Ah, pardon me then, I should take it into consideration. Not many people differentiates between two unfortunately.
And I definitely agree about LOTR - things like Aragorn murdering Sauron's envoy, making Sam sort of absolutely right about Gollum (while Tolkien was clear Sam's attitude pushed Gollum to betrayal), butchering of Denethor character, all shows Jackson is well hack and fraud.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 29, 2021, 09:29:26 AM
Are we talking about:

- classical burke'an - social evolutionism (basic schtick: antirevolutionism)
- religious reactionism (basic schtick: slowing down advances of corruption)
- monarchism and legitimism
- integral traditionalism
- counterrevolutionary

or what?

If someone says "conservative themes" in a game I would expect

Defending Bill of Rights freedoms against oppressors
Personal freedom vs government authoritarianism
Preference for personal effort and private enterprise vs government
Financial responsibility
Resistance to societal takeover by fringe groups
Keeping to practices that work until they are proven to not work
Incremental vs radical change when change is necessary
Respect and support for the guardians of society
Support and respect for morality
Looking at long term costs and consequences for actions
Economic freedom
Maximum economic output vs equalized economic benefits
Doing the best one can in an imperfect world
Meritocracy

Just my own take, of course.  If this actually falls into an established category, I'd appreciate it if someone would tell me what it is.

Quote from: Mishihari on January 29, 2021, 12:44:51 PM
If someone says "conservative themes" in a game I would expect

Defending Bill of Rights freedoms against oppressors
Personal freedom vs government authoritarianism
Preference for personal effort and private enterprise vs government
Financial responsibility
Economic freedom
Maximum economic output vs equalized economic benefits
Meritocracy

These all have to do with individual liberty, which is the hallmark of classical liberalism, or in slightly modified form, modern libertarianism. These are some of the most radical philosophies ever promoted, and aren't conservative at all, except in the topsy-turvy world of today that assigns them to the right.

Quote from: Mishihari on January 29, 2021, 12:44:51 PM
Resistance to societal takeover by fringe groups
Keeping to practices that work until they are proven to not work
Incremental vs radical change when change is necessary
Respect and support for the guardians of society
Support and respect for morality
Looking at long term costs and consequences for actions
Doing the best one can in an imperfect world

These is more philosophical conservatism. It's the underpinnings of a lot of specific types of conservatism, without expressing any of them in particular.

Combine the two sets, and you're within spitting distance of Burkean conservatism.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 29, 2021, 12:39:32 PM
Ah, pardon me then, I should take it into consideration. Not many people differentiates between two unfortunately.
And I definitely agree about LOTR - things like Aragorn murdering Sauron's envoy, making Sam sort of absolutely right about Gollum (while Tolkien was clear Sam's attitude pushed Gollum to betrayal), butchering of Denethor character, all shows Jackson is well hack and fraud.

There was an amazing thread over at Previously.TV in the Game of Thones section (one of its subforums actually) called "Climbing the Spitball Wall" where one of the "Unsullied" (the term for viewers who had not read the books and avoided all spoilers) finally started reading the books that really drives home the differences between the two even in the earlier seasons. The outrage at certain points when they realized what had been butchered in the adaptation was palpable.

For example, the setup of Jon Snow's identity... which those who only watched the show felt came out of nowhere... was plain as day. Similarly, the fact that Ned Stark was doomed from the start (basically the Obi-Wan of the story) vs. "Wow, they killed the main character" was obvious.

So, yeah, I make distinctions between books and adaptations (and in GoT's case at least they made it easy on me by not calling the HBO series ASoIaF)... don't even get me started on the dumpster fire that was "The Hobbit Trilogy."

QuoteJust my own take, of course.  If this actually falls into an established category, I'd appreciate it if someone would tell me what it is.

Absolutely liberal take, only 3% of conservatism detected.
Imagine wanting economic libertarianism rather than different tax laws in each town based on war merits of town citizens 300 years ago.

QuoteThese all have to do with individual liberty, which is the hallmark of classical liberalism, or in slightly modified form, modern libertarianism. These are some of the most radical philosophies ever promoted, and aren't conservative at all, except in the topsy-turvy world of today that assigns them to the right.

Indeed.

QuoteThese is more philosophical conservatism. It's the underpinnings of a lot of specific types of conservatism, without expressing any of them in particular.

Combine the two sets, and you're within spitting distance of Burkean conservatism.

I'd say the second part is quite Burkean, it sounds like non-idealisitc, pragmatic evolutionary conservatism.

QuoteThere was an amazing thread over at Previously.TV in the Game of Thones section (one of its subforums actually) called "Climbing the Spitball Wall" where one of the "Unsullied" (the term for viewers who had not read the books and avoided all spoilers) finally started reading the books that really drives home the differences between the two even in the earlier seasons. The outrage at certain points when they realized what had been butchered in the adaptation was palpable.

You mean this one I guess:

https://forums.primetimer.com/topic/27813-climbing-the-spitball-wall-an-unsullieds-take-on-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-reading-complete-now-onto-rewatching-the-show-and-anticipating-season-6/

Quotedon't even get me started on the dumpster fire that was "The Hobbit Trilogy."

Funny enough I still thing making Hobbit LOTR style was generally good idea, and putting book type of narrative in film would be impossible, - it's ultimately quite epic tales just written as children story. You can expand upon it and give it proper scale - but... you need to be smart about it.

For extra confusion, in America the word 'liberal' means 'moderate progressive' or generally 'center-left', whereas in Europe it means 'classical liberal' or what Americans would call 'libertarian', considered a position on the right.

I was curious about games from the perspective of any of the groups on the right, whether libertarian/classical liberal, European throne-and-altar conservatism (probably the closest American analog would be paleoconservatism as we never had a throne or a state altar in our history as a separate nation), or something between the two.

Well first and foremost - The One Ring of course, as it's widely accepted to be closest in spirit and best Middle-Earth game, and Arda is creation of writer who is epitome of English Catholic traditionalism.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 29, 2021, 12:33:31 PMSimilarly, you can tell in Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" films that he didn't quite grok the concept of mercy to the degree that Tolkien conveyed in his works, particularly at the end when Golem is forced into the pit with Frodo pushing and grabbing at him rather than because of his own crazed glee; looking up at the Ring as he paid no mind to the ground beneath and danced right off the edge.

That may have been part of it, but I'd suggest that it's more because as a filmmaker Jackson was looking for an inherently more active resolution where Frodo the protagonist played an active part in the event, rather than simply watching in agony as sheer Providence saves the day. Modern movie audiences find the deus ex machina ending inherently less satisfying.

It also visually dramatizes the idea that the real weakness of evil is that it always creates the conditions for its own destruction: it was precisely the addictive compulsion to possess the Ring, which Sauron built into it to keep anyone else from being able to destroy it, which wound up creating the fight between Frodo and Gollum that ended up destroying it anyway.

It depends on what one means by conservative. It sometimes just means not leftist, which is why libertarianism can be conservative, as can monarchism or even fascism. I'll just include anything that could be considered conservative.

There are a few aspects of the fantasy genre which are conservative. In fact, fantasy is in part a romanticized Middle Ages. There are royals and nobles, in large part they rule justly. There are noble knights who save the day. Honor, chivalry, courage (especially combined with combat prowess) are taken very seriously and feature heavily. There is a certain sense that morals and values are eternal, sometimes objective good and evil, that there is wisdom in the past. Often literally as there are sometimes golden ages of great heroes and powerful magic.

Fantasy is conservative, and that is what it was for Tolkien himself. The only exceptions are when some setting deliberately subverts or deconstructs fantasy tropes. A Song of Ice and Fire only partly does this, it still leans heavily on traditional fantasy appeal.

One might say that racial essentialism is conservative. Orcs are inherently this way, elves are inherently that way, and so on. I'm sure that many conservatives are ready to balk at this, but no aspect of conservatism claims that all demographic populations are equal and identical, though that claim is often made by major elements of the left and in fact in the past such claims would not have been controversial.

The idea that a small group of heroic people with great abilities are the ones needed to save the day can be considered conservative. Great Man Theory. Evil kings or dark sorcerers threaten all that is good, heroic knights or wise wizards must stop them. It is an anti-egalitarian sort of idea. That sort of thing appears through out RPG genres: we may have knights, psychics, superheroes, faeries, cyborgs, or brilliant detectives - but they are always a cut above normal people and they are needed to defeat their dark reflections, the supervillains. This idea is frequently subverted, because it appeals to us to have a normal person save the day, even Tolkien did this with the Hobbits juxtaposed with all of the more powerful characters around them. Even with frequent subversions in fiction, most RPG's are about playing great people who are the only ones who can accomplish great deeds.

From a more libertarian angle, any game that focuses on a small group of plucky heroes fighting against the man is going to have libertarian (or rugged individualist conservative) appeal. In fact, left wingers will often create stories or settings like this to reflect their own sense of "fighting the man" and accidentally create a very conservative game, setting, or story.

Settings based on society collapsing or survival can have a strong conservative appeal. Society collapses and only rugged individualists who have guns, are tough and self reliant, live in the country, and so on can survive and save humanity.

Militaristic settings and games can be interpreted as being conservative. 40K started off as a silly setting, satire really, but as time went on it's become more serious and sometimes played straight and at face value. If you're playing characters straight from the 40K Imperium of Mankind, there are all sorts of arguably conservative elements. Monarchism and nobility, the need for harsh action by hard men to fight evil, racial loyalty, religiosity, inherent inequality, traditions, wisdom of the past, degenerate and corrupt not-Satanists. The more you play it straight and make the Imperium heroes, the more far right you get, even if it's not in the libertarian or classical liberal sense. Fascism even.

Religion in some settings is considered good and even true. A character of great religious faith can receive miracles from their god. Is that conservative? Kind of.

White Wolf games, even though the creators are certainly left wingers, can have incredibly conservative elements. Imagine a game of vampire hunters: the degenerate evil vampires control politics and corrupt humanity, but a small group of devout vampire hunters can fight the power with their guns and crosses. Pure conservative fodder there. Mage: the Ascension is extremely right wing if you look at it from a certain perspective. We have this monolithic modernist secular globalist organization that controls the world's governments and institutions, wants to brain wash everybody, wants to monitor us at all times, wants to suppress religion and tradition. It's like a game based on Alex Jones being right, it's potentially one of the most right wing settings every accidentally made by leftists.

Those are just a few of my thoughts, I will probably think of more later.

If one wants to be nitpickingly literal about things (as I so often am  ), one could go back to the roots of the word and argue that any plot, situation or theme which is centered around the idea of protecting the current status quo from destructive change (or possibly restoring a previous status quo after it's been overthrown for a distinctively subpar successor) is "conservative".

But I think to make it what most people unconsciously associate with the term, you have to add one vital element of motivation: You are trying to protect/restore the status quo because you think it is inherently worth protecting for its own sake -- not just because you have a personal stake in it, not just because you hate the alternative and would resist it anyway, but because something about it makes it the best thing to keep around right now, or because whatever its flaws, it also embodies goods that you think indispensable. Frodo Baggins once remarked that he thought an invasion of dragons might be a good thing for the Shire, but he put his own life and health on the line to save his homeland the instant such a threat became real.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on January 29, 2021, 03:57:08 PM
If one wants to be nitpickingly literal about things (as I so often am  ), one could go back to the roots of the word and argue that any plot, situation or theme which is centered around the idea of protecting the current status quo from destructive change (or possibly restoring a previous status quo after it's been overthrown for a distinctively subpar successor) is "conservative".

But I think to make it what most people unconsciously associate with the term, you have to add one vital element of motivation: You are trying to protect/restore the status quo because you think it is inherently worth protecting for its own sake -- not just because you have a personal stake in it, not just because you hate the alternative and would resist it anyway, but because something about it makes it the best thing to keep around right now, or because whatever its flaws, it also embodies goods that you think indispensable. Frodo Baggins once remarked that he thought an invasion of dragons might be a good thing for the Shire, but he put his own life and health on the line to save his homeland the instant such a threat became real.

I'd call the distinction you're making the difference between philosophical and pragmatic conservatism. Formal philosophies around conservatism tend to involve praising the past, the status quo, or otherwise finding virtue in what is, as opposed to what might be. But coalitions that promote conservative ends will include many members who don't believe in that. They might just be the leave me alone crowd. Or they might be radicals who want society to progress in a very different direction from the directions currently promoted by any of the mainstream groups. I think libertarianism falls into the latter category. Their ideas of individual freedom are radical, but the primary expression of political change these days is rooted in socialism, or collective enforced action. Which is diametrically opposed to the libertarian concept of individual liberty. So while they support a radical change to society, they've formed an alliance with conservatives. Not because they're conservative in any philosophical sense, but because the direction in which change is happening seems worse than the status quo.

Quote from: Pat on January 29, 2021, 04:10:09 PM
I'd call the distinction you're making the difference between philosophical and pragmatic conservatism.

Good point, and well said.

Quote from: Pat on January 29, 2021, 12:58:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on January 29, 2021, 12:44:51 PM
If someone says "conservative themes" in a game I would expect

Defending Bill of Rights freedoms against oppressors
Personal freedom vs government authoritarianism
Preference for personal effort and private enterprise vs government
Financial responsibility
Economic freedom
Maximum economic output vs equalized economic benefits
Meritocracy

These all have to do with individual liberty, which is the hallmark of classical liberalism, or in slightly modified form, modern libertarianism. These are some of the most radical philosophies ever promoted, and aren't conservative at all, except in the topsy-turvy world of today that assigns them to the right.

Quote from: Mishihari on January 29, 2021, 12:44:51 PM
Resistance to societal takeover by fringe groups
Keeping to practices that work until they are proven to not work
Incremental vs radical change when change is necessary
Respect and support for the guardians of society
Support and respect for morality
Looking at long term costs and consequences for actions
Doing the best one can in an imperfect world

These is more philosophical conservatism. It's the underpinnings of a lot of specific types of conservatism, without expressing any of them in particular.

Combine the two sets, and you're within spitting distance of Burkean conservatism.

Thanks.  I'll have to do some reading on that.  Having not studied political theory, the idea that the first set are not conservative seems peculiar to me, as does WWW's 3% comment.  My experience in living in the U.S.and a fair amount of political activism says that they are very much associated with practiced conservatism.  If one considers that conservatism can described as "defense of the status quo" and that the U.S. was founded almost 250 years ago with the Bil of Rights as founding principles, defending personal liberties seems conservative indeed.

Having a "conservative" themed rpg is easy, and you don't even have to be openly or explicitly on the "right" in any way at all.

All you have to do is quietly not have anything in it that promotes current leftist views or narrative.

And done.

Congratulations, you are now a racist, misogynistic, alt-right bigot!

Because silence is violence.

Interestingly, Gygaxian AD&D (approximately 1977 to 1980, ending with his partial contribution to Q1/T2, which he never finished) did more to prepare me for good and evil in the real world then any other secular source. Gygax drew heavily on the stories that he read (note the Lovecraftian themes of his early work, such as the Elder Elemental God), and telling stories is how humans preserve the wisdom of their ancestors, so Gygaxian AD&D is not very far from our ancestral wisdom. The people of this culture have largely forgotten the magic in stories, but our Enemy has not, which is why they are constantly attacking and perverting our stories and games. It is not surprising then that AD&D is attacked for being racist, sexist, etc. Anything that makes evil too easy to recognize is under attack, and any such thing that contains ancient wisdom can be said to be conservative. Truth is the enemy.

QuoteYou walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.

– Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone

I was reminded of this while watching the horror film Hereditary. The cult in the movie, what an anthropologist would call a "cult of desperation", is very realistic in its portrayal of evil, as in them I can see the vile and perverse politicians and news media, as well as the epidemic of mental illness that causes people to cling to degenerate ideologies.

Gygax noted that Eclavdra, the drow high priestess, worshipped the Elder Elemental God because she wanted something that she could control and manipulate. I found that simple insight to be very astute, as that is the core precept of idolatry, or moral relativism. People are "spiritual but not religious" because they want something that they can control and manipulate.

Lolth held the keys to the EEG's prison (the EGG that she drops when she is defeated in D3), which to my mind means that the EEG was a puppet of Lolth, meaning Eclavdra herself was a puppet of Lolth, though her ego and pride would never allow her to see that reality. In real world theology, idolaters, whether they worship money, scholarship, trees, or themselves, are puppets of Satan and his demons. Very astute indeed. Of course, Lolth is the Oedipal mother that devours her children, symbolic of the feminist hatred for men, and the liberal hatred for our traditions.