Draw Steel the MCDM RPG!

[Ruin Explorer]

I feel like there is plenty of precedent for that

That's precisely the problem.

This 2024, not 1994. In 2024, you need to acknowledge, as a designer, that a god who is a wanker is a wanker. In 1994, maybe you could be excused for not realizing that, but it ain't 30 years ago.

are they supposed to be the gods the heroes align with or the ones the evil cults the heroes fight worship?

The gods the heroes align with.

He was pretty clear about that, including PC classes in his examples of people who worship the Physical Labour god and the Knowledge Gestapo god.

Whereas Nekros, the god of tyranny, specifically might-makes-right, was clearly described as villainous and subversive, and Matt talked about how his worshippers pretend to be worshippers of physical labour god, and so on, and thus was an evil cult the PCs would root out etc.

But it seems to me that we're much more likely to see the Knowledge Gestapo assassinating people and rounding people up and killing them for weakening the power or knowledge (or brutally punishing people who spread knowledge), or the Physical Labour guys deciding that all these book learnin' guys couldn't be trusted and needed to be run out of town or just killed or whatever. Like, day-to-day, these "normal" gods will be worse than the evil ones!

We didn't really hear anything about what good either "normal" god did for society, and in neither case was it obvious. Like, does Physical Labour god organise barn-raisings for people who can't do it themselves? A more positive version of him might, but one who distrusts and devalues anyone who isn't keen on/capable of physical labour seems very unlikely to do that. Does Knowledge Gestapo god make sure "the right people" know things to help society? Which would be a bit illuminati but potentially not-evil at least (just controlling). Absolutely no evidence of or reference to that, just to how opposed that god is to people knowing facts or methods, and how his worshippers actively blame too many people knowing stuff for structures/items/etc. failing.

This is why I was asking, has he thought this through, or is this a failure of perspective? Because it'd be easy enough to make a positive version of Physical Labour god. It'd be pretty hard but not impossible to make a positive version of Knowledge Gestapo god. But Matt purely focused on what their worshippers value and how they act, and none of the examples he gave had any positivity to them. Maybe he just enjoys negative examples? But it was weird.

 

[Zaukrie]

We don't have the rules, yet, right? (non-patron here). I didn't miss that will driving to the midwest and back?

 

[Epizarwin]

I guess I don't get the issue here. Some gods do/believe dumb stuff. Some cultures believe/do dumb stuff whether their god agrees with it or not. Other than gods existing, isn't that realistic. Don't cultures in the real world do things that cause harm to people? Our characters are supposed to be heros looking to make the world better, right? Maybe your character could prove that God, person, or culture wrong and have personal growth or improve the life of those less fortunate.

What do you want? A world where everything is chill?

 

[Epizarwin]

We don't have the rules, yet, right? (non-patron here). I didn't miss that will driving to the midwest and back?

I think they were hoping for end of August. I think it's fairly likely the backer packet could be out within two weeks.

 

[SteveC]

Flatly no. That's not a reasonable position. It's ignoring the world and world-building entirely.

Okay then. I think you're going to have a hard time finding examples of any case where there's something that's exemplified in a positive way that also doesn't have real-world examples of people who lack it. And if they are off-limits, it's going to be problematic. I guess that's a reason to write off pantheons of gods for a fantasy campaign entirely. Which I can definitely see being an option since most of the time they're just an excuse to have cool powers.

 

[Helena Real]

We're continuing the adventure included in the Patreon Packet TONIGHT at 6pm ET


Another action-packed installment and we're getting better as a group in using our heroes' abilities and strategizing better with each other, building on synergies.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I guess I don't get the issue here. Some gods do/believe dumb stuff. Some cultures believe/do dumb stuff whether their god agrees with it or not. Other than gods existing, isn't that realistic. Don't cultures in the real world do things that cause harm to people? Our characters are supposed to be heros looking to make the world better, right? Maybe your character could prove that God, person, or culture wrong and have personal growth or improve the life of those less fortunate.

What do you want? A world where everything is chill?

No, I want heroic fantasy gods for a heroic fantasy game, just like Matt said you need heroic fantasy classes for a heroic fantasy game.

The issue to me, is that Matt doesn't seem to understand that the "normal" gods he's describing are potentially as or more dangerous and as or more oppressive than the "evil" god he described.

It's fine to have oppressive or dangerous gods, but you, as a setting-designer, need to show you understand that they are. Do you get that? Like, if you put "Throknar the Child-Burner" as one of the gods of your setting, you, as the designer, need to be aware burning children is a bad thing! But Matt seems to not realize that celebrating physical labour and literally devaluing and distrusting people who aren't good at it, or actively working to suppress the transmission of knowledge and blaming the transmission of knowledge for disasters large and small are not good things! They are in fact largely bad things!

He realizes that might-makes-right is a bad thing, but not oppressive attitudes to knowledge?

I should note he did describe a couple of other "normal" gods, and they both seemed fine, and more thought-through, so I haven't talked about them here.

Okay then. I think you're going to have a hard time finding examples of any case where there's something that's exemplified in a positive way that also doesn't have real-world examples of people who lack it. And if they are off-limits, it's going to be problematic. I guess that's a reason to write off pantheons of gods for a fantasy campaign entirely. Which I can definitely see being an option since most of the time they're just an excuse to have cool powers.

You're entirely missing the point, and I can't tell if you genuinely don't understand, if I'm just explaining really poorly (or so verbosely you're not reading it), in which case, sorry, or if you're intentionally being obtuse (hopefully not).

The problem isn't celebrating stuff some people lack. That's fine. I explicitly said so and gave an example with they Physical Labour god.

You could very easily make him basically positive. Instead of having him think physical labour capability == truthfulness and goodness, and anyone who can't/won't do it should be distrusted, you could have him think physical labour capability == coolness and awesomeness, and that it should be used to help people who can't/won't do physical labour to exalt this god and show how cool he is.

I don't see any easy way to spin Knowledge Gestapo fully positively, but also he's not an "-ist" god, he's oppressive in a different way - i.e. that the suppression of widespread knowledge of how to do things is good. The most positive spin could be that his followers/church ensured knowledge got to where it could help, but also tried to prevent too much knowledge just "floating around". Not great, because it's anti-education and so on, but at least it's got a cool "illuminati trying to help/control the world's development" deal.

This is supposed to be heroic fantasy, not dark fantasy - everyday gods shouldn't be oppressive or creepy in heroic fantasy - that's the role for creepy gods like Nekros.

 

[overgeeked]

I guess I don't get the issue here. Some gods do/believe dumb stuff. Some cultures believe/do dumb stuff whether their god agrees with it or not. Other than gods existing, isn't that realistic. Don't cultures in the real world do things that cause harm to people? Our characters are supposed to be heros looking to make the world better, right? Maybe your character could prove that God, person, or culture wrong and have personal growth or improve the life of those less fortunate.

What do you want? A world where everything is chill?

Utopias make for incredibly boring stories. Dystopias, however, practically glow with story potential. Weird how what’s good for stories makes for a crappy time in real life. And vice versa.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Utopias make for incredibly boring stories. Dystopias, however, practically glow with story potential. Weird how what’s good for stories makes for a crappy time in real life. And vice versa.

Dystopias only work when the author of the dystopia knows they're describing a dystopia. Otherwise you get a really messed-up and weird-seeming SF novel that people frown at a lot.

That's the issue here. If it's intended to be dystopian, there was no acknowledgement of the fact.

 

[Epizarwin]

Dystopias only work when the author of the dystopia knows they're describing a dystopia. Otherwise you get a really messed-up and weird-seeming SF novel that people frown at a lot.

That's the issue here. If it's intended to be dystopian, there was no acknowledgement of the fact.

Matt is fully aware that Adune's (don't know how nits spelled) beliefs and the culture they influence may cause issues. In fact right before reading that entry he states,

"This is a cultural mores, you don’t have to agree with this. You should not take the things these gods believe as things that I believe or that everybody here believes. No no no. Gods are fickle and have weird beliefs. But the people believe this, the people of this area believe this."

Why did you leave that out of your assesment?

Plus this whole thing is written as if it were just a historians descriptions of various cultures. Do you just want a paragraph after each entry definitely states whether thr designers think this god is good or bad as a whole?