A Couple of Thoughts About New Horizons
So far several folks have expressed some concerns about the New Horizons project that got announced yesterday. I thought I’d take a moment to address some of them from my point of view, and with a couple of quotes from Bruce Baugh, the author of the work.
1. I don’t think I’ll like this book. I want my pulp to be gonzo all the time.
Cool beans! Luckily Spirit of the Century is already set up to do that. If you don’t have interest in the other heroes angle, or are already doing it yourself, then you don’t need this book. You’re probably already rocking with Spirit, and can continue to do so.
2. So, Brand, why would you want to put this kind of stuff in your pulp game?
I love the fact that its going to be full of nifty game coolness, with new villains and new heroes and a renewed sense that the world is full of zany, wonderful, terrible stuff without having to always go gonzo. I mean, I think its fun that we often go back to the Gorilla Kahn aspect of pulps, but I sometimes think we miss out on the fact that lots of the old pulps were really into issues of history and the world in ways we often overlook now. I mean sure, they had lost Atlantis (though that wasn’t the pop culture term it is now until someone went out, researched, and started writing stories about it) — but they also had the Orient Express, and the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Civil War and a lot of other things that when we cast our eyes out we totally overlook.
I mean, I know its odd to think of now, but there was a time when the Nazis were the ruling government of a country that the US was not at war with in which the pulps were using them as bad-guys anyway. Captain America (comics, not pulp I know, but close enough for hand grenades) punched Hitler in the mouth in March of 1941 — months before the States was at war with Germany. That took guts, because even if anti-German feelings were running high, it was using the image of the head of a foreign state and doing physical violence to him. Legal action could very realistically have ensued, and there was some backlash to it. Pulps didn’t always do just the safe thing, and very often the evil guys that the heroes fought were evil guys or allegories of evil guys, from the real world. Nowdays we think “nazi bash” as good clean fun with no political side, something that we can just all do without a second thought, but that wasn’t always the case. Pulps were not all apolitical, and many of them increased their sense of optimism and the potential of the future by having the guts to stand up and say things directly. And even when it wasn’t direct, pulps and comics were taking stands to make big two-fisted statements about justice. So why not put a little justice and reality back in our pulp?
Nor, in the case above, can I ignore that the writer and artist were Jewish, and so were many pulp writers. The old pulps were full of heroes and heroines of different types, from lesbian detectives to Jewish detectives to black detectives to… well, lots of detectives I guess. I think that having a supplement where we can get back at some of the politics of the pulps, some of the real stuff that they dealt with — even when they only dealt with it in a fun and fast way — can help round out the “Martians stole my death ray” experience into something fuller and richer and more like the vast variety of pulps in their prime.
3. What’s this about a woman not being able to hold patents, or Asian immigrants not being allowed to teach each other English? I know women have held patents in their own name since at least the mid-1800s, and several Asian-Americans set up schools for English language instruction.
While I have a bit to say about this on my own, I’m going to let Bruce answer this one:
The patent issue is actually a good one to illustrate a point: there were legal rights not everyone could exercise in practice. A lot of female inventors got turned down without recourse, and in-house notes make it clear that they were turned down for being women, because individual inspectors didn’t approve. I’ve got examples on my shelves over yonder *points helpfully*. The same is true for other examples in my post - what was legal would often clash with what was actually done, and what could in practice be enforced. In both cases, (problems arose from) matters of official caprice even where the clear text of the law said something otherwise. I’ll be providing examples for this stuff, and likely quoting William Burroughs on the three types of cops.
I should also add that some people in discriminated-against categories of various sorts - and not just celebrities - could and did get treated better than the law actually allowed for, thanks to just plain decent people in positions of authority. The tangle between law and practice should be a major theme in New Horizons, particularly since social aspects let one apply interesting leverage to various parts of the thicket.
4. So are you taking steps to make sure that the past doesn’t look worse than it actually was? I mean, it could get bad at times, but there was also a lot of good out there. Is that going to get addressed?
There have always been stand out cases — on every side. There have been more enlightened friendly, open people in history than we often recognize. The truth is that if the majority of people weren’t willing to accept change, didn’t embrace at least some aspects of it, things wouldn’t have changed as they did. There have been more men and women who triumphed over prejudice than can easily be cataloged. And we in no way want to deny either of these groups their just due and praise.
But even in stories of triumph there are obstacles. And for every good story a bad one. Booker T Washington often went out to dinner with the Steel Barons of the Universe, but Langston Hughes was once asked to go in the back door at a dinner in his honor. Women inventors did make amazing things, and Wollenstonecraft did publish, heck, I have an ancestor who was a female doctor before the American Civil War. But I also have ancestors who were beaten to death, hung, or chased out of a state in campaigns of organized terror, and there are many stories of women who were turned away at the door because they wore a skirt.
The past was full of the best and the worst, and no doubt about it. But the fact that there have always been renegades just means that there was always something to rebel against. So we want to make a book in which there is a chance to get into the real difficulties of the issue, and not just strawmen.
5. So, what else does this book have to say about issues of discrimination and historical perspective? Is it all going to be “they were wrong then and we are right now?” How do you handle such a hard topic and not get didactic.
For this one, again, I’m going to let Bruce answer:
I think that a lot of gamers never learned how to use history (and other scholarship) to best effect, and in part New Horizons should be a “show by example” book. I’ve never had so much opportunity to talk directly to players and GMs about the methodology along with the stats and all, and intend to make the most of it.
Different people do different things and have wildly different experiences all against the same background, and deciding how you want to select the specific circumstances to use in play - the overall tone of the campaign, what works for this scene, and in between - can be (should be, I’d say) both challenging and fun.
I was just remarking to Fred, in fact, that I’d like to do something like this: take a particular moment where someone in one of the groups I’m covering has an interesting encountering with the powers that be, and show how very differently it can be described by observers and scholars all of whom are honest and have good will, but who are all bringing different perspectives to bear. “Anything goes” and “it can only be this one way” are both common errors in using history in entertainment, but fortunately, the middle ground is both available and very often more enjoyable once you see how to get there.
6. So Why Does Any of This Matter to Actual Gamers?
Well, for that I’m going to let a couple of actual gamers responses stand as the answer:
sabbatregent writes:
It’s been a long time since I posted on RPG.net. I hope that my comment doesn’t get lost in the deluge this supplement has created.
I’m Mexican. That means I can’t claim any race but a mixture of many. Also, I live in Mexico City. That is, I live in a city where some people still have to use the back entrances to a restaurant, and some people can’t walk on certain neighborhoods without getting arrested. Religious persecution, sexism, chauvinism, homophobia: you name it, we have it plenty. Sure, the Law don’t support any of this conducts, and a lot of them are considered criminal. Still, they’re very much a part of my society.
We’re even racists to ourselves. In many restaurants and bars, they would even unseat you to give your place to a foreigner. There’s a common fear of Asians, of African Americans, of indigenous people, of Argentinians. People of one State sometimes loath anyone from any other State.
Anyway, this is not a sympathy plea. It’s actually a pretty good place to live. I just wanted to give context to my point. I’ve been role playing for almost fifteen years. I’ve had many gaming groups over that period.
A lot of World of Darkness way back when. Despite that the fact that every single one of us were Mexican, most of our characters were either American or European.
A lot of D&D way back when. Despite the fact that most of the time there has been at least one woman on my groups, everyone’s character was male. Very sexist male characters, even when played by women.
I remember some White Wolf books that heavily referenced Mexico: Mexico City by Night, the Giovanni clanbook, Chaos Factor and Tales of Trails. It was really funny the way we get to be depicted in those books. The thing is, most of the players I knew never really pointed out that. We took the caricature of ourselves for granted. We never questioned the way Mexicans got represented in those books.
Actually, some GMs down here, when a Mexican character appears, make funny voices, the same way Spanish gets misrepresented/mispronounced in American TV.
In our last SotC game, even when everyone was free to choose any nationality (the Century Club being international and all) there were two English characters, two Americans, one Rumanian (my own), and one French.
What I’m trying to say here: there seems to be more to this book than only depicting ‘minorities’. This could be the source of stories that really have never been told before, simply because the medium (pulp) never really existed outside of some Occidental contexts. Also, it actually seems really important that the choices are offered: to play a gay character, for example, might be a lot of fun, but if the option isn’t readily available, you may not actually think of using it.
Hence, D&D parties comprised entirely of male characters. Hence, a bunch of Mexican roleplayers who can’t, for the lives of themselves, think of making a Mexican vampire. We do not conceive pulp in our cultural terms, hence we need to come up with concepts based on other cultures.
Many people I look up to in history fought to change a world like that; I wouldn’t be here without them. And people today *still* follow in their footsteps.
It certainly won’t {bring my table down}. And I’m saying that as an African-American woman.
Pulp isn’t just about kicking evil in the junk - it’s about bravehearted men and women of every stripe finding adventure and making the world a better place, regardless if it’s stopping a gold-laden Klan train, or finding the hidden last library of Alexandria.
Most pulp doesn’t give a place for women, or people of color, or political dissidents, or LGBTs. They’re background, the people carrying the bags while the brave white men forge ahead, or the evil enemy. Worst case, they’re not mentioned at all.
Or if they ARE mentioned, it’s in a stereotypical way that makes my teeth ache.
So hell yeah, gimme a chance to inject a little reality in the pulp. Stop ignoring the people I want to play because ‘reality and history were boring and sad.’
The entire theme of pulp proves *it doesn’t have to be*.
7. Okay, so I’m down with all of that, but are you having anyone outside the circle do readings on this stuff? Like, having people in affected groups have a chance to look over the material?
Plans so far seem to include that. I know I’ve got my communism in my pocket, and that Bruce has said he’s looking for people from the discussions about gender and race to help him with various aspects. Fred’s talked about doing stuff like that too, and in general we’re looking to give people a chance to make their voices heard. But, considering the book isn’t even written yet, we’re not done with the plan on that.
Any extra worries or comments or whatever, can be left in the comments. There is a lot still to be decided about the book, and Bruce still has to write the thing, so there is also no hurry.
I have this little daydream about people playing a game based on Bruce’s supplement and then thinking, hey, we should go out and actively fight discrimination in the real world, too.
Thanks for posting this up, Brand. I don’t think I would have assembled a summary quite as well as you did here. I’ll make sure to link over to it on my LJ.
Good stuff, Brand. I can see that I will need to tinker with some aspects of presentation. I knew I would, of course, just not what they’d be.
On my new list is making sure to be clear about law versus custom, since the patent thing keeps coming up. Easy enough to adjust without giving up my underlying point, fortunately for me.
Well said, sir. I look forward to seeing the book.
Brand, I highly suggest you check out Ide Cyan’s piece on Timeless, I think it has relevancy to the issue of dealing with historical accuracy in a non-bigoted way.
Thanks for the link!
Brand, I’ve been thinking a bunch recently about the Exotic Other and how to value those roots in pulp (instead of just pretending they’re not there), while making them more interesting and less awful. I’m not sure if these thoughts would be any help to you or Bruce, but we should talk at some point, in any case. I’d be interested in your take.
Word. Mail me at the usual place, or we could hook up a Google Chat or phone conversation.
(For an early idea of my take on it, the Brothers Rajput show some exotic other that I tried to balance with respect and a sense that they had lives and values of their own rather than just as entertainment for the white boy.)
Meredith and I were talking about this very thing the other day. Pointing out the lives of the oppressed, marginalized and exotified is only half of it. It still normalizes the white male, and thinking of white and male as ‘normal’ is fucked.
Yea, living in India I was the exotic other.
Another bit, from yet another conversation about the topic:
8. But isn’t this the kind of thing that gamers can just do on their own? I mean, if you want to do it, why not just do it?
The very first thing I did when I got Spirit of the Century was to make The Brothers Rajput. It was no problem at all for me to just whip out some South Asian folks who had a compelling story that was kinda pulpy-exotic but still gave props to the historical culture without trivializing or overly orientalizing it. (There was a bit where they were Rajput princes who cared about the common people, which wasn’t common, but….) So yea, obviously it can be done.
The thing is, I don’t know how easily everyone that plays Spirit could have done it. I was living in India at the time that I wrote the characters, and when I wanted to know how an actual Indian would feel about them I went out and found one and asked. I have a degree in History with a focus on South Asia. I’ve read a billion books on the subject and written a 300,000 word RPG supplement based on India. So I could make the Rajputs both interesting, non-bland, non-orientalist, and with enough history to give them what, to me, is a real pulp flare (because the pulp writers were smart guys and did research). No problem for me, but for someone else with no knowledge of India, getting the mix of history, politics, religious and political observance and everything else that makes the characters pop out of the overly simplistic retro-pulp school of “Cowgirls and First-Nations” might take some work.
It’s a similar thing with a lot of groups in the 20s. Despite the fact that it was less than 100 years ago a lot of people don’t know much about the time, and don’t realize how different it was. They don’t know about the Red Scare of 1917-1920, or the rise of the International Workers Union in the mid 20s. They don’t know about America air-bombing its own cities to stop riots by black service men from WWI who returned home with combat training and no willingness to go back to sub-human conditions. They don’t know about a lot of this stuff at all, and even when they find it out it isn’t always immediately obvious how to apply it to game — especially if they want to do it well.
It is easy to come up with off the cuff answers, but they tend to be inelegant and rough. But because many people either aren’t experts on the subject or simply don’t have time to do more detailed work, that is the kind of solution lots of people come up with when they try to do things quickly on their own without putting in the time and effort to really make it work. It isn’t what Bruce will be doing though, because he’s a professional and is going to put in the time and effort to make his solutions more elegant, more integrated, and less strawmanny than that. The ability to do it well rather than just club your way through it, isn’t easy and isn’t something every group can do without putting a lot more effort into it than a game is usually worth.
So, you could read dozens of books about different groups in the 20s, work those into your game, figure out enough historical analysis technique to make it combine gracefully with pulp, and then make NPCs and plot hooks based on it — or you can just buy this book and have the work of others provided for you. For some people it won’t be worth it, because they have more time than money. For many it will be, because they have more money than time. And for a lot of people the ability to have one slim book to read that lets you do it in both the time and money that are worth spending on a game is a very good thing.
Alexandria2000 writes: Or if they ARE mentioned, it’s in a stereotypical way that makes my teeth ache. So hell yeah, gimme a chance to inject a little reality in the pulp. Stop ignoring the people I want to play because ‘reality and history were boring and sad.’
Surely you mean to add a little fantasy and unreality into the pulps.
That said - there were stories which were indeed sympathetic. The standard pulp hero is ideed a white man, but he often relied upon other racial and sexual achetypes to get things done and more often than not, treated them as equals even if society did not. I’m beginning to see this supplement being an opportunity to put reality in and I’m really thinking that’s the last thing we want to do. Reality is and was bigoted and ugly.
You have a choice. You either make race irrelevant so someone can play a female asian hero who leads the charge against the darkness (and thus rewrite the genre and change history) or you include reality and run the same character and spend half your time smacking landlords and officials about for their lack of modern sensibilities. Said like that it seems like a petty revenge plot.
Sounds like a fallacy of the excluded middle to me. Things in life are rarely binaries and so setting them up as though there is no middle ground or balance doesn’t usually lead to correct conclusions. Also, there’s a link to where Alexandria made that comment above the quote. If you wish to respond to her points it’s best to do so through that link so that she can hear and respond to you herself.
However, this is something that I know Bruce is keeping an eye on. The balance between playability and reality is often a fine thing, but its also not one that can’t be done with some attention. If that still won’t work for you, then good news is its a supplement and so you can enjoy Spirit of the Century without it.
I didn’t say it was a binary choice. I’m just wary that it might have a very negative effect.
Oh, okay then. That is something worth thinking about for sure.
However, I don’t think either Alexandria’s response nor Bruce’s plan fall into the traps you’re worried about. We’ll be sure to keep an eye on the final product for playability and fun — with the fact in mind that not everyone’s fun is the same. I mean really, no body seems to mind beating up Nazis while researching Atlantis, so beating up the KKK while researching the Timurid dynasty shouldn’t be unfun.