I’m still kind of disappointed and irritated about an old D&D group. The guy ran a game that was literally patriarchy.
There was a king who died. He had a daughter, who was ruling competently presently. But he also had an infant son. Now a civil war is brewing because some people want the son on the throne, because that’s the male heir.
And he just played it straight and seemed to expect us to be like “Oh, obviously the son has a legitimate claim to the throne. and also absolute monarchy is unremarkable”. To his credit he did let us decide which faction to support, but it was kind of exhausting getting a constant stream of “no, absolute male hereditary rule is good and normal”.
It was a pretty fleshed out setting in terms of details and subfactions, but the core of it was just so very basic and unexamined. No one else seemed to give a shit, though. I did not gel with that group.
Meanwhile, some time before that I’d had a blast running a game. The players came upon an anarchist collective that had overthrown the old despot, but now there are counter-revolutionaries lurking that want to return the now undead tyrant to the throne. Also the neighboring state is rattling their sabers because they ideologically do not approve of a state without a king.
So I guess the lesson is games are better when you vibe with the group?
I’ve had a similar “DM’s unexamined biases” experience with treating certain races as inherently deserving of slaughter. Like, my first campaign ever was run with a goblin sorcerer who I got really close with. “There’s a war where one side is all goblins” is not a clear cut plot hook to get us to join the opposition by itself.
starts running a game where the first page of the core book is about colonialism
At least that one’s legal to gut to one’s heart’s content, eh? 🤷🏼♂️
