Alright guys, a good friend of mine just asked me to DM a campaign for some of the guys at our fencing club.
Which would be fine and fun, except they're all uber liberal, and he asked me to run a redpill campaign, because I guess he has a fetish for intellectual strife and conflict. And for better or worse, I agreed.
I'm going to use 5th ed because I own the books and know how to DM it. Which plants me in a fantasy setting. What are some setting aspects I can insert without giving away what I'm doing?
>Big empire stand in for America, surrounded by shitholes >Empire used to be elven, but they now account for 1% of the population >Humans were originally demon touched war mongers >Elves died to purify them, they're still making reperations >The arcane plantations have been naitonalized to create the dole >Gold is illegal to own, but recovered gold can be exchanged for fiat currency >>This is to control advanced spellcasting
I'm also going to obscure it with things like corrupting mist that comes out at night, driving people mad if they don't burn it off with an open flame, or seal it out with their homes. The Mist turns animals into monsters, minions of the demon lords.
Pick mostly unrelated. I may include cute ninja girls as further distraction as I build up my momentum.
Samuel Jones
Say, "no".
Ayden Campbell
Correct. Just don't do it.
Carter Jenkins
please just stop posting
William Nguyen
ITT: Veeky Forums the triggered board
Ryan Flores
Close the thread and move on.
Connor Walker
He was asking advice. The best advice anyone could give is "just don't do it".
Brayden Sanchez
D'you ever think it's odd that the most fragile thin-skinned everything-must-be-my-way babies are the ones always shouting about everyone else is "triggered" or "snowflakes"?
Hunter Reyes
This sounds like a bad idea. But what do I know I'm only here because the OP picture caught my eye. >classic blunder.
Isaiah Rogers
I'm not going to trigger my friend and my knees are too shot to continue fencing, there's very little at risk here.
Matthew Rivera
would that your fingers were too shot to continue posting
at BEST you're being duplicitous and sneaking politics into a game unnoticed but basically every other outcome leads to you pissing off the players and the group falling apart, with varying degrees of humiliation for everyone involved
whatever you think of these people's political opinions, you're asking a traditional games board for surefire ways to ruin your traditional games group. what kind of advice did you expect?
Joseph Campbell
Why in the world would you say yes when somebody asks you to write a political spite campaign? Are you trying to lose friends?
Carson Ross
With zero regard for the stuff he's trying to push: If you think you have to con people into agreeing with you then perhaps you need to reflect on your own lack of trust in your beliefs.
As for the actual opinions and content: >arcane plantations... >Gold is illegal to own... >>This is to control advanced spellcasting I hope this is bait, because if this is in earnest it's some of the goofiest schlock I've ever read. This is "Racial Holy War" levels of transparent.
There's very little risk in me drinking my own piss, but that doesn't mean I'll agree to do it. Especially if drinking my own piss took dozens of hours to do and gave me less time to do anything else I actually enjoy.
Carter Moore
also, why are you good friends with such a spineless weasel?
Parker Robinson
Too heavy handed. Too convoluted. Try something more basic and slip the red pills in slowly. Like taxes and paperwork they need to have or fake having to travel most places. No education system, average people no little of things a few miles from home. Slowly work to find huge cities of buerocrats and politicians. They tax the fuck out of you but live quite richly. The PCs would be rich with magic by then and they'd welcome them into the upper elite. They become communist secret police killing dissidents for having books, or speaking out against equality of the city folk and country folk. This could be one human kingdom where escape is very hard because of the border wall to keep them in.
Aiden Brooks
I gave him a fetish for rational discussion over the three years I've known him, and he's grown to hate liberals that can't defend a position.
Funny thing is he still thinks he's a liberal, but I can no longer find liberal views he still holds other than being pro-gray and pro-choice.
Isaiah Wood
Get them to do Norma missions for the communists but there are conditions they specify. Hunt Down and Destroy the orc settlements: no survivors. They kill women and children at the behest of the commies, revealing their racism. Have them attack and break up "Facist Riots", the players bringing the violence and suppression to the peaceful protest, revealing their fascism. At the end, hold a mirror up to them. A banquet where they are awarded Nazi-esq armbands and badges for their achievements in the party. Of course you'd need to play up the humans being super all inclusive of all races and okay with gay people. But those lib types would love it at the table. You'd get to troll your pol friend too a little. A win win. Do what I said.
Kayden King
>fetish for rational discussion >asks you to subvert discourse to try and control opinion
Additionally: you didn't actually answer the question.
Julian Cooper
Fuck off /pol/ shitbags
William Cox
I'm actually DMing a game now for a group of young libs. They're all older than college age though. They think the humans in my setting are racist against elves. They don't know that elves are basically monsterous shapechanging terrorists during the conflict and the humans are right to mistreat them. They've basically been learning that viewing the humans as the racists puts them directly in the wrong in everything and actually several of the party members have elven background and are a part of the problem and the reemergence of most of the conflict they deal with. Basically, around elves, watch yourselves.
Carson Parker
You cannot reason a person out of a position they did not reason themselves into.
If their belief is emotionally held, emotion is the lever to change it, facts are merely the weight on the lever.
The expectation is discourse/argument will flow
And I wouldn't call him spineless, but he does fancy himself an IRL troll.
Samuel James
My party had a character while I was gone that had a swatsika spear. Now I'm back and that same player made a new PC that is the old character's brother and now we have a bunch of slightly magic nazi gear. He has a shitty shield that doesn't have a swastika design on it, it is the shape of a swastika, massive gaps included.
Saging because this thread seems bad
Easton Martinez
Given what he asked you to do I don't see any reason to assume that your own beliefs have any actual argument to them. >And I wouldn't call him spineless Then you're ignoring the whole "help me gaslight people" thing.
This also doesn't answer the question.
Jaxon Wright
This is basically just a magical realm where the gross fetish you're pushing on your players against their will is your politics.
>he does fancy himself an IRL troll.
Lovely, do you guys understand that pretending to be an asshole to get a rise out of people is the same as actually being an asshole?
Robert Brown
More thoughts of a politically subversive campaign. The righteous rebels. The players are rebels against an evil, racist, facist neighboring empire. They attack traveling knights, caravans and eventually a mine, a town and the castle. The thing is with each of their victories the righteous kingdom they destroy becomes worse to live in, the people are taxed more, the roads become more dangerous with monsters, the streets at night are covered in thrieves thugs and robbers. Maybe problems get worse like no garbage handling in the city building up rats because of tax shortages to pay for more guards that keep getting killed at alarming rates. But pat the backs of the NPCs and always blame the "evil racist" kingdom for defending itself. If they win savage monsters and bandits take over the whole kingdom. Through increasingly dangerous encounters at them as you describe why such beasts would be roaming this close to the desolated unguarded townships.
Luis Perez
>Saging because this thread seems bad IIRC it's like reporting in that you're not supposed to announce when you do it (but I agree the thread is bad; it's got a few /pol/-bait hallmarks like "white people are elves")
Jeremiah Scott
user
elves are the jews
Ryan Watson
>he asked me to run a redpill campaign i'm still stuck on the premise, can someone translate it from horseshit to english?
regardless of where they lie, trying to inject your own political beliefs into a campaign strikes me as just being a cunt, especially if you know your PCs don't quite jive with them. on the other hand it sounds like your friend is asking specifically for you TO do that, which seems ill-advised on their part but doesn't amount to you being shitty.
assuming the latter, the way you're going at it is so hilariously heavy-handed that i'm pretty sure the entire thread is a troll. you really don't need to try so hard, the default D&D universe has a shitload of racial and economic tension already built in that you can use
Logan Reyes
Reveal to them after all that the person financing them is the foreign king to the south that wanted more land, tax money and misery to profit from.
Nolan Carter
It's dwarves, they were always the Jews. I don't even know how you'd get the idea to make elves your Jewish stand in.
Logan Rogers
>I'll take things that never happened for 500 Alex
Michael Jackson
I research conspiracy theories for fun, and if there's one presiding trend it is this: *everything* is jews to people prone to racialist comparisons.
Luke King
A game in which right wing politics is the correct answer in the scenario.
I think it's best to do it with subtlety, slowly. Describe refugees begging for gold in the streets. Guilt them into giving them gold, crowds rush and they have to give more get robbed or fight. Never overtly make them different races or anything like that. Just describe lots of beggars and homeless, blame the evil king though. Refugees could rob the players or just be bandits the players Kill along the road. Regular premesis in DnD are pretty AnCap as fuck anyway. Roll up on some bandits who want your shit for traveling "their" road, don't agree, kill them and take their shit because of the implication of applied force inherent in levying tax for travel.
Jack Robinson
>I'm going to use 5th ed because I own the books and know how to DM it. Which plants me in a fantasy setting. What are some setting aspects I can insert without giving away what I'm doing?
Go watch LOGH and borrow some of it's critiques of democracy
Charles Johnson
>Describe refugees begging for gold in the streets. Guilt them into giving them gold, crowds rush and they have to give more get robbed or fight. >subtle oh wait you're serious, let me laugh even harder
>A game in which right wing politics is the correct answer in the scenario. having any one single "right" answer is a surefire way to piss off your PCs
Ayden Ramirez
That might be to highbrow. He should probably just read the Sword of Truth series.
Blake Torres
OP, I think this has gone far enough. You have an answer, more or less - don't do it. It's not about what you believe politically or what they do, just that what you're trying fundamentally undermines the point of a social, tabletop game.
If you carry on any further with this shit I think we'll have to assume you came here not for gaming advice but just to /pol/-post.
Connor Jenkins
>Tells user to watch something >Only gives the initialism, not the name of the show
Thanks.
Dylan Harris
I mean, he did. If he had the slightest clue about anything he'd just run Dark Heresy for them, given that w40k is the comical over-the-top setting where xenophobia, resistance to change, and ruthlessness are the only actual answers. Except he'd be playing it dead seriously and going "See? See how it reflects on real life? Don't my political views seem enightened to you?"
I suggest sucking on an exhaust pipe or sleeping on railroad tracks, OP. Don't come onto a board for traditional games and ask for help making some people's first exposure to traditional games as unpleasant as possible. Fuck you.
Easton Rogers
Don't listen to these pussies, saying "don't do it." Veeky Forums is filled to the brim with shitheads that still use the jock-nerd dichotomy and are too chickenshit to do anything. The passive aggresive snarky whining should make that clear.
Fucking do it. Now here's how it works- You got an anti-murder hobo media. That's the first big thing. The media is very very anti-murder hobo. To the point that your player characters loathe to actually become murder hobos and only do it because there's no other options. So they do a murder hobo session, they get the loot and gold and that's fine. End 1st session.
Second session starts with the inn owner waking the adventures up. Apparently, the looted lair was the holding ground for innocent [creatures] and the adventurers ruthlessly slaughtered them. Your group KNOWS that to be bullshit, and try to argue it out, but no one listens to them. To make things worse, the local government hit your group with a fine. An exorbitant unpayable fine. Session 2 is getting out of that town alive.
Now they need to find who did them dirty. The long and the short of it, is that it's run by bankers and mafiosos who are playing governments and murderhobos for fools. The PC group is just another group of murderhobos being used to destabilize societies and erode trust in local governments.
NOW THE FUN SETS IN It's not just about getting justice on those who did them dirty. The whole system is fucked head to toe. Not just murderhobos, but prostitution, genocide (against one of the PC's who spend about half of the game without being discriminated against), child abuse, sexual slavery, the works.
Turns out that the bankers and mafiosos have an "inner circle" full of wizards. The quest is now taking down one of the five wizards, because the power structure is shaky. 1 will do the trick. That's when things get weird. Bloodborne weird.
Cameron Parker
>>Big empire stand in for America, surrounded by shitholes
Annndd it's shit. Never use real world a analogs
Christopher Harris
>shitheads that still use the jock-nerd dichotomy
What the fuck does that have to do with anything? OP's talking about going all That DM on his players, and you're talking about jocks and nerds memes? Are you drunk or something?
Landon Collins
Did I strike a nerve with a throwaway comment?
Zachary Gray
You struck a nerve with your whole thread m8.
Connor Wilson
Yes, it's a nerve called "wtf is he on about."
Benjamin Mitchell
>my thread You must under some strong delusion, there's 43 posts, and I'm the 20th poster. Ain't my thread, although someone is samefagging hard in this thread.
Nathan Bennett
No doubt.
The jock/nerd dichotomy should have died 40 years ago but it sticks in the nerd mythos like a used condom.
Robert Gutierrez
I'm relatively sure his post was written ironically, to mock OP.
Chase Gomez
If it's not obvious to you by now, one of the many, many reasons this is a bad idea is that the malleable nature of campaign settings prevents roleplaying games from making meaningful arguments about public policy or political philosophy. In reality, human behavior is complex and poorly understood, which makes it hard to predict how a given organizational structure will perform or what a particular policy will do; in a campaign, organizations and people behave however the GM wants them to behave, meaning that the "right" course of action is whatever the GM wants it to be. It is trivial to concoct a setting in which a planned economy becomes a utopia, or one in which the Jews really DO control everything, in more or less the same way one can create a setting where a conspiracy within the US government struggles against the Great Old Ones. The fact that roleplaying games aren't tethered to reality in any way robs them of whatever force—emotional or otherwise—they might otherwise possess as political arguments, and any attempt to use a roleplaying game as a political allegory will come across as obnoxious, overbearing GM wankery.
>The expectation is discourse/argument will flow This is a deeply stupid thing to expect.
Sincere political discussions don't work very well in real time anyway; you need time to think about one another's arguments, read each other's sources, and compose responses thoughtfully and respectfully. Verbal exchanges generally don't go anywhere.
Carter Sanders
Unless you're going for parody/comedy, politicized campaigns designed to "teach" your players are normally a bad idea, at best they'll usually come off as an (often unrealistic) strawman to your players at worst will just lead to OOC arguments from you punishing them for their IRL beliefs
And from what you'd said so far it's gonna be a complete disaster, you're already coming off as extremely heavy handed and blatant what you're goals are
>And I wouldn't call him spineless, but he does fancy himself an IRL troll. So an actual jackass?
>Subtle >That No, subtle would be having large numbers of homeless/begging, and many of those in power complaining about them, any decent investigation though will reveal that there was some negative incentive keeping them homeless/begging, that any attempt to work hard improve their quality of life actually causes it to decreases unless it's a major jump making it fundamentally pointless for many leading to a subculture where trying is known to be a bad idea
>having any one single "right" answer is a surefire way to piss off your PCs This, reward their creativity and efforts, if they go for some off the wall idea don't make it impossible just difficult (but within their means if they put the time/effort into it) to succeed, and if they can find a decent solution you didn't think of all the better
Isaac Garcia
The best thing you could do with it is to not run the setting as a ridiculous right-wing wank.
Present both advanced liberal and advanced authoritarian countries. Make people on bth sides genuinely care about their own and be mistrustful of others. Make some genuine scumbags on both sides. Show the horrors of war and strive for peaceful resolution. Show good sides and unsightly blemishes indiscriminately.
A bad political campaign is DM swinging his dick in helicopter motion while standing on a soapbox. A good political campaign makes players think and forces them into role they're not entirely comfortable with.
Liam Russell
Why not run a campaign where the players are rebels helping to topple a maniacal despot with small hands instead? They'd be happier with that kind of game, and you'd still be able to insert political themes in it.
Chase Wood
Swastica as a symbol is TEN THOUSAND YEARS OLD. Ignore the nazi fucks, acquire epic shit from hindu myths.
Nicholas Cox
Legend of the Galactic Heroes. That is pretty much everything you need to watch to discuss politics most of the time.
Owen Martin
>liberals getting red pill suppository
David Martinez
This seems like the best approach. I second it.
Adrian Hernandez
These people don't want a campaign. These people want to piss each other off. Don't get into their shitflinging contest.
Alexander Rogers
>ITT: lots of triggered libcuck samefagging >waah, don't you dare try to spread any sort of views or ideas that I don't agree with
Anthony Edwards
Imagine what Veeky Forums would be like if Moot let /pol/ stay dead instead of bringing it back.
Alexander Lopez
>OP proposes enacting fantasy versions of socialist policies >WOW COULD YOU BE MORE TRANSPARENT Really makes the neurons fire
Mason Ortiz
We'd have some other plague instead.
Noah Baker
You still have /v/, /b/, /tv/, and /a/ running around.
Zachary Cox
This. Cute Tieflings are my fetish
Landon Powell
>pro-gray
ayy
Isaiah Martin
I was hoping there'd be more of them.
Dylan Diaz
>Has the money to fence >Has the social acumen to belong in a club and actually have friends >Still wants to destroy america with feminism and islam, presumably just to look "progressive" with other deconstructivist shitheads.
Why are people so retarded?
Bentley Murphy
Make the setting a communist global government. Make the government stifle all their efforts to better themselves beyond what's allowed of them and violently attack any criticism of the government not being "true equality"..
Brody Smith
You can have an evil religion born in a foreign state that presents a mask of peace half assedly, with the government and merchant guilds defending and facilitating their take over. They desecrate holy sites, have their own courts and burn people for seemingly minor offenses. Avoid making them DURKA DURKA, you just have to implant the concept of invasive foreign religion. Make them despise the weak willed collaborators in government.
Xavier Morris
Make all the women terrible people. Like, every girl is a cheating slut who'll gleefully trade up for power and money any chance she gets. This is an important part of red-pill ideology: Money and power are everything.
Also, make people evil and ungrateful. The war refugees? The moment they're delivered, they start raping and stealing. Religious movements? Scam. Nobles? Corrupt as fuck, probably devil-worshippers. The populace? Greedy, out for themselves, stupid.
Only the superior ubermensch can rise to the top, and at the top he gets his turn to treat everyone with contempt.
Jaxson Brown
It's like you're living in Sweden with me, user. Unless this was sarcasm. If it was sarcasm, please visit me in Sweden.
Please be careful to not be raped.
Hudson Watson
Nah, I'm not Swedish. Some values are universal, though.
Look, a red-pill campaign is mostly about all your worst fears coming true, and that people really are that awful deep down. Embrace that, and go with it. The important thing to remember is that the PCs can trust no one, and being kind/trusting is to be weak.
A real red-pill campaign means that at the end of it all, when you finally get power, you really tear into people because they fucking deserve it. Like, you rule with an iron fist because that's all people understand.
Dylan Hill
I soon wish to rise to power in Sweden
John Hughes
All those boards are less annoying than generic /pol/ shitposting.
/a/ shit attitude and shit taste in anime, /v/ is /b/ for yung audience, /tv/ has shit memes ad nauseam, /b/ is just being /b/.
I would prefer a /b/ gore thread over delusional pseudo intellectual /pol/ shit.
Dominic Campbell
You realize it's a containment board, right? If he deleted it, it would be ALL OVER EVERY FUCKING BOARD.
Also, it's not nearly as bad as everyone assumes it is. A lot of it really is in jest.
Camden King
>Using tabletop games as a propaganda machine Fucking disgusting, you vile shitbag.
Juan Moore
Hey CTRfags in the thread, your bosses aren't playing you for Veeky Forums, only /pol/, go get BTFO there instead.
>51701493 You should totally do it OP, don't listen to these Mercenary folks.
Michael Ross
>be That DM >get called on it >lol why so triggered leftycucks CTR librul shillary lololol
Inserting your politics in a game knowing it will make your players mad is a dick move, no matter what your politics are.
Luke Williams
It's not to make them mad but to covertly implant ideas in them that will help them wake up from their liberal stupor.
Noah James
That's retarded. OP's not going to convert anyone, he's going to make a strawman universe where he's right and they're wrong, and they'll probably never play with him anymore.
Eli Baker
it was about >You still have /v/, /b/, /tv/, and /a/ running around.
and making a point that not a single of those boards are as annoying when they leak to other boards compared to /pol/ leaking. Not about /pol/ having right to exist or not.
>Also, it's not nearly as bad as everyone assumes it is. A lot of it really is in jest.
I know, I post there and was only making a point about absolutely annoying /pol/ shitposting is when it leaks after already being annoyed how decent discussions can turn into rampant frogposting.
Asher Smith
Doesn't even have to be modern America, could make it equivalent to Muslim occupied Spain free from the meme of "Muh tolerant Cordoba!!!"
>Ancient human kingdom was conquered by Elves from across the sea >People talk about how "Tolerant" and "Enlightened" The now Half-Elven Rulers are >When you go to the cities, you do in fact see Humans and Elves living together >Then you find out The Elves use The Dwarves exclusively as Tax Collectors and other Jobs >They play off Human and Dwarf tensions to distract everyone from them. >They try to culturally annihilate most of The Humans in rural territories whilst keeping the Urban cities as some bastion of 'Tolerance' >They see it as their duty to essentially lord over the "Ignorant Races" >The "Super Religious Barbarians in The North" are actually just trying to reclaim their homeland >Player campaign takes place smack in the middle of conflict between the now divided Elven and Human kingdoms.
Robert Foster
>That's retarded. OP's not going to convert anyone
That's a defeatist attitude. I've found that when it comes to conversions few people can take the undiluted red pill and so trivial exercises can help them along the way.
Parker Thomas
>That's a defeatist attitude.
It's a realistic one given the shit he's posted on this thread.
Adrian Edwards
>I want to piss off my players by presenting them with a world that is made only to oppose their belief system. Unless you're a storytelling genius, that's a bad idea, and a sure way to make sure the newbies don't touch a rpg ever again. The setting itself doesn't look bad.
Also, you only gave us setting info. What's the story supposed to be like? That's the thing that truly matters.
Gabriel Murphy
But taking the pill undiluted just turns the gun 180 degrees towards liberals, which just means that you didn't remove idiocy from the world you just directed away from yourself.
David Thomas
I don't think so. It seems very obvious to you now because you know the context from being in the thread, but out in the wild people are less likely to attribute motive to a fun adventure story.
Carter Myers
but doesn't the reconquista lead directly into the spanish inquisition? You know one of the worst parts of Catholicism?
Elijah Anderson
The inquisition is an overblown meme.
Brody Brooks
>A lot of it really is in jest. Isn't that what the students said about Columbine?
Christopher Reyes
Nah, the Inquisition was created by Malcador in XIIth century France to fight schismatics. The spanish inquisition mainly hunted protestants, even if they weren't picky when finding a jew or a muslim.
Counter-propaganda from protestants and anti-clericals, but it was still pretty atrocious. Not worse than the rest of the Justice at the time, though.
Blake Richardson
>he asked me to run a redpill campaign Have you tried suggesting your friend just talk to women? Just talk to them?
Leo White
>It's not to make them mad but to covertly implant ideas in them that will help them wake up from their liberal stupor. how exactly no really, how i can tell you have a very high opinion of yourself, but just because you present your opinion (especially if you do so "subtly") doesn't mean people are going to suddenly agree with you
David Green
>even if they weren't picky when finding a jew or a muslim They hunted apostates, recent jewish and muslim converts who secretly practiced their old faith. IIRC that well-known Spanish inquisitor was from Jewish family.
Justin Morgan
>just because you present your opinion (especially if you do so "subtly") doesn't mean people are going to suddenly agree with you
It's not about presenting an opinion it's about creating new mental paths to follow.
Standard liberal mental path: Someone speaks out against Islam -> Racist!
New mental path: Someone speaks out against Madeupbadreligion -> Good!
It can make them examine their current beliefs from a different point if view.
Thomas Green
if liberal media has failed to make you examine your beliefs from a different point of view why would your amateur attempt work any better on others this is literally the same fallacy of "video games cause violence" or "television shows cause sexism" fiction does not change your held beliefs about the world
Levi Lewis
>this thread
Kayden Sanders
>if liberal media has failed to make you examine your beliefs from a different point of view why would your amateur attempt work any better on others
I was liberal so it did work for quite some time but I believe the truth is inherently more powerful than propaganda and so it will eventually win.
>fiction does not change your held beliefs about the world
Maybe not so bluntly, but it can make people reexamine their thoughts and draw new conclusions. Nothing exists in a vacuum, once an idea is in your head it can be hard to remove it. It's why advertising works.
Isaiah Morgan
This is the gayest thing I have ever read. I'm going to screencap it and share it with other people so they can laugh at you for being such a fucking fuck-up, OP.
Ryder Jones
>but I believe the truth is inherently more powerful than propaganda and so it will eventually win. your beliefs are not the truth and it is very arrogant of you to say so, but you also have made exceedingly clear this discussion is meaningless because you will not change your beliefs if you want to make yourself out to be an ass and run a game so you and another person can get your kicks at the expense of everyone else go for it
Chase Peterson
>tfw I ran a campaign in which the players were part of the serf class rebelling against their cruel overlords and instituted a democratic commune after they killed the dark lord, giving them the true redpill in the process