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"I don't want Politics in my Gaming!"
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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.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.
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Or, you know. We could just ignore those pseudo-moral excuses and do some good old goblin slaying because they're in the dungeon, laying traps and we want the loot. Not everything needs 12 layers of logical depth. Sure, it's fun to explore moral implications from time to time, but more often than not, no one cares.But you're making the statement that it's okay to kill people if you want their stuff. The politics are there even if you don't choose to examine them.
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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.
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Agreed. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's a big difference between playing a gay character and derailing the entire campaign because you choose to lead a gay rights movement while the world is being overrun by the demon king's hordes. I don't care about the former and have done so myself, but I boot you from my table for the later. Not because I'm against gay rights, but because that's not the kind of story I'm interested in DMing and you're free to find a DM who's interested in this storyline, but you won't take my campaign and players hostage for your Selbstdarstellungsdrang.How come gay people don't already have rights in your setting?
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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".
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Nah, they've long fallen to the usual cycle of "here is a species of interesting antagonistic creatures" -> "Oh wow, that sounds interesting. I want to play them" -> "Yeah sure, here's a playbale variant of that species. We've removed all traces of evilness and uniqueness because god forbid players playing evil characters". Same as Drow, Orcs, Fairies and Goliath.
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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.
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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".
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I mean I can understand having occasional exceptions to the rule so the players can get an interesting non standard experience, but straight evil aligned critters should always be present in fantasy settings especially ttrpg and DND specifically.I'm not sure about always. That's just lazy world building to have orcs naturally evil instead of predominantly mind controlled or ruled by evil leaders or some sort of blood fued. It's the same with good aligned races. Unless you want to focus on the definition of good and evil.
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When I say "I don't want politics in my gaming," I mean it literally. Like, I don't care for the Star Wars prequels because they spend a lotta time just doing politics instead of space battles. I don't wanna sit through boring ass senate sessions listening to motions and passing votes. I wanna blow shit up!Let me introduce you to Spec Ops the Line. A game where wanting to blow stuff up is the political statement.
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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".
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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"."Politics are genuinely fun and everyone wants to see them all the time, and the people who say they don't want to see it like it even more, they just wish they were seeing *different* politics." -hbomberguy
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"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.
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But you're making the statement that it's okay to kill people if you want their stuff. The politics are there even if you don't choose to examine them.
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How come gay people don't already have rights in your setting?
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That doesn't make any sense. If they already have rights then what are they arguing for?
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That doesn't make any sense. If they already have rights then what are they arguing for?As I wrote in my original post, some people just have a narcissistic need for self-promotion. They will preach to the choir and bring irrelevant political topics into the game because they feel like the real world doesn't appreciate their valiant efforts towards weaponized inclusivity enough.
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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".
