I hate quote wars. I hate them so much. So this will be my last post in this thread.
@The_Supremes said:
EmDom hasn't been used in this fashion. RL Detroit, ultimately concluded that voters wouldn't accept it (they were right) because it would feel like a major invasion of personal property rights (and it would've been, not that this stopped people from doing it in Kelo.')
Let's look past the 'could it happen in real-life angle'. In the World of Darkness cities don't care. They don't want to help the people. They're like Gotham in, well. The TV series Gotham. If anything they'd boot people out and take their homes in-city. The opposite of what your game describes. But it's your game, and if you declare 'the city takes care of people!' thats fine. City of Hope was equally... hopeful.
Again, you're reading stuff that isn't there. There's nothing about 'we love our people' in this move, by the city. It's a budget-saving measure. They write-off huge (read: poor, mostly abandoned, high-crime) neighborhoods as total losses, legally divest the land from what is 'City of Detroit' and cease water, power, policing, fire coverage, and all other city and emergency services. In order to avoid people who live in these places having the right to sue the city for not providing mandated services, they move the few hangers on who still live there to other neighborhoods that they're not writing off. There's no love here, and the process is spectacularly horrible for all parties.
You are aware that the potential for lawsuits is much, much higher when you relocate people than it is for if you just quit giving them utilities, right? But it's your game, again. You're welcome to create whatever reality you desire. You could even say that Mages blew up the Twin Towers if you wanted.
First of all, once again, you're reading things that aren't there. There's nothing about our Werewolf sphere that's cuddly or safe. What we are doing is making the game a safe place for players. Since we have players who are POC and all manner of minorities besides, we're not interested in character concepts that rely on (e.g.) racist stereotypes. They are a form of aggression against the stereotyped minorities and - frankly - they show zero effort on the part of the apping player.
I'm sorry, but POC? That's the sort of thing that I'm talking about. I've got black friends. I know black people who play MU*s. There's a few who post here on this very board. The ones I've known personally haven't been offended by poorly portrayed black/asian/native american/mexican/south american/whatever characters. They're mature adults who realize that a poorly portrayed X could easily be a poorly portrayed Y. The color of the character's skin has nothing to do with the quality of it and by denying people the right to play those 'stereotypes', you simply project your personal viewpoints on race into the game itself and, perhaps a bit ironically, only enforce perceived inequality. However, I don't claim to speak for a whole ethnicity/anyone of another ethnicity/anyone else, not even white country folk like myself. And you're absolutely free to bar stereotypes and restrict what you like... but I'd just like for you to be aware of the silliness of it.
If you can't imagine a Bone Gnawer except as an alcoholic black guy who's behind on his child support payments? You've got some work to do as a writer. If you can't imagine a Black Fury except as a vengeful misandrist, you've got a damagingly incorrect understanding of what feminism is about, and again, we're not interested - our Black Furies have more depth than that. That shit wasn't actually okay in the 90's either, but it's become a staple of WoD gaming in large part because WoD was written by and for people who didn't know any better - I sure didn't get it.
Most Bone Gnawers I've played with have been white, funnily enough. And most Black Furies have been 'progressive types who don't hate men but are simply very pro wo-man'. I don't recognize that playing a black hobo is any worse than playing a white hobo. I don't recognize that playing a man-hating Black Fury is any different than playing a pro-woman Black Fury. It comes down to the individual and in any decent gaming circle people playing characters that others find offensive generally find themselves ostracized in short measure. The act of restricting them will drive off a lot of otherwise sensible players who will view your policies as draconian.
That's what the 'no stereotypes' thing is about though: protecting players from well-meaning folks who don't even realize that playing a character who perpetuates damaging stereotypes is part of the problem. Hell, usually they don't even realize that the character they're playing is a damaging stereotype. This shit's hard.
If someone plays a damaging stereotype? Feel free to educate them. Make sure they're aware. If they still insist on playing it then let them. And let them reap the consequences of it.
Example of Stereotype we do allow: Ahrouns are violent and full of rage. Why? because no actual real-life people are being harmed by the perpetuation of that stereotype.
And that's fine.
Confirmed. I don't even believe the folks who wrote this are, necessarily, racist or misogynist, either. But what White Wolf wrote down, and what a lot of us play with is damaging stuff, and we don't even realize it... which is one thing when you're playing around a table of white guys and while it perpetuates the invisible damage, it's the kind of drop-in-the-bucket stuff that's not worth worrying about. When you've got actual people of color, actual gay people, actual trans people, etc, playing on your game though? You need to be more aware. It's really fucking hard work, too.
It doesn't have to be hard work. It really doesn't. If you just trust your players you'll find that the vast, vast majority of them will make you proud. There will -always- be bad apples. And if they're not playing Sambo the dancing Negro, they'll be playing something else more insidious and creating a negative atmosphere for your game all the same.
But this is just my thoughts on it. I honestly wish your game well. I'd love to see you succeed. More games is better. As it stands I'm not interested in your game due to the policies and it is my belief that those policies (the race things. The relocating stuff won't really bother anyone but me. I'm weird like that.) will substantially lower your potential playerbase and cause your game to be far less awesome than it could be.
I wish you luck and godspeed, sir. I'm done.