Myself and one other player (the dm's girlfriend) deliberately got ourselves captured by an evil empire to infiltrate and liberate a concentration camp. What we knew before getting ourselves captured was that they have been taking away anyone without their "papers" and people of certain races, including the other player's race. When we got there all of the prison guards were really nice and the prisoners were totally fine. One of them legitimately said that it was good to be away from the bigotry outside of the concentration camp. At this point we stopped the session, yelled at the dm and got him to agree to rewrite this section. I dont know how anyone could possibly think this was ok.
I've seen DMs (and writers in general) get stuck in a loop of subverting expectations whenever they notice they've built them up, because they've gotten it into their head that this is what good writing is. Also lots of DMs/writers only engage with history and ideology on a trope level - nazis are just when your evil empire cribs its aesthetic from Triumph Of The Will, not actual people that sucked with actual beliefs that sucked and actual power structures that sucked. Put them together and you get good nazis, what a tweeeest.
The only time I was in a session were "camps are good"(*) was used to subvert was when the people doing the guarding were former resistance people believing that the liberal peace with the enemy fascist/capitalist empire was good and wouldn't lead to harm (demilitarizing the revolutionary squads was part of the deal). Naturally the evil empire just got in with an army and killed everyone and was happy for the preparation done by the libs.
(*) and even then there was widespread abuse of power, also the reason for the camps was that only standing citizens (so powerful landowning families and their staff) would remain and thus Feudalism be restored outside of cities.
It may also be worth noting that his girlfriend is Jewish and a demsoc. The dm unironically though pete buttigieg was good
Like I get that angle if the later plan is "evil mage was actually making them remember things as pleasant and not literally torture" or some "no war in basingse" type hypnosis but to just be like "we did a racism and ethnic cleansing but its okay and everyone is happy about it" is absolutely fucked up. The "concentration camp is a lovely summer getaway" idea only works as a plot point if the immediate follow up is literally that evil things are being covered up or that its an attempt to pacify people before the real evil shit starts.
Leftist rpg groups are essential to avoid contracting brainworms. You just know this lib is posting on a forum like "why can't my party handle tough topics/subverting tropes" :agony-4horsemen:
If that was his plan then I would be very impressed and we would have to apologize for giving him so much shit, but i dont think he would have agreed to rewrite this encounter if that were the case.
Oh absolutely I doubt it was going that direction, I think you made the right call since he immediately agreed to a rewrite.
I explicitly asked him if that was the plan and he said "That would have been huge brain but I'm bad"
Roleplaying sounds like a lot of fun. I would love to join a session someday. Cool that you and her managed to bully that nerd. Like if you want to do something evil commit, with player consent of course before hand.
I tried a session zero with my nephews and sister before but after two hours they still weren't done. Probably for the best since I feel like I'm unoriginal and will just be pulling plots from games I played.
We have a dnd 3.5 west marches campaign going if you are interested in joining link
I tried this and the DM said my computer specs aren't compatible. They were really nice though. Maybe one day though.
Maybe? I mentioned I have a chrome book only. I also go by the same username.
Originality is overrated. There's nothing new under the sun. Better to take familiar tropes and present them in your way than try to come up with something nobody has ever seen before.
I actually would like to get back into tabletop if I could find a game
man. I thought I was an insufferable DM when I spent weeks writing up an epic fantasy world plot and the only opposing force/ grand villain I could think was "Neoliberal Capitalism"
My tabletop group ended up salting a group of goblins in our first session until they helped us kill their boss (the big bad) and now the running joke is that my party tries to unionize any sentient group we come across first thing lmao
i wanted to set up an arc where the travelers could enter a town celebrating a harvest season approaching, something about the youth in town and have an army attack while they relax at the pub to make it a heavy handed allegory about israeli expansion into Palestinian lands.
never got around to it tho
