Crowdsourcing Game Design - Sons of Liberty

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:42 am

But he's unknowingly, guilelessly racist and dumb. Like a drug-addled, mildly retarded puppy.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:22 am

You basically have to abandon the traditional 'party' or accept it's not going to look much like Hamilton. The general, the military aide, the spy, and the guy begging for support in foreign courts don't work together much, even if they're all working towards the same goal. They should definitely cross over a little, but I think you really want to play up how distinct the various experiences are, because that will play into the nation-making phase, where those experiences will translate into different political strengths, weaknesses, and priorities.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 5:34 am

crowd sourcing game design can work if you're like GI Joe and there's a clear leader smarter than everyone else. But if too many people have ideas and vision they want to implement you end up like Cobra self bickering their resources to naught.

TGD is a good place to get feedback and opinions, and to just math out any mechanics you think up of.

Also, the fantasy geek in me would be disappointed if there wasn't at least the potential for the campaign to end with the Revolutionary Set personally facing off against a King George that comes down off his throne and has a power up scene to make him a final boss threat. To Hell with historical accuracy, it'd be fun.

Looking up my "Hot blooded shonen Revolutionary War" notes, one idea I had for King George is every time one of his commanders is defeated he throws his scepter across the atlantic ocean to make his monster grow.

So then the heroes have to get into their liberty zords themed after American prehistoric animals, a nod to how Lois & Kent were sent west by President Jefferson to find mastadons and sabertooth tigers.

Other inspirations one could go for...

Metal Gear Solid: Super soldiers battle it out while secretive organizations control the flow of history

Metal Wolf Chaos: Americaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run has one of the greatest PotUS characters

Berserk: George Washington activates his beherit to found America

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Aug 31, 2016 5:50 am

I was thinking more Thanos in the Age of Ultron stinger...

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Fri Sep 02, 2016 4:14 pm

BEGIN RACISM DERAIL.

This thread makes me think you are a racist who is also dumb.

Krusk, huh? Well, to get the obvious joke out of the way, ease up with the Rage there chummer, you only get like 2/day at your level.

I'm "racist" for not INSISTING that Burr and Hamilton need to MANDATORILY be races they historically weren't?

Anyway. I want an RPG that's just like that, only without singing, or dancing, or Alexander Hamilton being mandatorily Hispanic and Aaron Burr being mandatorily black.

That seems randomly exclusionary? Any reasons its whites only?

Speaking of strong men of color?

PS: I'm not even saying I'm not white, technically I am (although like most crackers, half of my DNA is who fucking knows mutt, and for me the other half is Polish Ashkenazi Jew, and Hitler sure as shit didn't think we were WHITE) but I'd pretty still bet money you didn't bother figuring out what color I was before posting that I was "racist", Krusk.

In summation, please kindly go fuck yourself with a rusty bandsaw until you are less terrible.

Your obedient servant,
N. Eurosis

But he's unknowingly, guilelessly racist and dumb. Like a drug-addled, mildly retarded puppy.

Jo mama.

Seriously: the only roles in Hamilton that MUST be People of Color are Aaron Burr, Sir and Alexander Hamilton (HAMILTON, HAMILTON, HAMILTON, AMERICA SINGS FOR YOU). Lin Manuel Miranda himself is fine with every other character being mandatorily white or whatever.

FWIW, I am actually offended that the production did not mandate the role of John Laurens be played by a Caucasian, because he was the one historical person depicted in he play that most cared about and was most invested in ending the slavery of blacks .

And before any dumb motherfucker is all like "WHITE SAVIOR TROPE" AGAIN, John Laurens was a real historical person.

/END "RACISM" DERAIL

When I, "Tom Shit" (this is also, sadly, an Alexander Hamilton reference: look it up) am back from Shatlanta, we can resume the game design discussion.

I've already decided to go d20 instead of Savage Worlds.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Fri Sep 02, 2016 7:18 pm

Ok, um.

There's a lot to unfold there and I honestly don't have the energy to do so at the moment, but I do feel the need to address one piece. That said, don't take my silence on the rest of that post as tacit agreement because... yeah.

Neurosis wrote:PS: I'm not even saying I'm not white, technically I am (although like most crackers, half of my DNA is who fucking knows mutt, and for me the other half is Polish Ashkenazi Jew, and Hitler sure as shit didn't think we were WHITE) but I'd pretty still bet money you didn't bother figuring out what color I was before posting that I was "racist", Krusk.

As a half-Polish-Ashkenazi white person, I feel the need to point out that, because I live in the US, that has very much counted as white my whole life. My personal experiences on the receiving end of racism have not been institutional or in person, they've been occasional, online, and otherwise comparatively minor. Yes, there's some fucked-up shit historically, but if The Rise Of Trump has taught me anything it's that up until recently I really didn't have any personal experience with racism at all. And even that's not the deep-set institutional stuff that affects black people and on which I (and, I suspect, you) have insufficient knowledge to speak on authoritatively.

If you don't live in the US, this doesn't necessarily extend to you. I know that race delineation is extremely different in Europe, for instance. But I'm under the impression that you do, in which case I want to emphasize that I have absolutely said very racist things and still do despite my efforts to the contrary and I've dropped the "Hitler tried to murder my grandparents/great-grandparents" defense too and I, from personal experience, think it's a really dangerous stance. If nothing else, consider that claiming to know what's racism and what's not because your ancestors experienced it is dishonoring said ancestors as well as whoever else you're brushing off. I'd like to think that if my grandfather (or even more so my great-grandfather) had heard some of the things I said back when he was alive, he very much would have taken offense at me hiding my ignorance behind his trauma when I had no idea what they went through. Even now, I'm sure I have only a little comprehension of it, which is why I try so hard to emphasize my personal experiences.

tl;dr Being racially marginalized doesn't make you immune to saying racist things, also I suspect your claims of being racially marginalized are overblown, source: I am also descended from people who fled the shoah.

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Fri Sep 02, 2016 10:04 pm

I didn't think I was raging that hard. Just pointing out that your desire to build an RPG based on a licensed property, but removing the minorities from it comes off pretty racist. Especially when someone obviously went out of their way to include POCs in the property to begin with.

Your answer to the question "why did you remove the minorities?" was "I can't be racist, I'm half Jewish".

That sort of cements it for me. Originally, I was simply telling you a thing you were doing made me think you were racist. Now I'm telling that you should feel bad, and are a racist.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 9:15 pm

@momothefiddler: I think we can agree on: as Jewish-Americans, if clown meat orange Hitler wins, we both hit eject from the USA.

@Krusk: Nah, I actually raged more than you.

Just pointing out that your desire to build an RPG based on a licensed property, but removing the minorities from it comes off pretty racist.

EXCEPT FOR THE PART WHERE I LITERALLY NEVER PROPOSED DOING ANY SUCH FUCKING THING.

Your answer to the question "why did you remove the minorities?" was "I can't be racist, I'm half Jewish".

NO, MY ANSWER AGAIN WAS THIS:

I'm "racist" for not INSISTING that Burr and Hamilton need to MANDATORILY be races they historically weren't?

Anyway. I want an RPG that's just like that, only without singing, or dancing, or Alexander Hamilton being mandatorily Hispanic and Aaron Burr being mandatorily black.

That seems randomly exclusionary? Any reasons its whites only?
Speaking of strong men of color?

Were you TRYING to read the most tangential, irrelevant thing in my entire post as my actual answer?

Either way, this might help.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 9:59 pm

So just to be clear, you are a huge supporter of the All Lives Matter and the Blue Lives Matter movements, but you couldn't possibly be racist, because you only said "Hey, remember how a predominately white controlled time period had minorities in the roles of lead characters? I just want to make clear I definitely won't force my players to play minorities if the should instead want to play only white people for some reason!"

Nope, nothing racist about specifically calling out the minorities as things you definitely aren't going to force anyone to be as a thing, especially not when literally no one in the history of the universe ever even suggested that there should be mandatory minority participation in stories about negotiations about what fraction of a person literal slaves count as.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 11:32 pm

Am I the only one who read that original line as "I want to make an RPG based on Hamilton, except I don't want to include [Historical Figures X & Y] to mandatorily be non-white?"

Like... why is this whole derail a thing? If Neurosis was proposing a fan performance of Hamilton and said "But lets not worry about specifically casting non-white actors as [role1] and [role2]" then maybe I'd get it (except apparently LMM has said he only cares about the race of, what, two roles?). But this is "Oh man, Hamilton is awesome! I want to make an American Revolution RPG in it's tone! Except for the mandatory non-white characters."

Now... ok, Neurosis, you didn't really need to say anything about mandatory non-white characters. That was wholly unnecessary. But still, this is a whole lot of derail for that.

Edit: HELL, it's not like this is even on the order of "I want to make a Power Man thing, but I don't like that he has to be black!" Because Power Man's race is integral to his backstory. But Alexander Hamilton being hispanic in Hamilton, or Hercules Mulligan being black in Hamilton, isn't integral to their character. The most it comes up is Adams calling Hamilton a "creole bastard" which basically merely speculates that Hamilton's mother was black, which... isn't unreasonable, but is in-universe inaccurate? So Adams was an idiot? Seriously, the ethnicities of characters in Hamilton are only integral on a meta-level because it's about accessibility and representation for the audience, it doesn't matter in-play. Given that Neurosis didn't say "I want to make an official Hamilton RPG" but rather "man Hamilton is awesome, I want to make a game like that," there is in fact nothing racist about saying "except Burr and (whoever) need not be black. Because they weren't."

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 12:24 am

Again Prak, if someone makes huge deal about how All Lives Matter is a great movement, is that person racist or not.

Certainly what he did isn't the end of the world, and was probably ignorance not malice, but to say "I want to make a game about a time when white people kept slaves, but I wouldn't force my characters to play minorities in positions of power [unlike the hundreds of people who apparently exist and are always shoving minority representation down our throat by mandating that everyone play minorities]." isn't a racist statement is to stand on literal reading so hard that you forget that context even exists.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 1:09 am

Prak wrote:Am I the only one who read that original line as "I want to make an RPG based on Hamilton, except I don't want to include [Historical Figures X & Y] to mandatorily be non-white?"

You're not the only one but we just weren't looking hard enough for the racism. Which is in itself pretty racist.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 8:19 pm

So just to be clear, you are a huge supporter of the ... Blue Lives Matter movement....

If they had ever invented a way to punch people in the face through the internet, Kaelik, you wouldn't have a face anymore just about now.

Blue Lives Matter can eat every real or imagined dick that has, is, or will ever be invented:

My best selling (by which I mean the RPG that sells best for my company, it isn't an actual best seller by any sane metric) RPG gives you most of your XP for burning pigs to death with your mind or telekinetically crushing them with their own cruisers.

For fuck's sake buy a $15.00 PDF of Psionics and look at the goddamn art, Kaelik. Too cheap/lazy? I'll fucking post some of it up here then you can tell me how Blue Lives Matter I am.

I know you probably meant it as a (FUCKING STUPID) analogy, Kaelik, but I'm still offended. Because I am ACTUALLY racist against blue people. By which I mean bacon, not navi. While I was in college, a cop actually threatened to rape me. With his asp.

So yeah, my attitude about cops is best summed up by NWA. And you're even talking to me about #BlueLivesMatter? SERIOUSLY?

I didn't even SAY I wasn't racist. I'm probably a little bit racist (a lesser musical says that everyone is).

Just that the idea that Hamilton and Burr don't HAVE TO BE BROWN/BLACK isn't racist.

Seriously this time...for real...end derail? End double triple super-saian derail? Pretty please?

Because I have decided to go d20 instead of SW and I am ready to stat out the ten levels of my four core classes, because fuck Frank's order anyway.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 8:24 pm

Speaking of context, if it actually matters to anyone? The PCs aren't fucking playing Hamilton or Burr in the fucking first place, because those characters are NPCs. So their skin color is even less relevant than the 0-value relevance it had in the first place.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 8:51 pm

Neurosis wrote:For fuck's sake buy a $15.00 PDF of Psionics and look at the goddamn art, Kaelik.

I just want to begin this post with a compliment. I am so proud of you for taking the time in the middle of your rant about how you want to physically assault me because you don't understand that the purpose of the analogy was to show you how the thing you said was dumb by comparing it to something you also disagree with to beg me for money.

I really appreciate your single minded dedication to trying to market your products in every single post.

Neurosis wrote:I know you probably meant it as a (FUCKING STUPID) analogy, Kaelik, but I'm still offended.

...

And you're even talking to me about #BlueLivesMatter? SERIOUSLY?[/b]

Spoiler Alert: When someone says "X is like Hitler" the point is that everyone agrees Hitler is bad, so they should (now) agree that X is bad.

Neurosis wrote:Just that the idea that Hamilton and Burr don't HAVE TO BE BROWN/BLACK isn't racist.

And the idea that cop lives matter isn't racist on it's own absent context. It is in fact the broader context of the world that makes what you said racist. See, literally zero people in the entire universe at all times and places have ever said that Alexander Hamilton has to be mandatorily Hispanic. So when you bring the issue up specifically to explain how you would not "force" that state of affairs, that's already itsy bitsy racist even if you were talking about the current day. But when you bring it up when specifically talking about a time when only white people got to be in charge and minorities were literally slaves, so the default was already 100% white people main characters, it's even more racist.

Neurosis wrote:Seriously this time...for real...end derail? End double triple super-saian derail? Pretty please?

Yes, I always let someone have the last word when they ask nicely... 3 paragraphs after they describe their fantasies about punching me, with the intervening paragraphs consisting of somehow failing to understand the concept of analogy.

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:11 pm

For what its worth, i didnt think you were racist in the first post. I said "wow that comes off as pointlessly shitty to minorities and racist, what gives?" Youre stupid non responses after that made me realize the reason was simply to be pointlessly shitty to a minority.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:58 pm

Neurosis, drop the shovel. You're just digging yourself deeper, here.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Fri Sep 09, 2016 5:19 pm

Shovel dropped, thread dropped. This is not a crowd I need to source from right now.

I will make a new thread for "Sons of Liberty From Scratch" when I got the time. This is just some retarded, pointless shitslinging and I don't want its taint on the new thread.

FWIW, I really am "racist" against cops. Individual cops can be okay, but they have to prove that they're not like most of their "ilk". I'm sorry if any current or former cops on the Den find this personally offensive (there was a surprising amount of current and former LEOs on dumpshock). I was just being (pathologically) honest. Or, I should say more appropriate to what I was talking about in the first place:

"Why do you always say what you believe?
Every proclamation only guarantees
Free ammunition for your enemies"

FWIW, I'm totes sure I'm the only one on the Den that has ever wanted really badly to punch Kaelik.