Kafers in MGT

[The Chef]

Hi all,

just wondering if anyone has converted teh Kafers (VAH) from 2300 to Mongoose yet. woke up in the middle of the night with a brainwave and just wondered if some of the ground work may have been done.

if not then i have started building them using the race creation from the main book. ie, natural armour, high strenght low intelligence. but the sudden raise in intelligence maybe a little hard to translate

Chef

 

[Bygoneyrs]

The Kafers are a awesome minor race that I believe "need" to be done as a race resource book. They make a excellent nasty villian, and we need more of this type of races.

Penn

 

[MongooseMatt]

All we have done thus far is considered changing their name to Kaefers - any thoughts on that?

 

[Vile]

Well, I think it should be Käfer. And no 's' for the plural, either.

 

[The Chef]

i shall wait with baited breath until the release then!

and Vile sorry for my lack of proper gramma,

Chef

 

[dreamingbadger]

All we have done thus far is considered changing their name to Kaefers - any thoughts on that?

just out of interest, why the spelling change? so people know how to pronounce it better ?

 

[MongooseMatt]

just out of interest, why the spelling change? so people know how to pronounce it better ?

Basically

 

[EDG]

All we have done thus far is considered changing their name to Kaefers - any thoughts on that?

\

I don't think that's necessary. If you want people to know how to pronounce it, just put a phonetic spelling next to it when you first mention it. For the rest of us, it'd just look like a permanent typo .

 

[MongooseMatt]

I don't think that's necessary. If you want people to know how to pronounce it, just put a phonetic spelling next to it when you first mention it. For the rest of us, it'd just look like a permanent typo .

That is great in the actual game, but a potential problem for marketing. Yes, I _know_ some gamers should know better. But they don't. A single additional letter saves us some grief.

Not saying this is final, and we are just courting opinion.

 

[dreamingbadger]

That is great in the actual game, but a potential problem for marketing. Yes, I _know_ some gamers should know better. But they don't. A single additional letter saves us some grief.

...sigh... yeah I understand all to well...

 

[Sturn]

Am I reading this wrong or are Kafers being considered a minor race for the Traveller universe? Traveller is not Traveller: 2300 AD, the reason for the later name change to just 2300 AD.

I would jump up and down in joy if Mongoose acquired licensing to make a 2300 AD sourcebook for the Mongoose Traveller system. Until that happens, I would say keep Kafers where they are supposed to be, in the 2300 AD universe.

Go ahead and make a new minor race based upon the Kafers if you like them, give them a new name, etc. Please don't port the Kafers over as is.

Next are we going to have Aliens and Predators pop up in Traveller sourcebooks?

I'm all fine for basing new aliens off of archetypes from other sources. This has already happened many times. But please change them enough to make them original. At least change the name more then just a letter or two.

 

[Rex]

All we have done thus far is considered changing their name to Kaefers - any thoughts on that?

just out of interest, why the spelling change? so people know how to pronounce it better ?

I would think that it's more because in a certain area of the World it has negative racial connotations (pronunciation wise) and if you go with the other recommended spelling you're swiping the name of one of the biggest German Dial gauge manufactures......

I wouldn't for one, import them into a Third Imperium game. They don't fit well with the Setting, However I'd be all for a full setting Conversion for 2300AD to the MGT rules.....Kaefers would work for me though.

~Rex

 

[EDG]

I don't think that's necessary. If you want people to know how to pronounce it, just put a phonetic spelling next to it when you first mention it. For the rest of us, it'd just look like a permanent typo .

That is great in the actual game, but a potential problem for marketing. Yes, I _know_ some gamers should know better. But they don't. A single additional letter saves us some grief.

Not saying this is final, and we are just courting opinion.

Why is it a marketing problem? They're called "Kafers", and the etymology for that was explained in the game (IIRC it means "bug" in German or something?).

I really can't see why anyone would give you "grief" over it. If you put "(pronounced KAY-fer, [or Ka-FEER or whatever]) next to the word when it's first mentioned then it's clear how it's pronounced and everyone is on the same page. End of problem, surely?

If anyone still can't figure out how to pronounce it when you've explicitly told them how to do so, then they have terrible reading comprehension and that's really not your problem .

I'm just not sure what you think the issue will be here. Do you think people will be offended by it or something?


And I'm guessing this is for a potential 2300AD Traveller conversion in the works, so it's nothing to do with the Third Imperium setting?

 

[Rex]

I've got no issue with the word, problem is, there will be somebody that does....

Still, would love to see the setting transferred over to the MGT format.

~Rex

 

[EDG]

I've got no issue with the word, problem is, there will be somebody that does....

If so, why would that be Mongoose's problem? If there's anyone who does have an issue with it (whatever that may be), they'll most likely be a tiny minority that can be ignored. It's not like people have been shrieking about it for all the years that 2300AD has been out anyway.

 

[dreamingbadger]

I understand the marketing issue, and the issue with some people using the afrikaans slang, i just don't believe that adding another vowel changes the problem

Kaffir (yup i got confused)

kaféer

kafer

kaefer

I just don't believe that it is enough of a difference to make a difference, if anything it is closer... because if someone is sensitive enough not to notice the abscence of an acented character they are unlikely to notice it being in the wrong order...

 

[pixelgeek]

All we have done thus far is considered changing their name to Kaefers - any thoughts on that?

How about a name that wasn't/isn't an Afrikaans slang terms for blacks?

Even back in the 2300 days I wondered why they picked the name

 

[EDG]

I guess it all comes down to whether Mongoose want to piss off a lot of 2300AD fans by randomly changing the name of the iconic bad guys in the setting (a name that's stood for decades with no problems), or if they want to piss off a handful of people who may or may not have some issue with pronouncing the name?

As far as I can see - it ain't broke, so don't fix it.

 

[Sturn]

I agree that there is no reason to change the spelling from Kafer for a future 2300 AD sourcebook.

From the start, the obvious stated? reason for "Kafer" for 2300AD's aliens was that Germans (Bavarians?) encountered the aliens, called them "beetles" due to their appearance. Beetles in German is Kafer from my understanding. This term stuck.

Kaffir, a completely different word, happens to only sound the same. It's spelled completely different. It has several meanings. One meaning to one area of the world is an ethnic slur.

The original author probably never heard of kaffir when he looked up the German for bug or beetle and found kafer. It would be like finding out that the alien race "Bwap" sounds like "buwaup" that later is found to be an ethnic slur in a small part of the world.

Keep Kafer.

 

[EDG]

How about a name that wasn't/isn't an Afrikaans slang terms for blacks?

Even back in the 2300 days I wondered why they picked the name

They picked it because Kafer is german for "beetle", and Kafers look insectoid, and IIRC Germans were the ones who first encountered them.

Kaffir is the Afrikaans slang for blacks. And more to the point, it came from the arabic word "kafir", which means "heathen", "infidel", or "unbeliever". It has a totally different origin.

So "Kafer" is not "Kaffir", by any stretch. If it's explained that (a) it's not pronounced the same, (b) it's not spelled the same, and (c) its origin and meaning isn't the same, then there really can be no problem. I don't think such an explanation is necessary, but it can be put in a little text box if Mongoose really wants to cover their bases.

Changing the name just because of a fear that some people might still believe it's a derogatory word for blacks - especially if that explanation is there - just seems overly paranoid to me.