Vampire the Masquerade 20th Edition version

[pawsplay]

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)

You know, I'm fine with playing murderous racists. I'm less fine with reading books that were obviously written by people unconscious of, or worse un-embarrassed by, their own racism.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

Maybe it's acceptable to you ...

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

White Wolf's games cast the player in the part of the villain, or at best anti-hero. (...but probably villain.)

Speaking only for myself, I never got the feeling that the game agreed with the perspective it presented. (Beyond a certain amount of, "how cool would THAT be!" when presenting powerz.)

I <did> get the feeling that they were attempting to portray, and allow the players of the game to portray, flawed and tragic beings.

I am comfortable with depictions of certain - intensely unpleasant - actions or characterizations in works of fiction - To Kill a Mockingbird, Mississippi Burning, In The Heat of the Night. Depictions of morally flawed individuals as sympathetic, or comprehensible, are challenging, because they make us be specific about what we don't like; they challenge us to find the portion of those we disagree with - even those we might hate - that is human.

Unless, of course, those accusing White Wolf of being racist are speaking of the writers of the book, rather than the content, and thereby suggesting that, in order to depict racism, one must, be racist. I'd have much different objections to that argument.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

You know, I'm fine with playing murderous racists. I'm less fine with reading books that were obviously written by people unconscious of, or worse un-embarrassed by, their own racism.

Uh, what line of reasoning has lead to this conclusion? Because they depicted un-apologetic racists?

I have depicted great wyrm red dragons. Sadly, I cannot yet breathe fire.

 

[ruemere]

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.

To quote myself: "Bad stereotypes aside..."

This is just a bad stereotype. Idiotic even. However lame it is, it is not an attempt to produce a portrayal of reality, just like terrible MTV clips with guys and gals of various ethnicities are not racist.

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.

Bad stereotype. Uncomfortably bad.

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).

Bad stereotype. The Giovanni had hundreds of years to learn and reform, remaining something of a family business.
Giovanni were necromancers, and they simply found it convenient to merge with existing crime organizations of all kinds. The Mafia stereotype was just a stereotype, as Giovanni had an organization of their own.

How about Far East vampires appearing only in Asia and in Asian-American communities?

Bad stereotype. Oh, and famous heavyhandedness of WWGS. Bad design, too - they tried to use concept of oriental superhantual ghettos as a vehicle to explain sudden appearance of Kuei-Jin at very late stage of development of the setting.

[...]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...

Full stop. You're making serious accusations here. I am not going to directly comment though - this is not a place to discuss stuff happening so close to my home (in a manner of sense).
On this particular subject and from my own personal experience, I can say that I am very uncomfortable with people who put their children on streets to beg (a seasonal calamity befalling my home city) no matter what culture, country or background they hail from.

Back to the game in question: World of Darkness is full of dark themes. WWGS made sure that every book of theirs had a disclaimer informing reader that their books are not meant to be accurate portrayal of real world. Their bad stereotypes, bad design and bad research aside, they told you up front that they meant to produce World of Darkness products.
And so, being unable to separate, admittedly poor and juvenile, and tasteless, fiction from real life views should be considered to be fault of a reader.

Also, I think I'd better not ask about your opinion on Black Dog imprint books. Some of these, including Human Occupied Landfill, were dark in more mature way, and as such, were quite disturbing.

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....

There is a lot of anger here. Again, I'll refrain from commenting directly.
I'll just say that in real life I try to get over my personal prejudices.

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

Should they be, really? It's easy to discriminate against whole range of products using a few bad apples as examples, but it's neither scientific nor logical.
You're also using your bias to produce statements which mirror bad stereotypes you base your bias upon.

I am not trying to defend WWGS as a whole. My initial post was rather bitter because I still feel resentment over my favorite game being stripped of fun stuff. However, I would like people not to bring too much of real life into work of fiction.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Er, seriously? WoD: Gypsy? The depictions of any Muslim?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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

Yeah, I'd be all over a Mage one.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am not trying to defend WWGS as a whole.

Are you sure? Your post just excused them of specific examples of racism five times. Would six times in one post be defending them as a whole? Seven times? At some point, the examples are too numerous to be outliers.

While WWGS of 2011 isn't the WWGS of 1991, that doesn't mean that there weren't some truly appalling things they put in those previous books and it seems odd to insist that "no, all that racism is in there because you're playing bad guys, so naturally, you have to be a racist, too."

 

[ThatGuyThere]

...and it seems odd to insist that "no, all that racism is in there because you're playing bad guys, so naturally, you have to be a racist, too."

It likewise seems odd to suggest that centuries-old vampires should have purged themselves of their very-not-PC centuries-old prejudices.

Or that, as bad guys, they shouldn't be racist.

Most games deal with racism and racist characterizations by ignoring them. And that's perfectly fine in most settings and genres. But would have been very out of place in a "realistic" game set in a combination of the 1990s, and 1490s.

Edit - I'm also not saying it's not racist, or that the books contain no racist characterizations. I think that's a ... misplaced argument. It's pretty clearly racist, I'll grant that. But I'm saying that, in my opinion and from my observations, the racism appears to be in-character, in-universe, and I'm arguing against what I perceive as the suggestion that presenting such a universe, or character, is wrong.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Edit - I'm also not saying it's not racist, or that the books contain no racist characterizations. I think that's a ... misplaced argument. It's pretty clearly racist, I'll grant that. But I'm saying that, in my opinion and from my observations, the racism appears to be in-character, in-universe, and I'm arguing against what I perceive as the suggestion that presenting such a universe, or character, is wrong.

No oWoD character said "let's create a guidebook about a real life ethnic group who will all be magical criminals in game, and a separate group and other sourcebooks about the same ethnic group as immortal magical criminals." Actual real people came up with the idea, approved it and published it.

WoD: Gypsy and the Ravnos stuff is no more acceptable than WoD: Jews would be.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

Again, my suggestion, and long-held perspective, is - all material(s) presented in the game - including, in at least some cases, game mechanics, and entire books - are presented in-character, and from an unreliable narrator.

Given the choice of narrator(s), the material presented is (often) offensive. You don't have to convince me it's offensive. I've already agreed with that.

What I am not convinced of, that appears to be being argued, it that the artists (game designers) must agree with the perspectives of the artwork they produce. In fact, I'm quite convinced of the opposite - that an artist can present an artwork depicting offensive material(s) without agreeing with that material.

As an aside, whenever I ran oWoD material (vampire in particular), I rewrote section(s) of the rules, appropriate to the type of game I was running, so that the rules were stated in a "setting-neutral" source (for instance, on a shared website). Often, I included, specifically, a mention that I was aware of the racism included in the source material - and that I considered addressing such "mature" material part of the game.

The characters - villains, and protagonists - are loathesome creatures. That doesn't mean you have to be similarly loathesome to be to enjoy the material, to portray one of them - or to produce the sourcebooks.