I appreciated the satyrical games back in the 90s. They were definitely poking fun at the establishment, etc. But they were doing it in a subversive and clever manner. It didn't get in the way of the game, and you could take it or leave it.
Now, it's the 'scolds trying to shove all that baby politics down your throat. Spoiler alert, it doesn't work very well as a tactic.

I used to believe (and support) the idea of separating Creator from Creation.

Now, my only concern is voting with my wallet.

There are explicit political stance RPGs so those are obvious as "RPG choice reflects ideology", but otherwise I'm unsure OSR vs. 5e or Shadowrun 2e vs. 6e, or Palladium Fantasy vs RuneQuest is a political choice.

The OSR has the nostalgia factor which skews older and 5e has the current thing factor so it skews younger, and as the last 2 generations have been lost to communist indoctrination via the schools and internet, it's not a surprise to see younger games as useful idiots for the marxists.

As for X-cards and all other safety tools, any players who need or want such things should avoid my table now and forever. As a deplorable extremist, my GMing style is much too dangerous and should be left only to a table of my wretched kind.

To OP:
Yes.

As far as what game system choice, there's two things that draw those of a strong, left social view.  First is subject matter and the second is lack of solid central mechanics.  As far as subject matter, they tend to pick hyper focused and controlled settings.  Many times the books give a very specific form of play rather than opening up the world to be explored by the players.  Also, they tend to shy away from nuanced factions and tend to be very heavy handed in stating that one group is evil and that the players should hate them. 

As far as in game play style, they tend to ignore the nature of their PC's innate characteristics and simply make them a self insert.  They will clearly be stuck on making their PC make the political correct choice no matter what.  They will also shame other players for PCs that engage in "problematic" behavior.

As GMs, they tend to be very much a conductor on a railroad.  Hell, it's been my experience that at the most extreme, they will way over power the PCs but force them to play the parts written for them in the adventure with little player agency allowed.

This is my first hand observations in a politically diverse pool of players.

Quote from: Spinachcat on July 21, 2023, 03:12:53 AM
I used to believe (and support) the idea of separating Creator from Creation.

Now, my only concern is voting with my wallet.

I still support separating Creator from Creation--as long as the Creator can avoid making the Creation all about the Creator.  Meet me halfway.  If the Creator can't somewhat separate the two, then I don't see why I should be bothered to bend over backwards to excuse his lack of effort.  Plus, that separation failure inevitably makes his Creation a lesser product than it could have been in more reasonable and lucid hands.

Note, it doesn't matter to me all that much whether I agree or disagree with the Creator's position.  Where someone I agree or mostly agree with fails to separate, I'm not buying their products, either. 

The vote with my wallet part kicks in hard when the Creator is so out of control that they make it impossible for me to even meet them halfway.  That is, because of what he has said and done in past products, even if he managed to somehow overcome that in a new product, I'd find it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt any longer.

"Do RPG choices reflect political ideology?"

How's this for a weaselly answer:  They can, and often do, but not all that many of them have to.

By "have to", I'll suggest the following definition: When a game itself is structured, via inbuilt setting or (possibly, though I'm not sure how) actual rules mechanics, to reinforce and favour gameplay choices that explicitly express and promulgate a particular philosophy, ideology or worldview, such that trying to play against that worldview produces substandard results at best (if nothing else, by taking a counterproductive amount of time to adjust the game to your tastes) and is outright impossible at worst.

To pick a bete noire mentioned already in this thread, theoretically it should be perfectly possible to use the rules system of Thirsty Sword Lesbians to play a game set in the Warhammer 40K universe, but who would want to bother?

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 19, 2023, 04:13:15 PM
All of us (right or left) gamed in pretty much the same way.  Then the left went narcissistic and suddenly they couldn't play at a table that didn't "see" them, meaning that each of them had to be the center of attention all of the time.  And with an old school style referee, they can't guarantee that.  So story games and meta mechanics were invented to that every special snowflake pansexual genderfluid otherkin can make sure the spotlight gets shined on them all the time.

In fairness, storygame mechanics and ideas have been around forever. As I say, read A&E, Dragon, and Space Gamer from the late 70s and there isn't a style today that didn't exist then.

What has happened is the special snowflake people learned it was much easier to munchkin those rules than more wargame-derived ones.

But even some people on the Yellow and Red list prefer wargamey rules and have wargame roots (Steve Jackson, US one, comes to mind).

Quote from: Scooter on July 19, 2023, 04:33:15 PM
This. When I started out in the 70's it was a mix.  We had a leftwing professor running our game with right wing guys from a nearby military base and a female (OMG!) flower child type.  There was ZERO friction because all were playing the game in front of us.

Am I the only one who misses those flower-child women who played D&D (mostly...rarely non-fantasy) in the late 70s or early 80s?

Quote from: Reckall on July 19, 2023, 05:49:50 PM
I can tell you what the editor of my first comic book told me when I still was a wide eyed writer in training:

"Remember, a character is unavoidably 'political', as his choices reflect his world-view. However, this doesn't means that the comic book is political (or, even worse, 'partitical'). Batman doesn't kill. This is a political statement. However 'Batman' the comic book is not against the death penalty - and actually Batman brings to justice criminals that can very well end up on the chair."

...A little speech that reminded me of "Watchmen", a comic book whose characters reflect a wide spectrum of political thought - including some that for sure go against anything that Alan Moore holds holy. And yet every position can be defended (my favorite is Adrian Veidt - go figure).

More and more I think a better word for the problem is "partisan".  While I disagree with your editor on some details (that's a bit too much 'the personal is the political' for my tastes) the broader point: that having a character have a worldview isn't endorsing or pushing that worldview.

When you cross into that your become a partisan, not an artist. I think that is why I didn't react as strongly to SJG announcing their abortion policy or even doing the "fund Hillary" thing because it's outside of the game and they haven't tried to fire me as a fan. Contrast that to Evil Hat who makes clear they'd feel like they had cooties if I bought their game.

A number of long-running ttrpg IPs had clearly political slants since the 80s and 90s.

Every cyberpunk game, for example. Cyberpunk as a genre is inherently political because it depicts a dystopian future where corpos run amuck and abuse the poor working class stiffs. It's nihilistic af because the players are expected to thoughtlessly accept this and not try to challenge the system and work towards reform.

Those shitty emo goth games that are somehow still being published a decade after the original company was dissolved are obnoxiously political. Even when it isn't necessary, the IP is depicted as a dystopian hellscape where the PCs are freedom fighters fighting vainly against a corrupt broken system. They're expected to challenge the system, only to fail because it either kills them or they switch sides. It's nihilistic af.

This nihilistic shit doesn't appeal to me at all. I prefer games where you're intended to have fun, not listen to failed novelists wallow in their self-inflicted misery. But that fun-hating idiocy is infecting the industry and has become increasingly partisan too.

Quote from: PulpHerb on July 21, 2023, 04:01:39 PM... the broader point: that having a character have a worldview isn't endorsing or pushing that worldview.

Agreed. But this is one of the points on which modern Wokism tends to disagree with most classical liberal philosophy: a fundamental principle of Woke criticism holds that presenting a character's worldview plausibly or realistically enough to make it understandable, even if not sympathetic, is endorsing it, because sufficient exposure to an idea will subconsciously "normalize" that idea in an audience even if the idea itself is presented in superficially condemnatory terms. The classic phrasing is, To Depict Is To Endorse.

For me a politically-partisan game would be one which refused to make the setting's expected antagonists at all rational or understandable from their own point of view.  Even Tolkien's orcs had reasons for their own worldview which made sense to those who'd lived their lives.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on July 21, 2023, 04:12:36 PM

Quote from: PulpHerb on July 21, 2023, 04:01:39 PM... the broader point: that having a character have a worldview isn't endorsing or pushing that worldview.

Agreed. But this is one of the points on which modern Wokism tends to disagree with most classical liberal philosophy: a fundamental principle of Woke criticism holds that presenting a character's worldview plausibly or realistically enough to make it understandable, even if not sympathetic, is endorsing it.

Some argue presenting it at all is endorsement.

Which is a big issue with modern comics. The villains have to be as woke as the protagonists so there is no real conflict and it's just about eating and hanging out or *Three's Company* level "I overheard something and misunderstood" plots.

Quote from: LouProsperi on July 20, 2023, 02:07:20 PM
For another example, as curious as I've been about the quality of Pundit's game products, I can't bring myself to pay for one because I don't want to support someone who goes out of their way to promote anger and division within the game community.

If this is true why are you using the site Pundit owns and moderates as your vehicle to discuss gaming? Why not discuss it in other forums not controlled by people whose games you avoid because you think they are trying to create division? By using his forums instead of MeWe or OD&D Forum or Knight&Knave aren't you helping amplify him by making his personal platform attractive?

Quote from: BadApple on July 21, 2023, 04:39:25 AM
As far as what game system choice, there's two things that draw those of a strong, left social view.  First is subject matter and the second is lack of solid central mechanics.  As far as subject matter, they tend to pick hyper focused and controlled settings.  Many times the books give a very specific form of play rather than opening up the world to be explored by the players.  Also, they tend to shy away from nuanced factions and tend to be very heavy handed in stating that one group is evil and that the players should hate them.

These tendencies don't fit with my experience.

1) Mechanics:

1a) Many games rely heavily on GM decision-making more than mechanics, like _Amber Diceless_, _Everway_, and Pundit's _Lords of Olympus_. I don't think these are associated with political left-or-right. Pundit is an Amber fan, but I also know many left-leaning Amber fans.

1b) Games with solid central mechanics include D&D 4E, for example. Also, a lot of games from The Forge were criticized as being near-board-game-like in their mechanical focus. I've seen plenty of left-leaning people who enjoy these games.

2) Good-vs-evil also doesn't seem purely leftist. Early D&D featured strict good-vs-evil alignment rather than shades-of-grey factions, and I think it was more conservative than, say, World of Darkness that established more shades-of-grey factions.


I'm sure there are some trends regarding game style and mechanics, but there are enough exceptions that I would hesitate to generalize - and it may vary depending on region or local scene. For example, I know there are a lot of conservative OSR fans here, but I also know many left-leaning OSR fans in my other circles.

Quote from: jhkim on July 21, 2023, 05:10:14 PM
These tendencies don't fit with my experience.

1) Mechanics:

1a) Many games rely heavily on GM decision-making more than mechanics, like _Amber Diceless_, _Everway_, and Pundit's _Lords of Olympus_. I don't think these are associated with political left-or-right. Pundit is an Amber fan, but I also know many left-leaning Amber fans.

1b) Games with solid central mechanics include D&D 4E, for example. Also, a lot of games from The Forge were criticized as being near-board-game-like in their mechanical focus. I've seen plenty of left-leaning people who enjoy these games.

2) Good-vs-evil also doesn't seem purely leftist. Early D&D featured strict good-vs-evil alignment rather than shades-of-grey factions, and I think it was more conservative than, say, World of Darkness that established more shades-of-grey factions.


I'm sure there are some trends regarding game style and mechanics, but there are enough exceptions that I would hesitate to generalize - and it may vary depending on region or local scene. For example, I know there are a lot of conservative OSR fans here, but I also know many left-leaning OSR fans in my other circles.

First, there's no absolute boundary on any of this.  I know some far right guys that like Powered by the Apocalypse games and lefties that like lots of crunch too.  That said, when I see a group playing a PbtA game, it's a fair bet that they are a very heavily left leaning group by head count.

Second, modern leftists tend to view groups as homogeneous and very simplified as good or bad.  That tends to reflect on their depiction of in-game faction as well.  To me, this is the biggest failing of game design by leftist game makers as well as leftist GMs and players in making a good game.  Making bad guys that are interesting means you have to humanize them and that seems to really be an issue for the modern far left ideology. 

Finally, am I going to categorize someone simply because of how you enjoy an unrelated hobby?  No.  Hell, eating organic and making your own soap doesn't make you a hippie.  I certainly have people mischaracterize my views frequently because they think because I engage in one activity that I must belong to a particular group.  I do notice trends though.  What you play and how you play does reveal a bit about how you think and that will be linked to your ideology.  It's not bigotry to recognize correlational and trends.  It is bigotry to think that those trends are absolutes. 

RPG's should have an internally consistent, appropriate morality and politics for the setting.

When I run my Victorian game, Colonialism is just how things work, Communists and Anarchists are villains, and Great White Hunters are heroic explorers (unless they're a bounder, such as they're a Hun or something equally sinister.) Because that's how Victorians in the West saw the world.

Likewise if I run something in Middle Earth, good and evil are almost tangible universal forces, with clear lines of separation. Evil can cast a wide shadow for a long time, but the light of goodness will eventually shine through.

I loathe the Hollywood trope that heroes in historical settings have to agree with modern progressive values, even if they're living in a hut in 8th century Wales. They never want the local Lord to just be slightly less of a bastard, so that they can keep enough grain to eat. Nah, they're bursting with zeal to have an American style revolution. "FREEDOM!" shouts the peasant who is literally incapable of understanding the concept of not living under Feudalism.