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I'm amazed at Beast. The writers managed to get so "woke" that they managed to make a perfect mirror of right-wing writings. I don't believe in horseshoe theory anymore, but I have nothing else to describe this with but that.
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Jan 21, 2017 20:50
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SunAndSpring posted:I'm amazed at Beast. The writers managed to get so "woke" that they managed to make a perfect mirror of right-wing writings. I don't believe in horseshoe theory anymore, but I have nothing else to describe this with but that. Oh it's real all right. 
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Jan 21, 2017 21:29
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Ferrinus posted:Oh it's real all right. Nice.
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Jan 21, 2017 21:37
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Honestly, though, even bolstered by the iron science, I find it a little hard to fathom that Onyx Path decided to give us an entire tabletop line about Gamergate.
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Jan 21, 2017 21:42
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Honestly I'm almost expecting McFarland to show up at my door with a camera crew to tell me that this has all been some kind of elaborate prank and give me a copy of Hero: The Journey.
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Jan 21, 2017 21:50
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Tiny Deer posted:I expected the Beast line to keep emphasizing how special and old and important they are, so sadly it's not a shock, but it's still terrible. The best part is that it's not even innately bad if it was just Beasts doing it. Of course the horrific nightmare monsters denigrate the people out to kill them. Why wouldn't they? It's just that the line even mechanically denigrates Heroes so they are all pathetic and toothless. If your antagonists can't antagonize, what is even the point? They make you feel bad by calling you bad words? You eat people's fear! Toughen the hell up. quote:Like the idea that hunters would look at a guy with 'killing monsters REAL good' powers who only wants to kill things that feed directly on human suffering and go 'whoa, we better make sure he isn't mean before we work together' doesn't fit with the Hunter: the Vigil book I read. And yeah, this is probably the most egregious of all the bullshit "Everyone loves us" moments, even over Changeling maybe. One of the default Hunter groups would gently caress, murder, and eat a Beast just because it's a Tuesday. They are not going to care that Heroes are not nice people. They are already ok with the roving groups of ultra-rich spree killers and the ones that say Satan was their daddy, a garden variety sociopath isn't going to phase them. Mummy may have some flaws as a stand alone line, but there's a lot of cool poo poo to steal for other games [Seba can be amusing as heck to spice up the random occultist.]. Geist didn't get a lot to do, but at least it lead to a solid look at the Underworld. Beast, man, I still haven't found something I'd bother to steal from there. There isn't even a good enough look at the Primordial Dream to swipe some of that.
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Jan 21, 2017 21:58
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Not to mention that everything potentially cool about the primordial dream is already in Mage under the astral realms stuff
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Jan 21, 2017 22:20
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The way I see it is: if someone saves me from a burning building, them being a racist doesn't make me less alive. They successfully make most Heroes sound unpleasant and not like people I'd want to spend time around, but they don't explain why that means they are wrong in the specific case of Beasts. Someone can be a racist and still support the equality of the sexes, feminism itself is not tainted by the fact that some feminists are also racist, and Heroes are wrong about most of their worldviews but they are objectively correct that Beasts are a net negative to the world and should be destroyed.
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Jan 21, 2017 22:22
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Tiny Deer posted:The way I see it is: if someone saves me from a burning building, them being a racist doesn't make me less alive. They successfully make most Heroes sound unpleasant and not like people I'd want to spend time around, but they don't explain why that means they are wrong in the specific case of Beasts. At this point Beast sounds like they took a bad guy from Hunter and gave them their own game line. Because it makes them more fun to Hunt? To be fair, when I first heard that they were making Beast I thought cool, Changing Breeds is getting an attempt at a decent second round, but nope. They just gave an antagonist a book without a protagonist.
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Jan 21, 2017 22:26
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I think the way people have received Heroes has very little to do with how Heroes are written and very nearly everything to do with how Beasts are written. People don't like Heroes more than Beasts because Heroes are sympathetic; they like Heroes more than Beasts because Beasts are really just dreadful. People read the book and start to loathe Beasts, and the book clearly thinks Beasts are just spiffy keen, so they arrive at the conclusion the book is a liar and Heroes are probably way nicer than it suggests. Is there a term for "a bunch of people read the same thing and reject it so thoroughly that they all develop the same counter-textual headcanon"?
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Jan 21, 2017 22:27
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Kurieg posted:Honestly I'm almost expecting McFarland to show up at my door with a camera crew to tell me that this has all been some kind of elaborate prank and give me a copy of Hero: The Journey.
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Jan 21, 2017 22:43
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Rand Brittain posted:I think the way people have received Heroes has very little to do with how Heroes are written and very nearly everything to do with how Beasts are written. People don't like Heroes more than Beasts because Heroes are sympathetic; they like Heroes more than Beasts because Beasts are really just dreadful. Protestantism.
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Jan 21, 2017 23:58
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Attorney at Funk posted:Protestantism. holy poo poo
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Jan 22, 2017 00:29
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"What's a mystery play like?" "Well you go through like a dream sequence full of symbolism, but like, in real life, like you're hallucinating." "Do you have an example." "I guess this guy's an Obrimos." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn-6fiVkAcA
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Jan 22, 2017 00:37
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Attorney at Funk posted:Protestantism. 
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Jan 22, 2017 01:02
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Remember how one of the example antagonists in the Beast corebook was a young girl who killed a Beast when it invaded her home and somehow got sent into an astral coma? And because she went around killing Beasts while trying to find her way back into her body this meant she was a terrible person? I mean she HAS to be a terrible person or else she wouldn't be a Hero or whatever, right? And remember how people on RPGnet were combing over every inch of her writeup looking for the heinous stuff that HAD to explain why she was clearly in the wrong instead of any other game's version of a protagonist, eventually settling on "well going off her skills she's a cheerleader, ergo she must have been a huge bitch and deserves to be Beasted"? People didn't spontaneously develop some hallucinatory headcanon, Beast actually does a poo poo-poor job of making Heroes the blatantly unsympathetic scum that it desperately wants them to be, not just because they're being compared to Beasts. I mean, obviously we know what the INTENT is because the author has made it abundantly clear both in the text of the book as well as his interactions with people elsewhere, but intent doesn't equal execution. If Beast was Beasts versus Pentex or something it might be insipid but it might not be repugnant. Also bear in mind that Heroes are entirely a byproduct of Beasts existing which means that even if you take it as a given that Heroes are objectively the worst people in the world since kitten-rapist Mega Hitler, ultimately their existence as Heroes is fundamentally more tragic than Beasts who exist because they're just so incredibly awesome.
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Jan 22, 2017 02:15
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bewilderment posted:"What's a mystery play like?" Thyrsus, you mean.
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Jan 22, 2017 02:22
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Benagain posted:Thyrsus, you mean. I was going to make an argument for Mastigos, given the emphasis on doors and how he's being chased by a demon he ultimately recognizes as himself.
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Jan 22, 2017 02:25
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Also the second Hero in the book is a Hero because the one positive relationship in his life was with an emotionally abusive Beast who couldn't keep his hunger in check. Also he's Gay. Three of the four heroes I've read so far in this book of "horrible people to be conquered" are 100% sympathetic people who were only put on the path that they are now through the actions of a Beast directly making their lives worse and the book still tries to demonize them for having the temerity to be victims.
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Jan 22, 2017 02:33
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Went on RPG.net and looked up some threads on this poo poo. Think I saw one guy calling Beast's terrible nonsense out, the rest are just contorting themselves into being dumb enough to think "gay guy who got out of an abusive relationship with a monster" and "internet sleuth who reveals monsters" are actual horrible monsters deserving of getting eaten by the stupid unlikeable protagonists, and I bet you'd get banned by the dipshit mods there if you were honest about how loving awful this book is because hurting the developer's feelings is never ok.
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Jan 22, 2017 03:52
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SunAndSpring posted:Went on RPG.net and looked up some threads on this poo poo. Think I saw one guy calling Beast's terrible nonsense out, the rest are just contorting themselves into being dumb enough to think "gay guy who got out of an abusive relationship with a monster" and "internet sleuth who reveals monsters" are actual horrible monsters deserving of getting eaten by the stupid unlikeable protagonists, and I bet you'd get banned by the dipshit mods there if you were honest about how loving awful this book is because hurting the developer's feelings is never ok. Do I need to give lessons in how to make criticisms without making personal attacks again? Like, not breaking the rules at RPGnet is very, very easy.
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Jan 22, 2017 03:55
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Rand Brittain posted:Do I need to give lessons in how to make criticisms without making personal attacks again? Like, not breaking the rules at RPGnet is very, very easy. Anyone who worked on this is a sad little person whose mind has been broken by Gamergate and now they believe that making rape monsters into all-popular protagonists and their poor victims into wretched antagonists to be conquered is a good and progressive idea and they should be told that this is terrible and makes them loving idiots in the most unsubtle of terms until they feel bad and redeem themselves via canceling the gameline. SunAndSpring fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jan 22, 2017 |
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Jan 22, 2017 04:02
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SunAndSpring posted:Anyone who worked on this is a sad little person whose mind has been broken by Gamergate and now they believe that making rape monsters into all-popular protagonists and their poor victims into wretched antagonists to be conquered is a good and progressive idea and they should be told so in the most unsubtle of terms until they feel bad and redeem themselves via canceling the gameline. Well, I mean, if you're unwilling to say it without directly insulting the people involved, you won't get to say it on RPGnet, but it's not because the rules are designed to flush out contrary opinions.
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Jan 22, 2017 04:05
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Like, I really really don't want to make personal attacks at McFarland, but this poo poo is really beyond the pale. The coding of Beasts as Rapists has always been there, but having a hero behave and act exactly like a rape survivor while still having the gameline demonize her is frankly disgusting. Even more so when the game simultaneously suggests that you should teach her that
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Jan 22, 2017 04:17
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Mulva posted:The best part is that it's not even innately bad if it was just Beasts doing it. Of course the horrific nightmare monsters denigrate the people out to kill them. Why wouldn't they? It's just that the line even mechanically denigrates Heroes so they are all pathetic and toothless. If your antagonists can't antagonize, what is even the point? They make you feel bad by calling you bad words? You eat people's fear! Toughen the hell up. This also makes it even harder for them to make Heroes unlikable, because making them all weaker than Beasts means they're all underdogs. When they win, they don't win because of their innate monstrous primacy and magickal powers and all their supernatural friends. They win because they try harder and fight better and more cleverly. That's like, screenwriting 101 for making a sympathetic protagonist.
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Jan 22, 2017 04:19
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Rand Brittain posted:Do I need to give lessons in how to make criticisms without making personal attacks again? Like, not breaking the rules at RPGnet is very, very easy. You'll get banned for 'threadcrapping' instead, even if the thread is about that subject and even if all you're doing is trying to explain your opinion to people who apparently can't understand it. Rpg.net went from a pretty nice place to a toxic passive-agressive forum over the years. Sad.
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Jan 22, 2017 04:20
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I really hope Deviant doesn't turn out look beast.
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Jan 22, 2017 04:52
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Senior Scarybagels posted:I really hope Deviant doesn't turn out look beast. I think Deviant is going to benefit from having a clearly defined plot hook to work from that doesn't really step on the toes of the other lines too much. The "weird science" and "experiment on the run from, and potentially plotting to take vengence on, its creators" angles give it a steady enough narrative footing that we won't see the problems Beast has that its trying so hard to justify its own existence that it actively sabotages itself. Plus its not really a concept that leads to the kind of problematic subtext we see in Beast, especially since you are the victim in that scenario without any ambiguity.
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Jan 22, 2017 05:10
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Rand Brittain posted:Do I need to give lessons in how to make criticisms without making personal attacks again? Like, not breaking the rules at RPGnet is very, very easy.
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Jan 22, 2017 05:53
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Yawgmoth posted:Beast is a personal attack on several different groups so I don't think it's that out of line. I think you're letting your desire to display fashionable outrage for social cred override your critical judgement here. I highly doubt any of the writers had the intent to personally attack "victims" no matter how bad the finished work was.
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Jan 22, 2017 06:24
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Hidingo Kojimba posted:I think you're letting your desire to display fashionable outrage for social cred override your critical judgement here. I highly doubt any of the writers had the intent to personally attack "victims" no matter how bad the finished work was.
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Jan 22, 2017 06:34
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Hidingo Kojimba posted:I think you're letting your desire to display fashionable outrage for social cred override your critical judgement here. I highly doubt any of the writers had the intent to personally attack "victims" no matter how bad the finished work was. Didn't McFarland basically imply that people who were especially critical of Beast were essentially Gamergaters themselves or something at one point?
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Jan 22, 2017 06:37
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Kai Tave posted:Didn't McFarland basically imply that people who were especially critical of Beast were essentially Gamergaters themselves or something at one point? At one point during the prerelease hype he said "I note that once again Heroes are barging in here saying 'but what about the Heroes!' and 'not all Heroes!'." That's about as far as it got.
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Jan 22, 2017 06:42
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bewilderment posted:At one point during the prerelease hype he said "I note that once again Heroes are barging in here saying 'but what about the Heroes!' and 'not all Heroes!'." I mean that's still pretty fuckin tasteless. I'm fairly sure that if some normal RPGnet poster went around saying something like that about other people criticizing their homebrew WoD splat, let's say, that they'd probably be looking at a probation for tapdancing on the line of the "insult the argument, not the poster" rules.
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Jan 22, 2017 07:19
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Kavak posted:I googled for Protagonist-Centered Morality, but the enemy found it first:
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Jan 22, 2017 07:31
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Zereth posted:The moral of the story is: don't go to tv tropes They literally documented the view the game takes. It's not like the page for Twilight is tagged with 'Abusive Relationship'. You wanna add a description of the Beasts there too, go ahead. "I read the game at the literal surface level and didn't critically examine it" is not a big deal.
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Jan 22, 2017 08:49
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The idea that heroes are rape survivor analogues and beast's are Gamergate analogues puts the fiction piece in the preview where a hero jumps the beast and tries to carve him up in a new light. He's ranting about killing the Beast as being his claim to fame while the Beast is begging him to just calm down and be reasonable about the horrible people murdering monster existing and to think of someone other than himself. Now that i've heard that take on it it really reads as a hosed up take on the whole bullshit "blame the victim" poo poo some people do where they claim that ____ person is only accusing someone of rape to get their fifteen minutes of fame.  Assuming that metaphor is intended then that...Uh, kind of puts a really dark and hosed up tint on the chapter fiction, actually. Heroes basically got mind-raped into being what they are because the Beast hosed up. Which puts the blame pretty firmly at the Beast's feet. That's not dark in the good sort of way that VTR or other games with dark themes have. That's dark in a way that's more like "What the gently caress is wrong with the author of this. He's some sort of sick bastard that wrote in victim blaming as part of the chapter fiction.". Archonex fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Jan 22, 2017 |
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Jan 22, 2017 09:32
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Archonex posted:The idea that heroes are rape survivor analogues and beast's are Gamergate analogues puts the fiction piece in the preview where a hero jumps the beast and tries to carve him up in a new light. The execution does not support this at all.
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Jan 22, 2017 10:18
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Zereth posted:The intended metaphor is that Beasts are oppressed minorities and Heroes are Gamergate Etc. That's...Actually really frustrating. I can't figure out if the author was just utterly stupid when it came to trying to slot in social justice metaphors or if they're just so hosed in the head that they don't see that they basically sided with the gamergate/bigot side of things.  Either way, that's still a terribly written way of writing them out. Just for different reasons. If Beast's are an oppressed minority then...Well, they aren't. Everything they are flies in the face of that. They're clearly shown to be loving awful monsters trying to justify their existence while literally subsisting off of fear and human suffering. Even if heroes are unilaterally murderous dicks after they get mind raped into the role that still comes back to the fact that the supposed oppressed minority did this to them either through one of their own gently caress ups or because they simply dared to exist at all. Like, you can't have your metaphorical oppressed minority actually be guilty of being the monster that the metaphorical bigot claims they are. The point at which the oppressed minority turns out to be a horrifying monster that murders people and/or is a severely ever present danger to society and the people immediately around them is the point where the bigot starts being thrust into the role of being the hero of the story. Which is entirely hosed up for all sorts of different reasons that i'm not even going to get into here. It'd be easier to just direct people to all the "Let's Read" threads dissecting right wing fiction than to try to get into that. Edit: I think the most mind numbingly stupid thing thing about it all is that even vampires (Which is inarguably the line that Beast is trying to ape with the "Beast I am lest a Beast I become" theme of having to do harm to avoid doing greater harm.) are written so that they can end up existing for good reasons. Hell, there's even at least two novels where that's subtly hammered home. From what i've read of Beast so far they somehow missed even the themes of heroism that run in all the other game lines. Even vampire has the whole "tragic/gothic heroism" thing going for it if the players want to approach it from that angle. And it's arguably one of the darker lines due to needing to literally eat people to stay existent. VTR in particular works to allow for sympathetic protagonists despite the whole "eating people" thing because of the underlying themes of a tragic struggle to stay human in the face of overwhelming odds. If a vampire stays well fed and keeps out of the Danse they can usually resist some of the worst temptations that'd see them fail that struggle. Humanity even touches on this as a mechanic by pointing out that low humanity vampires stop being able to connect to humans while high humanity vampires are not going to be vampires that interact with vampiric politics unless they have too. Heck, having a high humanity is part of one of the only confirmed ways to turn yourself back into a human, too. If a Beast gets too much satiety things still get hosed up irrespective of them doing their best. And each of their "ascended" states just turns them into a bigger sort of monster that lacks humanity entirely. They literally can't win except to become the monster that in every other line would be considered a "loss" state. It's not just a tragic narrative right from the start, it's a doomed one. If the characters want to stay human and not be a bunch of monsters then they're utterly hosed one way or another from the word go. I'm not even sure what the hell they were going for given that. The game doesn't seem to work from just about any perspective I read it from. Archonex fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Jan 22, 2017 |
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Jan 22, 2017 10:49
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LordAbaddon posted:I think Deviant is going to benefit from having a clearly defined plot hook to work from that doesn't really step on the toes of the other lines too much. The "weird science" and "experiment on the run from, and potentially plotting to take vengence on, its creators" angles give it a steady enough narrative footing that we won't see the problems Beast has that its trying so hard to justify its own existence that it actively sabotages itself. Plus its not really a concept that leads to the kind of problematic subtext we see in Beast, especially since you are the victim in that scenario without any ambiguity. Except for all the Remade who do still work for their makers, but they're antagonists in Deviant's corebook. I do want to do a Technocracy-style fatsplat for them, though. Deviant's main strengths are that that the character mechanics are based around how the protagonists relate to other people (because it's a game about mutation-as-metaphor-for-isolation, so it gives mechanical weight to every ally and betrayal) and that its inspirational media is a vast untapped well. You have seen dozens of Deviant stories. Beast made its integrity equivalent its fuel stat, and is way harder to imagine other media as taking place within its structures. Hell, even Beauty and the Beast (Ron Perlman TV version) is more of a Deviant story than a Beast one.
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