Misplaced modern sensibilities

[old hat]

A fair number of players have a tendency to bring their contemporary sensibilities and values with them into game settings where this sort of thing doesn't really fit.  They bring along skeptical, agnostic or atheist beliefs into fantasy settings where supernatural elements are demonstrably real.  They bring contemporary political beliefs and values into medieval settings.  

Back when GW had forums on their website, every once in a while someone would come on to criticize the 40k setting in general and the Imperium of Man in particular.  They would complain that the supposed 'heroes' were backward thinking and reactionary and benighted.  That much is true though it's a pointless thing to say and complain about.  40k isn't Star Trek.  Either the OP or one of the people responding would complain about how the Imperium oppresses people and keeps them ignorant because of 'superstition' about demons and sorcerors.  What these people did not and usually could not understand was that 40k is not set in the real world.  Sorcerors and demons are not mere 'superstition' in the 40k setting.  They are absolutely real and the threat they pose is both real and serious. The Ruinous Powers are not imaginary bogeymen used to keep the peasantry in line.  They are very real and very dangerous.

One thing I saw now and then on RPG forums (especially rpg.net) was a poster bemoaning the idea that certain races are inherently evil and that it's ok to kill them.  They bemoan the existence of evil orcs.  They usually equate Orcs or other evil aligned D&D races with some real world group that was looked down upon and treated poorly by some other, stronger group.  Inevitably, some posters bemoan the 'dehumanization' of the Orcs.  This always makes me chuckle since Orcs can't be 'dehumanized' since they were never human to begin with.  The entire purpose behind the invention of Orcs in fantasy literature was to provide enemies that the heroes could kill without the complications and reader reaction associated with having the nominal heroes kill other human beings.  One good example is LotR.  No one bats an eye when Orcs die in carload lots but Sam has an introspective moment when he looks at a Southron/Harad who has been killed.  Sam feels sad that this poor fellow has died so far from home and wonders who he is.  The reader is obviously supposed to feel sad at this too.  The entire purpose of Orcs is to be killed by the heroes.

There was also a strong tendency to confuse race as the term is used in the real world with race as the term is used in fantasy settings especially D&D settings.  In the real world, there really isn't any such things as race in a biological sense.  Biological and genetic differences between one human population are trivial and superficial.  The average genetic difference between supposed 'races' is less that the average genetic difference between two random individuals in the same supposed 'race'.  Race is a social construct with no basis in biology.  People are people are people.  This is not so in fantasy and sci-fi settings.  There are very often actual other races in such settings.  Fantasy Orcs are not a misunderstood other human culture.  They are not Rousseauian noble savages.  They're Orcs and the vast majority are evil and destructive.  Orks aren't a misunderstood other human culture in 40k either.  They are exactly what the Imperium says they are.  They are hostile Xenos that revel in death and destruction and would enjoy nothing better than killing you and your family and burning your house down.  These are not 'stereotypes' or mere 'prejudices'.  It's just the truth.

People come into these fantasy settings with contemporary, politically correct viewpoints and attitudes no matter how poorly they fit.  I don't mean the people who want to use the game as platform to preach their own political views at everyone else.  That's a different problem.  This is simply people who react to things in the setting as they would react in the contemporary, modern world even when the setting is far from the contemporary modern world.  This can lead to silly and even unintentionally comic results like the Politically Correct Middle Ages.    

[PaladinCA]

I've been incredibly amused with a discussion on RPGnet that asks the question: Can there be a good Sith?

The answer is obviously NO, when following the rules and conditions that apply to the Star Wars universe.

But the good people of RPGnet can't seem to except the Star Wars genre's expressed idea that good is good and bad is bad and that there is actually very little in the way of nuanced grey areas. Star Wars is all about good vs. evil and the Jedi and Sith are the epitome of that eternal struggle.

This doesn't mean that Jedi are perfect, nor can they be held to an impossible standard, but the discussion just goes off the rails so much that you have to wonder what movies some of them were actually watching. 

[Fanbus]

Totally agree with the views expressed here.

I’m constantly a victim, yes I said victim, of this sort of player.

The game I’d run would be set in a pretty dystopian setting, yet for what ever reason their characters behave as if they were in modern day America.

Three role playing campaigns came to a grinding halt because of this (a standard D&D game, an Iron Kingdoms game, and a custom setting I wrote).

Because of that I sat down and just wrote what I call “Hard-Coded Rules”. Basically a set of game rules that affect the classes and races and at the same time bind the setting to them. This prevents some of what OldHat is mentioning. The way I figure; if the player’s character can’t do something do to game mechanics or hefty penalties, the player won’t attempt it.

I stopped calling races, races, and began calling them Species. I also defined exactly who could mate with whom and who hated who. You might think of that as silly, but it sets forth ground rules and answers a lot of questions (such as what’s a half-elf).

Here are some excerpts from my Axion campaign setting:



And this is the section under Faction



Basically the races (species) are bound to the classes which are bound to the factions. So from day 1 a player is sort of “locked” into a specific cultural disposition. This method requires a lot more work from the game designer or writer. In the case of a video game, a developer would have to have full content for the specially defined culture.

Now you might think that this might limit a player’s roleplaying options and pigeonhole a character into a pre-defined stereotype. On the contrary, from what I’ve seen so far it actually promotes some interesting backgrounds, roleplay, and creates situations where the characters may be at odds. This opens up plotlines, side quests, and all sorts of exciting moments that would otherwise be absent.

Other IPs should do the same. Particularly those that have hard set cultural dispositions. Iron Kingdoms is a perfect example of an IP that could use some of the mechanics described above. When I ran Iron Kingdoms we had players wanting to be from all over the place. The campaign setting never states what attitudes anyone has towards each other. So in the end it was one big happy family, even though it contained people from the Scharde Isles (Cryxx), Caspia (Cygnar), and Khador. Perhaps that’s what the designer wanted. It certainly did not feel like we were playing in the WarMachine mythos, but more like a normal D&D campaign with lackluster gun rules and the occasional Golem Steam Jack for show.

One reason why I can’t stand playing Warhammer Online is that the Orcs are teamed up with Chaos and Dark Elves (and High Elves with Dwarves respectively). Something bugs me seeing a couple Witch Elves chatting it up in the middle of an Orc camp.
I blame the designer/developer for that sort of thing. If they clearly defined who hates who, who fights who, and who likes who, you wouldn’t have half those issues come up. If the designer/developer stays consistant and doesn’t veer off that, those issues shouldn’t creep up.

[talanhawke]

Agreed, with an exception: D&D and many other pen and papers are, by nature, flexible. It is quite possible to change only a few things in the Greyhawk universe and have a very different playing experience. I would never be one to go on forums & decry the "dehumanization" of orcs, but it is quite a different thing to allow for those rare exceptions among the "evil" races to have some fun with an orc PC, or other such twists.
I do have a serious problem with those who talk about "good" Sith, though. You are right, SW is all about black and white, good and evil. One of the things I disliked intensely about one of the KoTOR games (I believe it was the second) was that they introduced the idea of Grey Jedi into the story... Which, to me, is flying in the face of the rest of SW lore.
I suppose the point I am trying to make is that some universes can be tweaked more than others, for personal enjoyment. If you have never done a D&D no-magic campaign, I would recommend giving it a try. It's not necessarily for everyone, but doing so gives a very different feel to the game without having to change a whole lot, and it also opens up the possibility of demons & gods being just superstition. There are books to help you transition some classes (such as Ranger) into a fully magicless class, if you don't feel like doing the work yourself. I personally didn't like how they did it, and we changed things on our own to give it a more realistic feel.
Doing something like that makes for some good personality interaction between PC's, as long as your group is mature enough to separate the in-game arguments from real world discussions. In a universe such as D&D, customization is intentionally built into the system... why not play with it?