path has largely done really well,  with a few mistakes that have been learned from,  and the lines and worlds they have been doing keeps growing. It's lead by someone who was apart of the original white wolf,  making Onyx Path more of a spiritual successor to the original white wolf then the new white white wolf ever was.
> 
> So now it's likely to stay in Onyx Path's hands, which are experienced and popular,  and much better at avoiding political land mines then the new white wolf.



It's probably worth noting that The Onyx Path were already planning, and had announced their own upcoming version of V5 before the new White Wolf took up ownership. They did so because V20 was released in 2011 and had probably sold as much as it was ever going to do, while their own feedback was that the book was so big it was seen as a turnoff to casual fans. I'm reporting what Richard Thomas said in his newsletters and in discussions thereof, by the way, so you could go back and trace the history yourself through their website.  

The Onyx Path have a policy, to reduce overheads, of only conducting business through Kickstarters and Drivethrurpg PDF/POD. I think they have added the Indiepressrevolution site in the last year or so too. With all best intentions, these are not big markets at all compared to the retail sales that are highlighted in ICv2, for example. The ambitions of the new Vampire game was to reach out much further than this, by reigniting the brand, and this is what is being pulled back on when they are now just interested in 3rd party based 'Brand Management'. 

The Onyx Path plans for V5 are only really as much as the money they can raise on Kickstarter. The current Chicago by Night campaign is raising just over $80,000. It's not much. 



> I do feel bad for the people who have lost their jobs,  that always sucks. And my full hearted compassion to all gay people who are being abused and murdered.



Good words, and in total agreement.


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## Hussar (Nov 18, 2018)

ruemere said:


> Having read the extensive thread at rpg.net on V5 Anarch and Camarilla guides (https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416; the offending passage on Chechnya is quoted there) I find the treatment of Chechnya issues distasteful, and the official follow-up with its promise of making amends quite recommendable (statement link: https://www.white-wolf.com/newsblog/a-message-from-white-wolf).
> 
> Man-made atrocities should stay man-made, especially if they are recent, or worse, ongoing. Fictionalizing them should not involve shifting blame to supernatural third parties, period.
> 
> ...




 [MENTION=5515]ruemere[/MENTION], your Anarch Guides link is broken.  I would very much like to see the conversation you are talking about.  Can you fix the link?


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## hawkeyefan (Nov 18, 2018)

If we look at the issue in a more general sense, I think it becomes clearer. It really boils down to this:

Are we or should we as customers/readers/viewers/gamers guaranteed some level of freedom from offense by the art we consume? 

Sure, there are commercial considerations at playy here, and they have been a factor. But separate of that....separate of the business folk sitting in a conference room looking at spreadsheets...should art be banned/removed/restricted/altered based on its content? 

If a work of art offends one person, is that enough for it to be removed? If not, then how many people must be offended? 

And is there not some level of personal ownership that should be considered? If I find naughty language offensive, does that mean that films with naughty language should be banned? Or edited for content? Orshould it be on me to avoid films that I find offensive? 

Should I be deciding this for myself or should others decide for me?


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## Maxperson (Nov 18, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> Man, you can highlight a real world issue without trivializing it. You can also do better than "the Chechen leaders are actually bad vampires! O:" But also, even if this did increase social awareness to the problem I find it hard to believe people are going think it stopped because WW took it out of one of their books.




Sure, but on the other hand, it's really not possible for a game to trivialize something, because people aren't going to take a game seriously.  It's a game.  Now, if a government dismissed what was going on, that would be trivializing the issue.


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## ruemere (Nov 18, 2018)

Hussar said:


> [MENTION=5515]ruemere[/MENTION], your Anarch Guides link is broken.  I would very much like to see the conversation you are talking about.  Can you fix the link?




Sure, let me try.

On the guides in general:
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416/

Offending piece (image):
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dreh9TrV4AMdzsI?format=jpg

Offending piece (text):
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416/post-22218511

Other issues:
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/white-wolf-to-no-longer-develop-books-internally-camarilla-book-to-be-edited.837179/
https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/white-wolf-to-no-longer-develop-books-internally-camarilla-book-to-be-edited.837179/post-22227731


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## D1Tremere (Nov 18, 2018)

ruemere said:


> Having read the extensive thread at rpg.net on V5 Anarch and Camarilla guides (https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416; the offending passage on Chechnya is quoted there) I find the treatment of Chechnya issues distasteful, and the official follow-up with its promise of making amends quite recommendable (statement link: https://www.white-wolf.com/newsblog/a-message-from-white-wolf).
> 
> Man-made atrocities should stay man-made, especially if they are recent, or worse, ongoing. Fictionalizing them should not involve shifting blame to supernatural third parties, period.
> 
> ...




Those are definitely opinions, and you are allowed to have them, but they are not objective facts. Matters of taste, morality, or public opinion should never be treated as objective or applied to art in my opinion. No art should EVER be peer reviewed, because making art to fit an external standard is no longer art. It is useful only from a sales and business perspective.

Vampires themselves are often seen or used as an allegory for sex, especially in particularly repressive points in human history. That these vampires very often use force or mind altering abilities to feed is then an allusion for rape. Rape is an aspect of man-made atrocities that is, in this context being fictionalized and blamed on third party supernatural entities. By your logic, no vampires of the typical Western European variety should be presented as they trivialize rape.

I believe in inclusion, and in supporting people of all genders, religions, ethnicity, biodiversity, etc., in the pursuit of equality and freedom. I, however, do not think that horror fiction, which by definition highlights the worst aspects of the human psyche, is a place for drawing moralistic lines in the sand.


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## ruemere (Nov 19, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Those are definitely opinions, and you are allowed to have them, but they are not objective facts. Matters of taste, morality, or public opinion should never be treated as objective or applied to art in my opinion. No art should EVER be peer reviewed, because making art to fit an external standard is no longer art. It is useful only from a sales and business perspective.
> 
> Vampires themselves are often seen or used as an allegory for sex, especially in particularly repressive points in human history. That these vampires very often use force or mind altering abilities to feed is then an allusion for rape. Rape is an aspect of man-made atrocities that is, in this context being fictionalized and blamed on third party supernatural entities. By your logic, no vampires of the typical Western European variety should be presented as they trivialize rape.
> 
> I believe in inclusion, and in supporting people of all genders, religions, ethnicity, biodiversity, etc., in the pursuit of equality and freedom. I, however, do not think that horror fiction, which by definition highlights the worst aspects of the human psyche, is a place for drawing moralistic lines in the sand.




Ah, you're being romantic about the art. No, my dear,  the art is always peer reviewed - ever heard about art critics, exhibitions, etc? How about editors - you know, these guys, who redline, comment, re-do text? Have you ever, by any chance, published anything? Do you know through how many changes a piece of text can go through?
And the particular piece of fiction is insensitive, shallow and reeks of lazy racking word count. 

Your second paragraph is not relevant to this discussion. Artificial broadening of topic scope does not work with me.
Your last paragraph is just a convenient disclaimer, akin to "Let me say something outrageous first, and now I will do a convenient escape with a disclaimer". So again, not really worth refuting in-depth.

Regards,
Ruemere


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 19, 2018)

ruemere said:


> Ah, you're being romantic about the art. No, my dear,  the art is always peer reviewed - ever heard about art critics, exhibitions, etc? How about editors - you know, these guys, who redline, comment, re-do text? Have you ever, by any chance, published anything? Do you know through how many changes a piece of text can go through?



You are assuming that it wasn't peer reviewed or edited, and that the conclusion to this process ought to have been the same as people who were offended by it.



> And the particular piece of fiction is insensitive, shallow and reeks of lazy racking word count.



Which is your opinion, as pointed out by D1Tremere.



> Your second paragraph is not relevant to this discussion. Artificial broadening of topic scope does not work with me.



I think it's pretty relevant as a way of illustrating that vampires have been used as metaphors for some time, so trying to assert that this piece of writing wasn't making use of a metaphor is a stretch. It's to the point at hand.



> Your last paragraph is just a convenient disclaimer, akin to "Let me say something outrageous first, and now I will do a convenient escape with a disclaimer". So again, not really worth refuting in-depth.



He didn't say anything outrageous.


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## ruemere (Nov 19, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> You are assuming that it wasn't peer reviewed or edited, and that the conclusion to this process ought to have been the same as people who were offended by it.
> 
> Which is your opinion, as pointed out by D1Tremere.
> 
> ...




Let me quote you a statement by Shams Jorjani, VP of Business Development at Paradox Interactive and interim manager at White Wolf Publishing:


> In the Chechnya chapter of the V5 Camarilla book, we lost sight of this. The result was a chapter that dealt with a real-world, ongoing tragedy in a crude and disrespectful way. We should have identified this either during the creative process or in editing. This did not happen, and for this we apologize.




This is a statement by the guy who is now in charge of this item. This is not my opinion, this is official word on this by the publisher. 
Therefore, would you kindly stop acting patronizingly toward me and other participants who happen to disagree with you? The publisher, who is definitely closer to the source has admitted that they are at fault.

Again, attempting to redirect subject of this discussion (treatment of ongoing atrocities in Chechnya) toward broader topics (like what vampires are metaphor for) classifies as items number three and nineteen on "The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument":
#3 Generalize Your Opponent's Specific Statements
#19 Generalize the Matter, Then Argue Against it

As for your flat denial, well. In the very first paragraph, D1Tremere, admitted (indirectly) that they are not familiar with publishing. To me it is an outrageous lack of information.

To sum it up - the show's over, there are consequences, and hopefully the next version of the guides will not spark such outcry.

Regards,
Ruemere


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## Umbran (Nov 19, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> Matters of taste, morality, or public opinion should never be treated as objective or applied to art in my opinion.




*blink*

Art is, in the end, about human experience and feelings and thoughts.  Taste, morality, public opinion - these are the very lifeblood of art.  



> No art should EVER be peer reviewed, because making art to fit an external standard is no longer art.




With respect, *ALL* art gets peer reviewed, unless it is art that nobody but its creator ever sees.  Art is subject to the thoughts and opinions of _every single member of the audience_.  Engaging the minds of others is part of the (some say the only) point to making art at all!  Putting out art is making yourself vulnerable to judgement.


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## D1Tremere (Nov 19, 2018)

Firstly, I do not believe standing up for free speech is saying anything outrageous.
Secondly, I was generalizing your argument because if it cant be generalized then it lacks external validity.
Thirdly, your opinion is still an opinion, no matter who agrees with it. It doesn't matter if the person in charge of the company agrees with you (appeal to authority), it is still just an opinion.
Lastly, when I think of peer review I do not consider it the same as critiquing. Anyone can critique any work of art, but peer review as I was thinking of it involves using objective standards (as opposed to opinion) to refute a written position. Fiction is not a peer reviewable written position, it is a non-real product which need not be subject to reality or its outlook.


----------



## D1Tremere (Nov 19, 2018)

Umbran said:


> *blink*
> 
> Art is, in the end, about human experience and feelings and thoughts.  Taste, morality, public opinion - these are the very lifeblood of art.
> 
> ...




I think we are using different ideas of peer review. Any one can critique art, no one should have the right to choose for another what should be allowed in art.


----------



## TrippyHippy (Nov 19, 2018)

ruemere said:


> Let me quote you a statement by Shams Jorjani, VP of Business Development at Paradox Interactive and interim manager at White Wolf Publishing:



I know his quote, and I've obviously taken issue with it throughout this thread for the reasons given. 

It still doesn't mean that your opinion is fact.



> To sum it up - the show's over, there are consequences



Absolutely, but I'm not sure that some people are particularly cogent with what those consequences now are.


----------



## Jester David (Nov 19, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> If we look at the issue in a more general sense, I think it becomes clearer. It really boils down to this:
> 
> Are we or should we as customers/readers/viewers/gamers guaranteed some level of freedom from offense by the art we consume?
> 
> ...



This is a million dollar question tied into several very hard to answer questions.

Such as "are mainstream commercial products done by employees and freelancers considered art?" And even, "are roleplaying game accessories art?"
Even if the answers to the above are "yes" that just leads to the big question: "should all art be free from criticism for offending people?" Or even the related "how many people must be offended before art crosses a line?" Which you yourself bring up. 


Some of these can be narrowed down. 

I would argue that most products whose sole purpose is to make money are NOT art. So, in general, commercial products are products and not art. I think they can be unintentionally art. And I think that creators can choose to try and make their work into a creative expression, but this is not the norm. 
No matter how skilled the writer, a textbook or manual for an electronic device or the instructions for assembling a cabinet are probably not art. Cars are a mixture of sculpture and writing and engineering and very much require artistic skill to create. But I don't think every car produced can be considered "a work of art". A movie can absolutely be "art" but was _Avengers III: Infinity War_ *really* art? I dunno...
This is a pretty big net to cast. For example, I'd argue that the first Harry Potter film was not art. It was pure, crass commercialism based on a book that very much _was_ art. However, despite also being produced by the same studio entirely for financial reasons, the third Harry Potter film _could _be considered art. 


Second, the intended audience is a big factor. Huge. As a elementary school librarian I come across this a lot. It's not censorship for me not to include a book from my library. Or to remove a no longer appropriate book. The book simply is not appropriate for the audience. And standards can change over time.
Art galleries get much more of a pass in this regard. Because the audience is entirely people who wish to experience art. And galleries that have a particular focus on harder or more adult art have less worries about offending people, because the audience gives their knowing consent when they enter. When I toured the H.R. Giger museum in Château St. Germain I knew what I was getting into. 

Now, I think a roleplaying game product really has to be considered "appropriate" for a general audience. 13+ at least. It has to be firmly PG but shouldn't veer too far into PG-13/ 14A territory. Nothing unacceptable on prime time television.
As a culture, we've overall deemed certain things acceptable and unacceptable. As shown by the fact I cannot say  on these forums. It just gets bleeped out. Nor can I hear that on the radio or on the television at certain hours. Even though I use the word two or three times a day and everyone above the age of 5 has heard it, we still deem it inappropriate. It's a form of censorship, but one we all accept for the sake of society. Because we all censor ourselves all the time in the name of not being colossal antisocial jerks and decent human beings. Some degree of censorship allows society to function.

Even a "mature audiences" roleplaying game like Vampire can't be entirely uncensored and unrestrained. But because it clearly identifies itself as for adults, and as a game that involves blood drinking monsters, the bar is MUCH higher. It can use language not appropriate for this forum. It can go full-Carlin with its prose. Because the audience knows to expect that. The audience consents. 
However, even a horror gaming book knows that there are lines. More than any other RPG, there are lines. There was a lengthy section on this exact topic in the Vampire 5th Edition Core Rulebook. About how, as the Storyteller, you _need_ consent from the audience and cannot just spring horrible things on the players without any warning and justify it with "because horror". You need to have trigger warnings and frank discussions with the audience (and _know _your players) as well as provide the opportunity for people to tap out from a game if you go too far. 
As the book warns, the game was about pretending to be monsters, not becoming monsters. 
After all, just because someone is running a vampire horror campaign does not mean they can, say, freely throw child endangerment or pedophilia into the mix. 
As an example, despite being a horror movie based on a horror book, the film _It_ chose not to have a child orgy at its climax. The _could_ have. It was in the source material. It could be argued that people were warned. But that's a time of trigger that's not necessarily what you expect. The audience knows to brace themselves for a horror movie involving youths (and clowns) and can prepare themselves. But that doesn't mean they're ready or prepared to see a 12-year-old girl get gangbanged by a half-dozen friends.  


For a book like _Camarilla_, the reader clearly consents to read a book about violent blood drinking monsters. So certain topics are assumed. Murder. Assault. Shades of sexual violence. Reading a _Vampire the Masquerade_ book and complaining it romanticised predatory behaviour would be silly. It's not that predatory behaviour is acceptable, its that the topic is assumed and you shouldn't be surprised by its presence. You know what you're getting into. 
But that does not mean they have free rein to show or describe anything and everything. It doesn't mean that there are no more lines that can be crossed. Anything beyond the common assumptions of the horror vampire genre fall under the purview of "general audiences". 

The line that is relevant for this example is that—for the longest time—VtM has pushed that it is a dark reflection of the world BUT deliberately, purposely, and explicitly avoided attributing real world events to vampires. They didn't overtly say certain political or media figures are canonically vampires. Even historical figures were rare. 
When _New York By Night_ was published in September, 2001 they even said this:
View attachment 103181
The _Camarilla _book references the current head of Chechnya by name and says he's a thin-blood vampire. And a puppet of a more powerful vampire. And attributes the LGBT purges as a smokescreen for vampire feeding. And more. 
So without even considering the subject matter and if the chapter is in good taste, this breaks the "rules" established by previous writers and publishers of the game established. Which also means this is not what the audience consented to read. 

Then you get into the matter of good taste. If turning a real world nation and its leader and a currently ongoing crime against humanity into a plot point and potential campaign seed is a good idea.


----------



## Jester David (Nov 19, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> I think we are using different ideas of peer review. Any one can critique art, no one should have the right to choose for another what should be allowed in art.




True.
However, there ARE standards for where said are can be placed and people have a right to not see art they do not want to. You have every right to make whatever art you want, but you cannot force someone to consume that art without their consent. 

If people expect your art to be one thing, and you instead do something else, you cannot get upset when they protest and complain.

If I arrange to perform ballet in front of an audience in an elementary school, I can't do Naked Swan Lake and then defend that as "art" when the police get called for indecent exposure.


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## Hussar (Nov 19, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> If we look at the issue in a more general sense, I think it becomes clearer. It really boils down to this:
> 
> Are we or should we as customers/readers/viewers/gamers guaranteed some level of freedom from offense by the art we consume?
> 
> ...




Well, this is where art runs into capitalism.

If a work offends only one person, well, unfortunately for that one person, not much is going to happen.  If 1000 people buy the work and 1 person is offended, well, the market has spoken.  It's never about "how many people need to be offended".  It's a business decision based on negative reactions by a large enough group that it hurts the bottom line.  If you can convince enough people to agree with you that films with naughty language should be banned, then, yup, you win.  You get to force your will on others. 

Welcome to capitalism.  

The other ways don't work either though.  Any time we've left it up to a body to determine "public good", that never works either.  So, at the end of the day, it winds up being the best bad solution.



ruemere said:


> Sure, let me try.
> 
> On the guides in general:
> https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416/
> ...




Wow.  Yeah.  I can see why folks would find that pretty darn offensive.  It's flat out feeding into the whole "fake news" thing.  I can see why people would be pretty offended by that.


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## Panda-s1 (Nov 19, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> That piece didnt trivialised anything - it presented the full brutality of what was going on - and you have just created a strawman by making up non existant quotes.




Yep, I was attempting to make up a direct quote in that sentence there, you got me lmao.

Actually, looking at the passage from the book "recurring international controversy" just makes it sound like LGBT face generally bad persecution, WHICH THEY DO but this just makes it easier to brush off as the same ol' same ol' from a third world country (er, "country") instead of the actual genocide that started last year. Also the genocide being described as "a distraction" is just kinda gross.

Really though, if this is how people are learning about the genocide for the first time as you say then they should probably do a better job than this portrayal. There are people like me who knew about what was going on, and those who will take it seriously. But then there'll be people who will just write it off as typical third world behavior, then the people who write it off as fiction created for the world of V5 (and also the people who'll believe Chechnya is a fictional middle eastern country that the writers made up, but that's a slightly different issue there).



hawkeyefan said:


> If we look at the issue in a more general sense, I think it becomes clearer. It really boils down to this:
> 
> Are we or should we as customers/readers/viewers/gamers guaranteed some level of freedom from offense by the art we consume?
> 
> ...




Y'know, I'm tired of this "freedom from offense" nonsense. Or really just simplifying the argument to people "being offended". The people upset about this aren't just "offended" they're worried about the greater issue of what happens when you present an atrocity this way (see my reply to TrippyHippy for what I mean). So to answer your question, no someone simply being offended should not get art removed, but that's not at all what the issue is about.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 19, 2018)

ruemere said:


> Sure, let me try.
> 
> On the guides in general:
> https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416/
> ...




Yumpin yimminy yeeks!


----------



## Enevhar Aldarion (Nov 19, 2018)

A few thoughts on things in this thread.

In regards to sensitivity to real world events, one of the reasons that the 2017 Wonder Woman movie was set during WWI instead of the more traditional WWII setting was because of (spoilers) using the god Ares as the one behind the war and who was keeping the war going. If this had been done with WWII instead, it would have seriously trivialized what Hitler did during the war.

As for everything happening in Chechnya, and other parts of the world where this same stuff happens, like in Russia or China, etc, here in the US it is very rare to hear anything about it because for the past two years, all any of the new outlets want  to talk about is Trump. Very little world news ever seems to make it into televised media here. Because I like to stay more informed than the average person, I do know some about things going on around the world, but I am sure that what was used in the Camarilla book was new to a good chunk of gamers. Now they know more about some of the real evil that exists in this world and hopefully learned that real evil should never be trivialized, overlooked, ignored or called fake. Sadly, those are still easy to do here in the US because we are so distant, even in this modern digital age, from the rest of the world.

Also, a lot of what was considered by most as not being offensive back in the 1980's or 90's would be mildly to strongly offensive today. There is so much stuff from TV and movies from then, that when watched now, feels creepy or downright wrong. This seems to be especially true with sitcoms, where what got laughs back then is just uncomfortable now. I am sure some of this, for me, is that I was much younger then and not as mature or sensitive to what was actually offensive and should have not been funny.

There is more that I could say, but I would probably wander too far off-topic, like others have already done.


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## D1Tremere (Nov 19, 2018)

Jester David said:


> True.
> However, there ARE standards for where said are can be placed and people have a right to not see art they do not want to. You have every right to make whatever art you want, but you cannot force someone to consume that art without their consent.
> 
> If people expect your art to be one thing, and you instead do something else, you cannot get upset when they protest and complain.
> ...




I tend to agree with you in general, but there are a few specifics I would argue.
Most art throughout history, including those considered classical national treasures today, were the result of commissions. That makes your definition for the line between art and commercialism fall differently then those generally accepted, but I still agree with you that art and product have differences, yet they can also be the same thing. In the end there is no real way to separate them because this relies on two things we can never know, the true intentions of the creator and the true impressions of the consumer. I don't think it really matters however, because I think freedom of expression is worth defending in both cases.
Which brings us to consequences. I don't think critics should be restrained any more than artists or creators. The problem isn't the freedom to criticize, it is the power that modern technology affords critics to impact the creative process. A library can certainly curate what it has on hand, but a person buying a book consents to some degree to consume it. It is fair to say that they deserve to be informed about what they are getting, perhaps that is a role filled by critiques, but then what we are talking about is not criticism impacting sells, but complaints restricting content. The head of the company has the right to change their direction and fire anyone he chooses, but that isn't necessarily a move we should be condoning. much less encouraging. It leads to a world where companies and individual creators are much less likely to take chances or be creative. Some would argue it already has. The term slippery slope is no longer sufficient if we are already sliding.
Lastly, I don't know where this statement started from WW that vampires aren't responsible for any real world issues, but they have officially been included as responsible for the crusades, the sacking of Carthage, and a number of other major events in past products. Maybe they should have changed the name of the country to avoid controversy, but isn't this the sort of thing we would expect inhumane monsters to be responsible for?


----------



## TrippyHippy (Nov 19, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> Yep, I was attempting to make up a direct quote in that sentence there, you got me lmao.
> 
> Actually, looking at the passage from the book "recurring international controversy" just makes it sound like LGBT face generally bad persecution, WHICH THEY DO but this just makes it easier to brush off as the same ol' same ol' from a third world country (er, "country") instead of the actual genocide that started last year. Also the genocide being described as "a distraction" is just kinda gross.
> 
> Really though, if this is how people are learning about the genocide for the first time as you say then they should probably do a better job than this portrayal. There are people like me who knew about what was going on, and those who will take it seriously. But then there'll be people who will just write it off as typical third world behavior, then the people who write it off as fiction created for the world of V5 (and also the people who'll believe Chechnya is a fictional middle eastern country that the writers made up, but that's a slightly different issue there).



You can certainly argue from your own critical point of view about how well the piece was written or thought through. The writers themselves are not responsible for what is happening in Chechnya or even presenting themselves as some sort of news service, though. They were just writing about world events, within a fictional framework, because it was what they were passionate about - in the same way we are discussing about these events on this gaming site too. It's passionate and sometimes clumsy and contentious - but nobody here is actually justifying or trying to downplay the awful situation being faced by LGBT in that region. 

Of course the difference between what was written in the Camarilla book and what is being discussed here is that it was a professional publication. As such, business decisions will always be made to make sure they maintain a profitable and uncontentious relationship with their fanbase. That is what has happened in this case, although how successful they will be remains to be seen. Again, though, I stress none of these business actions to remove writing will actually do anything directly to help people in Chechnya who are suffering - and the Chechnyan and Russian leadership will still engage in propaganda regardless. The books censorship is an attempt to assuade those potential customers who were offended by reading it, and that is all.



> Y'know, I'm tired of this "freedom from offense" nonsense.



Well, it's an important principle to be defended, because it's fundamental to living in a liberal democracy - which is something they don't have in places like Chechnya.


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## Eltab (Nov 19, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> One of the reasons that the 2017 Wonder Woman movie was set during WWI instead of the more traditional WWII setting was because of (spoilers) using the god Ares as the one behind the war and who was keeping the war going.



Ahh, that does help explain an apparently suboptimal choice: WW1 is the best example of 'war as statistics' and the least-likely forum for a Superhero to be able to affect the bigger picture.

Tastes do change: air some current-day sitcom material in the 1990s, and you would not have made it to the air.  Murphy Brown as a single mother was controversial.

+1 to your post.


----------



## Shasarak (Nov 19, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> In regards to sensitivity to real world events, one of the reasons that the 2017 Wonder Woman movie was set during WWI instead of the more traditional WWII setting was because of (spoilers) using the god Ares as the one behind the war and who was keeping the war going. If this had been done with WWII instead, it would have seriously trivialized what Hitler did during the war.




I always wondered how they got Nazis into WW1, it was all Ares fault!


----------



## hawkeyefan (Nov 19, 2018)

[MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION]
That was a long an thoughtful post. I won’t quote it due to lebgth, but I’ll try and address the main points.

In my opinion, yes, commissioned works are art. Works produced with the intention of making money are art. I don’t mean this as a statement of quality...there can be impressive art and there can be uminpressive art. But that’s subjective. 

And roleplayong games are also works of art, I would say. Especially for the purposes of how they are considered and critiqued. 

As for your points about the target audience, yes of course work intended for children will have different standards than those intended solely for adults. I disagree with you that RPGs in general have some shared expectation of their target audience. I think that’s no more true than just about any other media. And I would say that Vampire: The Masquerade is firmly in the adult area. 

I don’t think that the content in question was against some kind of rule or expectation on the part of the reader. I don’t find it all that outrageous given the way that White Wolf has presented the world in the past. Yes, they’ve avoided some sensitive topics. But they’ve also used all manner of real world atrocity as fodder for fiction. Now, I can understand why folks would find it to be in poor taste. I cannot blame anyone for finding offense, or at least insensitivity, in how this material was presented. 

I just don’t think that means that it shouldn’t exist. 

As I’ve already said, commercially I understand the decision of the company to edit the works and to change how they operate going forward. I realize what’s happened and why.

I’m just questioning if that’s the way it should be.


----------



## Guest 6801328 (Nov 19, 2018)

"Freedom from offense" is a problem, in my opinion.  There are lots of ideas that we should be discussing, but those who want to are silenced by those who are afraid of having those things discussed.

_And_ the fact that it's a problem gets used as a defense by people who should not be given a platform from which to spout their truly offensive opinions. 

Both things can be true simultaneously.


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## hawkeyefan (Nov 19, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Well, this is where art runs into capitalism.
> 
> If a work offends only one person, well, unfortunately for that one person, not much is going to happen.  If 1000 people buy the work and 1 person is offended, well, the market has spoken.  It's never about "how many people need to be offended".  It's a business decision based on negative reactions by a large enough group that it hurts the bottom line.  If you can convince enough people to agree with you that films with naughty language should be banned, then, yup, you win.  You get to force your will on others.
> 
> Welcome to capitalism.




Right, I get that, and I’ve acknowledged it already in this thread. That’s why I asked the question separate of the business concerns.

Do you think that someone, or many someones, who finds a work offensive should have the ability to see that work removed or altered? Or should they simply avoid that work and similar ones that fon’t suit their taste?


----------



## Rygar (Nov 19, 2018)

ruemere said:


> Sure, let me try.
> 
> On the guides in general:
> https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/vampire-5th-ed-camarilla-anarch-guides.836416/
> ...




Could you please put a large warning when linking to RPG.net?  Given the very political nature of that site and its participants, and the actions they've taken over the past few weeks, some of us would prefer to avoid giving them any traffic or revenue.


----------



## Shasarak (Nov 19, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Welcome to capitalism.




Forcing your will on others is not capitalism.

All most all of the other -isms do a better job of that.


----------



## Guest 6801328 (Nov 19, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> Forcing your will on others is not capitalism.
> 
> All most all of the other -isms do a better job of that.




Botulism, for instance.


----------



## Jester David (Nov 19, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> In my opinion, yes, commissioned works are art. Works produced with the intention of making money are art. I don’t mean this as a statement of quality...there can be impressive art and there can be uminpressive art. But that’s subjective.
> 
> And roleplayong games are also works of art, I would say. Especially for the purposes of how they are considered and critiqued.



Fair enough.
Do you think this particular passage of this particular book for this particular game was an artistic expression?

(But for the sake of argument... if a roleplaying game is a work of art, would a game of football be art too? How about chess? Poker? Or is it just their rulebooks?)



hawkeyefan said:


> As for your points about the target audience, yes of course work intended for children will have different standards than those intended solely for adults. I disagree with you that RPGs in general have some shared expectation of their target audience. I think that’s no more true than just about any other media. And I would say that Vampire: The Masquerade is firmly in the adult area.



Agreed. Vampire the Masquerade is very firmly "adult". While D&D is much more PG. 
But that doesn't mean anything goes in VtM. 

That doesn't mean they can present anything and everything in the book and not have to worry about upsetting people. 

Earlier I questioned what the reaction would be if White Wolf postulated that the Sandy Hook Massacre was the result of a fledgling vampire who lost control of the Beast and the shooting was a cover. Because that would work as a plot hook. Plus the murder of a couple dozen people and a cover-up is well within the scope of what you see in VtM.  
And the idea of thematically equating vampirism with gun violence has some very interesting connotations. You could tell a very interesting and multi-layered narrative with that hook.
But that doesn't mean it wouldn't be upsetting or offensive or cross a line.



hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think that the content in question was against some kind of rule or expectation on the part of the reader. I don’t find it all that outrageous given the way that White Wolf has presented the world in the past. Yes, they’ve avoided some sensitive topics. But they’ve also used all manner of real world atrocity as fodder for fiction. Now, I can understand why folks would find it to be in poor taste. I cannot blame anyone for finding offense, or at least insensitivity, in how this material was presented.
> 
> I just don’t think that means that it shouldn’t exist.



It's not a question of whether or not it should exist. It's a question of whether or not it should be in an official book. And whether or not the writing of that material should have been paid for and supported by White Wolf?

If the author in question really loved the idea of the Chechnya campaign seed, where you have to liberate or combat a country controlled by vampires... why couldn't that be a PDF product? That's literally what the Storyteller's Vault is for. Or they could do it on their blog and get funds through Patreon. No one is saying that idea should not exist in any form. 

Or, alternatively... why does it need to be a _real _country and use the name of the _real _head of state while referring to the _real_ murder of human beings? Comic books regularly have real-ish sounding countries. Sokovia. Markovia. Bialya. 
Heck, they could even use a former country and say "Czechoslovakia".
That fills the same narrative role without potentially being seen as making light or taking advantage of the suffering of others. 



hawkeyefan said:


> As I’ve already said, commercially I understand the decision of the company to edit the works and to change how they operate going forward. I realize what’s happened and why.
> 
> I’m just questioning if that’s the way it should be.



What's the alternative? 
The writers publish whatever they want? The publisher has no say in the product they're funding?


----------



## Hussar (Nov 19, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> Right, I get that, and I’ve acknowledged it already in this thread. That’s why I asked the question separate of the business concerns.
> 
> Do you think that someone, or many someones, who finds a work offensive should have the ability to see that work removed or altered? Or should they simply avoid that work and similar ones that fon’t suit their taste?




Does it matter?  The reality is that if enough someones (and that number is never fixed) see something as offensive, then the work gets removed or altered.  Democracy in action.  That's how society works.  Society judges that certain things are offensive (and that decision itself is not fixed - it changes over time) and exercises that judgement through economic means.  Questions over whether or not someone should be able to do so are the wrong questions to ask since there is no real functioning alternative.

Telling someone to just change the channel is no different really than them telling you not to spread an offensive idea.  And since we have a history of letting offensive ideas fester in small groups until it spills over and someone decides to run over several innocent women and children on the streets of Toronto (just to give an example) then it's much better, IMO, to categorically denounce these things very publicly.  No, this or that is not acceptable and it's society's responsibility to make that judgement known.


----------



## Hussar (Nov 19, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> Forcing your will on others is not capitalism.
> 
> All most all of the other -isms do a better job of that.




Sure it is.  There's all sorts of ways to force your will on others through capitalism.  Monopolies for example.  As well as boycotting.  Both of these are very effective ways of forcing your will on others.


----------



## Shasarak (Nov 19, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Sure it is.  There's all sorts of ways to force your will on others through capitalism.  Monopolies for example.  As well as boycotting.  Both of these are very effective ways of forcing your will on others.




I guess if you can drive other competitors from the market by being more efficient or providing a better product then yes capitalism can cause a monopoly.  Which in this case would mean that someone has refined their RPG to such an extent that they have produced a product so awesome that no other RPG can compete with it.

And boycotting is kind of a hard way to force your will on someone.  Not impossible but just really hard.  Certainly hard enough that I would struggle to call it an effective tactic.


----------



## Hussar (Nov 19, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> I guess if you can drive other competitors from the market by being more efficient or providing a better product then yes capitalism can cause a monopoly.  Which in this case would mean that someone has refined their RPG to such an extent that they have produced a product so awesome that no other RPG can compete with it.
> 
> And boycotting is kind of a hard way to force your will on someone.  Not impossible but just really hard.  Certainly hard enough that I would struggle to call it an effective tactic.




Really?  Worked in this case didn't it?  

And that's really, really not how monopolies work.  There's a reason we have laws against them.  Granted those laws are socialist in nature, but, hey, there's still pretty darn good reasons why monopolies are illegal in our countries.


----------



## Shasarak (Nov 19, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Really?  Worked in this case didn't it?




So what they boycotted the product for a couple of days?  Yeah, no thats not boycotting.



> And that's really, really not how monopolies work.  There's a reason we have laws against them.  Granted those laws are socialist in nature, but, hey, there's still pretty darn good reasons why monopolies are illegal in our countries.




Turns out that it is pretty easy to set up a monopoly in a socialist country but not really so much in a free market.  Which is why socialist countries need to have laws against them I guess.


----------



## Panda-s1 (Nov 19, 2018)

Elfcrusher said:


> "Freedom from offense" is a problem, in my opinion.  There are lots of ideas that we should be discussing, but those who want to are silenced by those who are afraid of having those things discussed.
> 
> _And_ the fact that it's a problem gets used as a defense by people who should not be given a platform from which to spout their truly offensive opinions.
> 
> Both things can be true simultaneously.




What? No one is saying we shouldn't talk about the LGBT genocide in Chechnya, they're saying it shouldn't be portrayed as a plot to distract people from vampires. Presented the way it is makes the writers look like they think the issue seems trivial, and being presented with a fictional premise will make those who are less knowledgeable believe it's something that was made up for the game. No one wants it removed from the book because they're "offended".


----------



## Sadras (Nov 19, 2018)

I have not read the entire thread and neither have I looked at the link @_*Jester David*_ kindly posted on the first page but I intend to.

From my own personal experience with Vampire - which was a casual player, and it has been a while, I loved how the designers incorporated RL history into the Vampire mythos with some being human machinations and others being vampire plots and dark designs. I thought that was creative and never for one second imagined any maliciousness from their side. 
I bought the 13 dark ages novel books and enjoyed how they weaved human and vampire politics of the time with the Fall of Constantinople and the Dream sought by the vampire Michael (I think it was) and his followers/friends.

Vampire mythos has very much always accepted the LGBT, the entire process of creating progeny and falling in love with them (same sex or not) is a common troupe for the Masquerade. Furthermore you have these powerful supernatural beings that are ages old with their own moral compass, that could easily be out-dated and viewed as prejudiced today but that is the setting and its amazing to be able to play these anachronistic morally flawed creatures as they struggle with the Beast and the every changing world around them, nevermind the continuous fractured vampire politics.

Many can become offended - Christians can take an issue with the Lasombra involved within the Catholic church or the fact that the old testament is used as the basis for the creation of Cain or that the Assamites essentially use the movement of Islam as a weapon. As I said for me, the beauty of the setting lies in the inter-connected story created, either as humans used as pawns or vampires swept up in the movement of humankind's history.

EDIT: To add, since i have now read the link regarding the persecutions, which I did not know about till now, human history is filled with violence and the disappointment of human actions. Any which way you skin this cat, by introducing vampire mythos into the mix you are essentially using our shockingly bloody history as entertainment. To call on this incident alone as just an entertainment plot is disingenuous. I realise this might not be a popular opinion for most of you here but I feel it had to be said, otherwise I'd be a hypocrite.


----------



## Sadras (Nov 19, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> For me, Vampire was the best single RPG release of 2018.




How is the artwork? My friend purchased a copy but I have not had a chance to see it but he has expressed his dislike with the artwork, but says the system is very much streamlined, no complaints on that side.


----------



## TrippyHippy (Nov 19, 2018)

Sadras said:


> How is the artwork? My friend purchased a copy but I have not had a chance to see it but he has expressed his dislike with the artwork, but says the system is very much streamlined, no complaints on that side.



It has drawn a fair amount of criticism. I like a lot of it, including the live action models used. The cover is a good indication of the type of art found within, but for me, I prefer the simpler iconic design of the classic cover. If you are used to the standardised layout of the last 20 years or so, it can all be a bit jarring - but for the uninitiated it has a stylish look.

For me, the major appeal of the game lay in the system design and general gameplay. It really is excellent to play the game - moreso than any previous iteration of the game (I've been playing Vampire since 1992). The actual work on the setting, and general tone, is reminiscent of 1st edition - albeit reimagined for the 21st century. 

Generally, I concur with your friend.


----------



## Sadras (Nov 19, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Or, the best one, what would the reaction be if White Wolf had put out a book that said Sandy Hook Elementary massacre was really the result of a rogue vampire pack, and the shooter was a cover? Because like the Chechnya one, that also accidentally overlaps with claims that the story presented by the western media is not the truth and is really propaganda.




This is a good and interesting issue you raise.
I suppose this is a major dilemma when playing a game of Vampire, i.e. how _real_ or _close to home_ will the individual table allow itself to get. Except in this issue it is the publishers and not each one's individual table that makes this decision.

For instance, horrified as I am about the continuous slaughter of children in schools, I would not be surprised if a Storyteller unaffected by that nightmare brought it into game and said it was an Anarchist agenda or secretly a powerful rogue Malkavian with the purpose of the table to hunt or expose the perpetrator.
Now if the publisher includes that concept into the book, yes I can see that upsetting folks.

That is why I suppose playing a Dark Ages version of the game is much easier given that history does not directly affect our lives now.


----------



## Aguirre Melchiors (Nov 19, 2018)

this is boring.
WOD should not use any real world politics since the 80s
professional activists and the outrage industry are always looking for witches to burn at the stake of their religion.

the solution is to not use any real world politics and focus on vampiric politics


----------



## TrippyHippy (Nov 19, 2018)

Aguirre Melchiors said:


> this is boring.
> WOD should not use any real world politics since the 80s
> professional activists and the outrage industry are always looking for witches to burn at the stake of their religion.
> 
> the solution is to not use any real world politics and focus on vampiric politics



They tried this with the New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness line. 

The trouble is, by removing all real world politics and cultural references to religion and so on, the critics found it boring and it was never as successful as the original games. 

In the case of the classic World of Darkness games, it was always the case that they were infused with social commentary drawn from real world politics, and there were always people who were offended by them in some way or another.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Nov 19, 2018)

Sadras said:


> EDIT: To add, since i have now read the link regarding the persecutions, which I did not know about till now, human history is filled with violence and the disappointment of human actions. Any which way you skin this cat, by introducing vampire mythos into the mix you are essentially using our shockingly bloody history as entertainment. To call on this incident alone as just an entertainment plot is disingenuous. I realise this might not be a popular opinion for most of you here but I feel it had to be said, otherwise I'd be a hypocrite.



There's some truth to that. We use our bloody history as entertainment all the time. But skilled, empathetic writers can generally pull it off. Those first few minutes of the first _X-Men_ movie present a comic book supervillain with magic magnet powers manifesting for the first time in a Nazi concentration camp, and it basically works, because the very real suffering of the victims remains the emotional heart of the scene and indeed of Magneto's entire character.

But rather than say "We accept Magneto, so we'd have to be hypocrites to dislike what White Wolf is doing here", it may be worthwhile to take a second look at the reaction White Wolf's words provoked. Is it just an irrational knee-jerk? Or is there some reason why this passage feels so much worse to so many people? Maybe there's some key difference between it and _X-Men_? Maybe it has something to do with the detachment and utter lack of empathy in the way it was written that trivializes the brutality rather than putting it center stage?


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Nov 19, 2018)

Shasarak said:


> Turns out that it is pretty easy to set up a monopoly in a socialist country but not really so much in a free market.



From one free-marketer to another: please stick to facts and leave the fairy tales to the left. If your economic theory predicts that monopolistic behavior rarely or never occurs in a free market, a brief examination of the historical record suffices to indicate that _something is very wrong with the theory_.


----------



## Panda-s1 (Nov 19, 2018)

Sadras said:


> Vampire mythos has very much always accepted the LGBT, the entire process of creating progeny and falling in love with them (same sex or not) is a common troupe for the Masquerade.




If that's the case then why the hell would they say "That said, even among the Kindred any kind of "homosexual behavior" is punished harshly." in the same paragraph as detailing what the Chechen government is doing? I don't think the people making v5 are very sympathetic toward the LGBT community, even in regards to fans if this is actually the case.


----------



## Sadras (Nov 19, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> If that's the case then why the hell would they say "That said, even among the Kindred any kind of "homosexual behavior" is punished harshly." in the same paragraph as detailing what the Chechen government is doing? I don't think the people making v5 are very sympathetic toward the LGBT community, even in regards to fans if this is actually the case.




Well that statement comes as a surprise to me. Is this vampire comment something that existed in the 90's and are they referring to all Kindred or just a clan or sect or those in Chechnya?


----------



## Maxperson (Nov 19, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Sure it is.  There's all sorts of ways to force your will on others through capitalism.  Monopolies for example.  As well as boycotting.  Both of these are very effective ways of forcing your will on others.




I'll grant you monopolies, but these days companies live to be boycotted.  As soon as a boycott is announced, every group that disagrees with you flocks to patronize that business, while the group calling for the boycott almost always does it halfheartedly as most people in the group don't feel as strongly about it as the few calling for the boycott.  Business booms for the "boycotted" companies.  So I guess if your will is to make a company money, boycotting forces your will through capitalism.  Otherwise, not so much.


----------



## Maxperson (Nov 19, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Really?  Worked in this case didn't it?




No it didn't.  The company caved before the effects could be seen.  It was more politics than the boycott.


----------



## Maxperson (Nov 19, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> What? No one is saying we shouldn't talk about the LGBT genocide in Chechnya, they're saying it shouldn't be portrayed as a plot to distract people from vampires. Presented the way it is makes the writers look like they think the issue seems trivial, and being presented with a fictional premise will make those who are less knowledgeable believe it's something that was made up for the game. No one wants it removed from the book because they're "offended".




I don't see it that way at all.  I read the wording in the links provided, and the writers make sure to say that the horrors the LGBT community are going through in Chechnya are happening.  It provides a vampire twist to it, but it doesn't attempt to minimize the horrors at all.  

As you mention, the only ones who might believe that it was something made up for the game are those who don't know about what is really happening in Chechnya, and those people are already ignorant.  However, since White Wolf is well known to use real world happenings in their products, a percentage of those who bought this book would have looked up the LGBT horrors in Chechnya and learned what is happening.  Those people will know stay ignorant, and that's not a good thing.



> If that's the case then why the hell would they say "That said, even among the Kindred any kind of "homosexual behavior" is punished harshly." in the same paragraph as detailing what the Chechen government is doing?




Because they are saying that even the LGBT vampires don't get a pass.  All LGBT members in Chechnya are being targeted.  It's an attempt NOT to minimize things or imply that it's only being done as a smokescreen.  If it were only being done to humans and not vampires, it would become a smokescreen and not true hate for the LGBT community.


----------



## hawkeyefan (Nov 19, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Fair enough.
> Do you think this particular passage of this particular book for this particular game was an artistic expression?
> 
> (But for the sake of argument... if a roleplaying game is a work of art, would a game of football be art too? How about chess? Poker? Or is it just their rulebooks?)




Do I think it was an artistic expression? It's a fictitious version of the real world, which I think falls into that category, sure. As for football or chess, these games don't really involve fiction, so they differ from many RPG products in that sense, but still the design of each game is probably an artistic expression. And I'd argue that playing each can be considered performance art of some kind. 




Jester David said:


> Agreed. Vampire the Masquerade is very firmly "adult". While D&D is much more PG.
> But that doesn't mean anything goes in VtM.
> 
> That doesn't mean they can present anything and everything in the book and not have to worry about upsetting people.
> ...




Upsetting or offensive, yes.....I agree. Content of this nature can be very upsetting and/or offensive. I don't know if I consider those two things the same as crossing a line, in the way you present it. From your comments, when you say crossing a line, it seems to mean that they should not present whatever it is that "crossed the line". I don't know if that's correct. 

The line is always different for everyone. Who decides where it is in any given instance? 



Jester David said:


> It's not a question of whether or not it should exist. It's a question of whether or not it should be in an official book. And whether or not the writing of that material should have been paid for and supported by White Wolf?
> 
> If the author in question really loved the idea of the Chechnya campaign seed, where you have to liberate or combat a country controlled by vampires... why couldn't that be a PDF product? That's literally what the Storyteller's Vault is for. Or they could do it on their blog and get funds through Patreon. No one is saying that idea should not exist in any form.
> 
> ...




Sure, comics do sometimes use fake locations as a stand in for real places. Sometimes they don't. 

In this case, I have no problem with the writers painting the Chechen leadership as monstrous because they are in fact monstrous. 

Do I think that such use is a bit crass or that the fact that the tragedy is ongoing meas perhaps it shouldn't be used as a source of fiction in a RPG? Sure. I wouldn't have done that if I was writing the book. I find it distasteful. 

I just don't mistake my personal taste for more than that. All it means is that I wouldn't buy that book. 



Jester David said:


> What's the alternative?
> The writers publish whatever they want? The publisher has no say in the product they're funding?




I do think that there is value in artists producing anything that they want, and in the production of art that challenges the norms of society. No, I don't think that a company that is paying for the production of some creative work should have no say. In this case, the publisher is reacting to some level of public outcry in a way that they feel is appropriate. I don't blame them for that. 

What I question is the need for people to try and eliminate things that they don't like, or that make them uncomfortable, rather than simply avoiding it themselves.


----------



## hawkeyefan (Nov 19, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Does it matter?  The reality is that if enough someones (and that number is never fixed) see something as offensive, then the work gets removed or altered.  Democracy in action.  That's how society works.  Society judges that certain things are offensive (and that decision itself is not fixed - it changes over time) and exercises that judgement through economic means.  Questions over whether or not someone should be able to do so are the wrong questions to ask since there is no real functioning alternative.




I think in this instance you've mistaken capitalism for democracy. 

Don't you think that the approach you're describing has been shown as problematic at many points in history? Popular opinion being the prevailing factor on what's moral or acceptable.....seems questionable to me. 

Public opinion shifts often, and sometimes significantly. Often with art as an influencing factor. Would you agree with that? 

Now, I won't claim that this instance would ever be something that's going to rally the charge to actual change in Chechnya...that's simply not going to happen. But I don't think that we can start picking and choosing what's offensive but can remain, and what's offensive but must go. 



Hussar said:


> Telling someone to just change the channel is no different really than them telling you not to spread an offensive idea.  And since we have a history of letting offensive ideas fester in small groups until it spills over and someone decides to run over several innocent women and children on the streets of Toronto (just to give an example) then it's much better, IMO, to categorically denounce these things very publicly.  No, this or that is not acceptable and it's society's responsibility to make that judgement known.




I'm not quite following your last sentence. 

What you seem to be advocating for here is that minority opinions are always bad and need to be denounced?  

Again, don't you see that as problematic?


----------



## billd91 (Nov 19, 2018)

Maxperson said:


> I don't see it that way at all.  I read the wording in the links provided, and the writers make sure to say that the horrors the LGBT community are going through in Chechnya are happening.  It provides a vampire twist to it, but it doesn't attempt to minimize the horrors at all.




Except by subverting the real reason behind it and making it vampire plot, it very much does minimize it. Had they left the local regime's arguments in place and implied that LGBT people were being targeted by opportunistic vampires allied with Ramzan, then I think they could argue they're not minimizing the situation.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 19, 2018)

D1Tremere said:


> I think we are using different ideas of peer review. Any one can critique art, no one should have the right to choose for another what should be allowed in art.




We aren't really talking about what should be allowed in art, though.  We are talking about whether a particular publisher makes a particular work available _as a part of their business_.

Remember that classically, a painter or sculptor got to make *one single copy* of a work.  Thus, distribution through a business arrangement is a separate consideration from the creation of the art itself.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 19, 2018)

Do help me to understand better this matter. Let's imagine these texts of example from hypothetical WoD fan-made sourcebooks.

Madrid by Night: _"Spain was the best ally of the Inquisition to hunt vampires, and these created lodges to plot against the Vatican, sometimes with propaganda war creating a black legend, other times with a true genocide. In the second Spanish republic Camarilla and Sabath agreed to forget their differences to try the greater anti-Catholic genocide in the XX century, but plan failed because general Franco and others started a rebellion after of the murder of Calvo Sotelo, and with a hidden ally, the Technocrazy. For the Franco's dictatorship they lost the control most of puppets from the mason lodges until the arrival of the democracy. The Spanish constitution forbids the secret societies but this is practically wet paper"._

Rage in the Nile: _"Pentex has the control of many African politician who enslave their own people with public debut they can't pay, and promoting only who can be blackmailed when they participate in secret rituales where underage innocents are sacrificed, while they are recorded by videocamaras. Indepence is an illusion when the secret societies have got the true control. And they are helped by the ratkin, the wererats, with this contagious diseases they can sell more tainted medicines. There are born many dancers of the black spiral because they have total impunity to kidnap Copts girls for forced marriages and to breed more puppies"_. 

Where is the limit of the bad taste and why? Where is the right to offend and when the duty of show respect?


----------



## Umbran (Nov 19, 2018)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Where is the limit of the bad taste and why? Where is the right to offend and when the duty of show respect?




You will find the human species incapable of drawing a clear, sharp line, acceptable to all, dividing what is acceptable and what is not.  

In all of this, context matters, the audience matters.  Exactly how you present it matters.  There are too many variables to make a clear determination.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 19, 2018)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Where is the limit of the bad taste and why? Where is the right to offend and when the duty of show respect?




Social interaction isn’t *that* hard. I’m afraid there isn’t a rulebook.


----------



## TrippyHippy (Nov 19, 2018)

Sadras said:


> Well that statement comes as a surprise to me. Is this vampire comment something that existed in the 90's and are they referring to all Kindred or just a clan or sect or those in Chechnya?



It's refering to the vampires in Chechnya, reflecting the general attitude to homosexuality there. 

In the wider Vampire community, LBGT would be well represented - as seen in other vampire books. I'd say there is a good chance that some of the writers of White Wolf may be part of the LGBT community.


----------



## Panda-s1 (Nov 19, 2018)

Maxperson said:


> No it didn't.  The company caved before the effects could be seen.  It was more politics than the boycott.




You do realize the pdf version went on sale, right? Even if it were a leak they're seeing the full effects of their blurb right now.



Maxperson said:


> I don't see it that way at all.  I read the wording in the links provided, and the writers make sure to say that the horrors the LGBT community are going through in Chechnya are happening.  It provides a vampire twist to it, but it doesn't attempt to minimize the horrors at all.




Did you miss the part where it says it's all a distraction? In the Chechnya of the v5 universe LGBT people are being persecuted not because of religious hate or general homophobia (y'know like in real life), but just to keep up the guise of "Sharia law". 



Sadras said:


> Well that statement comes as a surprise to me. Is this vampire comment something that existed in the 90's and are they referring to all Kindred or just a clan or sect or those in Chechnya?






			
				Maxperson said:
			
		

> Because they are saying that even the LGBT vampires don't get a pass.  All LGBT members in Chechnya are being targeted.  It's an attempt NOT to minimize things or imply that it's only being done as a smokescreen.  If it were only being done to humans and not vampires, it would become a smokescreen and not true hate for the LGBT community.




No, no, if the Vampire community were really that LGBT friendly they wouldn't even have this plot at all. The text even actively discourages doing anything about the problem. If it were really just a regional issue then there wouldn't really need to be an excuse of being a "distraction", it would simply just be vampires running the Chechen government are also just really homophobic. Also the text describes it as "media manipulation" when in reality the Chechen government vehemently denies any sort of genocidal activity against the LGBT community. What media is being manipulated and how? Only the media outside of Russia could really get away with reporting it, so that would imply some level of collaboration with vampires outside of Chechen territory.


----------



## kenmarable (Nov 19, 2018)

Rygar said:


> Could you please put a large warning when linking to RPG.net?  Given the very political nature of that site and its participants, and the actions they've taken over the past few weeks, some of us would prefer to avoid giving them any traffic or revenue.




Uh... right there in the links it says "rpg.net"??? It wasn't even hidden behind text. The URLs were right there in the open.

Why do WE have to post large warnings when YOU don't read a link before you clicked it? (I'll try not to be cynical and think you were just "virtue signalling" your disapproval of rpg.net.)


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Nov 19, 2018)

Maxperson said:


> No it didn't.  The company caved before the effects could be seen.  It was more politics than the boycott.



While everything I've heard about Paradox's leadership indicates that they do have sincere "political" convictions to the effect of "don't be horrible to LGBT people or anyone else", I also have no illusions about their nature as a for-profit business: it was without a doubt the threat to sales posed by acquiring a homophobe reputation that spurred such a quick and heavy-handed correction. I will grant you that the actual boycott didn't have time to hurt the company, but you're not thinking as long term as they have to. A formal boycott is only the tip of the iceberg. Negative sentiment drives away customers far beyond that.


----------



## TrippyHippy (Nov 19, 2018)

Umbran said:


> We aren't really talking about what should be allowed in art, though.  We are talking about whether a particular publisher makes a particular work available _as a part of their business_.
> 
> Remember that classically, a painter or sculptor got to make *one single copy* of a work.  Thus, distribution through a business arrangement is a separate consideration from the creation of the art itself.



This is a tricky issue to answer, because White Wolf was founded on the principle of creating roleplaying games as art. The initial appeal of the games were that they were provocative, and throughout their rise as a company they wrote copious essays and defences on the notion of art vs commercialism and freedom of expression. It's why they actually wanted to print uncensored things in the Black Dog license (go and read HōL), and they even attempted to establish the Null Foundation as a non-profit company for games (it failed) to be published under. You can pick up on a lot of the sense of movement in these early days by watch the World of Darkness documentary, I think. 

The problem in the interim of nearly 30 years, however, is that White Wolf has been successful, become a corporation and indeed, been sold off a couple of times. It's maybe naive to hold onto notions of artistic expressions.

The long term fanbase was built on these principles though - and so when people talk about the game having a '1st edition feel', I think a lot of it is down to the drive to make something artistic again - by which I mean provocative and reflective of the real world. A lot of the reaction to it has been from other fans, possibly from later generations, who just don't care about that aspect any more, and instead want a less provocative game with more character options and powers and a more escapist fantasy to play in. Notwithstanding the specific issues in this particular incident, it's actually been the main source of conflict for the fanbase reacting to this new edition.


----------



## trancejeremy (Nov 20, 2018)

I've always found it distasteful when supernatural explanations are given to horrors created solely by humanity itself. Because it is minimizing things by blaming it on something not real, and not humanity, where the blame belongs.

If you want to do that, maybe apply it to natural disasters (and even then, things like floods are often man made. But things like volcanoes exploding or meteor strikes aren't)


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## TheCosmicKid (Nov 20, 2018)

trancejeremy said:


> I've always found it distasteful when supernatural explanations are given to horrors created solely by humanity itself. Because it is minimizing things by blaming it on something not real, and not humanity, where the blame belongs.
> 
> If you want to do that, maybe apply it to natural disasters (and even then, things like floods are often man made. But things like volcanoes exploding or meteor strikes aren't)



That's understandable. For me, it depends on context. For crazy out-there settings like the Marvel Universe and the World of Darkness, the resemblance to reality is so slight to begin with that it doesn't really register to me if there's something supernatural behind the evil. But if, say, _Downfall_ had a twist ending where Hitler was possessed by Satan, that would be pretty bad.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Nov 20, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> No, no, if the Vampire community were really that LGBT friendly they wouldn't even have this plot at all. The text even actively discourages doing anything about the problem. If it were really just a regional issue then there wouldn't really need to be an excuse of being a "distraction", it would simply just be vampires running the Chechen government are also just really homophobic. Also the text describes it as "media manipulation" when in reality the Chechen government vehemently denies any sort of genocidal activity against the LGBT community. What media is being manipulated and how? Only the media outside of Russia could really get away with reporting it, so that would imply some level of collaboration with vampires outside of Chechen territory.



I think you're thinking about the implications more than the writers did.

Which is part of the problem, of course.


----------



## Celebrim (Nov 20, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> This is a tricky issue to answer, because White Wolf was founded on the principle of creating roleplaying games as art. The initial appeal of the games were that they provocative...




To whom?

I guarantee you that if they had offended one of their out groups, rather than an in group, they would have responded with more talk about artistic expression and defenses of their provocation as art and the need to avoid societal censorship.

It's not there status as a for profit company that determines whether they apologize or not.  It's whether the offense given was intentional or not, or as you put it 'provocative'. 

In this case, they didn't intend to offend.


----------



## Maxperson (Nov 20, 2018)

Panda-s1 said:


> You do realize the pdf version went on sale, right? Even if it were a leak they're seeing the full effects of their blurb right now.




You do realize that it's impossible to see the full effects in such a short time, right?  We have no way to know how effective a boycott would have been since one never really had time to get started.



> Did you miss the part where it says it's all a distraction? In the Chechnya of the v5 universe LGBT people are being persecuted not because of religious hate or general homophobia (y'know like in real life), but just to keep up the guise of "Sharia law".




It says that they are deflecting from what's happening in Chechnya by misdirecting it as Sharia law.  And we know that LGBT are in fact being persecuted because of homophobia, because vampire LGBT members are also being persecuted.  Were it just some sort of distraction of the kine on the part of the vampires, no LGBT vampires would be persecuted.  There must be homophobia and/or religious hate involved.



> If it were really just a regional issue then there wouldn't really need to be an excuse of being a "distraction", it would simply just be vampires running the Chechen government are also just really homophobic.




That's exactly what it is, though.  The vampires running the Chechen government ARE homophobic, which is why vampire LGBT members are also being persecuted.


----------



## Enevhar Aldarion (Nov 20, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> I think you're thinking about the implications more than the writers did.
> 
> Which is part of the problem, of course.




I do not think the writers of that particular part of that book thought at all about what they were doing. I think they just picked what, to the average person, is some remote, obscure part of the world, where something horrible is happening to people there and turned it into a vampire plot. What I don't get is how it made it past all the proofreaders and editors, etc and into the final product. That is where I can understand the changes in management, since it was their responsibility in the end.


----------



## TrippyHippy (Nov 20, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> To whom?
> 
> I guarantee you that if they had offended one of their out groups, rather than an in group, they would have responded with more talk about artistic expression and defenses of their provocation as art and the need to avoid societal censorship.
> 
> ...



I'm not entirely sure what you are refering to when you say 'out group' or 'in group'. 

When I say provocative, it's not so much that they intend to offend as much as they intend to create a strong emotional or intellectual reaction. The trouble with offensiveness, per se, is that people react in different ways. Some people might be offended by something, while others may not.

When they first started using openly gay characters as examples in their early books, some people found that offensive. Did they intend to offend? No, but as one of the first game companies to do this sort of thing, they were being provocative and some were offended by it because of their own attitudes.


----------



## Celebrim (Nov 20, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> I'm not entirely sure what you are refering to when you say 'out group' or 'in group'.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups



> When I say provocative, it's not so much that they intend to offend as much as they intend to create a strong emotional or intellectual reaction. The trouble with offensiveness, per se, is that people react in different ways. Some people might be offended by something, while others may not.




While there is no rulebook as to what is or isn't offensive, there are a many things which you can predict people will find offensive. 

Provocative by the way means: "causing annoyance, anger, or another strong reaction, especially deliberately".   It comes from the idea of calling someone out, as to a challenge to combat.


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## Celebrim (Nov 20, 2018)

site wasn't responsive


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 20, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups
> 
> While there is no rulebook as to what is or isn't offensive, there are a many things which you can predict people will find offensive.
> 
> Provocative by the way means: "causing annoyance, anger, or another strong reaction, especially deliberately".   It comes from the idea of calling someone out, as to a challenge to combat.



I knew what the word meant when I used it. That's why I used it. 

I don't honestly think that the early White Wolf cared too much about marketing or the like when they started at all. They were just an independent company of young turks when they started, with a bunch of new ideas about how to make RPGs. They were somewhat iconoclastic when it came to what could or could not be game-able - presenting themselves as sort of the anti-D&D group as an identity if you like - which is how they came up with the basic idea about playing vampires in the first place. The people, back then, that they were provoking were generally conservative in their disposition. The notion of playing amoral monsters in a dark reflection of our own world - including all the darker aspects of drugs, sex, violence and whathaveyou - is provocative, and undoubtedly offended some people. It's also the appeal of the game to others.


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## Panda-s1 (Nov 20, 2018)

Maxperson said:


> You do realize that it's impossible to see the full effects in such a short time, right?  We have no way to know how effective a boycott would have been since one never really had time to get started.




The whole point of the boycott was calling out insensitive material in the book. The publisher not only removed the material, but announced a restructuring for the company. All things considered, that's extremely effective for a boycott that didn't really get started. What boycott is there needed after that?




			
				Maxperson said:
			
		

> It says that they are deflecting from what's happening in Chechnya by misdirecting it as Sharia law.  And we know that LGBT are in fact being persecuted because of homophobia, because vampire LGBT members are also being persecuted.  Were it just some sort of distraction of the kine on the part of the vampires, no LGBT vampires would be persecuted.  There must be homophobia and/or religious hate involved.
> 
> That's exactly what it is, though.  The vampires running the Chechen government ARE homophobic, which is why vampire LGBT members are also being persecuted.




"The recurring international controversy over the persecution of homosexuals is a clever media manipulation designed to keep the focus on Sharia law, _away from the true inner workings of the republic_." They doing "Sharia law" things in an effort to distract from the fact that vampires run the country. Maybe you need more context, early last year it was reported that the government of Chechnya began a campaign of genocide against gay men. In real life, there are people in charge of the country who do this out of simple hatred of homosexuality. In the v5 universe, however, it's all just a distraction to keep the vampires safe. LGBT vampires might face the same persecution, that doesn't change the reasons they're doing it (also it says kindred are "punished harshly" for such behavior, it doesn't exactly say they get the same treatment, and it would be weird if they just let certain people go free). Also it's not even a plot to feed, it's just a simply a distraction, which altogether makes it even less palatable.

Also calling it media manipulation is completely asinine. In real life the Chechen government vehemently denies any genocidal activity is going on, yet somehow in the v5 universe they're able to do this as a means to manipulate the media?? Even if they purposefully leaked it, no one who has any real power to take on the government would do much.


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## Henry (Nov 20, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> I knew what the word meant when I used it. That's why I used it.
> 
> I don't honestly think that the early White Wolf cared too much about marketing or the like when they started at all. They were just an independent company of young turks when they started, with a bunch of new ideas about how to make RPGs. They were somewhat iconoclastic when it came to what could or could not be game-able - presenting themselves as sort of the anti-D&D group as an identity if you like - which is how they came up with the basic idea about playing vampires in the first place. The people, back then, that they were provoking were generally conservative in their disposition. The notion of playing amoral monsters in a dark reflection of our own world - including all the darker aspects of drugs, sex, violence and whathaveyou - is provocative, and undoubtedly offended some people. It's also the appeal of the game to others.




This thought is kind of funny since most of the original White Wolf staff, according to Lisa Stevens, were die-hard D&D gamers in addition to being the "young turks" of White Wolf. She said (in more than one of her "Auntie Lisa's Story Hour" seminars) that one of their crowning moments was when they were threatened by a couple of people from TSR after winning an award (Origins 1991, I think?) It just goes to show how cannibalistic the industry used to be compared to now. Everyone seems to be on board nowadays with the "rising tide floats all boats" theory.


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## Jester David (Nov 20, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> Do I think it was an artistic expression? It's a fictitious version of the real world, which I think falls into that category, sure. As for football or chess, these games don't really involve fiction, so they differ from many RPG products in that sense, but still the design of each game is probably an artistic expression. And I'd argue that playing each can be considered performance art of some kind.



Clue has a narrative. There is the murder of Mister Body and several suspects. Is it art?

And while I think one could easily argue a _performance_ of D&D and other roleplaying games would qualify as "art", do the rulebooks governing play benefit from that. Is a book _on_ ballet or the technical aspects of theatre craft also art? 



hawkeyefan said:


> The line is always different for everyone. Who decides where it is in any given instance?



Society as a whole. 
Just like EVERYTHING ELSE where we decide if it is appropriate or not. It's what we're taught by our parents every day of our childhoods, which is reinforced by society and popular culture. 

The audience and reviewers also decided when several of them independently raised the issue. Followed by the management who themselves agreed the text was inappropriate. And everyone else who was upset or thought the material was in poor taste. 

If it had been a few upset people making a big deal about nothing, the story would not have spread as far and the management might have agreed it was much about nothing. Clearly they disagreed.  



hawkeyefan said:


> In this case, I have no problem with the writers painting the Chechen leadership as monstrous because they are in fact monstrous.



Here's the thing... he's figuratively monsterous, but he's not literally monsterous. Making him and actual, literal monster makes it easier to accept. Because he's just evil. He's a monster. It's almost an excuse. You don't hold the mad or hungry dog accountable for its actions. 
It's simply easier to accept someone being terrible to human being when they're not human and see humans as convenient and tasty food. It removes culpability. 

Reinforcing that the person behind and responsible for the purging of homosexuals in Chechnya is and always has been human is important. 



hawkeyefan said:


> Do I think that such use is a bit crass or that the fact that the tragedy is ongoing meas perhaps it shouldn't be used as a source of fiction in a RPG? Sure. I wouldn't have done that if I was writing the book. I find it distasteful.
> 
> I just don't mistake my personal taste for more than that. All it means is that I wouldn't buy that book.



Fair enough.

Will you buy future books from the line? Will you buy future books from the author(s), who thinks it's okay to be crass and to exploit an ongoing tragedy? 
Because if you wouldn't... that brings up the business aspect. White Wolf and their owners want to continue to sell books. But if people move from boycotting to book to boycotting the line, then they lose money. Which is their sole reason for publishing the books. 



hawkeyefan said:


> I do think that there is value in artists producing anything that they want, and in the production of art that challenges the norms of society. No, I don't think that a company that is paying for the production of some creative work should have no say. In this case, the publisher is reacting to some level of public outcry in a way that they feel is appropriate. I don't blame them for that.
> 
> What I question is the need for people to try and eliminate things that they don't like, or that make them uncomfortable, rather than simply avoiding it themselves.



This gets into a larger issue. 

Some people DO challenge the norms. And that's probably a good thing. However, some people like to just shock and be provocative. We need to separate the two. The people testing the limits of good tastes and pushing society for artistic reasons, and the trolls who just want to get a rise from people. 

In general, ignoring people and things doesn't help. Because the latter group of trolls _wants_ desperately NOT to be ignored. Which means they just push the envelope further and further until they can't be ignored. They go until you cannot help but notice them. And by that point they're so much worse than they would have been before.
But it doesn't even serve the true artist. They can't push society in different directions or cause people to question if everyone ignores them. They want people to talk and discuss things. Which doesn't happen if it's just their supporters. 

Also... ignoring ideas we don't like and disagree with doesn't work out well in the long run. You can see that in the surge of internet fuelled hate and racism. Communities like 4chan and reddit where anything could be posted. When people couldn't get a rise from readers, they pushed farther and farther into racism and misogyny to get a reaction, until only people okay with those beliefs and jokes remained. Which led to online communities that were enabling and aiding radicalisation. 
I could say more, but the above paragraph is already pushing the limits of this site's tolerance for politics and current events.


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## Umbran (Nov 20, 2018)

TrippyHippy said:


> This is a tricky issue to answer, because White Wolf was founded on the principle of creating roleplaying games as art. The initial appeal of the games were that they were provocative, and throughout their rise as a company they wrote copious essays and defences on the notion of art vs commercialism and freedom of expression.




With respect - since the company publishing these "provocative" things can no longer publish them if they don't make money, the idea that they are not concerned with commercialism was naive - either on their part for thinking it, or on ours for believing it.



> The problem in the interim of nearly 30 years, however, is that White Wolf has been successful, become a corporation and indeed, been sold off a couple of times. It's maybe naive to hold onto notions of artistic expressions.




You miss what is probably the larger issue at hand - White Wolf first published a WoD game in 1991.  Internet Explorer was released in 1995.  

Their initial popularity came in a time before what most folks today think of as "the internet", and the heightened communication that has developed with it.  In the past, it was easier to avoid the negative consequences of being "provocative" than it is today, because word gets around to people who care more quickly, and their voices are more easily heard.


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## Jester David (Nov 20, 2018)

Henry said:


> This thought is kind of funny since most of the original White Wolf staff, according to Lisa Stevens, were die-hard D&D gamers in addition to being the "young turks" of White Wolf. She said (in more than one of her "Auntie Lisa's Story Hour" seminars) that one of their crowning moments was when they were threatened by a couple of people from TSR after winning an award (Origins 1991, I think?) It just goes to show how cannibalistic the industry used to be compared to now. Everyone seems to be on board nowadays with the "rising tide floats all boats" theory.




I love the Auntie Lisa Story Hour seminars. 
Okay... once you've one or two you've pretty much heard them all as the first 45 minutes of the hour long seminar are largely the same. But still very enjoyable.


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## Gradine (Nov 20, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> If we look at the issue in a more general sense, I think it becomes clearer. It really boils down to this:
> 
> Are we or should we as customers/readers/viewers/gamers guaranteed some level of freedom from offense by the art we consume?
> 
> ...




I'm still half of a thread behind, so forgive me if I'm repeating something here, but everyone does realize that this is capitalism working as intended, right? Boycotts and social pressure leading to a change or withdrawal of a product is the very definition of people voting with their wallets. No government entity has stepped in or directly interfered in the process, so there's no actual "censorship" involved (I see that you haven't used that phrase yourself, but others in this thread certainly have). Seriously, this is exactly the sort of thing Ron/Rand Paul (I forget which) described when he/they advocated to get rid of anti-discrimination laws; companies that act in bad faith will face market pressure to change, and eventually they will face enough that it becomes a smart business decision to actually change. Boom. Capitalism.

I do also think that there needs to be some level of differentiation between "art" and "popular entertainment"; I'll be the first to admit that that line can be fuzzy at times and is ultimately arbitrary, but I don't think anyone here would quibble about which of those categories, say, V:tM or _War and Peace_ respectively belong in. I think, at least in this context, it boils down to authorial intent. I think it can be argued that there is an appropriate time and place for art that it is deliberately shocking or offensive to the senses. Popular entertainment is not, I would argue quite strenuously, the place for such material. Nor is it the place for material that, whether intentionally or otherwise, reinforces oppressive narratives. Especially not present atrocities.


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## lowkey13 (Nov 20, 2018)

*Deleted by user*


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## Gradine (Nov 20, 2018)

lowkey13 said:


> Good luck with that. I mean, really! First, defining what is and isn't "art" is a fool's errand (not that you shouldn't try). The differences between found art, folk art, fine art, pop art, etc..... one person's great art is another person's trash.
> 
> Sometimes quite literally, if you enjoy the Tate Modern.
> 
> ...




Don't get me wrong, I'm the last person who wants to come off as an art snob. But I think it's worthwhile to at least distinguish between people who are consciously making art versus people who are consciously making popular entertainment. Not because these are mutually exclusive (they're not), but because the two tend to pose very different answers to the authorial question "what message am I sending with this?". In the case of popular entertainment, that answer usually tends to be "none, hopefully." I don't think anyone at WW set out with the intent to trivialize the LGBTQ+ genocide in Chechnya. That they _did_ was therefore not only unintentional but also, presumably (at least hopefully), something the authors _didn't want to do_ in the first place.

While the intent in this case isn't irrelevant when it comes to measuring the actual _impact_ of the action, it _is_ relevant when discussing the supposed excuse of "do not censor my art!" While the line between art and pop culture is always going to be fuzzy (see also: Shakespeare), the line between "we didn't mean to imply this horrible thing" and "yes, argue over my provocative works, my puppets!" is much, much more clear.



> Hmmm.... well, there are those that argue for that. And others (most of the 20th century on, since the New Critics and their earlier precursors, like the Russian formalists) would argue against it.




I've got my own opinions regarding the "Death of the Author" et. al., but they are both off-topic and too political for this message board


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## billd91 (Nov 20, 2018)

Gradine said:


> I do also think that there needs to be some level of differentiation between "art" and "popular entertainment"; I'll be the first to admit that that line can be fuzzy at times and is ultimately arbitrary, but I don't think anyone here would quibble about which of those categories, say, V:tM or _War and Peace_ respectively belong in. I think, at least in this context, it boils down to authorial intent. I think it can be argued that there is an appropriate time and place for art that it is deliberately shocking or offensive to the senses. Popular entertainment is not, I would argue quite strenuously, the place for such material. Nor is it the place for material that, whether intentionally or otherwise, reinforces oppressive narratives. Especially not present atrocities.




I'm not sure I agree with all that. I think there's definitely a way to try to target a market to become successful popular entertainment, but it's definitely possible to deliberately shock while also producing something for that same market. *The Onion*, *Deadpool*, and *South Park* definitely fit that mold and succeed to certain degrees with their controversial humor, as did the miniseries *Roots* and the movies *Logan* and *Schindler's List* but with serious subject matter. In fact, I'd be happier if more truths and ideas were pursued in as shocking a manner as is necessary to move people and put out as popular entertainment.

But I would agree that making light of atrocities or giving a fictive cause to real and ongoing atrocity is bad judgment. (I do like allegorical parallels, though.)


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## Gradine (Nov 20, 2018)

billd91 said:


> I'm not sure I agree with all that. I think there's definitely a way to try to target a market to become successful popular entertainment, but it's definitely possible to deliberately shock while also producing something for that same market. *The Onion*, *Deadpool*, and *South Park* definitely fit that mold and succeed to certain degrees with their controversial humor, as did the miniseries *Roots* and the movies *Logan* and *Schindler's List* but with serious subject matter. In fact, I'd be happier if more truths and ideas were pursued in as shocking a manner as is necessary to move people and put out as popular entertainment.




Indeed, this is why I state that I don't believe the two concepts are at all mutually exclusive. I honestly tend to find fiction without some actual point or meaning to it be completely dull, personally. 



> But I would agree that making light of atrocities or giving a fictive cause to real and ongoing atrocity is bad judgment. (I do like allegorical parallels, though.)




Also agreed.


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## lowkey13 (Nov 20, 2018)

*Deleted by user*


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 20, 2018)

Umbran said:


> With respect - since the company publishing these "provocative" things can no longer publish them if they don't make money, the idea that they are not concerned with commercialism was naive - either on their part for thinking it, or on ours for believing it.
> 
> You miss what is probably the larger issue at hand - White Wolf first published a WoD game in 1991.  Internet Explorer was released in 1995.
> 
> Their initial popularity came in a time before what most folks today think of as "the internet", and the heightened communication that has developed with it.  In the past, it was easier to avoid the negative consequences of being "provocative" than it is today, because word gets around to people who care more quickly, and their voices are more easily heard.



I did actually mention the influence of the internet on this situation, either here or in some other thread. The only point of disagreement I may possibly have with this statement is whether its a good thing. I'd also note that other movements, a lot more provocative than White Wolf ever were, have managed to thrive on the darker corners of the internet in recent times. It's weird times we live in.


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## Rygar (Nov 20, 2018)

Umbran said:


> With respect - since the company publishing these "provocative" things can no longer publish them if they don't make money, the idea that they are not concerned with commercialism was naive - either on their part for thinking it, or on ours for believing it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think we need to be *very* careful and *very* analytical here.  I think it's critical to differentiate between word of mouth amongst the customer base, the potential customer base, individuals who have no interest in being a customer, and political activists who will not become a customer and spend their time scouring the internet for things to protest.

It's something business in general is struggling with figuring out how to assess, no one really seems to know how to guage things yet.  Especially with the added complexity of bot networks, astroturfing, and other shennagins.

So if we want to discuss this topic, I think we need to do a lot of research.  Internet and Word of Mouth are very complex topics today.


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## lowkey13 (Nov 20, 2018)

*Deleted by user*


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## Eltab (Nov 20, 2018)

billd91 said:


> But I would agree that making light of atrocities or giving a fictive cause to real and ongoing atrocity is bad judgment. (I do like allegorical parallels, though.)



+1

I could write up a villain who was a (minor) participant in the Yugoslav Civil War / breakup today.  I would not have done so then, while the bloodshed and atrocities were ongoing.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 20, 2018)

I believe the relevant phrase of choice among certain comedians is, “Too soon?”

Alan Alda once said, “Comedy is tragedy plus time”, and he might as well have substituted “Entertainment” for comedy.  Because there are countless works of fiction in which historical figures have been altered from their RW roots in order to entertain us, be it dramatically or comically or somewhere in between.

After all...Count Dracula is infamously based on the RW Vlad Dracul.  But that was more than 400 years after his death.*  

At some point in the future, the Chechnian purge of LGBT individuals _may_ make fine fuel for (skillful) storytelling, but right now, because it is ongoing?

Too soon.








* assuming, of course, he wasn’t actually a supernatural creature.


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## Chris Harris (Nov 20, 2018)

ASchmidt said:


> I worked at CCP on the World of Darkness MMO *snip* I simply cannot imagine the people I worked with being accused of the things they're being accused of.




This was not material written when CCP had the license, so rest easy. No one is saying what you think they are.


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## hawkeyefan (Nov 20, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Clue has a narrative. There is the murder of Mister Body and several suspects. Is it art?
> 
> And while I think one could easily argue a _performance_ of D&D and other roleplaying games would qualify as "art", do the rulebooks governing play benefit from that. Is a book _on_ ballet or the technical aspects of theatre craft also art?




First, thank you for the reasoned and interesting discussion. 

Second, Tim Curry is great in Clue! 

As for the board game....I don't know if I'd say it's a work of art. There is art involved....graphic design and layout and game design. Those seem to be artistic endeavors to me. But is a board game itself art? I'm not sure. I don't think I'd ever expect to see a Clue board hanging on someone's living room wall. 

But when it comes to an RPG book, very often the book includes fiction in addition to the technical aspects of play. I consider crafting of fiction to be art, so in most cases, I would consider such books to be art. Creative writing versus technical writing. 



Jester David said:


> Society as a whole.
> Just like EVERYTHING ELSE where we decide if it is appropriate or not. It's what we're taught by our parents every day of our childhoods, which is reinforced by society and popular culture.
> 
> The audience and reviewers also decided when several of them independently raised the issue. Followed by the management who themselves agreed the text was inappropriate. And everyone else who was upset or thought the material was in poor taste.
> ...




Whose society? Chechen society?  

How often is society wrong about what is or should be acceptable? Things change over time, and what was once acceptable becomes unacceptable, and vice versa. One of the major factors in the drive for such change is art. And very often allegory. 

And although you are right about some members of the audience and reviewers, and about the management decision....is it the actual audience? And as someone who found the book distasteful, I can say that not everyone who felt that way thinks the book needs to go away. It's distasteful....I simply won't buy it. If someone else is not bothered by the content, I don't want to stop them from buying it. 

Again, the realities of capitalism and the potential PR nightmare they were facing....I get the decision and why things played out the way they did. I just don't know if I can agree that this is the preferred way for things to proceed. 



Jester David said:


> Here's the thing... he's figuratively monsterous, but he's not literally monsterous. Making him and actual, literal monster makes it easier to accept. Because he's just evil. He's a monster. It's almost an excuse. You don't hold the mad or hungry dog accountable for its actions.
> It's simply easier to accept someone being terrible to human being when they're not human and see humans as convenient and tasty food. It removes culpability.
> 
> Reinforcing that the person behind and responsible for the purging of homosexuals in Chechnya is and always has been human is important.




Well, we could get into a debate about the proper use of the word monstrous here, but I think each of us understands what the other is saying. 

I don't agree that anything written in the book in any way changes how I view Ramzan Kadirov. I don't think it does what some are claiming. It in no way makes me unsure that he and his regime are awful.

I do think it's a sensitive subject and was handled without sensitivity....but I don't think that the fiction of the book in any way diminishes the real world events.



Jester David said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> Will you buy future books from the line? Will you buy future books from the author(s), who thinks it's okay to be crass and to exploit an ongoing tragedy?
> Because if you wouldn't... that brings up the business aspect. White Wolf and their owners want to continue to sell books. But if people move from boycotting to book to boycotting the line, then they lose money. Which is their sole reason for publishing the books.




I don't play the game, so chances are I would not buy any products for it. I would possibly buy something from the authors if it was a work that appealed to me in some way. Because even if I disagree with how they handled this topic, that doesn't mean they can't produce something that I would enjoy. 

And this also brings up an interesting question....how many people who boycotted or put social pressure on WW are actual paying customers? 

I mean....should my opinion on this topic even matter to WW from a business standpoint? Should they have to worry about people who are not potential customers? Obviously, they have to , or at least the did so in this case. But _should_ they? 




Jester David said:


> This gets into a larger issue.
> 
> Some people DO challenge the norms. And that's probably a good thing. However, some people like to just shock and be provocative. We need to separate the two. The people testing the limits of good tastes and pushing society for artistic reasons, and the trolls who just want to get a rise from people.
> 
> ...




I don't know if you can or should differentiate such people. Again, removed of the commercial concerns that were relevant in this case, I think that it's pretty clearly been established that protection of the unpopular opinion is more important than protection of the popular opinion. If it's a choice between allowing all opinions to be expressed or to begin picking and choosing, the only rational answer is to allow them all. 

There are so many people throughout history that would have been considered trolls of their time who later on have become to be appreciated as great artists.


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## ruemere (Nov 20, 2018)

Rygar said:


> Could you please put a large warning when linking to RPG.net?  Given the very political nature of that site and its participants, and the actions they've taken over the past few weeks, some of us would prefer to avoid giving them any traffic or revenue.




Umm, I did, didn't I? All links are quoted with "forum.rpg.net" quite clearly visible to a naked eye. 
If you're clicking a link without reading even a plain-text part, the security of your computer may be at risk.

Please do be more careful.

Regards,
Ruemere


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## lowkey13 (Nov 20, 2018)

*Deleted by user*


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## TheCosmicKid (Nov 20, 2018)

lowkey13 said:


> There are a few people that were considered shocking, provocative, and offensive for their time that were later considered great artists.
> 
> There is a near-infinite number of unremembered trolls that were just jerks and/or a**h****.
> 
> I think that the ratio is probably the same today.



For that matter, even if the ratio were the other way around, this _particular_ provocative work would still clearly fall in the latter category. We don't have to play the numbers game here. We can examine a piece and judge it on its merits.


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## TheCosmicKid (Nov 20, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> FAs for the board game....I don't know if I'd say it's a work of art. There is art involved....graphic design and layout and game design. Those seem to be artistic endeavors to me. But is a board game itself art? I'm not sure. I don't think I'd ever expect to see a Clue board hanging on someone's living room wall.



Some players have taken to framing their Pandemic Legacy boards. 

Clue Legacy... that could work...


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## hawkeyefan (Nov 20, 2018)

Gradine said:


> I'm still half of a thread behind, so forgive me if I'm repeating something here, but everyone does realize that this is capitalism working as intended, right? Boycotts and social pressure leading to a change or withdrawal of a product is the very definition of people voting with their wallets. No government entity has stepped in or directly interfered in the process, so there's no actual "censorship" involved (I see that you haven't used that phrase yourself, but others in this thread certainly have).




Yeah...I get the business reasons for what happened. I don't really blame the company for deciding to pull the book and revise it. 

I've purposefully avoided use of the word censorship because I don't want the discussion to become about what is or isn't censorship.

Whether or not this is capitalism as intended....I'm not sure. It may be. But I think capitalism would mostly be concerned with the product and its potential consumer base rather than some kind of general consensus that may consist largely of people who would normally be entirely indifferent to the product. It's a bit odd in that sense. 



Gradine said:


> I do also think that there needs to be some level of differentiation between "art" and "popular entertainment"; I'll be the first to admit that that line can be fuzzy at times and is ultimately arbitrary, but I don't think anyone here would quibble about which of those categories, say, V:tM or _War and Peace_ respectively belong in. I think, at least in this context, it boils down to authorial intent. I think it can be argued that there is an appropriate time and place for art that it is deliberately shocking or offensive to the senses. Popular entertainment is not, I would argue quite strenuously, the place for such material. Nor is it the place for material that, whether intentionally or otherwise, reinforces oppressive narratives. Especially not present atrocities.




I won't make a distinction between art and popular entertainment in this way because everyone's line would be in a different place. I prefer to treat them the same, so that there's some level of objectivity to be had. A starting point. There certainly plenty of examples that would fit both criteria, as you say, so why make the distinction? 

And I do think that authorial intent does matter. Do we think the authors included this with the intention of controversy? Were they trying to provoke a negative reaction in readers? Or just any kind of emotional reaction? They certainly wound up offending people, that's clear, but was that what they wanted? It's hard to say.


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## Hussar (Nov 20, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> /snip
> 
> I don't know if you can or should differentiate such people. Again, removed of the commercial concerns that were relevant in this case, I think that it's pretty clearly been established that protection of the unpopular opinion is more important than protection of the popular opinion. If it's a choice between allowing all opinions to be expressed or to begin picking and choosing, the only rational answer is to allow them all.
> 
> There are so many people throughout history that would have been considered trolls of their time who later on have become to be appreciated as great artists.




Sorry, but, how were they stopped from expressing their opinion?  They expressed it quite clearly - they published it in a book after months of marketing.  It's not like they couldn't express their thoughts.

And society looked at those expressed thoughts and said, "Nope.  That's not acceptable".  

I mean, they could STILL go through and publish the book and put it on the shelves.  There's nothing stopping them from doing so.  Granted, it would likely result in very strong negative consequences for their company, but, again, they are not, in any way, being stopped from doing so.

Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from consequence.  



hawkeyefan said:


> /snip
> 
> And I do think that authorial intent does matter. Do we think the authors included this with the intention of controversy? Were they trying to provoke a negative reaction in readers? Or just any kind of emotional reaction? They certainly wound up offending people, that's clear, but was that what they wanted? It's hard to say.




Authorial intent never matters.  Because authors can and do lie.  This is how trolls work.  "Oh, you're offended?  Really?  Well, I never meant for you to be offended, so, it's all good.  What do you mean I should take back what I said?  I didn't mean it that way and ((Insert numerous dictionary definitions cherry picked to mislead)) if you're taking offense, that's on you."

No.  Authorial intent is a virtually pointless argument to make.


----------



## Rygar (Nov 20, 2018)

lowkey13 said:


> It's not very complex at all.
> 
> When my ox is being gored, then it's faux outrage by officious busybodies acting out of spite and partisan motivation who were never customers and probably couldn't spell cat if you provided them the "c" and the "a."
> 
> ...




I disagree.

At this point in time all it takes is one person to view something and post it to Twitter or Facebook, and potentially a large number of people will latch onto it and express outrage.  It's very possible none of those people expressing outrage ever had any intention of purchasing said product, or even knew it existed before in the case of RPGs, but they'll announce loudly how they're going to "Boycott" the company they weren't patronizing to start out with.

In the end, if the company capitulates to the "Boycott" and it was largely a group of non-customers who were outraged, the company has a serious problem.  If they change the product to meet the demands of the outrage by non-customers and it runs counter to the desires of the actual customers except for the one who took offense, then there's a very high probability that the company will make a change to the product to satisfy one customer, a lot of people who still have no intention of buying the product, and they've now lost some/many/all of their other customers.

Philosophy and allegory isn't really applicable here.  It's a complex question confronting pretty much all businesses today on all sides of the political war.  "How do I identify how many of the people who are expressing outrage are actually customers or potential customers and make informed decisions?".


----------



## Rygar (Nov 20, 2018)

ruemere said:


> Umm, I did, didn't I? All links are quoted with "forum.rpg.net" quite clearly visible to a naked eye.
> If you're clicking a link without reading even a plain-text part, the security of your computer may be at risk.
> 
> Please do be more careful.
> ...




Morrus runs a very safe site, I don't think it's necessary to carefully examine all URL's posted here.  OTOH, you're posting links to a website that literally bans you for supporting the President of the United States anywhere on the internet if they can connect it to you.  The onus is upon you to very clearly indicate where you're linking to when linking to a site with such controversial and political policies.

It's one thing to link to a standard site with standard behavior policies, it's quite another to link to a site that bans anyone who supports the sitting President.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 20, 2018)

Rygar said:


> Morrus runs a very safe site, I don't think it's necessary to carefully examine all URL's posted here.  OTOH, you're posting links to a website that literally bans you for supporting the President of the United States anywhere on the internet if they can connect it to you.  The onus is upon you to very clearly indicate where you're linking to when linking to a site with such controversial and political policies.
> 
> It's one thing to link to a standard site with standard behavior policies, it's quite another to link to a site that bans anyone who supports the sitting President.



With respect and amplifying what the poster has already said: the fact that it was a “forum.rpg.net” link _was clearly and plainly visible._  He didn’t disguise the link with alternative/descriptive text.

The onus, thus, is shifted to *the reader* to notice and comprehend that text.


----------



## Shasarak (Nov 20, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> There are so many people throughout history that would have been considered trolls of their time who later on have become to be appreciated as great artists.




Like the Surrealist painters in the 1920s for example.


----------



## Shasarak (Nov 20, 2018)

Rygar said:


> At this point in time all it takes is one person to view something and post it to Twitter or Facebook, and potentially a large number of people will latch onto it and express outrage.  It's very possible none of those people expressing outrage ever had any intention of purchasing said product, or even knew it existed before in the case of RPGs, but they'll announce loudly how they're going to "Boycott" the company they weren't patronizing to start out with.




If you look at it from a different angle, it provides some pretty good advertising for Camarilla and Anarch and it also gives Paradox Interactive a good excuse to axe White Wolf (which they wanted to do anyway) without any potential blow back onto them.

I mean was anyone even talking about the new Vampire supplements before now?


----------



## hawkeyefan (Nov 21, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Sorry, but, how were they stopped from expressing their opinion?  They expressed it quite clearly - they published it in a book after months of marketing.  It's not like they couldn't express their thoughts.
> 
> And society looked at those expressed thoughts and said, "Nope.  That's not acceptable".
> 
> ...




My comments that you quoted above were in reply to Jestwr David where we were discussing the larger issue. I wasn’t referencing the Camarilla/Anarch writers in those remarks.

As for “society”....is that what happened here? Was it society that spoke out? Or was it a subsection of society? And is that sufficient? And would members of that subsection even have been aware of the books? Were these actually dissatisfied customers? 

I think those are some interesting questions to consider.



Hussar said:


> Authorial intent never matters.  Because authors can and do lie.  This is how trolls work.  "Oh, you're offended?  Really?  Well, I never meant for you to be offended, so, it's all good.  What do you mean I should take back what I said?  I didn't mean it that way and ((Insert numerous dictionary definitions cherry picked to mislead)) if you're taking offense, that's on you."
> 
> No.  Authorial intent is a virtually pointless argument to make.




Again, my comments were in reply to Gradine when he mentioned he felt it boiled down to authorial intent. His comments seem to imply that the intention of the authors was to shock or provoke the audience. I don’t know if I agree. It’s certainly possible, though. 

But I think authorial intent does matter. I think the difference between a troll and someone who offends accidentally is very clearly one of intent. I would imagine that you would likely thibk less of a troll than of someone who unintentionally offended you. Or do you think of them equally?


----------



## Gradine (Nov 21, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> Again, my comments were in reply to Gradine when he mentioned he felt it boiled down to authorial intent. His comments seem to imply that the intention of the authors was to shock or provoke the audience. I don’t know if I agree. It’s certainly possible, though.




That was not at all what I meant. I was actually implying the opposite; that it's doubtful that the attempting to shock or provoke their audience. This is why I don't think the "what about artists who are trying to be provocative!" argument doesn't really apply here.



> But I think authorial intent does matter. I think the difference between a troll and someone who offends accidentally is very clearly one of intent. I would imagine that you would likely thibk less of a troll than of someone who unintentionally offended you. Or do you think of them equally?




Authorial intent matters both more or less than most people suspect; I think it matters quite a bit, for the reasons you aptly point out. I don't think, however, that intent takes people completely off the hook for the _impact_ of their actions, intentional or otherwise.


----------



## hawkeyefan (Nov 21, 2018)

Gradine said:


> That was not at all what I meant. I was actually implying the opposite; that it's doubtful that the attempting to shock or provoke their audience. This is why I don't think the "what about artists who are trying to be provocative!" argument doesn't really apply here.
> 
> Authorial intent matters both more or less than most people suspect; I think it matters quite a bit, for the reasons you aptly point out. I don't think, however, that intent takes people completely off the hook for the _impact_ of their actions, intentional or otherwise.




My apologies...I misread your post when I checked it to reply to Hussar. But I had understood when I first responded to you.

And I agree that it does not take people completely off the hook.


----------



## Hussar (Nov 21, 2018)

Rygar said:


> I disagree.
> 
> At this point in time all it takes is one person to view something and post it to Twitter or Facebook, and potentially a large number of people will latch onto it and express outrage.  It's very possible none of those people expressing outrage ever had any intention of purchasing said product, or even knew it existed before in the case of RPGs, but they'll announce loudly how they're going to "Boycott" the company they weren't patronizing to start out with.
> 
> ...




Prove it.

No, seriously, prove it.  Prove that all it takes is one person to post to Twitter or Facebook and a large number of people who have zero interest in this issue will express outrage.  This is the narrative that feeds trolls and promotes toxic ideologies.  "Oh, look, it's the knee jerk (insert insulting group name here) just virtue signaling.  They wouldn't care otherwise, but, they just want to look good to their other (insulting group name here) fellows, so, I'm being oppressed and my freedom of speech is being curtailed".

No.  Sorry, but no. 

And, heck, if your customers only buy your products so long as it's kept a secret that your product contains ideologies that large numbers of people find offensive, then, well, perhaps a bit of self examination is in order. 

Allowing these ideologies to fester in secret, quietly bubbling around the echo chamber of that group is how groups become radicalized and run over women and children on the streets of Toronto.  No.  Shine a light and bright freaking 1000W spotlight on things like this and if more people would actually stand up and say, "No, this is not acceptable", the world would be a lot better place.


----------



## Hussar (Nov 21, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> My comments that you quoted above were in reply to Jestwr David where we were discussing the larger issue. I wasn’t referencing the Camarilla/Anarch writers in those remarks.
> 
> As for “society”....is that what happened here? Was it society that spoke out? Or was it a subsection of society? And is that sufficient? And would members of that subsection even have been aware of the books? Were these actually dissatisfied customers?
> 
> I think those are some interesting questions to consider.




You keep wanting to put numbers to this.  How many people is sufficient?  There is no answer to that.  None and never will be.



> Again, my comments were in reply to Gradine when he mentioned he felt it boiled down to authorial intent. His comments seem to imply that the intention of the authors was to shock or provoke the audience. I don’t know if I agree. It’s certainly possible, though.
> 
> But I think authorial intent does matter. I think the difference between a troll and someone who offends accidentally is very clearly one of intent. I would imagine that you would likely thibk less of a troll than of someone who unintentionally offended you. Or do you think of them equally?




Well, the person who accidentally offends, when learning that they have offended will generally apologize and amend their statements.  After all, they didn't mean to offend and have made some sort of mistake in doing so.  The troll likely won't apologize or amend their statements.  

But, in no case should we simply try to guess what the person meant.  The offense should be clearly highlighted and then it's back on the person making the statement to respond.  It's not on me to say, "Well, I don't think he was trying to be offensive, so, you are wrong for taking offense." which is where this line of thinking is leading.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 21, 2018)

Rygar said:


> Philosophy and allegory isn't really applicable here.  It's a complex question confronting pretty much all businesses today on all sides of the political war.  "How do I identify how many of the people who are expressing outrage are actually customers or potential customers and make informed decisions?".




Ah, you see, it isn't all that complicated on such points...

If you do something, and a bunch of people hear about it, and show up to tell you that you were being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk, whether or not you have potential business with them is not material in determining if you were, in fact, being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk.  They are not wrong just because they weren't going to give you money.

Worrying about who is a customer, and who isn't, is a business decision.  But the core issue here isn't a business problem - it is an ethical problem.  If your basic answer to ethical questions is to check your bottom line, you have probably missed the point of the ethical question.


----------



## hawkeyefan (Nov 21, 2018)

Hussar said:


> You keep wanting to put numbers to this.  How many people is sufficient?  There is no answer to that.  None and never will be.




It’s not necessarily a number that I’m asking for so much as I’m trying to understand how this works. Is the requirement simply that people complain loudly enough? When is a product considered generally offensive? I mean, I like plenty of things that have been considered offensive by many people...music, television, books, D&D, comics...

Should those things have gone away because at one point a large number of people wanted them to? 



Hussar said:


> Well, the person who accidentally offends, when learning that they have offended will generally apologize and amend their statements.  After all, they didn't mean to offend and have made some sort of mistake in doing so.  The troll likely won't apologize or amend their statements.
> 
> But, in no case should we simply try to guess what the person meant.  The offense should be clearly highlighted and then it's back on the person making the statement to respond.  It's not on me to say, "Well, I don't think he was trying to be offensive, so, you are wrong for taking offense." which is where this line of thinking is leading.




I generally agree with this. I don’t think the end result you’ve stated is quite right....but otherwise, I agree.


----------



## Sadras (Nov 21, 2018)

hawkeyefan said:


> It’s not necessarily a number that I’m asking for so much as I’m trying to understand how this works. Is the requirement simply that people complain loudly enough? When is a product considered generally offensive? I mean, I like plenty of things that have been considered offensive by many people...music, television, books, D&D, comics...
> 
> Should those things have gone away because at one point a large number of people wanted them to?
> 
> I generally agree with this. I don’t think the end result you’ve stated is quite right....but otherwise, I agree.




Perhaps the answer to such a question has more to do with the historical period one lives in and what is deemed offensive at the time and what is not.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 21, 2018)

We have our own rules about where is the limit, but anytime we don't agree about this, and when we offend anybody there is consequences, you wanted theses or didn't. 

Homophobes characters can appear in a story because the author wants them to be used as antagonist. Gayfriendly fiction can show us homophobia not to be promoted but to be reported. In WoD youngest vampires can find older ones are homophobes because they came from a age where homosexuality wasn't yet allowed, and this may be the hook of some stories.

My opinion is maybe WW's mistake was to give a supernatural origin to an uneasy matter for the real world. This is like writing Pentex caused the fight among Seleka and anti-Balaka to sell more weapons in Africa. This is a real blunder, or the 1840's USA-Mexican war was caused because vampires wanted those new lands full of fresh flock but without rival predators (terminated by Inquisition). Let's imagine a speculative fiction work about how mason lodges controlled by vampires, and demons, plotted to cause the Anglican schism because Catholic Church was too strong to be controlled by regalism ( = clergy ruled by lay powers) or the black legend against Spanish empire was a revenge by the Camarilla because that was the best ally of Inquisition in the vampire hunt, and because faith's communities are stronger then their disciplines and powers to control that sectors of humankind are weaker.

This is not about homophobia, but because supernatural fiction was linked to "evil" groups from real life and somebody may be uncomfortable when suspects this could trivialize suffering by real people. This is the limit, we can't trivialize suffering by real people from the current age.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Nov 21, 2018)

Umbran said:


> Ah, you see, it isn't all that complicated on such points...
> 
> If you do something, and a bunch of people hear about it, and show up to tell you that you were being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk, whether or not you have potential business with them is not material in determining if you were, in fact, being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk.  They are not wrong just because they weren't going to give you money.
> 
> Worrying about who is a customer, and who isn't, is a business decision.  But the core issue here isn't a business problem - it is an ethical problem.  If your basic answer to ethical questions is to check your bottom line, you have probably missed the point of the ethical question.



Now do this analysis for Lolita, Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, and the Satanic Verses.  I'm curious as to the simple analysis of ethics in these cases.


----------



## Maxperson (Nov 21, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Sorry, but, how were they stopped from expressing their opinion?  They expressed it quite clearly - they published it in a book after months of marketing.  It's not like they couldn't express their thoughts.
> 
> And society looked at those expressed thoughts and said, "Nope.  That's not acceptable".




Society never saw it, let alone judged it.  A minority(people speaking out against it) of a minority(people who actually are aware of White Wolf) said "Nope.  That's not acceptable."


----------



## Maxperson (Nov 21, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Well, the person who accidentally offends, when learning that they have offended will generally apologize and amend their statements.  After all, they didn't mean to offend and have made some sort of mistake in doing so.  The troll likely won't apologize or amend their statements.




If I truly did make a mistake, I will apologize.  However, what happens fair often these days, is that the other person reads into my words something that just plain isn't there and become offended by what they read into those words.  I won't apologize for that, since I am not responsible for the actions of others.



> But, in no case should we simply try to guess what the person meant.




Also in no case should you read into someone's words something that isn't there.


----------



## Maxperson (Nov 21, 2018)

Umbran said:


> Ah, you see, it isn't all that complicated on such points...
> 
> If you do something, and a bunch of people hear about it, and show up to tell you that you were being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk, whether or not you have potential business with them is not material in determining if you were, in fact, being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk.  They are not wrong just because they weren't going to give you money.
> 
> Worrying about who is a customer, and who isn't, is a business decision.  But the core issue here isn't a business problem - it is an ethical problem.  If your basic answer to ethical questions is to check your bottom line, you have probably missed the point of the ethical question.




It's not that simple for corporations, though.  Corporations are quite literally law bound to maximize profits whenever possible, so an ethical problem that is going to negatively affect the bottom line if the company does the ethical thing must be ignored, or your stock holders can sue the hell out of you for violating your fiduciary duty.  Smaller businesses have the luxury of considering ethics.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 21, 2018)

Ovinomancer said:


> Now do this analysis for Lolita, Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, and the Satanic Verses.  I'm curious as to the simple analysis of ethics in these cases.




All of the works you name have cheesed people off, but they differ from this WoD case in (at least) one central element - they are all entirely fiction.  

The WoD issue is about taking the *actual events* that happened to specific people that actually exist (and may still be alive) and then making the source of their suffering fictional.  

So... not much of an analogy to be had.  The ethical question isn't, "Did I cheese people off?"  The ethical question is around what you did to cheese people off.


----------



## Gradine (Nov 21, 2018)

Umbran said:


> Ah, you see, it isn't all that complicated on such points...
> 
> If you do something, and a bunch of people hear about it, and show up to tell you that you were being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk, whether or not you have potential business with them is not material in determining if you were, in fact, being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk.  They are not wrong just because they weren't going to give you money.
> 
> Worrying about who is a customer, and who isn't, is a business decision.  But the core issue here isn't a business problem - it is an ethical problem.  If your basic answer to ethical questions is to check your bottom line, you have probably missed the point of the ethical question.




One of several reasons why a deliberate boycott is a very different (and much more effective) thing than just not being a customer in the first place.


----------



## dco (Nov 21, 2018)

I think they did a big mistake from an editorial point of view.

From the ethics point of view...sorry, this is fiction and Vampire the Masquerade always have had vampires behind all kind of historical events in the world, they encourage people to do the same with their stories and lot of GMs and fans writting stories have done it. Chicago by night which was the first setting already had vampires controlling a clash between indians and the United States army, their machinations went from there to the election of the mayor 4-5 years before the book release.

If we think that actually some people find offensive that an indian character wears a feather in a videogame perhaps Vampire the Masquerade should have never existed. It can also be extrapolated to a lot of other games, mental disorders, suicides, mass shootings... don't buy Kult, there is a cheap fictional explanation for lots of horror and suffering.


----------



## billd91 (Nov 21, 2018)

Maxperson said:


> It's not that simple for corporations, though.  Corporations are quite literally law bound to maximize profits whenever possible, so an ethical problem that is going to negatively affect the bottom line if the company does the ethical thing must be ignored, or your stock holders can sue the hell out of you for violating your fiduciary duty.  Smaller businesses have the luxury of considering ethics.




No, that's really not the case (unless, apparently, you have all the limited moral awareness of Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economic brutalism). Responsibility to the shareholders is only one branch of a corporation's ethical responsibility. There are academic disciplines and comprehensive corporate programs devoted to broader views of corporate ethics than his ilk.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Nov 21, 2018)

Umbran said:


> All of the works you name have cheesed people off, but they differ from this WoD case in (at least) one central element - they are all entirely fiction.
> 
> The WoD issue is about taking the *actual events* that happened to specific people that actually exist (and may still be alive) and then making the source of their suffering fictional.
> 
> So... not much of an analogy to be had.  The ethical question isn't, "Did I cheese people off?"  The ethical question is around what you did to cheese people off.



The central theme of Lolita is not fictional.  Neither that of Catcher.  Or Verses.  They are all true Scotsmen.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 21, 2018)

Maxperson said:


> Corporations are quite literally law bound to maximize profits whenever possible




No they are not.  Period.  End sentence.  This is just plain, old fashioned factually incorrect.  Sorry.  

You seem to equate, "Do fiduciary duty"  to "maximize profits".  Fiduciary duty is a duty to act in the best interest of another - as best you know and understand at the time.  

For a corporation, for example, the best interest of shareholders is probably not "maximize corporate profits" but is instead, "maximize shareholder value".  But, a *lot* of things can influence shareholder value - f'rex, having the company's name go down the toilet due to a controversy probably doesn't do a lot for shareholder value.  And there will be a judgement call on how to achieve the value.

A real lawyer can probably do better, but my understanding is that fiduciary duty is really only in play when you can show that the alleged offender took an action they *knew* was not in the best interest of their client/employer.  Like, "I am your financial advisor, and I encourage you to buy a junk stock because I am getting a great commission on it."  Making a judgement call on a matter of public relations?  Not an issue, unless you say, "I hate these guys, and I'm gonna actively antagonize them, even if that makes the company lose money!"


----------



## lowkey13 (Nov 21, 2018)

*Deleted by user*


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## Rygar (Nov 21, 2018)

Umbran said:


> Ah, you see, it isn't all that complicated on such points...
> 
> If you do something, and a bunch of people hear about it, and show up to tell you that you were being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk, whether or not you have potential business with them is not material in determining if you were, in fact, being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk.  They are not wrong just because they weren't going to give you money.
> 
> Worrying about who is a customer, and who isn't, is a business decision.  But the core issue here isn't a business problem - it is an ethical problem.  If your basic answer to ethical questions is to check your bottom line, you have probably missed the point of the ethical question.




Are you suggesting that businesses should be more concerned with ethics than revenue?  How does that work?  Since appeasing one political/religious group is certain to offend at least one other political/religious group, how could businesses function since every action is guaranteed to generate outrage?  Are there only particular political/religious groups that they should listen to?


----------



## Umbran (Nov 21, 2018)

Ovinomancer said:


> The central theme of Lolita is not fictional.  Neither that of Catcher.  Or Verses.  They are all true Scotsmen.




If you want to say that children do get abused, and that religion is important to people, sure.

But "theme" in literature is entirely arranged.  Real lives don't have "themes" - the events in those books are entirely fabricated to produce themes.  And, more important, while there are alienated young people out there, Holden Caulfield does not exist outside of Catcher.

Take *real* people, who have suffered, and make it so the known and historical source of their suffering is not only fictional, but outright not possible in our universe?  While some of the victims are still alive?  Not the same.  Sorry.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 21, 2018)

Maxperson said:


> Corporations are quite literally law bound to maximize profits whenever possible, so an ethical problem that is going to negatively affect the bottom line if the company does the ethical thing must be ignored, or your stock holders can sue the hell out of you for violating your fiduciary duty.  Smaller businesses have the luxury of considering ethics.



That’s...not accurate.  

Some methods of profit maximization are actually illegal, for a variety of reasons.  What they are in particular depends on the business in question.  So ethical concerns exist for all companies.  Ignore them, and CEOs and other corporate officers can be fired; possibly find themselves in real, actual jails.  This is especially true for multinationals.

Further, discretion is one of the defining powers of being a business executive.  A decision that- on initial analysis- may not be profit maximizing NOW may _in fact _better position a company to compete at a future time.  Or it may not.  But in order to win, anyone bringing a shareholder’s suit is going to have to prove that the decision makers involved did not properly exercise their business acumen.  That’s a difficult standard of proof.


----------



## Eltab (Nov 21, 2018)

Rygar said:


> In the end, if the company capitulates to the "Boycott" and it was largely a group of non-customers who were outraged, the company has a serious problem.  If they change the product to meet the demands of the outrage by non-customers and it runs counter to the desires of the actual customers except for the one who took offense, then there's a very high probability that the company will make a change to the product to satisfy one customer, a lot of people who still have no intention of buying the product, and they've now lost some/many/all of their other customers.



McDonalds french fries.  
Some years ago, the company changed the recipe (to lower-fat) in response to pressure from 'healthy eating' persons / groups.  A number of whom responded to news of the change with words to the effect of "Well, I would never eat there anyways."


----------



## Ovinomancer (Nov 21, 2018)

lowkey13 said:


> That's .... not a good point.
> 
> You understand that there's a difference between using concepts in fiction, as opposed to using things that have happened and adding fictional elements?
> 
> ...



Ah, I'm off the blocked list.

I disagree.  Sure, there are differences, but in degree, not kind.  Frex, the Nazi's have been portrayed in many fictional ways, including around the genocide of Jews, to tell sometimes outlandishly fictional stories.  There's a current movie where Nazi's experiment on prisoners to develop a zombie formula, fercrissakes. 

In contrast, Lolita touches directly on child sex crimes as it both humanizes and demonizes it's main character throughout for his lusts and behavior.  Reading Lolita would be more traumatizing for a survivor of child sex abuse than the WW Chechya section to un-impacted LGBQ persons.  Hiwever, @Ubran posits a simple test for the WW issue based on the reactions of thise same un-impacted LGBQ persons.  If the "simple" test advocated by [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] was actually simple, he wouldn't have needed to erect a lack of Scotsmen to discuss Lolita.  By his test, Lolita is unethical.  It might help to recall that Lolita faced far more outrage from a broader swath of the populance than WW for it's highly offensive nature.  Lolita humanizes a child rapist, after all.  WW monsterized Chechyan genocide.

Was what WW did tasteful?  No, and neither is Lolita, Catcher, or Satanic Verses.  Potter was just commercial.  But to claim a simple test that bars WW while ignoring the others because the WW case justifies other biases is just a bad argument.  Personally, I dislike what WW chose to do here, and I also dislike the reaction of it's owners. I don't think there was a "good" choice here, and I'm certainly not going to pretend any of it is simple.


----------



## Maxperson (Nov 21, 2018)

Umbran said:


> No they are not.  Period.  End sentence.  This is just plain, old fashioned factually incorrect.  Sorry.
> 
> You seem to equate, "Do fiduciary duty"  to "maximize profits".  Fiduciary duty is a duty to act in the best interest of another - as best you know and understand at the time.
> 
> ...




We see it happen all the time, without any major consequence to the corporations.  Pharmaceutical corporations put out drugs that they know kill people, because the profits they make vastly outweigh the price of lawsuits and the fines they receive.  Banks abuse their customers for the same reasons.  Profits outweighs ethics.  This isn't true for all companies, as we saw with Starbucks who would have been far more hurt financially had they not responded the way that they did, but many times the bottom line will outweigh ethics for corporations.


----------



## ruemere (Nov 21, 2018)

Rygar said:


> Morrus runs a very safe site, I don't think it's necessary to carefully examine all URL's posted here.  OTOH, you're posting links to a website that literally bans you for supporting the President of the United States anywhere on the internet if they can connect it to you.  The onus is upon you to very clearly indicate where you're linking to when linking to a site with such controversial and political policies.
> 
> It's one thing to link to a standard site with standard behavior policies, it's quite another to link to a site that bans anyone who supports the sitting President.




"Morrus runs a very safe site, I don't think it's necessary to carefully examine all URL's posted here."

You're wrong. Any clickjacker software running in a background of your O/S can turn safest link into one-way ticket to problematic site. Also, as evidenced in this case, Morrus cannot monitor everyone's links, so ultimately, the security is on you.

Finally, your political preferences have nothing to do with me. Somewhat political statement spoilered (though it's a bit amusing, too).
[sblock]
*Mod Edit:* Per Morrus' statement - no politics.  ~Umbran
[/sblock]

Regards,
Ruemere


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## Ovinomancer (Nov 21, 2018)

Umbran said:


> If you want to say that children do get abused, and that religion is important to people, sure.
> 
> But "theme" in literature is entirely arranged.  Real lives don't have "themes" - the events in those books are entirely fabricated to produce themes.  And, more important, while there are alienated young people out there, Holden Caulfield does not exist outside of Catcher.
> 
> Take *real* people, who have suffered, and make it so the known and historical source of their suffering is not only fictional, but outright not possible in our universe?  While some of the victims are still alive?  Not the same.  Sorry.




Right, because vampires.  Curiously, in the plot in the WW supplement, aren't the vampires manipulating the humans in government to conduct the pogrom?  Aren't then the humans just as guilty as the real world humans who, instead of vampires as a motivation, use something equally fictional to justify their actions?

But, before we go much further down the path of which things are Scotsmen and which aren't, here's your original claim:



			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> If you do something, and a bunch of people hear about it, and show up to tell you that you were being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk, whether or not you have potential business with them is not material in determining if you were, in fact, being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk. They are not wrong just because they weren't going to give you money.
> 
> Worrying about who is a customer, and who isn't, is a business decision. But the core issue here isn't a business problem - it is an ethical problem. If your basic answer to ethical questions is to check your bottom line, you have probably missed the point of the ethical question.




As this claim has nothing to do with Chechnya or White Wolf, but is much broader, either you can defend the above using Lolita or my other examples, or you cannot.  If you cannot, then it appears you have nothing more that 'because reasons' for your claim and don't have a broader basis for your statement.  I'm interested in hearing a defense of the original statements.


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## Morrus (Nov 21, 2018)

ruemere said:


> "Morrus runs a very safe site, I don't think it's necessary to carefully examine all URL's posted here."
> 
> You're wrong. Any clickjacker software running in a background of your O/S can turn safest link into one-way ticket to problematic site. Also, as evidenced in this case, Morrus cannot monitor everyone's links, so ultimately, the security is on you.
> 
> ...




I repeat: this is NOT a free-for-all politics thread. You can discuss the thread topic, but politics and religion in general are not allowed on EN World. You've been here since 2002, so you know this. Don't use this thread as an excuse to interject your random political soapbox. This goes for everybody. Stay on topic.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 21, 2018)

It’s not complicated. If Lolita used a real life, recent (relative to publication), victim and perpetrator, it would be entirely a different sort of situation than a book that explores the mind of a hypothetical fake person commiting a fictionalised sex crime. 

If someone wrote a similar book about Roman Polanski, humanzing him while describing his crimes, it would create a deserved crap-storm of vociferous negative press.


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## grimslade (Nov 21, 2018)

This seems pretty simple to me. Vampire and the World of Darkness line have been very LGBTQ+ friendly, even at the beginning in the '90s, when not much media was. The Chechnyan 'plotline' was hamfisted* and downplayed a current, ongoing tragedy to many of the WoD property's fans/consumers. Paradox looked at the bad press being generated over their product and pulled the plug rather than to further damage the IP. Seems pretty cut and dry. I do not see a free speech issue here or censorship. The PR of the Camarilla book had become so bad, the remedy had to be pretty drastic to keep Vampire IP from becoming radioactive for other future projects.
You don't need to even question if people were right or wrong to feel offended. People were offended. They presented a bunch of cogent reasons why they were offended. You might not agree with those reasons, but the offense is there. 

* Obviously, IMNSHO, this storyline was a hash. It reads like a parody, with the leaders name change and laughable conspiracy theory to cover up supernatural atrocities with real atrocities. The world is full of evil being committed in every corner of the globe. You want to draw attention and shine a light on a particular evil in the storyline? It would have to be handled with such delicate precision, because it is a real evil and causes real fear and anxiety for many, even those not in the precise situation, it would take more effort than deadlines allow. Current events are rarely understood well enough to ever be given a proper context in current fiction.


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## Rygar (Nov 22, 2018)

grimslade said:


> This seems pretty simple to me. Vampire and the World of Darkness line have been very LGBTQ+ friendly, even at the beginning in the '90s, when not much media was. The Chechnyan 'plotline' was hamfisted* and downplayed a current, ongoing tragedy to many of the WoD property's fans/consumers. Paradox looked at the bad press being generated over their product and pulled the plug rather than to further damage the IP. Seems pretty cut and dry. I do not see a free speech issue here or censorship. The PR of the Camarilla book had become so bad, the remedy had to be pretty drastic to keep Vampire IP from becoming radioactive for other future projects.
> You don't need to even question if people were right or wrong to feel offended. People were offended. They presented a bunch of cogent reasons why they were offended. You might not agree with those reasons, but the offense is there.
> 
> * Obviously, IMNSHO, this storyline was a hash. It reads like a parody, with the leaders name change and laughable conspiracy theory to cover up supernatural atrocities with real atrocities. The world is full of evil being committed in every corner of the globe. You want to draw attention and shine a light on a particular evil in the storyline? It would have to be handled with such delicate precision, because it is a real evil and causes real fear and anxiety for many, even those not in the precise situation, it would take more effort than deadlines allow. Current events are rarely understood well enough to ever be given a proper context in current fiction.




It is pretty cut and dried, Paradox in this case did the right thing, and the impression I have is that there isn't anyone who disagrees really.  The thread's more moved on to a generic discussion of outrage and business/ethics matters.  

Honestly, IMO, Morrus should just kill the thread.  No one's really discussing the original topic anymore, we've all moved on to generic discussions about outrage and ethics, and TBH none of us are going to change our minds anyways.


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## dco (Nov 22, 2018)

grimslade said:


> You don't need to even question if people were right or wrong to feel offended. People were offended. They presented a bunch of cogent reasons why they were offended. You might not agree with those reasons, but the offense is there.
> 
> * Obviously, IMNSHO, this storyline was a hash. It reads like a parody, with the leaders name change and laughable conspiracy theory to cover up supernatural atrocities with real atrocities. The world is full of evil being committed in every corner of the globe. You want to draw attention and shine a light on a particular evil in the storyline? It would have to be handled with such delicate precision, because it is a real evil and causes real fear and anxiety for many, even those not in the precise situation, it would take more effort than deadlines allow. Current events are rarely understood well enough to ever be given a proper context in current fiction.



There is always people offended. For some people like me the real question is what is the limit for a possible offense to influence the fiction of the books and what will happen with the next ones. For example the old Chicago by night had vampires that pulled the strings of a minority group which was nearly decimated before the foundation of the city, the vampire gangster Al Capone controlled practically all the crime of the city and was behind a lot of problematic real events, the police can be controlled by vampires, etc. If someone of Chicago knows people who were killed by a criminal, a police, for drugs or has drugs problems, or she is part of a minority group and gets offended... the new Chicago by Night sourcebook will go back to the kitchen and change to a city of only vampires in another dimension? The people who don't like to have fictional vampires behind politics and real events will buy the book?

The main problem of the story is that the game had a poor editor who ruined and published it.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 22, 2018)

Maxperson said:


> We see it happen all the time, without any major consequence to the corporations.  Pharmaceutical corporations put out drugs that they know kill people, because the profits they make vastly outweigh the price of lawsuits and the fines they receive.  Banks abuse their customers for the same reasons.  Profits outweighs ethics.  This isn't true for all companies, as we saw with Starbucks who would have been far more hurt financially had they not responded the way that they did, but many times the bottom line will outweigh ethics for corporations.




All that proves is that:

1) they’ve made a certain cynical calculation as to their exposure if/when they get caught, not that they ignore ethics completely 

2) the penalties within the legal framework in which businesses operate isn’t keeping up with realities of business profits.  Like when Dr. Evil initially demanded a ransom of mere millions.


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## Umbran (Nov 22, 2018)

Maxperson said:


> We see it happen all the time, without any major consequence to the corporations.




Sure.  But they aren't *legally required* to do that.  When this happens, it happens by choice.

This should not be surprising.  Individual people can have a conscience, or feel empathy.  But when humans act as groups (corporation, political party, college fraternity, sci-fi convention committee, or whatever) we often find it a struggle to be empathetic, or apply conscience and thoughtfulness on a consistent basis.


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Nov 22, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> If someone wrote a similar book about Roman Polanski, humanzing him while describing his crimes, it would create a deserved crap-storm of vociferous negative press.



I would question anyone who criticizes a work on the basis that it humanizes someone when that someone is, in fact, human. I mentioned _Downfall_ earlier. That film humanizes the goddamn Führer. And it would have been a far worse film if it had not. Humanizing evil is not the same thing as excusing evil, but it is the first step in grasping the reality of it.


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## TheCosmicKid (Nov 22, 2018)

Umbran said:


> Sure.  But they aren't *legally required* to do that.  When this happens, it happens by choice.
> 
> This should not be surprising.  Individual people can have a conscience, or feel empathy.  But when humans act as groups (corporation, political party, college fraternity, sci-fi convention committee, or whatever) we often find it a struggle to be empathetic, or apply conscience and thoughtfulness on a consistent basis.



Except in this case, the corporation exhibited more empathy than the individual writer.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 22, 2018)

Ovinomancer said:


> Right, because vampires.  Curiously, in the plot in the WW supplement, aren't the vampires manipulating the humans in government to conduct the pogrom?  Aren't then the humans just as guilty as the real world humans who, instead of vampires as a motivation, use something equally fictional to justify their actions?




Given that WW vampires have the ability to influence human minds?  No.  Vampires can be seen as removing the agency of the humans in government - those without agency are not generally held responsible for their actions.  That's a major part of the problem.



> As this claim has nothing to do with Chechnya or White Wolf, but is much broader, either you can defend the above using Lolita or my other examples, or you cannot.




I am not so laden with testosterone that you can bait me with "I double-dog-dare you" tactics.

_Lolita_ is not a RPG product.  It really isn't relevant to this site.  In addition, I have not read it.  I also haven't read _Satanic Verses_, and my exposure to _Catcher in the Rye_ was decades ago.  I can speak to these things only on generalities.  I am not so arrogant (or stupid) as to try to defend a work I cannot speak to in detail.




> If you cannot, then it appears you have nothing more that 'because reasons' for your claim and don't have a broader basis for your statement.




Er, no.  It appears I have better things to do with my time than take arbitrary tests that I don't really expect will be judged fairly.

Dude, really - it is Thanksgiving weekend.  I'm hosting a dinner tomorrow.  My mother-in-law is visiting.  If you think my failure to defend _Lolita_ indicates anything about the quality of my position, you have lost perspective, and it is time to stop discussing.


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## Umbran (Nov 22, 2018)

Ovinomancer said:


> As this claim has nothing to do with Chechnya or White Wolf, but is much broader, either you can defend the above using Lolita or my other examples, or you cannot.  If you cannot, then it appears you have nothing more that 'because reasons' for your claim and don't have a broader basis for your statement.




Heh.  Time in the shower is wonderful for thinking.  There's an implicit strawman here.

I say that the ethical question to such publications is pretty simple.

You say, "Oh, yeah?  Well, defend _Lolita_ simply, then!"

I say, "I only have to defend a work _if I am asserting that the publisher is being ethical_ in its publication."

I have made no such assertions!  In fact, I have noted that corporations have a hard time behaving in an ethical manner!  So, why, again, should I have to defend the ethical character of a work *you* choose?  That makes no sense!  Maybe, upon reading the work, I would find its existence unethical!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 22, 2018)

Word.

This is the only Lolita worth discussing at _this_ particular time:
View attachment 103262

(It’s *REALLY* good in eggnog.)


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 22, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> I would question anyone who criticizes a work on the basis that it humanizes someone when that someone is, in fact, human. I mentioned _Downfall_ earlier. That film humanizes the goddamn Führer. And it would have been a far worse film if it had not. Humanizing evil is not the same thing as excusing evil, but it is the first step in grasping the reality of it.




Humanizing characters in stories isn't about just recognizing that they are literally human, though. Hitler shouldn't be humanized. We all know he was a human being, not an alien or a robot or a vampire. We don't need to have him presented in a sympathetic manner, ie one that elicits empathy for him. 

Humanizing a character like Loki in the MCU is one thing. He's both fictional, guilty of crimes that happen in space or involve alien invaders or magic, the whole story is so fantastical that it's easy to forget the humanity of the characters without some narrative and characterization humanization. Villains are more intersting when they're partly sympathetic, because it makes out emotional reaction to the narrative and characters ambiguous and murky, which is enjoyable to explore in a safe environment with fictional characters, similar to why frightening things are enjoyable in a movie or book. 

A story that humanizes Polanski would be a story that literally elicits empathy for a real world child rapist. That should quite obviously be completely unacceptable, morally.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 22, 2018)

I think the term most usually used in the context of portraying all sides of an evil human (thereby softening their overall image) _*these days*_ is “normalizing”.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Nov 22, 2018)

The rest of the people have their own opinion about where is the limit, and if they are offended because they think you broke that limit, they don't mind what is your opinion. Never mind if you has a clear conscience if they are angry because you have said something.

Many times in the past I have complained about some anticlerical stereotypes in the modern speculative fiction, worse when I read in the news the persecution against Christianity has more mortal victims than racism or homophobia. That is my stuck horn with White Wolf, Fading Suns, Warhammer 40.000, 7th Sea and other franchises where the believers are zealots who had forgotten rationalism and to respect the human dignity, and there is a great temptation to try diverting the subject. Sorry.  

We have to take care when speculative fiction talk about real people who is suffering because this may trivialize these matters. Let's imagine somebody writing about real murders against in Ciudad Juarez being caused by supernatural factions (Sabath or Dark Spiral Dances, for example). Do you notice how would feel families' victims? We need a piece of good sense for this. We can't write: "Pentex are selling poisoned "halal" (= allowed for Muslims) food causing taharrush ( = massive sexual assault) by young Muslims with intoxicated minds. Or "vampires are controlled ONU to create opened frontiers because it is a trap, the illegal immigrants are easiest to be disappeared, not only for blood, but also for women and organs traffic, or ot be recruited as fresh meat for the street gangs", "Vampires are financing reseach ecto-genesis, the gestation of living beings, also humans, in an artificial matrix to can "harvest" secretly" without police investigating missing reports". You can imagine the controversy if somebody publish something like theses.  

We can use speculative fiction for a softer way to talk about crude reality, for example the big bad wolf of the Gingerbread witch to explain children about potential menaces by unknown people. 

* Off-topic. About Lolita. For American Law is abuse all relations with underage teens, but in another countries may allowed, for example in Spain was allowed since 13y (if it was consensual, of course) but now the limit is 16y. There was a controversy in France about a new law because there may be a open door for relations with underage teens. Centuries ago a 16y girl marrying wasn't too rare. In the pre-Christian classical Greek-Roman civilization relations with underage wasn't so forbidden. Our biology tells us teen girls are in the best time to procreate, but we can't, we shouldn't, because they aren't ready yet for serious relations. True men want complete women with enough psychological maturity and emotional intelligence. Young girls are beautiful as an art picture, we can watch them but not touching them. They deserve to know the true love, innocent and pure, and not to be used like a toy or hunt trophy by a perverted. A teenage girl who only wants to have fun but not to grow as person is really sad.   

Speculative fiction should be really careful about sexual predators who like underage relations. It is dangerous if people start to see it as something relatively normal and then some pervert stupy finds a new challenge about breaking rules. Don't give ideas to the bad guys.


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## TheCosmicKid (Nov 22, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Humanizing characters in stories isn't about just recognizing that they are literally human, though. Hitler shouldn't be humanized. We all know he was a human being, not an alien or a robot or a vampire. We don't need to have him presented in a sympathetic manner, ie one that elicits empathy for him.
> 
> Humanizing a character like Loki in the MCU is one thing. He's both fictional, guilty of crimes that happen in space or involve alien invaders or magic, the whole story is so fantastical that it's easy to forget the humanity of the characters without some narrative and characterization humanization. Villains are more intersting when they're partly sympathetic, because it makes out emotional reaction to the narrative and characters ambiguous and murky, which is enjoyable to explore in a safe environment with fictional characters, similar to why frightening things are enjoyable in a movie or book.
> 
> A story that humanizes Polanski would be a story that literally elicits empathy for a real world child rapist. That should quite obviously be completely unacceptable, morally.



I'm sorry, you're saying that _an exercise of empathy_ is immoral? Normally it's the withholding and discouragement of empathy that is quite obviously completely unacceptable morally. You have to go pretty far to find a theory of moral philosophy that says, "Yes, it is okay to be selective about with whom you empathize; you should only empathize with certain types of people."

I think part of the confusion may like in your conflating _empathy_ with _sympathy_. They are not the same thing. To empathize with someone is to understand their thoughts and feelings. To sympathize is to share them. They are so different as to sometimes work at cross purposes. _Triumph of the Will_ is made to evoke sympathy for Hitler, and does so by dehumanizing him, building up his image as an over-man, beyond good and evil, above the weaknesses and follies that the rest of us share. _Downfall_ demolishes that image, and any temptation one might feel to follow his ideology, precisely by exposing his all-too-human pride and rage and despair for our examination.

(Something's ringing a bell... oh, yes, Nietzsche! There's one place you _can_ find an anti-empathetic moral theory. What a coincidence that I should be reminded of that here.)


----------



## TheCosmicKid (Nov 22, 2018)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I think the term most usually used in the context of portraying all sides of an evil human (thereby softening their overall image) _*these days*_ is “normalizing”.



I think people these days who worry about softening the image of evil need to re-read Hannah Arendt.


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## Morrus (Nov 22, 2018)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> * Off-topic. About Lolita. For American Law is abuse all relations with underage teens, but in another countries may allowed, for example in Spain was allowed since 13y (if it was consensual, of course) but now the limit is 16y. There was a controversy in France about a new law because there may be a open door for relations with underage teens. Centuries ago a 16y girl marrying wasn't too rare. In the pre-Christian classical Greek-Roman civilization relations with underage wasn't so forbidden. Our biology tells us teen girls are in the best time to procreate, but we can't, we shouldn't, because they aren't ready yet for serious relations. True men want complete women with enough psychological maturity and emotional intelligence. Young girls are beautiful as an art picture, we can watch them but not touching them. They deserve to know the true love, innocent and pure, and not to be used like a toy or hunt trophy by a perverted. A teenage girl who only wants to have fun but not to grow as person is really sad.




In addition to my repeated warnings that this isn't a random political soapbox thread, this is *really* inappropriate. Don't post again in this thread please.

And for everybody else, I repeat: stay on topic. If you start introducing unrelated political or religious topics, you'll be asked to leave the thread.


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## Maxperson (Nov 22, 2018)

Umbran said:


> Sure.  But they aren't *legally required* to do that.  When this happens, it happens by choice.
> 
> This should not be surprising.  Individual people can have a conscience, or feel empathy.  But when humans act as groups (corporation, political party, college fraternity, sci-fi convention committee, or whatever) we often find it a struggle to be empathetic, or apply conscience and thoughtfulness on a consistent basis.




Groups like churches, the Red Cross, Amnesty International, United Way, Habitat for Humanity, people protesting bad things, and so on?  Individuals feel compassion or not, and organized groups are made up of individuals who feel compassion or not.  Mobs, rioters, looters, etc. are examples of groups where ordinarily compassionate people can be caught up in something that causes a loss of compassion, but it's much rarer in organized groups, which tend to draw like minded people.

Corporate leadership is a group that has a great many people who just don't have much, if any compassion.  3x as many true psychopaths are in corporate management than are in the general population, and if you relax the standard, many others have some traits along those lines, so compassion is much lower over a much larger percentage of people in control of businesses.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/victor...ween-psychopathy-and-leadership/#57cd0234104a

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/1-in-5-ceos-are-psychopaths-australian-study-finds/


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 22, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> I'm sorry, you're saying that _an exercise of empathy_ is immoral? Normally it's the withholding and discouragement of empathy that is quite obviously completely unacceptable morally. You have to go pretty far to find a theory of moral philosophy that says, "Yes, it is okay to be selective about with whom you empathize; you should only empathize with certain types of people."
> 
> I think part of the confusion may like in your conflating _empathy_ with _sympathy_. They are not the same thing. To empathize with someone is to understand their thoughts and feelings. To sympathize is to share them. They are so different as to sometimes work at cross purposes. _Triumph of the Will_ is made to evoke sympathy for Hitler, and does so by dehumanizing him, building up his image as an over-man, beyond good and evil, above the weaknesses and follies that the rest of us share. _Downfall_ demolishes that image, and any temptation one might feel to follow his ideology, precisely by exposing his all-too-human pride and rage and despair for our examination.
> 
> (Something's ringing a bell... oh, yes, Nietzsche! There's one place you _can_ find an anti-empathetic moral theory. What a coincidence that I should be reminded of that here.)




With Morrus’ warning, I won’t dig deeper into this than we have. All I’ll say is, humanizing real world monsters isn’t helpful. We have no need of individual empathy toward Polanski, Hitler, etc. 

As that relates to the topic, we should not be minimizing real world evil by turning into supernatural evil and conspiracy theories.


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## TheCosmicKid (Nov 22, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> With Morrus’ warning, I won’t dig deeper into this than we have. All I’ll say is, humanizing real world monsters isn’t helpful. We have no need of individual empathy toward Polanski, Hitler, etc.
> 
> As that relates to the topic, we should not be minimizing real world evil by turning into supernatural evil and conspiracy theories.



I'm getting some serious whiplash here. "Evil people should not be portrayed as human"; "Evil people should not be portrayed as inhuman". Pick one.


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## billd91 (Nov 22, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> A story that humanizes Polanski would be a story that literally elicits empathy for a real world child rapist. That should quite obviously be completely unacceptable, morally.




But that’s not the only thing Roman Polanski is. He’s also a Holocaust survivor and the widow of a famously murdered wife and father of a murdered unborn child - all of which are worth of sympathy as his rape commission is worthy of scorn. Humans are famously complex, perhaps complex enough that it’s hard to pigeonhole them as just one thing with just one approach.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 22, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> I'm getting some serious whiplash here. "Evil people should not be portrayed as human"; "Evil people should not be portrayed as inhuman". Pick one.



Any whiplash is on you. I’ve put forth no contradictions. The two are completely different things. 



billd91 said:


> But that’s not the only thing Roman Polanski is. He’s also a Holocaust survivor and the widow of a famously murdered wife and father of a murdered unborn child - all of which are worth of sympathy as his rape commission is worthy of scorn. Humans are famously complex, perhaps complex enough that it’s hard to pigeonhole them as just one thing with just one approach.




Do you remember the context of Polanski being brought up? We’re talking about the hypothetical of Lolita, but about Polanski. You wanna make a biopic thst doesn’t shy away from or minimize what he did, fine. I’m not going to give you any money for it, but I won’t go any further than that. You make a movie about his interactions with teenage girls that humanizes him, and I’m going to protest and decry that terrible decision quite vociferously.


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## TheCosmicKid (Nov 23, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Any whiplash is on you. I’ve put forth no contradictions. The two are completely different things.



Did you notice how, when I pointed out the difference between empathy and sympathy earlier, I actually went on to _explain_ what the difference was and how it was relevant?



doctorbadwolf said:


> Do you remember the context of Polanski being brought up? We’re talking about the hypothetical of Lolita, but about Polanski. You wanna make a biopic thst doesn’t shy away from or minimize what he did, fine. I’m not going to give you any money for it, but I won’t go any further than that. You make a movie about his interactions with teenage girls that humanizes him, and I’m going to protest and decry that terrible decision quite vociferously.



I think there's some sort of difference in definitions going on here. What do you mean by "humanizing"? You speak of "humanizing" Polanski like that's synonymous with "shying away from or minimizing what he did". But as far as I can see, humanizing him is the only way _not_ to shy away from or minimize what he did. Not to repeat myself, but he is in fact human. The terrible decisions he made were the result of human cognition and emotion. So if you're putting him in your work, you can either (a) portray that cognition and emotion accurately and thereby "humanize" him; or (b) obscure that cognition and emotion to "dehumanize" him, thereby shying away from the truth of his actions. I think (b) is bad. And I think it's bad for exactly the same reason that it's bad to pin the blame for Chechnyan atrocities on hypnotic vampires: it implicitly shifts responsibility away from recognizable and controllable human impulses onto some unreal scapegoat that is comfortably distant from and unbeholden to us.

So that's what I mean when I speak of "humanization". But clearly you mean something different, and I don't understand what it is.


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## Umbran (Nov 24, 2018)

While our games have monsters, in the real world, we just have people.  Every monstrous thing done in history was done by a human being.  

Failing to see monsters as people means you won't recognize them for what they are.  "Oh, he couldn't be like that!  He was such a nice man!"  And every time you lump human monstrosity under some other name, (like "mentally ill") you add to ill-informed preconceptions that hurt more people than they help.  

You cannot prevent monstrosity unless you understand it, and to do that you must look at it as truthfully as possible.  

That doesn't mean you forgive.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 24, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> Did you notice how, when I pointed out the difference between empathy and sympathy earlier, I actually went on to _explain_ what the difference was and how it was relevant?



Sure. In normal common everyday speech, "humanization" bespeaks more "make the subject more sympathetic" than "remind people that the subject is literally a human". 
Ie, in that usage, you can remind people that the nazis were, entirely, without exception, human, without _humanizing_ them. 
So, given that usage, humanizing "monsters" is, at best, misguided, IMO. 
At the same time, taking a real world monstrous human, and making them literally supernatural (or directly influenced by the supernatural to do what makes them monstrous), mythologizes them in a way that makes what they did seem less real.
IF it is somehow done in a way that _doesn't_ change the motives and impact of the actions, there is room for it to be acceptable. In this example, there could have been room to have this be something that is simply affecting vampires, too, rather than something that is "happening to cover for vampire activities". 

So, yes, humanizing evil people is bad, and making real world monsters into fantasy monsters is going to generally be bad, if you aren't careful about it. There is a nuance I left out before regarding whether doing so makes the point of the actions of the monster into a fantasy trope or if it remains as human a tragedy. 



> I think there's some sort of difference in definitions going on here. What do you mean by "humanizing"? You speak of "humanizing" Polanski like that's synonymous with "shying away from or minimizing what he did". But as far as I can see, humanizing him is the only way _not_ to shy away from or minimize what he did. Not to repeat myself, but he is in fact human. The terrible decisions he made were the result of human cognition and emotion. So if you're putting him in your work, you can either (a) portray that cognition and emotion accurately and thereby "humanize" him; or (b) obscure that cognition and emotion to "dehumanize" him, thereby shying away from the truth of his actions. I think (b) is bad. And I think it's bad for exactly the same reason that it's bad to pin the blame for Chechnyan atrocities on hypnotic vampires: it implicitly shifts responsibility away from recognizable and controllable human impulses onto some unreal scapegoat that is comfortably distant from and unbeholden to us.
> 
> So that's what I mean when I speak of "humanization". But clearly you mean something different, and I don't understand what it is.




Humanizing Polanski is misguided, IMO, because there is no need. I don't even believe that people actually forget in any meaningful way that Hitler was human, much less Polanski. 

If you want to humanize the Holocaust, and remind people that the faceless statistics they learned about in school (well, some schools. Others teach the Holocaust well, to be fair) were real people with real lives, strengths, flaws, dreams, petty grudges, loves, etc, that is useful and important work. Humanizing Hitler is both uncessary, and ultimately dangerous. It's not just about shying away from his evil, though that often happens in media that seeks to humanize evil. See, reddit posts about how much Hitler loved dogs. See also, the myth that all villains are the hero of their own story. No, many simply don't care at all about whether their actions are good, and only care about what benefits them. 

Polanski isn't as important, but at the same time, what he did is rather common. It's disgustingly ordinary. And yes, people need to realize that someone they know, like, trust, and respect, can be a child raping monster. But I don't think we need to give Polanski any sympathy or empathy in order to do that. 



Umbran said:


> While our games have monsters, in the real world, we just have people.  Every monstrous thing done in history was done by a human being.
> 
> Failing to see monsters as people means you won't recognize them for what they are.  "Oh, he couldn't be like that!  He was such a nice man!"  And every time you lump human monstrosity under some other name, (like "mentally ill") you add to ill-informed preconceptions that hurt more people than they help.
> 
> ...




I agree. See above for why I don't think that means we need media that humanizes them.


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## TheCosmicKid (Nov 24, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Humanizing Polanski is misguided, IMO, because there is no need. I don't even believe that people actually forget in any meaningful way that Hitler was human, much less Polanski.



People frequently forget that _their waiter_ is human. Dehumanization is jaw-droppingly easy.



doctorbadwolf said:


> Humanizing Hitler is both uncessary, and ultimately dangerous. It's not just about shying away from his evil, though that often happens in media that seeks to humanize evil. See, reddit posts about how much Hitler loved dogs.



What should we do with the fact that Hitler loved dogs? Suppress it? Are you and I worse off because we know it? Would we be better anti-Nazis if we didn't?



doctorbadwolf said:


> See also, the myth that all villains are the hero of their own story. No, many simply don't care at all about whether their actions are good, and only care about what benefits them.



See, when you dehumanize an evil person, write them off as "just a monster", this is the kind of simplistic conclusion about their motives that results. The reality is more complicated. Hitler _was_ the hero of his own story, to a pathological degree. The OSS created a psychological profile of him which concluded that saw himself as the protagonist of a Wagner epic, and based on that profile made several very accurate predictions of his behavior. Including his suicide -- which is something that people who _"only care about what benefits them"_ by definition do not do. Hitler killed himself, and millions of other people before that, even when it did him personally no good at all. Why? To begin to understand that, you have to picture him as a youth sitting in an opera house and soaking up the apocalyptic romanticism of _Twilight of the Gods_.


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## Maxperson (Nov 24, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> People frequently forget that _their waiter_ is human. Dehumanization is jaw-droppingly easy.




I don't believe this for one second.  I've been eating out at restaurants for more 40 years that I can remember(I was too young before that) and I have never once seen this happen.  Not at high end places, and not at fast food places.  I have seen people be jerks to their servers, but being a jerk to someone doesn't mean that you don't see that you have dehumanized that server.  Does dehumanizing happen to servers?  Probably, yes.  Is it frequent?  No it isn't.



> What should we do with the fact that Hitler loved dogs? Suppress it? Are you and I worse off because we know it? Would we be better anti-Nazis if we didn't?




Who cares.  I don't need to know he liked dogs.  I don't want to know if he liked dogs. What he did to the people in concentration camps and countries he invaded makes the rest of his life meaningless to me.  



> See, when you dehumanize an evil person, write them off as "just a monster", this is the kind of simplistic conclusion about their motives that results. The reality is more complicated. Hitler _was_ the hero of his own story, to a pathological degree. The OSS created a psychological profile of him which concluded that saw himself as the protagonist of a Wagner epic, and based on that profile made several very accurate predictions of his behavior. Including his suicide -- which is something that people who _"only care about what benefits them"_ by definition do not do. Hitler killed himself, and millions of other people before that, even when it did him personally no good at all. Why? To begin to understand that, you have to picture him as a youth sitting in an opera house and soaking up the apocalyptic romanticism of _Twilight of the Gods_.




It was their job to profile Hitler.  It's not my job.  If it was my job to profile monsters, I would care more about what they do outside of being a monster.  

When I play D&D and build an evil PC, I include aspects that would be considered good, since I understand that what you are saying is true and they do have positive human qualities.  That complexity you speak of is why alignment fails so badly to model behaviors in D&D.  In the real world I just don't care about those positive human qualities in monsters.  It just doesn't matter to me if John Wayne Gacy went to church on Sundays, or if Jeffery Dahmer spent time helping orphans.  The evil that those two men did outweighs any positives.


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## dco (Nov 24, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> With Morrus’ warning, I won’t dig deeper into this than we have. All I’ll say is, humanizing real world monsters isn’t helpful. We have no need of individual empathy toward Polanski, Hitler, etc.
> 
> As that relates to the topic, we should not be minimizing real world evil by turning into supernatural evil and conspiracy theories.



Who is we and why not? Because you don't like it?


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 24, 2018)

dco said:


> Who is we and why not? Because you don't like it?




Decent human beings. I’m pretty sure even trippyhippy agrees with the statement you’re challenging. They just disagree that the case in question is actually a case of such trivialization. 

If you think that we _should_ be trivializing real world atrocities as they’re happening, I’ve nothing else to say to you that won’t get me banned.


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## dco (Nov 24, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Decent human beings. I’m pretty sure even trippyhippy agrees with the statement you’re challenging. They just disagree that the case in question is actually a case of such trivialization.
> 
> If you think that we _should_ be trivializing real world atrocities as they’re happening, I’ve nothing else to say to you that won’t get me banned.



You were talking in general but it doesn't change anything
I understand that writting about something happening now is more problematic and has more backslash, as this is a RPG it makes perfect sense that they don't use the polemic parts but if they wanted to use them it would still be fiction. This discourse about what people should write doesn't make any sense.
Writters are free to write about what they want and if they are breaking any law then the law will punish them, following what you say a lot of books would not exist. Books can have different audiences, themes, purposes, they don't need to be politically correct or push some virtues or social interests that make you happy, they are written by people who are complex human beings who think different, are under different laws, etc.  I also don't care about your labels, the author of that section of the vampire RPG could be a better human being than you and me...in any case what is important is the quality and if you like his work.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 24, 2018)

TheCosmicKid said:


> People frequently forget that _their waiter_ is human. Dehumanization is jaw-droppingly easy.
> 
> 
> What should we do with the fact that Hitler loved dogs? Suppress it? Are you and I worse off because we know it? Would we be better anti-Nazis if we didn't?
> ...




I would hope that you don’t think that no “villains” of the real world were/are apathetic to the notion of being good or bad, hero or villain. Plenty are motivated by power, petty revenge, or just simple greed. Whether Hitler specifically was motivated by X or Y or both wasn’t the topic of my comment about motivations. 

I agree with [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] on the idea that folks dehumanize servers wih any regularity.


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## doctorbadwolf (Nov 24, 2018)

dco said:


> You were talking in general but it doesn't change anything
> I understand that writting about something happening now is more problematic and has more backslash, as this is a RPG it makes perfect sense that they don't use the polemic parts but if they wanted to use them it would still be fiction. This discourse about what people should write doesn't make any sense.
> Writters are free to write about what they want and if they are breaking any law then the law will punish them, following what you say a lot of books would not exist. Books can have different audiences, themes, purposes, they don't need to be politically correct or push some virtues or social interests that make you happy, they are written by people who are complex human beings who think different, are under different laws, etc.  I also don't care about your labels, the author of that section of the vampire RPG could be a better human being than you and me...in any case what is important is the quality and if you like his work.




Ethics and morality are always more important than quality of writing. 

No one is calling for writing being illegal, so maybe stop with that particular strawman. 

You didn’t answer the question of whether you think that it is good to trivialize real world atrocities.


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## Shasarak (Nov 24, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> I agree with Maxperson on the idea that folks dehumanize servers wih any regularity.




This reminds me of AJ Jacobs TED talk on thanking all the people responsible for his morning coffee.


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## Thomas Kalbfus (Nov 25, 2018)

This thread is nothing but "political flypaper". it doesn't affect roleplaying games, it is only about politics.


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## Umbran (Nov 25, 2018)

doctorbadwolf said:


> You didn’t answer the question of whether you think that it is good to trivialize real world atrocities.





Thank you.  I think this thread is done.  This is now a *PERSONAL* argument, not actually about the topic, but about trying to score points against other speakers to discredit them, rather than to discuss the logic of positions.  This isn't helpful.  

Thread closed.


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