Based Vampire the Masquerade
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I mean, that’s more the definition of… well, aristocracy.
Fascism is largely a creation of the modern age and mass politics.
Aristocracy has shown a tendancy to lead to fascism, as can be seen in what is currently happening in the US
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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.
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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Aristocracy has shown a tendancy to lead to fascism, as can be seen in what is currently happening in the US
Fascism is what you get when Aristocracy gets a business degree. The difference between a feudal lord and a CEO is non-farm income.
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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.
Treating humanity as better than “the beast within” is human supremacism, which is fascism. The Camarilla rely on Humanity to protect them from oblivion because they’re a fascist organisation. The Sabbat use the Paths to make peace with the beast within while maintaining their individuality and free will.
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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.
I think treating inhumanity as horror is pretty fascist. I’m in love with a very sweet monster who hates Nazis, and I’m a big fan of Guillermo del Toro’s movies where humans tend to be more evil than monsters.
In My experience VTM players trend fascist because the game encourages you to accept the Camarilla’s fascist idolisation of humanity.
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Eat the Reich
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Isn’t this the game Rod Ferrell (Vampire Clan murderer) was obsessed with? Maybe that’s why fascists like it.
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Eat the Reich
Quite literally, in the case of VTM
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Isn’t this the game Rod Ferrell (Vampire Clan murderer) was obsessed with? Maybe that’s why fascists like it.
Rod Ferrell
Vesaaaaaaaaago, what a fuckwit ahah
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Treating humanity as better than “the beast within” is human supremacism, which is fascism. The Camarilla rely on Humanity to protect them from oblivion because they’re a fascist organisation. The Sabbat use the Paths to make peace with the beast within while maintaining their individuality and free will.
I dunno dude, I find “trying to stay human and fight off actively hostile part inside me that was forced upon me” pretty anti-fascist…
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Quite literally, in the case of VTM
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.
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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.
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.
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Treating humanity as better than “the beast within” is human supremacism, which is fascism. The Camarilla rely on Humanity to protect them from oblivion because they’re a fascist organisation. The Sabbat use the Paths to make peace with the beast within while maintaining their individuality and free will.
Tbh, equating anyone who doesn’t value animals at the same level as humans with fascists is pretty misguided and not helpful at all.
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I dunno dude, I find “trying to stay human and fight off actively hostile part inside me that was forced upon me” pretty anti-fascist…
Well I’ve actually lived what you’re describing, I found a part of Myself that was incompatible with humanity. And it was My true identity knocking on the door of My soul asking to be let in. It was My gender and My species. I am not a human. If I had held onto humanity I would have been denying part of Myself. So many budding otherkin and trans people are forced back into the closet by fascists, who look at us and see what you see in VTM. An invasive “woke mind virus” that causes “rapid onset gender dysphoria”.
To the man who raised Me, his child is dead and I have killed him. And I say: good. I am a creature of the night, an unholy revenant, the vengeance of the wild. I bring the end of civilisation as these fascists know it. The end of their rotten moral values and their cancerous capitalism. I am a dark goddess of madness and rebirth come to free My people from the human shells the fascists have forced them into. Death to the oppressor. Death to the false self. Death to the old world order.
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Tbh, equating anyone who doesn’t value animals at the same level as humans with fascists is pretty misguided and not helpful at all.
I am no human. Tell Me whether you value My life and a human’s equally.
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Fascism is what you get when Aristocracy gets a business degree. The difference between a feudal lord and a CEO is non-farm income.
I can’t imagine the apathy these people have for human* rights, despite seeing the actions this apathy leads to every day
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I can’t imagine the apathy these people have for human* rights, despite seeing the actions this apathy leads to every day
What does it mean that you’ve put an asterisk next to human? Is it just because of the context of vampires or is there like a broader meaning I’m not familiar with?
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Ah yes, vampires, those symbols of liberalism.
I mean, they’re fictional, they can be whatever you want them to be
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Yes, but I believe you should have either phrased this nice enough to actually affect people or much more aggressive and definitive instead of this rather diplomatic statement.
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Nah these games suck and their depiction of indigenous people is completely insane minstrelsy that I feel too ashamed to even describe.
They depict indigenous people rather fairly, depending on your dm.
Then again indigenous means different things around the globe.
