Vampire the Masquerade 20th Edition version

[ruemere]

nWoD is leagues better then oWoD.

nWoD is leagues worse than oWoD. I win because mine is divine and exclusive right to produce generalizations.

Say, know what I really don't miss from oVampire? The absolutely inane amount of racism that was almost hilarious, but dropped just sort of it and just wallowed in "really, really uncomfortable."

Sorry, you've lost me. Bad stereotypes aside, the game protagonists are badevil bloodsucker types, and it's really difficult to say that any race was vilified or discriminated.

You're supposed to play evil, dead thing with murderous urges and unholy appetite. You're also in a company of a most conservative and authoritarian bunch of elders, who, because of their age are hundreds of years behind you in terms of acknowledgement of basic human rights.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Sorry, you've lost me. Bad stereotypes aside, the game protagonists are badevil bloodsucker types, and it's really difficult to say that any race was vilified or discriminated.

You're supposed to play evil, dead thing with murderous urges and unholy appetite. You're also in a company of a most conservative and authoritarian bunch of elders, who, because of their age are hundreds of years behind you in terms of acknowledgement of basic human rights.

Regards,
Ruemere

Yeah, nothing racist about Yellow People literally having their own special segregated hells and their own segregated vampires and the mind boggling amount of Orientalism with "No Asian people are different see."

Nothing racist about the Giovanni being typecast as a bunch of Italian mafioso goons who all sleep within their own family because, you know, those Italians!

In fact it was downright cool to be Arabic, you got a different set of magic powers in each line just because your heritage was from the Middle East!

Don't forget the Ravnos! All Ravnos are at least partially gypsy, and as we all know, gypsies are criminals and also the devil: Pick a crime, you have to roll to resist every time you don't commit that crime when you could! Also, they don't have permanent havens and squat where they like, pissing off the government just like real gypsies! Oh, and don't forget to lie to everyone and break promises left and right. That's pretty key.

Note how I haven't even touched oWoD: Gypsies.

What, stereotypes? They're not racist at all!*

*YES THEY ARE.

oWoD was horrifyingly racist.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

For what it's worth...

Ruemere didn't say it wasn't racist.

But everything, in every book, was "perspective oriented". And that perspective, in general, was "European vampires born and embraced in the mid to late middle ages".

The Ravnos were all Gypsies because the Elders hated Gypsies, and Ravnos, so they might as well hate 'em both together. The Giovanni are all stereotypically "italian", because that's what these centuries-old creatures viewed them as. The Assamites are religious wackjobs because, well, the Crusades, and such.

Or, phrasing it another way - when there were approachable (or player) Giovanni in my own chronicles, they weren't guilty of the crimes the bloodline was accused of. Neither were all the Ravnos in my games gypsies and criminals. And I felt like I was hewing pretty close to the interpretations from the books. Everyone thought (everyone being, 'the Elders') they were, which is why they're said to.

I actually always thought, and played it as, Vampire being "Racial Bias: The RPG" (in part). One of the unspoken advantages Neonates had over the elders was "breaking the rules" and actually <talking> to these despised "others".

...for what it's worth.

Edit: Oops. Assamites, in my game, were in fact religious nutjobs (being a cult, and such). But they weren't presented as an interpretation of Islam; they were presented as, you know, nutjobs. Although, I was in (didn't run) an Assamite game one time, and they were presented there with appropriate religious sensitivity. But I betcha the guys we assassinated didn't think so.

Edit2: Also oops, adding "s around "stereotypically italian". I guess what I'm trying to say is, "Yes, the books contain horribly racist elements; I agree with that; but much like, say, Clint Eastwood's character in Grand Torino, it allows the reader / watcher / player(s) to experience that vicariously, and to grow past it - and see that it's wrong, and why.

 

[Umbran]

oWoD was horrifyingly racist.

I don't deny that oWoD used a lot of negative stereotypes.

But "racism" is typically more than just depicting different races as different - it is extending that to say one race is better than another. You aren't a racist if you hate everyone, so to speak.

I didn't play a whole lot of Vampire, but I don't remember that aspect of it. I recall them painting everyone as being fairly morally reprehensible (they're all bloodsucking monsters unless/until they reach Golconda). They just show their flaws in different ways. But again, I barely scratched the surface of the system, so maybe I missed it.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

For what it's worth...

Ruemere didn't say it wasn't racist.

But everything, in every book, was "perspective oriented". And that perspective, in general, was "European vampires born and embraced in the mid to late middle ages".

The Ravnos were all Gypsies because the Elders hated Gypsies, and Ravnos, so they might as well hate 'em both together. The Giovanni are all stereotypically "italian", because that's what these centuries-old creatures viewed them as. The Assamites are religious wackjobs because, well, the Crusades, and such.

Or, phrasing it another way - when there were approachable (or player) Giovanni in my own chronicles, they weren't guilty of the crimes the bloodline was accused of. Neither were all the Ravnos in my games gypsies and criminals. And I felt like I was hewing pretty close to the interpretations from the books. Everyone thought (everyone being, 'the Elders') they were, which is why they're said to.

I actually always thought, and played it as, Vampire being "Racial Bias: The RPG" (in part). One of the unspoken advantages Neonates had over the elders was "breaking the rules" and actually <talking> to these despised "others".

...for what it's worth.

Edit: Oops. Assamites, in my game, were in fact religious nutjobs (being a cult, and such). But they weren't presented as an interpretation of Islam; they were presented as, you know, nutjobs. Although, I was in (didn't run) an Assamite game one time, and they were presented there with appropriate religious sensitivity. But I betcha the guys we assassinated didn't think so.

Edit2: Also oops, adding "s around "stereotypically italian". I guess what I'm trying to say is, "Yes, the books contain horribly racist elements; I agree with that; but much like, say, Clint Eastwood's character in Grand Torino, it allows the reader / watcher / player(s) to experience that vicariously, and to grow past it - and see that it's wrong, and why.

That still doesn't excuse the fact that they use the "this book is written in first person by a douchebag character so we can be as racist, sexist, and all-around offensive as we want because it's not us saying it, it's the character!" in pretty much every oWoD book and forget that they're doing it and drop into third person on and off which makes it a whole different nightmare to read.

You can't play apologist for every other book for oWoD that came out that pulled the same thing. If you really think that there needs to be an instance of "we hate everyone that isn't us or white males" on every page then you need some help in not being terrible. And White Wolf did think just that.

Of course, that just covers the racism in Vampire. It's not even touching the absolutely horrifying Orientalism.

Mod Note: Folks, please avoid arguments of the form, "if you don't agree with some specific statement of mine, you are broken". That is addressing the person, not the logic of the position. Don't make these things personal. Thanks. ~Umbran

 

[Kaiyanwang]

I don't deny that oWoD used a lot of negative stereotypes.

But "racism" is typically more than just depicting different races as different - it is extending that to say one race is better than another. You aren't a racist if you hate everyone, so to speak.

I didn't play a whole lot of Vampire, but I don't remember that aspect of it. I recall them painting everyone as being fairly morally reprehensible (they're all bloodsucking monsters unless/until they reach Golconda). They just show their flaws in different ways. But again, I barely scratched the surface of the system, so maybe I missed it.

This is my experience too (I have to admit, surface scratching included - I played mostly other games, so..).

 

[ThatGuyThere]

You can't play apologist for every other book for oWoD that came out that pulled the same thing. If you really think that there needs to be an instance of "we hate everyone that isn't us or white males" on every page then you need some help in not being terrible. And White Wolf did think just that.

The tone of this paragraph has put me off having this conversation.

Once I realized that the books were always, at all times (even, often, while giving rules information), in-character, my personal perspective on the game changed.

I am sorry that a ten years out of print game system upsets you so much, and will work to avoid discussing it with you in the future.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I really want a Mage book like this.

I'm hoping that they'll do one of each. That probably won't happen unless the vampire one sells really well.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Well all of this opposed to a game that assumes the default game is you and your friends invading the home of other intelligent creatures with different noses, skin color, ear shape, religion, and moral outlook; killing them, their women, and children; taking their life savings; and then going and spending it on ale and wenches, shiny new equipment, training, and donations to a local church.

Now what kind of game would have you do that?

Or as a friend of mine said in all seriousness, "It's not racist if the targets are orcs." (BTW he also called Council of Wyrms horribly racist because the baddies were human)

 

[pawsplay]

Sorry, you've lost me. Bad stereotypes aside, the game protagonists are badevil bloodsucker types, and it's really difficult to say that any race was vilified or discriminated.

Maybe it's acceptable to you that the black gangsta template in Brujah just says, "M- F-" in his tag quote rather than something more pertinent to the vampire condition. Or that White Wolf published two different sets of books in order to characterize Gypsies, in two different ways, as criminals who harbor creatures of supernatural evil. Or the fact that Giovanni characters quickly descended into Mafia stereotypes, even though the Mafia is Sicilian and the Giovanni are Venetian (which would make them more likely involved in the Camorra). How about Far East vampires appearing only in Asia and in Asian-American communities?

Considering that gangsterism is still a rampant probably in American youth, especially black youths, and that 1 in 4 young black men will be jailed at some point...
That the Romani were killed by the thousands under the Nazis and continue to face cultural oppression and ethnic cleansing to this day, and that "Gypsies" are still widely considered to be criminals by many Hungarians and Czechs, despite having similar crime rates to the rest of the population...
That Italians still struggle with the imagery surrounding their immigration during an unfriendly time to a country who did not open its institutions to them the way it did many other Europeans...
That some Japanese-Americans citizens still remember their illegal imprisonment simply for being of Japanese descent, and that jackasses on the Internet still complain about "Asians talking on their phones in the library" and Asian families helping their children with chores in college....

yeah, I think White Wolf could have been a little more sensitive.