Academic D&D ?

[fusangite]

It seems like you are grouping a bunch of things that are not really like eachother (e.g. deep immersion and academic debate) simply because they are not part of normal D&D play.

In my view, D&D is a poor choice of system for doing most of the unconventional things you describe. Certainly I have seen RPGs used to explore such things but most people who choose to emphasize the priorities you enumerate are usually aware enough of the general lay of the land when it comes to RPGs to pick systems tailored for such activities.

 

[questing gm]

One game I saw involved a new philosophy that all the organized religions of the game outright hated, called the Divinity of Humanity. Essentially, the Divinity of Humanity was a cult of atheists that had managed to train people as clerics while denying the power of every established god in the campaign's pantheon. We as the players assumed it was a hook- maybe an archdevil or some other intellectual evil was trying to seduce people away from religion? Maybe some unknown, newly forming god was emerging and had yet to reveal itself? Boy, were we let down.

Turns out the DM wanted to establish that he personally thinks all religion (in game and out of game) was hogwash and wanted to make sure everybody knew it. There could be clerics in his campaign because the game needs healers, but he didn't want to hear anything about prayers or gods or anything like that. We were all supposed to be enlightened secular humanists, and he strongly discouraged us to take religion seriously if our Intelligence scores were 10 or above. The only people of faith were concretely of below-average Intelligence. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the campaign began to see more and more 'demented cultists' and 'bigoted paladins' attacking the Divinity of Humanity. The party wasn't interested in getting involved. We figured the Divinity of Humanity made its choice and had to deal with it. The DM then proceeded to get upset that we weren't interested in "killing stupid fundamentalists instead of orcs, at least the fundamentalists deserve it." (Paraphrased for brevity and content.)

The players didn't want to deal with this stuff. We wanted to kick in some doors and crack some skulls, not listen to a DM lecture us for four hours about his opinions. Our group consisted of some Christians, some atheists and some 'undecided,' nobody really cared about that. I think it spoke volumes when that particular game petered out. Last time I heard from that DM, he was trying to get together a game that was basically the civil war with half-orc slaves. Never heard how that one turned out though.

I would agree that trying to force the issue into discussion is simply not a better alternative than just discussing it. However using your case above, what if the DM created a setting based on a philosphocal or ideological idea. For example, maybe the Divinity of Humanity was the central religion in that world or the BBEG (if they really are). The players would either ended up to be an inquisition to hunt down 'heretics' or rebels against the cause of man believing themselves as gods, perhaps even serving other 'real' gods themselves.

From where i see it, your DM was making more of a statement rather than opening the idea for discussion. The emphasis there is lacking, which means the issue would not be taken seriously by the playets because it is not the central plot or in some way is not narratively affected by it. The DM should let the PC interact with the ideology or the organization that represents it.

In which case, if the plot revolves around the PCs where the setting is as such and they have to survive on those circumstances, wouldn't it be more interesting to see how they would react ? Whether, as PCs (with thier classes, beliefs, and other things that they characters WOULD do), continue adventuring without directly going against the Divinity of Humanity or fight against it out of ideology and maybe even 'in character' beliefs. In this case, how would clerics of other gods would feel ? What would they do ? Are they REALLY fighting for the truth, maybe the Divinity of Humanity was right ? etc...

So in that way, D&D with the interaction between DM and PC becomes a 'what if' model that has the potential for fun and adventure while at the same time, poses the question to players (out of character) even though it is their characters going through the experience (that's why i mentioned deep immersion roleplaying, the players may feel differently than their characters do about the issue).

See, all of a sudden this makes D&D look like a literature novel but with player input on how the discussion is shaped....

Phew~ I hope this makes sense but i would gladly clarify...

 

[haakon1]

So in that way, D&D with the interaction between DM and PC becomes a 'what if' model that has the potential for fun and adventure while at the same time, poses the question to players (out of character) even though it is their characters going through the experience (that's why i mentioned deep immersion roleplaying, the players may feel differently than their characters do about the issue).

All fantasy and sci-fi writing, movie making, and gaming is a what-if exploration.

Sometimes that "what if" is just what if I was in the Middle Ages, or the future, or if elves and dragons were real, or I had superpowers. Other times it's timeless stories -- coming of age, the quest of the hero, etc. Or timeless moral dilemmas, whether it's Shakespearean or Trekian. Still other times, it's disguised or not so disguised meditations on contemporary issues: the Free Silver debate of the 1890s is at the heart of "The Wizard of Oz" (what kind of money is yellow and stored in brick form? what kind is green and doesn't have anything behind it? is the East or the West wicked? and what's wrong with Kansas?), racial issues in Old Trek, the horror (the Meer of Dead Men was written by a guy who experienced trench warfare in World War I) and glory of war in Tolkien, etc.

If you try to deny that and say an orc is always just an orc, I think you're losing part of the beauty of sci fi/fantasy. That's why computer gaming/powergaming can get a bit overly shallow.

On the other hand, if you get too preachy and obvious, who become "new Trek" and get cancelled.

 

[DarkKestral]

OK, there ARE a few D&D settings out there with some philosophical bents: Planescape, for one, is classically part existential philosophy, part quasi-Renaissance urban fantasy, part linkage for every campaign setting, and part general trippiness.

Heck, in the most common 'sub-setting' for Planescape, Sigil, (almost every PS campaign ends up there at SOME point) the city is actively controlled and ran by a groups that are defined by their philosophical worldviews and that sometimes actively try to remake the multiverse to conform to their personal ones. Granted, they don't actually have complete control, that being in the hands of the Lady, but it's enough to render the Factions not a non-entity, gamewise.

It also acts as a springboard for deepening the impact of alignment in play; other defining conflicts, ones that actively shape the multiverse, are the conflicts between Law and Chaos and between Good and Evil, and the meta-story actually has had a few subsections of planes appear/disappear or shift places due to shifts in that balance.

Obviously, not all groups are incredibly interested in those bits of the setting. But for those that are, it can certainly make for a very philosophy heavy game, despite the general tendency of "kill things and loot their stuff" to be the REAL sub-plot of most D&D games, and it does so with remarkably few actual rules that need to be implemented in the game mechanics, and many of those simply clarify rules that have often pre-existed about the non-Material planes.

Certainly, there are other systems more designed for philosophical introspection, but there can be a decently high level in stock D&D too. I agree with the other posters that it needs to come up naturally, but I don't think that an intentionally serious philosophical discussion should be outright avoided entirely, if the players are willing to go ahead with them.