Seriously. Every form of entertainment has baked-in political assumptions, and that definitely includes #ttrpg . You might choose not to examine them, but this is an active choice on your part, and you don't get to pretend that your entertainment is "free of politics".
Do the world and yourself a favor, and use this template instead.
Done. Thanks for the suggestion!
What template was he using before?
Steven Crowder
~~This douchebag isn't exactly the most appropriate for this meme.~~
*First draft was the op crowder meme. Good on op for updating it.
He changed it to Calvin, but this comment is hilarious now.
Now it's like...
This template really needs to die.
Edit: this was meant for the Crowder template. Calvin is cool.
Your comment now serms hilariously hostile after the edit.
I came here after the edit and got scared that Watterson did something.
"I don't want to talk about/see politics" is always synonym to "I support the status quo, and I will aggressively reject anything that goes against it".
Nothing that happens on a public space is free of politics, even when it's not controversial.
Just MLK's white moderate doing white moderate things. Funny how shit don't change.
I don't like politics in ttrpgs because that means less time SMITING and more time with boring words. Unless the politicians are secretly vampires, then I can keep SMITING.
NO TALK ONLY SMITE.
This post has been brought to you by the palabian gang.
EVERYTHING is politics and the shitheads who complain are the ones who made it that way.
You can tell what someone’s politics are by what they consider political.
I was astonished at some of the Steam reviews of Outer Worlds after playing it. People proper pissed off that their experience had been ruined because there’s a female side character with an optional side quest where she wants a date with another woman. Like how thoroughly filled with hate do you have to be as a person, to be fine with all the mass killing but suddenly get a moralistic high horse about a fictional character going on a dinner date you don’t approve of.
Sad that Steam are making a comment of their own by allowing those reviews to stay up.
People do not all have the same working definition of "politics". Many people seem to use it to mean "overt content about contemporary issues", but that's not really a good definition.
If your game has sentient creatures with agency and desires, it has politics.
For example, if your game has a king, there's politics. Having the people accept monarchy is a political statement. It's not as hot-button as, say, having slavery, but it's still political.
You might not be surprised if your players react to a world with chattel slavery by trying to free the slaves and end that institution. The same mechanism may lead them to want to end absolute monarchy. They see something in the setting they perceive as unjust, and want to change it.
A lot of people are kind of... uncritical, about many things. They don't see absolute monarchy as "political" because it's a familiar story trope. They are happy to accept this uncritically so they can get to the fun part where you get a quest to slay the dragon. (Note that the target of killing the dragon rather than, say, negotiating or rehoming it is also political)
People then get frustrated because they feel stupid, and they're being blocked from pursuing the content they want. They just want to, for example, do a tactical mini game about fighting a big monster that spits fire. They don't want to talk about the merits of absolute monarchy or slaying sentient creatures.
It's okay to not always want to engage in the political dimension. That doesn't mean it's not there. If someone responds to the king giving you a quest with "wait, this is an absolute monarchy where the first born son becomes king? That's fucked up" they're not "making it political". It already was political.
If you present a man and a woman as monogamously married in your game, that's political. That's a statement. If you show a big queer polycule, that's also a statement. The latter will ping the aforementioned uncritical players as "political", because it's more atypical, but both are "political".
Some of this can be handled in session 0. But sometimes you learn that some people in the group have different tastes and probably shouldn't play together.
Same people who complain about Nazis being the enemy in Wolfenstein
EVERYTHING is politics. It absolutely affects every aspect of life, ESPECIALLY fascism
I feel like a lot of people, who complain about politics in gaming are not choosing to examine/not examine the political assumptions, they are simply not realising that they’re there. Often these themes reside deeper in the storytelling so you have to actually engage with it to be aware of them. People who complain about it only choose a handful of topics to be mad about, because they are against it.
No. Their politics is being default to the point they can completely avoid self awareness.
Exactly. What they're really mad about is the fact that there's a black person, a gay person, or woman with normal sized tits in the game.
“I don’t want politics in my gaming” = “I stopped growing, emotionally, the first time I saw Jugga in Conker’s Bad Fur Day”
All I want is more nice unpolitical games like Bioshock or Wolfenstein
And not the woke nonsense of having female or PoC main characters.
I don't care about politics in my games (and shows/movies) as long as it fits into the world and into the story. A TV show examples for that is Torchwood. It has to be the most gay scify show (at least it is the most gay I know) but all of it fits together and I love the show, even as a totaly hetero/cis guy. It doesn't feel forced but is just how everything just it. Not sure if I can explain it good, hope it is somewhat to understand.
I learned after the fact, that most of Torchwood is just how John Barrowman is. He insisted on having a scene with a shirtless Stephen Amell in Arrow as well.
Maybe that why it feels so "real" and "authentic" and not just forced onto the story.
It means “I don’t believe in anything and my media must reflect the status quo of (my) politics or I will throw a little baby tantrum because you dared to make me think about the cost of the comfort I enjoy”
If it has a story it’s political
If it involves people it's political.
Feels kind of ironic using Chowder for this meme, but I agree with the message :P
It means "I don't want politics that I don't agree with in the game"
I disagree, because typically it means someone is racist or sexist and just doesn't want to see people of color or queer characters. Such people may still be willing to engage with the political aspects of their gaming insofar as they may join initiatives like Stop Killing Games or argue that game devs should be treated better, but they're just bigoted assholes who can't handle people of color or queer characters.
Also don't mistake this as a defense of them. They're deplorable. I'm just saying I don't agree with the statement as written.
I absolutely want politics in gaming. Without it, we'd be stuck in the arcade era. Sure, sometimes I also like to zone out on puzzle games which are largely devout of it. Imagine The Witcher 1 without politics, is there even a game there?
I love politics in gaming, I loved Fallout 3, NV,4 (I still enjoyed it but to a lesser extent), Cyberpunk, and Outer Worlds 1/2. I love it when a game has multiple factions, I love when you get to really understand the politics of a fictional world, and I love stories involving politics.
Respectfully; if we aren’t close and it doesn’t come up organically in game, I’m super not interested in hearing political opinions in games. While they may have some degree of politics baked in, that doesn’t mean Im interested in hearing people interpretation of them beyond gameplay. I play games to relax and socialise in a friendly, respectful setting.
That includes if I agree. I see this “if they don’t, they agree with the status quo/don’t want to deal/etc” used frequently but people who borderline grandstand in front of people who they know likely share their view are insufferable. At least that been my experience the one time someone has brought up politics at a table. Then again I avoid public/rand tables for a reason these days. Not saying all political discussion goes thay way at a table but the image just paints it in a very binary manner.
What's the political assumption of pong?
I mean I don't disagree with the sentiment, the moment something has world building or a story or goals that relate to real life non-abstractly, there's at least a political assumption, potentially an intentional statement. And people just don't notice when it conforms to their world view. But politics free entertainment can exist, even if being able to engage in that entertainment necessarily requires some sort of engagement with real politic systems.
Though the most memorable games tend to be the ones very intentionally making statements anyway.
Glancing at Wikipedia for any Pong discourse. Found a likely example. Turns out Pong had a bug (read: feature) that contributed to its place as the first commercial success in video games. Quote,
the in-game paddles were unable to reach the top of the screen. This was caused by a simple circuit that had an inherent defect. Instead of dedicating time to fixing the defect, Alcorn decided it gave the game more difficulty and helped limit the time the game could be played [per payment]
So, Pong established the concept of video games systematically favouring the rich. Are we there yet, is that political enough?
RPGs, much like SF, have always been a mechanism to explore social issues in philosophy, governance, and thought. In Human society I don’t personally believe that “politics” can be avoided in any group anywhere. —of course that’s just one man’s opinion.
You can assign politics to anything, so it really up to you to bring that in.
If you are going to allow yourself to get testicular torsion over a gender swapped character or having to play a character that is not your gender, than enjoy yourself.
Over all I do agree with you. When I play it is to unwind and not think about anything other than the electronic challenges in front of me or the mindless grind, whatever I am in the mood for.
Incidently that is one of the many things I loved about GOW 2018. You could go do the puzzles and combat or you could just go grind to your hearts content.
calvin >>>>>>>> that conservative cunt
Actually it's hard to keep politic out of RPG.
In game, politic is what makes the game more than just killing random person you know the Princess who want to escape a political marriage, the advisor looking to become the lord, the church and and the merchant guild trying to gain influence ? All of that is politics. and all of that is what makes your campaign fun.
In real-life, like any other social activity especially if you get wider than a closed circle, politics get involved, your club need to talk with the mayor to get a slot in the municipal culture centre or rent a room in a school. Moreover, RPG tend to have a bad reputation and be not correct according to conservative which make it even more political than tons of other RPG, if you let church and right-winger tell you which hobby are acceptable you won't be able to play RPG
Feminism ruined video games means i cant play a video game without thinking about it from a feminist point of view lol
only conservatives ever think about this, same goes for movies/shows with "too much inclusivity, and diversity"
Meanwhile every Ubisoft title, no matter how inoffensive, add the disclaimer:
This game was created by a diverse team of people with different beliefs, sexual orientations, and gender identities
they want something that won't challenge their preconceptions one iota. they don't care about artists crafting a story, they want slop that confirms their biases.
Politics in gaming is awesome, ham fisted writing and design wrapped up in an opinion lecturing the player so it breaks the universe ruleset is crap and does more damage to what ever message you were trying to push.
Sadly a lot of socially important messages are pushed as a selling point by people who don't really have the background to fully create a bridge that speaks to People.
This is the same for a lot of creative work our artists are increasingly coming from privileged and protected backgrounds that we're losing the depth and edge of the art. Indie games as usual are the standard games like Star dew address so much about humanity in a beautiful way.
I play crusader kings for the plot not the politics😄
man I just wanna play my lyre and have an adventure and have fun. I don't wanna argue over politics. I game to get away from all that.
I think it's ok to want to have some space between stuff.
The point is that there are politics in your game, like it or not. Whether you make them a central focus is another story entirely.
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