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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shannona" data-source="post: 8581410" data-attributes="member: 42455">Obviously, I disagree. A few reasons:First, indoctrination can be subtle. It can be about suggesting a pattern of history: that it be about the actions of great men, that it depend on conflict. It can be about suggesting a norm for geopolitical states: that different races keep to themselves, that cruelty and extremism are required to maintain order. By suggesting these patterns and these norms, we move the Overton Window. Suddenly fascism or torture or ethnostates become ideas that are acceptable for discussion in the political sphere, worthwhile alternatives instead of abhorrent philosophies. Second, you can't separate the art from the artist, as I think you want to. Any art is of a piece with the artist's character: his interests, his likes, his dislikes, his passions, his hates, it's all going to be in there. It's what makes art art. I mean, I primarily write nonfiction, but I know my character is in there. Even if I successfully expunge it from my recitation of events, it's still in there in the way I recite. Barker's character is in Tékumel, and I think the only notable question is whether his character when he created Tékumel (in the 50s) or when he developed it into an RPG (in the 70s) was any different from his character when he wrote a neo-Nazi novel (in the 90s).You put that together, and in my opinion that makes the actions of the Tékumel Foundation both inexcusable and deeply stupid. Oh, I understand they were in a horrific position. But they stole the choice from people who don't feel, like you, that art and artist can be separated. I've seen multiple people very suddenly ending long-running Tékumel games and I know that Jeff Dee is conflicted now by his authorship of Béthorm. That's real damage that they've done to real people and it's just the smallest reflection of the anxiety and discontent churning through a lot of peoples' souls right now. In denying people that choice, the choice as to whether they want to play a neo-nazi authored game, I think they also condemned the world they were supposed to guardian to the abyss.And I say that all because personally I think Tékumel was redeemable. I've seen no evidence (yet) that there's anything in it that would be more appealing to neo-Nazis than some of the conservative tropes scattered across our FRPGs. But, I think the artist heavily influences the art and I think Tékumel is thus going to be heavily influenced by some version of M.A.R. Barker and I think there needs to be some real critical analysis of what that means. And I think that if the Tékumel Foundation had done that beforehand, and they hadn't left many playing a neo-Nazi's game for a decade, they might have saved the world.</blockquote>

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