The state of Post-OSR content

[squeen]

The whole western world is standing in mute horror watching the US systematically dismantle each and every one of these things, giving the go-ahead to some truly unpleasant people in less fortunate nations everywhere.

I think it was a bad move when we decided it mattered more if a nation was pro-capitalism than pro-democracy.

We should do zero business with places our average citizens wouldn't be willing to live. (looking at you China)

 

[The Heretic]

Right-o Heretic. No doubt my notions of liberal and conservative...and probably just about anything else...are out-of-date.

Nah, not really. I'm using liberal in a different context. Look at Gary's preamble about the meaning of the word 'level' at the beginning of the PHB.

Liberal = free, open.

Where it gets SUPERconfusing is when you start talking about neo-liberalism. Currently the West seems to be rejecting neo-liberalism. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But anyway, look it up, you'll be surprised.

 

[The Heretic]

The whole western world is standing in mute horror watching the US systematically dismantle each and every one of these things, giving the go-ahead to some truly unpleasant people in less fortunate nations everywhere.

I think everyone's kinda lost in the desert at the moment and hoping that a benevolent dictator will show us all the way. It's not going to happen.

Yep. The US wasn't the pioneer in this regard (this thing showed up more in South America and Eastern Europe), but a sizeable part of the population has decided that it's for them.

There was a particularly horrible positive feedback cycle with the last president. A certain part of the population was looking for a savior, and they elected a narcissist who was more than willing to play that role for them. They needed someone to worship, and he needed to be worshipped. It's not going to end well.

 

[The Heretic]

I think it was a bad move when we decided it mattered more if a nation was pro-capitalism than pro-democracy.

We should do zero business with places our average citizens wouldn't be willing to live. (looking at you China)

Depends on who you ask. I am friends with some Objectivists and they would argue you can't have freedom without capitalism. Then again I'm not sure if they are pro-democracy.

On the opposite side you don't want mob rule either. You don't want a dictatorship of the majority. People have forgotten that.

As for China, well, the idea was that the introduction of trade would lead to liberalization of the political. Alas technology came along and gave the Chinese government even more efficient tools to oppress their population.

 

[The1True]

Since we've opened the floor however briefly for discussion of things verboten I'd like to shift the conversation towards the politicization of RPG's. Specifically D&D. Can D&D even exist without a certain dated, colonialist viewpoint? I mean, that's the D&D that I like to play and I like to think of myself as a pretty liberal minded, moderate lefty pinko.

 

[The1True]

I mean bad is bad. good is good. the vast wilderness is there to be conquered. Slaves are still bought and sold in the more decadent or evil kingdoms. And yeah, there's occasional negative cultural stereotypes (mainly jungle 'savages' in tropical adventures).
I'm being told all this is bad now. The whole game could be viewed as a campy tribute to an Appendix N of equally outdated pulp fantasy and sci-fi. Is this bad as well? Am I truly perpetuating the sins of the past? Is this the RPG equivalent of a Plantation Wedding?

 

[The Heretic]

I mean bad is bad. good is good. the vast wilderness is there to be conquered. Slaves are still bought and sold in the more decadent or evil kingdoms. And yeah, there's occasional negative cultural stereotypes (mainly jungle 'savages' in tropical adventures).
I'm being told all this is bad now. The whole game could be viewed as a campy tribute to an Appendix N of equally outdated pulp fantasy and sci-fi. Is this bad as well? Am I truly perpetuating the sins of the past? Is this the RPG equivalent of a Plantation Wedding?

I'm not sure myself. Then again, I've tended to make my campaigns a little more complex than that anyway, so at least personally it isn't a problem for me. I think the demands that everything must be seen in a certain light is getting kind of obnoxious though.

 

[The Heretic]

Aha! I figured it out! You have to indulge their political dogma. The orcs aren't stand ins for non-Western societies, the orcs are greedy bastards that seize wealth from the surrounding people. When you slaughter them in their lair and take their gold you're liberating for the proletariat!

 

[squeen]

Darned it I know. The sexism in D&D is also hard to avoid with all the classic tropes, but when my daughters started playing we worked it out and still had fun.

It gets dull without good antagonists. Maybe that's why "evil cults/societies" are all the rage, because they don't have a fixed membership. Demons and devils are fine too (now) --- they are clearly evil and resemble no one.

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

Since we've opened the floor however briefly for discussion of things verboten I'd like to shift the conversation towards the politicization of RPG's. Specifically D&D. Can D&D even exist without a certain dated, colonialist viewpoint? I mean, that's the D&D that I like to play and I like to think of myself as a pretty liberal minded, moderate lefty pinko.

I think it can be played without that viewpoint, tho' I would also say that I don't think the presence of colonialism or whatever other bad thing in a game is an endorsement of colonialism et al. even within the game, let alone in the broader world. The various shades here - adopting the viewpoint of a coloniser, endorsing that viewpoint, depicting colonialism, and endorsing colonialism, tend to get muddled together.

I think the endorsements of colonial viewpoints and colonial processes tend to be thought-terminating cliches and chucking them out is more likely to enrich worlds and campaigns in the long run, even if when people first start doing it they flounder a bit (as one always does when moving beyond the horizon of the obviousness that ideologies create).

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

For the simple example of orcs, simply chucking out the accumulated bioessentialist cruft that has been gradually loaded onto the concept of "orcs" over time in D&D actually opens up tons of play. If the orcs are simply members of a bad polity instead of essentially damned in their ontogenetic soul-DNA, then negotiating with them, overthrowing and replacing their leaders, bribing them, etc. become far more viable options, which get added onto the list of PC options for dealing with them.

In a campaign where they are always bad and this cannot be changed, the list of options, instead of opening up, reduces to "genocide" as we have seen over the course of thirty years of treatment of orcs in D&D material. I think that's a more boring and constrained list, and anything that adds more options leads to more interesting play by introducing choice and decision-making beyond "Which spell will I murder them with?"

It's one of those things where the bioessentialist element is both unnecessary and thought-terminating.

 

[squeen]

For the simple example of orcs, simply chucking out the accumulated bioessentialist cruft that has been gradually loaded onto the concept of "orcs" over time in D&D actually opens up tons of play. If the orcs are simply members of a bad polity instead of essentially damned in their ontogenetic soul-DNA, then negotiating with them, overthrowing and replacing their leaders, bribing them, etc. become far more viable options, which get added onto the list of PC options for dealing with them.

Then you get Byrce's argument --- why aren't they just brigands?

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Specifically D&D. Can D&D even exist without a certain dated, colonialist viewpoint? I mean, that's the D&D that I like to play and I like to think of myself as a pretty liberal minded, moderate lefty pinko.

Good D&D cannot, but the whole framework only works if you accept a-priori that mankind's primordial struggle with nature is somehow bad or wrong, that civilization has no inherent merit over barbarism and that all instances of an advanced civilization expanding to rule over a less advanced one is undesirable for both parties. I always feel the entire argument is generally bad faith to begin with (no offense to any of you guys, I'm sure you aren't), made by the usual suspects, on shifty grounds, with accusations being thrown very quickly if one dares to disagree.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Aha! I figured it out! You have to indulge their political dogma. The orcs aren't stand ins for non-Western societies, the orcs are greedy bastards that seize wealth from the surrounding people. When you slaughter them in their lair and take their gold you're liberating for the proletariat!

It's the darnest thing, the town-crier reports that production of Rope and Burning Oil has never been higher yet I've been standing in this fucking line for 3 hours and its not getting any shorter.

 

[The Heretic]

Then you get Byrce's argument --- why aren't they just brigands?

Because Bryce agrees with you that alien mindsets are hard and that the PCs should be limited mainly to humans.

I take a middle way. There may be biological differences that make orcs more prone to violence, but there is still a considerable amount of maneuverability even with that.

In my campaign (which is on hold), the PCs came upon an orc that was tied up and used for target practice (I forget who had the idea here, it was when I asked for encounter ideas for moors). One of the PCs, in the role of a half-orc cleric to a good god, tried to convert him over. "You should see what we've done with the Steading. Converting has made us very prosperous". Sorry, nope (and besides the player rolled poorly). The orc has not been convinced. If the player truly wants to get this orc to convert he needs to appeal to the orc's viewpoint. Perhaps emphasizing that his god will help the orc get revenge on the other orcs that did this to him would be more likely to work.

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

Then you get Byrce's argument --- why aren't they just brigands?

If people can't do something interesting with orcish polities, then they probably should just be human brigands. But I think we are fully capable of doing interesting things with orcish polities such that their inclusion can be distinct from other (human) brigands and add to the game.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Man the Cessation sure put a fire under all your asses. Two Days Left!*

If people can't do something interesting with orcish polities, then they probably should just be human brigands. But I think we are fully capable of doing interesting things with orcish polities such that their inclusion can be distinct from other (human) brigands and add to the game.

But I think Squeen/Bryce does point to a problem. If you are going to make them nuanced barbarians, there's a host of cultures from the Germanica or Herodotus's histories to base your Orcs on (at least B10 Humanoids totally are), and if you are going to diverge too much from the archetypal form, why call them Orcs to begin with? What makes an Orc an Orc? And do I care about his rich cultural nuances when I am setting fire to him if he does not tell me where the gold is?

* Or however long this takes to spiral into a shouting match.

 

[The Heretic]

It's the darnest thing, the town-crier reports that production of Rope and Burning Oil has never been higher yet I've been standing in this fucking line for 3 hours and its not getting any shorter.

It is my contention that history repeats itself because the lessons of the past are lost as the newer generations replace the older ones. "Let's get rid of all these financial regulations so we can make a lot more money!" Oops, Great Recession. Same now with command economies. Hey kids, there was a reason that neo-liberalism won out in the 80's. If you decide to go full out socialist you'll soon figure out why.

But I think Squeen/Bryce does point to a problem. If you are going to make them nuanced barbarians, there's a host of cultures from the Germanica or Herodotus's histories to base your Orcs on (at least B10 Humanoids totally are), and if you are going to diverge too much from the archetypal form, why call them Orcs to begin with? What makes an Orc an Orc? And do I care about his rich cultural nuances when I am setting fire to him if he does not tell me where the gold is?

Very true. It reminds me of learning about the atom in high school. If the electron gets too close to the nucleus it'll get sucked in. If it gets too far away then the nucleus will lose its group. In the middle area things are perfect.

Apparently the mere act of reviewing Zak or Venger is enough to get one branded anathema these days but the low-level shitposting serves to do my audience selection for me. I've thought about putting some sort of disclaimer on the About Prince page but I figured the selection-at-the-door is a net positive. I'm fairly pleased with my comments section actually, you get lots of insightful commentary, some gentle ribbing and the time when one of my friends impersonated Kevin Crawford and caused Venger to write a sulky article entitled 'Stars Without Civility' and the real Kevin Crawford had to come forth from seclusion and issue a disclaimer. Disruptive behavior is handled via trial by insult, and there you go.

That's amusing. I was originally going to dismiss you as an MRA/altright blowhard, but as I looked more closely I realized there was more to you than that.

But then, I tend to be like Pollyanna. I see the good in everyone. How annoying, right?

 

[squeen]

Here's what I did in my campaign:

Gnoll are your native stand-ins. They were there first and the humans pushed them off the land. Yet still, they worship a very real and nasty god, take slaves, and skin humans for their pelts. If they had it their way, they'd eat all us peoples that they see as cattle. They are convinced they're the Master Race.

Goblins are fey. They are agents of pure chaos that bubble up out of the deepest earth. No goblin babies, no hope of redemption---they are the Jokers to the world's Batmen. They just want to see it all in flames and couldn't care less if that means they burn too because they are will just eventually be reborn from the earth's womb in another time or place. It's all wicked good fun to them. A counter-balancing force of nature to the elves and such.

Orcs are mules---the result of goblins that mated with the animals of the natural world (ape, pig, human, etc.). The muscle. No females. No babies. Orcs that come from goblin+humans make the best soldiers for ye old dark army. A goblin can be male or female as needed and can cross-breed with just about anything, including other fey...like leprechauns. There are no half-orcs, just a wide variety. If you got a little orc, then you are an orc---and you won't be having kids. You are subhuman intelligence and filled with a bit of lust for making things blow up.

Bugbears are goblins+bears+goblins+bears+stuff, but breed true---animal intelligence.

Hobgoblins all come from oversea, and are the most humanoid and civilized. They worship the Art of War.

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

Oh, I don't think we need to depart from the archetypal form of orcs too much, what we need to do is avoid over-explaining it, whether to naturalise it or provide some elaborate explanation of how orcish parenting practices produce psychopaths. Underdetermination here opens up PC agency in dealing with them (as does consistent use of the reaction roll) by emphasising the contingency of any given relation to orcs. They may be bad guys, but what happens when the DM rolls "friendly" on the table?

A personal favourite encounter in a campaign I ran once was when the PCs ran into some "inhumanoids" (vat-grown orc warriors) who I rolled "friendly" for on the reaction roll. Instead of slaying them (the PCs had fought inhumanoids on several occasions previously) they invited the PCs back to their feast hall, which the PCs accepted, suspecting the inhumanoids had information they sought. While they were questioning them, the inhumanoids presented their favourite food as a show of honour to the PCs: grilled villager - and invited them to take the first bite of the choicest parts (testicles, eyes, and hands). The PCs were of course loathe to do this, but also outnumbered by the inhumanoids, so they engaged in a back and forth trying to convince the inhumanoids' leader that he should take the first public bite instead. This resulted in a lot more fun play than just "Bad genetically-mean orcs show up and try to kill you" would, and it's a possibility of play that I wish more campaigns would take up.