Are Tabletop RPGs becoming more liberal?

[Josh_Kablack]

Oh please.

The stuff on wikipedia about Hitler's vegetarian image contains more interesting assertions than those.

Morell gave Hitler daily injections of various commercially prepared tonics containing animal by-products including Glyconorm, an injectable compound containing vitamins B1, B2 and C, cardiac muscle, adrenal gland, liver, and pancreas.

Other injected preparations contained placenta, bovine testosterone and extracts containing seminal vesicles and prostate to combat depression. At the time, extracts from animal glands were popularly believed to be "elixirs of youth".[24]

[Sunwitch]

One might want to ask "are RPGs becoming more progressive?" rather than "liberal", I think.

In which case the answer is a pretty solid "no", like most culture attached to RPGs, really.

[infected slut princess]

It sounds like you don't know what a free market is and somehow have it confused with laissez-faire economics. Here is a link to Wikipedia.

Your welcome.

What the hell? According to this stupid article you referenced, "laissez faire" is "free markets". So how can I "confuse" a free market with "laissez faire economics"? You are a socialist dumb ass. Stick to RPG theorycraft K, because when it comes to economics and politics you are a fucking dumb fuck who eats shit. I bet you work for the government.

[Username17]

If you only include unregulated free markets in your definition of Free Markets, then you're an idiot. Even the Cato institute doesn't support unregulated free markets. They may support regulations restricted to property recognition, fraud punishment, and contract enforcement, but those things are still regulations.

The Republicans and the Democrats both support a free market with mild regulation. They disagree on what the regulations should be, but the underlying structure is not different. There is no liberty "to" that is not a restriction on a liberty "from", and vice versa. Any property "rights" you have are won only at the cost of the government enforcing your will over the property on everyone else.

A Free Market just means that the government does not set prices, but instead allows them to float based on supply, demand, and chicanery. You'd note if you weren't a fucking idiot that under the Free Market wikipedia entry, Laissez-faire and Socialist economics both get space under Free Market. Because your economy can in fact be very socialist without government price fixing.

-Username17

[K]

You'd note if you weren't a fucking idiot that under the Free Market wikipedia entry, Laissez-faire and Socialist economics both get space under Free Market. Because your economy can in fact be very socialist without government price fixing.

I suspect our friend only got halfway through the second paragraph of the entry and then stopped.

[tussock]

@Thread.

The games are certainly becoming more of something. You can be a good vampire or an evil paladin, so there's no real moral themes any more. There's no boobs on display except for big ones on the Lizards, which is just weird. The Orcs don't even have women, or food, let alone babies to kill, though they never run away any more and always fight to the death like everything else these days. You only get rewarded for killing, never for stealing any more.

Uh, could I suggest RPGs have become an unimaginative, bland, glossy-coated, mindless, die-chucking grind? Is that liberal? Too many adjectives? Wasn't Door, Orc, Pie supposed to be a joke even before they removed Pie from the game?

[infected slut princess]

A Free Market just means that the government does not set prices, but instead allows them to float based on supply, demand, and chicanery. You'd note if you weren't a fucking idiot that under the Free Market wikipedia entry, Laissez-faire and Socialist economics both get space under Free Market. Because your economy can in fact be very socialist without government price fixing.

I actually reject the categories described in this Wikipedia article. For example, "worker cooperatives" and "state-owned enterprises competing with each other" do not belong in the same category as far as "free markets" are concerned, and the latter is not even economically consistent with the original definition. So please don't throw this fucking WIKIPEDIA article at me like it is an ultimate authority on the subject. Doing so only reveals ignorance on your part.

The Republicans and the Democrats both support a free market with mild regulation.

Okay, this is a bit of an aside but... MILD REGULATION?? What the hell. The Code of Federal Regulations. Look at it. It consists of HUNDREDS of books and takes up like 40 feet of shelf space. 100,000+ pages of regulations are added EVERY YEAR, no matter which party is in charge. It contains regulations on everything imaginable, from importing underwear to cooking french fries. If that's what you mean by "mild regulation", whoa.

If you only include unregulated free markets in your definition of Free Markets, then you're an idiot. Even the Cato institute doesn't support unregulated free markets. They may support regulations restricted to property recognition, fraud punishment, and contract enforcement, but those things are still regulations.

Incorrect. Regulations are coercive actions that imply an interference with the market, whereas recognizing property rights, punishing fraud, and enforcing contracts are not interference with the market at all. I mean, you COULD say punishing rapists is a "regulation" but that's NOT typically the sort of thing economists or laymen mean when they say "regulation".

What you seem to regard as a "free market" is more conventionally known as a "mixed-economy" or "market socialism" or "democratic socialism", etc. depending on your frame of reference.

And come on... the CATO Institute? They are sellouts who like going to Republican cocktail parties. I guess if you think they are serious defenders of "free markets" I can partly understand why you are so mixed up.

There is no liberty "to" that is not a restriction on a liberty "from", and vice versa. Any property "rights" you have are won only at the cost of the government enforcing your will over the property on everyone else.

This is a non sequitur. Your right to your property is my obligation not to steal your stuff. And... so what? It does not follow from this that rights can only be enforced by a territorial monopoly on the use of force, or that such a territorial monopoly would enforce rights efficiently.


EDIT:

I suspect our friend only got halfway through the second paragraph of the entry and then stopped.

No... I read the entire article, and it is a very bad Wikipedia article. I don't know why you thought it would help you to bring it up, honestly.

[Prak]

I would say that, if I had to apply such labels, then RPG players are probably getting more liberal (see good vampires, anti-paladins, etc) and so in about ten years, rpgs in general might be (see rpgs such as Legend, After Sundown), but currently RPGs are still mostly made by guys with a strong vested interest in certain conservative values, since they are mostly made by corporations, but are in the process of adapting to their increasingly liberal player base, while also being stuck in a rut and wanting to bring back the stuff that got them interested in rpgs.

[K]

Well, TTRPGs and CRPGs have been converging for a while.

So you get simplified conflict resolution and world-building, but the main character needs extra flavor so he gets to be a vampire or something.

[rasmuswagner]

What the hell? According to this stupid article you referenced, "laissez faire" is "free markets". So how can I "confuse" a free market with "laissez faire economics"? You are a socialist dumb ass. Stick to RPG theorycraft K, because when it comes to economics and politics you are a fucking dumb fuck who eats shit. I bet you work for the government.

You're a fucking idiot. But that's ok, so are most people. Economics is hard, yelling "taxation is theft!" and fapping to gun-backed property rights is easy.

Here's the counter-intuitive truth: The only way to get anything approaching a "free market" is by FUCKLOADS of regulation. Laissez faire economics leads to monopolies and opaque markets.

[hyzmarca]

Hey, are their any good economics RPGs out there? Perhaps some White Wolf style game like Keynesian: The Stimulus, in which Keynesian Economists are supernatural creatures who keep the Economy working by magically controlling the money supply while fighting the evil Austrians (who are, of course, literal Nazis led by Hitler who was transformed into Economist shortly before faking his own death)?

[Username17]

Okay, this is a bit of an aside but... MILD REGULATION?? What the hell. The Code of Federal Regulations. Look at it. It consists of HUNDREDS of books and takes up like 40 feet of shelf space. 100,000+ pages of regulations are added EVERY YEAR, no matter which party is in charge. It contains regulations on everything imaginable, from importing underwear to cooking french fries. If that's what you mean by "mild regulation", whoa.

Yeah. Mild regulation doesn't mean short regulation. Mild regulations are in fact quite lengthy. Harsh regulation can be short. You can blanket prohibit economic activities in a single sentence. Putting mild restrictions on fraud requires lengthy definitions of every single aspect of the transaction. The fact that the regulations of the United States are necessarily large is because they are incredibly mild. From a common sense perspective, you can pretty much do whatever you want. And it takes a lot of physical text to guaranty that.

The United States is ranked fourth in overall ease of doing business. And two of the "countries" ahead of the US are just city states that exist as off-shore business havens. That's mild regulation. That's the second mildest regulation of any real country in the whole fucking planet.

And that's why it's way longer than than harsh regulatory codes. I mean shit, "You are not allowed to own stuff" doesn't even take up a whole line of text. Venezuela's government can confiscate your property at any time and give you whatever compensation (or not) that they feel is appropriate at the time. Want to guess how much paper space that takes up? Also interesting: the two countries whose ease of doing business come right after the US are Norway and Denmark - which are of course both Socialist Worker's Paradises.

-Username17

[Chamomile]

But the game which says "Everyone exemplifies one of the cardinal or theological virtues and one of the deadly sins, and they absolutely must be treated that way," while not propaganda, is fucking dumb.

So it's pretty cool that the definitions of the virtues that White Wolf actually wrote down are completely different from the actual theological virtues, right? I mean, it's still dumb, but not morally wrong. Their definition of Faith is specifically built to allow for atheists. The same way that calling your Kobolds "nigards" would be stupid, but not morally wrong, because it makes perfect sense from a purely logical standpoint that "nigard" is derived from "niggardly" which is etymologically a completely different word from "[EDITED]" or any of its variants.

@K: Yeah, a ton of our culture has its roots in Christianity, our roots were pure Christian going back over a thousand years. If you want to invalidate everything that makes use of Christian-based cultural motifs, then you have eliminated like half our culture. The Declaration of Independence isn't theistic propaganda because it talks about men being endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights.

Is Overlord morally wrong because of its inclusion of the seven deadly sins? What about the Keys to the Kingdom, which makes reference to both the sins and their opposite virtues?

The definitions of the virtues are radically reinvented. They are not the same or even remotely similar to what the Catholic Church actually teaches. They contrived a definition of Faith that explicitly makes rooms for atheists. You are apparently more comfortable with the concept of the story of Jesus Christ being completely, objectively true than of the people using some of the same words as the Catholic Church while totally ignoring their morality. That's like saying you'd rather Death Note had Christian theology posited as objectively true than use the words to Dies Irae in their soundtrack.

[K]

But the game which says "Everyone exemplifies one of the cardinal or theological virtues and one of the deadly sins, and they absolutely must be treated that way," while not propaganda, is fucking dumb.

So it's pretty cool that the definitions of the virtues that White Wolf actually wrote down are completely different from the actual theological virtues, right? I mean, it's still dumb, but not morally wrong. Their definition of Faith is specifically built to allow for atheists. The same way that calling your Kobolds "nigards" would be stupid, but not morally wrong, because it makes perfect sense from a purely logical standpoint that "nigard" is derived from "niggardly" which is etymologically a completely different word from "[EDITED]" or any of its variants.

First of all, "nigard" is morally wrong because it makes people think of the racial slur. It doesn't matter what excuse you use about etymology because it's not fooling anyone.

You don't get to slightly change things and pretend that they aren't substantially the same. Intelligent Design doesn't fool anyone into thinking that it's not Creationism and "nigard" is not fooling anyone into thinking that it's not a racial slur with huge cultural baggage that you filed the serial numbers off of.

Here is a thought experiment: run around your neighborhood and call every woman you see a "cunny." When people start beating you about the head and shoulders, explain to them that the word actually means "rabbit" and you haven't been calling their wives and mothers "[EDITED]." See how that "pure logic" works out.

That being said, WW's system is not completely different. It's a slightly liberalized version that you'd find in a Catholic Church with a hip new priest fresh from the seminary who was trying to reach the young people, but I'm sure that it'd pass Vatican inspection.

Maybe if they replaced Gluttony and Sloth with Intolerance and Idolatry or something, then maybe you could make an argument that it was different enough not not be a total Catholic rip-off, but in this case you really can't. It's substantially the same thing and people recognize that in the same way that they know that Intelligent Design is Creationism.

People are not stupid and they are not fooled by small technical differences even when propagandists insist that those differences are super huge.

@K: Yeah, a ton of our culture has its roots in Christianity, our roots were pure Christian going back over a thousand years. If you want to invalidate everything that makes use of Christian-based cultural motifs, then you have eliminated like half our culture. The Declaration of Independence isn't theistic propaganda because it talks about men being endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights.

Yes, it is Christian propaganda.

It's a particularly harmless form because it never comes into people's lives, but it is still propaganda.

Is Overlord morally wrong because of its inclusion of the seven deadly sins? What about the Keys to the Kingdom, which makes reference to both the sins and their opposite virtues?

Here is the difference: you aren't expected to live by morality of Overlord. In Overlord, you are actually murdering these representations of Catholic morality, basically an act that represents just how little you need to respect that moral system.

In WW, you are forced to pretend to be Catholic and see the world as a Catholic person does. All of your actions are seen through the lens of religious teaching because you are going to be asking "did I fulfill this Catholic teaching so that I can regain some Willpower?"

See the difference?

Including religious imagery is not the same as telling people to live a certain way or fail the game. It's no different than a game where killing only black people and not killing the whites got you XP.... you'd notice that the game was totally racist and probably not want to play it. By the same token, people noticed that nWoD was totally Catholic and didn't want to play it.

As a side note, I should mention that it doesn't even matter if WW included some Crone worshipers. Every good Catholic world needs witches to burn, so those fit right in.

[Prak]

No, the fact that they redefined faith to allow for atheists with faith actually makes it even more christian propaganda. In fact it's actual propaganda used by real christians. Athiests do not have faith in "Unified Field Theory" or "Gravity" or whatever. They know that gravity exists, and knowledge and faith are polar opposites.

[ScottS]

Hey, are their any good economics RPGs out there? Perhaps some White Wolf style game like Keynesian: The Stimulus

Supposedly Traveller was pretty mercantile (e.g. you had to plan out logistics for your trade routes) but I never tried it. Possibly the same for Rogue Trader but I'd guess it's less wonky because wealth/profit is abstracted.

[Zinegata]

Hey, are their any good economics RPGs out there? Perhaps some White Wolf style game like Keynesian: The Stimulus

Supposedly Traveller was pretty mercantile (e.g. you had to plan out logistics for your trade routes) but I never tried it. Possibly the same for Rogue Trader but I'd guess it's less wonky because wealth/profit is abstracted.

It is very much abstracted; and the economy works on the 40K model anyway.

[rasmuswagner]

It is very much abstracted; and the economy works on the 40K model anyway.

What a scary thought. The basic unit of transaction is the execution.

[Dogbert]

If you ask me, TTRPGs have never received enough exposure as to really have to worry about whitewashing, and all the book burners who demonized them back in the 70s-80s didn't even bother in reading the books.

Would Blue Rose have been welcomed back in the 90s? How about the 80s? Or the 70s? Now THAT's a book I consider liberal.

Sadly... "liberal" doesn't sell, you don't see a horde of "Blue Rose Retro Clones" out there, nor you'll see BR on Amazon's best selling TTRPGs. DnD sells, and DnD has conceptually been the same old thing since the 70s: Worlds based on christian values, monotheism disguised as polytheism, cheesecake whenever they can slip it past the radar, etc. Hell, even that crappy PF heartbreaker at Kickstarter from Joshua Frost does it (sure, denouncing the evils of cheesecake while your female art pieces are all in comic book-like do-me-rrific poses, hypocrisy much?).

[K]

I've never even heard of Blue Rose.

But you did make me sad now that I know that Joshua Frost has a poorly-made heartbreaker on Kickstarter.

[Libertad]

I think that some people are overestimating the NWoD's morality system as being the primary factor which drove away fans, or a 100% reflection of the author's religious views. According to many Old WoD fans, they felt that the new setting was just too bland and unimaginative, bereft of direction (in the case of Vampire) and freedom (in the case of Mage). As to the latter, the Virtues and Vices are used as symbolism in lots of work without being a blatant Christian author tract or having the author agree with the views espoused. If I had to guess, it's probably designed to fit in with the "temptation" theme of Vampires and the Gnostic elements of Mage as forms of Christian imagery.

I've never even heard of Blue Rose.

I talked about this more in the cross-posted threat in rpgnet's Tangency Open thread. Check it out if you have an account.

Basically, Steven Kensen (the dude who made Mutants & Masterminds) made a romantic fantasy RPG which was the precursor of the True20 variant.

The idea of the setting was that the PCs were inhabitants of the land of Aldea, an idyllic setting known for its multi-cultural tolerance and its unique system of government (an avatar of the forces of Light elects nobles based upon whether or not they have a pure heart).

Basically the main controversy was that the setting was more blatant about gender and homosexual equality. Heterosexual monogamy was common in Aldea, yet it was not the only form of love. Approximately 10 out of 224 pages discuss the nature of romance and relationships in the campaign world. One of the main gods of Light has a male lover. And one of Aldis' enemy nations (Jarzon) is a carbon copy of the US Christian Right; Jarzon's theocrats are anti-magic, patriarchal, xenophobic, and are angry that robes are just as common men's wear as pants in Aldis ("they're wearing dresses!"). Even though their culture is "Neutral" on the alignment axis (Aldea is "Good"), their religious fundamentalism is objectively a flaw in the setting (they're less "Good" than Aldea).

This message may sound pretty blatant, although Kensen is a US homosexual who grew up in an era that was a lot more hostile to gays. I can't really fault him for inserting his personal views into his RPGs for what he went through. I think that he stopped short of making Jarzon "Evil" because it would have heaped a lot more controversy and nerdrage onto the setting (this book was written a year after W's second election, when anti-gay rage was not as demonized as it is now).

Speaking of nerdrage: back in 2005, the RPG Pundit got into a flame war with Blue Rose fans; I don't know the specifics, other than that he felt that the fans were shoving their views down his throat and that the setting was liberal propaganda. Other people felt that the setting was too idealistic, or "kiddy" in its implementation. There was concern from conservative gamers that the book was just an author tract for gay activism.

I personally haven't read the book, though, so I don't know how "in your face" the messages are, or how the message is delivered. But it is a very liberal setting overall.

[Voss]

As you describe it, it doesn't really sound 'liberal.' It sounds cartoony, particularly the Sailor Moon [translated anime, anyway] and Captain Planet style 'the power of love (heart) will always triumph' style of thing. But then idyllic, tolerant societies always sound a little childish, simply because they are so far removed from reality. The homosexuality equality angle almost sounds tacked on or irrelevant after talking about ruling by pure hearts.

[Libertad]

Yeah, Aldea was really only liberal in the sense of gender/LGB equality and its criticism of religious fundamentalism. It's why I consider Eclipse Phase a more liberal RPG (it covers more issues from a left-wing perspective). The fact that gay marriage was a big political issue in the last 2 elections means that pro-gay sentiments came off as very liberal in the US at the time.

Hey, are their any good economics RPGs out there? Perhaps some White Wolf style game like Keynesian: The Stimulus, in which Keynesian Economists are supernatural creatures who keep the Economy working by magically controlling the money supply while fighting the evil Austrians (who are, of course, literal Nazis led by Hitler who was transformed into Economist shortly before faking his own death)?

I don't know if it's what you're looking for, but Luke Crane (designer of Burning Wheel) designed an RPG called Free Market.

It's a card-based system set on a satellite habitat orbiting Saturn. It's a transhuman society running on a reputation-based economy with no form of government aside from social contracts made between individuals. You compete in the game to get reputation and risk it in conflict with others, and people who lose all their reputation get exiled from the station.

[John Magnum]

or a 100% reflection of the author's religious views.

Whether or not the NWOD Virtues system is a steaming pile of offensive shit has NOTHING to do with whether or not it's a 100% reflection of the author's religious views.

[Prak]

This message may sound pretty blatant, although Kensen is a US homosexual who grew up in an era that was a lot more hostile to gays. I can't really fault him for inserting his personal views into his RPGs for what he went through. I think that he stopped short of making Jarzon "Evil" because it would have heaped a lot more controversy and nerdrage onto the setting (this book was written a year after W's second election, when anti-gay rage was not as demonized as it is now).

Well fuck, I don't know if I'd ever play it, but I want a copy just to support the guy. All the more so when I see Mercedes Lackey listed as an inspiration (and thinking about it, Aldea does sound a lot like a Lackey setting).