The mention of White Wolf reminds me of the time I narowly avoided getting into an SJW infested Exalted game.
Now, I fucking love Exalted, it's one of my favorite games, and I'll take the rare opportunities to lay it whenever I can, but I made my excuses and dropped this group pretty damn quickly.
The Storyteller seemed reasonable at first, taking auditions for characters, and acepting mine. Maybe the first red flag should have been that they didn't need to know much more than the fact that I was planning to play a black lesbian pirate, seeming very keen to accept the character based on that alone. They even altered the geographical location of the campaign to an area with more sea that what they originally had planned.
'Cool,' thought I, 'they like my character.'
And then came the first group session. I was suspicious once the word 'triggers' came up, with the GM asking if there was anything people would prefer not to see in the game. We all agreed on not including rape, which I prefer to leave out of games because playing the subject as anything other than cheap angst or completely under-doing it is next to impossible.
Then came the killer.
In Exalted, the main sea-going region is the west, where women are forbidden to go to sea. The reason for this is the Storm Mothers, powerful ocean spirits who are homicidally jealous of any woman prettier than them. In other words, all women who don't have the backing of a more powerful God, like the PCs.
One of the players had a problem with this, going into a full Tumblrina rant about patriarchy, oppression, and socially constructed strandards of beauty. The other players agreed that this was indeed problematic.
Then, like any SocJus gathering will do, the group tore itself apart. I pointed out that it was possible for a woman to become a sailor without being one of the Exalted by becoming Tya. Essentially, she sterilizes herself, adorns herself with ritual tattoos and declares herself a man.
This was the beginning of a shitstorm.
One half of the group thought this was an excellent idea, allowing for strong proud trans characters. The other half insisted that this was even more problematic, forcing women to masculinize themselves and surrender their femininity, adding to their oppression.
The first half then went on to accuse the second of transphobia, at which point, I pretended my work schedule had changed to prohibit me from playing, and left the conversation.
That was the only time I ever turned down a game of Exalted. Thanks Tumblr.
I just wanted to play a magical lesbian pirate!
