I've never played a tabletop rpg before, but from what I understand, they are usually just a setting and a set of game rules designed to basically be a playground for the players. Removing a faction from the game because the ole "we don't want to normalize fascism" thing seems...weird? Sometimes people like to play the bad guys. It's a thing. Does the maker of this game have a history of SJW antics?
To be fair in a universe set in space with nearly unlimited energy anarchy could be a viable force running around freeing slave or starting slave rings.
It'd basically be like not allowing people to play stormtroopers in an RPG or video game because they're evil despite one being the 2nd main hero in the 7th episode.
"Both Rob (the other creator) and myself put a lot of our own personal politics into the game and wanted to create a world that was both grim (to drive dramatic elements) but also hopeful in what new technologies may mean for challenging oppressive power structures and as avenues for liberation and expression."
"As I said not exactly. I don't believe that men, as a group, have valid rights claims."
Brian Cross Posthuman Studios
And this too:
The New Laboratory of Dreams: Roleplaying Games as Resistance
Women's Studies Quarterly
December 2012
Authors: Katherine Cross
In brief, it is a theoretical argument that roleplaying games-- as highly malleable, interactive media-- are fertile sites of political imagination. I perform an exegetical analysis of Eclipse Phase to illustrate the potential of truly politically sophisticated games and suggest that they can help to shift peoples' consciousness in less prejudiced directions, as well as engineer empathy for others.
That's probably my favourite, because of how obvious it is that it's about co-opting a hobby in order to establish a political platform for the purpose of cultural warfare; "truly politically sophisticated games and suggest that they can help to shift peoples' consciousness in less prejudiced directions, as well as engineer empathy for others."
It doesn't help that the political sophistication of Eclipse Phase - or rather, the complete lack thereof - is the weakest point of the setting, because it tries so hard yet fails so much at establishing the politics as credible; it simply comes across as coarse, trite, and strawman-y. The anarchists and mutualists are basically utopian, whereas the evil republican lobbyists fascists are not only conservative, but reactionary to the point of active regression yet still presented as a credible threat because of their privileged position and - of course - religions fanatics of the catholic variety; a theme that only applies to them, and no-one else.
The only mention of for example Islam that I can even think of is from a sample character who has "Humanity has toppled under its own hubris. Now you and your Islamic family work to re-establish justice, wisdom, and honesty the only place you can: the deserts of Mars." as part of his description.
"Katherine Cross is a pizza loving feminist sociologist, trans Latina, and amateur slug herder, working on her PhD at the CUNY Graduate Centre. When she's not studying or gaming she can be found at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. Her blog can be found at quinnae.com and her writing has also appeared in Women's Studies Quarterly, Bitch Magazine, Questioning Transphobia, and Kotaku."
And that's just some stuff that I've seen come up in the last couple of days and quickly listed. I've known the issues with Posthuman Studios for a while, since I first came into contact with Eclipse Phase, but this isn't stuff I've saved myself.
They also ban basically all criticism on their boards, and ban people if it gets out that they don't conform to the developer's politics, even if said users aren't actively politicking. This doesn't just include hardline "fascists" (which they themselves clearly cannot define, going by the way "fascist" is used for certain factions in the book, such as the Jovian Republic, which is somehow fascist, yet still have a limited demoracy รก la Starship Troopers, and elected parliament/senate, but where lobbyism is a huge problem) but also mere mentions of MRA:s, such as here:
And they regularly harp on things being "toxic" and "privilieged", and if you let on that you're not a feminist, well, expect to get banned for that alone, regardless of your reasons for not self-identifying as a feminist.
And judging by the fearful disclaimers, they can't even deliver that as a joke without ruining it. If it ever had any potential to actually be funny, they actively ruin the delivery because they're so incredibly worried that things could be taken the wrong way. Who the fuck reveals the April's Fool's as part of the April's Fool's in itself, and adds a constipated "Fuck you!" on the end, regardless of who it is aimed against?
So yeah, "a history of SJW antics" is underselling it.
It's too bad, too, because the game itself actually had potential (which they're shitting all over in in 2nd Edition, but still). If you can disregard some of the more awful writing and stick to a more reasonable "headcanon", it's actually pretty great.
Also, fun fact: Over 40% of WWII Strategy Game Hearts of Iron IV players play as Germany as their main country, with the rest of 60% divided over the wide range of everyone else.
Yeah because playing HoI as anyone other than the Germans or Americans blows. UK is completely unplayable unless you go slow as shit. I guess the other fun faction to play (I've been told) is as Hungary
Multi-player is a whole bother beast. Not sure about local, I did online with friends through steam or through public lobbies.
Public lobbies are a crapshoot they take ages and you need to find an organized group that has tough rules and hosts to keep things rolling. My favorite game was with 36 people. That game south America made their own alliance. Took about 8 hours split across 2 games.
Playing it with a steam friend is easiest then there is less chance of people lagging out and loosing sync. Also you can always repost from a save game.
Holy shit I can't imagine playing a public lobby. I have a bunch of irl friends that would be interested in playing a "situational" Risk in the evenings so I would be all for buying this. Thanks for your anecdotes; makes me more leaning towards buying it
Oh, man, you haven't played online? It's pretty slow, and it supports slightly different playstyles, since you cannot pause/increase/decrease speed as freely (because it quickly becomes frustrating for all involved, since you'll all have different ideas of when it's a good time to pause).
But it's extremely fun, especially when you have set sessions running a few hours, like setting aside ~4 hours or an entire night once a week or something, slowly going forward. Personally I greatly prefer it when it's just 2-3 friends allying, but I know people that have run big-ass games that end up with quite odd alliances (and betrayals!).
If by "local" you're thinking Hot-Seat, that's not possible as far as I know, but if you're thinking over LAN, that's possible, as is online, as far as I remember. I'm not 100% sure how it works in the latest HoI.
I'm not sure I agree. I've had tons of fun in HoI playing most major factions, and most people I know have too - but a lot of them favour Germany for various reasons, not because playing as anything else blows.
One of my most fun games was playing as Spain and joining the Axis instead of chickening out, going full-on fascist instead of turning reactionary. I became instrumental in shutting down the Mediterranean, controlling North Africa, and presenting a threatening (albeit largely passive) southern front towards France (until they too joined the Axis).
Oh, man, the beatdown SpikedYum gives in the relevant thread is fucking insane. I always wonder just deep into the rabbit hole people (in this case Posthuman Studios) have to be to employ strong enough mental gymnastics to shrug stuff like that off.
So it turns out I actually know one of the guys who made this game... in fact I had him over at my house for board games several years back, and we went out for drinks together a few times after that. I'm disappointed but not surprised. He was always one of those anarchist types who's 40 and still has multicolored hair and dresses like a goth. Super nice guy, he just had no idea how to fit into normal society, which makes his perception of anarchy as this great ideal unsurprising.
Eh, I don't think anyone anywhere has a responsibility to portray fascists/Nazis/eugenicists as more than one-dimensional characters. The ideologies are self-evidently wrong and deserve only mockery, scorn, and violence.
How funny. Currently playing this and my character was randomly rolled as an Ultimate at the end after the Fall of Earth. I never got the impression they were pseudo-facists though? Like, where is the creator getting this?
Also, if you can have bigoted flats who hate anyone who's had implants and genetherapy, it's only fair to have the opposites who want every tech available to mod themselves. This seems like a dumb move in a game where you can literally be a swarm of bug robots or an ascended space whale.
Lifepath I believe. It worked out pretty well for a randomiser. My first random one however, got stuck as a basic bitch Siri-like infomorph with no money and no morph.
43 comments
n/a SnapshillBot 2017-05-17
You're not shit next to me. My genes are just light years superior to yours and I don't even need to look at you.
Snapshots:
I am a bot. (Info / Contact)
n/a Lepicklez 2017-05-17
the bot is sentient
n/a 80BAIT08 2017-05-17
As far as virtue signalling goes, that is pretty far up the stupid list.
n/a Basically_Trash 2017-05-17
I've never played a tabletop rpg before, but from what I understand, they are usually just a setting and a set of game rules designed to basically be a playground for the players. Removing a faction from the game because the ole "we don't want to normalize fascism" thing seems...weird? Sometimes people like to play the bad guys. It's a thing. Does the maker of this game have a history of SJW antics?
n/a Lepicklez 2017-05-17
They have a history of making anarchy the good faction, which is questionable at best.
n/a telandrias 2017-05-17
To be fair in a universe set in space with nearly unlimited energy anarchy could be a viable force running around freeing slave or starting slave rings.
n/a wwyzzerdd 2017-05-17
If you have unlimited energy why do you need slaves?
I could see maybe arguing for their holes but one would think the technology that beget free energy would beget realistic synthetic bussy.
n/a Nomadlads 2017-05-17
If I had unlimited energy I'd decrease the universe's entropy.
n/a skivian 2017-05-17
They'll never get the screaming and the crying right though.
n/a telandrias 2017-05-17
It's anarchy, it's almost always slaves.
n/a Elite_AI 2017-05-17
fuk u
n/a Lepicklez 2017-05-17
no u
n/a Elite_AI 2017-05-17
o no
n/a telandrias 2017-05-17
It'd basically be like not allowing people to play stormtroopers in an RPG or video game because they're evil despite one being the 2nd main hero in the 7th episode.
n/a gilmore606 2017-05-17
the tabletop RPG world has been taken over by SJWs and anyone in that space has to kowtow to them now, it is a sad reality
n/a Vargkungen 2017-05-17
Oh, boy, do they.
There's this:
And this:
And this too:
That's probably my favourite, because of how obvious it is that it's about co-opting a hobby in order to establish a political platform for the purpose of cultural warfare; "truly politically sophisticated games and suggest that they can help to shift peoples' consciousness in less prejudiced directions, as well as engineer empathy for others."
It doesn't help that the political sophistication of Eclipse Phase - or rather, the complete lack thereof - is the weakest point of the setting, because it tries so hard yet fails so much at establishing the politics as credible; it simply comes across as coarse, trite, and strawman-y. The anarchists and mutualists are basically utopian, whereas the evil republican lobbyists fascists are not only conservative, but reactionary to the point of active regression yet still presented as a credible threat because of their privileged position and - of course - religions fanatics of the catholic variety; a theme that only applies to them, and no-one else.
The only mention of for example Islam that I can even think of is from a sample character who has "Humanity has toppled under its own hubris. Now you and your Islamic family work to re-establish justice, wisdom, and honesty the only place you can: the deserts of Mars." as part of his description.
But anyway, more of this:
And that's just some stuff that I've seen come up in the last couple of days and quickly listed. I've known the issues with Posthuman Studios for a while, since I first came into contact with Eclipse Phase, but this isn't stuff I've saved myself.
They also ban basically all criticism on their boards, and ban people if it gets out that they don't conform to the developer's politics, even if said users aren't actively politicking. This doesn't just include hardline "fascists" (which they themselves clearly cannot define, going by the way "fascist" is used for certain factions in the book, such as the Jovian Republic, which is somehow fascist, yet still have a limited demoracy รก la Starship Troopers, and elected parliament/senate, but where lobbyism is a huge problem) but also mere mentions of MRA:s, such as here:
http://eclipsephase.com/regarding-mras
And they regularly harp on things being "toxic" and "privilieged", and if you let on that you're not a feminist, well, expect to get banned for that alone, regardless of your reasons for not self-identifying as a feminist.
This was their idea of an April's Fool's:
http://eclipsephase.com/april-fools-post-posthuman-studios-acquires-license-iron-sky-rpg
And judging by the fearful disclaimers, they can't even deliver that as a joke without ruining it. If it ever had any potential to actually be funny, they actively ruin the delivery because they're so incredibly worried that things could be taken the wrong way. Who the fuck reveals the April's Fool's as part of the April's Fool's in itself, and adds a constipated "Fuck you!" on the end, regardless of who it is aimed against?
So yeah, "a history of SJW antics" is underselling it.
It's too bad, too, because the game itself actually had potential (which they're shitting all over in in 2nd Edition, but still). If you can disregard some of the more awful writing and stick to a more reasonable "headcanon", it's actually pretty great.
n/a SperglockHolmes 2017-05-17
All sure all three of their fans are shocked.
n/a Eternal_Mr_Bones 2017-05-17
I played as Zombies once in some zombie survival game.
Somehow it did not make me want to eat human flesh afterwards.
n/a Clark_Savage_Jr 2017-05-17
...yet. Wait until you die and get back up.
n/a SamWhite 2017-05-17
There's no need to lie to us here.
n/a Tophattingson 2017-05-17
Does that mean any content still remaining in the game should be considered a direct "encouragement" from the authors?
n/a CucksLoveTrump 2017-05-17
Yeah because playing HoI as anyone other than the Germans or Americans blows. UK is completely unplayable unless you go slow as shit. I guess the other fun faction to play (I've been told) is as Hungary
n/a caffienatedjedi 2017-05-17
Next expansion, reform the kingdom of Austria Hungary and make Europe your bitch.
Japan is fun too, though island hopping is a bitch. USSR isn't fun to me. Italy is a pain because German troops are just so much better.
Germany is best faction as all you do is pick fights, US starts too slow.
n/a CucksLoveTrump 2017-05-17
USA is a policy grind early until you "awaken the eagle" or whatever. Germany is fun because the Anschluss can either piss people off or won't
n/a Nomadlads 2017-05-17
Just pay the Jews to bomb Pearl Harbor.
n/a Lumene 2017-05-17
Fascist Canada is a pretty fun romp. I managed to sucker punch the US in 1939 and then conquer all the americas.
n/a Vargkungen 2017-05-17
On a related note, is it possible to enact a second american revolution, turning the US fascist, in the time scope allotted, in HoI4?
n/a zwiebelhans 2017-05-17
Russia can be fun too. So much power to expand. Britain is funner in multi-player when someone else can be your Raj.
n/a CucksLoveTrump 2017-05-17
oh damn I didn't know there was a multiplayer. is it local or can you do it online?
n/a zwiebelhans 2017-05-17
Multi-player is a whole bother beast. Not sure about local, I did online with friends through steam or through public lobbies.
Public lobbies are a crapshoot they take ages and you need to find an organized group that has tough rules and hosts to keep things rolling. My favorite game was with 36 people. That game south America made their own alliance. Took about 8 hours split across 2 games.
Playing it with a steam friend is easiest then there is less chance of people lagging out and loosing sync. Also you can always repost from a save game.
n/a CucksLoveTrump 2017-05-17
Holy shit I can't imagine playing a public lobby. I have a bunch of irl friends that would be interested in playing a "situational" Risk in the evenings so I would be all for buying this. Thanks for your anecdotes; makes me more leaning towards buying it
n/a zwiebelhans 2017-05-17
Since I didn't mention it earlier. Not only can someone take Raj for Britain but you can even have 2 players play the same faction.
n/a Vargkungen 2017-05-17
Oh, man, you haven't played online? It's pretty slow, and it supports slightly different playstyles, since you cannot pause/increase/decrease speed as freely (because it quickly becomes frustrating for all involved, since you'll all have different ideas of when it's a good time to pause).
But it's extremely fun, especially when you have set sessions running a few hours, like setting aside ~4 hours or an entire night once a week or something, slowly going forward. Personally I greatly prefer it when it's just 2-3 friends allying, but I know people that have run big-ass games that end up with quite odd alliances (and betrayals!).
If by "local" you're thinking Hot-Seat, that's not possible as far as I know, but if you're thinking over LAN, that's possible, as is online, as far as I remember. I'm not 100% sure how it works in the latest HoI.
n/a Vargkungen 2017-05-17
I'm not sure I agree. I've had tons of fun in HoI playing most major factions, and most people I know have too - but a lot of them favour Germany for various reasons, not because playing as anything else blows.
One of my most fun games was playing as Spain and joining the Axis instead of chickening out, going full-on fascist instead of turning reactionary. I became instrumental in shutting down the Mediterranean, controlling North Africa, and presenting a threatening (albeit largely passive) southern front towards France (until they too joined the Axis).
n/a Senator_Chickpea 2017-05-17
"Ave! True to Caesar!"
n/a ironicshitpostr 2017-05-17
Almost as good as when they told all their MRA fans to fuck off and die, and they REEEEEEEEEEEd
n/a Vargkungen 2017-05-17
Oh, man, the beatdown SpikedYum gives in the relevant thread is fucking insane. I always wonder just deep into the rabbit hole people (in this case Posthuman Studios) have to be to employ strong enough mental gymnastics to shrug stuff like that off.
n/a wolfdreams01 2017-05-17
So it turns out I actually know one of the guys who made this game... in fact I had him over at my house for board games several years back, and we went out for drinks together a few times after that. I'm disappointed but not surprised. He was always one of those anarchist types who's 40 and still has multicolored hair and dresses like a goth. Super nice guy, he just had no idea how to fit into normal society, which makes his perception of anarchy as this great ideal unsurprising.
n/a Mexagon 2017-05-17
Guess we can ban all the tropico games too. I mean who'd ever want to play as a Cuban dictator?
n/a zahlman 2017-05-17
If it were actually "self-evidently wrong", it would never have caught on anywhere.
n/a jPaolo 2017-05-17
Whe, call me when it's about Paradox' game
n/a Browncoat_Loyalist 2017-05-17
Next someone is going to insist on taking the Nazis out of Fortune and Glory. :(
n/a CaliggyJack 2017-05-17
/u/RightSaidKevin Found the Nazi.
n/a Vargkungen 2017-05-17
The funny thing is that I've never really heard actual national socialists say stuff like this.
n/a krautkid 2017-05-17
How funny. Currently playing this and my character was randomly rolled as an Ultimate at the end after the Fall of Earth. I never got the impression they were pseudo-facists though? Like, where is the creator getting this?
Also, if you can have bigoted flats who hate anyone who's had implants and genetherapy, it's only fair to have the opposites who want every tech available to mod themselves. This seems like a dumb move in a game where you can literally be a swarm of bug robots or an ascended space whale.
n/a Vargkungen 2017-05-17
Life path character creation? Or did you just randomly roll on tables?
n/a krautkid 2017-05-17
Lifepath I believe. It worked out pretty well for a randomiser. My first random one however, got stuck as a basic bitch Siri-like infomorph with no money and no morph.