The Politics of Tabletop RPGs

[PainRack]

Edit: its also got the geopolitics of the actual age of actual sigmar wrong. The Tribes where from all the corners of the empire except Sylvania and the Westerland.

Also, also Sigmar was a warrior and a king but he's not called a warrior-king in any books I can call to mind of the top of my head. He was more of a scholar king, inventing the united writting system and calendar while also having massive road building projects.

Also, also, also while in-universe sources call the pre-imperial tribes "barbarians" most out of universe sources are better about just using the neutral term tribe rather then the pajoritive barbarians.

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Nitpick; Sigmar has been called a warrior king by the Cult of Sigmar and also in the novel series. He's definitely termed as that in Age of Sigmar although...different universe.

Needless to say, a warrior king wasn't enough. Even in the novels, much is placed upon how irrigation, learning blacksmithing from the Dwarfs, horse husbandry and the alliances was what allowed Sigmar empire to come about. And the twin roads which led to trade and etcetcetc. Indeed, his most bloodthirsty acts were portrayed in the novels to have consequences, such as his scouring of the northern coasts and burning villages as well as his bloodthirsty phase when influenced by the crown of Nagash.


Of course. That IS towards humans. Orcs were different , ditto to monsters. The Orc race in WFB is .... Well, it's not irredeemable but savage violence meant making long term peace with them was impossible. Sigmar also used racist terminology on how the Orcs were going to kill and eat the Human race but this is one of those yeah....that's humans for you.

 

[Fission Battery]

They're literally angry fungus. They will sprout from fields and come out of the ground swinging.

 

[PainRack]

C

They're literally angry fungus. They will sprout from fields and come out of the ground swinging.

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They also slaves , bullied in harsh territory and had superior metallagury to humans. Black Fire pass which is set in Imperial times had Sigmar proclaim that humans didn't deserve to die at the hands of a lesser race when well.... Without the dwarfs, humans were technologically and culturally inferior.

 

[Axslashel]

They're literally angry fungus. They will sprout from fields and come out of the ground swinging.

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Is that cannon though? As far as I am aware the fungus thing is only a thing for 40k.

 

[Kadmus]

Warhammer Fantasy tends to be relatively good about not having a single 'Empire of Man'; even in just the tabletop model range, you have Brettonia (not!Arthurian BritainFrance), The Empire (not!Holy Roman Empire), Kislev (not!PolandRussia), and, though often people ignore it, the Norscan forces of Chaos (not!Vikings). There's more human nations just on the section of the world the tabletop game focuses on (not!Europe with some of the coast of not!North America, and also Atlantis) too.

There are other problems with the setting - especially around the non-European human nations like the Ind and Cathay etc. - but it does manage to avoid the extremely racist 'One Good Human Megapolity That Just Happens To Be All White' that plagues a lot of other settings.

The treatment of other factions also tends to have a lot more nuance than you get in e.g. 40K, too. I suspect this is due to the fact that a. it's a much smaller world to detail and b. we've had 4 editions of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and as such a bunch more books to use to get information.

 

[Dream Logic]

That type of Fantasy also just doesn't lend itself to the sort of intense xenophobia 40k requires. Both from the presence of two implicitly allied races in the form of Elves and Dwarves.

Vampires have a sort of inbuilt need for there to be some humans and their tropes almost require at least some of them to be admirable and noble even if they are not good.

The division of human nations needs to be enough for tension and even occasional war without it being smothered by a constant existential threat, etc..

 

[Axslashel]

There are other problems with the setting - especially around the non-European human nations like the Ind and Cathay etc.

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You can safely ignore their existence or make up your own countries for that area of the map. They are basically placeholder names.

 

[Jack Stargazer]

Vampires have a sort of inbuilt need for there to be some humans and their tropes almost require at least some of them to be admirable and noble even if they are not good.

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There are also that set of Brettonian Vampires that still cling sort of to the noble codes of hospitality of Brettonia. Mallobaude the Black Knight and Aucassin are examples, but the more recent ones seem to be mostly blood mad butchers.

 

[deathofrats0808]

You can safely ignore their existence or make up your own countries for that area of the map. They are basically placeholder names.

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For now. Cathay is set to get a whole bunch of focus for Total War: Warhammer III. It might also expand the lore for other nations in the area.

There are also that set of Brettonian Vampires that still cling sort of to the noble codes of hospitality of Brettonia. Mallobaude the Black Knight and Aucassin are examples, but the more recent ones seem to be mostly blood mad butchers.

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Mallobaude becoming a Vampire was from End Times, which is not a popular expansion. There are plenty of non-blood mad Vampires, but generally you look outside of Bretonnia for them. People like Vlad and Neferata or Abhorash. Generally the older, more powerful Vampires.

 

[Alex]

whether it came from a place of laziness combining a bunch of the old WFB Units into a semi cohesive book I do love cities of Sigmar from AOS for the ability to mish mash various old world forces into a culturally and racially diverse alliance of order. Humans, elves, dwarves, dark elves with options of even more allies in the form of Stormcast, kharadron or Sylveneth. It leads to a very interesting looking force and also an interesting world, despite the big space marine esq figures running around AOS is very much its own world apart from 40k with the forces of order definitely being flawed but heroic.

 

[earthboy]

If the goal is to put human flaws and evil front and center in your novel do you really need to get into the nitty gritty of rape and stuff when you have power lust and hubris?

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I'd suggest that it's possible for an author to showcase human flaws AND ALSO have a rape fetish.

Mallobaude becoming a Vampire was from End Times, which is not a popular expansion. There are plenty of non-blood mad Vampires, but generally you look outside of Bretonnia for them. People like Vlad and Neferata or Abhorash. Generally the older, more powerful Vampires.

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That's interesting.

I'm used to seeing "blood madness" mechanics get worse with age, but it makes a lot of sense to use that mechanic as a filter to justify why there are so few old ultra-powerful vampires.

 

[Shadell]

stop

In the concentration camps defense, they did try to destroy the world, and had a history of doing so.

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Rule 2 requires we be careful how we speak to groups of people. Even if we do not intend hate, some statements, such as making fun of concentration camps while appearing to defend them, can be inherently in poor taste. I would leave this with a staff notice, however, as you have been warned about similar behavior in the past, you've received a 25 point infraction under rule 2 and a 3-day threadban.

 

[Conquerer of Mar]

They never really adressed how awful the Intiate was in that they were a straight military dictatorship that not only made aliens second class citizens but outright genocided a species as revenge for an earlier attack (Stellaris technically requires you to gene mod or purge hive minds but narratively this was the plan going into it). I don't believe they were a devouring swarm either, so mechanically they could have vassalized them or made peace.

Honestly GTU is like the empire in starwars, theyre only not fascist because the narrative can't reckon with it. Instead they're 'just militant authoritarians' who vassalize all other species.

Antares confederation is better but there's also an undercurrent of them being super special space america/UN who appoint themselves galaxy police. Its noted as being divisive in 'verse but its never really challenged as a concept. Similarly the overarching goal of returning to earth that becomes 'free earth from the control of alien overlords'.

For what its worth, I think they tried to make the Confederation better and it *is* a multi ethnic democracy wher they talk about and address stuff. Its just that they wouldnt really look at or challenge a lot of the underlying assumptions that cause problems.

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Knowing them Im kind of surprised that the video isnt about how humans in fantasy arent really allowed to have distinct cultural identities or specialties because they always have to be middle of the road as a reference point.

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I think it might because of Larissa (the previous Narrator) who left to voice act the MC in a Sci-fi Audio drama and the new Narrator either being a military Sci Fi fan like Marc or just being there to Narrate the script.

(Though this is admittedly just theorizing only based on the recent outpour of Marc videos and the entire week dedicated to Sci Fi weapons and the interactions between Marc and Larissa in the GTU twitch streams.)

On the other Marc is currently at "Dragoncon" and might just be posting videos because he's bored and the Channel needs filler.

 

[Dromon]

Warcraft has fractally awful racial politics coding.

The gender end isn't great either. Blizzard's track record is not so hot in general.

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Warcraft lore is continually fucked up by the native/indigenous coding of the Orcs as transposed against their historical actions in the setting. There's a deliberate choice by Blizzard to give native stories to Orcs when their origin on Azeroth is as colonizers explicitly dedicated to genocide. The Orcs of Warcraft II have some of this coding, but it really gets ramped up in Warcraft III and beyond when the Orcs are supposed to be a "normal" group rather than a genocidal threat and they need players to sympathize with them.

The writers never quite figure out how to deal with the genocidal past of the Orcs even as they increase the native/slave coding of them as a group. There's never quite a full reckoning with those elements of the Orcs' past or what it means for them to then claim a new homeland in Kalimdor, which is generally presented as a moment of liberation for the Orcs without considering the fact that they're not native to the region.

Blizzard has made half-hearted motions towards recognizing this, but this leads to the extremely bizarre image of having native-coded people repenting colonialism against European-coded humans. Individual orcs do sometimes lay down their weapons in disgust or engage in self-reflection in various pieces of lore, but it doesn't seem to stick because Orcs continue to wage additional wars of aggression throughout the series (though this is a problem of the Horde as a whole). There's just no commitment to fully exploring the meaning of the Orcs as colonizers because the game needs Orcs to both be heroic or villainous depending on the moment. From a critical perspective there's probably a lot you can say about Orcs reflecting settler colonialism's own insecurities, but that's not what Blizzard is trying to do with them.

 

[Mortis Nuntius]

Warcraft lore is continually fucked up by the native/indigenous coding of the Orcs as transposed against their historical actions in the setting. There's a deliberate choice by Blizzard to give native stories to Orcs when their origin on Azeroth is as colonizers explicitly dedicated to genocide. The Orcs of Warcraft II have some of this coding, but it really gets ramped up in Warcraft III and beyond when the Orcs are supposed to be a "normal" group rather than a genocidal threat and they need players to sympathize with them.

The writers never quite figure out how to deal with the genocidal past of the Orcs even as they increase the native/slave coding of them as a group. There's never quite a full reckoning with those elements of the Orcs' past or what it means for them to then claim a new homeland in Kalimdor, which is generally presented as a moment of liberation for the Orcs without considering the fact that they're not native to the region.

Blizzard has made half-hearted motions towards recognizing this, but this leads to the extremely bizarre image of having native-coded people repenting colonialism against European-coded humans. Individual orcs do sometimes lay down their weapons in disgust or engage in self-reflection in various pieces of lore, but it doesn't seem to stick because Orcs continue to wage additional wars of aggression throughout the series (though this is a problem of the Horde as a whole). There's just no commitment to fully exploring the meaning of the Orcs as colonizers because the game needs Orcs to both be heroic or villainous depending on the moment. From a critical perspective there's probably a lot you can say about Orcs reflecting settler colonialism's own insecurities, but that's not what Blizzard is trying to do with them.

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On the face of it you could get a lot of story telling milage out of the morally grey situation where a faction are both historically and currently victimised but also murderous and oppressive in their own right. But the Orks really seem to struggle from the fact their entire faction seems to get a complete overhaul every game or major world building event so they just seem really disjointed and its hard to deal seriously with the idea they are the victims actually given the majority of their lore was being willing pawns of the bad guys, then unwilling pawns and now independent on again off again villains or heroes as you say.

 

[Madam Carstein]

On the face of it you could get a lot of story telling milage out of the morally grey situation where a faction are both historically and currently victimised but also murderous and oppressive in their own right. But the Orks really seem to struggle from the fact their entire faction seems to get a complete overhaul every game or major world building event so they just seem really disjointed and its hard to deal seriously with the idea they are the victims actually given the majority of their lore was being willing pawns of the bad guys, then unwilling pawns and now independent on again off again villains or heroes as you say.

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Also, for all the implications and tone that the Horde are just a bunch of unfairly maligned beings who are genuinely trying to find a better way, the actual story just... never seems to reflect this.

The Horde repeatedly falls under the leadership of outright evil and genocidal leaders, one of whom is explicitly characterised as basically a racial supremacist. Not to mention that the Horde is repeatedly shown as being willing to employ very brutal and cruel tactics in a way that the Alliance isn't. It would be one thing if the war were depicted as overall evil and that both Horde and Alliance were responsible for doing bad things, but actually a lot of in-game story, quests, and lore seems to generally show the Horde as being much more brutal compared to the Alliance.

I think the problem is that like... the need to keep the war going is a big motivating factor, and so the typical fallback to this need is to give the Horde another crazy and evil leader who will be a threat.

 

[tankdrop24]

It stike as one of those situations of narratively wanting to have your cake and eat it to.

 

[Reveen]

A little late but what I love about that Templin video is he's like 'what don't the humans just murder all the orcs', as if the lack of brutality is the only thing keeping humanity from doing that and not the fact that the orcs consistently wreck humans in combat? Getting to the point of being able to kill the orcs is literally the entire problem. Especially in settings like LOTR or warcraft where they're a peer opponent at the very least.

I don't think it would take long at all before all the Goblets and Orcs are up telling stories about how terrifying those humans are.

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Like, what? You think the humans are going to out brutal the orcs? THEY'RE ORCS.

Bringing up the Uruk-hai is amazing, because it's not like they're explicitly stronger, smarter, more disciplined orcs wearing heavy armor and maining pikes to conquer a kingdom of horsemen or anything. Also, y'know...




That. Yeah, dude. That motherfucker is gonna be real scared when the humans take off the kid gloves. Aragorn is such a wimp, why not simply kill Lurtz instead of let him beat the crap out of you?

 

[deathofrats0808]

A little late but what I love about that Templin video is he's like 'what don't the humans just murder all the orcs', as if the lack of brutality is the only thing keeping humanity from doing that and not the fact that the orcs consistently wreck humans in combat? Getting to the point of being able to kill the orcs is literally the entire problem. Especially in settings like LOTR or warcraft where they're a peer opponent at the very least.



Like, what? You think the humans are going to out brutal the orcs? THEY'RE ORCS.

Bringing up the Uruk-hai is amazing, because it's not like they're explicitly stronger, smarter, more disciplined orcs wearing heavy armor and maining pikes to conquer a kingdom of horsemen or anything. Also, y'know...




That. Yeah, dude. That motherfucker is gonna be real scared when the humans take off the kid gloves. Aragorn is such a wimp, why not simply kill Lurtz instead of let him beat the crap out of you?

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I mean, there's a beautiful series of articles that talk about how absolutely terrible the Uruk-Hai are as an army, but none of it has to do with how brutal they were. It's almost like brutality doesn't inherently win wars or something.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

That. Yeah, dude. That motherfucker is gonna be real scared when the humans take off the kid gloves. Aragorn is such a wimp, why not simply kill Lurtz instead of let him beat the crap out of you?

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Ah but you see Reveen the enemy is both strong and weak, the only reason they dominate us constantly is because we're led by soft and effeminate liberals fantasy humans who corrupt the volk.

If we could just unleash our savagery the problem could be solved.

Nothing fascist here no sir

 

[Dromon]

On the face of it you could get a lot of story telling milage out of the morally grey situation where a faction are both historically and currently victimised but also murderous and oppressive in their own right. But the Orks really seem to struggle from the fact their entire faction seems to get a complete overhaul every game or major world building event so they just seem really disjointed and its hard to deal seriously with the idea they are the victims actually given the majority of their lore was being willing pawns of the bad guys, then unwilling pawns and now independent on again off again villains or heroes as you say.

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The lore of Warcraft has so much potential but is pretty much ruined beyond repair at this point. The needs of the MMO and the poor writing decisions of the writing team have just destroyed the internal coherence of the world.

I agree that the underlying material is really interesting though. Like, what do you do with 4 million formerly bloodthirsty warriors? How do they deal with the atrocities they committed and what their culture became? Thrall leading a rediscovery of the Orcs' old culture and giving his people a new path was really interesting in WC3 and it's a shame they didn't continue to explore that.

Also, for all the implications and tone that the Horde are just a bunch of unfairly maligned beings who are genuinely trying to find a better way, the actual story just... never seems to reflect this.

The Horde repeatedly falls under the leadership of outright evil and genocidal leaders, one of whom is explicitly characterised as basically a racial supremacist. Not to mention that the Horde is repeatedly shown as being willing to employ very brutal and cruel tactics in a way that the Alliance isn't. It would be one thing if the war were depicted as overall evil and that both Horde and Alliance were responsible for doing bad things, but actually a lot of in-game story, quests, and lore seems to generally show the Horde as being much more brutal compared to the Alliance.

I think the problem is that like... the need to keep the war going is a big motivating factor, and so the typical fallback to this need is to give the Horde another crazy and evil leader who will be a threat.

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They basically can't decide if the Horde is a dark fantasy version of the Mongols under Genghis Khan or a confederation of analogues to colonized people. In contrast, in the Alliance there's been a much more durable commitment to peace in the WoW era. Hardline anti-Horde elements have been rising in influence ever since Legion, but with thenewest apocalypse and the seeming end of the faction wars in Shadowlands it probably won't come to anything. Honestly Jaina/Greymane/Tyrande all have a right to be angry after the atrocities committed against them and their people by the Horde.

I'm kind of amazed WoW went without a major cancelling/critical period in the gaming press for how bad its politics are. It's probably because the lore is buried deep under layers of progression so it takes a ton of work to access it, let alone know enough of it to begin to criticize it. It's much easier for critics to play through a long but discrete game and then write that up then try to untangle all the bullshit in WoW.

 

[The_Reptile_]

I think it's more cause for a long, long time it was a long standing truth in the public conciousness that no one actually gave a shit about the lore or story of an MMO. It was all side dressing and even for video game standards just not good writing, so why bother getting up in arms about it?

 

[Zimmerwald1915]

I mean, there's a beautiful series of articles that talk about how absolutely terrible the Uruk-Hai are as an army

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As the professional core of an army - they were accompanied by Dunlending and Moria-goblin auxiliaries that they did nothing to integrate and brutalized and demeaned wherever possible. Almost as if arrogant, racial-supremacist presumption is a fetter around an army's neck and not an advantage. Funny, that.

 

[Reveen]

Honestly, I really do like violent warrior orcs just because they're cool and badass. Not necessarily them being fundamentally evil. I think there's something of a balance to strike between them being more morally neutral and societally complex and them being awesome warriors. And be fun to see that play out in a fantasy setting.

Like maybe instead of being perpetually at war with humans you have a more varied relationships. Like some orcs hate humans and raid them constantly, others attach themselves to human rulers for gold and glory in a Varangian guard kind of setup. I have no earthly idea why DnD doesn't do this because it seems like a pretty neat way to keep orcs as mobs while also removing the Always Chaotic Evil issue?

'The orcs are peaceful spiritual hippies until outside factors makes them assholes' is, like, nah dude. You're taking all the fun out of having orcs, and if you're going to go for POC cultural overtones you should probably stop and just write a POC culture without the savage violent warrior baggage you get with orcs.

I mean, there's a beautiful series of articles that talk about how absolutely terrible the Uruk-Hai are as an army, but none of it has to do with how brutal they were. It's almost like brutality doesn't inherently win wars or something.

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I don't think it's so much brutality as the deciding factor so much as the strength, endurance, resistance to pain, aggression, zero fucks given to comfort or personal safety, willingness to eat literally anything including your own dead, not having families or loved ones you can threaten. Humans by default aren't nearly as good at any of those.

Their tactics could use some work but I'm pretty sure that if the Uruk-hai were in medieval Europe they'd be uh, something of a problem to say the least. If some king manages to wrangle them into working for him, put them under good officers, and outfit them with quality equipment that's gonna be GG for most of his enemies until the orcs betray him.

And this is Lord of the Rings orcs, who will in fact run away at some point. Warcraft orcs have actual warrior values and those motherfuckers are going to go down swinging. Lok'Tar Ogar is gonna be last thing on earth a medieval peasant wants to hear over the hill.

 

[Susano]

That. Yeah, dude. That motherfucker is gonna be real scared when the humans take off the kid gloves. Aragorn is such a wimp, why not simply kill Lurtz instead of let him beat the crap out of you?

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I mean, LotR is kinda a bad example there, since at least the "standard" orcs are indeed meant to be plain inferior sword fodder. It is just taken as sort of granted that even hobbits can down one. Aragon tells them after one fight (can't remember which) that many a person has paid their first orc kill with worse than the scratches the hobbits got, but that sort of implies an attitude that yeah, it is expected that you do end up killing orcs. They might just overwhelm you with numbers, is all. But as dark creatures that came into existence by evil twisting creation, they are indeed meant to be straight-up inferior to humans and elves.

Really, LotR standard orcs are more like how DnD portrays goblins, and indeed in LotR "orc" and "goblin" is interchangeable.