So, are you an optimist? A pessimist? Do you think everything that can go wrong will? Do you believe in humanity? Does humanity suck in your eyes?

And in all these cases, how does your personal view of the world end up affecting how your games work? Does it affect their themes? Or their very universal laws?

Alternately, did you have encounters with other GMs who's personal philosophies clearly affected their games? And did it suck?

RPGPundit

In short, yes to all the questions.

I'm big into freedom, so in my fantasy world, there is a Spartacus hack character that freed his slave race from a magocratic Empire, successfully.  My personal views affect my game world through my NPCs and governments, and their actions and motivations.

I think it's unavoidable.

Even if we play games in a very casual, beer & bretzels kind of way, this in itself is the result of an influence of our lives on our gaming. It means we need to have beer & bretzels moments because of stress, responsabilities, our outlook on our own lives.

Now, that said, I feel that my personal world view does affect the way I run games, and the way I perceive game worlds. I am, for instance, a Catholic and a believer, and also a lover of mythologies and spiritualities from around the world. This leads me to view pantheons in fantasy worlds as emanations of the world itself, a representation of a whole that, outside of the game world, could be called "God", like Ao in the Forgotten Realms, say.

I also tend to view Good and Evil as principles that do exist and inspire people in one way or another, but the practical limits between these principles is often foggy. Many people believe they are performing good deeds when doing ill things to other people. So in say D&D, I'm reluctant to draw black and white lines between these principles but also like the alignment system.

These are just a few examples. But yes, that's happening all the time. I've played with GMs whose world view was obviously influencing their gaming. To take my example above, atheist GMs portraying religion in a constant grey, suspicious light, or others who consistently make the point that "power corrupts".

I guess it can be a good thing when it brings the world to life in a convincing way. It often has to do with the compatibility of the GM's world view with my own. Which makes total sense, when you think of it. I like the world to be immersive, and don't like politically driven stereotypes (in a large sense of the term, not just actual politics).

So yes. In a nutshell: I believe it happens all the time. Whether it's obvious, and whether it affects the fun I have playing the game, depends on the personal skills of the GM and the compatibility of his world view with my own.

Yes. I am very interested in Marxist & Marxian philosophy in real life, and the structures of the societies I create in my game worlds are strongly influenced by materialist conceptions of historical progress. I try not to be too dogmatic about it though, since that's tedious.

An example from my Dawnlands setting: The old kingdom of High Kaddish was an imperialist city-state oriented around an aristocratic warrior class. They eventually fell prey to a revolution composed of the urban proletariat and proto-bourgeoisie who had been cultivated and developed through the surplus wealth generated by these imperialist adventures. The proto-bourgeoisie (magic users, technological innovators, professional administrators, rich merchants) then seized power from the urban proletariat and instituted an ideology intended to bolster their own dominion (Trying to be king is treason, everyone in Kaddish is formally free and equal, etc.). Since then, Kaddish has basically been a proto-capitalist city-state administered by a bourgeois class called "orthocrats".

That's a very schematic explanation though. The people in setting don't understand it in those terms, nor do I explain it to my players in those terms, but it is the set of ideas I was working with when I came up with the Orthocracy of Kaddish.

Of yeah, my outlook and values do colour the games I run. It's not necessarily a good thing as it limits my range as a GM and it makes me less flexible and reponsive to the mood among the players. But I guess in the end there something in the game for the GM too.

I would definitely say yes.  My games are filled with people and situations that exhibit pettiness, pride, foolishness, and naked self interest.  That's the pessimist in me.  The optimist in me sees it all as a set up for the players to rise above it...at least some of the time.

Oh yeah, I run a lot of Sword & Sorcery.  Why do you ask?  


TGA

Oh Absolutely.  I'd say it had a great effect on how i wrote the Dead, and the way the government and other survivors are portrayed.

I'll also echo The Good Assyrian's comments...I try and do the same thing for my other games, and not let my own feelings influence the actions of the players in any way.

I try to come up with stuff that's entertaining and challenging, so to the extent that I like to be entertained and challenged, then yes.

But as far as reflecting my philosophy of life? Perhaps only a tiny bit. My characters, both player and non-, tend to be competent and pragmatic, reflecting my approach toward living. I have to work at the dreamers, the impractical characters given to extravagance.

Most definitely and I don't see why it would be a problem unless you hammer your world view down your player's throats.

Whatever's going on in my head greatly affects my game-worlds.  My original primary game world (1986-2008) was very Moorcockian Atheist swords & sorcery - "Kill all the gods and let Man be Free!"  

My current setting influenced by the rise of Islam as the dominant political religious force in the UK is much more Paleoconservative, influenced by CS Lewis and Tolkien and based loosely on 8th century southern France (Song of Roland, Battle of Tours et al).  The PCs are the defenders of a small, weak quasi-Christian kingdom constantly under political and violent attack from agents of the much stronger quasi-Islamic power to the south.

Hmm, even typing that on rpgnet would probably get me suspended.  :\

Definitely, but in an inverse fashion.  My game worlds tend to play up ideals and levels of goodness I don't believe in IRL.  My settings tend to be idealized Europe-alikes with plenty of the standard archetypes, but I like to put morally ambiguous twists on them.  I always ditch literal alignment when I run D&D.  I still try to throw in plenty of Lovecraftiana and dashes of grimdark, but I think that fantasy that isn't in some form escapist misses the point.  Stories and NPCs I come up with are informed by games and other media just as often as real people.  

I tend to think top-down when designing, and I put in my settings what I think will elicit positive reactions from prospective players.  Still, I'm sure you can find my values somewhere if you squint at my scenarios and NPCs enough.

When I run Exalted, I downplay the elements of the setting which make me uncomfortable.  Exalted themselves are supposed to be unions of the human and the divine, and I try to emphasize the "human" part of it.  I present the solars as being the most human of the exalted, and this fact as the reason they present a possible new path for the world- the other exalted have all given up their humanity to some degree, from the Melibonean dragon-blooded to the bestial lunars.  I think this view is slightly supported by canon, but not nearly as much as I'd like.

I've got notes on my main fantasy homebrew going back to my preteen days... and it's easy to read the shifts in my education, worldview, and political interests...
In the Wayback it was pretty black & white... with the human/establishment being mostly virtuous... nowadays it's much much more complex and there are no 'white hats' anymore... and the governments are no longer attempts at Utopian arrangements where everyone has equal footing.
It's a crueler world view for sure... but not hopeless.
I'm not sure how much my opinions/beliefs effect actual play though... if players want to see the setting in dualistic ways I won't advise them differently.

Yes, it does - to a significant extent, Fomalhaut is a satire of Hungarian society and politics, and as such, the way it works reflects my real life views. That said, I'd like to believe I am subtle enough not to make it ham-handed.

All the time. In my current game the entire Kingdom is going  through a sort of economic crises  not unlike our own wordy affairs.

Why yes, running CoC and Warhammer is very comfortable!

Like any author, the voice of the GM will come through the characters and the world to some extent.   However, one of the things I enjoy is creating stuff that runs counter to my perspectives.  

I had a T&T fantasy setting where communism and the barter system worked with great harmony and education, common sense and literacy were universal among the populace.   It's not something I believe exists or even wish for, but for me it was interesting to explore those concepts inside a RPG.  Sadly, two players sunk that game because they were so offended...cuz they were real American patriots.