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Historical Games Round 75
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@farfalla When Blu and I created The Savage Skies, we intentionally changed the history of the world to eliminate the racism, sexism, and homophobia that afflicted our actual world during that era (and still does now) because we explicitly wanted to remove those from what was supposed to be a fun game for punching fascists. These changes seemed to make most people happy. I don’t think you’re in the minority.
In the end, I think it comes down to what the game runner(s) want out of the game (I’m genericizing this statement, so it’s not just about this game or this game runner): do they want the game to focus on all the ways that life can be hard (eldritch monsters, social injustice, taxes, etc), do they want the game to focus on all the ways that life can be awesome (flying hotrod aircraft, punching fascists, casting magic spells, etc), or somewhere in between. I think most games will be somewhere in between, but where they want to be on the spectrum should, in my opinion, determine how they treat real life sources of oppression and injustice in their game.
… that said, I do think that in general it’s a good idea to limit or outright ban the use of real life injustices being inflicted by players on other characters/players. Helps weed out the assholes.
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MY suggestion is that for whatever changes you make and unique theme details make sure what is common knowledge is put some where easily found. There are many games that are ‘This thing is what everyone knows IC’ but don’t document it and it leaves it difficult for new players to know this ‘common information.’ This is also done with OOC stuff too. Like the unspoken rules stuff. IF it is important enough IC and OOC, I think it should be documented.
I would play this theme, though.
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@Roadspike I did very much the same with Seven Nations. I eliminated the need for discrimination based on gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. And instead, I just replaced with something more akin to nations generally having a baked natural apprehension to each other. While also having one nation kind treat mages as weapons and tools rather than people. I think this was, in an effort to create nuance and conflict between factions, a way to go about it without the players feeling like they were being put down because of who they were.
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@farfalla said in New Concept:
This is clearly the minority opinion, but there’s some otherside feedback for you lol.
Eeek. I’m sorry if I came across that way. I don’t assume you’re in the minority.
I do not want to play in a world with -isms. I do not want to play in the really real 1920s. I want to play in a world that is like the 1920s, but cool.
Where the horrible things are monsters. Not society.
I just don’t want to have to read pages of lore for what amounts to “New York in the 1920s but without -isms,” when you can kind of just say that.
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@KarmaBum said in New Concept:
I just don’t want to have to read pages of lore for what amounts to “New York in the 1920s but without -isms,” when you can kind of just say that.
I agree with everything KB said except this. I do want to read pages of lore (okay, a page of lore) that says “New York in the 1920s but without the -isms” because the ‘why’ interests me, but we’ve also established I’m a setting-nerd, right? I think most people will fall into the KB-bucket on this one.
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I don’t think anyone here wants to play a bigot or have bigotry-related RP. I do think there is a meaningful difference between This is the real 1920s with everything that means but we’re not going to have themes of bigotry in scenes and This is a different 1920s where bigotry has been solved. That distinction is going to be important for some groups of players (either way).
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@shit-piss-love said in New Concept:
I don’t think anyone here wants to play a bigot or have bigotry-related RP.
I mean, I think that some folks do have interest in engaging in thematic prejudices of a historical timeframe in RP/fiction, which I think would count as “having bigotry-related RP,” and I don’t think that’s – a bad thing? It’s a bad thing if people want to use it as an excuse to be assholes, obviously, but people wanting to explore the impact of prejudices on characters aren’t wrong for it (which your wording, to me, kind of seems to maybe imply). Some folks have a reaction of “I absolutely don’t want to have to deal with that in RP, I already deal with it IRL” which is SUPER FKN VALID. Other folks can find emotional interest in exploring those issues, including ones that would have impacted themselves. It’s just different perspectives.
I like that there are games that allow people to forget about these shitty RL prejudices!! But I don’t think it’s a “no one HERE wants to do this” type of situation to have folks that would also be interested in engaging with RL prejudices.
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@shit-piss-love Going with the bigotry has been solved due to historic changes. That is the one that I think is more in theme with the desire and theme I’m looking to build.
So, that way we can focus on more the evils of the supernatural and horror elements. Instead of the monsters we know that exist to this day and keep us all pushed down and depressed. Racism, women’s suffrage, and bigotry toward sexual choice are themes I’m not looking to discuss in this game as primary themes. Not saying, there might be one or two villain NPCs, but it would be the minority, not the majority.
Been debating on this all day, thank you Brand MU Day for helping me debate it back and forth.
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@Roz said in New Concept:
@shit-piss-love said in New Concept:
I don’t think anyone here wants to play a bigot or have bigotry-related RP.
I mean, I think that some folks do have interest in engaging in thematic prejudices of a historical timeframe in RP/fiction, which I think would count as “having bigotry-related RP,” and I don’t think that’s – a bad thing? It’s a bad thing if people want to use it as an excuse to be assholes, obviously, but people wanting to explore the impact of prejudices on characters aren’t wrong for it (which your wording, to me, kind of seems to maybe imply).
Nah I’m the person you described. I’d love to play a game that is about violently fighting back at my oppressors. I was just using loose language. I also don’t think I’ll ever see the game you described (or that I proposed in the link) but hey, if it ever does someone make sure to ring me.
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I feel like we’re overcomplicating things. “There’s less bigotry in this world because: bigotry isn’t fun OOC; it’s not required to be there like it’s some default state of humanity; and if you can’t suspend your disbelief for less prejudice but can for God being a space squid who hates you, then maybe sit with that and really think about it.”
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@GF I mean that’s not really what the discussion has been, at all. PS it is fun for some people to explore these things, and that is as valid as wanting to avoid any rl issues.
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@hellfrog I apologize.
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@GF said in New Concept:
if you can’t suspend your disbelief for less prejudice but can for God being a space squid who hates you, then maybe sit with that and really think about it.
If it’s a fictional setting? I absolutely can suspend my disbelief for that. But history is established. Someone (sorry can’t find the quote) mentioned “it’s just the 1920s but without discrimination.”
I don’t know what that means.
I’m not being snarky. I hate discrimination with a burning passion in RL, and I fully respect someone not wanting to deal with that in their pretendy funtimes.
The problem is that discrimination is so deeply baked into societal systems that it’s just not as simple to me as snapping your fingers and saying it doesn’t exist.
Everyone always points to Wild West settings and says: “If you can imagine a world where the PCs don’t die of dysentery, why can’t you imagine a world without discrimination?”
Easy. You’re not pretending dysentery doesn’t exist, you’re just saying the PCs are lucky enough to not contract it, or to contract it and survive – both of which actually happened.
“A world without discrimination” is just not the same thing. How did it get that way? Let’s start from that Wild West setting…if racism isn’t a thing, then logically slavery wouldn’t have been. There wouldn’t have been a Civil War (or it would have gone very differently). Heck, the entire economic basis of the south would probably be dramatically different. Oh and would America even exist at all if not for the genocide against the native peoples? How far back do we go with this?
If you want to do alt-history, that’s cool. That’s what Savage Skies did. They picked a divergence point (something about “when dragons appeared” IIRC) and then wrote the history from that point forward to explain why their imaginary world is different from our real world. It’s a bunch more work, but it addresses the issue cleanly.
Less clean is “racism exists but we don’t want stories about it here” because of systemic discrimination. What about the laws of the land? What about PCs who have discrimination in their backstories? It gets thorny.
I’m not telling people how they should RP. I just wish people would stop ascribing evil motivations to those of us who just have a hard time imagining a historical setting as an egalitarian utopia.
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@Faraday said in New Concept:
If it’s a fictional setting? I absolutely can suspend my disbelief for that. But history is established. Someone (sorry can’t find the quote) mentioned “it’s just the 1920s but without discrimination.”
I don’t know what that means.
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I’m not telling people how they should RP. I just wish people would stop ascribing evil motivations to those of us who just have a hard time imagining a historical setting as an egalitarian utopia.This was me and what I said was This is a different 1920s where bigotry has been solved. I used that phrasing because I was trying to touch on what you’ve gone into detail on here. Like you, fictional histories leave me struggling to reconcile an internally-consistent setting.
I have a lot to say on the topic but I am way of doing so for the same reason you cited in your closing statement.
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@Faraday said in New Concept:
I’m not telling people how they should RP. I just wish people would stop ascribing evil motivations to those of us who just have a hard time imagining a historical setting as an egalitarian utopia.
I had a bunch of answers for the questions you asked, and I can provide them if you’re interested in hearing them, but I feel like this is the really important part I need to address.
I apologize unreservedly for suggesting that your motivations must be evil. That was not at all my intent. My intent was to say that the selectiveness of the ability to suspend disbelief doesn’t make sense to me, because it’s so easy for me to imagine a world where slavery was a thing without racial animus* that it confuses me why other people can’t. That doesn’t necessarily imply evil to me, just a rigidity of thought that I can’t quite wrap my head around except by thinking of it as an intrusive thought. I should have been more careful to express that, and I was wrong not to take that care. I don’t think you’re an evil person or a cheerleader for racism or anything like that. As far as I can tell, you’ve always been a chill and decent person.
*There’s a lot of money to be made not paying your slaves, and Africans looking so different from Europeans makes it real easy to identify them as a slave class. No need to consider them racially inferior, just a willingness for slave owners to be shitty for money.
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@GF said in New Concept:
My intent was to say that the selectiveness of the ability to suspend disbelief doesn’t make sense to me, because it’s so easy for me to imagine a world where slavery was a thing without racial animus* that it confuses me why other people can’t.
*There’s a lot of money to be made not paying your slaves, and Africans looking so different from Europeans makes it real easy to identify them as a slave class. No need to consider them racially inferior, just a willingness for slave owners to be shitty for money.
You’re right, that alternate explanation makes no sense to me in regards to the historical culture or just, like, human beings.
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@Roz I see. I apologize for bringing it up, and won’t do so again.
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@Faraday said in New Concept:
The problem is that discrimination is so deeply baked into societal systems that it’s just not as simple to me as snapping your fingers and saying it doesn’t exist.
I guess I disagree insofar as it is that simple for me.
The same as it’s that simple for me to snap my fingers and pretend I’m a dragonrider on a world that doesn’t exist, I can pretend to live in a modern earth where I have psychic powers and not once am confronted with bigotry in a meaningful way and could very easily pretend that there’s a version of the 1920s where society is just better.
How did a world with vampires get that way? How did we actually invent space travel? Howcome all the aliens speak English? handwave, handwave
I don’t think (and I hope no one has implied) that there are evil intentions. It’s just different philosophies.
edit lol I think @GF just said basically the same thing, read her post ^
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@KarmaBum I’m the asshole that asks all those kind of questions, because I love asking:
“BUT WHY.”
I’m also the same asshole that will write a dissertation on how these things happened thematically. Not that anyone has to go read it, but I wholly admit that sometimes I will get completely lost in the minutiae.
something something mammoth herd conservation regulations something something
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@GF said in New Concept:
My intent was to say that the selectiveness of the ability to suspend disbelief doesn’t make sense to me, because it’s so easy for me to imagine a world where slavery was a thing without racial animus* that it confuses me why other people can’t. That doesn’t necessarily imply evil to me, just a rigidity of thought that I can’t quite wrap my head around except by thinking of it as an intrusive thought.
NB, Warning, Disclaimer and Plea: I am not saying that games where people are safe from being victimized or re-traumatized or otherwise subject to things they don’t want to be are dumb, bad, or wrong. I am glad there are games that function this way, think they are necessary, and celebrate their existence regardless of my enthusiasm about playing there. My opinions should not be construed as an attack on the existence of such games.
Everything is intersectional. People who are collectively oppressed but in different ways make for the liberal alliances that have improved society over the ages. To take just the 1920s in question as an example the labor advancements of the early 20th century would have got nowhere without the significant involvement of black labor organization finding common cause with Socialists and driving things like the split from the AFL to form the CIO, which had significant effects of pushing those movements away from traditional conservative power structures. Erasing racism undoes such historical reference points. Sure, it could just have happened without the contribution of those black Americans who were motivated by fighting the personal oppression. But it happened the way it did and it’s the kind of story that, to me, makes human existence beautiful despite the darkness.
Our fights for liberation are, to me, the most personally inspiring aspects of our collective history. To snap the fingers and say those struggles didn’t need to happen, or that they happened in the past and it was all wrapped up nice and neat, just takes the arc of society’s development so far from where we are even today that it feels false (to me). There is also something personally troubling to me in the act of defining which forms of oppression have been eradicated and which ones are not. This is why I do not play on Arx, a game where the premise includes eliminating forms of racial and gendered oppression, leaving the caste system and economic horror of the feudal world intact.
These are all just the opinions of someone who defines their life in very political terms. Activism and the study of the philosophy of resistance and has been a big part of my life and the lens I look at the world through is one of critical political and social analysis. I can’t see a world where we’ve “won” because I don’t think such a state is possible. I think the human condition is primarily defined by struggles for agency and liberty and the fight is never-ending. I think those fights are the most important work humanity can engage in and that colors my recreational preferences as well. If I were on a game and met a Dragon-Riding Elf Knight I think the most interesting thing I could do with that has nothing to do with their ear shape or mode of transport. Let me get them in a deep conversation about the morality of the knights serving the feudal class that holds the monopoly on violence in exchange for the privilege of rent farming.
Again, I have no contempt for folks who do just want to enjoy the fantasy of a world without some of humanity’s darkest sides. That organizing a game like that and providing a safe space is a popular enough idea to make for a tenable game is a wonderful thing and a sign that previous struggles have made forward motion. I just want to tell stories of struggle, and I want to explore the human condition, and I want to be able to do so with all I know about what good and evil humans have done.
