Seriously. Every form of entertainment has baked-in political assumptions, and that definitely includes #ttrpg . You might choose not to examine them, but this is an active choice on your part, and you don’t get to pretend that your entertainment is “free of politics”.
Do the world and yourself a favor, and use this template instead.
Done. Thanks for the suggestion!
What template was he using before?
Steven Crowder
This douchebag isn’t exactly the most appropriate for this meme.*First draft was the op crowder meme. Good on op for updating it.
He changed it to Calvin, but this comment is hilarious now.
Now it’s like…
Deleted by creator
This comment is really funny now that OP is using the new format, please leave it up.
Hah, gotta edit it at least a bit. I’ll leave the original viewable.
“I don’t want to talk about/see politics” is always synonym to “I support the status quo, and I will aggressively reject anything that goes against it”.
Nothing that happens on a public space is free of politics, even when it’s not controversial.
You can tell what someone’s politics are by what they consider political.
I was astonished at some of the Steam reviews of Outer Worlds after playing it. People proper pissed off that their experience had been ruined because there’s a female side character with an optional side quest where she wants a date with another woman. Like how thoroughly filled with hate do you have to be as a person, to be fine with all the mass killing but suddenly get a moralistic high horse about a fictional character going on a dinner date you don’t approve of.
Sad that Steam are making a comment of their own by allowing those reviews to stay up.
Steam definitely has a libertarian streak, seemingly. I wish I had started switching over to GOG a lot sooner.
How DARE you make your game try to reflect reality.
People do not all have the same working definition of “politics”. Many people seem to use it to mean “overt content about contemporary issues”, but that’s not really a good definition.
If your game has sentient creatures with agency and desires, it has politics.
For example, if your game has a king, there’s politics. Having the people accept monarchy is a political statement. It’s not as hot-button as, say, having slavery, but it’s still political.
You might not be surprised if your players react to a world with chattel slavery by trying to free the slaves and end that institution. The same mechanism may lead them to want to end absolute monarchy. They see something in the setting they perceive as unjust, and want to change it.
A lot of people are kind of… uncritical, about many things. They don’t see absolute monarchy as “political” because it’s a familiar story trope. They are happy to accept this uncritically so they can get to the fun part where you get a quest to slay the dragon. (Note that the target of killing the dragon rather than, say, negotiating or rehoming it is also political)
People then get frustrated because they feel stupid, and they’re being blocked from pursuing the content they want. They just want to, for example, do a tactical mini game about fighting a big monster that spits fire. They don’t want to talk about the merits of absolute monarchy or slaying sentient creatures.
It’s okay to not always want to engage in the political dimension. That doesn’t mean it’s not there. If someone responds to the king giving you a quest with “wait, this is an absolute monarchy where the first born son becomes king? That’s fucked up” they’re not “making it political”. It already was political.
If you present a man and a woman as monogamously married in your game, that’s political. That’s a statement. If you show a big queer polycule, that’s also a statement. The latter will ping the aforementioned uncritical players as “political”, because it’s more atypical, but both are “political”.
Some of this can be handled in session 0. But sometimes you learn that some people in the group have different tastes and probably shouldn’t play together.
“I don’t want politics in my gaming” = “I stopped growing, emotionally, the first time I saw Jugga in Conker’s Bad Fur Day”
I don’t care about politics in my games (and shows/movies) as long as it fits into the world and into the story. A TV show examples for that is Torchwood. It has to be the most gay scify show (at least it is the most gay I know) but all of it fits together and I love the show, even as a totaly hetero/cis guy. It doesn’t feel forced but is just how everything just it. Not sure if I can explain it good, hope it is somewhat to understand.
Feels kind of ironic using Chowder for this meme, but I agree with the message :P
I disagree, because typically it means someone is racist or sexist and just doesn’t want to see people of color or queer characters. Such people may still be willing to engage with the political aspects of their gaming insofar as they may join initiatives like Stop Killing Games or argue that game devs should be treated better, but they’re just bigoted assholes who can’t handle people of color or queer characters.
Also don’t mistake this as a defense of them. They’re deplorable. I’m just saying I don’t agree with the statement as written.
It means “I don’t believe in anything and my media must reflect the status quo of (my) politics or I will throw a little baby tantrum because you dared to make me think about the cost of the comfort I enjoy”
Respectfully; if we aren’t close and it doesn’t come up organically in game, I’m super not interested in hearing political opinions in games. While they may have some degree of politics baked in, that doesn’t mean Im interested in hearing people interpretation of them beyond gameplay. I play games to relax and socialise in a friendly, respectful setting.
That includes if I agree. I see this “if they don’t, they agree with the status quo/don’t want to deal/etc” used frequently but people who borderline grandstand in front of people who they know likely share their view are insufferable. At least that been my experience the one time someone has brought up politics at a table. Then again I avoid public/rand tables for a reason these days. Not saying all political discussion goes thay way at a table but the image just paints it in a very binary manner.
Agreed. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s a big difference between playing a gay character and derailing the entire campaign because you choose to lead a gay rights movement while the world is being overrun by the demon king’s hordes.
I don’t care about the former and have done so myself, but I’ll boot you from my table for the later. Not because I’m against gay rights, but because that’s not the kind of story I’m interested in DMing and you’re free to find a DM who’s interested in this storyline, but you won’t take my campaign and players hostage for your narcissistic urge for self-promotion!
you choose to lead a gay rights movement while the world is being overrun by the demon king’s hordes.
This maps kind of easily onto “We can’t fight for gay rights right now. They just blew up the twin towers!” or similar “wait your turn for justice” arguments.
I get the impression that you don’t see that kind of thing, and furthermore don’t care. You run whatever kind of game you want, but I would be surprised if your settings weren’t full of unexamined biases and defaults.
Lol, nice strawman you built there. There’s no need to “wait your turn for justice”. Just get yourself a group who enjoys that kind of campaign and you’re good to go! This isn’t a “We can’t fight for gay rights right now. They just blew up the twin towers” scenario.
In fact, you’re arguing exactly like the people on the opposite side: “How dare you care about gay rights. We need thoughts and prayers for the 9/11 victims right now and everyone who doesn’t focus entirely on thoughts and prayers is a terrorist supporter!” That’s your argument right there!
I dunno man, you’re the one that said the players can’t talk focus on gay rights now. there’s a demon invasion. Which, again, maps pretty cleanly to that kind of attitude. But I think you might be the kind of person who doesn’t understand subtext, or maybe text.
How come gay people don’t already have rights in your setting?
They do. Doesn’t stop dipshits from arguing though. Case in point.
That doesn’t make any sense. If they already have rights then what are they arguing for?
As I wrote in my original post, some people just have a narcissistic need for self-promotion. They will preach to the choir and bring irrelevant political topics into the game because they feel like the real world doesn’t appreciate their valiant efforts towards weaponized inclusivity enough.
Sounds like you’re either not picking up on the fact that your world isn’t actually supportive of gay rights (because of subconscious prejudice or something) or you’re bad at communicating that it is, or both.
“Weaponized inclusivity” jesus christ so its clearly the former
“Narcissistic urge for self-promotion” insane statement. Check your prejudice.
Your language choices give a phobic vibe, just FYI. “[…] they feel like the real world doesn’t appreciate their valiant efforts towards weaponized inclusivity enough.” Like you know they’re suffering actual IRL oppression, right? Stuff like that could be giving LGBT players the impression that you’re hostile towards them.
My language choice is not phobic, it’s aggressive, because I’m once again realizing, why half of this sub is permanently looking for groups.
I can assure you, that there is no inclusivity issue in any of my worlds. But it’s also not anything I pay any mind to at all unless my players are looking for connections or love interests. Other than that I try to avoid heteronormativity for the very few occasions NPCs are actually in a relationship that matters to the game and that’s it.
And as I commented before, if you want a world and story FOCUSED on inclusivity and LQBTQ issues, then I’m sure there are countless DMs who will be happy to provide that. Because I am not. My games focus on adventuring, nature and mystic, long forgotten places and that’s exactly how I and my players like it!
When everyone around you seems like a dipshit, you’re probably the dipshit.
Oh, quite the opposite. Most people around me are awesome. And I’ve gotten pretty good at sorting out the few who aren’t. In fact, after deleting Reddit, pretty much my entire dipshit intake stems from Lemmy. I sometimes really do wonder what I’m still doing here. Because clearly, this entire community has some serious issues to work through.
Just a massive red flag of a comment right there i tell ya.
I love politics in gaming, I loved Fallout 3, NV,4 (I still enjoyed it but to a lesser extent), Cyberpunk, and Outer Worlds 1/2. I love it when a game has multiple factions, I love when you get to really understand the politics of a fictional world, and I love stories involving politics.
Yes agree, scheming and politicking can make the game mechanics really work.
Actually it’s hard to keep politic out of RPG.
In game, politic is what makes the game more than just killing random person you know the Princess who want to escape a political marriage, the advisor looking to become the lord, the church and and the merchant guild trying to gain influence ? All of that is politics. and all of that is what makes your campaign fun.
In real-life, like any other social activity especially if you get wider than a closed circle, politics get involved, your club need to talk with the mayor to get a slot in the municipal culture centre or rent a room in a school. Moreover, RPG tend to have a bad reputation and be not correct according to conservative which make it even more political than tons of other RPG, if you let church and right-winger tell you which hobby are acceptable you won’t be able to play RPG
The politics those people wish to avoid is things like the princess wanting to escape a political marriage because she’s gay
They don’t mind politics just so long as it’s not gender or identity politics
The Irony, is that while at least in my local community, the young generation includes a lot of openly neurodivergent gay/enbi players, I feel like that the reason why the theme is so sensitive for older player is that many of the older player never thought the time to question about-it, you know, the 50 year old “straight” conventionally attractive long term single who always play the other gender, may not just be too busy to date
I’m in a pretty progressive city. My group’s 60 year old man was married to his husband. The rest of us are in our 40s and I’m pretty sure wouldn’t even notice same sex couples or cross dressing (though, in worlds with magic, proper transition ought to be available so no one might be able to notice anything but magician shopfronts advertising sex changes)
RPGs, much like SF, have always been a mechanism to explore social issues in philosophy, governance, and thought. In Human society I don’t personally believe that “politics” can be avoided in any group anywhere. —of course that’s just one man’s opinion.
