Villain mostly recruits lonely people and social outcasts with promises of love & companionship in exchange for loyalty

>Villain mostly recruits lonely people and social outcasts with promises of love & companionship in exchange for loyalty

Is this an unrealistic strategy compared to just offering money & power?

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Unrealistic? That's literally how a lot of low level cults recruit.

As well as other contemporary groups with an agenda who benefit from offering acceptance to otherwise isolated, lonely or angry people who feel they have nowhere else to turn.

Not at all, that's how it works in the real world.

Classic cult recruiting tactics.
Watch out though, social outcasts usually earn their condition for a reason, so wanting them for anything but grunts might backfire.

>Is this an unrealistic strategy compared to just offering money & power?

No way, dude, that's like the back bone of some of the most successful programs and organizations in the world.
Most public outreach programs operate on the basis of trying to PREVENT that because the biggest deterrent of crime is to just give people a sense of community, purpose, some fuckin' friends, and even a little bit of a jobby.

People are super easy to corrupt if they're lonely.

Not at all as long as the charisma matches. As mentioned it's legit how cults work in the real world.

>Is this an unrealistic strategy compared to just offering money & power?
unrealistic? no. As others pointed out, it works for cults.
But keep in mind you get what you pay for. If all you need is warm bodies it'll be fine, but if you need someone with valuable skills, assets or resources, you'll have a bit more of a challenge.

Hell no, taking broken people and giving them purpose is a great way to ensure loyalty.

>It's another the villains are just misunderstood good people episode.
I really actually want to run a game where almost everybody is actually basically good at heart and there aren't any clear villains but only unfortunate events, misunderstandings and mutually conflicting needs. And that even many so-called psychos have understandable reasons why they would come to view the society around them with disgust and hate and also symptoms realistic with the levels of abuse they'd have to endure.

I think you can blame a similar process on both sides of the culture war, the intense and angry partisan political divide online. It's primarily young people without connections who found them through what amount to recruiting efforts, people offering camaraderie, friendship, a cause to believe in as well as a way of explaining why your life sucks, why it isn't your fault, why there's somewhere else to blame.

It's endemic online, and incredibly toxic, but I'm not sure there's any way of stopping it.

>Veeky Forums reinvents cults

Don’t get me wrong. I’d say 6/10 IRL villains genuinely have low/no empathy and a sadistic streak. But the other 4/10 aren’t doing it for kicks.

Fuck man, where do I sign up?

urban.org/research/publication/processing-and-treatment-mentally-ill-persons-criminal-justice-system
Actually only about 5/10 convicts in the U.S.A criminal system possibly have mental health problems. But of those 5/10 convicts most (21%) were depressed, 12% had a mania condition, 8% had another anxiety disorder, 7% had PTSD and only 6% had a personality disorder and 5% had a schizophrenia or other psychotic disorder.

The truth is that hurting other people requires both a lack of empathy and a motive. Even if someone lacks empathy if there's not a strong reason to hurt people most won't bother because that's dangerous and could get them in prison or something. It is much simpler and easier to just go into business and do everything legally (even if still like a jerkass.)

>I'm not sure there's any way of stopping it.
There's always the old fashioned way.

>It's a The GM is working his "pity the poor Incel villains" angle again episode.

This isn't about any particular side or cause, user. It's about a toxic social structure enabled by social media that leads to thoughtless fanaticism and zealotry. To a lesser extent we even see it with people preferring or fighting over their preferred media franchises. It's not new, but we're seeing it happen at an unprecedented scale and with a disproportionate intensity.

I know. I just like the meme. Also, yeah, killing the entire other side would work give or take seven decades. ;D

But for real, it's depressing to watch intellectual discourse die right in front of me. I just want people to use and respect the use of evidence again.

It's extremely fucking depressing. And I wouldn't even want to use it as a villain group in a game. It wouldn't be satisfying to fight, any method of actually defeating it would feel artificial and arbitrary and even without all that it'd just be too damn real.

>It's another the player wants to redeem the Succubus episode.
>It's another the player wants to play a green elf with tusks.
>It's another uggos can go fuck themselves episode.

Lets take as an example the movie Wizards by Ralph Bakshi. I honestly thought it satire at first. It is honestly disgustingly and hypocritically facist.

Not to mention that actually defeating an enemy that, in real life, you can't defeat in debate due to their sheer idiocy and misdirecting argumentative style, feels awfully disingenuous. I don't like fighting strawmen, especially when the strawman fucking exists.

Objective facts have not part of this cultural clash for ages. The only thing that changed recently was cutting the middle step of fabricating plausible evidence. It kind of speeds up the whole process.

>talking shit about Wizards
Mutants get out REEEEEEE!

It does seem like it'd have to reach a critical mass, a breaking point, some limit to the madness. But I guess the question is, what the fuck would even happen then, or after that? Is it just a cultural singularity, where we lose any inability to interact with or understand those from outside our cultural sphere as the segregation of ideas via algorithm becomes complete?

The only way to defeat it is true communication and understanding between people of opposing worldviews, something the Internet has opened up the possibility for and then promptly obliterated.
>The only thing that changed recently was cutting the middle step of fabricating plausible evidence. It kind of speeds up the whole process.
This. As much as I hate to say it, there are so many different sources for different positions you could submit a position paper on literally any code of morals and have a dozen people back it up.

Worse, I see so often people just fucking deny. Any fact or source, no matter how well researched or presented, is simply not true or not a factor if it interferes with their worldview. Be it frogposters or antivaxxers.

Sounds like a great way for PCs to fall into nihilism. Which could still make for an interesting story.

The really sad thing? I honestly think anonymous communication, the kind you see on this site, could be key to that. It lets you say what you like without the risk of your 'side' shunning you for not toeing the party line. It frees you to express yourself and really be honest, as well as removing the structures of hierarchy and reputation that serve to severely limit discourse, making it all about who you're talking to, not what you're saying.

But we've fucked that up too, to the point where trolling and some of the shit people sincerely spout are utterly indistinguishable from one another.

It could, it just isn't one I can run with my players since they're all pretty politically aware, but also incredibly soft-skinned about their own political stances (minus one). It'd just start a shitstorm in my kitchen.

Fuck you. You fascist hack! I just want a homeland for my people.

But user...
How can they get out if we slaughtered them all

Mutant extinction best day of my life.

What does it have anything to do with Incels except "unhappy people must somehow all be evil"?

Well, in line with OP's point it's more that people in those positions are vulnerable to being drawn into extremist ideologies.

Oh good point.
Wouldn't be a bad example actually.
Sorry to have misjudged you.

You fucking retard. I'm Avatar's twin brother. Just because you live in the forest doesn't meant there is no damn background radiation. Considering that Avatar's is my own brother. I bet his own son would have a high chance of being a mutant himself!

Blackwolf, the only fucking emo faggot who kept cutting himself so deep he lost all the skin off his arms, and he STILL couldn't manage to kill himself.

Plus, Ma weren't no mutant, so anything fucked up about you is on you!

>What are recessive traits?

Either way, I'm fucking the new Queen of the Faeries, and she's got good genes on her. And that Ass!

>What are recessive traits?
1/4 of your children are going to be mutants. Enjoy sending your own children out to die in the wastes.

I'm 5000 years old. This shit ain't news to me.

Seriously, did I need to bring a 1911 to finish you off?

They're all going to die! Just I had to kill my own fucking son!

That's a Luger though.
/k/ommando awaaaaaay

I know, I meant: WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD? Do I need to get another gun or something?

Because your stupid move was hack propaganda and obviously an unreliable narrator and events couldn't possibly have turned out the way you obviously fantasized them.

>propaganda
Says the guy playing old nazi stuff in his room.

>Says the guy who falsely paints his enemies as literal Nazi demons
Lies! All lies I say!

>falsely
Your guys dressed as Nazis, fought with Nazi weapons, alongside actual ghosts and demons who used to BE Nazis! And you watch Nazi movies, featuring Hitler.

No skin off my arms though.

Oh, carry on then.

I can draw propaganda depicting anything I want. Doesn't make it so. I think it rather telling that you fabricated an assassination attempt to justify attack. Even in your own propaganda it was obvious that you were the aggressor and not us.

...

this is literally how terrorist cells recruit new members - they're overwhelmingly social outcasts with no prospects who jump at the chance to do something meaningful

aka psychopathy

I feel you so much guys. Is actually refreshing to see people aware of that feeling. Thank you from the deep of my heart.

I've discovered that zen buddhism helps me understanding and fighting this; and I wholeheartedly reccomend you to follow it or a similar path

>Lets take as an example the movie Wizards by Ralph Bakshi. I honestly thought it satire at first. It is honestly disgustingly and hypocritically facist.
Millennials were a mistake.

>The really sad thing? I honestly think anonymous communication, the kind you see on this site, could be key to that. It lets you say what you like without the risk of your 'side' shunning you for not toeing the party line. It frees you to express yourself and really be honest, as well as removing the structures of hierarchy and reputation that serve to severely limit discourse, making it all about who you're talking to, not what you're saying.
I agree 100%.
It's a great shame that Veeky Forums turned out to be such a hive of scum and villainy as the anonymous nature means that a) you don't form clicques as easilly and b) it's much harder to start a harrassment campaign against 'user'.

So, adventures in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind setting?