Quote from: jhkim on February 27, 2023, 12:34:55 PMIf the GM tries to enforce realistic consequences to romance in the game, the result is that players simply won't want to have in-game romance.

Which is par for the course in gaming generally, it should also be noted -- very few RPGs really tend to enforce what TVTropes calls the "Surprisingly Realistic Outcome" for virtually any in-game endeavour, whether it be the effect of romance on character goals, the psychological trauma of a life of constant violence, the logical legal and economic fallout from the typical PC party's actions, the hubristic temptations of world-shaking magic or artifacts (aside from explicit curses -- I still get a laugh out of the "Major Malevolent Effects" artifact table from 1E DMG), and so on.

That said, as Lo Pan observed in Big Trouble in Little China, "There are always others, are there not? You seem to be one who knows the difficulties between men and women, how seldom it works out ... And yet we all keep trying, like fools!" (giggle)

Quote from: S'mon on February 27, 2023, 02:32:03 PM
OTOH fantasies of a somewhat implausibly nice Social Democracy don't in themselves seem any less un-versimilitudinus than fantasies of a somewhat implausibly nice Feudal Monarchy. We can generally buy into "These are the good guys, warts and all." It's when we're told "Everything About These Guys is Perfect - Perfect, I Tell You! When they appear to do bad things, really it's for the Greater Good!" - that certainly sticks in my craw, whether from Left or Right.

*I think the objectors generally felt more that the Magic Deer's definition (the authors' definition) of Light/Good was off, since it didn't align with theirs.

You mentioned some TNG-era Star Trek novels that seemed like this to you, but I haven't read any of those. Are there any specific examples from RPGs that come across that way?

Among novels, left-learning stuff that stuck in my craw was Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis novels (aka Lillith's Brood). Though it wasn't so much that the alien Oankali were portrayed as perfect, but that their hideous evil was portrayed as imperfection. Among right-leaning, Poul Anderson's The High Crusade was pretty insane in how it portrayed medieval English as hyper-competent perfection.

Quote from: jhkim on February 27, 2023, 03:08:22 PM
Among right-leaning, Poul Anderson's The High Crusade was pretty insane in how it portrayed medieval English as hyper-competent perfection.

Heh - I read that. As a comedy, I thought it was fine. As a serious tale of the English Master Race's Destiny to Conquer the Galaxy it would have been obnoxious.

I'm struggling to think of specifically RPG examples of 'Obnoxious Perfection'.  I do feel that the versimilitude of WoTC's worldbuilding crossed the thermocline with 5e. The earlier not particularly woke stuff from say 2014-16 isn't any better than the later Woke stuff for me though; it's all terrible.

BTW traditionally I think Obnoxious Perfection was actually more common with Reactionary authors than with Progressive authors, at least in US SF and fantasy. Traditional Progressive attitude tended to be more "We know we're imperfect, but we're trying", where Reactionary authors had a lot of 'Strong Man'  and 'Perfect Society' fantasies. I hear Spinrad's The Iron Dream satirised this Fascistic tendency.

Quote from: jhkim on February 27, 2023, 03:08:22 PM
You mentioned some TNG-era Star Trek novels that seemed like this to you, but I haven't read any of those. Are there any specific examples from RPGs that come across that way?

Oh, I just thought of one - but again it's right-wing, in the US sense of right-liberal. The Reformation Coalition in GDW's Traveller: The New Era (1990) attack other planets and take their stuff, while being presented as moral paragons who like to quote Immanuel Kant.  The attitude rather presages Bush-era Neo-Conservatism. They try to justify it in-universe, but I don't think that helps.

I get the impression that a lot of modern Leftist products like Thirsty Sword Lesbians probably embody this trope, but forgive my not having read them. 

The Imperium of WH40K is an odd one, Games Workshop intended it as an extreme dystopia, but some fanboys do seem to treat it non-ironically as a Very Good Thing. And a lot more do so ironically.

Quote from: S'mon on February 27, 2023, 03:53:46 PMGames Workshop intended it as an extreme dystopia, but some fanboys do seem to treat it non-ironically as a Very Good Thing.

There's always been that school of creative thought which specializes in trying to imagine "what Set of Extremely Implausible Circumstances X-Y-Z would make Behaviour Patterns A/B/C justified/sensible/practical?" The entire appeal of the Imperium of Man is that literally everything else in the galaxy is orders of magnitude worse. And part of the worldbuilding in Carey's "Kushiel" series is exactly about addressing the reasons why her sexual utopia can't work for humans without supernatural advantages.

The difficulty is when people think that depicting behaviours as working in fantastic settings, because that's the only place they can work, is never done for any reason but to endorse them in reality.

The campaign does sound like a blast, and well-fitted for your players.

I am amused by the specification of consequences, however, because when I ran a similar thing as a one-off for one player (with the intent that it would be a side adventure during some time when the main group wasn't available), she also earned her way up the hierarchy to favored slave status, was allowed to demonstrate her herb-lore and the like...and then poisoned the cask of sacred mead right before a ritual feast, cut the throats of every drugged warrior, set fire to the village and picked off the survivors with a previously-stashed bow and arrows, then vanished into the woods to raid and harass other not-Viking communities, where she continued to poison wells, burn fields, and otherwise used the knowledge of the culture that she had gained as a how-to of how to take it apart.

There were a few key differences.  The first being that it was a one-player temporary adventure, so it lacked the key social component and mutual interplay that your players had.  The second is that the PC had a strong national identity, and wasn't willing to let herself be broken down and remade as a not-Viking thrall (and that she trusted that she wouldn't get killed in a solo temporary adventure and that help would arrive when the group reconvened).

But I am amused at how exactly a lot of the themes got mirrored in this case; just as your PCs needed to adapt to a foreign harsh culture or die, my not-Vikings need to understand that there were PCs in the nation they were raiding, and that who they thought was a simple slave could turn into an utterly focused, utterly ruthless, and utterly deadly murdering monster.  They fucked around, and found out.

It also amused me how totally my player bought into the social structures of honor and used them as guides to what she could get away with doing, because no one would think that anyone would be stone-cold psycho enough to systematically murder kids out foraging as a means to both demoralize a town and cut them off from a vital low-effort resources, which meant that there was no actual commonly-agreed on way to deal with the problem of someone doing just that.

It also dawned on me after the adventure, to my delight, that what the PC had done was use the actual lessons of the not-Vikings and historic actual Vikings.  She used her superior (and supernatural) knowledge of the woodland and ability to navigate through trackless wilderness just like the Viking used their superior seamanship and navigation to keep a moat between her and coordinated hostile response, and just as the historic Vikings attacked lesser-defended areas rich and loot and then faded away, so did she do the same (only with murder instead of pillage as her goal).  But considering neither I nor the PC had planned the comparison, I was really happy that I could draw it later, and nearly get an earnest-but-not-wise NPC murdered when he glowingly spoke to her and referred to her campaign of terror and guerilla warfare as "being a better <not-Viking> than the <not-Vikings>."

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on February 27, 2023, 04:18:20 PM

Quote from: S'mon on February 27, 2023, 03:53:46 PMGames Workshop intended it as an extreme dystopia, but some fanboys do seem to treat it non-ironically as a Very Good Thing.

There's always been that school of creative thought which specializes in trying to imagine "what Set of Extremely Implausible Circumstances X-Y-Z would make Behaviour Patterns A/B/C justified/sensible/practical?" The entire appeal of the Imperium of Man is that literally everything else in the galaxy is orders of magnitude worse. And part of the worldbuilding in Carey's "Kushiel" series is exactly about addressing the reasons why her sexual utopia can't work for humans without supernatural advantages.

The difficulty is when people think that depicting behaviours as working in fantastic settings, because that's the only place they can work, is never done for any reason but to endorse them in reality.

I'd partly agree with this -- but on the other hand, I'm wary about judging people for engaging in fantasy because it's in principle about endorsing such in real life. An extreme of that is saying that killing orcs is endorsing killing in reality.

I'd add a note about comedy. S'mon mentioned judging Poul Anderson's _The High Crusade_ was fine as comedy -- but he also cited harem anime fantasies as an example of rubbing the wrong way. While I haven't seen any of them, I suspect harem anime fantasies are also pitched as comedy.

Fantasy and/or comedy falls into a grey area, where I'm more open to the work than if it came across as politically serious, but it can also cross a line to the point of grating. And the line for where it grates is going to vary based on one's culture and politics.

Quote from: jhkim on February 27, 2023, 05:08:57 PM
I'd add a note about comedy. S'mon mentioned judging Poul Anderson's _The High Crusade_ was fine as comedy -- but he also cited harem anime fantasies as an example of rubbing the wrong way. While I haven't seen any of them, I suspect harem anime fantasies are also pitched as comedy.

I said harem anime fell into the the 'these people aren't really people' category - "Harem anime fantasies where the hyper-competent female characters all revolve around a singularly un-magnetic, unprepossessing male lead, for instance" - the female characters only exist to service the male fantasy. Or vice versa, in the Reverse Harem Animes a female friend of mine likes. That's not a problem with the Englishmen in The High Crusade. It would be an issue for their alien enemies, if it were a serious book. I read a Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan (sp?) SF book where the enemy fit exactly that trope; they seemed entirely un-proactive, barely reactive, existing only for the hero to show off his awesomeness. And that was supposed to be a non-comedy.

I didn't say the harem anime rubbed me up the wrong way, though. I tried to watch one called something like DxD and it bored me, but it didn't annoy me. 

Quote from: S'mon on February 27, 2023, 05:29:34 PM
existing only for the hero to show off his awesomeness.

As you might imagine, I avoid this trope in my GMing. My games do tend to have a high PC kill count.  Some players can find it dispiriting, but most relish the challenge, and the sense of achievement when they win.

Quote from: jhkim on February 27, 2023, 05:08:57 PMI'd partly agree with this -- but on the other hand, I'm wary about judging people for engaging in fantasy because it's in principle about endorsing such in real life. An extreme of that is saying that killing orcs is endorsing killing in reality.

I'd actually agree with that -- my fault for being a little over-verbose. There is a line between indulging in fantasy and endorsing an analogous reality, and I think most sane players know it and can be trusted to know it.

The Woke simply try to exploit the fact that the line between fantasy and reality can be confused to appoint themselves moral arbiters of how any given fantasy should approach that line.

QuoteI'd add a note about comedy. ...Fantasy and/or comedy falls into a grey area, where I'm more open to the work than if it came across as politically serious, but it can also cross a line to the point of grating. And the line for where it grates is going to vary based on one's culture and politics.

Also agreed; and as above, the problem is not so much the existence of such a line as the arrogance involved in any one group daring to appoint themselves arbiters of how everyone else chooses to approach it.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on February 27, 2023, 04:18:20 PM
There's always been that school of creative thought which specializes in trying to imagine "what Set of Extremely Implausible Circumstances X-Y-Z would make Behaviour Patterns A/B/C justified/sensible/practical?" The entire appeal of the Imperium of Man is that literally everything else in the galaxy is orders of magnitude worse.

It's a bit of an aside, but the Leagues of Votann, as currently written, sort of undercut that. I'm sure GW will change that soon enough.

Quote from: S'mon on February 27, 2023, 01:22:55 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 27, 2023, 12:34:55 PM
I'm more with Stephen Tannhauser here. RPGs are often unrealistic wish-fulfillment, and that's a good thing. For the topic of this thread -- realistically, if the virtuous knight has a romance with a "bad girl" - it will probably result in tons of fights and a nasty breakup later on with later attempts at revenge.

If the GM tries to enforce realistic consequences to romance in the game, the result is that players simply won't want to have in-game romance.

Hmm. I was wondering why this was making my heard hurt. What's wrong with this picture? Then I realised - you swapped out versimilitude for realistic!

You are smart enough to know that those are not the same things. I expect you just ignored that in order to make the point you wanted to make, rather than being deliberately disingenuous. But it's not a good habit.

Engage with what people actually say. We're talking about the feeling of truthiness that allows for suspension of disbelief, not actual slice-of-life kitchen-sink realism. If we can believe that the shining heroic paragon of virtue at least has a chance to redeem the fallen woman, that meets the versimilitude standard. Of course we know that in our own lives, it rarely works out that way (I certainly know it!). But it's not even something that can't happen/has never happened IRL. People do occasionally reform, even IRL - and that's without encountering a CHA 18 Paladin.

There are real people who have taken the path of SHARK's players' characters - and succeeded.

Greetings!

Yes, definitely, my friend! I have always believed that verisimilitude is critically important element that really raises the RPG above and beyond different, standard "Games". Dynamic effects, actions, reactions, and consequences that are, if sometime also fantastic, also plausible. I often remind my players that "Truth is stranger than Fiction."

The Adventuring Group

Khaeden (M) Danevar Human, Barbarian; Romantically involved with Sevaina, a mystical and prominent Volva.

Margeba (F) Danevar Human, Witch; Romantically involved with Thostar, a veteran warrior and friend of Jarl Hardrad and Jarl Vorgen.
Gelda (F) Samben/Haadrim (Half Troll) Barbarian; Romantically involved with Finndir the Blacksmith and warrior, also a friend of Jarl Hardrad and Jarl Vorgen.
Ksenya (F) High Elf, Sorceress; Romantically involved with Hardrad, a prominent Jarl, sworn in service to the powerful Chieftain, Kalbar.
Dorlogga (F) Samben Human, Paladin; Romantically involved with Vorgen, a powerful Jarl, sworn in service to the Chieftain, Kalbar. The Jarl Vorgen is also a loyal and steadfast friend of Jarl Hardrad.

NPC Members of the Adventuring Group
Ghalden (M) Samben Human, Paladin; Befriended and romantically involved with Polaga, a mystical volva, and friend of Sevaina. Unbeknowst by Ghalden, the Volva Polaga was pregnant by him, and gave birth to a set of twin daughters--named Ghaandra and Polanya.
Varwulf (M) Danevar Human, Cleric; Befriended by Halvar, a mystical Gothi that travels throughout the land. The Gothi Halvar is also a friend of Jarl Hardrad, Jarl Vorgen, and the Chieftain Kalbar. Varwulf became involved in a romantic relationship with Jhaandi, a noble warrior woman and sister of Jarl Vorgen.
Oggdan (M) Danevar Human, Barbarian; Befriended and romantically involved with Lyuba, a slave-girl and household member of Finndir the Blacksmith. Lyuba becomes pregnant with Oggdan's child, and gives birth to their son, named Oggwulf, Son of Oggdan.

I don't over-saturate game scenes with absolutely historically-based sadism and brutal gore, for example. I do, however, layer verisimilitude and historical realism, like adding good spices to a meal. There was one episode where assassins from a rival, neighboring kingdom had infiltrated Haedenburg, and had attempted to assassinate the two Jarls--and the player characters. In the ensuing craziness, two of the player character's children--one from the Elf Sorceress, Ksenya, and one from the female Paladin. Dorlogga--were kidnapped by members of the assassin team. What followed from that was a frantic pursuit through the town, out into the dark forest, and eventually a three-day pursuit that ended in a climactic fight at some clifftop ruins, overlooking the crashing shores of the sea, far below. The children were going to be sacrificed to the Dark Gods. The player characters were  victorious against the assassins, and rescued their children. There was an evil witch that was in league with the assassins, and was conducting the sacrificial ceremony, raising her glittering dagger high to plunge it into the crying children.

The player characters willingly had the evil witch burned alive on a bonfire. Later on, through investigations, interrogations, and some torture sessions, the player characters had discovered that the teams of assassins had not acted alone--they had had help from traitors in their midst. A member of Jarl Vorgen's Warband, Ganwulf,--was the lover to Sigbruna the Witch--who is a companion, friend, and apprentice of the Player Character Witch, Margeba. Ganwulf and Sigbruna had conspired together to coordinate with the assassin teams by providing knowledge of floorplans and guard security--and by distracting loyal guards at selected, key times.

The Player Characters supervised the ritual ceremony where Ganwulf and Sigbruna were *Blood-Eagled*and sacrificed to the Vandar's Pagan gods.

I periodically exhort the players to always remember, that Thandor is not our modern world. It is similar, but nonetheless, a fantasy world. I tell them to always remember and to focus that you are YOUR CHARACTER, in a dark, primitive, medieval world. The families, the culture, the expectations, the economy, the way of life, everything--is radically different. Quite aside from, and in addition to the magic, the monsters, and different supernatural and spiritual dynamics. I've told them to get your mind INTO the mind, the soul, the consciousness, of YOUR CHARACTER. Everything your character believes, eels, thinks, and values, their behavior, and actions, let it flow. Gradually, as you "Get to Know" this character of yours, you will be able to "step into them" like putting on a different set of clothes. It will become easier and easier for you over time.

*Laughing* They've done very well. They have exclaimed it's like, playing in Thandor is like a drug, and a food. Absolutely exciting, delicious, and mind-blowing.

I've asked them, why didn't they seek to escape? Why have they chosen to join the Vandar? The players have explained to me that the Vandar--just like our own historical Norse--are compelling. They are not simple, caricatures, but deep, and complex. They have reasons for doing what they do. They have a primitive, brutal culture that has been established through long centuries of time--hundreds and hundreds of years--and thrive in a harsh and dangerous land. The climate, the land, the monsters--the other tribes--all make them harsh and brutal. What would being nice and peaceful get them? It would get them killed or enslaved. Or just eaten! So, they have grown to admire, empathize, and identify with the Vandar.

Now you have them being friends, sharing danger in battle, struggles in survival, and having children together. Forging love and bonding and relationships, so it has all become their new home, and their new family. 

I think that level of investment and engagement goes along with--and is hugely inspired by verisimilitude. Which I think is a DM's huge responsibility and obligation. The DM has a lot of work cut out for them, for sure. But it I very rewarding, especially when you have a really good group of players.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Somewhat off-topic, so please forgive me for this...

...but this thread happened to be posted at a time when I'm rethinking barbarians in fantasy fiction, so the old mind is a-spinning, and I just want to say that I feel that the barbarian is perhaps the purest form of fantasy in fantasy fiction and gaming, even more so than wizards. 

Why do I feel this?  Let's look back at our early childhoods.  How many of us knew people who could run faster, jump higher, or pick up more things when we were in our toddler and early childhood years?  How many of us bragged around the water fountain at school that our dads could drink the whole ocean?  How many of us balked at the seemingly nonsensical rules that were expected in civilized society, as we learned them and were punished if we talked in class, played with toys in church, and so forth?  Who had friends, cousins, siblings, or parents who loved sneaking up on you and giving you a quick start?  How many of us loved the outdoors, wanted to know all the animals and things, and had to be forced into the tub?  How many of us were bullied, or wrestled with older kids who always won?

The barbarian archetype captures the essence of those feelings, and presents us with a physically capable, unbound by society, hero.  You can jump, climb, run, swim, and do any physical thing better than a non-barbarian.  You're never surprised, and, in fact, can punish those who surprise you.  You're strong, capable, and a brilliant fighter.  You can survive outdoors without ever having to come in and bathe and put on civilized clothes.  Your code, your ethos, your very morality is *yours*, not one foisted upon you by civilization, but those things which you hold dear and true and sacred.  You act, you don't react.  Swift, capable, and free, you are what you wanted to be as a small child.

That is why I feel that it is the purest form of fantasy.  The wizard fantasy comes later in development, as you learn that the rules are there, so seek to find ways to break the rules.  The barbarian fantasy comes from early yearnings to be as fast, strong, wise, and free as you feel your favorite adult role models are.

There's a lot of power in the barbarian archetype.  Shame that it's been reduced to semi-magical berserker in much fiction and almost all RPGS, instead of the anthros unbound that it truly is.

Quote from: robertliguori on February 27, 2023, 04:36:49 PM
The campaign does sound like a blast, and well-fitted for your players.

I am amused by the specification of consequences, however, because when I ran a similar thing as a one-off for one player (with the intent that it would be a side adventure during some time when the main group wasn't available), she also earned her way up the hierarchy to favored slave status, was allowed to demonstrate her herb-lore and the like...and then poisoned the cask of sacred mead right before a ritual feast, cut the throats of every drugged warrior, set fire to the village and picked off the survivors with a previously-stashed bow and arrows, then vanished into the woods to raid and harass other not-Viking communities, where she continued to poison wells, burn fields, and otherwise used the knowledge of the culture that she had gained as a how-to of how to take it apart.

There were a few key differences.  The first being that it was a one-player temporary adventure, so it lacked the key social component and mutual interplay that your players had.  The second is that the PC had a strong national identity, and wasn't willing to let herself be broken down and remade as a not-Viking thrall (and that she trusted that she wouldn't get killed in a solo temporary adventure and that help would arrive when the group reconvened).

But I am amused at how exactly a lot of the themes got mirrored in this case; just as your PCs needed to adapt to a foreign harsh culture or die, my not-Vikings need to understand that there were PCs in the nation they were raiding, and that who they thought was a simple slave could turn into an utterly focused, utterly ruthless, and utterly deadly murdering monster.  They fucked around, and found out.

It also amused me how totally my player bought into the social structures of honor and used them as guides to what she could get away with doing, because no one would think that anyone would be stone-cold psycho enough to systematically murder kids out foraging as a means to both demoralize a town and cut them off from a vital low-effort resources, which meant that there was no actual commonly-agreed on way to deal with the problem of someone doing just that.

It also dawned on me after the adventure, to my delight, that what the PC had done was use the actual lessons of the not-Vikings and historic actual Vikings.  She used her superior (and supernatural) knowledge of the woodland and ability to navigate through trackless wilderness just like the Viking used their superior seamanship and navigation to keep a moat between her and coordinated hostile response, and just as the historic Vikings attacked lesser-defended areas rich and loot and then faded away, so did she do the same (only with murder instead of pillage as her goal).  But considering neither I nor the PC had planned the comparison, I was really happy that I could draw it later, and nearly get an earnest-but-not-wise NPC murdered when he glowingly spoke to her and referred to her campaign of terror and guerilla warfare as "being a better <not-Viking> than the <not-Vikings>."

Greetings!

Thanks Robertliqouri! Yes, the campaign is a real blast for sure!

Your campaign there sounds interesting and fun! As I mentioned earlier, in this campaign, I too, had expected the players to take a very different track! *Laughing* Surprise, surprise!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK