Chinese Government Burns Cthulhu RPG Print Run

Someone should add this to the Book Burning wiki page.

I am not surprised at all. Worse for them, because when they want to control all, then they put to flight the businessmen. Do you know videogames in China can't show dead corpses? There is a special censure in Warcraft about that. And putting limit of time for videogames.

Here we talk to about RPGs. Sometimes we can talk about History because some games are set in our past, and other times we can talk about modern society because cyberpunk RPGs is a genre what tries to warns us about a dark future if we don't fix our mistakes in the present.

If something we have learnt by the speculative fiction is the difference between a true leader and a toxic boss. Characters from "Game of Thrones" can show some examples of different types of good and bad leaders. The toxic boss or tyrant has got the power, but not true loyalty. The oppressors shouldn't hope best minds sacrifice themself as fresh meat for the cause, and they shouldn't be surprised when they are betrayed in favor of a rival for vengeance for the mistreatment suffered.

* Cyberpunk books warn us about a future where people is poor and oppressed by an oligarchy. This is just happening in Russia and China.

* Capitalism and oligarchy are two different things. The free market is the opposite of the oligopoly. You learn this reading Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek or Ayn Rand, not watching Robocop movies.

Someone didn't bribe the right people.

The uproar is understandable, but aren't we forgetting the most important point here: Cthulhu does not like this.

Li Shenron said:

The uproar is understandable, but aren't we forgetting the most important point here: Cthulhu does not like this.

Click to expand...

How do *you* know? I submit that it didn't *tell* you so, because you are still capable of putting together a cogent sentence, which we wouldn't expect if you'd had direct communication with such an elder being.

Cthulhu is not a god out there looking for human respect and worship, like some puny narcissistic human god looking for validation from mere mortals. Cthulhu sleeps, and then wakes, and uses the planet as a large buffet table. What we do in the meantime is irrelevant.

Anyone remember the US Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games?

http://www.sjgames.com/SS/

I'm confused... I thought censorship of ideas we don't agree with was good on this site ?

Does the Chinese government not have a right to protect its culture and its people from cultural appropriation by bald white men ?

Man, this marxist fairness doctrine is hard on my brain !

The takeaway I'm getting is that they printed something about China that the Chinese found insulting? History is a hell of a thing, and national narratives differ, though the PRC is fairly sensitive about what westerners have to say about them. Most Asians I know have the feeling that they are looked down upon, and they are not wrong a lot of times.

The main difference in this situation I find most odd, is that a US printer would have refused to print this, and not had it destroyed post print run.

And the lesson here is:
If your going to print something concerning China, don't have it printed in China.

Lychee of the Exch. said:

I'm confused... I thought censorship of ideas we don't agree with was good on this site ?

Click to expand...

Your snark is not constructive.

Does the Chinese government not have a right to protect its culture and its people from cultural appropriation by bald white men ?

Man, this marxist fairness doctrine is hard on my brain !

Click to expand...

I think you'll find that typically, folks here don't support government censorship - folks here prefer a *free market* model, where the consumers, rather than the government, communicate to producers what is, and is not acceptable.

And there's not a whole lot "Marxist" about a doctrine of, "Be respectful of people, and don't hurt or be a jerk to them when you don't have to." I don't see how this is a particularly political position.