WWGS...what does it mean...

[Jake Norwood]

For those of you that aren't familiar, you HAVE to check out this site:

http://www.father-ramos.com

it has slow loading times, but is worth a visit. Particularly check out the sermons page.

We saw this at Gen Con and had a long discussion about it. I think (as do many of us now) that it's one hell of an advirtising scheme by WWGS...or white wolf game studio (or, "what would god say?"). The site is so convincing, but definitely bogus: a "555" phone number, and an address that doesn't exist (we checked mapquest).

So, brilliant, isn't it?

Check it out. It's a shame that they thought of it before Ron did.

Jake

[Clinton R. Nixon]

It wouldn't surprise me if this was White Wolf - they made a similar fake web site when they put out Hunter. It's pretty fucking tasteless, though.

[hardcoremoose]

Shit, I'm Presbyterian.  Or at least I was back when I was twelve...the last time a regularly attended church.

- Scott

[mahoux]

Check this out:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

Can we say "White Wolf: the Stealing?"

[Ron Edwards]

Hi everyone,

The real agony is that, having bought the ruse hook line & sinker (which I did), I actually, immediately thought, "Hey, that would be a great promo to put out one of these things as an advertising hook for Sorcerer next year!" I envisioned something that wasn't an out-and-out ruse, so much as an honest advertisement for Sorcerer that just looked like a Chick book in format only.

And then Jake said, "Hmmm, I think it's a gimmick. Look, WWGS on the front." And I said .... oog! Damn!

Best,
Ron

[WhistlinFiend]

This is exactly why I don't buy White Wolf stuff...religion is just another pinata to take a whack at. I didn't get to make GenCon this year due to a family tragedy, but I always go out of my way to tell people like John Wick and the Fading Suns folks, that I appreciate them treating religion intelligently and maturely.

Maybe the moral of the story is that when it comes to publishing and marketing games, Christians are a demographic that don't like to be denigrated any more than anyone else.

-d

[Jake Norwood]

This is exactly why I don't buy White Wolf stuff...religion is just another pinata to take a whack at. I didn't get to make GenCon this year due to a family tragedy, but I always go out of my way to tell people like John Wick and the Fading Suns folks, that I appreciate them treating religion intelligently and maturely.

Maybe the moral of the story is that when it comes to publishing and marketing games, Christians are a demographic that don't like to be denigrated any more than anyone else.

-d

I'm a Mormon (gasp! little known Forge fact), and I grew up with this kind of crap being spread about what I believe by other "good" people. I learned to laugh at it, 'cause what the hell else are you going to do? To me, this WWGS thing is funny, although I admit that what you're saying has a lot to it. I remember playing Vampire back in early high school when one of their first supplements said that the Mormon church was under the control of vampires, and I thought, "damn, did I need that? Does anyone else need that?" Not really. What WW is doing is closing the minds of everyone they can get their hands on by setting up this "religion hates roleplaying" schtick, and assuming that none of us actually care about what's "out there."

So I laugh, and think it's a damn clever marketing ploy. Then again so is sexploitation... (Ben Moore just said "ah just call it porn.")

Still, though, the site is slick, if plain wrong.

Jake

[Matt Gwinn]

Just in case there is any doubt.
I opened the PDF download from the site in my new copy of Acrobat 5 and checked a few things.

The creator of the PDF is listed as Chris McDonough

Chris McDonough has done extensive work for white wolf.  Check out this list
http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=230

,Matt Gwinn

[Mytholder]

AFAIK, it's the Demon: the Fallen promo site.

[Jake Norwood]

AFAIK, it's the Demon: the Fallen promo site.

Exactly my point from the beginnig. Sick, but brilliant.

Jake

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

See, this is a weird issue all 'round.

1) I agree that religion has been portrayed and treated badly in RPG texts, whether from the utility-cleric concept in D&D or from the vampire-Mormon etc stuff in the World of Darkness. (I'll give honorable mention to the priest supplement for Fading Suns, which I think is really good.)

2) I also think that Jack Chick and like-minded folks are morons. I don't even mind that they exist, they seem so trivial to me. Just for clarity, I shall emphasize that the real danger in their existence is the wimpy-ass, utterly-wrongheaded reaction of a given industry (music, comics, movies, games, etc) to kowtow to them "just in case."

So put #1 and #2 together. My reaction to the White Wolf ad is therefore not too mixed - I think it's brilliantly funny and effective, as it skewers some pretty stupid people and shows, to the consumers, some brains and balls on the part of the company. All well and good ... almost. I did say "not too mixed."

After all, in the context of the WW approach to religion in general, which I shall paraphrase as, "Cool people who wear black and smoke a lot are above all that parental, societal, narrow-minded religious dogma" - ie adolescent bullshit - then the pamphlet has a mean-spirited quality. Making fun of Chick is a lot like kicking a smaller, chubbier kid and having your friends laugh about it. Contrast it with the concept I arrived at, that I described above.

It really comes down to whether a person of a religious bent does or does not respect Jack Chick et al. "Well, at least he's acting on his faith, and that's a good thing," some might say. I consider that to be rather a leap, myself, as Chick and friends seem to me to be acting out of stupidity (faith is not stupid).

Best,
Ron

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Oog. Yeah, it is a bit...tacky....

Cleverly executed, though. I particularly like the "wolf in sheep's clothing" reference, the horned Jesus, and Father Ramos's Mephistophelean look.

[mahoux]

Seth wrote:

Cleverly executed, though. I particularly like the "wolf in sheep's clothing" reference, the horned Jesus, and Father Ramos's Mephistophelean look.

I'm glad other people have caught these little nuances.

Personally, I have no major problem with WWGS as far as this goes.  After another look and comaprison, I retract my stealing comment.  There is some noticeable difference between the two.  However, without getting into a semantics argument, I don't really consider this parody so much as whoring the Demon Game.  Please don't debate me on this, it's just my personal opinion.

I will be interested to see how WW handles Father Ramos in Demon, if at all.  But I don't think I will pick up the game as I'm not a WW or WoD fan.

Finally, I think it was in poor taste for WW to use the Presbyterian church– or any denomination really– for the site.  I'm not Presbyterian, I'm raised Methodist and currently attend my wife's Assembly of God Church, but that's neither here nor there.  A slightly more generic church would be a little less tacky.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

It really comes down to whether a person of a religious bent does or does not respect Jack Chick et al. "Well, at least he's acting on his faith, and that's a good thing," some might say. I consider that to be rather a leap, myself, as Chick and friends seem to me to be acting out of stupidity (faith is not stupid).

I have to agree. (I got jumped at RPG.net for calling this "distasteful." I think the people who jumped me need a dictionary - distasteful doesn't mean I was offended. It means that I thought it was in poor taste, like most of what WW puts out.)

Now, I have a tangent (that may be split off into its own thread) that's pretty personal to me. It might seem stupid, but it's real:

How do we cope with people who really believe this stuff - that RPG's are Satan's toybox? It seems like we could write them all off as stupid, but a few aren't. I'll give my personal anecdote: my parents are conservative Christians. They're not close-minded people, though - they've been foster parents, raising children of every race and background, in Alabama, for 15 years now. (It takes some serious grit for a Caucasian woman to go to the grocery store with an African-American baby in her arms in Alabama. I heard comments made about her as a child that would make your ears burst into flame.)

Yet, they think that RPG's honestly are some sort of introduction to the occult - a brainwashing, if you will. This does come out of ignorance - I could never convince them to sit in on a session. I ignore this for the most part and don't broach the subject with them, but that's not really satisfactory for two reasons: (1) Ignorance isn't cool. I feel I have a responsibility to wake them up. (2) They're my parents. I'd love to send them a copy of Paladin, or show them the Forge - my biggest successes are in role-playing, and I'd love to be able to share that with them.

Again, my question: how can we reach out to people that really believe RPG's are evil? (Ron, I know you've been working on something similar in a different field - teaching evolution to conservative Christian college students. Do you have any insights from that?)

[Clay]

I'd love to send them a copy of Paladin, or show them the Forge - my biggest successes are in role-playing, and I'd love to be able to share that with them.

My advice would be to just send it to them, tell them that this is what you've been working on.  You may not be able to reach them because they aren't really interested in changing their views. They may be open to it, and see that you've done something you're really proud of, and didn't compromise your Christian values to do it.

My future inlaws have very much this same view, and I was pretty much accused to trying to introduce my future stepson to satan worship when I gave him a D&D player's handbook, dice, and some cool figures for his birthday.  To make it extra special they did this in front of my family.  I'm not sure how I'll approach that one either. There are larger issues than the gaming (I'm pretty sure they were convinced that I was Satan's henchman a long time ago), so I'm not sure I'm even going to think about approaching the issue.