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LatwPIAT posted:"ethno-nationalist" does have a history as a term describing a number of interest groups and independence movements clamoring for greater autonomy, rights, representation, etc. in places like Africa. It's basically about using the idea of ethnicity, shared history, etc. to mobilize people politically. (Which is what white nationalists are doing, just, the things the white nationalists are mobilizing people for is not autonomy from or representation in an oppressive society, but to be allowed to be the oppressive society.) Yeah but much like "virtue signaling" you've got to be careful about throwing the term around because it's been loaded with a ton of baggage.
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Nov 22, 2019 00:37
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Halloween Jack posted:He handles criticism very, extremely well as you can see ITT lmao this is me
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Nov 22, 2019 01:19
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Rogue 7 posted:What's the problem with this guy? Because the "Overdue Apology" blurb looks like the sort of language that folks want to see. What greater context am I missing? he made a game where the revolution against a far right fascist govt includes everyone from pat robertson to anarchists and when it was pointed out this was stupid apologized by saying "also we should definitely still try to recruit the far right" after he called me an assad stan
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Nov 22, 2019 01:24
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I still feel some joy at the fact that I asked for my money back from the KS and got it, even though it caused some annoyance at getting my ODSP.
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Nov 22, 2019 02:45
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...well I feel lightly vindicated that my response to Sigmata's core rules of "this is an interesting idea set but I don't have any idea how this system would work until I see this in action" was the right call when it turns out the system...doesn't work.
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Nov 22, 2019 02:56
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Warthur posted:The alternate way is to make your non-humans genuinely and fundamentally non-human - don't just make them humans in funny costumes, and don't just make them differ in terms of culture or physical factors which correlate to the sort of physical factors people latch onto when drawing racist caricatures (skin colour, skull shape, height, muscleature, you know the drill). You're doing fantasy, so make them properly mythic entities and give them a niche which cannot be mistaken for a caricature of human demographics. Exalted does a fairly good job of this in some places. The real high point in this aspect is the raksha, who are fairy-tale creatures that come complete with a handful of differently-named and -functioning base stats than normal creatures, built-in weird stuff about needing to do certain things to survive in static reality, and abilities like treating locations or mindless P-zombie minion armies as portable property they can "pick up" and then "put down" somewhere else. They're hard as hell to actually play because the mechanics are as convoluted as possible, but there's a lot of really weird and theoretically usable thematic stuff in there. The other non-human playable beings all generally have their own weird stuff, though not as weird as the raksha, like the Mountain Folk (living golems who have innate access to instinctual magic powers based on which caste they were literally carved from stone to be a part of) and the Dragon Kings (pre-human lizard people who have a biphasic lifecycle, requiring extensive socialization/training to make a child an 'animal' rather than 'person'). It also puts a heavy emphasis on having other wildly varied magical peoples—winged folk, tiny panda-spotted desert nomads, bear people, etc—who are all nonetheless explicitly human in a spiritual sense, and are all represented by normal human stats with (for non-cosmetic differences) mutations added on. There's also a whole bevy of 'demons' (more like weird aliens) that can be summoned and controlled by sorcerers, which range from dangerous but useful (blood apes, who are basically extra-big magic gorillas with an Int score, complete with 'don't make eye contact' instincts) to offputting but basically friendly and benevolent (sesseljae, fist-sized spider-beetles that live off impure substances and enjoy repairing injuries in other creatures) to people you feel bad for but who are nonetheless inextricably trapped as spiritual organs making up a greater system they can't be excised from (Amalion, a woman/mansion who just wants to build elegant buildings, teach people how to build elegant buildings, and have nice garden parties with friendly people). Roadie fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Nov 22, 2019 |
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Nov 22, 2019 04:25
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Roadie posted:
Tangental question: If you're one of the Exalt types that begin as a baseline human before Exaltation (i.e. not Dragon Blood) can you be an exalted human who is, e.g., a tiny panda-spotted desert nomad? If so why has no one ever told me this about the setting??
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Nov 22, 2019 05:37
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MollyMetroid posted:Tangental question: If you're one of the Exalt types that begin as a baseline human before Exaltation (i.e. not Dragon Blood) can you be an exalted human who is, e.g., a tiny panda-spotted desert nomad? If so why has no one ever told me this about the setting?? The only requirement to become any type of exalt is to be human. All exalts, including Dragon Blooded may be panda colored humans or winged humans or even humans with animal features.
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Nov 22, 2019 05:42
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You didn't answer my second question jakodee why has nobody told me this before Seriously though my interested in exalted just jumped a fair bit. That's cool.
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Nov 22, 2019 05:47
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Hostile V posted:...well I feel lightly vindicated that my response to Sigmata's core rules of "this is an interesting idea set but I don't have any idea how this system would work until I see this in action" was the right call when it turns out the system...doesn't work. https://twitter.com/Papa_Shell/status/1174806883254898691 Checkmate, libtard 
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Nov 22, 2019 05:54
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Exalted has a really fantastic setting burdened by occasional moments of dumbfuckery, especially the second edition. The third edition has a somewhat cleaned up version that I really like, especially in the supplements, but still has some mechanical bloat in the system (which I also am very happy with despite that). The current devs are excellent and putting out books at a solid rate, to the point that the core book in 3e is my least favorite, and I liked it better than almost anything in second edition. Exalted, when it’s on its A-game, is amazing. When it’s not, it can crash pretty hard but hasn’t done so in any of the published books for 3e.
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Nov 22, 2019 06:24
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FMguru posted:Doesn't work? Then how can you explain this?!? Fixed that for ya
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Nov 22, 2019 07:03
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MollyMetroid posted:Tangental question: If you're one of the Exalt types that begin as a baseline human before Exaltation (i.e. not Dragon Blood) can you be an exalted human who is, e.g., a tiny panda-spotted desert nomad? If so why Rephrased to be my own question.
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Nov 22, 2019 07:16
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MollyMetroid posted:You didn't answer my second question jakodee why has nobody told me this before See the canonical Faka Kun, a djala (the tiny panda-spotted desert nomads) who exalted as a Night Solar. Xiahou Dun posted:Rephrased to be my own question. Because Solars are intentionally broad enough to support most 'adventurous human or near-human with strong motivation' archetypes. Roadie fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Nov 22, 2019 |
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Nov 22, 2019 08:39
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Xiahou Dun posted:Rephrased to be my own question.
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Nov 22, 2019 09:07
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MollyMetroid posted:You didn't answer my second question jakodee why has nobody told me this before honestly, the main reason is "mutations, the system, kind of suck for anyone who has to pay chargen resources for them rather than magical ones like Lunars do" e: like, seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how much mutations in Ex3 are a trap option you should not take with background points.
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Nov 22, 2019 14:40
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I’m pretty sure Djala are baseline humans with no mutations - sure, they’re small and panda-spotted, but mechanically they’re the same as any humans as far as I’m aware. They’re also threatened by colonial exploitation and slavers, such that there’s a clear need for Djala heroes.
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Nov 22, 2019 14:54
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I don't recall if Small is a mutation or not. If it is, it is absolutely not worth it. But yeah the Djala are pretty easy. It's when you get stuff like 'wings' or 'fur' or 'claws' that you start paying out the nose for stuff that is absolutely not worth the price.
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Nov 22, 2019 14:57
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MollyMetroid posted:You didn't answer my second question jakodee why has nobody told me this before Based on second edition it's because Exalted will make you think it's good and then drive you insane as you try to make it playable.
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Nov 22, 2019 16:34
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Libertad! posted:This is gonna sound weird, but I am kind of okay in certain aspects of how the Makers (AnCap faction) is portrayed. Each faction is part of a "doomsday scenario flowchart" which shows how said organizations change based upon bad things happening over the course of play. The first result for the Makers is that they begin fleeing the country and withdrawing their capital to foreign banks. I don't know how intentional this is, but it portrays the AnCaps as rich cowards who have the means to flee when the going gets tough while also showing that they have the least conviction of the factions to actually participate in revolution. Mors Rattus posted:I mean, Sigmata was big on wagging its finger at you for using violence because real revolutionaries win the public's heart, donchaknow. quote:The following tactics are absolutely forbidden by Resistance Command: direct attacks on civilians, arson/demolition of inhabited buildings, mass murder, hostage taking, political assassination, summary execution of prisoners, torturing prisoners (either physically, psychologically, or through deprivation), sexual abuse, or using unwilling persons (like prisoners) as human shields. BENGHAZI 2 posted:he made a game where the revolution against a far right fascist govt includes everyone from pat robertson to anarchists and when it was pointed out this was stupid apologized by saying "also we should definitely still try to recruit the far right" You know what, that's actually being too generous. Wolfenstein at least makes the enemies actual Nazis, so on some level your brain is going "swastika=target." Stigmata's "Regime" is this weird McCarthyist fascism that somehow excludes all the actual bases of fascism in post-WWII American history. Reading this book is like a minefield. Whenever I think I can start breezing through it, I find something horrible that demands to be carefully picked apart. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Nov 22, 2019 |
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Nov 22, 2019 17:24
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Joe Slowboat posted:I’m pretty sure Djala are baseline humans with no mutations - sure, they’re small and panda-spotted, but mechanically they’re the same as any humans as far as I’m aware. Yeah, the reason its not mentioned is you just say "I'm a panda-spotted person" and then you're a panda-spotted person, there's no explicit thing to pick so if you don't know they're a thing you can be then you won't know that you can say you're that thing. Same as you can just declare your character is any race and just have them be that. Except white, that's not a thing. Mors Rattus posted:I don't recall if Small is a mutation or not. If it is, it is absolutely not worth it. Small is not a thing, being small or tiny is only a temporary thing from shapeshifting when its super strong to be that.
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Nov 22, 2019 18:31
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Halloween Jack posted:You're not wrong, he has a pretty good read on who those people are and how they operate. He does seem naive about their commitment to capitalism over "crony capitalism," as if the people who fund Cato, AEI, Reason, etc. aren't the croniest capitalists on earth. (He also thinks that Posse Comitatus militias actually care deeply about the Posse Comitatus Act, so it tracks.) "crony capitalism" is a bullshit distinction largely repeated by other lolberts so
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Nov 22, 2019 20:37
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Halloween Jack posted:Reading this book is like a minefield. Whenever I think I can start breezing through it, I find something horrible that demands to be carefully picked apart. I heard about this book yesterday and I'm still unable to get over/process the idea that the Christian Right would be anything other than hardcore fash.
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Nov 22, 2019 20:41
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Mors Rattus posted:honestly, the main reason is "mutations, the system, kind of suck for anyone who has to pay chargen resources for them rather than magical ones like Lunars do" Well, that one flat +Armor mutation is killer.
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Nov 22, 2019 20:50
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GreenMetalSun posted:I heard about this book yesterday and I'm still unable to get over/process the idea that the Christian Right would be anything other than hardcore fash. Among other issues, televangelism has been around since the 50s. It boomed in the 1980s in part thanks to changes in the business of television, not unlike pro wrestling. (You see? There are a half-dozen other wires here that I need to cut.)
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Nov 22, 2019 21:14
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I think I posted about this last time Sigmata came up, but the most truly baffling thing about how badly it mangles its politics and its factions is like. Just make more than four of them? Don't have there be only four, make like 12 factions and say "your resistance needs four, pick which ones exist/join you when making your game." Having one well-armed normally-fascist group break away from the main fascist in-group over some slight or disagreement is reasonable enough, there's lots of reasons that could happen. Having 75% of the resistance be that is bonkers nonsense, especially when the combination of all three groups basically doesn't leave any fascists left to actually be in power. The other thing is how the book features propaganda against groups that are not part of the rebellion? There's a poster in the art calling sodomites and hispanics the enemies of mankind, in true fascist rhetoric, but there isn't a faction of LGBT or united immigrants in the game. Just the pseudo-communists, who somehow are supposed to be every leftist group at once instead of just being the tanky commies they actually are, going by the progression charts. If there were like 6 or 7 different leftist groups (LGBT, immigrants, black pride, feminists, communists, anarchists, socialists...) that would do a ton to fix his game's weird politics. I wanted to like Sigmata, a specifically anti-fascist game is needed in today's climate. But not from this author, and not with politics so badly implemented. The game is poorly executed and frankly insulting, and I cannot support it.
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Nov 22, 2019 21:42
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I think he claims the intent is that the PCs are the Actual Marginalized People group.
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Nov 22, 2019 22:10
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Well, I think it would make more sense if the factions were intersectional but divided along regional lines. But doing that well would require a more in-depth understanding of activist groups, particularly the kind that requires you to log off and talk to people outside your house. Instead of going "I'm writing a game about rebelling against an evil government. So what the groups who say they don't trust the government? Libertarians, check. Militias, check. Christian conservatives, check. Neo-Stalinist Red Imperialist Russian Oligarch CRITICAL SUPPORT FOR COMRADE ASSAD ASSAD ASSAD ASSAD RED SHIRT BROWN SHIRT YELLOW LORRY DIRTBAG LEFT 4CHAN IA IA WASBAPPIN FTAGN uh, check." The four factions are coalitions from which the Resistance recruits, so they are your PCs. The Resistance is the actual intersectional movement, and it has its own doctrine, which is all of the author's beliefs about how to conduct an Ethical Revolution by never actually doing anything revolutionary. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Nov 22, 2019 |
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Nov 22, 2019 22:13
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I'd be fine with... like, more than half of that list of things revolutions shouldn't do? But uh, only because they're the ones where the militant ANC in exile lines up with the list. Torture, mass civilian casualties, these are not useful and also morally abhorrent. Assassinating specific regime figures, including nominal civilians? Good and fine. Bombing regime infrastructure? Do it. Do it. Do it. 'No assassinations and no bombings' is just idiotic and wildly disconnected from the realities of actual militant movements. I personally look to the ANC because, well, they were a suppressed party and guerilla military for ages, and eventually they forced an immense change via a combination of violence and international pressure. There's a reason I like to call Spire 'fighting elfpartheid' - because my Spire ideas are heavily inflected with ANC history. I bet SIGMATA guy thinks Nelson Mandela is magic and that's why the ANC got the goods.
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Nov 22, 2019 22:30
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All these posts are great, and on top of that, the whole central conceit of "the signal" seems at odds with an actual instructional game about fighting fascists. Like, if you want to do a power fantasy for anti-fascists, that's potentially fine - let off some steam, feel better about how hard it is in real life by unwinding with a fantasy of just being able to wipe them out with superpowers. That's a kind of self-care that's useful, and there's nothing wrong with escapist fantasy that goes as hard as possible at "no really fascists are the enemy get your garbage out of here." But that kind of power fantasy superpower is the opposite of what you want in a game that's supposed to be about the reality of resistance. That kind of game would be better without it.
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Nov 22, 2019 23:06
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The correct thing to do is to give the fascists their own versions of your superpower so that the superpower itself becomes a legible element of the text, as in both editions of Mage.
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Nov 22, 2019 23:51
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I feel like Demon: the Descent would fit the role of a 'magical antifa' game pretty well, since it's got a pretty rad balance of hiding out of sight of an oppressive system while still being able to smash the hell out of its manifestations every so often. One would just have to make the God-Machine a little less esoteric and a little more human and banally evil.
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Nov 23, 2019 00:35
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I was just listening to an epsiode of Behind the Bastards about George Lincoln Rockwell, the monstrous founder of American fascism. It's darkly fascinating how he was the source for so many different aspects of it, like Holocaust denial or "white power". Does Sigmata mention him at all? Or is that another oversight by the writer?
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Nov 23, 2019 00:40
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NGDBSS posted:Does Sigmata mention him at all? Or is that another oversight by the writer? The Sigmata author doesn't know poo poo about a single god drat thing, so no the historical foundations of actual fascist politics in the US are not addressed.
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Nov 23, 2019 00:52
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I feel confident that if the Sigmata guy knows about the ANC or Nelson Mandela, it boils down to "Oh yeah, South Africa, right?" and maybe he could identify him from a photo.
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Nov 23, 2019 02:03
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How to write a convincing account of the tensions involved in revolutionary antifascism: Read books, talk to leftists, carefully consider the nature of fascism, its resisters, and the many deals with the devil that can be convincingly and compellingly argued for How to write Stigmata: Ejaculate violently into a sock and then use that sock to write about how aren't we all like people deep down, you guys
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Nov 23, 2019 02:19
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He’s been chatting recently about how attractive anarcho-nihilism is to him, which makes sense. His games are more coherent if you read them as accelerationist.
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Nov 23, 2019 03:01
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Imagine how lovely it would be if, even in your fantasies, unseating the Witch King meant partnering with the slavers' guild, the Drow oligarchs, and the servants of Asmodeus.
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Nov 23, 2019 03:10
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Thanlis posted:He’s been chatting recently about how attractive anarcho-nihilism is to him, which makes sense. His games are more coherent if you read them as accelerationist. Anyone that finds nihilism attractive either doesn't understand the distinction between it and existentialism or is scum.
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Nov 23, 2019 04:44
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Halloween Jack posted:Well, I think it would make more sense if the factions were intersectional but divided along regional lines. But doing that well would require a more in-depth understanding of activist groups, particularly the kind that requires you to log off and talk to people outside your house. Instead of going "I'm writing a game about rebelling against an evil government. So what the groups who say they don't trust the government? Libertarians, check. Militias, check. Christian conservatives, check. Neo-Stalinist Red Imperialist Russian Oligarch CRITICAL SUPPORT FOR COMRADE ASSAD ASSAD ASSAD ASSAD RED SHIRT BROWN SHIRT YELLOW LORRY DIRTBAG LEFT 4CHAN IA IA WASBAPPIN FTAGN uh, check." Hey now. Hey now. Be cool. I might have not done as much street activism as I should've recently and been shut up and hermiting (got a case of the sad brains), but I could still write something with much, much more nuance than Sigmata. Don't paint with so large a brush that those of us who aren't actively demonstrating can't at least read some basic literature and not just vomit centrist garbage onto a page. I get I should do more, but no need to lump me in with that walking trashfire. 
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Nov 23, 2019 05:11
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