M.A.R. Barker, author of Tekumel, also author of Neo-Nazi book?

So I wrote earlier about my apprehension about playing my first Empire of the Petal Throne game at GaryCon in light of the recent controversy. The GM was Victor Raymond, who was knowledgeable about the setting (as people might expect) and a good GM.
Mr. Raymond spoke candidly about the issue after the game. He seemed sincere in his disappointment about Barker's actions and desire to figure out how to make amends through the Foundation.
It was certainly an interesting perspective on this issue.
 

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But, my point is, at no point EVER do D&D players step back and declare, "Nope, I'm going to play a Marxist revolutionary! Death to tyrants!!!" It's always, "Hey, isn't it grand that we're playing in a setting filled with horror and misery, but, we'll just lampshade all of those uncomfortable bits".

You’ve since qualified about “ever” but i rather think it’s COMMON for players to have an ambition of remaking the fantasy world into a happier less repressive place. These sentiments are a rollable option for Ideals and Bonds on several backgrounds. Maybe not with Marxist reasoning, but do not lots of players these days value changing the game world over gaining meaningless loot?
 

So I wrote earlier about my apprehension about playing my first Empire of the Petal Throne game at GaryCon in light of the recent controversy. The GM was Victor Raymond, who was knowledgeable about the setting (as people might expect) and a good GM.
Mr. Raymond spoke candidly about the issue after the game. He seemed sincere in his disappointment about Barker's actions and desire to figure out how to make amends through the Foundation.
It was certainly an interesting perspective on this issue.
I played briefly in a campaign that Victor Raymond ran after an earlier online GaryCon. The campaign was really not for me (was billed as an intro to the world but I was the only one who had not played for years and the play sessions were deeply lore based in content and table discussion) but he ran the games well enough.

There was zero discussion of anything that could be even remotely construed as naziism. I am disappointed they sat on the news of Barker’s novel but there was an extremely high regard for Barker expressed in every game session and an attachment to having played in Barker’s actual group. I am sure that at least partially influenced their decision not to publicize the bad with the good.
 

I played briefly in a campaign that Victor Raymond ran after an earlier online GaryCon. The campaign was really not for me (was billed as an intro to the world but I was the only one who had not played for years and the play sessions were deeply lore based in content and table discussion) but he ran the games well enough.
Our Con game started with about 45 minutes of lore dump. One of the players who came with my group was very interested in this aspect, though I could have taken or left it as it didn't really come up in play very much. For players who like lore and world building, I guess that's the enjoyable part of the game - more than actually exploring dungeons and fighting monsters (though that happened too).
There was zero discussion of anything that could be even remotely construed as naziism.
Slavery definitely came up as a concept in the world. In that respect I guess it was no different than Dark Sun. For me personally in my games and writing, that's something that I wouldn't put in casually.
I am disappointed they sat on the news of Barker’s novel but there was an extremely high regard for Barker expressed in every game session and an attachment to having played in Barker’s actual group. I am sure that at least partially influenced their decision not to publicize the bad with the good.
If I were in the same situation, I honestly don't know how I'd deal with it. I got the idea that the GM knew Barker personally and counted him among his friends. Then was building his gaming-career and writing around the work of that friend.
Would I try to salvage the good of what my colleague/friend/etc. had done? Or would I cast it (and my career of the past 20 years) aside? It's a difficult decision for some. Can more good be done to speak out against these awful beliefs and actions and then attempt to make it better, using the entire experience as an example of how to address the painful past of our hobby? Or do you sweep it under the rug in shame, never to speak of it again?
 

Our Con game started with about 45 minutes of lore dump. One of the players who came with my group was very interested in this aspect, though I could have taken or left it as it didn't really come up in play very much. For players who like lore and world building, I guess that's the enjoyable part of the game - more than actually exploring dungeons and fighting monsters (though that happened too).

Slavery definitely came up as a concept in the world. In that respect I guess it was no different than Dark Sun. For me personally in my games and writing, that's something that I wouldn't put in casually.

If I were in the same situation, I honestly don't know how I'd deal with it. I got the idea that the GM knew Barker personally and counted him among his friends. Then was building his gaming-career and writing around the work of that friend.
Would I try to salvage the good of what my colleague/friend/etc. had done? Or would I cast it (and my career of the past 20 years) aside? It's a difficult decision for some. Can more good be done to speak out against these awful beliefs and actions and then attempt to make it better, using the entire experience as an example of how to address the painful past of our hobby? Or do you sweep it under the rug in shame, never to speak of it again?
He played in Professor Barker’s games for many years and did count him as a close friend. Another person that joined the games also played in that play group.
 

@Hussar I just don't get what your point is. Fantasy worlds are not ideal modern democracies, or often not even flawed ones. Yes, everyone knows that, so what? It is hella difficult to have adventures in a well working utopia. Sure, Star Trek kinda manages it, but even there corrupt admirals are so common that it is a trope and of course worlds outside the Federation are far from utopian. Imperfection is conductive for adventure.

Furthermore, when emulating some past era, one by necessity brings along at least some of its expectations, even though they might not perfectly align with modern values.
My point is that we lampshade all that. Not that we need to play in worker utopias.

We play in worker utopias because we ignore all the unbelievably horrible implications of the setting. We ignore the child labor. We ignore the complete and total lack of personal freedom. Oh, did your character clean out the Caves of Chaos? Thanks chum. Now hand over all your gold and treasure because that's my property. Why is it? Because I'm the lord of that land and I say so. Don't like it? Don't care. Welcome to a land with zero rights.

We ignore all this sort of stuff. Of course we do. I totally agree hat one by necessity brings along at least some of the expectations. We absolutely should. But, we don't. We lampshade all of it so that we can play our pretend elf games.
 

You’ve since qualified about “ever” but i rather think it’s COMMON for players to have an ambition of remaking the fantasy world into a happier less repressive place. These sentiments are a rollable option for Ideals and Bonds on several backgrounds. Maybe not with Marxist reasoning, but do not lots of players these days value changing the game world over gaining meaningless loot?
Really? Which bonds or backgrounds talk about creating equitable laws? Or democratic selection of leaders? Or personal rights or freedoms for all beings? Property rights? Legal rights like innocent until proven guilty? Worker protections? Religious freedom?

I mean, I suggested that it was okay for the DM to insist that all characters have a religion, and that an atheist character in a Fantasy Setting would be treated quite badly and people absolutely lost their poop.

Look, I'm not saying that I don't do it too. Of course I do. I have pretty much zero interest in that level of historical accuracy. It would be not so much fun.

But, I don't try to pretend that I'm not ignoring it either.
 

@Hussar, I basically agree with you but look at it through a slightly different lens. I'll try to explain.

Without going full Marxist - I'm not a Marxist, though would consider myself at least a bit of a Marx scholar - there are fairly significant relationships between technology, living standards, modes of government etc. Eg if your economy is predominantly subsistence and agricultural, with most people having to grow their own food through predominantly manual labour and reliant on natural conditions for successful harvests, then there will be famine from time to time, because sometimes there will be floods or droughts or locusts or whatever that affect the harvest. And there will be members of extractive hierarchies (eg owners of land on which the agricultural production takes place) who will probably not be the first to miss out. Conversely, the more the economy has the sort of technological capacity to make the production of food a specialist activity, with a high degree of control over degrees of surplus and the distribution of surpluses, the less it will look like Ye Olde <whatever> and the more it will look like a modern market economy.

The same sorts of systems of social norms that tend to justify hierarchies in a society with little social mobility - which a predominantly peasant society is likely to be - will also tend to push against norms of political equality, free choice of occupation, etc. While our FRPG worlds are full of guilds and the like, just as you say we pay little attention to their role in controlling access to economically desirable social roles - although breaking up guilds and related monopolies was one of the central elements of the French Revolution!

I can't comment on Icelandic democracy, which I know little about. But Athenian democracy rested at least in part on the relative independence of the citizenry. And this flowed, at least in part, from economic independence which was made possible by (i) individual citizens themselves owning slaves to help them with their work, and (ii, and probably more important) wealthy actors in the economy being able to satisfy their labour needs by way of slavery and hence not bringing the poorer, but nevertheless independent, citizenry fully under their control. And the mechanisms that substituted various sorts of non-slave peasant labour in much of Europe after the end of the Roman Empire tended to produce both the social relations and the social legitimation frameworks that I mentioned in my previous paragraphs. (On Athens, I'm relying on MI Finley's work.)

But in typical FRPG worlds we posit peasant societies with romanticised versions of their social hierarchies (noble knights, benevolent kings and prelates, etc) without slavery, where the legitimation frameworks and economics systems value individuals, and seem to permit free choice of occupation, etc. And to the extent that anything more "feudal" is mentioned, we just pretend that it won't make people suffer ie we just ignore the implications of unfree labour, extractive hierarchies, dependence upon natural conditions for sufficient food supply, etc. In this respect we follow soundly in the footsteps of JRRT, the Arthurian storytellers, certain romanticised conceptions of American frontier yeoman democracy, etc. But there is a tendency to ignore that these imaginary worlds are at least as unrealistic and impossible as spells and dragons!
 

My point is that we lampshade all that. Not that we need to play in worker utopias.

We play in worker utopias because we ignore all the unbelievably horrible implications of the setting. We ignore the child labor. We ignore the complete and total lack of personal freedom. Oh, did your character clean out the Caves of Chaos? Thanks chum. Now hand over all your gold and treasure because that's my property. Why is it? Because I'm the lord of that land and I say so. Don't like it? Don't care. Welcome to a land with zero rights.

We ignore all this sort of stuff. Of course we do. I totally agree hat one by necessity brings along at least some of the expectations. We absolutely should. But, we don't. We lampshade all of it so that we can play our pretend elf games.
I feel that your take on historical societies is seriously unnuanced (and your idea of modern world uncritical, given the example you used earlier) and you probably underestimate the amount of GMs who weave the structure of the society as the part of the narrative of the game. Sure, the depiction of the world will probably often be somewhat adjusted for modern participants, but that's not same than ignoring these matters completely. And also dragons, so it's not like anyone expects 100% accurate depiction of a medieval society.
 

I feel that your take on historical societies is seriously unnuanced (and your idea of modern world uncritical, given the example you used earlier) and you probably underestimate the amount of GMs who weave the structure of the society as the part of the narrative of the game. Sure, the depiction of the world will probably often be somewhat adjusted for modern participants, but that's not same than ignoring these matters completely. And also dragons, so it's not like anyone expects 100% accurate depiction of a medieval society.
The difference, it seems to me - and I think this may be at least in part what @Hussar has in mind - that fictions about dragons and fireballs probably don't serve an ideological or legitimation function. Whereas romanticised fictions about what is socially possible can do so.

That's not a reason to have no fantasy worlds. But I think it is a reason to be fairly self-conscious about the fact that they are imaginary and not really possible. And to bring this back to this thread, I think if FRPGers are similarly self-conscious when they approach Tekumel, then it is unlikely to lead them towards National Socialism.
 

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