This thread started to get political, so the side discussion needs a new home.
Now I've heard it all. That one goes down in the anals, man.
Hey; nobody tell my players I voted for Romney. I think they're having fun.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's like a big tractor trailer hauling vinegar hit a big tractor trailer hauling water: "doushhhhhhhhhhe!!!"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I voted for Obama. Free flayleaf and cure diseases for everyone!
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
*slowly backs out of the trap*
Whoever has the fanciest shiny dice-things is the King/Queen/Royal Androgyne?
I voted for Queen Ileosa, but that was before she got so commercial.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Dumbest thread yet? Nah. Seriously, the competition is pretty awe-inspiring.
Let me just nominate Last one to post wins.
|
I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this thread. I mean, is it questioning whether we notice that Game Masters with particular political ideologies tend to run their games in different ways?
Because if that is the question, then no. I have not noticed any major qualitative differences. Where one stands on the political spectrum doesn't really seem to influence one's play style.
I guess the only time politics would influence a Game Master's style of running is if they are such a fanatic that their ideology starts seeping into the game. In such a case, I think the games being run would be universally awful, whether I had to fight against the war-mongering Orcish Horde leader Borge Gush, or the defeat the machinations of the evil vizier Krobama.
Well, I am a communist, and I once ran a campaign where the PCs were detainees in a Reeducation Through Labor Supercenter. Does that help?
Vive le Galt!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The GM wants you to be happy.
Happiness is mandatory.
Are you happy, player?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You wake up in cloning chamber 3.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this thread. I mean, is it questioning whether we notice that Game Masters with particular political ideologies tend to run their games in different ways?
Because if that is the question, then no. I have not noticed any major qualitative differences. Where one stands on the political spectrum doesn't really seem to influence one's play style.
Where one stands on the political spectrum has an impact on (or, at least, a correlation with) a huge range of other factors. Given the philosophical depth with which many gamers tend to treat the practice of running a D&D game, it would actually surprise me if there weren't an effect on how the game is run based on the GM's political beliefs.
I don't think I've ever had a conservative GM, so my own anecdotal experience is pretty worthless here (not that it would be worth much anyway), but I am curious.
I'm sure there's a study you could find somewhere, Scott ;)
[
Where one stands on the political spectrum has an impact on (or, at least, a correlation with) a huge range of other factors. Given the philosophical depth with which many gamers tend to treat the practice of running a D&D game, it would actually surprise me if there weren't an effect on how the game is run based on the GM's political beliefs.
That's bullpuckey, unless you're talking about someone who's so extreme in their beliefs, that they've lost the capability to have any form of balanced outlook on life period, not just in gaming.
IF bias is going to make itself known, it'll be in the matter of story creation (which I generally won't have a problem with), not in how mechanics are parsed.
Because you say so, or what? Political beliefs are correlated with a truly ridiculous number of factors, many that are seemingly completely unrelated to politics.
The original thread brought up the hypothesis that a conservative GM might be more likely to deny XP to characters whose players were not able to make it to a game session - the thinking being that conservatives are more likely to value the idea that rewards should only be given to those who earn them.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This is funny...
I'm conservative, but when I run a game, I give out the same xp rewards regardless of involvement, or level of RP.
I'm in a game run by 2 liberal folks, and if I miss a game night, no matter the reason (but most of the time it's becasue I'm on-call, and I have work to do), I am given no points.
Everyone in the game group I've run for save one is a conservative.
Everyone in the game group I play in save one (me) is a liberal.
Anecdotal, for sure.
If you look at the thread this one spawned off of, the suggested correlation was between a conservative "earn your XP, get nothing if you miss games" and a liberal "everyone gets the same to keep the game balanced" approach. Which seems a plausible correlation with at least certain aspects of the political spectrum.
No idea if it's actually true, but it doesn't seem obvious nonsense. Nor does it require raving lunatic levels of extremity.
I'm communist and I don't give absent players xp. If, for whatever reason, only a portion of the party participates in a fight, I adjust xp so that only the participants get xp.
He who does not attend gaming sessions, neither shall he earn xp.
Even if there is some truth in it, I doubt it would be a 100% correlation.
If you mean p = 1, it certainly wouldn't be; nothing with political belief is.
That's a classic example of being hung up on labels. to the extent that Ayn Rand was when she conceived of characters as being nothing more than ciphers defined by a single note.
No, I really don't think it is.
I've met people who would be described as extremely "liberal" on one topic and reactionary conservative on another.
So have I. That doesn't mean that people don't tend to self-describe in a certain way, or utilize those labels themselves in making decisions about their political beliefs and actions.
In real life people are more complex than they themselves realize. Even the topic itself is simplistic in approach. I can be rather a rather ruthless stickler in mechanics application, yet be more than willing to make allowances in personal situations otherwise.
Sure. But measuring "official policy" is a good way to start.
I'm also a strong believer that the labels of "liberal" and "conservative" serve more to obscure, divide, and distract than they do any useful purpose.
And I'm a believer that they have concrete meaning, and represent a useful abstraction of personal philosophy.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Nonono we need to make it an alignment discussion now!!!1
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Scott, Do you also believe that alignment exists in real life?
Where do you think you're going with this, LazarX?
Let me save you some time.
No, the concept of alignment is not a perfect way to describe human morality. It is an abstraction that serves the purpose of allowing us to roughly categorize characters based on approximate moral inclinations.
Similarly, the concept of political labeling is not a perfect way to describe political beliefs. It is an abstraction that serves the purpose of allowing us to roughly categorize people based on approximations of their beliefs. On an individual basis it is not particularly useful (or necessary, for that matter; if you're studying one person, it's very easy to get a more in-depth picture of their actual political beliefs). But when studying a population, things tend to even out. This is made all the more true by the fact that we tend to use political labeling ourselves as a heuristic for determining our own political beliefs. The average person's level of political sophistication is fairly low - pick a given issue and they probably won't be able to tell you what's at stake, who the major players are, and what policies have been proposed to deal with it. Despite that, nearly everyone manages to have an opinion. This is because we use labeling (a heuristic) in lieu of personal analysis of the issue to decide where we fall.
Long story short, political labeling is not a perfect way to describe beliefs, but it is a useful way to describe beliefs when studying populations, and is regularly used in both polling and scholarly research in order to draw conclusions.
It is a fun fact that political affiliation is apparently an inherited trait, from twin studies. It correlates more to your biological parents' political stance than to that of your social parents. Then again, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the various parts of our personalities are what determine our political leanings.
I would be unsuprised if political leaning translated to personal gaming preferences. The more politically liberal GMs I know tend to favor free form systems, while the few libertarian GMs I know tend for more old school authoritarian GM systems. It is a fairly small sample set though. I do find this trend interesting though, since the people who "want the government out of their lives" the most want to have the strictest control over the game.
It is a fun fact that political affiliation is apparently an inherited trait, from twin studies. It correlates more to your biological parents' political stance than to that of your social parents. Then again, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the various parts of our personalities are what determine our political leanings.
Not only that, it's been known for some time now that political belief is at least somewhat related to a number of what one might term instinctual traits (like the strength of a person's fear response).
I would be unsuprised if political leaning translated to personal gaming preferences. The more politically liberal GMs I know tend to favor free form systems, while the few libertarian GMs I know tend for more old school authoritarian GM systems. It is a fairly small sample set though. I do find this trend interesting though, since the people who "want the government out of their lives" the most want to have the strictest control over the game.
One of the fundamental approaches to developing research involves looking at your own anecdotal experience and wondering whether or not that experience generalizes to the rest of the world.
It is a fun fact that political affiliation is apparently an inherited trait, from twin studies. It correlates more to your biological parents' political stance than to that of your social parents. Then again, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the various parts of our personalities are what determine our political leanings.
Both of my parents are borderline militantly apolitical. My mother has sympathies towards the Democrats (bleeding heart, tolerance towards minorities), my father, the Republicans (get yer hands off my guns, I don't want to pay taxes).
Also, as a DM I never award experience points to communist leaning goblins, why they already have so many levels it is difficult to contain them at all.
XP?!? XP?!? We don't need no stinkin' xp!!! We've got Mythic tiers, biznitches!
I would be unsuprised if political leaning translated to personal gaming preferences. The more politically liberal GMs I know tend to favor free form systems, while the few libertarian GMs I know tend for more old school authoritarian GM systems. It is a fairly small sample set though. I do find this trend interesting though, since the people who "want the government out of their lives" the most want to have the strictest control over the game.
...while this runs directly counter to my experiences, as mentioned above.
One of the best games I've ever had the pleasure of playing in was run buy an a-political athiest. Does that mean anything?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would be unsuprised if political leaning translated to personal gaming preferences. The more politically liberal GMs I know tend to favor free form systems, while the few libertarian GMs I know tend for more old school authoritarian GM systems. It is a fairly small sample set though. I do find this trend interesting though, since the people who "want the government out of their lives" the most want to have the strictest control over the game....while this runs directly counter to my experiences, as mentioned above.
One of the best games I've ever had the pleasure of playing in was run buy an a-political athiest. Does that mean anything?
I've never understood how a person can actually be apolitical. What does that even mean? That you're cool with whatever decisions everyone else makes for you?
My own experience with gamers is that politcal beliefs don't influence much on how the game is played.
Though I am sure there are GMs and players who force their beliefs into asnd onto the game. Personaly the beliefs are not a bad thing...it is usualy the tactics used to do so(ie being forced) leads to the bad.
As I said, a suggested correlation and not obviously nonsense.
Certainly not proven or even closely examined. A proper study would be amusing, but probably not enlightening.
Agree with thejeff. Both GM style and political views are influenced by personalty, background, interests, education etc. Some degree of correlation seems obvious.
For the record my BBEGs are typically LE casters manipulating events from behind a facade of legitimacy and I vote for a minor party (smack in the centre on the euro political scale but likely far left of anything in US).