Big Changes At White Wolf Following Controversy

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as well as the problem in Chechnya itself which may well fade away now from consciousness now that the book has been rescinded.

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as well as the problem in Chechnya itself which may well fade away now from consciousness now that the book has been rescinded.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.

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?

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.

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.

Morrus · Nov 18, 2018

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

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.

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?

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Big Changes At White Wolf Following Controversy

TrippyHippy

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Panda-s1

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TheIdeaOfGood

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Morrus

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Jester David

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LuisCarlos17f

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TrippyHippy

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BMaC

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Rygar

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