This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Recent release of a new entry in the hit crpg series Baldurs Gate, has prompted me to look into the history of the parent franchise, Dungeons and Dragons. It's influence is immense1, crossing borders2.
But like any cultural product, it is itself a product of its surroundings. It's a game that exalts the American values of self-reliance, ability, and the ruthless accumulation of money.
It is not only non-medieval, it is anti-feudalistic and anti-aristocratic. Creatures with more XP and hit dice rule lower-level ones, from settled barons and goblin kings to wandering bandits and nomads. Level requirements for baronies are at odds with the hereditary gloss added to D&D in nearly every subsequent setting.
Obsession with money-gathering for its own sake that is suggestive of mercantilism or capitalism.
Gygax original pre-publication Greyhawk campaign drew heavily from his own American experience. It took place on a United States map, with Greyhawk at Chicago, and Dyvers at Milwaukee. His buddy Don Kaye’s Greyhawk character, Murlynd, was a gunslinger from Boot Hill.
Most of D&D’s thousands of imitators, in game and fiction, preserve the game’s democratic bones (cash economy, guns for hire, rags to riches stories) while overlaying a medieval-European skin.
Gygaxian levelocracy, where a villager can rise to become a baron or a “Conan type”, is fundamentally incompatible with the European fantasy typified by Lord of the Rings, in which no fellowship can alter the fact that Sam is by birth a servant, Frodo a gentleman, Strider a king, and Gandalf a wizard.
1:D&D invented "leather armor" and those "leather bracers" we see in so much historical fiction today. Even in documentaries!
Also D&D started the myth of bows being a "dexterity weapon". In reality, the sword is a much more suitable weapon for weaker people (blades require so little strength, we hide knives from children, and cut ourselves unintentionally while cooking), while a bow requires strength to operate. A war bow requires bodybuilder tier strength to use, and its shoulder and back muscles, the hardest ones for a woman to pack.
I'll also blame D&D for popularizing dumb weapons, like flails, which probably never saw battlefield use and were just dumb ornaments. I've tried to play with one, its more dangerous to the wielder than to his opponent. And, of course, the overall size of weapons is exaggerated in official art, but that was already bad and only got worse in other media.
2: Record of Lodoss War, Porcine appearance of orcs in Japanese media
Edit: Restoring this post, warts and all, because when I deleted it I didn't see the notification count increase. If I had, I would have left it up. Now that they did and a discussion has started (and accusations of trolling), deleting it is pointless.
What's the culture war angle of this post? The biggest D&D-related culture battles are probably the "body type" toggles in BG3 and "orc lives matter" from a few years back, but I don't think Gygax not having a good grasp of medieval... anything is related to culture war.
More options
Context Copy link
Please explain this. Posting a pastiche of 4chan threads without attribution has a strong trolling vibe.
As the person who pointed this out, I don't think being inspired by a 4chan thread and even reposting stuff verbatim should in and of itself be considered trolling. There is upon occasion good points made on that website (I wouldn't spend so much time there if there weren't) and I'd rather not start a trend of sourcing from 4chan to be inherently suspect.
No, being inspired by, or reposting from 4chan is not in itself trolling. But taking 4chan posts and stitching them together to make a post which you present as if it's something you wrote yourself, with no indicator of the source, does look like trolling. Anyone who does that sort of unattributed copypasta, from anywhere, is almost always up to something and not engaging in good faith. Just saying "Here is something I saw on 4chan" would be fine.
I sincerely doubt this would be fine. It would probably be dinged for low effort, at least, if not antagonistic just for the fact that it came from 4chan.
No, it wouldn't, at least not just because it came from 4chan.
If it's just a link drop or copypasta, then probably yes.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
What if you are the original author who posts both to 4chan and TheMotte? Do you have to tell people you posted elsewhere? I can’t do A/B testing like this, no way.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Sigh. You won’t see this on account of the block, but I think you’d find this interesting. Or perhaps it’s what inspired you.
The Original D&D setting is weirder than one might expect. Dinosaurs and cavemen, Martians, random encounters with 40d10 goblins. Characters who reached the lofty heights of 7th or 8th level were expected to draw an income from their peasants as they founded settlements in the wilderness. They could encounter non-player settlements following similar rules, down to the expected number of gryphon-riding aerial knights looking for a joust.
There’s an old stereotype of “linear fighters and quadratic wizards.” In 3.5, becoming a high-level fighter gave you more health and better attacks. Meanwhile, wizards grew to break the rules over their scrawny knees. To compensate, the early game was much more forgiving for a fighter. This does stem from old D&D, where a 1st-level wizard would spend most of his time shanking sleeping goblins, if he was lucky. What’s less often mentioned is that old-school fighters enjoyed better magic items, strongholds, and acquisition of followers. Yes, that wizard could do a pretty good impression of a siege engine. But you could bring a regiment of spearmen from your personal castle.
Besides, not every character was suited for wizardry. In modern D&D, it’s common to choose the spread of your attributes. But in the older rules, you were probably rolling 3d6 in order. Little Timmy’s frail constitution meant he probably shouldn’t become a fighter, and didn’t have a chance of representing the Church as a paladin. Class selection was (in theory) not about maximizing your combat, but about modeling how different people would fare at different jobs. It’s a simulationist approach which is largely absent from the modern game.
I would love to play a hexcrawl in this weird, foreboding world.
There's always GURPS. Third Edition Basic Set:
(This rule technically is missing from the Fourth Edition Basic Set, but it obviously works just as well in Fourth Edition.)
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures can be used for hexcrawls. GURPS Boardroom and Curia has rules for creating an organization, such as a troop of bandits seeking to set you up as a new baron. GURPS Low-Tech Companions 2 and 3 have (rough) rules for building fortifications. GURPS Low-Tech Companion 3 and articles in Pyramid vol. 3 issues 33 and 52 have (rough) rules for handling the economics of farming. GURPS Mass Combat has rules for large-scale war. Et cetera.
GURPS has spawned many impressive spin-offs like the incredibly breathtaking Malazan Book of the Fallen epic fantasy series.
Holy shit. I had no idea. I figured he just really liked Black Company.
I mean Erikson has said The Black Company was an inspiration for him as well in his writings, of course. But the world itself is way beyond that series in terms of scope. We owe all that to GURPS.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Hey, just letting you guys know cause I think this is very funny. This essay is based upon a 4chan thread! For example, the entirety of the first citation is just taken verbatim from this post here https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/652238026#p652239931
I have no idea why OP decided to convert a 4chan thread into a post on the motte but it's very amusing to me. While I certainly enjoy using 4chan, I wouldn't cite it as a source.
My dude 4chan's /v/ and /tg/ are the foremost exemplars of pure scholarly DnD thought. In no other place can you formulate an assassination plot against a king involving a purely naked dwarf concealing an entire party decked out in war gear, safely hidden inside his ass.
More options
Context Copy link
Meanwhile the CW thread folks share some in common with the old /tg/ types who would ignore the troll parts and just start having fun with some of the concepts or premises in the OP. That it's a /v/ origin talking about tabletop makes some aspects of the argument make much more sense.
Yeah, it makes for a good thread. I do think it’s suspicious to do a 4chan pastiche, but…cui bono?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You know, when I got into AD&D 2E, it wasn't The Forgotten Realms, or Greyhawk, or Planescape, or any of their other settings that hooked me. The lore was meaningless to me. It was imagining a world with those rules. The almost singularly unique Vancian magic system. It's peculiar saving throw tables for each class. Even the unique power curves of each class. It was a departure from every RPG I'd ever played (limited almost entire at that point in time to Zeldas, Earthbound and Final Fantasy III/VI, but still very little even since). It was a level of granular crunch that made AD&D feel radically more real than any game I'd played before which were overtly just games.
It wasn't until much, much later I came to understand what hooked me was the verisimilitude of consim (conflict simulator) crunch. They make the endeavor a worse game in absolute terms. Weird, nitpicky, counter intuitive, easily forgettable rules. Except they hold the key to reminding the player this game is based on real events.
I think my favorite example is Red Winter. It had a 56 page "Playbook", about 30 pages of which are historical notes, designer notes, optional rules and strategies. Among the optional rules are things like the Finns capturing Soviet LMGs, the Finnish commander Pajari possibly having a heart attack, and the Soviet's being so poorly rationed, if they overrun a Finnish field kitchen they become irrevocably distracted by the sausage.
Now I know AD&D is not simulating anything as real as Red Winter. But it's rules, to my eyes at least, come from that same place. And I think this is supportable by the fact that AD&D emerged out of consims. And I adore it. That rule aesthetic has been totally lost from nearly every after, which strived to be better games first and foremost. I guess it should come as no surprise that it's attracted, or cultivated, a radically different type of player than back in my day.
More options
Context Copy link
That's because D&D is (was) really a Western dressed up in an anachronistic pseudomidieval setting. And it's settings and monsters owe more to Conan and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser than to Lord of the Rings.
Now it's become an alice-in-wonderland tea party for non-binary tiefling warlocks.
I can't reply to the deleted post, so I'll reply to this instead: What is the deal with the recent trend of top-level posts being posted and then immediately deleted?
It’s almost all the same guy. He really needs to be banned although I assume they keep creating alt accounts.
More options
Context Copy link
Almost certainly trolling.
I apologize sincerely. In my defense, I deleted the post about inaccuracies in D&D, political or otherwise, after realizing it was poorly researched, after less then four minutes.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I like my rpgs to be as Tolkienesque and possible and have collected about all of the relevant systems, but I find that it's difficult to get a group together which shares that aesthetic taste. By and large, people really do seem to prefer pop-fantasy. Damn millennials. They ruined the millennium!
What exactly do you mean by Tolkienesque?
I’m curious as to which systems you think get closest. Most of the people who I’ve seen complain about pop-fantasy fall into one of two groups. Group 1 thinks pop-fantasy is trite and demands more weirdness. Group 2 thinks it’s too soft and looks for something more grounded. I’d say the latter tend to more simulationist, and that they get excited about OSR games. Group 1 either ends up playing dice-pool games or just collecting materials without running any sessions.
Point is, neither of these groups seem like they’d end up at Tolkien, and I can’t think of any systems that really try to implement such a style. Maybe a low-magic variant of 2e?
Well there are several overtly based in Middle-Earth. MERP is the OG here, with more modern versions such as The One Ring and even a series of supplements for playing in Middle Earth using the 5E rules. I want to run a One Ring game but haven't found the time or people for it. Hopefully in a decade I'll be able to do it with my kids.
Yeah, I really like 2E for this, with 1E attitudes toward magic, i.e. it's very rare. A +1 sword is a big deal for even mid-level characters, and giving a magic weapon of any kind to a minion is a huge deal.
There's a style of play called 'E6' (idk why) where the basic premise is that characters can ascend to level 6 as normal but advancement stops there. This keeps them feeling roughly mortal which I think counts for a lot. Beyond that point in normal campaigns it becomes more and more difficult to give them real challenges beyond simply enemies with comparably-scaling stats, which feels clicky to me. In E6, as the campaign goes on, they continue to accumulate wealth and prestige, which opens the door to interesting options. And of course magic items, while hard-won, gradually serve to give them a sense of legendary prowess. But at the end of the day, one bad encounter with a gang of low-level enemies can still wreck them entirely. And they never really get the sense of being able to walk into combat without concern.
In one game I tried something out where beyond level 6 they could only attain further advancement in levels by eating dragon hearts, and dragons were as difficult to find and kill as you'd expect. I liked this approach because it really slowed down advancement and provided some kind of justification for why normal people could get so superhumanly powerful. Also it ends up feeling a little bit like Birthright, which I've always loved.
Haven't tried it, but I bet that Westeros campaign setting from... 20 or so years ago? probably would be a good fit as well. IIRC it was partly based on the idea that the players are, and only ever will be, eminently vulnerable. And it seems to be very low-magic, in keeping with the setting.
In theory bounded accuracy does this with DnD 5E. Unlike 3.5 where a first level fighter has a base of +1 to hit and a 20th level fighter has +20 (setting aside ability scores), in 5th edition a 1st level fighter has +2 to hit and a 20th level fighter has +6. AC also scales less so it is easier to be hit. And magic items are as a baseline fairly rare and powerful ones need to be attuned which limits how many you can have.
It has advantages and disadvantages but even reasonably low CR monsters can be a threat to a high level party. Well the martial half at least. Spell casters still scale into the stratosphere. Even though their save bonuses don't improve much, they just get more and more tools. Which is a slightly different issue than the fundamental maths of the game.
The catch is that character improvement is exponential. Increased hit chance, yes, but also number of attacks, damage per attack, and additional triggered effects. Bounded accuracy reins in the biggest of those but leaves the others untouched.
E6 puts pretty hard caps on attacks and (via magic item limits) damage per attack. It does allow feat progression, so there are still options to add damage kickers, but that’s a soft cap on the power provided by higher-level class features.
Same goes for survivability. Bounded AC and saves or not, having 20 hit dice offers a certain insurance. Fireball and other standards simply cannot threaten someone with enough HP. They have to be superseded by bigger, stronger spells.
This was actually one of the explicit motivations for E6. Stopping before casters get 4th-circle spells was intended to rule out some of the more absolute effects—globe of invulnerability, dimension door, enervation.
Yup it still has issues, but it does make 30 basic goblin archers able to actually hit and damage a high level party in a way that 30 goblin archers in 3/3.5 would have been unable to do. And if using cover/prepared positions the party might actually miss them in return on occasion.
Spell casters are as always the fly in the ointment. Whether there should be a martial/caster divide in power/utility levels and if so how big it should be has been an ongoing debate since Elves were both a class and a race, Pathfinder 2E has kind of answered one way DnD 4th tried to answer another and got scorched whereas 5th (and the upcoming 5.5 or whatever it will be) basically wearily throws up its hands and says fine, you want Linear Warriors and Quadratic Wizards, then you have them, but just slightly less so than 3rd.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I was forgetting about E6. “Epic 6,” due to borrowing the post-level-cap advancement system from a particular Epic Handbook. I think I’ve seen a couple variants.
Also reminds me of this argument for modeling our world’s heroes as low-level characters.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link