ShinHakkaider
Adventurer
GMSkarka said:
What that D00d, said...
Politics interfering with gaming
What that D00d, said...
frankthedm
First Post
A dialect is one thing. A friendship is another. A friend is someone you give aid, camaraderie and succor to. I deeply question how strongly held a person’s beliefs are if they hold friendships with the foes of their cause.ForceUser said:You must not get out much.
A dialectic can be a healthy tool for personal growth, assuming it can be approached maturely.
RigaMortus2
First Post
HellHound said:
Yeah, Republicans can do that to you
Hey HellHound,
I have been in your shoes. Since you and I have chatted (at GenCon last year) I think I have a feel for what you are talking about. I suspect that I am someone with different views, but we could discuss our differing views with respect for each others opinions and still game together.
I have been in several game groups and have not had a problem.
I was in one game group where a gamer and his wife had a very different world view than me or my wife. Things did not go well outside of the game, because of the approach they took to our views. It was not pleasant.
I worked very hard to keep our differences out of the game, but I do think the strain of that situation made gaming challenging and I decided to drop that group and formed another one.
I have been happier without that strain.
I think it can work, but you have to decide what is important to you and how big of an issue it is (or can become.)
Anyway... I hope that helps.
Good luck to you. I hope to see you again this year at GenCon.
Game ON!
nyrfherdr
I have been in your shoes. Since you and I have chatted (at GenCon last year) I think I have a feel for what you are talking about. I suspect that I am someone with different views, but we could discuss our differing views with respect for each others opinions and still game together.
I have been in several game groups and have not had a problem.
I was in one game group where a gamer and his wife had a very different world view than me or my wife. Things did not go well outside of the game, because of the approach they took to our views. It was not pleasant.
I worked very hard to keep our differences out of the game, but I do think the strain of that situation made gaming challenging and I decided to drop that group and formed another one.
I have been happier without that strain.
I think it can work, but you have to decide what is important to you and how big of an issue it is (or can become.)
Anyway... I hope that helps.
Good luck to you. I hope to see you again this year at GenCon.
Game ON!
nyrfherdr
Eytan Bernstein
Explorer
I'm inclined to agree with the people who suggest that you need not force yourself to play with people who have beliefs you find repugnant. If they are making comments that you find personally offensive, you can tell them, and if they stop making those comments, you can continue to play in peace.
My experience has been that this has rarely worked, but if it works for others, more power to them. I'd just as soon wait and play with people I get along with or people who don't impugn my lifestyle or beliefs. That's not to say that you can't play with people who are different from you, but rather, people with differing opinions should respect the beliefs of others and understand that there is more than one valid belief system.
My experience has been that this has rarely worked, but if it works for others, more power to them. I'd just as soon wait and play with people I get along with or people who don't impugn my lifestyle or beliefs. That's not to say that you can't play with people who are different from you, but rather, people with differing opinions should respect the beliefs of others and understand that there is more than one valid belief system.
Psychic Warrior
First Post
I'm about as interested in politics and political discussions as I am in sticking my hand in molten lava. I learned long ago that 99.99999% of people's opinions in that area are vaccum sealed against any outside influence. It is why I like hanging out in specifically non-political/religious forums. That said I have never had to drop a group due to political differences.
Shemeska
Adventurer
Every so often a specific one of my players tends to go off on a (typically kneejerk) political bit at the table, but usually I hush him, or the other players do, because my politics are virtually opposite of his and getting the DM off on a tangent means less gaming.
Otherwise politics and religion aren't an issue among the rest of the group, despite a pretty diverse background on both. It simply isn't an issue, though in the future if I ever had a player who was both very vocal and very opposite me, I'd be very tempted to ask them to find a different group and a different DM.
Otherwise politics and religion aren't an issue among the rest of the group, despite a pretty diverse background on both. It simply isn't an issue, though in the future if I ever had a player who was both very vocal and very opposite me, I'd be very tempted to ask them to find a different group and a different DM.
Being a former politician, it should surprise nobody that politics has intersected with my gaming a lot. If not for my ability to mobilize the gaming community to vote for me at party conventions, I might have lost my job two years earlier.
That's not to say that the people with whom I game consistently share my political views or affiliation. My current DM, for instance, is very active in politics on the hawkish, pro-Bush wing of the Conservative Party of Canada while I am currently on my local riding executive of the New Democratic Party of Canada. At no time, either now or in the past, have opposing real-world political views ever interfered with my gaming.
But I think this is partly because people who do politics professionally, or at least as top-seated amateurs, automatically learn a lot of skills to help them get along with people who are ideologically opposed to them. In fact, because you spend more time in politics fighting with the members of your own party than you do with the other guys, it is often easier to build closer personal relationships with your opponents than your allies. Also, people who spend a lot of time in the game often come to find that they have more in common with their adversaries than they do with the general, politically-disengaged public.
The only way I can imagine politics interfering with gaming is if one's ideological assumptions about how the world works caused clashes in interpreting the rules. The closest the DM and I ever got to political disagreements were over how capitalism and the D&D economic system intersected.
But it sounds like something very different is going on in your group. I recommend, therefore, that you post a link to The Other Place where you are a moderator so we can have a discussion with sufficient information for us to be helpful.
(PS Sorry I forgot you guys were in town earlier this month -- I wouldn't have had time to see you anyway.)
That's not to say that the people with whom I game consistently share my political views or affiliation. My current DM, for instance, is very active in politics on the hawkish, pro-Bush wing of the Conservative Party of Canada while I am currently on my local riding executive of the New Democratic Party of Canada. At no time, either now or in the past, have opposing real-world political views ever interfered with my gaming.
But I think this is partly because people who do politics professionally, or at least as top-seated amateurs, automatically learn a lot of skills to help them get along with people who are ideologically opposed to them. In fact, because you spend more time in politics fighting with the members of your own party than you do with the other guys, it is often easier to build closer personal relationships with your opponents than your allies. Also, people who spend a lot of time in the game often come to find that they have more in common with their adversaries than they do with the general, politically-disengaged public.
The only way I can imagine politics interfering with gaming is if one's ideological assumptions about how the world works caused clashes in interpreting the rules. The closest the DM and I ever got to political disagreements were over how capitalism and the D&D economic system intersected.
But it sounds like something very different is going on in your group. I recommend, therefore, that you post a link to The Other Place where you are a moderator so we can have a discussion with sufficient information for us to be helpful.
(PS Sorry I forgot you guys were in town earlier this month -- I wouldn't have had time to see you anyway.)
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