Quote from: boulet;295276... If you create a setting where monarchies are prevalent while being opposed to monarchism it doesn't necessarily mean you're muting your beliefs. You could use this setting for a very opinionated satire....

Yeah, I understand that.  Even though, in my settings 'good' monarchies really are legitimate, given the metaphysical assumptions of the settings in question (which, obviously, differ very much from my metaphysical beliefs about the real universe).

I'm simply too ham-fisted in my DM'ing to try to convey any kind of satire.  (Maybe in WFRP, where the hard work already has been done for me.)

Quote from: boulet;295276Akrasia : one doesn't have to portray an ideal governement/religious organization/social order to fit the "does your perspective of life affect your game worlds?" proposition. If you create a setting where monarchies are prevalent while being opposed to monarchism it doesn't necessarily mean you're muting your beliefs. You could use this setting for a very opinionated satire. It's a bit like the sci-fi genre which has been used as much as an anticipation medium as a social comment one.

Another possibility is that you design the fantasy setting to cohere with your notions about how the world works without making it simply a utopian version of your desired form of government. For example: I am not a monarchist but my settings do feature monarchies. However, those monarchies function in manner that I find plausible based on my understanding of how the world works.

Another example:

I have a friend who believes in some variant of the "Great Man" theory of history. He genuinely believes that strong-willed individuals dominate the world around them regardless of social forces that they may encounter. So in the games he runs, the socio-political elements and customs of the setting are really just trappings and stage decoration because the strong-willed individualistic NPCs are not going to be constrained by them in any particular way. For example, none of them will be genuinely religious or adhere to the religious morality of the setting, even if ordinary people do so unquestioningly.

Now, these strong-willed individuals might be in a democracy or republic or monarchy or whatever, but it doesn't really matter, even though he himself is mildly in favour of democratic-republican forms of government IRL. The reason it doesn't matter is because he thinks the Great Man idea is more fundamental  to how the world works than his preference for democracy.

Perhaps a shrink could find something in it, though. Maybe you really want a world such as you portray?

Not that I'm saying this is actually the case, but it's very hard to keep yourself out of things you create, and that can take a million different forms.


@Pseudoephedrine – me too.

Quote from: droog;295284Not that I'm saying this is actually the case, but it's very hard to keep yourself out of things you create, and that can take a million different forms.

I agree that it is hard to keep oneself out of the things that one creates.  I didn't mean to suggest that I did 100%.  My settings reflect my sense of humour, my aesthetic judgements, my notion of what makes for a good adventure, and so forth.  After all, I want to have fun!  Those things are different, though, from my moral, political, and metaphysical views.

I also sometimes use fantasy games to explore some of my 'darker' impulses, e.g., fantasies of violence and power.  For instance, some of my favourite NPCs to role-play (and even PCs, although I'm rarely a player) are unscrupulous power mongers.  

I just don't use fantasy games in order to play out my Millian commitments concerning personal liberty, for instance.

Quote from: flyingmice;295230My answer in droog's thread on the other site was as a game designer, not as a GM. I think that themes are something that belongs on a group level, not a design level. That's a common occurance with me, though...

Could you elaborate on this. IMO your games are loaded with themes. Not in a bash you on the head kind of way, but it's there. Some of it is genre emulation - IHW - but for other stuff like BloodGamesII (see, Pundit's review of where he thought you went wrong with the game) and Sweet Chariot, it's something else....

I get Akrasia's point.

I game for escapism too but the way how I present ideas and concepts in game, that IRL I would disagree with, is more nuanced. I suppose this is because I believe that a more compelling "story" is created.

Regards,
David R

This seems an appropriate enough thread for my first post.

The games I run absolutely reflect certain aspects of my psychology, political views, weltanschauung, all of that.  Often it's a conscious choice, but sometimes I don't realize it til later - perhaps even years later.

When I sat down some time ago I found certain thematic threads - duty vs freedom, the anchoring power of family bonds, cleverness trumping brute force, etc - that have been weaving in and out of my campaigns for the last twenty years or so.

I suppose just as literary critics and readers can look at an author's works and see a progression of themes (and revisitation of same), we can do that with our rpg experiences, whether as GMs or players.

Welcome, VectorS!

Quote from: David R;295335Could you elaborate on this. IMO your games are loaded with themes. Not in a bash you on the head kind of way, but it's there. Some of it is genre emulation - IHW - but for other stuff like BloodGamesII (see, Pundit's review of where he thought you went wrong with the game) and Sweet Chariot, it's something else....

In Pundit's review of BG II, he is disappointed that the theme he thought was going to be present was not present. It was not "an RPG where you played mystics and skeptics alike who were fighting in a secret war against anything that works to take down human society, working to keep chaos at bay." Instead it was "a kind of hodgepodge kitchen-sink fantasy-horror game". Sounds more like he thought there was no theme.

-clash

I'd have to say that yes, my perspective on life affects the games that I run or write. I'd include a caveat in that though about analysis.

Just because part of my game world includes incestuous mass murderers who kill their own family members for immortality (my own take on vampires), doesn't mean that I condone that behavior. The problem is that an outsider cannot accurately analyze what part of my perspective on life is being reflected in my work without asking me. An outsider can make some good guesses, but without my input they will at best be only partially correct.

Horror writers are not the horrors they write about, they are the ones who can imagine the particular horrors that they write about. A similar condition exists with each person who creates for a RPG.

Quote from: flyingmice;295367In Pundit's review of BG II, he is disappointed that the theme he thought was going to be present was not present. It was not "an RPG where you played mystics and skeptics alike who were fighting in a secret war against anything that works to take down human society, working to keep chaos at bay." Instead it was "a kind of hodgepodge kitchen-sink fantasy-horror game". Sounds more like he thought there was no theme.

-clash

Or a theme (White Wolf-ish) he didn't dig. Naturally I can't speak for the Pundit, only for myself. I mean stuff like the Honor/Practicality mechanic from IHW surely points towards a theme of some kind. Like I said, it's not obvious and all this is just my opinion.

Regards,
David R

Clash's games present this worldview: You should try to be either loved (Honor) or feared (Practicality). If you try to be both you will probably stuff it up, if you're mostly one and occasionally the other it won't work very well.

Clash Machiavelli.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;295371Clash's games present this worldview: You should try to be either loved (Honor) or feared (Practicality). If you try to be both you will probably stuff it up, if you're mostly one and occasionally the other it won't work very well.

Clash Machiavelli.

This is genre emulation, not a theme. This mechanic is designed to reinforce the military feel of the game. Both ways work, and the more you are one or the other, the better they work, but they work in different ways. I think what David is seeing as themes are mechanics designed to reinforce genre.

Quote from: flyingmice;295375This is genre emulation, not a theme.

Same thing, really.

I mean, let's not go all Forgey and split semantic hairs. What is a "genre" if not the sum of its themes?

Quote from: flyingmice;295375This is genre emulation, not a theme. This mechanic is designed to reinforce the military feel of the game. Both ways work, and the more you are one or the other, the better they work, but they work in different ways. I think what David is seeing as themes are mechanics designed to reinforce genre.

I hate to say it though, Clash, but it is your interpretation, your view, your perspective, your philosophy that is informing that mechanic. It is the designer enforcing their philosophy through their mechanics. Unfortunately, this can be said of just about any mechanic by any designer. The real question becomes can it be molded to reflect the group play and should it?

Hmm. What themes of the genre are you trying to emulate and how is it reflected in the rules. (more or less what kyle said actually). I mentioned this earlier with regards to IHW.

Quote from: David R;295335Some of it is genre emulation - IHW - but for other stuff like BloodGamesII (see, Pundit's review of where he thought you went wrong with the game) and Sweet Chariot, it's something else....

Regards,
David R