# Communism (& Socialism) in RPGs



## Kwalish Kid (Oct 11, 2007)

As part of developing academic work on RPGs, I'm looking at a number of ways of analysing RPGs. One form of analysis is Marxist analysis. In the middle of some preliminary work on the subject, I was struck with a thought, "There's not a lot of communism in RPGs!"

Now, I can think of somewhat communist cultures in the Star*Drive setting for Alternity. I can also think of some of the more socialist aspects of the Star Trek setting. Some of the Russian and southeast Asia settings for Robotech might include this, too. However, that's about as far as I can think.

Can anyone else think of the communism, socialism, Bolshevism, totalitarian socialism, anti-consumerist anarcho-syndicalism in RPGs?


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## billd91 (Oct 11, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> Can anyone else think of the communism, socialism, Bolshevism, totalitarian socialism, anti-consumerist anarcho-syndicalism in RPGs?




Isn't there a Red Star RPG based on the graphic novels? That will have an example of a totalitarian pseudo-socialist (more Stalinist, I'd suppose) state.


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## blargney the second (Oct 11, 2007)

Zilargo from Eberron.


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## Odhanan (Oct 11, 2007)

In Vampire: The Requiem, some of the Carthians can be die-hard communists wanting to apply the precepts of Bolshevism to the society of the Damned. The Carthians form the most recent Covenant among Vampires. It is merely a few hundred years old. What differenciates the Carthian movement from other Covenants is its stance on Kindred politics inspired by the idea of human democracy. Any type of idealist can be part of the Carthian movement, from the moderates to the die-hard extremists of all kind. Given that communism certainly has been justifying its existence in numerous occasions by a deep belief in the concept of "power to the proletariat", some communists can certainly fit within the movement and form communist factions, even a sort of Internationale, within it.


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## Nikosandros (Oct 11, 2007)

Info and nano socialism are present in Transhuman Space, a sci-fi setting for GURPS.


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## WayneLigon (Oct 11, 2007)

I think there were some Red Chinese planets in _Traveller 2300 _ but I can't remember if that's a fact or not.

Communists are of course the arch enemy in _Paranoia_.

In _Underground_,  Quebec separatists formed a Communist state.

Communist is an alignment in _Illuminati_

Marvel SUperHeroes of course had numerous Communist superheroes and villains; the Proletariat, Red Ghost and his Super Apes, Black Widow, Radioative Man, etc.


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## Celebrim (Oct 11, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> As part of developing academic work on RPGs, I'm looking at a number of ways of analysing RPGs. One form of analysis is Marxist analysis. In the middle of some preliminary work on the subject, I was struck with a thought, "There's not a lot of communism in RPGs!"




Come see the violence inherent in the system.  Help!  Help!  We are being repressed.

I'm going to try my best to keep this politically neutral.

There isn't alot of socialism in antiquity as you'd understand it.  There was typically not enough surplus production in society to support the decentralization of wealth, much less fund a bureaucracy to do it.  They had a hard enough time collecting taxes and funding the bureaucracy to do that (corruption was generally rampant).  Generally everyone everywhere was ruled by some sort of warrior elite caste, and the only transferance of wealth was the accumulation of what was necessary to support that caste.  Societies that didn't do this, generally found that they were unable to protect themselves from the typically highly agressive neighboring warrior elite.  

The nations that at least in part escaped that trap (for a while at least), you might have heard of - places like Israel, Greece, Rome, and England.  

But in general, no one was able to fund socialism because no one had a productive enough society to support more than an aristocratic 'leisure' class.  For example, as recorded in the Book of Acts, the early Christian church ran one of the first true communist societies for a few years, before abandoning it as untenable as the church increased in size with the famous proclamation, "Let those that do not work, not eat."

Welfare of various forms was practiced from time to time but generally from an authoritarian stance.  If the aristocratic class ran a surplus, they might return a benefice to the lower class in order smooth class conflicts over.  However, for the aristocratic class to run a suplus implied that it was a good year.  When help was most needed, that is when the crop failed, it probably wasn't going to be available.

Socialism as you know is IMO a consequence of widespread mechanization.  Before mechanization, wealth is almost identical to food because crop yields are so low that almost everyone is a subsistance farmer.

The first Marxist analysis (his own) was a study of the wages of craftsman beginning in the middle ages through his own 19th century.  The medieval guild system has a very prominent role in shaping Marx's early thinking.  Marx concluded that the real wage of craftsman had been trending downward since the high middle ages.  Pushing this trend line out to the late 19th century, he discovered that if the trend continued there would come a point where the wage of a craftsman - carpenter, mason, brick layer, glassblower, whatever - would fall below his living wage.  From this he concluded that he was witnessing an inevitable collapse of capitalism, and thus the theory of communism was born.  

I won't critique the math of that except to note that in the High Middle ages, masons, carpenters, glassblowers and the like represented within that society highly educated, highly trained, rare professional people, and that in the 19th century they represented ordinary working laborers.  I'd also note that a craft monopoly is probably not the anti-capitalist system that Marx took it for. 

If you want to do Marxist analysis on RPGs, you probably aren't going to be able to do it by looking at the simulated cultures of the RPGs themselves.  Fantasy RPGs dominate the market, and I can't think of alot of Sci-fi RPG settings where Marxism is used as anything but window dressing.  You are going to have to define castes within the social community of RPGs (DMs and Players), and some way that these castes are in inherent conflict over scarse resouces.

Either that are you are going to have to examine the fact that regardless of setting, characters in RPGs tend to belong to that warrior elite rather than the peasant class.

Are we oppressing anybody?  Orcs maybe?  It's worth noting if your a Marxist that the term 'villain' derives from the word for peasant.


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## edemaitre (Oct 11, 2007)

*Marxism in RPGs*

While it's true that communism is typically found in modern and sci-fi settings, there is some historical precedent. Small, isolated groups that didn't need to worry about famine or overly aggressive neighbors, say, on tropical islands, could afford to share what wealth they had, sometimes coexisting with tribalism.

So, too, could small communities that were defended by or hidden within more warlike neighbors, from early Christians hiding in Roman catacombs to some of the idealistic communes in the U.S. of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In a fantasy setting, there would be little to stop Elves, who appear to worry little about mundane matters such as food and are capable of decentralized defense, from sharing their resources equally. Or, perhaps the Dwarves or Gnomes could parley their industrial production and affinity for guilds into labor unions. Note that the works of fiction and early role-playing games will reflect their authors' views and the eras in which they were written. While Star Trek: the Next Generation didn't use money, the all-consuming collective of the Borg certainly reflected late Cold War anxiety.

The implementation of Marxism as Stalinism, Maoism, and other flavors, marked by the suppression of dissent, central economic control, and a desire to export "the revolution," is a sad hallmark of the real 20th century. Even Nazism had a socialist component, and most of these regimes collapsed after a few generations of authoritarian rule. On the other hand, the ideals of fair treatment of all workers regardless of gender, ethnicity, or religion; an equitable distribution of wealth; and the evolution of societies still has its appeal.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 11, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> Can anyone else think of the communism, socialism, Bolshevism, totalitarian socialism, anti-consumerist anarcho-syndicalism in RPGs?



There's not a lot of democracies or republics either.  Most are monarchies.  

IIRC, anarcho-syndicalists were alive and well in guild-led mercantile countries though.  Could be sorta like Greyhawk City & Waterdeep.


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## SpiderMonkey (Oct 12, 2007)

KK,

One thing you may want to consider is instead of looking for overt Marxism/socialism in game settings, you may want to use Marxist criticism as a lens to look at the games/structures themselves.  For example, how are labor and its fruits distributed at the game table?  What about the dichotomy in authority between the DM and players?  How do experience point systems demonstrate an epistemology that might privelege capitalist values?

Does this help?


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## Umbran (Oct 12, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> In the middle of some preliminary work on the subject, I was struck with a thought, "There's not a lot of communism in RPGs!"




Most of the games out there are pseudo-medieval fantasies.  Communism calls for an industrial base that the games don't have.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 12, 2007)

SpiderMonkey said:
			
		

> KK,
> 
> One thing you may want to consider is instead of looking for overt Marxism/socialism in game settings, you may want to use Marxist criticism as a lens to look at the games/structures themselves.  For example, how are labor and its fruits distributed at the game table?  What about the dichotomy in authority between the DM and players?  How do experience point systems demonstrate an epistemology that might privelege capitalist values?
> 
> Does this help?



I should have been clearer. The question I was asking was only for communism (or something similar) in settings. This is (mostly) separate from a Marxist analysis of RPGs. The commodification of elements within the game and of rule sets gives more than enough for this analysis. (The wealth rules in d20 Modern are fantastic!)

Really, I'm simply curious about the presence of communism in settings.

The replies above are great! Thanks, folks!


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## the Jester (Oct 12, 2007)

I seem to recall that the dwarves of the Chainmail! game that WotC released were communists. I never actually had the game, so I'm not certain how accurate this is, however.


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## HeavenShallBurn (Oct 12, 2007)

I think most of the known examples were covered above.  

I used communism as a device once, in a homebrewed setting.  As Edemaitre suggested was possible I created a dwarven race embroiled in a long Cold War between an original highly capitalistic civilization modeled on the U.S. during the Gilded Age and its hostile Marxist offshoot (it did not suffer many of the excesses of that particular form as seen in real history). I won't further derail this thread.  If you're a community supporter you can find it by searching for Dwarven Cold War, but the short thread is more than a year old and may have been lost in the Great Crash.


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## pawsplay (Oct 12, 2007)

Have you ever seen a real, diehard gamer drink a glass of water?


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## coyote6 (Oct 12, 2007)

Hmm, well, Twilight: 2000 was set in the aftermath of a classic NATO/West vs. Warsaw Pact WWIII, so there were lots of Communists, though not necessarily a lot of Communism per se. 

Several near-future RPGs at least mentioned Communist nations, but real world history overran 'em, and it kind of got scarce.


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## RFisher (Oct 12, 2007)

Well, PCs tend to be some sort of adventurers--people on the fringe of society. From their point of view, all societies tend to look very similar: There a few people who are in charge, regardless of any underlying economic model or the justification (explicit or implicit) for their positions of power. Any of that is just window dressing in an RPG, which has little direct impact on the game.

Or maybe it's just that when you look at RPGs in English you don't find a lot of communism because there haven't been a lot of English-speaking communist states. (Assuming you haven't looked at a lot of Russian & Mandarin RPGs.)

...but--truth be told--I don't know what I'm talking about. Just throwing out the thoughts I have because it's too late & I've been working too much today, so my judgement's impaired. (^_^)

Edit: "their" to "there", although the typo is already immortalized in KK's quoting of me. (u_u)


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 12, 2007)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Have you ever seen a real, diehard gamer drink a glass of water?



It took me a bit to get it, but that's funny.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 12, 2007)

RFisher said:
			
		

> Or maybe it's just that when you look at RPGs in English you don't find a lot of communism because their haven't been a lot of English-speaking communist states. (Assuming you haven't looked at a lot of Russian & Mandarin RPGs.)



I haven't, but I did find an article on RPG groups near the end of the Soviet Union in a Siberian studies journal.


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## AnonymousOne (Oct 12, 2007)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Most of the games out there are pseudo-medieval fantasies.  Communism calls for an industrial base that the games don't have.



You win this thread.


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## Felix (Oct 12, 2007)

Fantasy Druid society. All they need are hackey-sacks and they'd have fit in at Berkeley.


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## Mishihari Lord (Oct 12, 2007)

PARANOIA has it.  Kinda, sorta


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## STARP_Social_Officer (Oct 12, 2007)

Communism in RPGs: You have two cows. The government tries to take both. The government fails their grapple check. Roll for initiative.


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## Pramas (Oct 12, 2007)

the Jester said:
			
		

> I seem to recall that the dwarves of the Chainmail! game that WotC released were communists. I never actually had the game, so I'm not certain how accurate this is, however.




This is true. I designed the Chainmail setting, the Sundered Empire, and I wanted to do something a little different with the dwarves. I figured no one would be more likely to found a workers' state than dwarves. Thus was born the People's State of Mordergard. An article I wrote with the Mordengard background appeared in issue 291 of Dragon Magazine.


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## AnonymousOne (Oct 12, 2007)

Communism?  Dwarves?  

They may be industrious, but they aren't stupid. 

In all seriousness, I applaud and relish the use of political factions opposing one anther in the story arch.


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## Nifft (Oct 12, 2007)

Communism -- really any form of egalitarianism -- requires that large groups of relatively unskilled people be more potent in combat than skilled, elite individuals.

D&D has the opposite mechanical bias.

Sorry. There's a King, and he's 18th level.

Cheers, -- N


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## hong (Oct 12, 2007)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Most of the games out there are pseudo-medieval fantasies.  Communism calls for an industrial base that the games don't have.



 But Maoism doesn't....


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## jdrakeh (Oct 12, 2007)

hong said:
			
		

> But Maoism doesn't....




And, in medieval society, the peasantry _is_ the labor force (i.e., they're responsible for a feudal unit's food/grain production). So. . . basically, the five points of Marxism become four points. The lack of modern (i.e., mechanical) industry does not preclude communism.


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## shilsen (Oct 12, 2007)

Nifft said:
			
		

> Communism -- really any form of egalitarianism -- requires that large groups of relatively unskilled people be more potent in combat than skilled, elite individuals.
> 
> D&D has the opposite mechanical bias.
> 
> ...




So the Mob template from DMG2 was the advent of communism in D&D?


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## Xer0 (Oct 12, 2007)

Felix said:
			
		

> Fantasy Druid society. All they need are hackey-sacks and they'd have fit in at Berkeley.



I can agree with that, but hippies do not always communists make.  Just usually.


For an example of a pseudo-medieval communist/socialist society in literature, I submit the Imperial Order, from Goodkind's _Sword of Truth_ novels.  In particular, _Faith of the Fallen_.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 12, 2007)

Xer0 said:
			
		

> I can agree with that, but hippies do not always communists make.  Just usually.
> 
> 
> For an example of a pseudo-medieval communist/socialist society in literature, I submit the Imperial Order, from Goodkind's _Sword of Truth_ novels.  In particular, _Faith of the Fallen_.



That's a good find. The presence of socialist/communist societies in fantasy literature shows that, even if it would be economically unreasonable, it is not impossible from a narrative point of view. But I'm going academic here.


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## Doug McCrae (Oct 12, 2007)

The D&D party is communist.

The fighter keeps the orcs from the rest of the party, the cleric heals the fighter, the wizard blasts the orcs with fireball. The treasure consists of a ring of protection +1 which goes to the fighter and a headband of intellect which goes to the wizard.

From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 12, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> The D&D party is communist.
> 
> The fighter keeps the orcs from the rest of the party, the cleric heals the fighter, the wizard blasts the orcs with fireball. The treasure consists of a ring of protection +1 which goes to the fighter and a headband of intellect which goes to the wizard.
> 
> From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs.



For the win!


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## Roger (Oct 12, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> As part of developing academic work on RPGs, I'm looking at a number of ways of analysing RPGs. One form of analysis is Marxist analysis.



I think the primary danger here is becoming fixated on analyzing merely the _settings_ of RPGs, while neglecting the other aspects of RPGs in play.

As an example of what I mean, consider the Marxist maxim "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."  It is relatively easy, and relatively unrewarding, to consider only the in-game history of the setting in light of the class struggle.  It is much more revealing, in my opinion, to consider the play of the game itself, the actions of the players and their consequences, in terms of the class struggle.

In play, do the player characters most resemble members of the proletariat, or the  bourgeoisie?  Does membership in these classes change over time?  Does play consist primarily of the player characters repressing the lumpenproletariat?

I think these lines of analysis will be fruitful.


Cheers,
Roger


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## Wombat (Oct 12, 2007)

There's also the semi-Victorian, semi-Furry rpg _Victoriana_:

http://www.cubicle-7.com/victoriana.htm

In that game you are pretty much expected to have a political affiliation, including minute variations between Socialist, Communist, and Bolshevik.


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## GreatLemur (Oct 12, 2007)

Odhanan said:
			
		

> In Vampire: The Requiem, some of the Carthians can be die-hard communists wanting to apply the precepts of Bolshevism to the society of the Damned. The Carthians form the most recent Covenant among Vampires. It is merely a few hundred years old. What differenciates the Carthian movement from other Covenants is its stance on Kindred politics inspired by the idea of human democracy. Any type of idealist can be part of the Carthian movement, from the moderates to the die-hard extremists of all kind. Given that communism certainly has been justifying its existence in numerous occasions by a deep belief in the concept of "power to the proletariat", some communists can certainly fit within the movement and form communist factions, even a sort of Internationale, within it.



This is inspiring all kinds of thoughts about a Communist vampire campaign.  I think I would have to call it "Red".  There are a lot of possible permutations, though: Bolshevik vampires vs. Tsarist vampires during the October Revolution (and I could do something with the Romanovs' hemophilia!), American intelligence operatives vs. vampire commies during the 1950s or '60s, disillusioned Soviet idealists vs. vampiric Stalin-era Party officials during the 1970s or '80s (could work in some kind of angle regarding the shared parasitic nature of vampires, Soviet oligarchs, and capitalist plutocrats), and so on.  Only trouble is, both my players and I would need to have a more solid historical understanding to make something like this really worthwhile.


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## Twowolves (Oct 12, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> The D&D party is communist.
> 
> The fighter keeps the orcs from the rest of the party, the cleric heals the fighter, the wizard blasts the orcs with fireball. The treasure consists of a ring of protection +1 which goes to the fighter and a headband of intellect which goes to the wizard.
> 
> From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs.





Except, the entire adventuring party is motivated by personal advancement and personal gain, a.k.a. greed. I'm also pretty sure that when the party loots the orc's treasury, they don't go give it all to the party to redistribute to the masses.

Sounds to me the D&D party is composed of specialists in a wealth-driven free-enterprise exercise.


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## Nifft (Oct 12, 2007)

shilsen said:
			
		

> So the Mob template from DMG2 was the advent of communism in D&D?



 Nope. Just means the King is more likely to be an 18th level Sorcerer or Wizard than Fighter or Aristocrat.

Cheers, -- N


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## Aust Diamondew (Oct 12, 2007)

I've had Spartan like societies in my games.  
I'd characterize Sparta as somewhat communist/socialist.

Edit: Probably more fascist than anything else though.


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## ForceUser (Oct 12, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> Can anyone else think of the communism, socialism, Bolshevism, totalitarian socialism, anti-consumerist anarcho-syndicalism in RPGs?



Not really. D&D is a capitalist enterprise on every level. It is a game that is fundamentally about competition, with cooperation being only one means to increase the success of the competitors. In-game, D&D exalts the ego: the search for greater status, wealth or power is the driving force behind adventuring, and the enabling of such is the selling point of the product. Meta-game, the rules mechanics are designed to reward players for seeking status, wealth and power by doling these qualities out in well-defined increments that encourage players to continue to seek them. Out-of-game, the company who owns the D&D license exists to aggressively market and sell the product and others like it. Any hint of egalitaranism that exists in D&D beyond the occasional fluff piece in the flavor text of a product is brought to the table by individual groups who choose to behave in that way. The game itself does not encourage such behavior.


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## Shortman McLeod (Oct 12, 2007)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Most of the games out there are pseudo-medieval fantasies.  Communism calls for an industrial base that the games don't have.




Marxist-Leninist Communism, yes.

Maoist Communism, no.


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## GSHamster (Oct 12, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> That's a good find. The presence of socialist/communist societies in fantasy literature shows that, even if it would be economically unreasonable, it is not impossible from a narrative point of view. But I'm going academic here.




On the other hand, that specific example is pretty much a strawman for the Goodkind to "prove" that capitalism is better.

(I'm as big a fan of capitalism as anyone, but really, turning all your communists into murdering rapists just to show how bad the system is, that's cheating.)


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## Nifft (Oct 12, 2007)

Villages small enough to use "Town Hall" style political decision making could be viewed as ideal Communist societies. And with D&D magic, they could be viable.

Cheers, -- N


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## pawsplay (Oct 12, 2007)

Communism doesn't require industry. The development of class consciousness and the uprising does. To Marx, at least, communism was a return to humanity's original state; industrious, connected to himself and his community. Many hunter-gatherer societies are effectively communist forms, as private property does not exist as such. Plato advocated communal living for his guardians. The family unit is essentially communistic, with the parents working according to their ability, and the children receiving according to their need.


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## Thunderfoot (Oct 13, 2007)

STARP_Social_Officer said:
			
		

> Communism in RPGs: You have two cows. The government tries to take both. The government fails their grapple check. Roll for initiative.



Cute...

Actually, I'm running a homebrew that has a communist society.  The entire country is a single surviving city-state from a pretty devastating war.  The only reason they are communists is it is the only way to survive their current situation.  

Things to consider - true communism is a form of social interaction, not a true form of government or economic model, though both aspects are required parts therein to make it work.  Communism is not Marxism nor Leninist, nor Stalinist - they are sub forms of communism; rule without religion, rule without central government, and dictatorial central state rule.  True Socialism requires that all parts are equal, including the leaders... This is why fantasy has so few communists, what's a king or queen without patsies to rule over?

As far as I know of, there are no perfect communist societies portrayed by fantasy settings (just as there are no perfect communist societies in the world).  But with a little work, it shouldn't be hard to pull one off, just remember that several aspects of feudal Europe will have to be left by the roadside in order to get it to work correctly.


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## hong (Oct 13, 2007)

Roger said:
			
		

> I think the primary danger here is becoming fixated on analyzing merely the _settings_ of RPGs, while neglecting the other aspects of RPGs in play.
> 
> As an example of what I mean, consider the Marxist maxim "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."  It is relatively easy, and relatively unrewarding, to consider only the in-game history of the setting in light of the class struggle.  It is much more revealing, in my opinion, to consider the play of the game itself, the actions of the players and their consequences, in terms of the class struggle.
> 
> In play, do the player characters most resemble members of the proletariat, or the  bourgeoisie?  Does membership in these classes change over time?  Does play consist primarily of the player characters repressing the lumpenproletariat?




I'm a multiclassed bourgeious borgieous buorgeios bourgeois/proletarian.


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## Mardoc Redcloak (Oct 13, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> Can anyone else think of the communism, socialism, Bolshevism, totalitarian socialism, anti-consumerist anarcho-syndicalism in RPGs?




The Blackfoot Society in Kingdoms of Kalamar?

Basically an anti-monarchist organization whose ultimate goals have a definite anarchist and communist tinge.


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## Mardoc Redcloak (Oct 13, 2007)

Shortman McLeod said:
			
		

> Marxist-Leninist Communism, yes.
> 
> Maoist Communism, no.




Not to mention the variety of forms of pre-Marxist socialism.


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## GVDammerung (Oct 13, 2007)

the Jester said:
			
		

> I seem to recall that the dwarves of the Chainmail! game that WotC released were communists. I never actually had the game, so I'm not certain how accurate this is, however.




This is correct and the "best" example I can think of.  In play, communist dwarves in an otherwise pseudo-medieval fantasy setting break the proscenium arch into smithereens.  Pass.


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## The Shaman (Oct 14, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> I should have been clearer. The question I was asking was only for communism (or something similar) in settings. This is (mostly) separate from a Marxist analysis of RPGs. The commodification of elements within the game and of rule sets gives more than enough for this analysis. (The wealth rules in d20 Modern are fantastic!)



I'd be interested in reading that analysis.

On-topic: in my HB 3.0 setting, I created a deity of the harvest and crafts, whose holy symbol was a hammer-and-sickle - many of the tenets of the religion were borrowed from Communism.


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## epochrpg (Oct 14, 2007)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Most of the games out there are pseudo-medieval fantasies.  Communism calls for an industrial base that the games don't have.




Thus have the Dwarves be communist [like D&D chainmail did]


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## interwyrm (Oct 14, 2007)

Twowolves said:
			
		

> Except, the entire adventuring party is motivated by personal advancement and personal gain, a.k.a. greed. I'm also pretty sure that when the party loots the orc's treasury, they don't go give it all to the party to redistribute to the masses.
> 
> Sounds to me the D&D party is composed of specialists in a wealth-driven free-enterprise exercise.




I'm not sure this matters. I mean, unless you're talking about international communism, you need to be talking about communism within a subset of all population. There's no reason why that subset can't be an adventuring party. 

Communist countries don't distribute their wealth to all of the countries in the world. They just keep it within the nation.

This actually gives me some ideas. Has anyone used a setting where adventurers are expected to give reclaimed wealth to the state?


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## Khuxan (Oct 14, 2007)

GVDammerung said:
			
		

> This is correct and the "best" example I can think of.  In play, communist dwarves in an otherwise pseudo-medieval fantasy setting break the proscenium arch into smithereens.  Pass.




Break the proscenium arch into smithereens? Is that a fancy way of saying it breaks the fourth wall? Because the term typically used is "break through the proscenium arch".


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 14, 2007)

interwyrm said:
			
		

> Communist countries don't distribute their wealth to all of the countries in the world. They just keep it within the nation.
> 
> This actually gives me some ideas. Has anyone used a setting where adventurers are expected to give reclaimed wealth to the state?



In the Scarred Lands setting, there is a tax on adventurers in the kingdom of Calastia. It is a LN feudal society ruled by a LE king and his barons. IIRC, the tax is vigourously collected.


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## Kahuna Burger (Oct 14, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> The D&D party is communist.
> 
> The fighter keeps the orcs from the rest of the party, the cleric heals the fighter, the wizard blasts the orcs with fireball. The treasure consists of a ring of protection +1 which goes to the fighter and a headband of intellect which goes to the wizard.
> 
> From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs.



Indeed, given the number of separate ideas cited in the first post, focus on "Looks like the USSR" communism comes off as a bit limited. I have most enjoyed games where the party was as communist as possible, and least enjoyed games where intra party accounting and score keeping was rife.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 14, 2007)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> Indeed, given the number of separate ideas cited in the first post, focus on "Looks like the USSR" communism comes off as a bit limited. I have most enjoyed games where the party was as communist as possible, and least enjoyed games where intra party accounting and score keeping was rife.



We might want to draw the distinction between communal and communist here. (This idea of the D&D party as paragon of that slogan of Marx and Engels will be a perfect place to advance discussion for my RPG class. If it ever gets accepted.)


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## Rabelais (Oct 14, 2007)

Honestly, if you ever wanted to figure out who the University social studies geeks on our humble board are just start a thread asking for a Marxist interpretation of D&D.

Interesting thread... If I didn't have about another 20 hours of homework left in front of me, I might have enough time to really argue the dogma inherent in the gaming system.


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## ssampier (Oct 14, 2007)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> The D&D party is communist.
> 
> The fighter keeps the orcs from the rest of the party, the cleric heals the fighter, the wizard blasts the orcs with fireball. The treasure consists of a ring of protection +1 which goes to the fighter and a headband of intellect which goes to the wizard.
> 
> From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs.




[Captain Obvious]

But it's a class system!


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## Nifft (Oct 15, 2007)

ssampier said:
			
		

> [Captain Obvious]
> 
> But it's a class system!



 Why don't we have an emoticon for throwing fruit?!

"Weapon Specialization (tomato)", -- N


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## JDJblatherings (Oct 15, 2007)

Aust Diamondew said:
			
		

> I've had Spartan like societies in my games.
> I'd characterize Sparta as somewhat communist/socialist.
> 
> Edit: Probably more fascist than anything else though.





 Sparta was a city-state of slave owning hair dressing warriors.  Nopt very commie.


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## Storm Raven (Oct 15, 2007)

JDJblatherings said:
			
		

> Sparta was a city-state of slave owning hair dressing warriors.  Nopt very commie.




However, the homioi were expected to live under the exact same conditions, and all had the exact same property at their disposal, and were prohibited from engaging in occupations other than service to the state. For the homioi, one could argue that there was a very collectivist way of life being led.

For the helotes, life was rather different.


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## Nifft (Oct 15, 2007)

Agree. If Athens can be a Democracy without universal suffrage, I don't see why Sparta can't have significant Communism despite lacking universal egalitarianism.

Cheers, -- N


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## Oligopsony (Oct 15, 2007)

D&D is interesting in that it hardcodes the bourgeois narrative into its rules: the plucky young person goes out into the world, and through grit and calculated risk, grows and grows in power as if it were the natural sort of way a human being matures. The victims here are dehumanized, desubjectified, monstrous depictions of foreign cultures, &c. (When it isn't covered up in this way, the violence inherent in the system becomes apparent: remember that shock you felt, first seeing the XP value listed for "child?")

When the PCs aren't involved in simple piracy, the narrative defaults to the Jack Bauer one: the status quo is basically good but defenseless, and needs violent elites to shepherd it. (In which case power returns, again, as simply a _natural_ reward of the heroes' efforts.) There are campaigns where this is partially reversed - "the status quo is bad" - but the implication is still that violent elite cadres are necessary to set things right, so the D&D rules make it Leninist at best. Exalted is probably Leninist by default in this sense, when it isn't being (very self-consiously) Nietzschean, Randian, fascistic, nihilistic, and so on.


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## eyebeams (Oct 15, 2007)

Sparta can't be communist because communism is predicated on workers controlling the means of production. In Sparta, they didn't.

Premodern society can't be called communist or capitalist because the assumptions of those systems didn't exist. The definition of property has changed between times and cultures. In a feudal society you might define it as the set of things that are possessed by someone who has no need to pass them on to satisfy obligations, which is pretty narrow, fluid -- and to a great many people who lived at that time, virtually nonexistent.


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## Nifft (Oct 15, 2007)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> ...




*eyebeams*, your sig is really long and wide. I have to put you on my "ignore" list because you're making the thread wider than my browser window.

Please PM me if you get rid of your sig. :\

Sorry, -- N


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 15, 2007)

Matthias Wasser said:
			
		

> D&D is interesting in that it hardcodes the bourgeois narrative into its rules: the plucky young person goes out into the world, and through grit and calculated risk, grows and grows in power as if it were the natural sort of way a human being matures. The victims here are dehumanized, desubjectified, monstrous depictions of foreign cultures, &c. (When it isn't covered up in this way, the violence inherent in the system becomes apparent: remember that shock you felt, first seeing the XP value listed for "child?")
> 
> When the PCs aren't involved in simple piracy, the narrative defaults to the Jack Bauer one: the status quo is basically good but defenseless, and needs violent elites to shepherd it. (In which case power returns, again, as simply a _natural_ reward of the heroes' efforts.) There are campaigns where this is partially reversed - "the status quo is bad" - but the implication is still that violent elite cadres are necessary to set things right, so the D&D rules make it Leninist at best. Exalted is probably Leninist by default in this sense, when it isn't being (very self-consiously) Nietzschean, Randian, fascistic, nihilistic, and so on.



Don't forget AD&D's rule that each GP provides XP, thus equating capital with personal growth and worth.

Honestly, there is so much going on under the surface in RPGs.


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## Sarellion (Oct 16, 2007)

So we are playing capitalist propaganda?


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## S'mon (Oct 16, 2007)

The default D&D setting is a kind of Dawn of the Bourgeoisie thing, where Bourgeois materialist 'adventurer' PCs with a capitalist-individualist ethos gain wealth and power and often end up overthrowing the old feudal-aristocratic order.   Obviously there's no space for 19th century ideas like Marxism in this 18th-century setting.

Economic Marxism and Communism barely exists in RPGs, except as the baddies in old WEG and GDW games (Paranoia, Price of Freedom, Twilight: 2000).  White Wolf's WoD is heavily influenced by neo-Marxist postmodernist dialectic, as are other 'reality is an illusion' settings like Kult.   The rise of Environmentalism has brought a little tangential neo-Marxism into the D&D universe via WotC, and certainly WotC-D&D is Politically Correct in a way TSR-D&D never was, but no communitarian socialism/communism.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 16, 2007)

Sarellion said:
			
		

> So we are playing capitalist propaganda?



Pretty much, yes. The games are part of the capitalist system. Game publishers that succeed are those who are able to best build a consumer culture for their product. Any game that seeks to resist the trend of the gaming industry can only succeed by adopting this strategy. Thus, on the one hand, the practice of buying the games is part of consumption in a capitalist setting. Perhaps more insidiously, game content will tend to be that which encourages or assists the consumer culture of the game player.

It won't be 100% this way, but the market forces should encourage these trends.

Anyway, that's the standard analysis.


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## The Cardinal (Oct 16, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> Pretty much, yes. The games are part of the capitalist system. Game publishers that succeed are those who are able to best build a consumer culture for their product. Any game that seeks to resist the trend of the gaming industry can only succeed by adopting this strategy. Thus, on the one hand, the practice of buying the games is part of consumption in a capitalist setting. Perhaps more insidiously, game content will tend to be that which encourages or assists the consumer culture of the game player.
> 
> It won't be 100% this way, but the market forces should encourage these trends.




For examples see

 - M:tG (CCG)
 - WoW (MMORPG)

and the development of D&D 3.0, 3.5., 4.0...


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## Oligopsony (Oct 16, 2007)

Sarellion said:
			
		

> So we are playing capitalist propaganda?



Sorta. Certainly not in the sense that E. Gary Gygax was rubbing his hands together, cackling about the oppression of the proletariat, but simply in the sense that D&D and other RPGs are, like everything else around us, the products of a particular time and place and are going to reflect those local assumptions. Sort of like how you might read some old pulp and think "geez, why are all the villains 'swarthy'?" and conclude "oh, it's just a product of the time" - you can do that with modern stuff, too; it's just harder because you probably share a lot of the same assumptions.

(This is a different explanation from the one that Kwalish gives, mind. I think for his argument to be true D&D (&c.) would have to be primarily exalting the consumer, rather than the entrepreneur, which are two distinct subjects produced by capitalism, whereas I only really see glorification of the latter.)

This doesn't preclude even the most doctrinaire Marxist from enjoying some D&D, with or without dramatic irony - literary analysis is basically just something hedonistic and geeky, like gaming itself.


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## Storm Raven (Oct 16, 2007)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Sparta can't be communist because communism is predicated on workers controlling the means of production. In Sparta, they didn't.




As has been noted before in this thread, only certain varieties of communism/socialism make these assumptions.


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## lukelightning (Oct 16, 2007)

D&D adventuring groups often are communistic (is that a word? it is now). "From each according to his ability" and all that goodness, equal shares of loot, and many groups also put a large share of their resources into a "party pool" for group expenses, raise deads, etc.


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## eyebeams (Oct 17, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> As has been noted before in this thread, only certain varieties of communism/socialism make these assumptions.




And those notes were specious, because any definitions that broad are virtually meaningless, though comforting to some due to reasons that would violate the TOS to describe. The OP is clearly discussing contemporary ideological positions, not simply whether people shared stuff sometimes and how.


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## Sir Brennen (Oct 17, 2007)

China Miéville's Bas-Lag novels have very strong socialist themes running through them, and were adopted as a D&D setting in a Dragon Magazine article a year or two ago.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 17, 2007)

Matthias Wasser said:
			
		

> (This is a different explanation from the one that Kwalish gives, mind. I think for his argument to be true D&D (&c.) would have to be primarily exalting the consumer, rather than the entrepreneur, which are two distinct subjects produced by capitalism, whereas I only really see glorification of the latter.)



Oh, I agree with your take, as well. The creation of a consumer culture is not about exalting the consumer, it's about creating a culture where people are more likely to be consumers or more likely to be higher consumers of a certain product or of products in general. As The Cardinal points out, Magic is a perfect example of a game that creates it's consumer culture. The original rules promote such a culture (whether or not Richard Garfield realized it) and subsequent tournament rules changes only add to the effect.

In D&D (and many other RPGs), there is also a consumer culture created by the nature of the rules. In previous editions, the access to new character classes, monsters, weapons, spells, and magic items encouraged players to buy new books (not counting adventure modules). Now the addition of prestige classes and feats only encourages consumption and, in turn, encourages the inclusion of these as rules through the continued success of the company that offers such rules.

It's not that these are bad rules. It's not even that the steady stream of new rules is bad. It's just that it is part of a consumer culture.


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## Storm Raven (Oct 17, 2007)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> And those notes were specious, because any definitions that broad are virtually meaningless




I'm so glad you are here to tell us that pre-Marx versions of socialism are "virtually meaningless". Bellamy's socialism, for example, would not necessarily include workers controlling the means of production. Perhaps you need to go and look at some stuff that _wasn't_ written by Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Mao. They didn't invent the idea, nor did they write the best stuff in the field.


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## DM_Matt (Oct 17, 2007)

Another problem with Communism in DND:  Atheism is completely untenable in all published and most homebrew settings.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 17, 2007)

DM_Matt said:
			
		

> Another problem with Communism in DND:  Atheism is completely untenable in all published and most homebrew settings.



Belief in a deity is not incompatible with communism. Just look at the Housemartins!

Seriously, though, translating the atheistic, monolithic USSR into D&D would be difficult due to the presence of so many other deities. Perhaps the effective worship of gods could play the same role that nuclear weapons did in the cold war, though.

(We should also remember, though, that D&D is not the only RPG.)


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## Kahuna Burger (Oct 17, 2007)

DM_Matt said:
			
		

> Another problem with Communism in DND:  Atheism is completely untenable in all published and most homebrew settings.



only when you metagame....

Not that atheism is in any way required for communism....


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## Piratecat (Oct 17, 2007)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> And those notes were specious, because any definitions that broad are virtually meaningless, though comforting to some due to reasons that would violate the TOS to describe. The OP is clearly discussing contemporary ideological positions, not simply whether people shared stuff sometimes and how.



Making an attack on someone's position while claiming that you can't because of board rules is pretty clever, but still inappropriate. 

Stay far away from real-world political stuff, folks.


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## Storm Raven (Oct 17, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> Belief in a deity is not incompatible with communism. Just look at the Housemartins!




Or pretty much any of the 19th century utopian socialists. Pretty much they all assumed a necessary component of a socialist utopia was the universal belief in some sort of divine being, usually a Christian version. Marx was a wild outlier among contemporary socialists of his day with respect to his views on religion.


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## cignus_pfaccari (Oct 17, 2007)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> Not that atheism is in any way required for communism....




In settings like the FR, where deities come on down to their favored servants' house for breakfast in bed, atheism is kind of hard to pull off.  Sort of like Terry Pratchett's "Not only do the gods believe in you, they throw bricks through your window."  In settings like Eberron, it's a bit easier to pull off, especially since you don't HAVE to worship a deity to be a cleric and cast spells.

However, in any setting, you can have them use "opiate of the masses" as their issue, and with that fantasy communists can work easily, you can have them be rabid anti-theists due to deific corruption:

"Yes, Pelor exists, we can all see that.  But what does he really do for you?  The sun goes along whether or not he personifies it.  He accepts your sacrifices and tithes for doing what he should be doing anyway!  And if you don't sacrifice to him, he hides and refuses to work, or even retaliates?  That's a protection racket!!!"

Brad


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## Kahuna Burger (Oct 17, 2007)

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> In settings like the FR, where deities come on down to their favored servants' house for breakfast in bed, atheism is kind of hard to pull off.  Sort of like Terry Pratchett's "Not only do the gods believe in you, they throw bricks through your window."  In settings like Eberron, it's a bit easier to pull off, especially since you don't HAVE to worship a deity to be a cleric and cast spells.
> 
> However, in any setting, you can have them use "opiate of the masses" as their issue, and with that fantasy communists can work easily, you can have them be rabid anti-theists due to deific corruption:
> 
> ...




There's also the issue of how a non godly person could tell the difference between a god and  "just" a very powerful being. Is a 15th level illusionist a god? How could anyone low level even tell? I mean, we KNOW hgh level illusionists exist.   Atheism is easier in a fantasy world since you get another alternate explaination other than hallucination.    And since godless clerics are part of the rules unless a setting or campaign forbids it, there is nothing that the favor of the gods gives you that can't be gained by other means.


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## eyebeams (Oct 17, 2007)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Making an attack on someone's position while claiming that you can't because of board rules is pretty clever, but still inappropriate.
> 
> Stay far away from real-world political stuff, folks.




This is a thread about applying real world political stuff in RPGs. Please define the limits of the discussion.


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## eyebeams (Oct 17, 2007)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> I'm so glad you are here to tell us that pre-Marx versions of socialism are "virtually meaningless". Bellamy's socialism, for example, would not necessarily include workers controlling the means of production. Perhaps you need to go and look at some stuff that _wasn't_ written by Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Mao. They didn't invent the idea, nor did they write the best stuff in the field.




Stop conflating communism and socialism, plzkthx. Also, read Bellamy again, perferably from the source instead of skimming Wikipedia. Bellamy's socialism is based on replacing capitalist institutions with central planning, but that planning is not necessarily ensconced in a ruling class (Looking Backward is pretty vague about political institutions). I do, incidentally, know the typical rhetorical ruse that comes with invoking Bellamy, too. Should I invoke Godwin's Law now, or wait until you've built up some steam?


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 18, 2007)

This thread is not supposed to be about the merits or flaws of particular political systems, though it may be about the challenges in implementing these political systems in a RPG setting.

For the purposes of discussion, we can talk about implementing any communist of socialist society in a RPG setting.


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## The Ubbergeek (Oct 18, 2007)

It would be more pre-modern, probably more religious than lay communalism, pre-socialism.


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## AnonymousOne (Oct 18, 2007)

I know the possibility for it may exist in some RPGs but it has virtually no place in D&D in anything beyond a passing cult in Eberron.  

Reason:  DnD = Medieval fantasy setting.  Which is incompatible with the philosophical underpinnings of socialism.  Don't like it?  Go play GURPS.

*shurgs*  I have a socialist country in my homebrew campaign.  But then again our campaign is pretty damn far from Cannon DnD.


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## S'mon (Oct 18, 2007)

Sir Brennen said:
			
		

> China Miéville's Bas-Lag novels have very strong socialist themes running through them, and were adopted as a D&D setting in a Dragon Magazine article a year or two ago.




China Mieville is giving a seminar on "A Marxist theory of International Law" to my University Law faculty (of which I am one) next Wednesday!  Woot!


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## S'mon (Oct 18, 2007)

For a serious look at socialism in a pre-industrial D&D setting, the mid-17th century Levellers of the English Civil War epoch might be worth checking out.  Of course 17th century is post-Renaissance but I reckon their assumptions will fit much more easily into a pre-industrial milieu than would 19th century Marxist dialectic.


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## Storm Raven (Oct 18, 2007)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Stop conflating communism and socialism, plzkthx. Also, read Bellamy again, perferably from the source instead of skimming Wikipedia. Bellamy's socialism is based on replacing capitalist institutions with central planning, but that planning is not necessarily ensconced in a ruling class (Looking Backward is pretty vague about political institutions). I do, incidentally, know the typical rhetorical ruse that comes with invoking Bellamy, too. Should I invoke Godwin's Law now, or wait until you've built up some steam?




I'm not. The original poster asked for discussion of a topic much broader than you seem to think. To quote the OP:



> Can anyone else think of the communism, socialism, Bolshevism, totalitarian socialism, anti-consumerist anarcho-syndicalism in RPGs?




Communism is just a subset of socialism, and a very specific one at that. And not very well thought out either.

I've read Bellamy. Probably long before you did. And Bellamy doesn't assume that the means of production are owned by the workers. Perhaps you need to go back and reread _Looking Backward_ and note how this assumption is not made, mentioned, or regarded as important. Socialism is not dependent upon the assumptions you seem to want to make universal. In point of fact, most of the 19th century socialist thinkers didn't make such an assumption.


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## Storm Raven (Oct 18, 2007)

The Ubbergeek said:
			
		

> It would be more pre-modern, probably more religious than lay communalism, pre-socialism.




The Hutterites come to mind.


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## sckeener (Oct 18, 2007)

DM_Matt said:
			
		

> Atheism is completely untenable in all published and most homebrew settings.




just because there is someone more powerful than you does not mean they are gods.

Now the scientific method might be hard to pull off in a fantasy setting unless you really nailed the magical mechanics really tight....in which case is it really magic?

The first communistic community IMHB that comes to mind is a Psionic one.  I've an enclave that searches the world for psionic talent and offers them a place in their community.  They've got all sorts of creatures living in 'harmony'.....basically if they accept to be part of the community they take a vow to work for the good of the community and to do harm to none in the community....this has recently hit a snag as the enclave's master telepath died leaving no successor to continue the voluntary vows.  oh and the society is a communistic republic with their senate being made up of the psionic discipline masters.  

I like the Chainmail Dwarves.  I think I'm like most gamers and have my demihumans being socialists/communists and my humanoids being capitalists/tyrannies...with humans being anything. 

I always find this wiki list helpful when I am crafting the government for a society


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## Shortman McLeod (Oct 18, 2007)

AnonymousOne said:
			
		

> *shurgs*  I have a socialist country in my homebrew campaign.  But then again our campaign is pretty damn far from Cannon DnD.




Or canon DnD, I imagine.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Oct 18, 2007)

I like the Chainmail dwarves, too.

I think I need a campaign setting where the dwarves are communists, the elves Fascists, the gnomes socialists, the halflings run a parliamentarian monarchy, and the humans have a republic.  The campaign idea will be: the elves sneak attack the gnomes, succeed after running off the halfling forces, then invade the dwarves, ultimately requiring the humans to come in on the side of the dwarves and halflings to put a stop to things.  After it is over, the gnomes will resent the interference of the humans and halflings and ally with the elves against the dwarves.


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## AnonymousOne (Oct 19, 2007)

Shortman McLeod said:
			
		

> Or canon DnD, I imagine.




Right...  :\   My bad.  Though things DO tend to blow up a a lot.


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## hong (Oct 19, 2007)

DM_Matt said:
			
		

> Another problem with Communism in DND:  Atheism is completely untenable in all published and most homebrew settings.



 In D&D you might not be able to deny the existence of a god, but nothing stops you denying the legitimacy of that god.

Hong "a religion is a cult with an army and navy" Ooi


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## Mardoc Redcloak (Oct 19, 2007)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Premodern society can't be called communist or capitalist because the assumptions of those systems didn't exist.




Common ownership of land and capital is possible in virtually any society that comes to mind.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 19, 2007)

There were a surprising amount of capital ventures in premodern societies. Watermills were quite often capital investments.


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## eyebeams (Oct 20, 2007)

Mardoc Redcloak said:
			
		

> Common ownership of land and capital is possible in virtually any society that comes to mind.




Not really, unless you apply very vague standards to both. Landholding is not necessarily the same as ownership and even ownership is an imprecise blanket term for a number of relationships. Lords held land for their lieges. They didn't own it. What we think of as land ownership in a commonsense fashion really came into existence in the 18th century after the collapse of chain-of-title systems. Before that, the fee was subject to a number of restrictions based on custom, leading to things like subinfeudination since the "owner" could not actually sell is "property," as title belonged to the Crown (this is technically true today, but land registry severed most title customs). These restrictions were gradually relaxed.

Also, the idea of a watermill as a capitalist institution is . . . novel . . . given that millers were typically tenants who rented according to customary dues.


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## Mardoc Redcloak (Oct 20, 2007)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Not really, unless you apply very vague standards to both. Landholding is not necessarily the same as ownership and even ownership is an imprecise blanket term for a number of relationships. Lords held land for their lieges. They didn't own it.




What does that have to do with anything?

Whatever the _actual_ relationship of lords to the land, common ownership of land was still theoretically _possible_.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 20, 2007)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Also, the idea of a watermill as a capitalist institution is . . . novel . . . given that millers were typically tenants who rented according to customary dues.



I'm not just pulling this out of nowhere. There is serious historical scholarship on the nature and use of waterwheel-powered mills. These required a lot of investment and could provide a lot of return. 

See, for example, the discussion of such mills in _A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millenium_ by Robert Friedel.

Especially interesting is the discussion of these waterwheel powered mills near a dam at Toulouse, the Bazacle, in the 12th century.


			
				Friedel page 38 said:
			
		

> Even before the mills took on the great expense of the dam construction, their ownership was put in the form of shares, each worth one-eighth of the mill. These shares were bought and sold, just like stock, and their value fluctuated depending on the condition of the individual mill, the state of trade and agriculture, and even speculation.... As early as the thirteenth century, the millers were more likely to be the employees of capitalists rather than owners, and in the next century the system was elaborated into a form of corporate ownership, where shares no longer corresponded to portions of individual mills, but to stock in the Societe du Bazacle, or example, which owned the dam, a resevoir, related fishing rights, and several mills.



*NB:*Missing French accents are due to my inability to figure out how to include them in the message board text.


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## eyebeams (Oct 20, 2007)

Mardoc Redcloak said:
			
		

> What does that have to do with anything?
> 
> Whatever the _actual_ relationship of lords to the land, common ownership of land was still theoretically _possible_.




Theoretically, very few people *today* actually own their land free and clear. In reality, we have most of the characteristics of ownership. In the middle ages, far more was dependent on the customs related to the people and the land involved. The question arises of who'd actually own this land in common. Freemen didn't own their land; they paid rent and obeyed the local custom.

If you call these relationships capitalist or communist, you define the terms so vaguely that they could mean anything.


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## The Grumpy Celt (Oct 21, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> "There's not a lot of communism in RPGs!"




There is not a lot of democracy, either, but I seem to be the only one troubled by that.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 21, 2007)

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Theoretically, very few people *today* actually own their land free and clear. In reality, we have most of the characteristics of ownership. In the middle ages, far more was dependent on the customs related to the people and the land involved. The question arises of who'd actually own this land in common. Freemen didn't own their land; they paid rent and obeyed the local custom.
> 
> If you call these relationships capitalist or communist, you define the terms so vaguely that they could mean anything.



Dude, you seem to have a reading comprehension problem. And you come across as condescending. Sometimes I do too, but I'd like to keep this thread positive, so that's why I'm saying something here.

Simply because the majority of economic transactions take place within a particular framework does not mean that there are opportunities for transactions of other economic types. Few economic systems are absolute within their host societies, and those that are tend to be found in very small societies, I suspect.

So I agree that it is possible to have common ownership of land in almost any society. However, it is probably not likely, and the great success of such a venture is probably in jeopardy by the other social forces. E.g., if it is successful and threatens a feudal lord, the lord may very well simply take control of the land and re-purpose it.


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## Kwalish Kid (Oct 21, 2007)

The Grumpy Celt said:
			
		

> There is not a lot of democracy, either, but I seem to be the only one troubled by that.



I'm not particularly troubled by the lack of communism or socialism in these games. I am troubled from time to time by the lack of democracy.

What does it say about a group of people that is so willing to immerse themselves in these non-democratic societies?

Playing a character that pledges allegiance to a monarch or feudal system is really a stretch for me, I tell you.

(Though currently I'm playing a character that is the mortal-plane agent of an evil deity. I think that's way more of a stretch.)


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## The Ubbergeek (Oct 21, 2007)

There was NO modern-style fantasy in feudal ages...

Granted, D&D is not to be an exact copy, but the harsh times, well...


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## Mardoc Redcloak (Oct 21, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> I'm not particularly troubled by the lack of communism or socialism in these games. I am troubled from time to time by the lack of democracy.
> 
> What does it say about a group of people that is so willing to immerse themselves in these non-democratic societies?




In D&D, means are available to assess the worthiness of rulers that don't exist in the real world: _detect evil_ and _detect good_, for instance.

One would imagine that in a lawful good society guarantees would be there to ensure that the ruler is actually good-hearted and well-trained. So it's not just a matter of subordination to whatever potentially awful ruler happens to be in power.

Of course, some of us might question whether even this sort of benevolent monarchy is truly justified... but hey, that's what chaotic good is for.


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## RFisher (Oct 22, 2007)

Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> What does it say about a group of people that is so willing to immerse themselves in these non-democratic societies?




I put a representative democracy in my campaign world. Everyone else thinks they're crazy. Other states avoid dealing with them as much as possible because their policies shift radically after nearly every election. Their promises are only good until the end of the current term (if that long). Despite the potential for heirs by blood or selection to bring a bad leader to power, most people feel that's less risky than handing power to the best demagogue. (^_^)

As much as I may like democracy, I recognize that it's got a whole lot of faults. Lots of fodder for satire when placed in a world in which it's a rarity.



			
				Kwalish Kid said:
			
		

> Playing a character that pledges allegiance to a monarch or feudal system is really a stretch for me, I tell you.




IME, most adventurers don't swear allegiance to anyone except perhaps a patron deity. Sure, they'll aid the cause of a monarch because they like the throne's current occupant or because royalty pays well, but it's seldom about loyalty.


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