I am sorry if this is something basic that has been discussed to death before but I feel like I need to get this out of my system before I ruin friendships by wishing centuries of humiliation on people for the way they play pretend.
I had a casual chat with a friend and fellow GM about our current campaigns and worldbuilding. At some point beast races come up and I mention I like gnolls and give a few short details about their society in my setting. In response I get an explanation that he can’t have this kind of characterization because of Goebbles level bullshittery about how beastmen are inherently savage and destructive and basically a swarm of pests that has to be put down. And how this is necessary in order to address the moral issues of what to do with beastmen non-combatants. Essentially giving players moral license to commit genocide and still be considered “good” in-universe.
It felt so fucking unreal seeing how normally chill people can almost reproduce word for word the vile shit that Zionists are using right fucking now as a justification for mass murder and not have a single moment of “oh shit wait wtf am I saying”. I had to step away from the keyboard and calm down. I hate how concept of “sapient creatures that are completely and irredeemably evil and are specifically designed to be slaughtered” is seen as something completely normal and even expected. Gygax was a piece of shit genocide enthusiast who deserves to rot in hell and it’s high time that we move on from colonial plunder sims with dragons and obligatory others that exist only to be killed and looted.
You are building an imaginary world and there are no limits. The genre is literally called imagination. There is no excuse for consciously designing entire species that are designated for slaughter and reproducing some of the vilest ideologies ever thought up by humans as a pillar of your worldbuilding.
That’s it I guess. That’s the rant. Thanks for reading. I am doing my best trying to give positive portrayals of non-human societies in my games and also trying to get my friends to play other games that aren’t built from around breaking into others’ homes to kill them and take their stuff.
This and also the way “Bandits” are used as generically evil People You Can Always Kill
In World of Warcraft it’s even worse. The Defias Bandits that are like the stock enemies to kill as a human originated from a construction union that formed after the king of Stormwind stiffed them on their pay. You play the role of Pinkerton and go and smash their headquarters and kill their leader in Dead Mines, and then you go into the Stormwind prison to slaughter the rest of them that have been captured because they organize a prison revolt after not being fed.
It’s sloppy ass writing because they are trying to do that Liberal thing of making a sympathetic villain who goes too far and has to be stopped, but in this case your character is a mass murdering Pinkerton thug who is worse by any definition than the Defias were.
I don’t remember as many details, but last time I played WoW I was struck by how many of the Tauren stories talk about their struggle and the threat this and that species are to them, and so you go and massacre centaurs, quillboars, etc. Meanwhile, the Tauren have fucking Thunder Bluff where the others have some tents or dens under overgrown trees. Its straight up Zionist shit.
i seem to remember there was something about a dragon manipulating things behind the scenes but that’s not an excuse
generally Blizzard seems to be allergic to good writing, for one good thing there are ten bad things
SI:7 is also an incredibly stupid name for a fantasy setting
God, blizzard always had the worst writing didn’t they? Half of all their stories are about people being brainwashed by Lazer into being hot and evil. Somehow they found a way to do so much worse
Blizzard had decent writing until like Frozen Throne, everything after is just bad and it is getting worse year by year no matter what franchise they’re doing. Fucking Starcraft 2 with “Kerrigan is a jesus angel now
”
Maybe, but every single blizzard game does have a major plot point where a character is brainwashed. Millions of dollars spent on one of the writers mind control fetish. Kerrigan is the perfect example of their hentai tag writing system
Brainwashed or just “went craaaaazy!!” it’s real fucking bad, i agree
I once read a thread on
where a guy was complaining that another player in his party was derailing the session and trying to be the main character because… they were trying to treat bandits as humans whose material conditions led them to banditry and who could be reasoned with instead of banditry elementals that bandit around because that’s what they do so you just need to shut up and kill/imprison them.
I’ve been watching Critical Role campaign 1 recently and I think the way the DM addressed the party killing a fleeing enemy was relatively cool. Yeah, the old lady attacked them, but she was trying to flee and was put to sleep wherein someone then brutally killed her. The NPCs were all like “woah, that’s a bit much for heroes.” Old lady was basically just a faceless mercenary working for someone doing shady shit.
If I was ever in a campaign with people who didn’t do that I would take that as my cue to leave
under communism you’re not allowed to do ‘bandits’ until they’re phenotyped into outlaws, para-legal authorities, rural military resistance, or seasonally induced poverty alleviators
I would love to play a campaign of bandits