New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 31 to 42 of 42
  1. - Top - End - #31
    Orc in the Playground
     
    raygun goth's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2015
    Location
    Orlando

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    There's a forest here and y'all are asking me which specific tree is the forest I keep talking about. That's a pretty hefty task.

    There are no methods, period, by which a PC can affect any kind of cultural change to the way Rokugan works. Don't give me the names of NPC greats or give me meta reasons for things like the Great Famine - the point is that they struck it from their records completely and changed the calendars to match.

    That would be like the United States collectively cutting out 1955 to 1975 and resetting the calendar to 1955 because of the horrible debacles that happened in those years. I don't know how that can't be seen as oppressive.

    You want meta reasons for things? Ok. There is no way, through normal play, a PC can ever reach the same ability of any of the setting's wunderkind. The culture and mechanics themselves turn and punch the hell out of you if you even try. The disparity between players and the "cool" people in all the histories is magnitudes of impossible-to-reach XP levels. You, as a PC, will never change anything. It's a poo-poosack setting that doesn't offer you the chance to change it (as the books read, mind you).

    One of the questions in the character development section is "how will you die?" and it is one of the most important questions on that track.

    If you read through the histories, you will note that history is full of Crab A coming to the court to ask for food, weapons, or men, the rest of the country laughing at them, then a Shadowlands invasion happening, and then, less than two or three decades later, the whole thing repeats. It. Never. Changes.

    As for culture-enforcing secret police, yes, that is a thing the Scorpion do, constantly. So does the Otomo, the Tortoise clan, the Crane, and technically also the Kuni (who hunt for blasphemies).

    Yes, basically one guy decides what is essentially uniforms - the Crane clan daimyo. The clan is literally in charge of what Rokugani culture is every year. They can break and ruin someone for wearing the wrong thing to Winter Court.

    Really, the most dangerous thing the setting gives you, as a player and a character, is hope - much like how there is a Fortune of Romantic Love, the histories give you hope that perhaps, if you work hard enough and live a true, faithful Rokugani life, you will be rewarded with a spouse (that, mind you, your family has chosen for you) that you actually love, a name that history will remember, and a place among the gods, or a higher station in the next life. Not like it matters, you won't remember anyway.

    You can always play it differently, mind you, but at its base, it is a highly conservative setting with some very nasty moral values that it does not expect PCs to attempt to alter.

    Also, as a side note, I have to say that the Lying Darkness is pretty much the best villain for the setting as a whole, because it takes all of the garbage that you have to deal with on a daily basis and promises to take away all the regret and pain of having to live with a free mind in an unforgiving culture, while all it costs is the removal of the most important and powerful thing you have as a samurai - your name.
    Last edited by raygun goth; 2017-07-16 at 01:38 PM.
    "Scary magical hoodoo and technology are the same thing, their difference is merely cultural context" - Clarke, paraphrased

  2. - Top - End - #32
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    Quote Originally Posted by raygun goth View Post
    There are no methods, period, by which a PC can affect any kind of cultural change to the way Rokugan works. Don't give me the names of NPC greats or give me meta reasons for things like the Great Famine - the point is that they struck it from their records completely and changed the calendars to match.
    You mean like they can in any other RPG setting? Like how any player at my table can somehow change what WotCF decides to do in FR or Greyhawk. Fun fact, no PCs can ever canonincally change an RPG setting, and L5R with it's player win storylines is the closest thing you can get now. Around the table you can do whatever the **** you want. Honestly, what are you trying to say here?

    Quote Originally Posted by raygun goth View Post
    - the point is that they struck it from their records completely and changed the calendars to match.

    That would be like the United States collectively cutting out 1955 to 1975 and resetting the calendar to 1955 because of the horrible debacles that happened in those years. I don't know how that can't be seen as oppressive.
    No the Great Famine is not a canonical event, is is presented as an example of what you can add to a game to fill out the 'empty' ears in history and give it a reason to exist. RTFM

    Quote Originally Posted by raygun goth View Post
    You want meta reasons for things? Ok. There is no way, through normal play, a PC can ever reach the same ability of any of the setting's wunderkind. The culture and mechanics themselves turn and punch the hell out of you if you even try. The disparity between players and the "cool" people in all the histories is magnitudes of impossible-to-reach XP levels. You, as a PC, will never change anything. It's a poo-poosack setting that doesn't offer you the chance to change it (as the books read, mind you)..
    What the hell are you talking about? There is nothing in the books, flavor of mechanics that says you can't be as awesome as canon characters. There is literally nothing saying or even vaguely hinting at this.


    Quote Originally Posted by raygun goth View Post

    If you read through the histories, you will note that history is full of Crab A coming to the court to ask for food, weapons, or men, the rest of the country laughing at them, then a Shadowlands invasion happening, and then, less than two or three decades later, the whole thing repeats. It. Never. Changes.
    Yes, Rokugan is resistant to change, but changes have occurred. We gave you plenty of examples. You want more, we can provide them. Or you could just read the ****ing literature. Just to take a recent example, the Destroyer War. If your complaint is that the setting is resistant to change, well so is basically every other setting. Do you hate those as well?


    Quote Originally Posted by raygun goth View Post
    As for culture-enforcing secret police, yes, that is a thing the Scorpion do, constantly. So does the Otomo, the Tortoise clan, the Crane, and technically also the Kuni (who hunt for blasphemies).
    .
    This is not culture policing, and you bloody well know it. Don't try to pass it off as such. The Scorpion are there to root out conspiracies that threaten the Empire (and make a few themselves), not make sure everyone dresses correctly. The Otomo are not secret police they are politicians with an vested interest in the status quo. You know, like any other political entity with a long history of being in power. The Kuni hunt literal soul-sucking demons and people who will forever damn your soul to hell with black magic. Please tell me how this is the same as making sure you bowed deeply enough to daimyo Doji Dimwit?
    The Tortoise? The Tortoise are the empire's spies abroad to keep track of foreign affairs and report directly to the Emperor. They have nothing, literally nothing to do with internal affairs and literally nothing to do with making sure people act like proper Rokugani.

    Is your complaint really that the setting is resistant to change? Well so is basically every other setting. Do you hate those as well for this fact?


    Quote Originally Posted by raygun goth View Post
    Yes, basically one guy decides what is essentially uniforms - the Crane clan daimyo. The clan is literally in charge of what Rokugani culture is every year. They can break and ruin someone for wearing the wrong thing to Winter Court.
    Unless you are one of those annoying people who use 'literally' when you should use 'figuratively' or 'virtually', then no. They do nothing of the sort. Their power is not enshrined in law, nor in the rules of the game. They are the beautiful popular rich kid in school written large. They cannot by law force you to obey but they can ruin your reputation by turning everyone else against you. You are complaining about people in power having what you consider unfair influence. That's your business but hardly unique to Rokugan.



    Quote Originally Posted by raygun goth View Post

    Really, the most dangerous thing the setting gives you, as a player and a character, is hope - much like how there is a Fortune of Romantic Love, the histories give you hope that perhaps, if you work hard enough and live a true, faithful Rokugani life, you will be rewarded with a spouse (that, mind you, your family has chosen for you) that you actually love, a name that history will remember, and a place among the gods, or a higher station in the next life. Not like it matters, you won't remember anyway.

    You can always play it differently, mind you, but at its base, it is a highly conservative setting with some very nasty moral values that it does not expect PCs to attempt to alter.
    What on earth are you blathering about now? I honestly cannot get the point of this complaint. Are you really trying to tell me that players do not remember the characters they play if the game happens to be L5R? Because that is what it seems like your are saying here.

    You seem to have understood that Rokugan is very conservative, very unfair and has some ethics that most of us modern day westerners find problematic. Congratulations, you have understood something that is spelt out clearly in the books. You don't seem to like that, and fine, whatever, no one is saying you have to. You just seem to be unable to put aside your real world beliefs and roleplay an actual Rokugani person, and act like this makes it a terrible game.


    Quote Originally Posted by raygun goth View Post
    Also, as a side note, I have to say that the Lying Darkness is pretty much the best villain for the setting as a whole, because it takes all of the garbage that you have to deal with on a daily basis and promises to take away all the regret and pain of having to live with a free mind in an unforgiving culture, while all it costs is the removal of the most important and powerful thing you have as a samurai - your name.
    Dude, we get it, you don't like Rokugan. Fine. I repeat, no one is asking you to. But please, stop making **** up, stop twisting stuff in the game to stuff it isn't to make it even more horrible to fit your need to have it be bad. We can keep this going, if you wish. We can reduce this whole mess to actual quotes from sources if you want, but you will find that we have our **** together.

  3. - Top - End - #33
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Flumph

    Join Date
    Oct 2007

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    Torchbearer's setting isn't particularly oppressive, but life for the PCs is; you have to struggle pretty hard just to say alive and healthy, much less get ahead.

  4. - Top - End - #34
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    SolithKnightGuy

    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Location
    Right behind you!
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    Frankly - there are a lot of settings which can be made oppressive pretty easily.

    Standard modern day secret fantasy? Make the PCs have supernatural powers. Instead of being super special snowflakes - that makes them a feared underclass which the government secretly controls in really dark creepy ways.

    Any sort of points of light fantasy world can be creepy pretty easily.

    Sci-fi can be dark pretty easily if you focus upon the darkness of space sort of stuff.

    etc.

  5. - Top - End - #35
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Griffon

    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    England
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    When it comes to oppressive, or simply outright dystopian settings, I always like to advocate SLA Industries. It's one of the first RPGs that I ever learned and played extensively, so I admit bias, but it has a lot to offer.

    You live in a "Mega-City"; a metropolis built atop the crumbling ruins of the former civilisation, walled off from the polluted, mutant-ridden wasteland beyond. The whole solar system is owned by the titular SLA Industries, a megacorporation run by the seemingly-immortal and utterly ruthless Mr. Slayer. It rains 364 days of the year. Unemployment is at an all time low of just 85%. There are 5,000 channels on the TV, all of which are flooded with 24 hour rolling news of SLA Industries Operatives fighting with agents of rival companies, or hourly updates on the serial killer epidemic that has been rooted in the city for decades (some of the more high-profile ones even have their own fanclubs and merchandise lines).

    That's all to say nothing of the Ex-War Criminals who, utterly unsolvable from their PTSD on the War Worlds, have simply been released into the ruins to continue fighting whatever battles their broken minds can create. Or the Manchines - hideous cybernetic soldiers wrought insane from faulty programming and whose only goal is to harvest enough flesh from their victims to continue functioning for another 500 years. Or that everyone you meet just might have a camera implanted into their brain and looking through their eyes, so that everything they see and hear is reported directly to Mr.Slayer's shadowy enforcers, the Dark Hunters....

    And of course, it'd be remiss of me not to mention SLA Industries' predecessor, the original Cyberpunk 2025, which has all the dystopia and Big Brother-style oppression with played less tongue-in-cheek than SLA's sarcastic materialism commentary.
    ~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
    RPG Characters What I Done Played As (Explained Badly)
    17 Things I Learned About 40k By Playing Dark Heresy
    Tales of a Role-Play Gamer - Horrible Optimisation

  6. - Top - End - #36
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    BardGuy

    Join Date
    Dec 2009

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    Thanks for all the responses and suggestions!

    I have the new Paranoia already and plan to play it soon, but don't really see it as being a long-term game for us. More likely just a few weeks.

    We're currently playing Deadlands and really enjoying it, and I've started reading through Hell on Earth but not sure I like it as much.

    We've played Shadowrun and Cyberpunk for years, so I'm well-versed in those settings.

    Of the ones mentioned I think Cryptomancer and Unhallowed Metropolis both look interesting. Durance sounds perfect for what I'm after, but I was after a more traditional GM-led game, thanks.

  7. - Top - End - #37
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Knaight's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2008

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    Quote Originally Posted by BWR View Post
    You mean like they can in any other RPG setting? Like how any player at my table can somehow change what WotCF decides to do in FR or Greyhawk. Fun fact, no PCs can ever canonincally change an RPG setting, and L5R with it's player win storylines is the closest thing you can get now. Around the table you can do whatever the **** you want. Honestly, what are you trying to say here?
    This is irrelevant. Nobody is talking about changing the setting at the level of affecting what gets published - what's being talked about is how the setting is initially set up, how the characters are placed in that initial setting, and what the implications of that are for the characters changing the setting in the context of a home game. Rokugan has a lot of deeply entrenched institutions, several of which are essentially organizations that actively hunt down anyone who threatens to change them. Meanwhile the PCs in L5R are relatively low ranking (though several steps up from the bottom of the social strata), and aren't the people running these deeply entrenched institutions who could actually effect change. Personally, I like that about Rokugan - it fits with the other themes of the game well - but it's absolutely there.

    As examples of settings that go in a different direction, I'll point towards REIGN and Warbirds. REIGN has a fairly detailed default setting, but it doesn't have the same level of deeply entrenched institutions. There's an old empire, but they're a shadow of their former selves and several territories have broken off completely already. Most of the other significant nations are younger up and comers, the borders are all sorts of unstable, and the status quo is just generally precarious. The PCs are then assumed to be people with an institutional backing, and the rules explicitly have rules for large scale conflicts between organizations that can be affected by individual heroic action, letting the PC's organization punch above its weight. The cultures are also set in conflict, where new institutions pose credible threats to old ones, and the status quo is an uneasy equilibrium easily tipped, with large reserves of people ready to get behind major social changes if a strong enough leader starts pushing them. Warbirds takes a different tack, where the entire setting is effectively really new and there just hasn't been enough time for it to ossify. It's set in the Carribean, after the Carribean islands were transported by a storm to the eye of a gas giant in the 1800's, becoming floating islands and not land masses above the ocean. You've got the colonial powers entirely stripped away, contact between the islands cut, a drastic change in climate for most of the islands, and the island of Cuba broken in two, and this is less than a hundred years before the setting present. People are adapting to a new and alien world, cultures are drifting apart, and technology continues to improve, pushed in a different direction by the sudden change in circumstance. Then the islands reconnect, and that's a whole new upheaval, even closer to the setting present. The PCs meanwhile are members of a mercenary guild of ace pilots, who also have the benefit of planes a solid decade ahead of everyone else. They're being brought into active conflicts, and it is downright expected that things will change in the setting. On top of that is the Go Gonzo chapter, which has rules for PCs doing mad science and changing the world that way.

    I also like both of these settings a great deal, and as with Rokugan the extent to which the settings are resistant to change fits the themes of the setting, with the fit in this case induced by how incredibly unstable and precarious everything is.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

    I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that.
    -- ChubbyRain

    Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.

  8. - Top - End - #38
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Lord Torath's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Sharangar's Revenge
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    This is irrelevant. Nobody is talking about changing the setting at the level of affecting what gets published - what's being talked about is how the setting is initially set up, how the characters are placed in that initial setting, and what the implications of that are for the characters changing the setting in the context of a home game. Rokugan has a lot of deeply entrenched institutions, several of which are essentially organizations that actively hunt down anyone who threatens to change them. Meanwhile the PCs in L5R are relatively low ranking (though several steps up from the bottom of the social strata), and aren't the people running these deeply entrenched institutions who could actually effect change. Personally, I like that about Rokugan - it fits with the other themes of the game well - but it's absolutely there.

    As examples of settings that go in a different direction, I'll point towards REIGN and Warbirds. REIGN has a fairly detailed default setting, but it doesn't have the same level of deeply entrenched institutions. There's an old empire, but they're a shadow of their former selves and several territories have broken off completely already. Most of the other significant nations are younger up and comers, the borders are all sorts of unstable, and the status quo is just generally precarious. The PCs are then assumed to be people with an institutional backing, and the rules explicitly have rules for large scale conflicts between organizations that can be affected by individual heroic action, letting the PC's organization punch above its weight. The cultures are also set in conflict, where new institutions pose credible threats to old ones, and the status quo is an uneasy equilibrium easily tipped, with large reserves of people ready to get behind major social changes if a strong enough leader starts pushing them. Warbirds takes a different tack, where the entire setting is effectively really new and there just hasn't been enough time for it to ossify. It's set in the Carribean, after the Carribean islands were transported by a storm to the eye of a gas giant in the 1800's, becoming floating islands and not land masses above the ocean. You've got the colonial powers entirely stripped away, contact between the islands cut, a drastic change in climate for most of the islands, and the island of Cuba broken in two, and this is less than a hundred years before the setting present. People are adapting to a new and alien world, cultures are drifting apart, and technology continues to improve, pushed in a different direction by the sudden change in circumstance. Then the islands reconnect, and that's a whole new upheaval, even closer to the setting present. The PCs meanwhile are members of a mercenary guild of ace pilots, who also have the benefit of planes a solid decade ahead of everyone else. They're being brought into active conflicts, and it is downright expected that things will change in the setting. On top of that is the Go Gonzo chapter, which has rules for PCs doing mad science and changing the world that way.

    I also like both of these settings a great deal, and as with Rokugan the extent to which the settings are resistant to change fits the themes of the setting, with the fit in this case induced by how incredibly unstable and precarious everything is.
    In this respect, Dark Sun is not that oppressive, at least as detailed before the Revised Boxed Set. It was set up so you couldn't level up "quietly". The very act of leveling up brought you to the attention of the other powerful people in the region. The intent was that the player characters would drastically change the setting as they grew in power. The Prism Pentad heroes sort of stole much of the PCs' thunder, though (which is why I advise treating that story as an example of how a campaign could progress, rather than the actual history of the setting).
    Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
    My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
    Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season

  9. - Top - End - #39
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    This is irrelevant. Nobody is talking about changing the setting at the level of affecting what gets published - what's being talked about is how the setting is initially set up, how the characters are placed in that initial setting, and what the implications of that are for the characters changing the setting in the context of a home game. Rokugan has a lot of deeply entrenched institutions, several of which are essentially organizations that actively hunt down anyone who threatens to change them. Meanwhile the PCs in L5R are relatively low ranking (though several steps up from the bottom of the social strata), and aren't the people running these deeply entrenched institutions who could actually effect change. Personally, I like that about Rokugan - it fits with the other themes of the game well - but it's absolutely there.
    But you can say the same about almost any setting published setting. How often are PCs allowed to topple established kingdoms, radically change culture or alter history in, say, the Forgotten Realms? Aren't most beginning level characters in pretty much any D&D setting about as low as you can get without being a farmer? If anything L5R lets you start significantly more politically and socially powerful than most other settings that come to mind. Yes, Rokugan is resistant to change in its base state but the amount of change possible in any game is left entirely up to the GM. Most GMs don't allow players to radically change things because they and the players prefer the setting more or less as is, but this doesn't mean it can't be done, even fairly easily while remaining mostly true to the setting. Fairly radical changes have occurred in Rokugan's history and there is nothing saying that PCs can't make their own mark.

    The biggest difference between Rokugan and most other settings I can think of is that the PCs are expected to be part of a society, part of something larger than themselves and players can't expect to be left mostly to their own devices except for 'cutscenes'. In this respect, yes, it can be hard to get things done, but it is perfectly possible.

  10. - Top - End - #40
    Troll in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2014

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    @Knaight: I'm inclined to argue that "cannot alter key aspects of the setting by virtue of being a PC" is an unduly broad definition of "oppressive". Frankly, most settings are going to resist that sort of change, and only the leniency of one's GM allows you to overlook that. When you can make those sorts of changes, it's probably because the players have been gifted an opportunity, likely not of their own devising, to make a crucial decision, and that's something that can totally happen in almost any setting if the GM is inclined to make it so. Heck, even Paranoia could be given agency if, say, the adventure plot involves the PCs stumbling on the Computer's main data banks because of a broken panel of drywall in a storage closet.
    Last edited by VoxRationis; 2017-07-19 at 11:15 AM.

  11. - Top - End - #41
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Knaight's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2008

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    Quote Originally Posted by VoxRationis View Post
    @Knaight: I'm inclined to argue that "cannot alter key aspects of the setting by virtue of being a PC" is an unduly broad definition of "oppressive". Frankly, most settings are going to resist that sort of change, and only the leniency of one's GM allows you to overlook that. When you can make those sorts of changes, it's probably because the players have been gifted an opportunity, likely not of their own devising, to make a crucial decision, and that's something that can totally happen in almost any setting if the GM is inclined to make it so. Heck, even Paranoia could be given agency if, say, the adventure plot involves the PCs stumbling on the Computer's main data banks because of a broken panel of drywall in a storage closet.
    I'm not defining it as oppressive, merely commenting that the ability to alter the official published setting isn't what was in contention, and that claiming that the GM can provide an opportunity for change with any setting is something that is technically true but ignores a lot of very pertinent setting details. The resistance varies, with Rokugan fairly far at one end where enacting so much as a tiny culture shift in a small region is opposed by entrenched and powerful institutions, and REIGN's Heluso and Milonda is pretty far towards the other end where the entire setting can be thrown into upheaval. There's things further out, with Paranoia's Alpha Complex making Rokugan look fragile.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

    I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that.
    -- ChubbyRain

    Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.

  12. - Top - End - #42
    Pixie in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2017

    Default Re: Oppressive RPG Settings?

    Xas Irkalla just launched its Kickstarter today, which is a very dark world, I'd link to it but I'm a new user and don't have enough posts under my belt.

    Here's the blurb anyway:

    Xas Irkalla is a tabletop role-playing game that offers a hardcore survival horror experience. The world is a desolate land of surreal horror; a planet wounded by psychic warfare, mind-controlled cities, interdimensional labyrinths, and wasteland tribes. You are the alien here; the last survivor of your species. Your existence will have to be earned.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •