A forum for discussing and organizing recreational softball and baseball games and leagues in the greater Halifax area.
None (okay maybe some) more soulless
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In law enforcement hell, they have to testify against someone they falsely arrested to a fair and reasonable judge, and every lie they try to tell manifests as physical black sludge that sears their throat as they speak. ...Fuck, I'm gonna have to come up with a new one shot now.There's a really funny youtube series my son made we watch where a guy is running one campaign that is some PCs hack and slashing their way through a goblin kingdom, trying to get to the goblin king, then another campaign where the PCs are playing in a modern urban city as cops and paramedics on the trail of some psycho serial killer arsonist looter murder hobos.
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I ran an adventure that was basically “stop w bush and dick Cheney from invading Iraq by proving that their ‘proof’ of wmd is made up”. In Warhammer fantasy. It took them a while to wise up to it. Watching their face light up as they figured what Georg Straub translates to was just priceless.
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I ran an adventure that was basically “stop w bush and dick Cheney from invading Iraq by proving that their ‘proof’ of wmd is made up”. In Warhammer fantasy. It took them a while to wise up to it. Watching their face light up as they figured what Georg Straub translates to was just priceless.> In Warhammer fantasy. Know-know where man-things hide the warpstone, yes-yes! Near Tikrit, Baghdad... east-east, west-west, south-south, north-north also! See-find, we will see-find them! > It took them a while to wise up to it. Yes-yes, old words from Tennessee-thing, maybe Texas-thing too! Say-speak, trick fool-thing once, make you, yes-yes, you feel the shame! But trick-fool poor rat-thing twice? No-no! Can't trick-fool, no trick-fool again, no!
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I'm still kind of disappointed and irritated about an old D&D group. The guy ran a game that was literally patriarchy. There was a king who died. He had a daughter, who was ruling competently presently. But he also had an infant son. Now a civil war is brewing because some people want the son on the throne, because that's the male heir. And he just played it straight and seemed to expect us to be like "Oh, obviously the son has a legitimate claim to the throne. and also absolute monarchy is unremarkable". To his credit he did let us decide which faction to support, but it was kind of exhausting getting a constant stream of "no, absolute male hereditary rule is good and normal". It was a pretty fleshed out setting in terms of details and subfactions, but the core of it was just so very basic and unexamined. No one else seemed to give a shit, though. I did not gel with that group. Meanwhile, some time before that I'd had a blast running a game. The players came upon an anarchist collective that had overthrown the old despot, but now there are counter-revolutionaries lurking that want to return the now undead tyrant to the throne. Also the neighboring state is rattling their sabers because they ideologically do not approve of a state without a king. So I guess the lesson is games are better when you vibe with the group?> To his credit he did let us decide which faction to support, but it was kind of exhausting getting a constant stream of “no, absolute male hereditary rule is good and normal”. I think there's a very traditionalist patriarchal angle you can play on a game like this that boils down to the consequences of a shifting social dynamic resulting in upheaval you don't want/can't afford. An Elizabethan/Victorian Era might result in other women thinking they *also* shouldn't be second-class citizens relative to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. Consequently, you get a First Wave Feminist movement, complete with street protests, labor strikes, vandalism, and the occasional act of violence aimed at a leading patriarchal figure. Alternatively, you end up with a reactionary fascist movement, as traditionalists launch capital strikes, threaten secession, or author fascist military coups. Maybe you get both. Sometimes sticking with the old bad system is preferable (for your elite group of insiders) because you value social stability over progress. Especially true if the threat of a domestic insurgency is paired with some broader economic strife or external crisis. I think its easy to believe "oh well, everyone is just awful and that's why nothing changes". But a cleverly written story can put you in the real position of making hard choices. You might find yourself playing the John Adams, explaining to your outspoken feminist wife Abigail why women aren't being enfranchised in the new national constitution, because we've already had a Shays' Rebellion, a Whiskey Rebellion, a Fries's Rebellion, and a nascent State of Muskogee to deal with, and you can't afford to splinter public opinion any more than the current compromise constitution already has.
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You can't depict a civilization of sapient entities without some kind of political component coloring the interactions. A non political campaign would require no interaction of any kind with any other being capable of communicating. Unthinking creatures only.
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"He's a LICH, you can't kill him, he'll just keep coming back." "All part of the fun."
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I'm still kind of disappointed and irritated about an old D&D group. The guy ran a game that was literally patriarchy. There was a king who died. He had a daughter, who was ruling competently presently. But he also had an infant son. Now a civil war is brewing because some people want the son on the throne, because that's the male heir. And he just played it straight and seemed to expect us to be like "Oh, obviously the son has a legitimate claim to the throne. and also absolute monarchy is unremarkable". To his credit he did let us decide which faction to support, but it was kind of exhausting getting a constant stream of "no, absolute male hereditary rule is good and normal". It was a pretty fleshed out setting in terms of details and subfactions, but the core of it was just so very basic and unexamined. No one else seemed to give a shit, though. I did not gel with that group. Meanwhile, some time before that I'd had a blast running a game. The players came upon an anarchist collective that had overthrown the old despot, but now there are counter-revolutionaries lurking that want to return the now undead tyrant to the throne. Also the neighboring state is rattling their sabers because they ideologically do not approve of a state without a king. So I guess the lesson is games are better when you vibe with the group?I’ve had a similar “DM’s unexamined biases” experience with treating certain races as inherently deserving of slaughter. Like, my first campaign ever was run with a goblin sorcerer who I got really close with. “There’s a war where one side is all goblins” is not a clear cut plot hook to get us to join the opposition by itself.
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> To his credit he did let us decide which faction to support, but it was kind of exhausting getting a constant stream of “no, absolute male hereditary rule is good and normal”. I think there's a very traditionalist patriarchal angle you can play on a game like this that boils down to the consequences of a shifting social dynamic resulting in upheaval you don't want/can't afford. An Elizabethan/Victorian Era might result in other women thinking they *also* shouldn't be second-class citizens relative to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. Consequently, you get a First Wave Feminist movement, complete with street protests, labor strikes, vandalism, and the occasional act of violence aimed at a leading patriarchal figure. Alternatively, you end up with a reactionary fascist movement, as traditionalists launch capital strikes, threaten secession, or author fascist military coups. Maybe you get both. Sometimes sticking with the old bad system is preferable (for your elite group of insiders) because you value social stability over progress. Especially true if the threat of a domestic insurgency is paired with some broader economic strife or external crisis. I think its easy to believe "oh well, everyone is just awful and that's why nothing changes". But a cleverly written story can put you in the real position of making hard choices. You might find yourself playing the John Adams, explaining to your outspoken feminist wife Abigail why women aren't being enfranchised in the new national constitution, because we've already had a Shays' Rebellion, a Whiskey Rebellion, a Fries's Rebellion, and a nascent State of Muskogee to deal with, and you can't afford to splinter public opinion any more than the current compromise constitution already has.I think that's a lot of interesting stuff you could explore, but the odds of doing that when the GM is running on unexamined defaults are slim.
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For years I've been running an Elder Scrolls campaign, so recurring villains include elf Nazis. It has been hitting way too close to home this year.One of my favorite podcasts (Critshow) involves a group of humans who basically want to commit multi-planar ethnic cleansing against everything not human, the DM has commented that playing these NPCs feels like it’s tainting his soul just giving them a voice
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One of my favorite podcasts (Critshow) involves a group of humans who basically want to commit multi-planar ethnic cleansing against everything not human, the DM has commented that playing these NPCs feels like it’s tainting his soul just giving them a voiceI'm trying to make it a cathartic _Inglorious Basterds_ sorta fantasy. They're already level 10 in 5E, which feels about level 30 in most ES games. Absolutely slaughtering Thalmor; they've got a bounty and a whole legion after them.
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You can't depict a civilization of sapient entities without some kind of political component coloring the interactions. A non political campaign would require no interaction of any kind with any other being capable of communicating. Unthinking creatures only.
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I think that's a lot of interesting stuff you could explore, but the odds of doing that when the GM is running on unexamined defaults are slim.
