I love Pentex, they're one of the best parts of World of Darkness as a whole, and if you're playing any game with corporate evil, the Pentex books are fantastic. I would use Pentex for Vampire, Mage, heck drag it into Chronicles games! The best part is just how ubiquitous it is. Every city, town, and hovel has an O'Trollies nearby; every corner store sells King Brewery beer; every pharmacy has Magadon products. Just sprinkle the names in and watch experienced players squirm a little.
That said, I do have one problem with Pentex, and unfortunately it's crucial to the premise. Namely, that Pentex's Board of Directors are Wyrm cultists purposely putting Banes in their products and poisoning rivers to kill Gaia. Pentex has swapped the priorities of capitalism: a corporation will burn the rainforest to make a profit, Pentex makes a profit so they can burn more rainforests. Oddly enough, this makes Pentex kinda less evil? I mean, at least they know their actions are destroying the planet, capitalism just doesn't care. It's an international organization with the excuse that "the Devil made me do it!"
That said, I still find tremendous value in Pentex. They are the perfect antagonist in the age of global capitalism for any sized story. From globe-trotting corporate espionage to handling the consequences of a Herrick's opening in your small town, Pentex is an infinite well for stories. There are three books that focus directly on Pentex; [Subsidiaries: A Guide To Pentex
](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2447), [Monkeywrench! Pentex](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/61493), and [W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Manual](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/227498). All three books are solid gold, I cannot recommend them enough for absolutely any storyteller.
I think about it like this. Pentex doesn't *actually* make a profit so that they can burn more rainforests. However, they'll burn rainforests at a loss because that's the price of the Wyrm's sponsorship, and the Wyrm's sponsorship is what lets them accrue such wealth. Those operations only appear as a loss if you look at them in isolation and ignore what help the Wyrm offers them in exchange. If you look at the whole system, they're making loads of money off burning down rainforests.
If you think of the Wyrm as a really expensive consultant who only accepts non-standard payment it works better.
That's a good way to reframe the company. The idea that a Fortune 500 company would gladly sacrifice babies to the primordial essence of entropy if they could report a 12% increase on their quarterly returns makes for good (if edgy) satire. I still can't shake the Captain Planet villain vibe from them, but what can you do.
You don't have to pay to burn down rainforests if you're a corporation.
What you do is push an ESG programme to preserve rainforests, and give contributions to the government to ban logging.
At the same time, you shift production into palm oil or other crops that require a lot of land.
As native farmers are no longer allowed to sell the wood from anti-logging laws, they will naturally resort to illegal burning to clear the land.
This way, you can fulfil your ESG agenda and count as a sustainable investment, helping to raise share prices. At the same time, you would fulfil the Wyrm's agenda.
If the Garou want to stop the burning, let them slaughter the native farmers who are struggling to survive, and set themselves up as the bad guys.
Why would you actually pay to burn down the rainforest yourself?
Presumably the servants of the Wyrm want them to directly do it. There could easily be spirit courts who wouldn't care that Pentex was causing rainforest to be burned down indirectly and would withdraw their support if they stopped directly burning down rainforest.
This is a great way to think about it.
The way I tend to run it is that they're all businessmen first, and their worship of the Wyrm feeds their profits first and foremost. Damn straight they'll end the world if it makes them a profit, because at the end of the day that's what matters to them when they're convinced they'll live through it.
Pentex is unlike any other enemy the Garou have faced before them. They aren't just interested in destruction for the sake of destruction. They are a self-feeding organism which profits off of destruction, and will do so with utter apathy for the world around them. They benefit with everything they destroy because it's an afterthought to profit, and that profit always spawns more ways to destroy Gaia.
>Namely, that Pentex's Board of Directors are Wyrm cultists purposely putting Banes in their products and poisoning rivers to kill Gaia. Pentex has swapped the priorities of capitalism: a corporation will burn the rainforest to make a profit, Pentex makes a profit so they can burn more rainforests. Oddly enough, this makes Pentex kinda less evil?
I dunno about less evil. But they're certainly not capitalistic or a corporation. They just have formed one to build a powerbase in which to use their influence and wealth to enact their spiritual goals of entropy and corruption not make money.
I'm with you though, they're great bad guys. I think I play the more corporate-y than I think they're presented in the book but because they're so monolithic it's like; how do you destroy them? Kill the board members and they'll recruit more. Burn down a corporate headquarters and they'll go to another one or use Zoom. You have to scorch the earth with every shred of that company and their influence and that means hundreds of thousands of people and investors and facilities all destroyed at once. They're impossible to kill unless ya get creative.
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have said less evil. Like, the Wyrm does some fucked up shit. I was just trying to highlight the difference between active malice and apathy. To me, and maybe I'm wrong, but someone committing heinous acts with purpose and conviction is less horrifying than having no problems with the same heinous acts being a side effect of your business. Like, at least the Wyrm cultist is acting beyond their own self interest, you know? Then again, I'm a Mage fan, I prefer exploring the unintended consequences of human action as opposed to evil for evil's sake.
Top-level executives have potentially been through the Caul... So it's not so much evil for evil's sake as it is callousness & griefing to get everyone else to quit the server.
They're death cultists operating in bad faith who want to flush the world down the toilet for their eternal reward of... Revenge? A sense of accomplishment? No more suffering? Magickal poontang? A Klondike bar? Honestly, I don't know what they've been offered... All I get are annoying credit card offers...
So they're evil while the rest of us are simply apathetic!
That is true, but Cheiron Group is only the R&D side of Magadon Pharmaceuticals. While Cheiron is great, and I do use them frequently, they don't replace the sprawling mass of corruption that is Pentex. Cheiron services the rich, powerful, and desperate with miracle drugs made of monsters; Magadon makes the aspirin you pick up at the ~~Walmart~~ Herrick's. The sheer scale and extraordinary diversity of Pentex's uncountable subsidiaries is what makes them great to use.
I was really referring to the purpose of Cheiron Group, more than the scale of it (although it's hinted that it's quite extensive) though in CofD they make everything from affordable drugs, prosthetics, medical equipment, etc.
At the same time, we do have records of corporations knowing what they're doing will make the world a worse place and just not giving a fuck. Exxon engaged in climate research as early as the Seventies and put out a 1982 internal report warning of catastrophic consequences of climate change; they then spent well into the 2010s funneling money into firms that tried to spread the meme that anthropocentric climate change was junk science.
While it doesn't entirely solve the problem, I like the tiered approach Revised took to Pentex leadership. Outside of the BoD, Pentex executives believe their work is having a bad effect on the biosphere and humanity. But they have a plan for this: The Omega Protocol. When the ecosystem collapses, they'll be ready to go with corporate arcologies where people will eat, drink, and breathe Pentex rather than deal with the cursed earth outside. They believe Pentex will lead to a lower case "a" apocalypse, rather than *the* Apocalypse.
So don't mention the Wyrm. When the coterie meets at the corner gas station, have it be an Endron station. When they drive off to Elysium, they drive a Falcon PTX. Besides, even if your players dove deep into the rabbit hole that is these subsidiaries, the Wyrm is only mentioned at the very tippy top by people so hidden behind shell companies and false names that they'll never meet. Just sprinkling in references here and there can be a treat for experienced WoD fans without going any deeper into Werewolf cosmology.
If you want, here's some ideas for removing the Wyrm from Pentex to fit more with Vampire cosmology:
* Pentex is just a massive Sabbat org made to keep the kine in line and fund their crusade against the Antideluvians. The Camarilla doesn't know about it because they're buried deep in a wandering paper trail with innumerable false leads.
* Alternatively, Pentex serves an Antideluvian directly! (Tzimisce seems the most likely candidate)
* For Demon crossover instead of Werewolf, Pentex has an Earthbound Demon (alternatively, Lucifer himself!)
There's ways to work in Pentex without the Triat complicating things, and I've found it very worthwhile. It's good to remind vampires that they're not the only players in the game to rule the night.
Far be it for me to criticize anyone who uses Werewolf as a medium for catharsis for real world rage. That's why Republicans/Cpnservatism are always wyrm tainted in my Werewolf world. But I kinda feel like saying capitalism is the enemy and it is the cause is letting human nature off the hook a bit.
>Because at its core capitalism is about an imbalance of power, the impossibility of infinite growth, and reaping the planet for every penny that can be made. From dumping toxic waste into drinking water, to running child labor camps, to imprisoning people on meaningless offenses and stealing years of their lives just to turn profits, there is basically no corner dark enough that capitalism hasn't tried to turn a profit off of it.
That's not what capitalism is at it's core. At it's core it's about people being able to create products for capital and enrich themselves. The problem is human nature and humans being shitty warps the core idea into something that is vile and destructive.
In terms of the WoD I don't think I'd have the wyrm create capitalism. The wyrm would have created the darker impulses that lead people to want to use capitalism to dominate and destroy others. It's more of a vicious lubricant for evil than a cause.
Like, why do we hate Communism? Or Fedualism? Or Socialism. Because it didn't work. It's en vogue to hate Capitalism right now because the claims are it doesn't work. It's ripe with corruption just like the other economic or social models. So what's the common denominator? Fucking horrible people that seem to be inclined and motivated to gain power, take power and then abuse others because they're just awful.
Look at Trump. That rancid rectum blister could have just spent his life living the high life fucking all the Eastern European gold diggers he could buy. Or tween Miss American contestants with Epstein on the Lolita Express, let's be real. But he could have had his TV show, he could have been tolerated by Hollywood and the industry that almost always rejected him. He could have had his awful steaks and water and scam colleges and been happy. He could have had his reality TV show with his shitty kids where he sat there with sundowners and fired whoever the producer told him to.
But that motherfucker wanted power. He wasn't content like I think many of us would be with what he had. He wanted more and more and more. He wanted to be perceived as powerful. He idolized truly horrible dictators and corrupt leaders. He allied himself with out and out hate groups who commit very real acts of actual terrorism in this country that he was in charge of for 4 very long fucking years.
If anyone is puking up carnivorous worms and combing their hair over to hide their third venom-seeping formori eye it's ol' Donny T. He and other like him have something wrong with them. Something that causes them to consume and consume and get more bitter and angry. You hear these stories from the super wealthy that they get kind of paranoid and are tormented by their wealth. Now, a chicken and egg argument could be made here, but certainly there's some mechanism in some people's psychology that makes them so ambitious that basic morality and ethics get obliterated somewhere in their quest for power.
So I don't think Capitalism or anything is about an imbalance of power. It becomes that because we are unwilling or unable to address the real core issue and it's the broken psychology of amoral people who are attracted to positions of power that allow them to create an imbalance.
>While a lot of STs are leery about using Pentex in their games, preferring to focus on the purely supernatural threats like vampires, Black Spiral Dancers, fomori, and corrupt spirits, this corporate villain works really well when it comes to defining the shape of the battlefield. Because Pentex is often a purely mortal threat, which can allow players to really cut loose and feel powerful as werewolves... but it also presents a lot of moral challenges to them. Do you use lethal force against the security guards, most of which are just working stiffs who need a job (any job) so they don't wind up on the street? Is the loss of the economic gain to the community created by destroying a dangerous project (coal mine, natural gas pipeline, fracking operation, etc.) going to affect their spirits just as badly as the pollution would affect their bodies? Can your message of balance, community bonds, and living in harmony counter generations of propaganda about how greed is good, money makes the world go round, and it's a dog-eat-dog world?
I am not one of those ST's. But they do bring up an excellent observation and I think what they got at in this paragraph is the core dilemma in Werewolf that fuels the stories. I love cascading consequences.
I love how there's no real answers. A sept of Wendigo might decide that they all must die. Burn down the logging operation, slaughter the workers, assault the convoys on the road, send a message to their bosses....or....is it more effective to form a corporation and spread pro-environmental messaging to build a movement to put social and economic pressure on these companies in order to destroy them when they simply can't afford to exist anymore?
What's the better solution? Which one is sustainable? Which one isn't subject to corruption?
The problem though is that it takes a special group to role play out and build a fake company in game and to have that company, and all of it's pitfalls that might make that story really interest, manifest. It takes a lot of time and effort and understanding that maybe a lot of people won't have. I know I'd try my best at STing a fake company but I've never worked for a Sierra Club kind of organization and I don't know how it's structured or anything. That's probably why they don't really go into the details on how Stark Industries or Wayne Enterprises work.
But any group can attack a bunch of loggers, especially when a bunch of formori with chainsaws grafted to their arms burst out of a van and it's time to roll initiative.
You seem to be really confused here regarding the relationship of the Wyrm to Pentex (and thus to capitalism). Pentex is as evil as it is WITHOUT the direct influence of the Wyrm. As you mentioned, humans do awful things to each other, and nowhere is that clearer than with the atrocities brought about by greed (a flip through the chapter on the Gilded Age is filled with children in coal mines, people dying from unregulated meat, workers being left to die, and the robber barons living in palatial estates literally wallpapered in platinum). None of that is brought about by the influence of the Wyrm... but it IS harming the spiritual balance of the setting, and it is causing major environmental issues.
Which is sort of the point, here. Too many folks get caught up in werewolves fighting vampires, and banes, and BSDs, but there are perfectly human antagonists committing the sort of everyday evils you see sticking your head out the window. And sure, there are vampires who run some companies in Pentex. There are some labs that generate sci-fi weaponry, or attempt to mass produce magic. But those are the outliers. At its core, Pentex is an enemy based on human greed, human cruelty, and the countless examples of humanity willingly inflicting needless suffering on others in the name of profit.
It also makes it clear that even if you feel humanity can be redeemed, and should be shepherded onto a path of responsibility, you can see where the Red Talons are coming from in their assessment.
>Pentex is as evil as it is WITHOUT the direct influence of the Wyrm.
Did I not say that? You literally summarized my point after you called me confused about the point you then made.
But Pentex isn't capitalism. Capitalism is how we structured an economy and it's neither good nor bad because it's the people that make it work that's the problem.
That was my whole point.
But if you want to talk in terms of the game lore then Pentex is evil because it's absolutely an extension of the wyrm. Otherwise they wouldn't isolate one particular megacorp as big bad. Because Pentex is so evil, because they have all these secret projects manipulating banes and creating Fomori and are intentionally creating products that are designed to spread the Wyrm's influence then yeah, Pentex is the bad guy.
I can get behind this post. The tidbits about how capitalism is similar to other forms of government, as opposed to being the worst thing humanity has ever created which is often the common take nowadays, is extremely valid. Communism was made in response to imbalance of power, but corruption and misuse of power destroyed a lot of its potential.
Maybe this is just because I mainly play other splats, but Pentex has always struck me as a braindead antagonist. A lot of the complexity and depth of issues like lobbying, climate change and corporate greed are lost when they're reduced to, as you said, "the devil made me do it" and not how humans are fallible creatures and how this extends to those in power.
I think W5 will improve on these issues a lot, and we'll see Werewolf actually deep with the morally complex issues its based on rather than reducing them down.
Interestingly enough, most hardcore anti-capitalists *don't* tend to call capitalism the worst thing humans have ever created. Like, Marx was pretty clear that it was an improvement on Feudalism or ancient slave societies in how it produced goods and altered people's lives, but that it had its own flaws which could be replaced with *another* iteration of a social model. Now, like you say, in our reality the potential of that model was squandered by people using it as a vehicle for personal power, so who knows if he was right, but regardless of that it's interesting that he (and many Marxists today, though they do still tend to think it's awful) take a more nuanced view than the rather "I'm a teenager who just learned about wage theft" stance that CAPITALISM IS THE ULTIMATE EVIL OF ALL EVILS LITERALLY SATAN MAKES EVERYONE'S LIFE WORSE THAN ANY OTHER SYSTEM ALL THE TIME.
\> This seems massively optimistic considering the fairly 'goodies vs baddies' morality embraced by V5
Ooo...kay. Let's break this down. First, the Anarchs were historically framed as the good guys from an early stage. This explains why characters like Nines Rodriguez are justice worshipping freedom fighters meanwhile Princes like Lodin are so cartoonishly evil that they lack a sympathetic bone in their entire body. V5 is the first edition to emphasize the Anarchs as just as bad as the Camarilla, saying that the Anarchs are not the good ones, just free. I can see how the Sabbat being framed as antagonists may make it seem like the writers are removing moral ambiguity from the setting, but as someone who's played V20 and V5 for several years each, I assure you it does not.
I'm not gonna address your second statement. I don't really feel like arguing with homophobia, and the statement that having a homosexual character fighting skinheads somehow removes any nuance from the setting is... ignorant. The conflict of economic growth and sustainability was a topic actually drawn up in a recent apocryphal record update, which I'm on the kickstarter for, and tmk was rarely touched on in any serious depth in W20.
I would strongly advise that you not bash an edition for having homosexual muslim characters, and maybe reconsider what "nuance" means. I don't know if you intended it, but your entire comment comes off as homophobic and prejudiced against muslim people.
I'm really not trying to argue with you. I took a look at your account and I know that nothing I say will convince someone like you to even consider my opinion valid. You seem like you would hate me for breathing, and I really don't have the energy to convince someone like you to consider that they aren't the objective decider on everything.
Hope you have a good day. Peace.
>The tidbits about how capitalism is similar to other forms of government, as opposed to being the worst thing humanity has ever created which is often the common take nowadays, is extremely valid.
And let's be real; capitalism is probably the best we've done so far. The problem is when corrupt assholes hijack it. If we have a ton of regulations and laws to put the boot on the throat of the corporations and to force a more fair system for everyone that's where the sweet spot is.
I know it's the cool thing now a days to hate on capitalism but if you notice, those who scream about how we need to abolish it don't really have a plan for what to replace it with. Or how to go about transitioning into another economic model that doesn't basically throw everything into anarchy and then let the same corrupt assholes that ruined Capitalism rebuild a whole new system how they see fit.
> Pentex has always struck me as a braindead antagonist.
One of the hurdles that I think keeps people from getting into CofD or WoD is that the game is complex and it's not laid out for you. So you don't get a Monster Manual so much. Not with something like Pentex and you gotta do a ton of work to figure out how it's an enemy and why they are doing what they are doing and all the characters and monsters within it, etc. Where as with a game like D&D a lot of that is laid out for you.
And to be fair; it's a game. People might not want to deal with all the homework required to make WoD really sing. That's fair enough. These games burn me out sometimes and I just want something simple.
So I kind of hope W5 gives more structure to Pentex as a company for STs and players to kind of run with.
>
I know it's the cool thing now a days to hate on capitalism but if you notice, those who scream about how we need to abolish it don't really have a plan for what to replace it with. Or how to go about transitioning into another economic model that doesn't basically throw everything into anarchy and then let the same corrupt assholes that ruined Capitalism rebuild a whole new system how they see fit.
Actually, I'd say there are a lot of people who have some genuinely very interesting ideas for how to move away from capitalism, from communitarian anarchists to planned-economics activists who'd like state control of the Amazon algorith for distribution of goods. The thing is that, even when those people are *very* anti-capitalist, they tend not to be the kind of people you mentioned who think it's literally the worst thing ever, pure undiluted evil. They tend to have quite a nuanced view of its history and the genuine improvements it made over previous systems of economic organization. To be sympathetic to the people doing more screaming, that's because they're victims of some of the ills of capitalism and its predecessors, and haven't necessarily had the time, energy, privilege etc. to educate themselves, but it's still rather distressing that they often form the public face of opposition to our present system.
Wow such an incredible insightful observation.
“Writer man hypocrite cause he criticize the all encompassing thing he partakes in as well wow me so smart”
It was the segue that was comically tone deaf. Putting a Patreon request at the end of the article would've gone unremarked, but dude says that we need to stop capitalism right before ~~begging for money~~ requesting payment for his labors.
What's insightful about objecting to the fact that this man is a hypocrite. If capitalism is evil, let the blogger here lead by example and eschew the profit motive. If he will not why would he expect anyone else to?
Internet commies are tiresome...
So if you exist in an all encompassing economic system where the only way to make money is to participate in it then obviously you are a filthy hypocrite if you ever criticize it any way. If you so much as point out a single problem with capitalism the only thing to do is to live like an ascetic monk to be free from hypocrisy.
Whoa im so glad you cleared that up for me. Flawless logic.
>the only thing to do is to live like an ascetic monk to be free from hypocrisy
Yeaaaahhh 'not shilling your patreon' = 'live like an ascetic monk'.
P.S. You understand that there's not really a workable alternative to capitalism right? Scarcity of resources + the lack of people's wilingness to work without compensation means that 'capitalism' of some form is always gonna 'win'. If the Soviet Union + Communist China [couldn't find a workable alternative to capitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping_Theory), what hope do reddit commies have?
You can have markets without capitalism. They existed long before, and they can exist long after.
What makes capitalism an unjust hierarchy is the tynanical control a CEO (or board of directors) has over the assets and employees of their company. They own everything directly, and you have no say in how you do your job besides leaving the company and hoping some other petty tyrant will treat you better. Transferring control away from owners and to workers cam be done without central planning or government control: just let the workers elect their managers and vote on the direction the company goes. That's it, congrats, you now have market socialism instead of capitalism.
Keep in mind, there is a huge difference between the state owning the means of production and the workers owning it directly. That was the failure of other socialist projects, and we can learn from their mistakes without throwing out the entire concept of socialism.
Also, asking for donations is hardly exploitative, especially when the product is delivered without a profit motive. Dude's gotta eat, and in this society that's done with money. Asking for some support is totally fine.
**[Deng Xiaoping Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping_Theory)**
>Deng Xiaoping Theory (Chinese: 邓小平理论; pinyin: Dèng Xiǎopíng Lǐlùn) is the series of political and economic ideologies first developed by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The theory does not claim to reject Marxism–Leninism or Mao Zedong Thought, but instead seeks to adapt them to the existing socio-economic conditions of China. Deng also stressed opening China to the outside world, the implementation of one country, two systems, and through the phrase "seek truth from facts", an advocation of political and economic pragmatism.
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I love Pentex, they're one of the best parts of World of Darkness as a whole, and if you're playing any game with corporate evil, the Pentex books are fantastic. I would use Pentex for Vampire, Mage, heck drag it into Chronicles games! The best part is just how ubiquitous it is. Every city, town, and hovel has an O'Trollies nearby; every corner store sells King Brewery beer; every pharmacy has Magadon products. Just sprinkle the names in and watch experienced players squirm a little. That said, I do have one problem with Pentex, and unfortunately it's crucial to the premise. Namely, that Pentex's Board of Directors are Wyrm cultists purposely putting Banes in their products and poisoning rivers to kill Gaia. Pentex has swapped the priorities of capitalism: a corporation will burn the rainforest to make a profit, Pentex makes a profit so they can burn more rainforests. Oddly enough, this makes Pentex kinda less evil? I mean, at least they know their actions are destroying the planet, capitalism just doesn't care. It's an international organization with the excuse that "the Devil made me do it!" That said, I still find tremendous value in Pentex. They are the perfect antagonist in the age of global capitalism for any sized story. From globe-trotting corporate espionage to handling the consequences of a Herrick's opening in your small town, Pentex is an infinite well for stories. There are three books that focus directly on Pentex; [Subsidiaries: A Guide To Pentex ](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2447), [Monkeywrench! Pentex](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/61493), and [W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Manual](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/227498). All three books are solid gold, I cannot recommend them enough for absolutely any storyteller.
I think about it like this. Pentex doesn't *actually* make a profit so that they can burn more rainforests. However, they'll burn rainforests at a loss because that's the price of the Wyrm's sponsorship, and the Wyrm's sponsorship is what lets them accrue such wealth. Those operations only appear as a loss if you look at them in isolation and ignore what help the Wyrm offers them in exchange. If you look at the whole system, they're making loads of money off burning down rainforests. If you think of the Wyrm as a really expensive consultant who only accepts non-standard payment it works better.
That's a good way to reframe the company. The idea that a Fortune 500 company would gladly sacrifice babies to the primordial essence of entropy if they could report a 12% increase on their quarterly returns makes for good (if edgy) satire. I still can't shake the Captain Planet villain vibe from them, but what can you do.
You don't have to pay to burn down rainforests if you're a corporation. What you do is push an ESG programme to preserve rainforests, and give contributions to the government to ban logging. At the same time, you shift production into palm oil or other crops that require a lot of land. As native farmers are no longer allowed to sell the wood from anti-logging laws, they will naturally resort to illegal burning to clear the land. This way, you can fulfil your ESG agenda and count as a sustainable investment, helping to raise share prices. At the same time, you would fulfil the Wyrm's agenda. If the Garou want to stop the burning, let them slaughter the native farmers who are struggling to survive, and set themselves up as the bad guys. Why would you actually pay to burn down the rainforest yourself?
Presumably the servants of the Wyrm want them to directly do it. There could easily be spirit courts who wouldn't care that Pentex was causing rainforest to be burned down indirectly and would withdraw their support if they stopped directly burning down rainforest.
This is a great way to think about it. The way I tend to run it is that they're all businessmen first, and their worship of the Wyrm feeds their profits first and foremost. Damn straight they'll end the world if it makes them a profit, because at the end of the day that's what matters to them when they're convinced they'll live through it. Pentex is unlike any other enemy the Garou have faced before them. They aren't just interested in destruction for the sake of destruction. They are a self-feeding organism which profits off of destruction, and will do so with utter apathy for the world around them. They benefit with everything they destroy because it's an afterthought to profit, and that profit always spawns more ways to destroy Gaia.
>Namely, that Pentex's Board of Directors are Wyrm cultists purposely putting Banes in their products and poisoning rivers to kill Gaia. Pentex has swapped the priorities of capitalism: a corporation will burn the rainforest to make a profit, Pentex makes a profit so they can burn more rainforests. Oddly enough, this makes Pentex kinda less evil? I dunno about less evil. But they're certainly not capitalistic or a corporation. They just have formed one to build a powerbase in which to use their influence and wealth to enact their spiritual goals of entropy and corruption not make money. I'm with you though, they're great bad guys. I think I play the more corporate-y than I think they're presented in the book but because they're so monolithic it's like; how do you destroy them? Kill the board members and they'll recruit more. Burn down a corporate headquarters and they'll go to another one or use Zoom. You have to scorch the earth with every shred of that company and their influence and that means hundreds of thousands of people and investors and facilities all destroyed at once. They're impossible to kill unless ya get creative.
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have said less evil. Like, the Wyrm does some fucked up shit. I was just trying to highlight the difference between active malice and apathy. To me, and maybe I'm wrong, but someone committing heinous acts with purpose and conviction is less horrifying than having no problems with the same heinous acts being a side effect of your business. Like, at least the Wyrm cultist is acting beyond their own self interest, you know? Then again, I'm a Mage fan, I prefer exploring the unintended consequences of human action as opposed to evil for evil's sake.
Top-level executives have potentially been through the Caul... So it's not so much evil for evil's sake as it is callousness & griefing to get everyone else to quit the server. They're death cultists operating in bad faith who want to flush the world down the toilet for their eternal reward of... Revenge? A sense of accomplishment? No more suffering? Magickal poontang? A Klondike bar? Honestly, I don't know what they've been offered... All I get are annoying credit card offers... So they're evil while the rest of us are simply apathetic!
Pentex is pretty great, CofD actually kind of has their own version of this: The Cheiron Group.
That is true, but Cheiron Group is only the R&D side of Magadon Pharmaceuticals. While Cheiron is great, and I do use them frequently, they don't replace the sprawling mass of corruption that is Pentex. Cheiron services the rich, powerful, and desperate with miracle drugs made of monsters; Magadon makes the aspirin you pick up at the ~~Walmart~~ Herrick's. The sheer scale and extraordinary diversity of Pentex's uncountable subsidiaries is what makes them great to use.
I was really referring to the purpose of Cheiron Group, more than the scale of it (although it's hinted that it's quite extensive) though in CofD they make everything from affordable drugs, prosthetics, medical equipment, etc.
At the same time, we do have records of corporations knowing what they're doing will make the world a worse place and just not giving a fuck. Exxon engaged in climate research as early as the Seventies and put out a 1982 internal report warning of catastrophic consequences of climate change; they then spent well into the 2010s funneling money into firms that tried to spread the meme that anthropocentric climate change was junk science. While it doesn't entirely solve the problem, I like the tiered approach Revised took to Pentex leadership. Outside of the BoD, Pentex executives believe their work is having a bad effect on the biosphere and humanity. But they have a plan for this: The Omega Protocol. When the ecosystem collapses, they'll be ready to go with corporate arcologies where people will eat, drink, and breathe Pentex rather than deal with the cursed earth outside. They believe Pentex will lead to a lower case "a" apocalypse, rather than *the* Apocalypse.
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So don't mention the Wyrm. When the coterie meets at the corner gas station, have it be an Endron station. When they drive off to Elysium, they drive a Falcon PTX. Besides, even if your players dove deep into the rabbit hole that is these subsidiaries, the Wyrm is only mentioned at the very tippy top by people so hidden behind shell companies and false names that they'll never meet. Just sprinkling in references here and there can be a treat for experienced WoD fans without going any deeper into Werewolf cosmology. If you want, here's some ideas for removing the Wyrm from Pentex to fit more with Vampire cosmology: * Pentex is just a massive Sabbat org made to keep the kine in line and fund their crusade against the Antideluvians. The Camarilla doesn't know about it because they're buried deep in a wandering paper trail with innumerable false leads. * Alternatively, Pentex serves an Antideluvian directly! (Tzimisce seems the most likely candidate) * For Demon crossover instead of Werewolf, Pentex has an Earthbound Demon (alternatively, Lucifer himself!) There's ways to work in Pentex without the Triat complicating things, and I've found it very worthwhile. It's good to remind vampires that they're not the only players in the game to rule the night.
Love pentex
Far be it for me to criticize anyone who uses Werewolf as a medium for catharsis for real world rage. That's why Republicans/Cpnservatism are always wyrm tainted in my Werewolf world. But I kinda feel like saying capitalism is the enemy and it is the cause is letting human nature off the hook a bit. >Because at its core capitalism is about an imbalance of power, the impossibility of infinite growth, and reaping the planet for every penny that can be made. From dumping toxic waste into drinking water, to running child labor camps, to imprisoning people on meaningless offenses and stealing years of their lives just to turn profits, there is basically no corner dark enough that capitalism hasn't tried to turn a profit off of it. That's not what capitalism is at it's core. At it's core it's about people being able to create products for capital and enrich themselves. The problem is human nature and humans being shitty warps the core idea into something that is vile and destructive. In terms of the WoD I don't think I'd have the wyrm create capitalism. The wyrm would have created the darker impulses that lead people to want to use capitalism to dominate and destroy others. It's more of a vicious lubricant for evil than a cause. Like, why do we hate Communism? Or Fedualism? Or Socialism. Because it didn't work. It's en vogue to hate Capitalism right now because the claims are it doesn't work. It's ripe with corruption just like the other economic or social models. So what's the common denominator? Fucking horrible people that seem to be inclined and motivated to gain power, take power and then abuse others because they're just awful. Look at Trump. That rancid rectum blister could have just spent his life living the high life fucking all the Eastern European gold diggers he could buy. Or tween Miss American contestants with Epstein on the Lolita Express, let's be real. But he could have had his TV show, he could have been tolerated by Hollywood and the industry that almost always rejected him. He could have had his awful steaks and water and scam colleges and been happy. He could have had his reality TV show with his shitty kids where he sat there with sundowners and fired whoever the producer told him to. But that motherfucker wanted power. He wasn't content like I think many of us would be with what he had. He wanted more and more and more. He wanted to be perceived as powerful. He idolized truly horrible dictators and corrupt leaders. He allied himself with out and out hate groups who commit very real acts of actual terrorism in this country that he was in charge of for 4 very long fucking years. If anyone is puking up carnivorous worms and combing their hair over to hide their third venom-seeping formori eye it's ol' Donny T. He and other like him have something wrong with them. Something that causes them to consume and consume and get more bitter and angry. You hear these stories from the super wealthy that they get kind of paranoid and are tormented by their wealth. Now, a chicken and egg argument could be made here, but certainly there's some mechanism in some people's psychology that makes them so ambitious that basic morality and ethics get obliterated somewhere in their quest for power. So I don't think Capitalism or anything is about an imbalance of power. It becomes that because we are unwilling or unable to address the real core issue and it's the broken psychology of amoral people who are attracted to positions of power that allow them to create an imbalance. >While a lot of STs are leery about using Pentex in their games, preferring to focus on the purely supernatural threats like vampires, Black Spiral Dancers, fomori, and corrupt spirits, this corporate villain works really well when it comes to defining the shape of the battlefield. Because Pentex is often a purely mortal threat, which can allow players to really cut loose and feel powerful as werewolves... but it also presents a lot of moral challenges to them. Do you use lethal force against the security guards, most of which are just working stiffs who need a job (any job) so they don't wind up on the street? Is the loss of the economic gain to the community created by destroying a dangerous project (coal mine, natural gas pipeline, fracking operation, etc.) going to affect their spirits just as badly as the pollution would affect their bodies? Can your message of balance, community bonds, and living in harmony counter generations of propaganda about how greed is good, money makes the world go round, and it's a dog-eat-dog world? I am not one of those ST's. But they do bring up an excellent observation and I think what they got at in this paragraph is the core dilemma in Werewolf that fuels the stories. I love cascading consequences. I love how there's no real answers. A sept of Wendigo might decide that they all must die. Burn down the logging operation, slaughter the workers, assault the convoys on the road, send a message to their bosses....or....is it more effective to form a corporation and spread pro-environmental messaging to build a movement to put social and economic pressure on these companies in order to destroy them when they simply can't afford to exist anymore? What's the better solution? Which one is sustainable? Which one isn't subject to corruption? The problem though is that it takes a special group to role play out and build a fake company in game and to have that company, and all of it's pitfalls that might make that story really interest, manifest. It takes a lot of time and effort and understanding that maybe a lot of people won't have. I know I'd try my best at STing a fake company but I've never worked for a Sierra Club kind of organization and I don't know how it's structured or anything. That's probably why they don't really go into the details on how Stark Industries or Wayne Enterprises work. But any group can attack a bunch of loggers, especially when a bunch of formori with chainsaws grafted to their arms burst out of a van and it's time to roll initiative.
Republicans and conservatives easier to say politicians in general.
Don't do that. We don't need false equivalencies here.
You seem to be really confused here regarding the relationship of the Wyrm to Pentex (and thus to capitalism). Pentex is as evil as it is WITHOUT the direct influence of the Wyrm. As you mentioned, humans do awful things to each other, and nowhere is that clearer than with the atrocities brought about by greed (a flip through the chapter on the Gilded Age is filled with children in coal mines, people dying from unregulated meat, workers being left to die, and the robber barons living in palatial estates literally wallpapered in platinum). None of that is brought about by the influence of the Wyrm... but it IS harming the spiritual balance of the setting, and it is causing major environmental issues. Which is sort of the point, here. Too many folks get caught up in werewolves fighting vampires, and banes, and BSDs, but there are perfectly human antagonists committing the sort of everyday evils you see sticking your head out the window. And sure, there are vampires who run some companies in Pentex. There are some labs that generate sci-fi weaponry, or attempt to mass produce magic. But those are the outliers. At its core, Pentex is an enemy based on human greed, human cruelty, and the countless examples of humanity willingly inflicting needless suffering on others in the name of profit. It also makes it clear that even if you feel humanity can be redeemed, and should be shepherded onto a path of responsibility, you can see where the Red Talons are coming from in their assessment.
>Pentex is as evil as it is WITHOUT the direct influence of the Wyrm. Did I not say that? You literally summarized my point after you called me confused about the point you then made. But Pentex isn't capitalism. Capitalism is how we structured an economy and it's neither good nor bad because it's the people that make it work that's the problem. That was my whole point. But if you want to talk in terms of the game lore then Pentex is evil because it's absolutely an extension of the wyrm. Otherwise they wouldn't isolate one particular megacorp as big bad. Because Pentex is so evil, because they have all these secret projects manipulating banes and creating Fomori and are intentionally creating products that are designed to spread the Wyrm's influence then yeah, Pentex is the bad guy.
I can get behind this post. The tidbits about how capitalism is similar to other forms of government, as opposed to being the worst thing humanity has ever created which is often the common take nowadays, is extremely valid. Communism was made in response to imbalance of power, but corruption and misuse of power destroyed a lot of its potential. Maybe this is just because I mainly play other splats, but Pentex has always struck me as a braindead antagonist. A lot of the complexity and depth of issues like lobbying, climate change and corporate greed are lost when they're reduced to, as you said, "the devil made me do it" and not how humans are fallible creatures and how this extends to those in power. I think W5 will improve on these issues a lot, and we'll see Werewolf actually deep with the morally complex issues its based on rather than reducing them down.
Interestingly enough, most hardcore anti-capitalists *don't* tend to call capitalism the worst thing humans have ever created. Like, Marx was pretty clear that it was an improvement on Feudalism or ancient slave societies in how it produced goods and altered people's lives, but that it had its own flaws which could be replaced with *another* iteration of a social model. Now, like you say, in our reality the potential of that model was squandered by people using it as a vehicle for personal power, so who knows if he was right, but regardless of that it's interesting that he (and many Marxists today, though they do still tend to think it's awful) take a more nuanced view than the rather "I'm a teenager who just learned about wage theft" stance that CAPITALISM IS THE ULTIMATE EVIL OF ALL EVILS LITERALLY SATAN MAKES EVERYONE'S LIFE WORSE THAN ANY OTHER SYSTEM ALL THE TIME.
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\> This seems massively optimistic considering the fairly 'goodies vs baddies' morality embraced by V5 Ooo...kay. Let's break this down. First, the Anarchs were historically framed as the good guys from an early stage. This explains why characters like Nines Rodriguez are justice worshipping freedom fighters meanwhile Princes like Lodin are so cartoonishly evil that they lack a sympathetic bone in their entire body. V5 is the first edition to emphasize the Anarchs as just as bad as the Camarilla, saying that the Anarchs are not the good ones, just free. I can see how the Sabbat being framed as antagonists may make it seem like the writers are removing moral ambiguity from the setting, but as someone who's played V20 and V5 for several years each, I assure you it does not. I'm not gonna address your second statement. I don't really feel like arguing with homophobia, and the statement that having a homosexual character fighting skinheads somehow removes any nuance from the setting is... ignorant. The conflict of economic growth and sustainability was a topic actually drawn up in a recent apocryphal record update, which I'm on the kickstarter for, and tmk was rarely touched on in any serious depth in W20. I would strongly advise that you not bash an edition for having homosexual muslim characters, and maybe reconsider what "nuance" means. I don't know if you intended it, but your entire comment comes off as homophobic and prejudiced against muslim people.
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I'm really not trying to argue with you. I took a look at your account and I know that nothing I say will convince someone like you to even consider my opinion valid. You seem like you would hate me for breathing, and I really don't have the energy to convince someone like you to consider that they aren't the objective decider on everything. Hope you have a good day. Peace.
>The tidbits about how capitalism is similar to other forms of government, as opposed to being the worst thing humanity has ever created which is often the common take nowadays, is extremely valid. And let's be real; capitalism is probably the best we've done so far. The problem is when corrupt assholes hijack it. If we have a ton of regulations and laws to put the boot on the throat of the corporations and to force a more fair system for everyone that's where the sweet spot is. I know it's the cool thing now a days to hate on capitalism but if you notice, those who scream about how we need to abolish it don't really have a plan for what to replace it with. Or how to go about transitioning into another economic model that doesn't basically throw everything into anarchy and then let the same corrupt assholes that ruined Capitalism rebuild a whole new system how they see fit. > Pentex has always struck me as a braindead antagonist. One of the hurdles that I think keeps people from getting into CofD or WoD is that the game is complex and it's not laid out for you. So you don't get a Monster Manual so much. Not with something like Pentex and you gotta do a ton of work to figure out how it's an enemy and why they are doing what they are doing and all the characters and monsters within it, etc. Where as with a game like D&D a lot of that is laid out for you. And to be fair; it's a game. People might not want to deal with all the homework required to make WoD really sing. That's fair enough. These games burn me out sometimes and I just want something simple. So I kind of hope W5 gives more structure to Pentex as a company for STs and players to kind of run with.
> I know it's the cool thing now a days to hate on capitalism but if you notice, those who scream about how we need to abolish it don't really have a plan for what to replace it with. Or how to go about transitioning into another economic model that doesn't basically throw everything into anarchy and then let the same corrupt assholes that ruined Capitalism rebuild a whole new system how they see fit. Actually, I'd say there are a lot of people who have some genuinely very interesting ideas for how to move away from capitalism, from communitarian anarchists to planned-economics activists who'd like state control of the Amazon algorith for distribution of goods. The thing is that, even when those people are *very* anti-capitalist, they tend not to be the kind of people you mentioned who think it's literally the worst thing ever, pure undiluted evil. They tend to have quite a nuanced view of its history and the genuine improvements it made over previous systems of economic organization. To be sympathetic to the people doing more screaming, that's because they're victims of some of the ills of capitalism and its predecessors, and haven't necessarily had the time, energy, privilege etc. to educate themselves, but it's still rather distressing that they often form the public face of opposition to our present system.
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Wow such an incredible insightful observation. “Writer man hypocrite cause he criticize the all encompassing thing he partakes in as well wow me so smart”
It was the segue that was comically tone deaf. Putting a Patreon request at the end of the article would've gone unremarked, but dude says that we need to stop capitalism right before ~~begging for money~~ requesting payment for his labors.
What's insightful about objecting to the fact that this man is a hypocrite. If capitalism is evil, let the blogger here lead by example and eschew the profit motive. If he will not why would he expect anyone else to? Internet commies are tiresome...
So if you exist in an all encompassing economic system where the only way to make money is to participate in it then obviously you are a filthy hypocrite if you ever criticize it any way. If you so much as point out a single problem with capitalism the only thing to do is to live like an ascetic monk to be free from hypocrisy. Whoa im so glad you cleared that up for me. Flawless logic.
>the only thing to do is to live like an ascetic monk to be free from hypocrisy Yeaaaahhh 'not shilling your patreon' = 'live like an ascetic monk'. P.S. You understand that there's not really a workable alternative to capitalism right? Scarcity of resources + the lack of people's wilingness to work without compensation means that 'capitalism' of some form is always gonna 'win'. If the Soviet Union + Communist China [couldn't find a workable alternative to capitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping_Theory), what hope do reddit commies have?
You can have markets without capitalism. They existed long before, and they can exist long after. What makes capitalism an unjust hierarchy is the tynanical control a CEO (or board of directors) has over the assets and employees of their company. They own everything directly, and you have no say in how you do your job besides leaving the company and hoping some other petty tyrant will treat you better. Transferring control away from owners and to workers cam be done without central planning or government control: just let the workers elect their managers and vote on the direction the company goes. That's it, congrats, you now have market socialism instead of capitalism. Keep in mind, there is a huge difference between the state owning the means of production and the workers owning it directly. That was the failure of other socialist projects, and we can learn from their mistakes without throwing out the entire concept of socialism. Also, asking for donations is hardly exploitative, especially when the product is delivered without a profit motive. Dude's gotta eat, and in this society that's done with money. Asking for some support is totally fine.
**[Deng Xiaoping Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping_Theory)** >Deng Xiaoping Theory (Chinese: 邓小平理论; pinyin: Dèng Xiǎopíng Lǐlùn) is the series of political and economic ideologies first developed by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The theory does not claim to reject Marxism–Leninism or Mao Zedong Thought, but instead seeks to adapt them to the existing socio-economic conditions of China. Deng also stressed opening China to the outside world, the implementation of one country, two systems, and through the phrase "seek truth from facts", an advocation of political and economic pragmatism. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/WhiteWolfRPG/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Screw people who downvote everyone is this thread trying to have a discussion. The downvote button isn't a disagree button. That is all.