The TTRPG hobby as I know it, much like society has changed over the decades and much for the better.
Mirroring life, as they should seeing as they are attempting to with creative license, TTRPG games have slowly changed their focus from “Murder Hobo” style games, which is to says a wandering band of toughs who, in a not very Robin Hood style, kill creatures they don’t understand or like and take their stuff (you know, like colonial expansionism).
Funny how the fact they all like the same stuff was not a tell, that we are all similar deep down and that self righteous exploitation turns so quickly to blatant theft with a side-serve of justified murder. “Monsters”, an overly clear cut term to start with, come with experience points for killing them, like a bounty hunter posting.
Even in the early days, there was a subtle shift towards less transactional gaming. The Kill-steal-advance-kill bigger-steal more-advance more game was the foundation and being based on a war game just needing some story telling structure, I guess it was inevitable, but there was clearly a need for more choice.
The art is full of excitement, and assumptions.
Questing came next, then the idea of making a crust more traditionally, if often illegally like in Sci Fi gaming, then searching for answers with the threat of sanity or life loss.
Something I have noticed more and more though, and it is a good thing, is attention paid to the treatment of more modern subjects like gender roles, non-combat interactions, treatment of players and even creators in this space and appropriateness. The stories of poor treatment are called out, writers go to lengths to broach these topics and assumptions from gamers are higher and catered to.
The latest edition of Call of Cthulhu is a good example. The roles of women, children and minorities in the U.S. or Europe during the 1920’s are far different to today and this is talked about openly. Even scenarios and campaign modules set closer to now are covered for their difference.
There are still exceptions unfortunately, even now.
One of my favourite supplements for one of my favourite games (be it a DnD clone) has several class entries where the writer seems unable to balance modern expectations with a clear love of (dated) Frank Frazetta style near naked warrior maidens.
In one case, all of the illustrations for one class are females in various states of provocative undress. The class is not even a female-centric stereotype.
Let’s be real though. The number one TTRPG and the bulk of online and console games are still Murder Hobo, or worse, just murder based, but there is hope.
Clarence Redd is pioneering non-combat conflicts in the Mythras space, games like Reign, Mouse Guard, The One Ring, Trail of Cthulhu, are just a scattering of examples I am aware of that treat the quest, the story, interactions and knowledge as equal or greater partners to violence to measure in-game success.
I have always found it strange in RPG’s that for some, levels and imaginary wealth are more fulfilling than actual enjoyment of the game play. It is very much the journey in this case.
In Cthulhu, an early stylistic splinter, the trade-off is one of balancing knowledge with survival/sanity as evil is generally too powerful to beat head-on and doing good is assumed as the alternative is too distasteful to even contemplate.
CoC Investigators do not do it for the money and in retrospect most would not even set a value on what they do anyway.
The theming here is more “travelling companions” than Murder Hobo, oh except for the dragon that will likely end you quickly. Questing does not need to end in combat, just the threat of it, but MH games need combat, they measure success by it.
With this awareness ironically comes a chance of pushing these newly respected boundaries. It is inevitable I guess that as we fight evil, it’s true face becomes more fully revealed.
Choices need to be made.
Delta Green, especially the excellent Stygian Fox titles and sometimes even vanilla Call of Cthulhu can make players confront evil acts involving children and their abuse, genocide, terrorism even destruction of the world.
Tough stuff to confront these days and it could be argued unnecessary to play a game, but if the hobby is to be elevated beyond game only status (which the Murder Hobo, once revealed as such, already has), then the option needs to be there.
Nobody is making you play or play in a style with a level of acceptance beyond anything you find reasonable, but also there is no room for forced censorship and “theme capping”.
Being a do-gooder is not an in-or-out thing. Theming can be quite specific, some things marked as, or assumed to be, out of bounds, but if genuine simulation is desired, it comes with stuff, sometimes bad stuff.
I am both heartened by the strength of the spotlight placed on games by many reviewers. It seems almost impossible to read a review without the game or available scenarios moral compass being measured. A good thing without doubt, but are we in step yet?
Is it great that we are aware, or sad that we need to be?
Even “cute” games like Root, Bunnies and Burrows or The Mouse Guard deal with loss and death, because without the threat of either, there is no fear and without fear, no excitement.
So in game design there are always levels of aggression balanced with story telling, but the old free-for-all is now under scrutiny.
The One Ring for example has been expertly written to resemble English post-war gentrification and their perception of Dark Age social constraints. This is who the original works were written for*.
Good is trying to defeat evil, wars are fought, stuff done, but the cultural pseudo-colonial superiority of the perpetrators fresh after beating one of the most clearly defined forces of evil yet seen (Nazi Germany), is given free reign by the exaggerated depravity of the bad.
Does an Orc have a mother, a loving family group? Is it capable of anything other than greed, hate, selfishness? Not as written. They are simply a creation of evil, made to purpose. Tolkien took the already feared “Eastern horde” paradigm and removed any hint of humanity.
The fact that an entire race of sentient beings is this far down the decency chain and still capable of functioning even as cannon fodder is, well, fantasy in the extreme, which is one reason the genre can easily appeal to right minded people. Some maybe need it to feel like they can fight a winnable battle without moral compromise.
Tolkien to his credit actually calls out social realities in his use of fantasy culture building, even hinting at the shortcomings of the arrogant and mortality obsessed “superior” races.
This helps remove the moral conflicts of our more modern awareness that makes us cringe at stories of Elephant hunting or tribal genocide (another way of looking at the battle of Isandlwana, where the Zulu nation lost a generation of men).
However, this has also not been consistent as things evolve. The existence of the Half-Orc sub-race is contentious. The brute ugliness and animalistic nature of Tolkien’s Orcs has been watered down in some games allowing for the hint of cross-race breeding, but the reality is, assumed frontier raids and resulting rapes are the reality nobody talks about.
For many, TTRPG’s and LARPing both provide a needed release from modern real world frustrations like sport does for others. An outlet of black and white morality.
Pure evil vs pure good. Hard to find in the real world, necessary for acceptable fantasy.
Superhero games, a later entrant to the TTRPG family also give us clear choices, the most interesting of which is a “code vs killing”. We have now moved from “it is evil, it must die”, to “it is evil, so we must contain and incarcerate it, thus allowing it to escape and do it all again or more rarely, change it’s ways”.
The lack of lethality that comes with most supers games also allows the player go full tilt without fear or regret.
The Murder Hobo is far from gone, even evolving in to a more recognisable form**, empowered easily through electronic games and that seems here to stay, but the gentler and more social game that is the TTRPG seems more aware of the need for something more.
Looking into a face across a table makes us less keen to just do-to-take, a trend that needs promoting.
*Built in to the systems are mechanics that force down time, conversation, mediation and understanding, all very Tolkien. It is interesting that even this late in the piece, writers feel they have to overtly force non-violent processes on their players. I have pushed back against this because I have luckily always been associated with groups that pack words as much as swords in their problem solving arsenals, but there are many groups that run with a different vibe and if age has taught me anything it is the reality that each generation starts from zero.
**I am not aware yet of a TTRPG that overtly promotes the theft of a car after despatching the owner and any police or bystanders that get in the way, so electronic gaming has many firsts.