Cards for Serpentis

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

@Ohlmann:
Dog Whistle Politics is generally meant to mean something like "Talking up an issue to whip up others discontent". For instance, the Abortion debate in US politics and the Gay Marriage Debate in many countries would be a "Dog Whistle" issue... by standing up and saying "We are against this because it's against who we are as a society" a politician is usually employing "Dog Whistle Politics".

No, dog whistle politics is the situation where you talk about things in coded language. The target (the 'dogs') hear the intended meaning, but on the surface it sounds perfectly reasonable. A common example is a conservative politician talking about being "pro-family", which is pretty obviously a good thing. But the target audience hear the words "pro-family" and hear more controversial words such as "anti-abortion" or "anti-gay".

There can also be issues where one speaker says something and their opponents portray it as a dog whistle (whether it was or not), such as "support for X" meaning "I hate Y and will do everything in my power to destroy it". (The further reaches of the right wing often assume any time a left-winger says something about 'diversity' they mean 'I hate all of you normal people and will have you all in chains digging coal with your fingernails'. Similarly, the further reaches of the left often hear things like 'support our troops/veterans' and assume the right is actually saying 'Let's invade everywhere!')

Very interesting. Typo in second line of sinful vice. Counter needs to restate corruption counter.

I like corruption counters. They remind people to BLOCK SETITES. Or else.....

And thats something that should carry over nicely from the vtm stuff. Neverclet the snake player do stuff unsupervised, or he takes the addictive vitae/unbondable combo ane has everyone in thrall with free any disciplinethey want tutors.

I see where ohlmann is coming from, but its hardly game breaking, and sort of reminds me of cards like lokis gift, where the table sees you pile it.

More thematic would be " for the good of the party" voting like US and its obnoxious bipartisan system always sees. Democrats have to be against guns, rebublicans cant like gay marriage, etc. So, maybe burning a corruption counter tocmake folks abstain or votexhow you want? Just an idea.

@James: Isn't that exactly what I said? Whipping up discontent amongst those who hold your views? Sure people couch it marginally less direct rhetoric, but the point of Dog Whistle Politics is to get a strong reaction from the listeners to 'do something'.

Changing votes or forcing abstaining already exist in the Setites, and are not used. The idea of the card (and Dog Whistle Politics in general) is to create a tide of public opinion to your cause. Just in this circumstance the "Dog Whistle" would be about people protecting the secrets of their corruption.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

@James: Isn't that exactly what I said? Whipping up discontent amongst those who hold your views? Sure people couch it marginally less direct rhetoric, but the point of Dog Whistle Politics is to get a strong reaction from the listeners to 'do something'.

No, you didn't. And it's really not.

Whipping up people and use of coded language are pretty much entirely orthogonal concepts. You can whip people up over a controversial issue with or without a dog whistle - you can just be straightforwardly addressing the issue, such as being completely up front that you're anti the controversial issue. See: more or less any charismatic speaker denouncing gay marriage to a rally, for example. Absolutely zero dog whistling there, nothing is coded whatsoever, it's completely open on the fact that they hate the point under discussion and want to whip the crowd into a frenzy.

Using a dog whistle also does not require you to whip people up into any sort of discontented frenzy. It can just be used to signal your position without providing a juicy quote that might come back to haunt you. This can be useful during selection procedures, such as political primaries. The main people paying attention are the target audience of the dog whistle, such as people registered as Democrats or Republicans in the US. But if you get the nomination, everything you say will be re-gone-over for the benefit of the independents and floating voters during the general. If you didn't actually call the sitting president a warmonger or un-American, you have way fewer hostages to fortune. No whipping up, just signalling to "your" voters that you hold the right view (just like you did openly on taxes and education), just one you don't want to express openly.

It can also provide a trap for your opponent. They know what you're saying - both the actual words, and the message for the intended recipients - but if they try to denounce you for it, it gets awkward very, very fast. The media isn't very good at delivering subtle statements like "My opponent says he's pro-family and that's a good thing, but what he actually means is... and that's a bad thing." So no whipping up - just some coded language, and the possibility for a naive opponent to shoot themselves in the foot when they come out as anti-family (which is how it gets reported).

I rate Protection Racket — another form of pool damage for the Setites. It has good synergy with Enticement and the default +1 stealth makes it playable by a weenie.

Ke. wrote:

I rate Protection Racket — another form of pool damage for the Setites. It has good synergy with Enticement and the default +1 stealth makes it playable by a weenie.

Now that it have been raised to 2 pools damage and is free, it begin to look like an option. Still, you're likely to need 2 action - one for the corruption counter, one to play that, and you still have Night Move to have the edge easily, which is a requirement for Enticement.

There's still the problem that racket is a Giovanni activity, not an FoS one.