So time to talk about “politics” and “games” and “not being political.” First off, games are ultimately always ideological because they have rules about everything from morality to actions you can take quickly. However, we don’t have much of an analysis of game’s meaning.
Unpacking the first claim: rules cover something like “the limits of PC capabilities”: in many games they’re also expressed in power curves like “linear fighters” and “exponential wizards” but also in simple things like “what skills are common” or “what cultures are in conflict”
A PC in D&D derivations usually has 6 areas of human competence (STR/CON/DEX/INT/WIS/CHA) with a largely bounded range (3-18 with upper limits set by starting stat scores and limits on stat improvement). Similarly, the same skills appear across oWoD for cross compatibility.
In oWoD everyone is capable of operating firearms without specialized training (which tbh guns are intentionally tools easy enough to operate a child can do so) but PCs in the game are often passingly familiar with firearms in the 5 dot skill system
A high stat vampire in VtM may be significantly better than a trained shooter by virtue of Vampires much higher stats—especially when boosted by skills—because vampires are, in the system, quite simply better than humans (and weaker than werewolves but cross portable to WtA)
So: how is this political? Well we are choosing what solutions are mechanically possible in games. In VtM it’s important to know my skill with firearms, hand to hand combat, weapons (I believe are a separate skill, it’s been years) so VtM‘s world is one where that matters
It also says something about the setting, VtM takes place in Grimdark 90s USA (mostly, yes I am aware of the by night and continent books—which like Rifts really favor the comfort zone of the writers, look at the awkwardness of how African bloodlines are integrated in lore)
Grimdark 90s USA is marked by human political divides (all governments are corrupt and riddled with the Technocracy and PENTEX and other hidden agenda villains) which like... late 80s, early 90s: is an overtly corrupt institution and it’s simply worse in every way cuz monsters
Vampires don’t interact with human politics a lot, there isn’t a RAGE ACROSS THE BALLOT BOX which lists every sitting US congressperson, what (if any) conspiracy or conspiracies they’re tied to because VtM is about Camarilla/Sabbat/Anarch politics, humans are a side consideration
Of course a thing about VtM is that you aren’t really supposed to mess with the USAian electoral politics—although various clans do—because the pressing question is Gehenna and your standing with your faction because you know all the conspiracy theories are true—yr a vampire
I think it’s easy to point to the X Files and VtM (and Kult and the oWoD and RIFTs and etc.) as being about a corrosive lack of trust in institutions and tie a neat bow around “VtM encourages belief in paranoid conspiracy theories” which I don’t know if it has that effect
That is if I wanted to say WW does this I would probably take some of the quotes about endemic corruption in government institutions from the old books and put them up next to diatribes from anti-government militias, the tea party, the alt right, ELF/ALF or anarchists
Which leads to one thing: anarchists and right wing militias aren’t very similar, most conspiracy theories aren’t particularly popular among radical environmentalists: the weird thing about oWoD is it mixed “real” or similar to real beliefs with the fantastical (like Gehenna)
It’s pretty hard to claim a lot of the WtA inspiration wasn’t Earth First! Or other high conflict environmentalists engaged in direct action (usually arson). I’ve never met anyone who got into radical green ideas from WtA but WtA is undeniably influenced by the PNW’s conflicts
It’s just that WtA isn’t really about the cutting down of old growth forests, it’s about the Worm and the Spiral Dancers and Gia and a complex mythology pieced together by creators that reflects a lot of ideas that aren’t necessarily cohesive: drawing on trappings not substance
So, there are three kinda arguments you could make:
• WtA would like you to be a radial environmentalist (doubtful given the whole trees are paper thing)
• WtA thinks radical environmentalists are terrorists (doubtful given PENTEX is an antagonist)
• WtA likes the aesthetic
I think the third is most tenable, people seem to forget ELF/ALF did enjoy some public support and really did radically step down some industries and the Bone Gnawers look a lot like crust punks (because they’re basically super hero crust punks)
In the same way the oWoD drew on a lot of aesthetics associated with resistance just... not necessarily based on a particularly good understanding of what the “far” left believes let alone the far right which is why there’s stuff like Ventrue and Glass Ceiling Walkers in the core
In the same way the games really did try to be diverse and like... I mean we can talk about stumbles like the signature black vampire is Theo Bell (straight up Easy E) or that trans vampires are either Monsters (Sasha Vykos) or pitiable (Clanbook Losombra’s tragic trans vamp)
In fairness to WW: they’re were ahead of the curve even if the representation was... for lack of a better word... bad? And in retrospect saying “all the conspiracy theories are true” looks bad in a Pizzagate/QAnon world but I think it makes sense in the context of publication
The mainstream fantasy RPGs were pretty idealist and sanitized after TSR caved to BADD (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons) and began to shift towards Hickmanesque grand narrative moralism (his stuff is more a play with combat mechanics) and dropped occult references
The censorious right wing assault of backlash at art and representation (reminder the US government let people die of HIV rather than provide information on how to sterilize needles or practice risk mitigation sex) and left wing emulation (PMRC) were pretty grotesque?
Democrats ran as tough on crime when many young people had a massive distrust of the police and also set to finishing Reagan’s promise of abolishing Welfare and opposed progressive causes. There’s good reason to be cynical about that system and it was on the national news.
So how do we talk about the mishmash of ideas that make games:
• what do they say about the world?
• how can you influence that through play?
• how is representation?
• What ideas are expressed by the combination of rules and lore that make the game?
I single out WW because it is hopeless to try to change outcomes in the oWoD: the end of the world is coming, PCs small plans are alongside witnessing something massive and global and well beyond their power level. There’s a reason oWoD did clan and locale books replaced modules
The one thing I’d wanna isolate from this TL:DR is the role of designers ideas in the world. In VtM you can’t stop Gehenna (or the rise of Giovanni) because of bounded power. The “automatic successes” of NPCs are to guarantee the story advances at the expense of meaningful choice
So what does VtM mean in this overlong example:
I think it is a document about feelings of hopelessness. You have the declaration of a New World Order (Washington Consensus), increasing knowledge of poverty, police brutality and the winners and losers of world trade.
You have a nihilism that is very much about hopelessness and constrained agency to maintain that status quo. A lot of the books are more gazetteers about stuff PCs could watch—ditto for the Coalition Wars (RIFTs, or Worldbook Africa) or Dragonlance (modules, novels, setting)
So a better question than “is VtM trash?” Or “is it conservative apologia?” Or “is it radical recruitment” is to look at the overall world (of at least the core) and what additional books suggested you do with it.
The reason to ask this isn’t to change someone’s mind but to look at what it says about when it was made and about the maker, looking at it as a paracosm with internal rules and logic that emerges in a context. NB: This analysis isn’t the best or most important analysis
Let me repeat: “this analysis isn’t the best or most important analysis”
It’s a missing component of how we talk about history: what was popular, what did it do, what did it say.
You can review a video game as both a consumer product (is it ‘fun’) and artifact (what does it say)
The thing is when video games (or movies, or fandoms, or television, or RPGs) are treated like actual art (which they often claim to be) they dislike when the standards don’t confirm to their valuation. If you want games to be taken seriously you should take them seriously
It’s especially hard with independents (“insulting this is helping WotC!!!”) especially if you critique business practices (“you want indies to fail!”) and aren’t trying to make a consumer review (buy/don’t buy) but talk about what something means rather than what the author says
As always:
Good Morning Apocalypse, I’m Fiona Maeve Geist and I’ll answer any questions and clarify any points. AMA.
You can follow @coilingoracle.
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