Based Vampire the Masquerade : rpgmemes

[-] FreddiesLantern@leminal.space 24 points 1 day ago

Good on them for stating it upfront though. (The mention of “alt-right” indicates a more recent version?).

Back in the 90’s/early 00’s it definitely attracted people both left and right winged.

However from my personal experience right wingers was more prevalent in wargaming compared to rpg’s. (Which really sucked because there you were enjoying a nice back n forth about Warhammer and then out comes the racist nazi talk…)

Games Workshop did good by making a pretty strong statement a while ago. But I’m afraid it’ll always be a thing.

[-] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

I was leery of VtM for a long time because I'd always thought of the mythology of vampires generally to be, well, in line with certain kinds of violent sexual acts that I viscerally did not want to roleplay.

Finally decided to read the lore. Honestly? The setting is genuinely far more complex than I had given it credit for. Anarchs forever!

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago

the problem is that they have no media literacy (well, barely any literacy at all) so the satirical nature of Warhammer goes far over their head and they instead unironically think the politics in the game are based.

[-] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago

they don't realize the nazi shit in these games is supposed to be grimdark authoritarian hellscape dystopias, not utopias....

but they can take grimdark authoritarian hellscapes as long as they're run by nazis.

[-] sulgoth@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 hour ago

They think they’d be space marines or inquisitors in that world. You know one of the one-in-a-trillion kinda folks.

[-] MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip 1 points 22 minutes ago

Welcome to Flashlight Brigade Conscription! If you face the enemy, you will die. If you refuse to face the enemy, the nearest Commisar will execute you for treason. Same if you try to run. If you want to live, maybe hope for whichever enemy to adopt you as a pet, but that's less preferable than death in almost all cases.

[-] Herr_S_aus_H@lemmy.zip 32 points 1 day ago

Eat the Reich

[-] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago

Quite literally, in the case of VTM

[-] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 9 points 1 day ago

Maybe I am being whooooshed but just in case: Eat The Reich is a separate RPG where the goal is basically killing as many Nazis as possible as bad ass vampires.

[-] Herr_S_aus_H@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 day ago

Yes, I was referencing this game. But aside from the game I love the wordplay on "eat the rich" and both are tenets to live by.

[-] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago

Ah, I did not know that.

[-] Iunnrais@piefed.social 53 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

On the one hand, good on them for trying a “nazi punks fuck off” type move.

On the other hand, a blood sucking aristocracy that feeds off the “lesser people” beneath them as the protagonists… that’s nearly the definition of fascism?

[-] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Being a novice to the lore, I'd say anyone who unironically thinks the Camarilla are right is someone I would punch.

[-] Jax@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago

that’s nearly the definition of fascism?

Yes, which is why they need to put this kind of disclaimer in their handbook — lest they end up with chuds like the Warhammer franchise. Those chuds being the ones that don't understand that the Imperium is really bad.

[-] Sir_Gkar@lemmy.world 100 points 1 day ago

From what I recall (and this may vary between editions), the game tends to assume that most people are playing younger vampires who aren't anything like an aristocracy. By default, you play as the bottom rung of vampire society, the youngest generation in a system where the older generations will never grow old and die. The aristocrats aren't the protagonists, they are the ever present boot stomping you down.

More importantly, the core concept of the game is supposed to be about the "personal horror" of being a monster. You were a (presumably) ordinary person who has been violated, killed, and brought back as an abomination. Your existence is defined by the struggle against the beast within. You are desperately clinging to your humanity, and every time you slip up or compromise you risk losing a piece of yourself that you can't get back. You suffer mechanical penalties for becoming more evil, and if you ever lose your humanity completely you lose your character.

In short, the game isn't supposed to be the kind of thing that would appeal to a fascist. If anything, it has more in common with the experience of waking up to find yourself surrounded by fascists and trying to survive without becoming one of them.

[-] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 40 points 1 day ago

Yup, this is pretty much it. I played a campaign of it. Essentially, you're so far down the hierarchy you're basically almost human, with older vampires being a far far greater threat than humans, struggling to understand and survive vampire society before it destroys you. As you said, there's also a fair chunk of trying to hold on to what humanity you still have left.

[-] Iunnrais@piefed.social 10 points 1 day ago

That is entirely fair. I only know V:tM from people I knew who played it… but they were, as individuals, definitely more on the fascist side, leaning more into the glamour of being a monster rather than the horror of being a monster.

I hope more groups and players lean into the horror of it more than the glamour. Maybe this note is trying to encourage that.

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[-] PugJesus@piefed.social 54 points 1 day ago

I mean, that's more the definition of... well, aristocracy.

Fascism is largely a creation of the modern age and mass politics.

[-] SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Aristocracy has shown a tendancy to lead to fascism, as can be seen in what is currently happening in the US

[-] PugJesus@piefed.social 6 points 1 day ago

Yes and no. Aristocracy can exist independent from fascism, and should be considered entirely separately. However, if they can't maintain power with a purely conservative/reactionary coalition, aristocrats will almost always side with fascists over liberals, much less socialists. As such, in the modern day, aristocracies are aligned with fascists, despite fascism erasing aristocracy as it 'succeeds' and aristocrats being generally aware that fascists do not have their aristocratic interests in mind.

[-] SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago

Oh absolutely, it's just that the modern day aristocrats of capitalism are so short sighted they can't see past their own nose.

They don't know that their own wealth is meaningless since rule of law is not theirs, and no one will care if they get epstiened like many Russian oligarchs.

"First they came" and all that

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

There is a difference between aristocracy and oligarchy. Aristocracy is under the thumb of the monarch, oligarchy isn't.

[-] SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

On the Wikipedia page, it states that oligarchy is "Aristocracy's corrupt counterpart".

At the end of the day there is no way an aristocracy doesn't become corrupt, so the result is just a label

[-] GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

Fascism is what you get when Aristocracy gets a business degree. The difference between a feudal lord and a CEO is non-farm income.

[-] PugJesus@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago

Fascism is what you get when Aristocracy gets a business degree. The difference between a feudal lord and a CEO is non-farm income.

Far, far from it. Despite the casual use (including by me!) of aristocracy for any entrenched elite, there is a non-negligible difference between actual aristocrats and plutocrats. Long story short, aristocrats are dependent on social capital and extraordinary legal privileges; plutocrats are dependent on financial capital. The tension between these competing sources of elite power has fueled many pre-modern conflicts. The two can blend, and there's rarely a 'pure' example of either, but they're aren't quite equivalent either. A majority-owner of a modern farming conglomerate does not base his power on the same foundation as a feudal lord, and vice-versa.

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[-] Solumbran@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago

I'd rather have anti-fascists play as fascists, than the opposite.

[-] macaw_dean_settle@lemmy.world -1 points 15 hours ago

*Acided.

[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

The amount of fascists that played in my town is what turned me off of White Wolf. That and the sex pests trying to seduce the ladies with die rolls in real life.

[-] starlinguk@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Isn't this the game Rod Ferrell (Vampire Clan murderer) was obsessed with? Maybe that's why fascists like it.

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