Apparently there’s a plot point that involves Gaia creating the Ratkin to eradicate humanity’s “surplus population” through disease, which has some very uncomfortable implications, especially in the light of the gross indifference to human life that the ruling class has exhibited in the wake of Covid-19.
I realize this is hinged on a lot of assumptions (that this information is accurate in-universe and that Gaia, as the personification of the Earth, serves as a mouthpiece for the creators’ environmentalist views), which is why I’m asking.
oWoD had a ton of problematic shit like this, we’re talking about a universe were an entire vampire clan is one giant antiziganist stereotype. I can’t say much about any edition of Werewolf, but Vampire was bad in this regard. The “white” in White Wolf can be extremely prominent at times and i’m absolutely, with 100% certainty, expecting the older Werewolf stuff to have ecofash “humanity is cancer” moments in it. It’s a purposefully edgy game from the 90s, it’s a given it hasn’t always aged well.
With WoD in general, it’s in the nature of the game that you absolutely should do a Session Zero where you set boundaries for the content. It’s a horror game, in the case of Werewolf it’s about turning into an unstoppable, instinct-driven death machine with anger issues, it will get intense at times when your group gets deeply enough into it and that only works when you establish ways to deal with players being overwhelmed and set hard limits beforehand. And that includes politics, ethics and how to deal with topics that have problematic implications. It can mean leaving certain aspects out of the game, or changing them, or making a certain attitude towards them part of your chronicle tenets.
Removed by mod
i’m absolutely, with 100% certainty, expecting the older Werewolf stuff to have ecofash “humanity is cancer” moments in it.
Does this count? Apparently it’s from Book of the Weaver:
CW: Eugenics
“Millions of people also can only survive through the intervention of modern medicine and its attendant technology; people who, even a mere century ago, would not have lived past early childhood are now living to ripe old ages. From the human point of view, of course, all this is for the best. After all, very few people wish to see their children or other loved ones die of conditions that are, in the modern age, preventable or curable, Darwin be damned. On the other hand, genetic problems that would otherwise be weeded out are instead propagated throughout the human population, weakening the species in general and making humans even more dependent on science and technology for their continued survival […] your wolf side should tell you how wrong this feels.”
I always avoided World of Darkness because I got uncomfortable fashy vibes from it, and the deeper I look, the more I find not to like.
Yeah, that’s about what i would’ve expected. I’m also expecting this to have gotten better in 5th edition, at least this goes for VtM. I haven’t looked into the new edition of WtA yet, but the sales blurb reads like this:
Gaia is dying. The ices melt, while the seas swell. The heat rises, while the forests wither. Extinction threatens millions, in favor of the few.
Honestly, i’d absolutely play a game of “angry working class puppygirls blow up a pipeline in the Rust Belt” with my friends, the question is how easy it is to play it like that instead of “having antibiotics is weakening the gene pool.”
oWoD had a ton of problematic shit like this, we’re talking about a universe were an entire vampire clan is one giant antiziganist stereotype.
Oh, yeah, I’ve heard they have some very, uh, interesting portrayals of nonwhite people (mostly in the “magical minority” vein).
In some cases, it’s a lot worse than that, clan Ravnos was made up mostly of Sinti and Roma people and their clan weakness was literally “you compulsively commit crime”. They axed that part in 5th edition, which is at least aware of a lot of the criticism around the old stuff, but the new version of the clan isn’t exactly stellar for other reasons.
clan Ravnos was made up mostly of Sinti and Roma people and their clan weakness was literally “you compulsively commit crime”
I was just talking about this earlier with some folks from my TTRPG group. White Wolf publishing got in shit from their parent company over dogwhistles in both Werewolf (I.E. A werewolf’s body would reject gender affirming care) and VtM (a given example of a Brujah backstory was 'Nazi officer)
World of Darkness always attracted edgelords, and it seems to have gone the way that always goes.
In fairness I could totally imagine running a campaign where a bunch of Brujah communists band up to take down some True Brujah fascist cosplaying as a philosopher king. But I’m pretty sure that’s not what they’re going for.
Yeah, that makes sense. Edgelordery is a fascist magnet, I’ve noticed. They delight in “I’m going to say/do all this gross horrible shit, and if any of it upsets you then you’re just a cuck snowflake SJW.”
I am under the impression that various periods of WW had some strong influence by writers who were problematic - I think they had some neo nazis there but I can’t remember why I believe this so I want to treat it lightly.
The main complaint I recall from WtA is that it devolved into a “fuzzy superheroes” feel because the antagonists were all just actual manifestations of literal evil, and it definitely has the most problematic content of the three core games if you look at the black horse stuff (don’t). I never got a chance to play the nWoD version (forsaken, I think?) but it looked much better to me, so maybe check it out?
One of the people working on Werewolf was a pedophile and was eventually caught + convicted. He used werewolves as a metaphor for “uncontrollable urges,” which is present in the game.
That’s probably where you got nazi vibes.
the black horse stuff
I’m not familiar with this and am morbidly curious.
It’s a spin off studio for their more offensive and unrated stuff
Forsaken is great, but I never played Apocalypse to compare them together. I came in during nWoD, but Forsaken 2nd edition is one of my favorite game designs and settings of any rpg.
WtA is very weirdly fixated on a lot of such stuff, IMO. IDK about WtF.
By the way, have you taken a look at Exalted 3e and Exalted Essence?
On that topic, Exalted VS Old World of Darkness is a pretty fun one for the entire point of it being punching all that edgy bullshit in the fangs with shiny golden bullshit that can actually improve society somewhat. Or doubling down on the edgey power thematics, but not having to pay the awwwwwful price and be all mopey about being Killhard Soulshitter.
Killhard Soulshitter
Abyssals, arguably Infernals (they seem rather nice in Essence, though).
Not familiar with Exalted at all, no. What’s the premise?
[CW: racism, SA, animal abuse, child abuse, probably a shitload of things I’m forgetting]
Pretty sure that’s the summary of WtA.
Not familiar with Exalted at all, no. What’s the premise?
Some titans made a bunch of gods. Said gods rebelled but had to fight the titans indirectly, making the ‘Exalted’ - the people empowered by the gods in some way. Titanomachia ensues and titans get defeated (with some developments that tickle my brain) and curse the Exalted.
A lot of time passes and some factions of the Exalted that are less afflicted by the curse start a war. They win, they make sure that the most powerful of the defeated ones do not get reincarnated (well, roughly speaking, ‘reincarnated’), declare such the ‘anathema’ to be hunted down for everybody else’ safety, and establish a polity that takes control over most of the world.
A lot more time passes during which there is a change of the world’s hegemonic power, but then its ruler disappears and her disappearance coincides with the return of the Exalted who previously could not be reincarnated. These are first of the Exalted that got playable in every edition.The more day-to-day premise is that you are a very powerful being, but (unless the character is Dragonblooded, or if what is happening is happening on the fringes of the world (which is flat)) you get the burden of hiding from said hegemonic power, and (unless the character is Dragonblooded, in which case you belong to the privileged group within said hegemonic power) you experience a degree of social isolation (which depends on the type of the character’s Exaltation).
I haven’t actually played it, but the original had some extremely cringe NSFL stuff, and I wouldn’t pitch it to a group without some heavy disclaimers. I think there’s parts that are salvageable with the right group, but don’t expect the source material to be consistently good ideologically.
