Preaching

[SlurpeeMoney]

I am having a dilema.

I am writing a game, and I am not sure just how "preachy" I want it to be. There are aspects of theme that I feel deserve special consideration (anti-establishmentism, government responsability, different-can-be-good, with-great-power-comes-a-great-destiny), but I do not want to come off as though I think everyone should embrace those ideas. I want people to explore them in their games, to try and understand them from multiple viewpoints, but without resorting to evangelical persuasion, I can't seem to find a voice that adequately portrays any of those themes in the writing of the game itself.

Some back information:

In the late seventies and early eighties, a spike in the number of children born with the ability to learn psychic abilities occured. While the event drew some public attention, and metaphysicists, parapsychologists and other paranormal activists were quite excited about the idea. All information relating to this spike was quickly quashed by the government, and for many years, no one heard another thing about them.

Children began to disappear in much more startling numbers in the mid-eighties. Most of the disappearances have been left unsolved.

In the early nineties another spike, this one much larger in population, though less prominent in power-level, occured. Given the advancements in censorship, however, very little public attention was drawn. The only people with information on these naturally psychic children were those who had been interested in the original spike; now their interest had been doubled, and the freedom of communication now available to them in the form of the Internet strengthened their resolve to learn everything that could be learned about these remarkable children.

In the mid-eighties, more and more children found themselves diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and put on Ritalin, a drug known to lessen symptoms of Attention Deficit.

With the late nineties came a revelation. The first wave of children born during the Spike began to develop some of their abilities, and the results were incredible. Many of them were verifiable accounts of psychic phenomenon. Mixed with incredible intelligence, more physically adept bodies and spiritual awareness previously unseen in most teenagers, the potential of these children was undeniable.

Power often comes with a dark side. Most of those children, nicknamed Obsidian Children by metaphysicists, displayed anti-social, anti-establishment behavior, a lack of concentration, constant fidgetting and many other symtpoms of Attention Deficit Disorder. It was also discovered (quite by accident) that Ritalin has psionic-debilitating properties, and that many of the missing children from the mid-eighties were born within the 'spike.'

Still, the public knew almost nothing. The professionals in the field knew better than to bring their discoveries into the light, given the way previous attempts had been handled. Rather, they turned to the children themselves, asking them for guidance, seeking a purpose for these Obsidian Children.

The answer, quite simply, is: To pave the way.

The children of the second spike, known as Indigo Children, are predestined to rule the world in an even-handed, fair way that will be prosperous and supportive of all. However, one cannot build new ideas while the old establishments are still in power. The Obsidian Children are there to ensure that the Old Ways are torn down so that the New Order can build on its remains.

The game would focus on the player characters playing Obsidian Children, Indigo Children or a paranormal researcher (parapsychologist, metaphysicist, psychic researcher, etc.), trying to find a way to cope with the fact that, in order to do what they know is right, they will have to rock the boat, they will have to fight, they will have to leave loved ones and perhaps even watch them die. These are normal people with gifts, struggling against predestination, while struggling against the government, while struggling against the social bonds that bind them.

What do you think? Can it be done without preaching? Or is preaching what I need to do? And how much, either way? Should I hit players over the head with what I want out of the game (*cough* WhiteWolf *cough*) or just let folks play it the way they want to play it (Witchcraft)? How much moral should really go into role-playing? Should it be like classic storytelling, or more like today's movie industry (I read a great review of Shrek that said it would have been a great movie if they hadn't wrapped it around a moral. Why do so many movies have to have morals. I laughed muchly.)?

Kris
"That SlurpeeMoney guy... Just writes and writes and writes..."

[Doctor Xero]

I am writing a game, and I am not sure just how "preachy" I want it to be. There are aspects of theme that I feel deserve special consideration (anti-establishmentism, government responsability, different-can-be-good, with-great-power-comes-a-great-destiny), but I do not want to come off as though I think everyone should embrace those ideas.

I would suggest that it might be helpful to establish a distinct difference between Taking a Stand and Preaching.

Taking a Stand involves making clear to your fellow gamers before a game even begins what ethical issues are not negotiable for you when it comes to a game.  Everyone has certain ethical or moral values that they hold dear ; the only honest thing to do when it comes to gaming is to make them known from the start (if possible).  That way, friends who are mildly incompatible in such matters won't waste time gaming together.  They might see films together or climb trees together or double-date, but they won't game together.  People who are majorly incompatible in such matters probably aren't friends.

Taking a Stand also includes emotional as well ethical bases for a person's ethical perspective.  For example, it's perfectly reasonable for a player who has been raped to expect the game master to stay away from rape within the game.  On the other hand, the player may wish to deal with it in game.  Communication is what is essential here.

Taking a Stand involves the Social Contract as well.  In some gaming groups it is part of the Social Contract that the game master is allowed to challenge the players -- perhaps even expected to!  For example, I've been in games at which the game master confronted through the campaign a player about his own racism.  Because this was part of the Social Contract and within the nature of the out-of-game relationship between that game master and that player, it worked.

Taking a Stand involves being upfront and honest about a person's values.  I refuse to run games which valorize and promote racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, or gender bigotry, and I honestly believe that if more people took stands against valorizing and promoting prejudice we would reduce it in this world.  But I am upfront about it with potential players from the very beginning, and I have accepted it when racist or homophobic or sexist players have decided not to game with me.  I take a stand, but I don't employ coercion.

On the other hand, Preaching implies a captive audience or efforts to intimidate the audience through claims of divine authorization.  If I hide my values and attempt to use the game as a tool for covert propaganda, I am preaching.  If I use peer pressure to coerce other people into playing in games which attempt to convert them, I am preaching.

You will notice that Taking a Stand and Preaching involve the sensibilities of the gaming group and the group's Social Contact but not the game design.

When it comes to game design, the game designer has little control over what the playing group does with his or her creation.  Racists can decide that all villains are Black or Hispanic, and reading that this is forbidden in the gaming manual will not stop them.  Gender bigots can alter character creation, anti-Semites can create Zionist conspiracy villains, homophobes can declare homosexuality to constitute a major mental illness drawback during character creation, and there is nothing the game designer can do to stop this.

What a game designer can do is include a chapter in which he or she shares the inspirations and vision which motivated the initial creation of the game.  Many game designers include a discussion of the aspects of theme that they feel deserve special consideration in the game, and they might emphasize this by including sample scenarios which promote said themes.

If the game designer makes clear that these are suggestions, there is a good chance that he or she will be heeded.  If the game designer demands that this occur, well, gamers are often rebellious, and who is easier to rebel against than an author who has no idea who you are?

So your concern is less a game design issue and more a simple issue of eloquence and presentation.

Personally, I prefer a game system which includes a section in which the game designer makes it clear what themes he or she has in mind.

At least, that's my take on this question.

Doctor Xero

[M. J. Young]

I don't think it's wrong to make your views known clearly in the text. I do think it will limit your audience, and may get you slapped around by the critics for doing so.

However, it strikes me that preaching might be exactly what you want--not as the game designer preaching to the reader, but as a way of focusing the issues. You might consider flavor text through which various personae each argue a side of one of the issues. Juxtapose the efficacy of strong centralized government in one sermon against the importance of individual freedom in another, and so on.

This can help create the impression of a strongly polarized setting, and give players some of the tools to take sides on the issues and work them through.

--M. J. Young

[Clinton R. Nixon]

First, this game sounds awesome. I'm thinking that Douglas Coupland and Stephen King had a pool party at your house.

I think you can do this without preaching, actually. By taking a stand, as the Doctor mentioned, on major issues, and then phrasing the rest in a way that's slightly biased towards saving the world, you can make the game about that while letting players explore the darker sides of their character.

My biggest suggestion is to read the text of Sorcerer, a game that could have gotten preachy real fast. It's not, but there's morals buried in there.

[Ron Edwards]

Wow,

Doctor Xero nailed it for me. "What he said."

Best,
Ron

[Jack Spencer Jr]

One thing I have learned about preachiness that I will impart here, although you seem to have a grip on it already, I think.

A good line was in the movie Quills. Paraphrasing "Are your views so weak that they cannot withstand mine? For shame!"

When setting up one point of view, it is best to allow the opposing view to make it's case and thus you're viewpoint will be all the stronger because it met an opposing viewpoint and won.

This, however, applies easier to fiction that to RPG design. Might be one of the philisophical breaks I have with typical RPG design.

[John Kim]

What do you think? Can it be done without preaching? Or is preaching what I need to do? And how much, either way? Should I hit players over the head with what I want out of the game (*cough* WhiteWolf *cough*) or just let folks play it the way they want to play it (Witchcraft)? How much moral should really go into role-playing?  

I'd go with the others to some degree.  But here's the practical question:  How are you going to deal with players who disagree?  Suppose I am a player, and I make a character who doesn't believe in that purpose for the children -- and indeed who considers that following that purpose to be an enormous moral mistake.  i.e. My paranormal kid tries to convince others that it is arrogance to believe that they can and should save humanity from itself.  What happens to my PC?  

The problem that I have seen with preachiness in games is that when PCs take the morally "right" action (as the GM views it), then things go well -- but when they take the morally "wrong" action (as the GM views it), then everything comes out badly.  In the case of the hypothetical PC above, the GM might keep arranging for more and more horrible things to happen to convince my PC that he has to take charge of normal human affairs.  Without even realizing it, it is very easy for a GM to slip into effectively punishing actions which she disagrees with.  

If you accept the other players as equal co-authors, you have to be prepared for the moral of the story to be a compromise, which you might disagree with.

[Doctor Xero]

when PCs take the morally "right" action (as the GM views it), then things go well -- but when they take the morally "wrong" action (as the GM views it), then everything comes out badly.  In the case of the hypothetical PC above, the GM might keep arranging for more and more horrible things to happen to convince my PC that he has to take charge of normal human affairs.  Without even realizing it, it is very easy for a GM to slip into effectively punishing actions which she disagrees with.

On the other hand, this may be exactly what the players want!

For example, in some campaigns, part of the fun is trying to decipher the ethical and metaphysical reality of the game.  After all, in Real Life, that is what many of us do in trying to find meaning in the universe and trying to discern the Will of God or the Wills of the Gods!  I've heard players discussing how they prefer this game master to run a heroic campaign because he naturally rewards heroism and punishes survivalism while they prefer that game master to run a survivalist campaign because she naturally rewards amoral ethics and punishes impractical heroism.

Some of us would find a campaign universe with no underlying ethical/metaphysical meaning to be one for which it was difficult to suspend our disbelief.

Furthermore, I've been in campaigns in which the player is disappointed if his or her sociopathic evil player-character does NOT find it harder.  The greater difficulties experienced by evil reinforces the moral infrastructure of the campaign world, which replicates the metaphysics of worlds in the works of The Professor or C.S. Lewis, for example.

The key, of course, is that this is all known up front.  It's not fair to surprise a player if the game master intends all acts of theft to result in experience point penalties.  On the other hand, if the game master has stated quite clearly that she wants an all-Good alignment party, and the player insists upon playing a Chaotic Evil assassin, well, he knew what he was in for . . .

Doctor Xero

[simon_hibbs]

The general question has been addressed very well, I'd like to focus on the specific game concept in question.

The children of the second spike, known as Indigo Children, are predestined to rule the world in an even-handed, fair way that will be prosperous and supportive of all. However, one cannot build new ideas while the old establishments are still in power. The Obsidian Children are there to ensure that the Old Ways are torn down so that the New Order can build on its remains.

The first thing that comes to mind here is that this is a 'Year Zero' program. There was a theory in revolutionary Communism that in order to built a perfect communist society all of rpevious society and culture needed to be erased. Communist leaders such as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot deliberately swept away the older geenration because it had grown up under the old order and wasn't indoctrinated into Communism at an instinctive level. By sweping away the older generation of leaders, even Communist leaders, you could start with the new generation from scratch. Hence the Killing Fields, the Cultural Revolution, etc, etc. The ends justify the means, and all that.

The game would focus on the player characters playing Obsidian Children, Indigo Children or a paranormal researcher (parapsychologist, metaphysicist, psychic researcher, etc.), trying to find a way to cope with the fact that, in order to do what they know is right, they will have to rock the boat,...

How do the _know_ it's right? Is it genuinely objectively provable? Is it an overwhelming ersonal conviction that springs from nothing? Even in the later case, surely they're at least going to have some theories abut where this feeling comes from. The whole setup appears to be pre-planned, but by who? Can we trust the motives of whatever force is responsible? Surely not everyone will.


Simon Hibbs

[SlurpeeMoney]

An integral part of the setting, particularly on the side of the Obsidians and the Indigos, are the Prophets. I had an idea while living in Calgary about a homeless prophet living at the Rundle Station, near where I lived, and a group of homeless (and not-so-homeless) followers that had taken to worshipping him. I've expanded on that a bit to make the Prophets a sort of driving force for the Obsidians/Indigos. So perhaps they don't _know_ that the path they've been shown is the right one; that's rather up to the players. The majority of Obsidians/Indigos are quite willing to accept the Prophets' views on their purpose in life, though. These kids are outcasts, geeks, gangsters, hippies, activists, and the like: to them, the chance to influence the world in a big way, to gain the recognition and the understanding they're yearned for, for so long, is quite a driving inspiration.

So definately, not everyone is going to be tickled pink about the idea of some psychic-powered revolutionary war, but they are subject to the peer pressures of their friends and others "like them;" it would be an interesting line to explore in-game. I shall have to write on it.

I find two comparisons in the previous posts worth note. The most important to me, personally, is the insinuation that my idea is on-par with those of Stephen King (Thank you! Woohoo!). The other is the comparison with the Communist revolution. The former deserves note only because it makes me incredibly proud of myself. The later, however, requires a bit more exploration in my writing, not because it is communist (I'm a Socialist, myself), but because I'm really not sure what the Indigos are going to replace the Established Order with. I mean, how does one invent a social system that is intrinsically better than that of the current day? If we already knew one was better, we'd be using it, and not touting Democracy as the know-all-end-all of political systems.

*Sigh.* Niggly little problems.

Kris
"Stephen King comparison! Woohoo!"

[Ben O'Neal]

Democracy? Where? Do you mean capitalism? Or republicanism?

But seriously, maybe you could make that a challenge for the game? Like give the players the premise "what would you make of the world if you had the power, how would you make it better?". Then you could deal with the repurcussions of their choices, and let them see how successful/problematic their solutions are. Really give them the power and responsibility of shaping the world.

Just a thought.

-Ben

[greedo1379]

Dammit.  My response got eaten by gremlins.  Anyway, I had two points:

1) This background is really similar to the book "Blue Light" by Walter Mosley.  http://www.twbookmark.com/features/waltermosley/bluelight_rgg.html
That isn't bad, just FYI.  It might also be something to read for ideas.

2) I think the game would be much more interesting if you didn't force your PCs to be on the one side.  What about playing the government agents?  Or a paranormal kid who DOESN'T agree with the rest of them?  Or one of the guys "in the way" that needs "replacing"?  

I think you can make this very interesting.  From the one perspective, you've got a group of clearly superior beings sincerely trying to make a big world omelette.  But you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.  That's just the way it goes.  And the people in the way are obviously, well, in the way.  Preventing the world from being a better place and such.

On the other hand, you've got some eggs who are quite happy with things the way they are.  And a group of people with strange powers are terrorizing them.  Think about it from your RL perspective: a group of people assassinate the president.  Are they good guys?

So who is the bad guy?  Who is the good guy?  I think the whole thing becomes much more interesting if you make it more ambigious.  By concentrating on only the one side you have decided who the heroes are and which side is "right".

[SlurpeeMoney]

This is where the question of preaching comes into play again. I know, to me, which of the groups in question is the good guys. I know that the Obsidians/Indigos are going to make the world a better place, and that, sure, there are going to be problems along the way. Having the opportunity to look at this from the other point of view, in-character, takes away from the message that I want to send: If you don't like the way things are, you CAN change them. You have a democratic right to change them through voting, and if that isn't enough, you have a revolutionary right to change them in more drastic ways. Working against the establishment helps us to define what it is we like about it, and helps to change the things we dislike. Without this, I think a lot of the power behind the concept is lost.

Just some random thoughts, though, and I'm quite caffiene high at the moment (some twelve cups of coffee, a slurpee and some chocolate are all wreaking havoc upon my poor body; I'm so mean to me). If none of this makes any sense at all, feel free to blame it on poor dietary habits.

Kris
"Mmmmm. Slurpee."

[Pigfrenzy]

If you want your game to reflect society and government then some elements of it should be quite preachy. Who says that a bunch of supernatural superintelligent kids are the guardians of the future? This morale stance can create tyrants and monsters (Dune). The government is a problem because it thinks it knows best for you and will enforce it. Will these kids go down the same path?

How overt will the action be? One ESP talent infiltrating a political structure can do wonders, mainly bad but also some good. Politicians preach all the time, what about a deeply religious psi talent? How will they feel when they accidently read the bishops non-belief in the faith?

I actually think that preachy elements are an incredibly strong part of this story. I would think it was a prfect opportunity for the players to have a preach through their characters, especially if you can get them to play against real-life type.

Why were the 80s obsidian children so anti-social? Was it because, as a whole, humanity was darker and more brooding, the Cold War was still on, populations were coming to terms with mass media and the information rush bringing forth new attrocities every month, was it the spectre of the AIDS epidemic or the Ebola Virus concept? Are they a bit mad because humanity was a bit mad at that time? Are the 90s children a bit more stable and sane because world events settled down? What will happen in 2000?

If the Indigos are the good guys just how far will they go to achieve their ends? Does the ends justify the means? You set up a classic comic book preach scenario here - thou shalt not kill or we become no better than those we are opposing.

I really like the idea and think it is a fantastic concept. Interested to see how you develop it.

Cheers
Pigfrenzy

[greedo1379]

This is where the question of preaching comes into play again. I know, to me, which of the groups in question is the good guys. I know that the Obsidians/Indigos are going to make the world a better place, and that, sure, there are going to be problems along the way. Having the opportunity to look at this from the other point of view, in-character, takes away from the message that I want to send: If you don't like the way things are, you CAN change them. You have a democratic right to change them through voting, and if that isn't enough, you have a revolutionary right to change them in more drastic ways. Working against the establishment helps us to define what it is we like about it, and helps to change the things we dislike. Without this, I think a lot of the power behind the concept is lost.

As a generally pretty happy yuppie I know which side I would more likely be behind. :)  I would prefer a bunch of punk kids who think they have super powers didn't rock the boat.  Just another POV. :)

As far as the concept losing power I disagree.  I think if, through the flavor text, you make it clear that both side thinks they doing right you end up with something more powerful.  (As long as you are able to do it convincingly.  Having The Man firebombing villages and killing babies at the drop of a hat won't do this.  Showing the (every)man that's genuinely afraid of these people and not understanding what they are trying to do and so on would.)

Its possible that I am not understanding your goal entirely though.  Are these super kids obviously good?  I mean do they wear white hats and never throw the first stone?  Is The Man wearing a black hat and so on?  I mean if you have it set up like (D&D metaphor) Lawful Good heroes vs. Monsters then its obvious.  If you want it to approach the real world then its not.

In my vision of your vision, I see both groups in a gray area.  The super kids have their goal of an NWO and are letting the ends justify the means.  Or at least some of them are.  The (every)man sees reports of kids firebombing government buildings, killing leaders, destroying research buildings, etc. and doesn't see these actions as leading towards anything but chaos.  He doesn't see the kids working peacefully (or as much as they can) against injustices in the world.  He's afraid of these kids.  Whether he knows about their powers or not.

Anyway, that's how I see the concept.  I am obviously misunderstanding the setting though.