Tempted to Run Blue Rose backwards

[Crothian]

But Aldis, as presented in the setting, is a utopic state that seems to depend on everybody agreeing to be terribly nice to each other. It doesn't appear to have any contingencies for people who would not accept the social engineering of the setting.

It is built on tolerance, which is different then being terrible nice to one another. You are taking the setting to farther extremes then it is.

When you think about it, people who didn't want to live in a state where everyone is "equal", or who showed an "unacceptable" level of personal ambition or aggression, who acted just too plain masculine, or who wanted the freedom to engage in self-destructive behaviour; or who, say, believed that there was a better way of choosing a monarch than a farsical woodland ceremony, could only really be dealt with by extreme repression, exile, or death.... which kind of makes all the Aldisian claims of "tolerance" and benevolance a load of bunk.

you are right, there would be a limit to their acceptance, there has to be. All societies have limits on what is acceptible behavor. I don't think all your examples would casue that much friction, you'll present them so they do since you want to cause friction.

 

[Crothian]

Well, they wouldn't act like 20th century people. I never said that.

Certainly, the effects of things like magic and deer-gods-with-the-power-of-choosing-monarchs would strongly alter human culture. It could result in any number of "realistic" results.

Utopia, however, would not be one of them.

Really, the ones who would be wearing a 20th century blinder would be people who believe that a setting like this could be "realistic", since the whole romantic fantasy genre is based on porting modern day feminist/new age utopian theory into medieval fantasy cultures.

I used 20th century since people a 1000 years agon did not act the way we do. Humans do change depending on what their enviroment is. The book doesn't claim this place to be utopian. And it really isn't anything close to medival fantasy culture. THe tech level is the same but there aren't any serfs or other qualities of that culture here.

 

[Desdichado]

True theocracies don't tend to last very long in the real world, at least when given control of anything much larger than a city-state; a monarchy with a powerful established church is more likely in quasi-medieval/early Renessaince-esque settings.

There are countries that have lasted as theocracies since the Islamic conquest of the early middle ages until now, actually. Granted, they may have gone through more than one dynasty, and the details are very different, but your claim is still easily disproved.

 

[drothgery]

That's what we would like to believe but humans haven't been challenged with another intellgent species and I think that would really alter the way things work.

Not if it's a standard fantasy species, and therefore they're just humans in funny suits.

 

[Crothian]

Not if it's a standard fantasy species, and therefore they're just humans in funny suits.

So, to believe humans can change we need to change the other races. That's actually not that hard.

 

[Nikchick]

Rather, people in general are looking at a ruleset that they really like that's coupled with a setting that has a political agenda tattooed on it's forehead in neon green letters and are turned off by it.

I've said it elsewhere, and I'm sure I'll have to say again: The Blue Rose roleplaying game seeks to emulate the genre of romantic fantasy as it exists in fiction, including all of the themes and tropes common to the genre.

Green Ronin's only agenda is to promote the hobby of ROLEPLAYING to the already existing audience of romantic fantasy literature (and, perhaps, nine-year-old girls who spend their allowance on posters of kittens with wings and pink faeries...if my daughter's interest in the game is any indication).

So they're thinking of alternate ways of running the game and bouncing the ideas off other gamers here. No big deal.

Right on. If you hate "romantic fantasy," or goodie-goodie nature-loving tree-huggers, or fantasy monarchies, or the concept of benevolent rulers being selected by otherworldly golden deer-god things, or the idea that a kingdom can be tolerant of men with flowers and women without big hooters or straight-up androgyny or homosexuals, or if you hate tarot cards or psionic cats, or if Mercedes Lackey makes you want to vomit, or any of the other things I've seen people discussing...just remind yourself that Blue Rose was never intended for you. Seriously. I'm thrilled to see so many people interested in the rules changes that were developed by our Blue Rose team to emulate the romantic fantasy genre, but it's no surprise to me that a bunch of you don't like the setting, the fluff, the concepts, the art, the title font, etc.

We're trying to open up the market, introduce the concept of fun roleplaying to people who may never have considered it before. If you want to do something entirely different with it, toss out entire portions of the setting (or the setting altogether), go for it! Go crazy! Have fun! I personally would hope that people who do like the setting, who are happy enough to accept the setting and pretend along saying "What if the 'good guys' were like this..." would be welcomed and accepted into the hobby without being ridiculed for their choice, but hey, I'm also OK with pretending that there's a tolerant kingdom of good-hearted heroes and their psychic animal who are led by a monarch chosen by an otherworldly golden deer in the first place...

 

[drothgery]

There are countries that have lasted as theocracies since the Islamic conquest of the early middle ages until now, actually. Granted, they may have gone through more than one dynasty, and the details are very different, but your claim is still easily disproved.

Err, where? Certainly not in the middle east, where the current nations are the remnants of European empires pulling out.

 

[Desdichado]

Err, where? Certainly not in the middle east, where the current nations are the remnants of European empires pulling out.

The fact that European powers came in and messed with things didn't change the fact that the middle east and Central Asia were all Islamic theocracies up until the Mongol conquest, and continued, essentially, to be administered as Muslim theocracies until WWI when the Ottoman Empire finally gave up. At which point, most of them reverted into being more overt theocracies, such as we see in the region now.

 

[drothgery]

So, to believe humans can change we need to change the other races. That's actually not that hard.

RPGs, sci-fi, and fantasy published to date suggest otherwise. It's very hard to write intelligent nonhuman creatures that don't think like humans (and stereotyped humans at that), and even harder to do it well. It's darn near impossible to run such creatures as PCs or NPCs for any length of time.

 

[Desdichado]

I've said it elsewhere, and I'm sure I'll have to say again: The Blue Rose roleplaying game seeks to emulate the genre of romantic fantasy as it exists in fiction, including all of the themes and tropes common to the genre.

Green Ronin's only agenda is to promote the hobby of ROLEPLAYING to the already existing audience of romantic fantasy literature (and, perhaps, nine-year-old girls who spend their allowance on posters of kittens with wings and pink faeries...if my daughter's interest in the game is any indication).

Including, then, the agenda of that type of fiction. Look, I'm not condemning the game for having an overt agenda, even if it's only second hand. I think it's great, and a bold move for GR to go looking for another audience that they can bring into the fold. Frankly, I wish more folks would do that.

But, of course, to bring a new market to bear, you need to cater to their tastes. Quite naturally, a game aimed at fans of a type of fiction that has a pretty obvious agenda will reflect that same agenda. That doesn't mean that GR has that agenda, or even that the authors of the game have it either, but I think it's hard to claim that the game itself doesn't.