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Do your Political Views shape how your villains and heroes act?
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<blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 7510707" data-attributes="member: 57112"><p>The problem with these analogies is that religion and sports don't ultimately impact everyone (I suppose the argument could be made for religion in a metaphysical sense, but let's stick with just this plane of existence for the time being), and certainly not in the sense that politics do. And let's not forget that politics pervade religion, sports, what people choose or do not choose to eat... basically everything. Everything is politics.</p><p></p><p>Because politics are so ultimately pervasive, all-encompassing, and impactful, the method by which one chooses to navigate or engage with politics (up to and including the choice <em>not</em> to engage with it) is necessarily a political choice.</p><p></p><p>That's not to say that pop culture (including games) can't represent some form of escapism. Everybody needs a little escapism every now and then. But the act of choosing to engage in escapism is also, in itself, a political act. Not that that choice necessarily <em>says anything</em> about that person or their politics, that's always going to be contextual at best. But I've found the best way to move through life (more like the best way to continue to grow as a person, it's actually an extremely anxious way to move through life <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/worried.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":-S" title="Uhm :-S" data-shortname=":-S" />) is to continually examine the intent and impact of my choices, as well as the way the rest of world has influenced my decision making.</p><p></p><p>In the context of the OP, it means sometimes asking: "Why did I design that villain that way? How did my players react to it? Why did they all come to such a quick conclusion that the character's actions were villainous in the first place?" </p><p></p><p>I mean, if we wanted to really strictly just look at D&D design and alignment, there is no universal morality nor ethics, and both of these concepts (and our practical applications of them, including the contextual exceptions we all make to them on a daily basis) tie directly into our cultural and personal politics. Without politics we'd ultimately have nothing to fall back on to determine what Evil even meant, or who could or could not be defined as heroes or villains.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Gradine, post: 7510707, member: 57112"] The problem with these analogies is that religion and sports don't ultimately impact everyone (I suppose the argument could be made for religion in a metaphysical sense, but let's stick with just this plane of existence for the time being), and certainly not in the sense that politics do. And let's not forget that politics pervade religion, sports, what people choose or do not choose to eat... basically everything. Everything is politics. Because politics are so ultimately pervasive, all-encompassing, and impactful, the method by which one chooses to navigate or engage with politics (up to and including the choice [I]not[/I] to engage with it) is necessarily a political choice. That's not to say that pop culture (including games) can't represent some form of escapism. Everybody needs a little escapism every now and then. But the act of choosing to engage in escapism is also, in itself, a political act. Not that that choice necessarily [I]says anything[/I] about that person or their politics, that's always going to be contextual at best. But I've found the best way to move through life (more like the best way to continue to grow as a person, it's actually an extremely anxious way to move through life :-S) is to continually examine the intent and impact of my choices, as well as the way the rest of world has influenced my decision making. In the context of the OP, it means sometimes asking: "Why did I design that villain that way? How did my players react to it? Why did they all come to such a quick conclusion that the character's actions were villainous in the first place?" I mean, if we wanted to really strictly just look at D&D design and alignment, there is no universal morality nor ethics, and both of these concepts (and our practical applications of them, including the contextual exceptions we all make to them on a daily basis) tie directly into our cultural and personal politics. Without politics we'd ultimately have nothing to fall back on to determine what Evil even meant, or who could or could not be defined as heroes or villains. [/QUOTE]
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