Historical Games Round 75

[Jennkryst]

@Faraday Isn’t the default answer almost always ‘vampires try to do human factory farming (again)’?

[Faraday]

@Jennkryst OK vampires maybe not the best example since they tend to stay hidden in most settings. Aliens, monsters, zombies, whatever.

[bear_necessities]

This thread right here is why I go “I want to make a cowboy game!” and then @KarmaBum and I start talking about it and we realize we can’t ever make a historical cowboy game because of all this and because we both like to BAT!

Anyway I don’t really understand why it’s become the norm that we can’t have a historical setting without historical struggles. I do understand not wanting to actively play scenes involving extreme -isms and absolutely not suggesting that happen here, but I would happily play in a 1920s game where the sticker on the front says “this shit is happening but we’re here to fight nightmares not be racists”.

[mietze]

@bear_necessities I think that is the norm for every historical themed game I’ve played in the last 10 years. (this is era-inspired but no you can’t be racist/sexist/homophobic and that will not be tolerated, so deal with it or don’t play.) I can’t think of a historical game now that advertises itself or even wants to be “we are totally accurate and you MUST reflect the attitude of the times according to white male academic assumptions” (because let’s face it, a lot of the things the undesirable folks that aren’t necessarily nazi or custer reenactor wannabes are frankly not the most historically accurate anyway. they’re based with some truth and a lot of wanting to justify the historian’s contemporary views). But maybe it’s just because I didn’t hear of those games.

I think it’s more likely than ever before that a great deal of respect will be given to consent and not forcing players to deal with content they don’t wish to partake in. Even in a historical game.

But I’m not saying that they’re not out there? I’m glad I’ve not come across them.

Editing to add: what makes me somewhat uncomfortable sometimes is the value judgement against people who even want to reference inquality or struggles of the time period, either in their backgrounds or otherwise. I don’t think it’s very common, but like everything when people speak passionately either way they’re going to be a bit more absolutist. But I don’t think this is limited to historical games. I know part of the appeal of certain genres for me is exploring certain themes of oppression and trauma and horror where honestly I get to exert far more control over what my character chooses to do/in the story. Not because I don’t understand the impacts real life, or have not lived them. Because of that I would /never/ want to force anyone to engage in that without full consent. I don’t understand why to some people just even the thought of that would seemingly make me a bad or unsafe person, but by the same token I soft-assume it’s just part of the argument, and that’s not actually what they mean.

[bear_necessities]

@mietze I haven’t really played on any recent historical games, most of the ones I’ve seen come around are “alt Earth” or “we solved the -isms!” and meh, those aren’t the stories for me. But I’m down to clown on a 1920s game where that stuff is over there <---- and I’m over here ----> where the monsters are.

[IoleRae]

I had somebody little miss me the other day at work, and I’m in IT. I am one of the people who is like “I want my pretendy fun times to not deal with that” because it’s fucking exhausting to do it IRL and the last thing I want is to have my pretendy fun run into Tommy’s pretend fun where he’s being thematically appropriate to little miss my character. I don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with Tommy’s pretend fun, at ALL, but I am definitely at the point in my life where if the choice is play that or play nothing, I play nothing.

It’s not FANTASY for me, it’s my RL, and not only is it my RL, but it is a shitty, sucky, awful, terrible part of my RL that I don’t need to explore in a pretendy fun time game.

[mietze]

@bear_necessities honestly I’m pretty sure what you want is going to be the default rather than the exception. And that’s by and large what the people who are going to come and contribute to your game will want. Pretty much nobody likes the people who use “BUT THIS IS HISTORICALLY ACCURATE” to beat down other players/force them into RP situations they don’t want, and I don’t know that any game runners I personally know would really tolerate that for very long. Especially on a smaller, niche game. I’m sure there /are/ exceptions. But as a person who has a higher tolerance and even desire for exploring uncomfortable themes compared to my friends group, I wouldn’t want to play anyplace where that was forced on /anyone/. It’s not cool.

I get more angry about people ignoring thematic accuracy when it comes to eglatarian culture. Because that is a unique and interesting concept (to me), and it’s irritating when people bring in the "but i am big man you r small woman’ shit into it.

[Roadspike]

I’m honestly on the fence about whether it’s better to create an alt-world that ‘fixes’ all the -isms so that people can avoid it, or just tell people that we’re not going to focus on that (and clearly the value judgment inherent in “better” isn’t actually there, just “more preferred by me” I guess).

Because like, I don’t want to inflict harm on people and I want people to be able to escape the oppression and harassment that is their everyday life, like @IoleRae mentioned, but I also don’t want to whitewash history and suddenly say that we could have fixed racism and sexism if only WWI had lasted years longer and there were dragons (usually I don’t want to do that, unless I just want to focus on punching fascists), or that vampires were responsible for the Atlantic slave trade. Because that minimizes the horrible things humans have done to other humans throughout the history of humanity.

[IoleRae]

@Roadspike

To be clear, none of what I deal with would be something I’d classify as harassment or even rise to the level of oppression. Somebody was a huge jerkface, but he was not a jerkface that had any sort of power over me, and if I had wanted to I could have declined to help him entirely and I’m totally empowered to do that. AND YET, still. I just wanted to clarify that I’m not like out here in the sweatshop dealing with mad sexists or anything. I do deeply appreciate your take on the topic, though – I completely share the conundrum, and I DON’T know which is better.

@tsar

Sorry I thought it was related to figuring out the moving parts for the game.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

Bit late to the discussion about bigotry above but eh, timezones.

Here’s what we have on Keys:

A lot of our scenes take place in historical periods such as Nazi Germany or similar where bigotry, racism, sexism etc is rampant, viewed with modern eyes. We have made it clear that we expect players to not apply these views to one another – they’re for the antagonists. It’s simple but it has worked so far.

[Testament]

@bear_necessities Okay that’s fair, but my question is if you(general you, not you specifically) want to be ‘over there where the monsters are’ and by and large I doubt the monsters are going to care if this Earth has resolved the whole -isms thing, what does it matter if it’s an alternate version or not? Why is the fact that it’s an alternate Earth make it a hangup?

[Pavel]

@Testament said in New Concept:

Why is the fact that it’s an alternate Earth make it a hangup?

Firstly, it’s just a preference. Those of us who like the “warts and all” historical setting simply have a preference for it; we’re not making demands that people submit to our will or anything. People just like things, sometimes, and that’s okay.

Secondly, it’s more work (for me) to pretend that something isn’t a part of a real-world setting than a totally fantastical one. Society has formed through the lens of various forms of bigotry and prejudice, and it’s far easier in my head to concede that Arx society doesn’t have sexism, because I’ve never seen the effects of an Arx society with sexism.

Third, for me, is that historical settings should be reasonably accurate in their depiction. That is, for me, the point of setting something historically. If you’re going to pick and choose what parts of a historical setting to ignore - as in totally ignore, not just choose not to focus on it - then why not just make up a setting without all those bits instead?

[bear_necessities]

@Testament I mean, like @Pavel said, it’s just a preference. I don’t like playing alternative earth games where we’ve solved all the -isms, and I also don’t want to read ten thousand pages of lore to get a mild grasp on what I’m doing. And that isn’t because I don’t like lore - I love world building and that sort of shit - I just frankly don’t have the time to read a ton of stuff in order to play anywhere anymore. I can plug & play into historical 1920s with monsters far easier than “this is 1920s but not real earth but in FakeEarth1 where the aliens descended and solved all the world’s problems except that monster problem and oh go here, here and here to find out everything about the world and…” <-- I’m old, tired, and don’t have time for that.

I actually prefer what @Pyrephox said above, because I too find those themes interesting and exciting to play, but I also tend to play with people I trust, so maybe that’s why I’m okay with that? I know @Pyrephox and @KarmaBum and @tsar and @Snackness aren’t going to go crazy on me and would be respectful of my limits, etc. But that’s kind of off topic for this.

[Testament]

@bear_necessities Fair enough answer. I think I have a disconnect in the fact that I don’t think I’d trust people enough to handle those kind of issues delicately, so in my mind it’s just easier for everyone involved if it’s just axed entirely and handwave some blase OOC notation that says, “It’s not a thing.”

As we’ve seen, we’ve seen some pretty strong reactions to the idea of having to deal with those kind of themes and issues when some players have to deal with it in their own lives on an everyday basis.

That said, I also understand just not having the time or inclination to read X amount of theme files in order to play something. It’s a hard tightrope to balance.

[Faraday]

@Testament said in New Concept:

Why is the fact that it’s an alternate Earth make it a hangup?

You know how people talk about the “uncanny valley” effect in CGI? There’s an uncomfortable middle ground between real humans and obviously-fake cartoons? In the uncanny valley, things are close but just kind of off in some subconsciously-triggering way. Alt-history settings are like that for me.

Also, one of the reasons I like historical games is because of the setting, good and bad. I grew up inspired by stories about people like Mary Edwards Walker, who became a doctor in an era where not many women could, volunteered (rather forcibly) as a Civil War surgeon, and was awarded the Medal of Honor. Or Kate Marne, who used the fact that nobody would expect a woman to be a detective to nab criminals and spy for the Union. One of my favorite historical-MU storylines was about a woman who grew past her historically-typical bigotry after a trio of LGBTQ chars became like family to her.

Bigotry is bad, but I believe these kinds of stories have value. I want to believe there’s a way to have a space where people can tell those kinds of stories in a historical setting, while also being a safe space where people don’t have to confront that crap if they don’t want to. Some combination of consent and content warnings or something, like what @L-B-Heuschkel described.

Or just go alt-history. That’s fine. It’s not my jam, but I can understand if people just want to avoid the issues altogether.

[farfalla]

@bear_necessities said in New Concept:

I do understand not wanting to actively play scenes involving extreme -isms and absolutely not suggesting that happen here, but I would happily play in a 1920s game where the sticker on the front says “this shit is happening but we’re here to fight nightmares not be racists”.

I almost have more problems with this approach than with just having era-appropriate discriminations. I can’t grasp the idea that there’s massive oppression and we’re just all ignoring it. I don’t know how to play that; those things would be so fundamental to both society and also everything about a marginalized character’s identity. Okay, I’m in a town where that doesn’t happen because we’re busy with monsters, but the character is still informed by a lifetime of oppression, but now I’m just ignoring that - doesn’t make sense in my brain.

Apparently I’m team BAT for the setting but I can’t BAT internal character cohesion.

[Testament]

@Faraday I will say that in absolutely no way am I trying to take away agency for those kind of stories. Or that they’re not just as valid as any other. At it’s core, I personally have no issue with that, but I also find historical fiction not interesting, and that’s a me thing I admit(reading about it is a whole other story, I enjoy reading and watching media about it). And that generally tends boil down to “It’s already been done, it’s already happened.” But just with historical fiction, I don’t do modern day. Generally, it has be so far into science fiction or fantasy that draws me into a theme or genre, mostly because it defies belief and expectations. And then I just want to read everything that I can get my hands on.

My preferences isn’t the point here, however. It’s a desire to want to be respectful to those who struggles with these issues far more than I ever will, so it’s part of me that tries to be respectful in regards towards it. When I created my game, I had a couple of major points of doing so. One of my online friends wanted to portray the fact they could have a same sex marriage without being derided because, the game being of the fantasy genre with lines of nobility an whatnot, is going to be looked down on that because it wasn’t going to result in children. While some players I know, might take that in stride as apart of IC growth and social conflict, this wasn’t the case. And that really bothered my friend, who felt like their character was being treated as a second class citizen in game because of their orientation. It was something that stuck with me months and years later when I finally decided to make a game of my own and decided that “I’m never going to make a character or a player feel like that.”

So in my head, it’s far easier to just make an entire world/theme/history/lore/etc that has nothing based in historical or modern reality. And I can create that kind of social constraints by applying them in completely different ways and still feel like it’s an IC conflict, without having it be based on something like gender, orientations, religion, etc etc.

But it just being of a personal preference? Hey, I can respect that. I think it goes without all saying that we all have types of genres and themes that we’re going to view more favorably than others simply because it’s what we like. I don’t hate on historical fiction or modern day(I tried Changeling, really I did, and it just never grabbed me, and I hate myself for that), I just know after countless attempts that it’s just never stuck me.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Testament That take is entirely valid (and really only goes to show why games can’t be for everyone). I’m the opposite – I don’t want to learn a whole fictional world when there’s a real, historical one right here with endless cues and prompts for action.

Either take’s valid, I figure.

[KarmaBum]

@farfalla said in New Concept:

I can’t grasp the idea that there’s massive oppression and we’re just all ignoring it.

You and I had a scene on a game set in the “real world” on 2/6/2019 - the day of Trump’s State of the Union Address, the day Pope Francis acknowledged sexual predation by priests against nuns, and a few other things, and we totally ignored it in our RP and focused on magical wolves coming out of portals and mauling stupid stoners.

Honest question: does the fact that it’s historical and not modern have an impact?

We do this all the time in modern settings. I believe Keys and Network both have a “no COVID” take on things, no? So is it harder to put out of mind because it’s historical?

[Pavel]

I think that we, here and generally, need to get better at just accepting “I like things X way” as a complete answer for things like this.