As someone that plays a lot of Crusader Kings I'd do this plotline specifically to give players the choice Yeah, obviously the laws of the kingdom say the male child is the legitimate ruler, but if the nobles have a problem with it they can raise their little rebellion... It's a free justification for taking their lands after we win the civil war.

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.

Nobody who doesn't think ”Lich McConnell" is funny would be at my table, so it's fine. Not necessarily anything personal, but if you don't hate Mitch McConnell, we're not going to get along.

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.

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!

> 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 it is referring to keeping real-world politics out of campaigns. Like for instance, one time during a campaign, we blamed a museum heist on Islamic terrorits. It made the rest of the game real weird.


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.

You said we couldn't use any real names!

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.

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

I'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.

Everyone is a rock and they just sit there eroding

Yeah. Ultimately you're playing with the ither people at the table (so ons other person out of th3 5 who rsvp'd) more than the system.