Tabletop Games Have Weird Politics: If the players bring about Jesus' death, great!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Tabletop Games Have Weird Politics: If the players bring about Jesus' death, great!

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

I liked reading the oWoD books, and then telling myself "I shall never play this ridiculous thing"

# ¿ Jul 28, 2021 18:07

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 18:02

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

Toph Bei Fong posted:

Yeah, Mage: the Ascension is a particularly weird thing combining the worst parts of "magick" and "what a lot of people think post-modernism is"

In the world of Mage, relativism is real.

Like, seriously. Reality is constructed via consensus, so the only reason science works, for example, is because enough people were convinced that water boils at 100 degrees or whatever and that two plus two is four, rather than five. There are no absolute truths and no concrete rules about things.

This manifests itself in strange ways throughout the game line, and the people writing it (as usual) don't seem to understand the implications that they've put into the setting.

So, the in game reason for the world being the way it is is that a group of mages called The Technocracy decided to "save" the world by removing all magic from it, and replace that magic with Science. Instead of the world being defined by a person imposing their will upon reality and changing it to how they want it to be, instead, there would be Science, which was "objective" and which everyone could do regardless of magical talent. Rather than killing two rabbits and smearing blood all over yourself, you could simply go to an ob-gyn and have a wand and gel put on your stomach to see if your baby is healthy during pregnancy. Rather than hoping that the food was edible because you prayed enough, you'd put it over the fire for a little while to remove the infection. Rather than hoping that the medicine man decides the tribe is worth enough for him to purify the stream so that the village doesn't die from waste contamination, we have sewage systems to separate drinking water from waste water.

The Technocracy are the bad guys of the setting.

Because they "fooled" the world into thinking Science was real, now the world is mundane and sad and lacks imagination. Things are predictable and dull and safe and gently caress you Dad you can't just tell me to do math homework I need to DREAM!

Mages are reality's losers. They are people with competing worldviews that lost, and/or didn't work out. The nine core Traditions, as they're called, are

The Akashic Brotherhood -- kung fu monks who are a m�lange of Buddhism and Taoism
The Celestial Chorus -- Christians
The Cult of Ecstasy -- Potheads
The Dream Speakers -- Native Americans
The Euthanatos -- an apocalyptic cult of Indian assassins who think that killing bad people is necessary to "turn the wheel" and start the next age of Man
The Order of Hermes -- Magicians ported over from Ars Magica
The Sons of Ether -- Steampunk anti-vax moms
The Verbena -- Witches
The Virtual Adepts -- Hackers

(Some were renamed in the 20th anniversary edition, but frankly, I don't care)

Now, an interesting game theoretically exists exploring the implications of the Overton Window and how historical evidence shapes our view of the past and how different people looking at the same pattern will find different things in it, but, uh, this game isn't it, and why is not particularly complicated.

In addition to being a sober and deep examination of the world's construction ala Eco's Foucalt's Pendulum or Baudilino, the game also wants to be the Burger King Kids Club vs the Men in Black. Like most White Wolf supernaturals, the combat capacities of every mage at through the roof, but, additionally, their reality warping capacities are through the roof. By 3 dots in whatever, you can control minds, blow up buildings, warp space around yourself, and basically play Doctor Manhattan. But, uh, people are dumb, and if you do this in front of them, they can just say "I don't believe in fairies" and if no one claps their hands to bring you back to life, you're boned. They won't believe their evidence of their own eyes, because science tells them that magic isn't real and people are sheep and won't make up to the truth and so on and so on.

So you end up with this convoluted system of rationalization, where "Oh no, I didn't throw a fireball to fry that guy, a gas pipe just coincidentally exploded underneath him (and *shh* I secretly made that happen with magic)" which, well, which is it? Did you really hadouken the fireball, or did you use fire magic to detonate the gas pipe? This is fine when it's all just fiction to describe why the fighter takes 2d6 damage and is moved back two squares, and it doesn't matter whether it's a fireball explosion or a Jedi force push or the thief doing complex acrobatics with a lot of daggers. But when that ambiguity is supposed to be a core theme of the game?

That's not so bad in and of itself, because the stakes are, frankly, action movie. When I was young, I liked the idea of folks who "really knew what the world was like" fighting against The Man.

But as I age, and I think more, other examples pop into my head which aren't so great. The Sons of Ether, for example, are practitioners of alternative science, and are your goggle and raygun types. In reality, these people do exist, just as much witches and magicians and traditional religious folks. They're the ones who got my uncle to kill himself via homeopathy and colloidal silver. And this has some uncomfortable implications: if the game logic is "real" then am I responsible for killing my uncle because I didn't believe in homeopathy enough? is it society's fault for not believing in the efficacy of homeopathy? or is it the practitioner's fault for not admitting that they lost the "Reality War", and clinging to outdated beliefs? And all of this could be handwaved as "dumb game stuff, don't think about it too hard", except that Satyros Brucato was genuinely worried about people casting spells accidentally while playing the game.

Going off his blog and my interactions with him, Brucato is a nice tolerant and liberal guy who is terminally 90s in his outlook. The idea that, for example, the "Q Shaman" is doing his own version of magickal consensus reality in which Trump is the rightful victor of the election and therefore god emperor, is intolerable to Brucato, even though, by his own system there is no way to determine what is real except via king mob.

_{A Verbena and a Dreamspeaker, from the 20th anniversary edition of Mage}

tldr: Mage is a game where Meme Magic is real, even realer than it is in reality, and the people trying to keep the wheels on the bus and preventing us from going back to philosopher kings are the bad guys.

Very thorough write up here about everything wrong with Mage, of which I've barely scratched the surface: https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/latwpiat/mage-the-ascension-20th-anniversary-edition/

I feel Mage could be improved a bit by like just making it a thing that the Technocracy is running the laws around EARTH but the rest of the universe has its own Consensus, and as scientists study more of the galaxy and wider universe it is coming up against the outside Consensus (and Aliens coming by using their own magic the gently caress with people or maybe free their minds or some stuff.)

# ¿ Jul 29, 2021 17:11

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

Arivia posted:

The rest of the galaxy is Lovecraftian-style Old Ones who are very interested in eating Earth and all the nice tasty meat popsicles on it. We know this because there�s a group of the Technocracy (the Void Engineers) dedicated to protecting humanity from them!

Solution is simple, just get everyone to agree we are made out of wood instead of meat.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2021 17:24

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

radmonger posted:

You kind of screwed up your games subtext when you have vampires, demons and occult secret societies, but imperialism and capitalism has nothing to do with them. Instead those things are the direct fault of scientists (free pass to team good guy granted to mad scientists).

If I recall previous internet discussions, they had to add some text somewhere saying �vaccines don�t work the way you would logically expect them to given the rest of the setting, they are actually a good thing and definitely not an excuse for the Technocracy to microchip the masses�.

Vaccines are simply a magical spell that protects from disease, trying to add tracking magic to it would just ruin the spell

Technocracy puts the tracking magic in your tap water.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2021 01:14

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

I am probably not the best person to do a post on it, but there is a game called Cutthroat Caverns that I own where it is a cooperative to COMPLETE game but only one player can win

There are 9 encounters that must be cleared to complete the game, each encounter scores points only to the person who lands the killing blow

However players can be killed by the encounters(or friends), encounters do not reduce for dead players, and if the party wipes then you all lose anyway

Thus it encourages backstabbing, but just enough to win or ELSE.

Another game I like to play is Terraforming Mars where you represent a megacorporation out to and I try to make it clear to people SCORE THE MOST PRESTIGE ONCE MARS IS TERRAFORMED actively going out of your way to terraform mars is actually kind of stupid when you can do anything else to score points because you are not time limited in the game and instead the game ends when mars is terraformed which is itself represented by three different sliders being finished. Its also an engine builder game and generally the cards that terraform do not build your engine as well as cards that don't terraform. I routinely beat the pants of my brother because he tends to forget to just go for the score.

Conversely and a game I am bad at is Castles of Mad King Ludwig where you are an architect building a fancy castle for the crazy king with each player having hidden objectives only they know as well as some baseline objectives everyone know. each round rotates who is the "master builder" who sets prices and picks last with the other players picking before and paying the master builder with the master builder paying the bank. This can lead to some weird things, and also I am... bad at the game and lose it routinely but boy it is fun.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2022 03:10

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

SirPhoebos posted:

One thing that I always thought was pretty hosed up was in HoI4 (don't know if this is true in the current version) if played the USSR and deliberately avoided doing the purges and curbed/replaced Stalin, then right when Germany was about to declare war on you, Trotskyist launch an armed coup. Giving the implication that Stalin was right to do the purges.

Like imagine if they did the same thing with Germany? "Oh, you got rid of Hitler? Well, all your neighbors declare war on you at once while the Jews steal your treasury. I guess you should of done those genocides!"

Its been patched, you can go multiple routes, including a bloodless coup of Stalin if you do the right things

# ¿ Jul 3, 2022 00:53

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

girl dick energy posted:

This is true, but there are good kinds of "everyone sucks" writing, where the people in power are all assholes because the kinds of people who'd seek and obtain that level of power tend to be assholes, and bad kinds of "everyone sucks" writing, where the people in power are all assholes because everyone's a different awful racial/political stereotype.

And BattleTech is full to the gills with BOTH kinds.

There have been a few periods where one nation or clan have been Good Guys for a little while, but that was usually because some hack writer at the wheel of the official canon novels wanted to make their job easier, and it only lasted until a different writer got their turn at the wheel. The most common group for this was Clan Wolf, which had this happen so many times with so many different writers who all had different ideas about what made someone The Good Guys that the only prominent aspect of their culture left is their tendency towards sudden and meteoric rises to glory, followed by equally meteoric falls from grace so they can be the scrappy underdogs again.

Though in a weird way, the Canopans kind of ended up as, if not good guys, probably-not-too-awful guys because nobody wants to get accused of trying to undo a much-needed retcon.

The Magistracy of Canopus started as an incredibly eye-rolling "WOMAN GOOD, MAN BAD" nation written by the kind of men who think feminists are plotting to make them wax their chests and wear chastity cages. Thankfully, someone eventually realized that was incredibly stupid, and they've since been soft retconned into a moderately matriarchal society of liberal hedonists with powerful entertainment and tourism industries but poor-to-mediocre public education. Basically, Space Californians. This maybe kind of sort of makes them not-bad-guys by default, if you squint, if only because they're not important enough to be major players, and nobody wants to open the door to being accused of writing a Cartoonishly Evil Man-Hater in 2022 by introducing a Canopan villain.

Edit: They're also The Reasonable Major Power in the HBS Battletech video game, but that game is only very loosely canon and the Canopan's role in it is more to be a 'bigger fish' circling around the edges of the plot, rather than actually getting involved themselves. (Which is hilarious in the context of how minor the Canopans and Taurians are on a galactic scale. But that's a different post.)

Canopus is a major periphery power, which compared to many many places in battletech is DOING REALLY GOOD all things considered. its just Major Periphery power is still small small potatoes before the big 5 of the inner sphere

# ¿ Dec 4, 2022 11:10

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

Magnetic North posted:

Wait, really? After surviving 4e and 5e, it managed to get even worse? (IMHO, 4th Anniversary was okay.)

I heard they released basically unfinished work with leftover mechanics from 5e hanging around but not interacted with but mucking up the rules.

Frankly my biggest issue with 5th edition in a lot of ways was they many mechanics and rules that had no examples given along with them as an intended way for this particular ruleset to work which led to a lot of clumsy grasping by gms to figure out what in the gently caress was actually supposed to go on.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2022 12:40

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

Tiler Kiwi posted:

i have yet to actually win as cats vs other players. on top of being kind of weak and hard to play, they end up often in an early lead but their scoring slows down in midgame. and they are _really_ rewarding to beat up since they make a lot of buildings and end up often with a hoard of cardboard they cant defend or get rid of so even if youre eating poo poo people will still find their best path to victory is destroying you. and your early game position and need to police everyone else means that if there's a particularly vengeful player on the board they will very likely blitz you to burn down your keep as petty revenge for the sin of your existence. to top it all off, the otters could probably be one of your best friends since they'll give you a source of good cards, but a very "meta" strategy is for the otter to just repeatedly squat on your wood piles so you have to pay them for the privilege of playing a normal game, which despite being an obviously losing strategy will still often result in extremely pissed off otter players who will demand death or reparations for your violation of the NAP if you like, respond with "aggression" with actual aggression.

they're the only faction that can actually be totally tabled but thats just salt in the wound, it rarely actually comes up.

Cat has to sacrifice territory to save their pieces and build up enough power to fight

# ¿ Jan 28, 2023 21:59

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

girl dick energy posted:

SomethingAwful is a cult?

We are not adults

# ¿ Aug 10, 2023 10:17

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 18:02

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

disposablewords posted:

Balrogs are also a subset of the Maiar, spirits who generally seem able to take on different forms though with a tendency to stick to those that suit them. Maybe the wings do or don't exist at whim.

(Never mind that this shape-changing power can be broken and limited, as happened with Sauron. And also apparently there's a reference to balrogs riding dragons during an ancient battle and some being unseated, falling to the earth which they wouldn't necessarily have had to do if they had wings.)

It can be rather hard to arrest a fall if you like say get shot off a dragons back with a ballista bolt through a wing.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2023 13:00

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Tabletop Games Have Weird Politics: If the players bring about Jesus' death, great!