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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9392013" data-attributes="member: 18">I mean, I absolutely sympathize with your position and do like some settings which roll that way, but if we honestly and without favour apply that rule, huge numbers of well-established fantasy societies fail that test (including like, 90% of those in the FR, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and so on - hell there are places in Ravenloft which fail this test even in the 1E/2E takes on Ravenloft!). Pretty much 100% of "fantasy Vikings" in all settings fail this check (and probably good that they do because otherwise oof). In practice my experience is that "exotic" (ugh) i.e. non-Western societies tend to have this "don't edit the bad parts" lens applied to them in games/setting where Western-esque societies do not (there are exceptions, of course).Pretty every medieval and renaissance-inspired fantasy setting fails the test of not ignoring unpleasant parts, for example - not so much because of a lack of sexual violence or slavery or whatever, but because there's far too much class mobility, far too much freedom to travel, churches are usually far too weak, there's usually far too much law enforcement and laws are far too clear (ironically), there's pretty much never enough starvation or disease or general privation, and so on. And on the flipside, it's very easy to get into grimdark or edgelord territory where stuff is excessively played up.And some societies are just... complicated. Like classical Athens, where you've got the upper class forcing full-body and head/facing coverings on upper-class women (I mean forcing, not voluntarily wearing as part of a faith, even!) and locking them in their houses, and punishing them terribly for any perceived failing, whilst not applying the same standards to working-class women, nor non-Athenians, and let's not even get into some other elements of Athenian society good grief. Talk about mixed feelings good lord. If you really played it straight I think about 90% of players would finally snap at some point from the sheer ultra-misogyny and constant child-assaulting and so on and just be like "NOPE THIS IS OVER!" and end up just destroying the Athenian way of life and replacing it with something less "JESUS WEPT WHAT?!?!".</blockquote>

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