[OT] Good taste, bad taste? Take a look at this promotional campaign...

[Psion]

It is just a reminder why I have never been interested in purchasing any of their products.

Does that include stuff like Scarred Lands, Ravenloft, Necromancer Games adventures, and the print versions of Malhavoc stuff?

(FWIW, I recognize the artist who did the tract from some SL stuff, and he has always been my least favorite S&SS artist.)

 

[herald]

Well it is obvious to any one who has read the Jack Chick track that thsi is a satire. But given that Jack Chick tracks arn't exactly main stream, I could see why people would get worked up about it.

Almost page for page, the comic copies his work. The only differance is that Jack din't make the pastor look so dark and evil when he begins his diatribe aganst Homosexuals.

This promo is very much like the Hunter game promo thay came up with a while back, so I doubt that very many of the long time White Wolf players will be thrown by this.


White Wolf has had a long history of using real world concepts and twisting them into thier "goth-punk" concept. For a game aid, I think that the web-site works very well.

If you really want to read to deeply into the concept, maybe they want some of the religious right to find the site and start co-opting it as an ally against RPGs, just so they can turn around and expose the whole thing a a sham. (Why, I can almost hear them drumming thier fingers together, and quietly murmering "Excelent!" in a Mr. Burns like fashion.)

Mostly what I read into it is; much ado about nothing.

Hasn't Steve Jackson already covered this issue before?

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Does that include stuff like Scarred Lands, Ravenloft, Necromancer Games adventures, and the print versions of Malhavoc stuff?

I consider those companies as attached, but seperate entities. The same way I consider WOTC under Hasbro, but I won't hold any grudges against WOTC for any Hasbro stupidity.

I like or dislike those other entities for entirely different reasons then I dislike WW.

FD

 

[Bagpuss]

Will the game deliever on its promise of free drugs and sex? If not I'll be demanding my money back.

 

[Heap Thaumaturgist]

Well, in my above post I had just spent 4 hours lovingly stripping down a brand new case and putting together my new computer to find the HD just ... doesn't want to work. So I doubt anything would have amused me.

I really don't care much about Jack Chick. I live in the deep south, in a small town. There are religious people who stand outside of the local theater every night with pamphlets crying out loudly that cinema will lead us all to hell and movies are obviously the devil's work. I kid you not. They just get to stand out there on the corner and bellow away. I find no reason to be rude to them, but I find no reason to listen to them, either. When they offer their literature, I just smile and say: "No thanks."

I don't find this little ad campaign insulting, evil, problematic, funny, sinful or anything else, really. I'm usually chock full to the brim with dark humor. It's really just "A point for them" ... they're stirring up everybody on the board (obviously) and the christians and morally righteous are saying: "OH MY! They shouldn't have!" and the people they're pandering to get to say: "Dude, you're such a loser. Demons are sweet. I'm so playing a demon Just To Piss You Off." The ad campaign itself is rather meaningless, I'm just preparing for the general onslaught of black-tshirt wearing teenagers with angstful expressions and bad attitudes. "Man check it OUT, I got a Machiavellian Cacaphony tat in honor of my favorite character, Shadenfreud The Unhallow."

Oi.

--HT

 

[Henry]

As with Furn, I don't consider White Wolf a direct part of S&S studios, any more than I consider WotC a direct arm of Hasbro. Even if you have the same people on some projects, the tone is dramatically different between the two companies.

With regards to the fake tract, I myself find it in very poor taste. While it does not overtly mock Christian tenets, it subtly mocks them, leaving a bad experience with someone who professes Christianity reading this. (I'm not getting into the whole statements on Christian attitudes towards homosexuality, because that's not proper discussion for this board.) I'll just finish my opinion by stating that it is to me in very poor taste, and the game premise does not set well with me, either, so I'll be giving this one a pass.

 

[Henrix]

The real Jack Chick tract was funnier....

 

[Darkness]

If anyone's interested in seeing the debate about this on WW's own forums, go here and, after you logged in (either by registering a user ID or by clicking on Read-Only), go to the "Fiction and Game Reviews" board. There, you will find a thread called "Official Demon Website;" click on it - there are quite a few interesting posts there (surely to be joined by many other posts - some good, some less so - sooner rather than later; debates about Demon always do).

(Note: I'd link to the thread directly but, for some reason, this usually doesn't work on WW's forums - so I give directions instead.)

Here's a good post from there, with which I mostly agree:

Originally posted by EbonDragon on the WW boards:
I disagree that it is tasteless. White Wolf knows that
they will be getting this kind of soon enough; why not
begin it themselves?

Come on, the game is called Demon for Christ sake. How
long do you think it will be before someone else makes
something similar, but without the humor in it?

They aren’t mocking Christians; they are mocking themselves
(OK, maybe they are mocking Jack Click, but they are also
mocking themselves). They are showing is going to go
through some people’s minds when they hear about this
game. They are saying, if D&D is hated sevenfold, then
Demon: The Fallen will be hated seventy and sevenfold.

 

[herald]

Amen Darkness

 

[novyet]

I guess I'm odd then, because I really don't see a problem with it. It's a dark humored parody used for a gimmicky ad campaign, am I missing something?