Quote from: RPGPunditAssumptions are agendas.

Given that RPGs are all emulations, the assumptions writers put into those emulations, either assumptions of how the genre works, or how the world works, reveals their (conscious and heavy or unconscious and soft) agendas.

RPGPundit

I'd like to point out that you are incorrect. Plenty of scientifically minded, optimistic people put an inherent fear of misapplied technological progress at the center of their science fiction. Or, to give an example closer to home, I recently set up a scifi setting. Anyone who's seen my posts in the religion thread knows I defend the value and validity of religion. However, in writing my scifi setting, I include alot of themes that portray religion rather darkly.

The outlook of a setting or system could be entirely under the control of it's author, but some things arise out of internal necessity. I want villains with a supernatural feel and the religious themes work for that. Scifi authors want to write something horrific from time to time and portray science as able to produce whatever abomination they want to put at the center of their story.

If anything, good work is the product of someone paying attention to their work and what it needs as opposed to their biases and what they believe.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityBasic reading comprehension includes getting the relative weight of a statement in the context of an argument. I was telling Wil: "No, that's not whom I have in mind--I'm talking about adolescent Vampire gamers right now, and here's what I have to say about them."

But you zero in on one sentence that doesn't go over your head and which seems to address your precious personal experience.

You are indeed unique.

In the magnitude of your thickness.

Hey, now.  I've put on weight, it's true.  But that's no reason to get nasty. You try exercising with a bad back.

Damn middle-class worries...

Basic writing says don't write things if you don't mean the reader to read them. You could have written exactly what you wrote above, but that would have carried the burden of being clearer. Or you could have responded, "Ya know, fuckhead, I know that average two-car, two-kid suburbanites do game.  I mis-spoke (typed) - that's not what I meant to say."

It's a nice try to get around what you said, though, so I give it a 7.

Quote from: J ArcaneNo, I was implying that Pierce's willy-nilly slapping of class labels on games and gamers was equivalent to suggesting the Toronto Blue Jays are an alien cult.

Thank you for clarifying. I apologize for drawing the wrong conclusion.

I wave my huge cock, which is very likely to be bigger than yours, in the direction of this thread.

Mine's so big I need a crane to wave it.

Quote from: beejazzAny game I make will have an agenda: My agenda is to sell my game.

Anything else I care little about.

Assuming you're trying to sell to the largest group possible, then would you say that comes into play at all? I mean, would you think it pays to play into popular cultural conceptions in order to move product?

Quote from: CalithenaI wave my huge cock, which is very likely to be bigger than yours, in the direction of this thread.

Thanks for contributing. :rolleyes:

Quote from: James J SkachI wasn't here for an "argument." I wasn't even here for a discussion.  I was just here to point out the stupidity of things like "dumb-ass-white-people" with which you implicitly agreed when you said, in response to Wil's assertion:

Actually, and this is horribly off-topic, there seriously are Dumb Ass White People. I stand by that assertion - America produces a special breed of stupid Caucasians who are isolated from most of the world. They  cross to the other side of the street when they see someone who looks "different", roll up their windows at intersections when a homeless person crosses the street, report Lite Brites as possible bombs and believe that talking slowly and loudly to anyone in a foreign country will allow them to be understood. Pundit lives where there are probably white American tourists - he has to have seen most of what I'm talking about.

Quote from: Thanatos02Assuming you're trying to sell to the largest group possible, then would you say that comes into play at all? I mean, would you think it pays to play into popular cultural conceptions in order to move product?

See... I think it pays to be intentionally ambiguous in order to play into all cultural conceptions, popular or otherwise, in order to move product.

Except a few. I'm biased against totally obvious bullshit... like Naziism.

Outside of that, I'm still young... my biases, opinions, and the better part of my agenda are only half-formed at best.

So let´s talk about politics in games and agendas again!

I think it is more interesting to look at the gameplay message sent, because the setting message is akin to political statements via literature and movies.

And there are other people way more proficient in discussing literature or popular culture.

To us Gamers, the gameplay politics should matter, because no one else can talk about them.

I think games as played at the table often have a political subtext, for example mine it has been pointed out to me reflect my own worldview.  People tend to act from self interest, those who act from faith tend to be less flexible and more inclined to acting against their own interests and those of others, economics is critical, views on what is right vary by time, place and culture.

That's not me making big political statements, just that the games I run reflect reality as I tend to see it, and thus of necessity make political statements.  They reflect a fundamentally atheist outlook coupled with a mix of economic and social liberalism*.  Others games doubtless would look different.



* by which I do not mean there is no racism and everybody is nice to each other.

Yepp.
The idea of man [correct term?] of the GM is always pretty important in actual play, even if you try to actively avoid being political.

You can´t escape that.

Thinking more about it, the impact of the GM´s idea of man may be lessened, when you aren´t concerned with motivations for actions in your gaming.
This might be hard for guys like you and me, because we basically game alike, I´d say.

If a gaming setup can somehow avoid or ignore motivations for actions, this part of message goes away.

For example when there is an established evil for evils sake, that you have to overcome. Fighting skeletons in a dungeon. Still, im my games I´d always start to reason: "Who made those skeletons? Why? What´s his goals?"

Just rambling here, but could a primordeal force like Cthuloid Evilness be un-political? Or is the existance of such a force a political statement again?

I fear so.

Well we can´t escape it seems.

EDIT: Oh, and the fact that you can fight the skeletons with tactics, wherein the clever use of ressources is meritful, is again political.

Quote from: SettembriniJust rambling here, but could a primordeal force like Cthuloid Evilness be un-political? Or is the existance of such a force a political statement again?

Definitely, it's an ontological statement and a statement that ultimately our values have no universal meaning but only that meaning we ourselves give them.

And that's political.

Quote from: SettembriniEDIT: Oh, and the fact that you can fight the skeletons with tactics, wherein the clever use of ressources is meritful, is again political.

 No it isn't.
 Just means the group of characters is trying their best  to stay alive.

 Sometimes an elongated yellow fruit is just an elongated yellow fruit.
....or even a banana.

- Ed C.