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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:it's super apolitical when your protagonists are a fascist empire and your main antagonists are just ontologically diseased invalids, scheming manipulators, perverted degenerates, and violent thugs
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Dec 15, 2021 16:53
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:it's super apolitical when your protagonists are a fascist empire and your main antagonists are just ontologically diseased invalids, scheming manipulators, perverted degenerates, and violent thugs Every 40k faction is all of these things! E: But what's important here (and why this is relevant to a discussion of Dungeons and Dragons) is that none of the factions are  evil stand-ins for any real life ethnic group.Even their version of dark elves (the Mandrakes) are weird murder-infused shadow-beings who got funny from living in a multidimensional labyrinth that abuts an anti-life shadow plane. Instead of, say, cursed by their god to be dark-skinned and incapable of goodness. GreenMetalSun posted:It could just fanon I've absorbed over the years, but isn't the Warp just a metaphysical reflection of reality? Pretty much. It's only because the dominant culture is so oppressive that the reflected warp factions which manifest are so destructive. moths fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 17:01
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Froghammer posted:You're not supposed to sympathize with the Imperium hth Tell that to Gee Dubs  
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Dec 15, 2021 17:18
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I don't think you're arguing in good faith, so I'm dropping it rather than write screeds about 40k's relationship with fascism on the toilet at work. But I don't think you're arguing in good faith.
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Dec 15, 2021 17:27
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moths posted:Ultimately this is just the problem of "evil races" filling the game's need for adversaries, when they could have just removed alignment years ago and designated Drow society as antagonistic. Splicer fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 17:47
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:Tell that to Gee Dubs Why don't we ask them their thoughts on the subject. GW posted:There are no goodies in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Link: https://www.warhammer-community.com...esponse,+Nov+19
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Dec 15, 2021 18:02
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Splicer posted:While alignment itself is still in, otherwise this seems to be what they've done. Drow are just folk but most Faerun Drow live in cities under the sway of an evil cult. So, better late than never. I'd have to dig something up to check on it but I could absolutely swear this was how the drow were originally presented way back in like Vault of the Drow or something - most are just people, usually some flavor of Neutral, but stuck in a society where power is concentrated in the hands of a giant pack of bastards all bastarding at each other. I'd be disappointed if it turned out my memories on this were wrong, but not too surprised.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:06
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disposablewords posted:I'd have to dig something up to check on it but I could absolutely swear this was how the drow were originally presented way back in like Vault of the Drow or something - most are just people, usually some flavor of Neutral, but stuck in a society where power is concentrated in the hands of a giant pack of bastards all bastarding at each other. I'm not a giant lore nerd, but my impression was the original conception was very much not this and was about as biologically deterministic as you could get. Like the whole point of Drizzt was that he was the equivalent of a cat learning calculus, walking on its hind legs and abstaining from knocking poo poo off a table.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:15
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Removing racial alignment was a step in the right direction, definitely. The biggest problem with alignment, imo, is that it's trying to impose an absolute binary game mechanic over a nuanced subject like morality. Things are Good or Evil, or sometimes not particularly either. That doesn't even work in the pulpy fantasy fiction that this is meant to emulate! So you end up with this weird shorthand where the orcs are Evil - because the game's focus is on fighting monsters - which extrapolates into a weird and terrible endorsement of colonialism. Delete the concept of alignment from the rulebook, and now you can have an interesting exploration of why the orcs are antagonists that goes beyond "they've got Evil written there."
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Dec 15, 2021 18:17
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Arivia posted:If you mean this link https://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/races/elf/drow1.shtml Gang, I hosed up and read the article. Don't read the article.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:20
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Xiahou Dun posted:I'm not a giant lore nerd, but my impression was the original conception was very much not this and was about as biologically deterministic as you could get. Like the whole point of Drizzt was that he was the equivalent of a cat learning calculus, walking on its hind legs and abstaining from knocking poo poo off a table. The Dark Elf trilogy made it pretty clear that Drizzt was not the only good person in Menzo. His sister Vierna was decent and loving until the Lolth cult drilled that out of her, and that process left her basically insane with bitterness. His father Zaknafein is who first showed him to question the teachings of Lolth, and he sacrificed himself so Drizzt could escape. What made Drizzt special was that he got out.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:20
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moths posted:The biggest problem with alignment, imo, is that it's trying to impose an absolute binary game mechanic over a nuanced subject like morality. I wasn't sitting in the living room in Lake Geneva that day, but would bet all my dollars that orcs are Chaotic Evil because you're obviously supposed to murder the bestial savages, rather than the alignment going on first and orcmurder accidentally falling backward into endorsing colonialism.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:24
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PeterWeller posted:The Dark Elf trilogy made it pretty clear that Drizzt was not the only good person in Menzo. His sister Vierna was decent and loving until the Lolth cult drilled that out of her, and that process left her basically insane with bitterness. His father Zaknafein is who first showed him to question the teachings of Lolth, and he sacrificed himself so Drizzt could escape. What made Drizzt special was that he got out. That only started being published in the 1990s. If you're looking for an original conception, it's going to be at least as far back as 1977's AD&D Monster Manual.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:25
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Absurd Alhazred posted:That only started being published in the 1990s. If you're looking for an original conception, it's going to be at least as far back as 1977's AD&D Monster Manual. They were in GW-written Fiend Folio, not the Monster Manual. Before that, they were module-only baddies.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:36
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Absurd Alhazred posted:That only started being published in the 1990s. If you're looking for an original conception, it's going to be at least as far back as 1977's AD&D Monster Manual. I should've been more clear that I was specifically responding to XD's characterization of Drizzt.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:39
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PeterWeller posted:The Dark Elf trilogy made it pretty clear that Drizzt was not the only good person in Menzo. His sister Vierna was decent and loving until the Lolth cult drilled that out of her, and that process left her basically insane with bitterness. His father Zaknafein is who first showed him to question the teachings of Lolth, and he sacrificed himself so Drizzt could escape. What made Drizzt special was that he got out. In retrospect, there's a big dose of "Men Going Their Own Way" in the early Drizzt novels: http://gamingphilosopher.blogspot.com/2006/10/sexism-in-realms.html posted:The corrupted elves known as the drow are also the only elves with a matriarchal society. Salvatore himself isn't sexist, and seems pretty good on women being in charge whenever he gets the opportunity to talk about it. HIs later books are much better about this https://apex-magazine.com/interview-with-r-a-salvatore/ posted:Well, thank you for saying that. I have often been accused of being an incredibly sexist because my female dark elves are so evil, but my male dark elves are just as evil. First of all I didn’t create the drow society. That goes to Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and the early creators of Dungeons and Dragons, who decided it was a matriarchal society. But for me that’s great. I have five older sisters so I know about evil women. I’m kidding! I love them dearly. But I have five older sisters and an older brother so I grew up with strong role models.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:47
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PeterWeller posted:Why don't we ask them their thoughts on the subject. That message is good but there’s a reason why everyone was also like “well maybe don’t spend decades portraying them all like heroes?” There’s a clear disconnect between their words above and their art direction.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:48
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PeterWeller posted:I should've been more clear that I was specifically responding to XD's characterization of Drizzt. And also I should've been more clear that I didn't mean Drizzt specifically so much as the added nuance that was introduced in the series of books about him, and was just being flip to emphasize the juxtaposition and not to get communicate specifics. (Partially because my entire exposure to Drow fluff was from reading that stuff in middle school and even 13 year old goth me bounced off the fluff.)
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Dec 15, 2021 18:49
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homullus posted:They were in GW-written Fiend Folio, not the Monster Manual. Before that, they were module-only baddies. We were talking about "conception". I'm not sure why this isn't enough for that: quote:Drow: The “Black Elves,” or drow, are only legend. They purportedly dwell This confirms what is written in Wikipedia entry, although it could have come from a later printing. PeterWeller posted:I should've been more clear that I was specifically responding to XD's characterization of Drizzt. Fair enough.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:49
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Toph Bei Fong posted:In retrospect, there's a big dose of "Men Going Their Own Way" in the early Drizzt novels: Yeah, that's generally fair, though I think the first quote glosses over Vierna to make its point stronger. Xiahou Dun posted:And also I should've been more clear that I didn't mean Drizzt specifically so much as the added nuance that was introduced in the series of books about him, and was just being flip to emphasize the juxtaposition and not to get communicate specifics. (Partially because my entire exposure to Drow fluff was from reading that stuff in middle school and even 13 year old goth me bounced off the fluff.) Yeah, I feel you. I was really just "well actually"-ing you about Drizzt because I am unrepentant fan of that stuff. Bottom Liner posted:That message is good but there’s a reason why everyone was also like “well maybe don’t spend decades portraying them all like heroes?” There’s a clear disconnect between their words above and their art direction. I agree to some extent, but every faction's art has them looking like the supreme badasses of the setting.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:04
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PeterWeller posted:Why don't we ask them their thoughts on the subject. James Mendez Hodes posted:I think Games Workshop is trying, or was trying at some point. I don’t know how hard they’re trying. I don’t think their setting says fascism is good—although they definitely seem to think fascism is cool, which is bad enough. Charitably: arm, leg, leg, arm. No head.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:05
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Games Workshop's relationship with its fascist war cult/allegorical representation of margaret thatcher's vision of Britain/heroic battle monk faction is complex. The company has, in the past thirty+ years, absolutely represented them as heroes, in artwork, presentation, etc. even while shoveling out mountains of genre fiction from numerous authors each of whom had his* own particular take on the space marines and the empire. Taken as a whole, and especially paying attention to both the broad sweep and details of the canon, the imperium is objectively not good guys; and the biggest influencers on the faction, from the beginning, absolutely intended for them to be emblematic of a possible dark future that you are supposed to regard as horrible. But, the company also very much promotes space marines as the starting, best, first and foremost player faction: no other faction has gotten half as much attention via artwork, models, lore, etc. It's been a mixed message, and I think the company's current leadership is well aware of that, and they would like to somehow thread that needle and continue to sell lots and lots of Ultramarines to teenage boys without potentially dissuading them by portraying their heroic-looking giant armor mans committing atrocities etc. They want to sell models for all their factions, and especially for their most valuable and important space marines/imperium faction (which is itself made up of a dozen or more sub-factions!) and so they can't ever really cross that grey area and make them totally un-likeable. The tyranids are horrific alien monsters that consume everything, the khorne chaos faction are the embodiment of violence and bloodshed, the dark elves are uhhh, bondage slavery elves, etc. but all of them have to have some aspects that make them seem cool and interesting and fun, or else nobody would want to play as them. You can see this in a lot of other game lines from other manufacturers, too. If you want to play WW2 tabletop wargames, there probably has to be someone willing to play as an axis power, and yet, as a company if you're not pieces of poo poo you really don't want to pander to the nazi set, so you have to kind of focus on how cool the tanks and halftracks are and stick to the iron cross for the iconography and just try and be cool about it. If you want to play vampires, OK you pretty much are gonna have to accept that vampires by default are murdering innocents to drink their blood, but you still wanna have players willing to play as the vampires, so let's focus on the cool parts of that fiction, maybe we can have some vampires who are really good actually and they get blood from blood banks or they suck on rats or something. If you want to sell games based on conan or cthulhu or barsoom, you can either pretend like those authors weren't huge fuckin' racists, or you can face their racism head-on, make essential changes to the canon, address the elephant in the room with some text blurbs about not being racist in your games, and then try to proceed with just the cool parts of the fiction. So games workshop could probably do a major upset of its 40k setting to wash it if it wanted to. It already blew up and relaunched the fantasy setting (although the Old World refuses to entirely go away, probably because it's better lol); it could, if it wanted to, relaunch 40k with actual real good guys in it, or perhaps re-write the imperium of man as more clearly and unequivocally bad guys and stop trying to make space marines look like heroes... but probably that would just kill their golden goose and they're a public company that runs on fascism-flavored golden eggs, if you'll excuse that tortured metaphor. In the end I think they're muddling along and some of the stuff they've done recently is commendable but it's still probably always going to be a somewhat problematic setting and it's best to go ahead and acknowledge that and then cut the players some slack if they decide they still want to table some space marines, as long as they're not also spouting nazi rhetoric themselves. *Have there ever been any women authors of 40k fiction, ever? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 19:07
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Can we please not also start a WFRP/AoS edition war in this thread, Leperflesh, I am so tired of having to defend liking both settings.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:13
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Mors Rattus posted:Can we please not also start a WFRP/AoS edition war in this thread, Leperflesh, I am so tired of having to defend liking both settings.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:17
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GW can't kill whf so long as total war Warhammer exists. And that game series is basically an automatic money printer.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:21
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I'd hope we're past the point where voicing a preference would kick off an edition war. Especially now that AoS is more than just four angry pages of "gently caress you, Warhammer fans."
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Dec 15, 2021 19:23
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The issue is mostly that you can say the Marines are bad, etc, but their core aesthetic is tremendously appealing to fascists (I mean, look! Giant piles of mighty thewed warrior monks battling swarms of enemies who have to overrun them by sheer numbers while dying heroically!) and 'they die a lot' only increases that appeal. The other issue will always be the way the Marines are often portrayed favorably in opposition to other structures like the Inquisition or the church. You often have the (implicitly cool) battle-scarred Marine standing up to the sinister and sneaky Inquisitor or the deluded priest (because the Marines, while embracing the cool aesthetics of faith and being holy warriors, are also generally depicted as knowing the Imperial Faith is nonsense), etc. Not to mention Guilleman coming back as the literal providential man who can be like 'OH NO THIS ISN'T WHAT EMPY WANTED' and is portrayed as the beginning of possibly fixing things, in part by launching new crusades and slaughters. I do believe GW actually does mean better on the fascism front these days, but its roots are pretty loving deep in 40k (which is ironic, since 40k also very clearly started as satire about that kind of thing, as mentioned above). 40k also has the issue that if you show lots of people a setting 'without good guys', they'll pick someone and designate them such anyway. It's easier to write with some sympathetic characters or protagonists around, after all. And since the Imperium is the viewpoint character (if I recall correctly originally they weren't going to be; independent traders trying to move among all this mess and survive the insane space empire and its enemies were, but that fell by the wayside quick) most of those sympathetic characters end up being Imperials, especially as the Imperium dominates the setting's attention and focus, so people end up assuming the people who look like 'people' are the least bad option. Then they get presented that way, and that's how we end up where 40k is. I think GW might mean better, but I don't know if 40k especially can be separated from its links, so to speak.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:29
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My intention was not to kick of an AOS/old world edition war. I intended that parenthetical to be humorous, and I'm sorry if it wasn't. I definitely have a personal preference, so that probably biased my view.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:30
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NGDBSS posted:There's what GW says (and earnestly wants to believe they're doing), and then there's what GW does. I believe them when they say the Imperium should be satirical, but too often the published material fails to realize that goal and instead accidentally glorifies it. It's not just in the art (though TK_Nyarlathotep posted two good examples), but also in the writing about how frequently Imperial soldiers are just Hard Men Making Hard Choices (where all of the choices are bad), the marketing that put a Space Marine statue outside GW's headquarters, and even the product listings that are always majority Imperium and plurality Space Marines. I don't think it's fair to draw a say/do distinction here. Releasing an official statement telling fascists to gently caress off is GW doing something. And it's not just playing lip-service to the idea that the Imperium of Man is meant satirically. I don't see how one can read even just basic overviews of the factions and not come away with the idea that the Imperium of Man is absurd and awful and no future worth living in. But as LF points out, they're trying to sell you figures of these factions so you'll play them in their game. And that game is an over-the-top wargame. So you're going to get situations where they're depicting members of these factions as heroic and even admirable, which can contradict and undermine that satire. GW has painted themselves into a corner there, but I don't think it's fair to characterize that as an endorsement of fascism. As for marketing focusing on marines, well marines are the most iconic and popular faction in the game, so they're going to be at the center of marketing. The only real solution to all this is to not play 40K, or if you do, play as the Harlequins because clown ninjas are beyond reproach. 
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Dec 15, 2021 20:04
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Leperflesh posted:
Rachel Harrison, at least. She's got a couple of of novels, and her short story in the Sabbat War anthology was an absolute banger. Dunno about any others, there's a couple of authors who use just their initials, but I assume they're all dudes.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:06
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https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-12-15-embracer-purchases-asmodee-for-275bn Asmodée is now wholly owned by Embracer Group, also known as THQ "AMA on 8chan" Nordic.
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Dec 15, 2021 21:39
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Lemon-Lime posted:https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-12-15-embracer-purchases-asmodee-for-275bn That might be a significant upgrade from a private equity company.
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Dec 15, 2021 21:43
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Is that some kind of billion-dollar nazi?
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Dec 15, 2021 22:36
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Lemon-Lime posted:Asmodée is now wholly owned by Embracer Group, also known as THQ "AMA on 8chan" Nordic. Um...what? Like, can someone go into more detail of what "AMA on 8chan" is referring to?
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Dec 15, 2021 23:20
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Comstar posted:Um...what? Like, can someone go into more detail of what "AMA on 8chan" is referring to? They decided to run an ask me anything on 8chan before people told them it was a horrible idea
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Dec 15, 2021 23:23
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^^^they had a twitter account advertise that they were doing an AMA on 8chan. Like, not for a specific game or anything. because I've had clone troopers and Halo on the mind lately I'm actually kinda stunned Karen Traviss never jumped on the 40k train.
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Dec 15, 2021 23:24
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Negative commander, you are now being horribly compelled to look up "Chad-Zak" and wonder why the actual loving hell this was ever a thing Robin D. Laws is the same one who wrote Ashen Stars "the bug-people aliens breed uncontrollably and have only been accepted into the galactic community after agreeing to external population controls", right? I was creeped out by that (and briefly had him mixed up with another developer with some bad political takes) but once I cleared up the parenthetical confusion I figured it was just a one-time oversight. I'm less certain now.
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Dec 15, 2021 23:37
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PeterWeller posted:I don't think it's fair to draw a say/do distinction here. Releasing an official statement telling fascists to gently caress off is GW doing something. And it's not just playing lip-service to the idea that the Imperium of Man is meant satirically. I don't see how one can read even just basic overviews of the factions and not come away with the idea that the Imperium of Man is absurd and awful and no future worth living in. I would also point out that that statement was a) very recent, as in literally last month, you can't expect them to do that much in the space of time since they said that and b) also included a specific offer to help people running Warhammer events to make them welcoming/have suitable equality policies/tell Nazis to gently caress off, and so had a "doing" component sat right there alongside the "saying".
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Dec 16, 2021 00:01
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Der Waffle Mous posted:because I've had clone troopers and Halo on the mind lately I'm actually kinda stunned Karen Traviss never jumped on the 40k train.
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Dec 16, 2021 00:45
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Back when I gave a poo poo about 40k I played exclusively nids and dark eldar and I remember Marine playing friends making fun of me for only playing "bad guy" races, while they scrawled more Latin onto little insignias and junk. The "Whoa cool space marine" meme is very real.
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