How do you guys feel about campaigns where you work for frightening and/or totalitarian regimes?

How do you guys feel about campaigns where you work for frightening and/or totalitarian regimes?
Besides, you know, 40k.

You see, us firing squads are a bit like taxmen, sir - everyone hates us, but we're just doin' our job, aren't we, lads?

Always wanted to run a Jovian campaign in Eclipse Phase without going too hard into Junta wank.

they're fun

2000AD kind of broke my taste in fictional settings.

Are we the bad guys?

>How do you guys feel about campaigns where you work for frightening and/or totalitarian regimes?
IT'S A THANKLESS JOB,
BUT SOMEBODY'S GOT TO DO IT...
PEELIN' OFF THE TISSUE INCH-BY-INCH,
SKINNIN' OFF THE MUSCLES, TOO.
HARVESTING THE KIDNEYS FOR THE FALL.
SAVIN' UP THE LIVERS IN THE FRIDGE.
NO ONE EVER THANKS ME WHEN IM DONE.
HOW SELF-ABSORBED PEOPLE CAN BE!

WITH A SLICE, OR A SNIP,
EENIE-MEENIE-MINIE-MOE...
WITH A CUT, AND A STITCH,
RETURNING ORGANS GOOD AS NEW!

IT'S A THANKLESS JOB!
BUT SOMEBODY'S GOT TO DO IT!
LIKE A MOP!
AND A BROOM!
NO ONE WANTS A THANKLESS JOB!

Well, sir, we "aim" to please!

GMs need to work hard to keep it from getting stale fast. Going too far too fast though is likely to trigger revolution within the party though.

>ally with rebels instead of killing them
>report back to headquarters and launch an attack from the inside while the rebels attack from the outside

Everytime.

>work for tyrannical regime
>genuinely cared for by government and kickass benefits if you work
>rebels funded by the next door Federation wants to end this

BOOTS ON REBEL NECKS BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

This
If there's vicious spacebugs out there I don't want a government where retards can vote to play nice with them or whatever

>Are we the baddies?

FTFY

>The rebels ideas sound noble
>They initiate a purge worse than anything before
>They etablish a terror regime and say it is regretable but has to be done to retain their benelovent rule
>They execute every person that had anything to do with previous regime including cleaning staff.cooks or any newspaper who did not outright denounce the government
>Bonus points for anarchy or outside threats which now occur because the state is weak

The key here is to do this slowly and have the rebels state good reasons why that poor janitor could be a danger to utopia. They will realize that its far worse than ever and its their fault.
Players will never again blindly trust "Freedom fighters"

If they treat me well, I'll give them my best go.

If they treat me like shit, I'll fuck them up myself.

I like to "aim" for the best possible customer experience, sir.

>believing in the imperialists propaganda
Shock therapy with shock troops. It's the only way.

>when regime is overthrown, and rebels in palace celebrating, blow up the palace
>rule the empire yourself when no one is left
If there's time in the campaign of course...

It can be enjoyable.

Generally, though, if you make a totalitarian regime work like a real totalitarian regime rather than a propaganda meme regime, the players will end up fighting the government.

It's fine. Anything is fine if the group isn't a bunch of children.

Spacebugs are truly the best thing for a totalitarian regime

Totalitarian regimes are the most efficient regimes around (no bothersome things like justification, checks and balances or constitutional guarantees to get in your way), but they're only as good as their leaders, which means that the best possible regime is a totalitarian regime with an immortal and incorruptibly just leader. In fanasy TTRPGs this is far from impossible, a nation could be run by a literal god for example.

So the ways I see it being done:
1. The aforementioned scenario: a totalitarian regime where the leader is actually perfect and everyone agrees it's best to let the Great Leader take care of everything and everyone.
2. An "evil" campaign where the players are part of some elite unit within that totalitarian regime but they're okay with it because it guarantees they and their families are at the front of the inevitable bread lines.
3. A "good" campaign where the players are part of some elite unit that eventually try to stage an internal exchange of power (either through a coup, an assassination or an outright revolt). Basically Operation Valkyrie: the game.

>not allying with the rebels long enough to give them some serious firepower, and then bring the whole wrath of the government down upon them
>spin it as a propaganda tool of how dangerous those rebels were and get a fun fight besides instead of wiping out a few dirty hippies for no real benefit
>gain the trust of the government for your actions, wait for a while before using your influence to hold a coup and set yourself up as all-powerful rulers, able to institute the good goals of the rebellion as you please, but with all the might of the totalitarian government
>you get to do everything the rebellion may have ever done far better than they could have done it

They're great for understanding how it must feel to live in the US.

"What is an Evocatus? An Evocatus is your friend, citizen. Since the revolution in 2050, those few selected for induction into the Legions are the forefront of human defense. Evocati give their civilian lives to receive the finest augmentations available to Terran science; from ceramic-bonded skeletal structures, to fibre-enhanced muscle mass, mechanical organ replacement and enhanced anti-infection medical nanomachinery, Evocati are far and away the finest fighting specimens known to man. Whether fighting techno-cults, rebels or alien invaders, the Evocati are mankind's first line of defense. Don't get in one's way! They might be out to save your life."

-Widely distributed Pamphlet, "Duties of the Citizen", c. 2302

Ok. Players I run campaigns for aren't triggered by a different setting and a perspective.

I rather enjoy Delta Green.

You are of course implying that local king offering you that bounty for killing a dragon isn't a prime example of a tyrant. See any peasants? He's oppressing them.

I expect I'd find it tedious. I've tried so many times to play complicated, pragmatic anti-heroic PCs, and every time the general tone for the rest of the party is either "high functioning sociopath" or "lol I stab u" and I end up being the moral center of the group because I'm roleplaying a character with any empathy at all. If I were in a Tyranny style campaign I would be sabotaging the dark lord constantly.

Thing about that is, you can't really stop a player from doing that without kicking them out of the game. If my evilest character is still a reasonable human being on some number of levels, then the least favourable consequences for acting on those traits is either some sort of messianic sacrifice, which validates the traits, or killing the character, which means I create a new character who is still played by me and still a generally decent person. Again, I've tried playing assholes, I can't do it.

So yeah, don't run evil campaigns for people who aren't up for it.

Nice. Not enough Genetic Opera references around.

:^)

I

Communism is the Reddit/9gag of political ideologies

Working for? Hell i'll play as one.

Democracy sucks, fascism rules!

Hearts of Iron 4 yo.

Trump (with no evidence) just accused Obama of wiretapping him. Very clearly to distract from the massive amount of ties his campaign has with Russian interests. It's like a South American or African dictatorship now except in America

>>They initiate a purge worse than anything before
>>They etablish a terror regime and say it is regretable but has to be done to retain their benelovent rule
>>They execute every person that had anything to do with previous regime including cleaning staff.cooks or any newspaper who did not outright denounce the government

You sound like an impeccable man of virtue.

The French revolutionaries were the original SJWs

Whoa, really gets that noggin joggin i tell you hwat

my doods

The funny thing is that Trump is right. It's just that everyone is the US is wiretapped. On the phone and internet.

Well the NSA spied on pretty much everyone, so he might be right. But you know, broken clock and all...

>le Russian connection meme
I love how everyone brings this up with essentially no evidence, but then ignores the fact that the Israelis and the Saudis have owned every president we've had for the last thirty years. Yes, Trump has a few buildings in Russia. Where is the actual connection? Did Obama's massively bloated NSA and CIA just fail to pick up the Trump Manchurian Candidate lead?

Oh but meanwhile, a third of Hillary Clinton's campaign funding came from the House of Saud, but that doesn't matter because murdering Arabs for oil money is only bad when a Republican does it. Hey remember like five fucking years ago when we were supposed to "reset" relations with Russia? What happened to that, and I mean besides an army of Democrat mercenaries attempting to overthrow two of Russia's neighbors.

God that one gets me hot. So many people put their faith in Hillary to help them overthrow a secular government, and now they're all going to die. I hope Assad spares whichever film crew does all of ISIS's videos so that we can have one last big one of the Syrian Army staking all of these foreigners on a road and marching the army over them until there's nothing left but a red paste and the faint smell of gefilte fish.

Hey, your English is pretty good. The programs at Moscow State University must be getting pretty top notch these days.

It was fun until the rest of the party decided they wanted to be heroes and killed off their characters. To keep up with the rest of the party, the GM basically made the villain we worked for betray ever code of conduct that my character follows so that I would abandon my post. It's been pain and suffering since then.

Playing the minions of a dark lord was a lot of fun. We were his personal squad of assassins, kingmakers, night raiders, and assault leaders. Where would we be sent next? Who knows, but will be a blast. How will we be paid? Who knows, but it will be a handsome reward. I miss those days.

They've been great ever since the Cold War. Ever heard of KGB sleeper agents?

I thought they did all their training in house?

Yeah Angalinia Jolie and the dude who played Sabertooth (not the first X-Men movie sabertooth)

Well, for the time they were rather radical - not as much in the field of women's rights, but they wanted to liberate slaves and have a democracy without a king involved at all, which was a huge gamechanger at the time.

And for all you anti-Trump people out there, a charismatic individual managed to raise his way to the top, got control of everything, declared himself Consul and then Emperor, and then set off to conquer the world.

>babbies first troll