When They Think You Aren't Watching, Storygamers Declare: "D&D is Fascist"/"Gygax was

[RPGPundit]

Storygamers have, for as long as they've existed, maintained a careful double-discourse on D&D and regular RPGs.  Whenever it's convenient for them, they'll pretend they have no problem with D&D, pretend they're fans, etc.

But whenever it's convenient for them, they have been all too happy to claim that D&D is incoherent, that regular RPGs cause brain damage, that the masses of the 'great unwashed' who like normal RPGs are morons.

And of course, as the discourse of identity-politics began to try to worm its way into the RPG hobby, the Storygamers (being predisposed to all elitist bullshit) adopted it wholeheartedly.  This is how we get something like this:




This is from a thread in the Storygames forum called "How Does Your Game Fight Fascism"? It begins with the presumption that RPGs are 'fascist' in nature, and that it is therefore a duty of 'woke' gamers to actively run and presumably write games that work to oppose that 'fascism'.

Naturally, by the 3rd post in the thread D&D is explicitly named as a "pro-fascist RPG". And that killing orcs is an example of "cruel, discriminatory thinking" (pity the poor orc!).  And then the statement that "My sense of Gygax is that he probably was a little bit fascist", because he "yearned for heroic adventuring".


So there you have it. Do you like killing orcs? Do you yearn for something heroic? YOU'RE A FASCIST, according the Storygames crowd. Because they define anything heroic as inherently at least "a little bit fascist", just like Gary "Adolph" Gygax.


There's a lot that could be said about all this, and we're chatting about it on theRPGsite, but fundamentally, there's three things I want to point out here:

a) it shows the two-tongued nature of the Storygaming crowd.  Anytime they pretend that they have 'no problem with D&D', remember how they said D&D and Gygax/Arneson was 'fascist'.

b) It shows their own moral bankruptcy that they equate the ideas of heroism and the struggle against evil with 'fascism'.  

c) And here's the most important point: they're just WRONG.

I explained exactly how this argument is wrong in an earlier post. But for the sake of 'tl;dr', here's the summary of it.  The narrative the storygamers want to push is basically this: "D&D players are crypto-fascists that make orcs a substitute for dark-skinned people and the D&D game is a fascist exercise in the extermination of 'lesser races', imperialism, colonialism, misogyny and everything we don't like. Heroism is wrong, and fighting evil is not virtuous. Civilization and rule of law are horrible and oppressive, and D&D promotes those things so it is evil too."

But that's not how almost anyone who plays D&D views it.

Here's the REAL 'narrative' of the typical D&D experience:
"a multiracial group of courageous individuals from different backgrounds, genders, social classes, and levels of education putting aside all their differences, religious and non-religious, lily-white defenders of the law and those with a somewhat shady criminal past, country-folk and city-folk, all coming together in unity and collaborating in an autonomous (and usually non-hierarchical) collective, a fraternity with a common cause, often run by consensus, to save helpless innocents from the orcs. And it is the orcs, not the PCs or their players, who are greedy vicious racists that hate everything that isn't them and would destroy any chance for peaceful co-existence and the rule of law (that can only be brought about by civilization)."

Yet somehow, that's never how the Storygamer-Swine want to see it. Because they don't just fail to understand D&D, they want to despise it, and anyone who likes it.


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Oversize + H&H's Chestnut


(25 January 2017)

[oggsmash]

I guess I was just never so in the know regarding how so many things are fascist.  I guess when calling folks racist, or sexist, Fascist is the next button to push.

[Omega]

All this when they arent trying to either co-opt regular RPGs.
Or just outright claim that RPGs were allways storytelling.
Or declare that that effectively everything on earth is storytelling.

[Warboss Squee]

Fighting evil is fascist?

Professor Bike Lock must be so confused right now.

[Mordred Pendragon]

Fuck the Storygamers!

[S'mon]

It's worth remembering that these people are operating under Adorno's cultural Marxist dialectic, where US mainstream culture (certainly pre-1968 US society) is Fascist. All those 1930s-1950s cowboy films are irredeemably Fascist, their tropes are Fascist.  Once you take that as your starting premise, and you look at Gary Gygax's D&D, then you can call D&D Fascist, because Gygax was actually fairly conservative in his tastes and D&D was mostly influenced by pre-1968 literature and (to a lesser extent) films.

Obviously, an actual empirical assessment of ascertainable truth indicates that neither mid 20th century US society, or Dungeons & Dragons, are actually Fascist.

I do think some games' settings have Fascist elements. Warhammer: 40,000 is probably the most famous and clear-cut example. Possibly also RIFTS, although I don't know RIFTS well, but that's my impression of the Coalition States, and I understand they can be the protagonists. But where WH40K sets up a whole universe to justify a Fascist ethos, Rifts AFAIK has the Nazi-esque Coalition States opposed to relatively nice-guy Tolkeen and lets you play either? So it lets you play either side, whereas WH40K hits you over the head with the Fash-hammer. In WH40K Fascism is Objectively Right, if you reject Fascism for (eg) Liberal Democracy you end up corrupted by Khaos or impregnated by a Gene Stealer.

[Abraxus]

Pundit you forgot that the designers were racist. After all Drow= Black person. How can they prove the fact it's because of the Drow skin color. Total ignoring the creation myth of Drow. Whereby they were given a darker skin color for betraying the elven race and turning their back on the rest of the Elven pantheon.

[Chris24601]

I do think some games' settings have Fascist elements. Warhammer: 40,000 is probably the most famous and clear-cut example. Possibly also RIFTS, although I don't know RIFTS well, but that's my impression of the Coalition States, and I understand they can be the protagonists. But where WH40K sets up a whole universe to justify a Fascist ethos, Rifts AFAIK has the Nazi-esque Coalition States opposed to relatively nice-guy Tolkeen and lets you play either? So it lets you play either side, whereas WH40K hits you over the head with the Fash-hammer. In WH40K Fascism is Objectively Right, if you reject Fascism for (eg) Liberal Democracy you end up corrupted by Khaos or impregnated by a Gene Stealer.

The Coalition States are... complicated. The leadership is unabashedly fascist, but the soldiers on the front lines (and some of the generals) are mostly just trying to keep their families save from the horrors of the Rifts. CS troops stuck on garrison duty in the hinterlands might even look the other way when magic-user happens to take out a threat to the people they're protecting instead of following the official policy of gunning them down as a monster and danger to the people.

So you could run a CS-based game the same way you'd do any evil-aligned D&D game, as a Soviet Army vs. the SS game (i.e. bad vs. even worse) or even a Schindler's List type game (good people stuck in a bad government and trying to make the best of it). In D&D terms the CS is basically the lawful evil faction that spends most of its time fighting the chaotic evil factions.

And Tolkeen by the time the war broke out was definitely a chaotic evil faction (at the leadership level). It was as bad or worse than the Coalition States in their war. Two key turning points in the war were when they summoned up a bunch of demons to commit massacres. It won them those battles, but it cost them a lot of support from other magic-using communities and won the Coalition States allies in the process. Their biggest fuck-up was trying to ally with Free Quebec, who'd basically been kicked out of the CS and declared an enemy because they refused to turn their people into illiterate cogs in a machine and turn their advanced military tech over to the central CS authorities, and try to win their alliance by ambushing a bunch of unsuspecting CS troops.

The problem for Tolkeen (who was viewing it purely as "enemy of my enemy is my friend") was that, despite being political enemies, Free Quebec was still unabashedly anti-magic/pro-human and couldn't abide by having their fellow humans massacred by demons and so, instead of letting the ambush happen, Free Quebec took heavy losses saving the CS troops from the ambush. That act was enough of an excuse for the Central CS Authorities to end the war with Free Quebec (which they'd badly misjudged in terms of opposition, both from Free Quebec and within the rest of the CS... fighting their fellow humans when demons threatened them all was NOT popular) and then ally with them to wipe out the dastardly Tolkeen. It basically took the CS from fighting a two-front war (where one front was deeply unpopular and hurting overall morale) to fighting a single front war with fresh allies backing them up and a new rallying cry to motivate them in the fight.

Kevin Siembieda doesn't get near enough credit for the nuances he's put into Rifts. Outside of a few outright monsters (usually literal demons) most large organizations are a mix of good and bad elements and the real heroism is found at the individual level of both sides.

[Headless]

I know I've read Pundits opening post before, but the date stamp is yesterday?

That stuff about rifts is completly new to me and interesting thank you.

[Brand55]

I know I've read Pundits opening post before, but the date stamp is yesterday?

That stuff about rifts is completly new to me and interesting thank you.

Look at the bottom of Pundit's post and you'll see the original post date.

Yeah, the Coalition States are complicated in that just dismissing them as EEEEEVVVVILLLL is wrong. There are problems with what they do for sure, but without them humanity would have been thoroughly fucked in North America. The human race would have been reduced to smaller pockets rather than still being the most numerous. And that ambiguity among CS members allows them be used as simple antagonists or for more nuanced campaigns within the CS itself.

But, to be honest, it really doesn't matter since everyone is gonna lose out to the bugs in the end, anyway.

[Chris24601]

Nah, the Xicticiks will be a threat right up until they seriously threaten the CS heartland. They're powerful, but not all that adaptable.

CS General Holmes has already found tactics for successfuly navigating an entire army through their territory (its how his forces survived one of those Tolkeen massacres. Everyone thought they were dead, choosing death by Xicticik over what the demons intended to do to them, but they were able to turtle up and make it through with minimal losses and ended up on Tolkeen's unguarded flank completely unnoticed shortly before what became the final battle of the war (on account of Holmes' men sweeping into the city from behind while their main forces where stuck in a pitched battle on the other side and taking out their leadership).

And they have city-buster nukes (not the little ones the PC's can get... Multi-Megaton ICBM's). They're hesitant to use them due to the prospect of reigniting the Rifts and bringing about Apocalypse 2.0, but if its that risk or humanity being wiped out those hives will be blown off the map and the drones will die out pretty quickly without their queens.

Also worth knowing is the only reason the CS and/or the New German Republic haven't already re-established global communications is because the survivors in orbit are so batshit paranoid about the horrors down on the surface that they've been maintaining a counter-orbit debris field and killsat arrays (armed with nukes and X-Ray lasers) to wipe out anything that tries to leave the planet. They've been listening to the radio chatter from down below so while they might not let anyone out. They'd probably set X-Ray lasers to "make it glow in the dark for the next thousand years" if the Xicticik's looked like they'd make it out of North America (they're terrified of revealing themselves, but there's still a certain degree of expectation they'll be able to go home someday).

And even that failed, the Vampire Kingdoms of Mexico wouldn't take kindly to losing their food source and Lord Splyncryth of Atlantis wouldn't want to lose his slave stock/entertainment and would probably step in to deal with the bugs if the CS or one of the other NA powers couldn't.

[S'mon]

Whereby they were given a darker skin color for betraying the elven race and turning their back on the rest of the Elven pantheon.

I know you mean well sureshot, but you're really not helping there.

Edit: Re above RIFTS/CS discussion, it sounds as if RIFTS is actually more pro-Fascist than I thought. "There are problems with what they do for sure, but without them humanity would have been thoroughly fucked in North America" is the same approach WH40K uses to justify a Fascistic regime and its philosophy. Life is Pain, the Enemy are Always Worse, only Total Obedience can Bring Victory, etc. The same philosophy Verhoeven satirised in his Starship Troopers.

[Headless]

I always thought the CS were the bad guys.  

I love reading this kind of pseudo history.  Is there a good online site where its all collected?

I am going into backshift weekend and need some uplefting reading material.

[Brand55]

Edit: Re above RIFTS/CS discussion, it sounds as if RIFTS is actually more pro-Fascist than I thought. "There are problems with what they do for sure, but without them humanity would have been thoroughly fucked in North America" is the same approach WH40K uses to justify a Fascistic regime and its philosophy. Life is Pain, the Enemy are Always Worse, only Total Obedience can Bring Victory, etc. The same philosophy Verhoeven satirised in his Starship Troopers.

It's not really a justification since there are examples of much better human groups out there that work, saved lots of lives, and don't have the sorts of problems that the CS do. It's just that the CS is presented as a very dark gray organization with a mix of good and bad individuals in it that, while it does terrible stuff to those that aren't "normal" humans, also managed to save humanity in their one corner of the world. Would a less-fascist CS have worked and managed to thrive given all the threats that plagued North America when the rifts first came? I honestly don't know. It's certainly up for debate.

And the crack about the bugs was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I don't seriously think they'll take over the world, but they do provide a nice, inhuman threat to blow up now and again.

[Brand55]

I always thought the CS were the bad guys.  

I love reading this kind of pseudo history.  Is there a good online site where its all collected?

I am going into backshift weekend and need some uplefting reading material.

They typically are portrayed as such, but as with a lot of things it depends on your point of view. Since they are violently hostile to the sorts of characters many people will play, they are usually used in the role of antagonists. That doesn't mean you won't run into good people fighting for them or that, especially if you're a regular person in that world, lots of people rely on them for survival.

I'm afraid I can't help you with the history apart from suggesting the official forums. I've only read a few RIFTS books so a lot of the smaller details I know from the setting come from discussions there.