Shortman McLeod
First Post
Umbran said:Most of the games out there are pseudo-medieval fantasies. Communism calls for an industrial base that the games don't have.
Marxist-Leninist Communism, yes.
Maoist Communism, no.
Umbran said:Most of the games out there are pseudo-medieval fantasies. Communism calls for an industrial base that the games don't have.
Kwalish Kid said:That's a good find. The presence of socialist/communist societies in fantasy literature shows that, even if it would be economically unreasonable, it is not impossible from a narrative point of view. But I'm going academic here.
Cute...STARP_Social_Officer said:Communism in RPGs: You have two cows. The government tries to take both. The government fails their grapple check. Roll for initiative.
Roger said:I think the primary danger here is becoming fixated on analyzing merely the settings of RPGs, while neglecting the other aspects of RPGs in play.
As an example of what I mean, consider the Marxist maxim "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." It is relatively easy, and relatively unrewarding, to consider only the in-game history of the setting in light of the class struggle. It is much more revealing, in my opinion, to consider the play of the game itself, the actions of the players and their consequences, in terms of the class struggle.
In play, do the player characters most resemble members of the proletariat, or the bourgeoisie? Does membership in these classes change over time? Does play consist primarily of the player characters repressing the lumpenproletariat?
Kwalish Kid said:Can anyone else think of the communism, socialism, Bolshevism, totalitarian socialism, anti-consumerist anarcho-syndicalism in RPGs?
Shortman McLeod said:Marxist-Leninist Communism, yes.
Maoist Communism, no.
the Jester said:I seem to recall that the dwarves of the Chainmail! game that WotC released were communists. I never actually had the game, so I'm not certain how accurate this is, however.
I'd be interested in reading that analysis.Kwalish Kid said:I should have been clearer. The question I was asking was only for communism (or something similar) in settings. This is (mostly) separate from a Marxist analysis of RPGs. The commodification of elements within the game and of rule sets gives more than enough for this analysis. (The wealth rules in d20 Modern are fantastic!)