Politics or not

[hfergus]

I'm almost afraid to start this thread, but here goes. Is there politics in your campaign, or they ignored? Does your character get involved and if so how much and why? I do not want to know right, left, up, down, back, forth, to or fro. Just if. As to why, it could be power ,sex, fame, money, or "I can make things better", or any combo or subset. Example:

 

In my campaign, politics pops up every so often, but it does not rule things. The bigee is a super registration act that expired 3 years ago, much like the Clinton gun ban. Some heroes want it back, and some think it was one of the stupidist laws ever enacted.

 

Volt's politics is fairly well known, due to his being too honest for his own good and expressing his opinion when he really probably should have said "No comment." He'd never run for anything as Volt, unless the world or the U.S. relied on it. He'd then resign as soon as possible in favor of someone he considers better. Anymore he tries to answer these questions with "I'm Volt. Not Super "party of my choice" Man".

In his secret ID his politics is well known, but he'd never run for anything more than school board, if that. His motive would be to improve things, but he's an intensly private person.

 

Olorin has a "unfamiliar with modern culture" disad, so he'd be politically incorrect. As he learned more, he'd be very politcally incorrect on purpose. He'd point out hypocrasy with both (all) parties, being a gadfly. He was a king at one time (resigned once sucession was ensured) and would not want to do anthing like that again. Both parties would hate him and love him, depending on whose ox is being gored. Eventually, he'd choose a party and be a spokeman, still pointing out their problems and inconsitencies. With a over 30 int, 10x reading speed, only 4 hours sleep needed per week, and eidetic memory, he'd have his facts correct and at his fingers most of the time very quickly. He'd only do politics to improve things. He loves to "prick the episcopal behind".

 

Black Tiger trusts no parties, but trusts one a little less. If asked, he'd say "Not going there." and scowl. Would not get involved.

 

Futurian would say "Oh, you still have politics?". He'd say this with a smile in such a way that you would not be sure if he is serious or not. If pressed to elacborate, he'd say "Can't tell you. It would mess up the timeline. Or not. Whatever." and change the subject. He'd try to stay out of things, never run, and rarely comment, prefering to support his like minded teammates.

 

Leadman would stay out of politics. "Nothing ever changes, no matter which party is in charge. Except to get worse." Avoids politics like the plague.

[ThothAmon]

Re: Politics or not

 

Politics = plotlines. Miss it out at your peril.

[Flames]

Re: Politics or not

 

Our Dark Champions urban fantasy campaign is rife with politics. Our GM is a politically-savvy sort who has our characters flitting back and forth between working for those who want Law and Order and those who want Freedom and Self-Determination. In the battle to balance the two, well, we've caused a pretty good deal of destruction. Not that I'm complaining.

 

It all started when we rescued that imprisoned goddess, the one whose power was being used to electrify the city grid.

 

Yeah, it's that kind of campaign. Next session's in about an hour. Can't wait.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Politics or not

 

I use politics, but try an divorce it from the real world - i.e. the characters get involved with politics, and sometimes politics drive the plot, and the issues may be similar, but the players are different (I don't use real politicians and such in my game).

[Enforcer84]

Re: Politics or not

 

When actually GMing it, politics have been ignored. In Else Earth, the 2004 Election was won by a former superhero running as a third (as yet unnamed) party.

 

Try though I might to avoid it, my distaste for the two parties we have now have lead me to marginalize them in my fantasies.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: Politics or not

 

As an in-game thing, it's a good idea, lots of plot possibilities. If you let real-life politics in, it can get ugly. I had a GM once who was VERY right-wing. Every vaguely leftist NPC was a dirty Communist or secret agent for the bad guys. Everybody on welfare was addicted to drugs and tried to block the PCs investigations. It was . . . not fun.

[Flames]

Re: Politics or not

 

I had a GM once who was VERY right-wing. Every vaguely leftist NPC was a dirty Communist or secret agent for the bad guys. Everybody on welfare was addicted to drugs and tried to block the PCs investigations. It was . . . not fun.

Sounds like a South Park episode.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Politics or not

 

If you let real-life politics in' date=' it can get ugly. I had a GM once who was VERY right-wing. Every vaguely leftist NPC was a dirty Communist or secret agent for the bad guys. Everybody on welfare was addicted to drugs and tried to block the PCs investigations. It was . . . not fun.[/quote']As long as everyone remembers Champions is a comic-book game, it can be fun:

 

Every megacorporation routinely hires assassins. Neo-Nazis and Communist spies crouch behind every door. All government officials are corrupt, incompetent, or both. The US military has fantastically advanced weapons, but still tries to take down 20-story-tall giant radioactive lizards with M16's. Every Chinese busboy has a black belt in __________ and either is a Chinese spy or on the run from the Chinese government.

 

Real politics? No. Fictional ones? You bet.

[Psybolt]

Re: Politics or not

 

Much like the others on the board, I've used politics as plotlines before. The President of the US is usually involved in the storyline somewhere. I would not delve into the major debates going on in the real world. That doesn't seem fun. Lots of good stuff in the "shadowy" government or the governmental conspiracies.

 

I remember assassinating a city mayor once and blaming a PC. Good times...

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Politics or not

 

As an in-game thing' date=' it's a good idea, lots of plot possibilities. If you let real-life politics in, it can get ugly. I had a GM once who was VERY right-wing. Every vaguely leftist NPC was a dirty Communist or secret agent for the bad guys. Everybody on welfare was addicted to drugs and tried to block the PCs investigations. It was . . . not fun.[/quote']

 

In my present Champions game, I had a player entertaining the thoughts of taking a social lim or hunted/watched because he was Egyptian and everybody would treat him as a 'muslim terrorist' I believe he phrased it. I said no because it wouldn't come up often enough to be an issue.

 

I'm trying to decide if it's more political or less political to have a different president for the last two terms ...

[Certified]

Re: Politics or not

 

When dealing with politics in RPGs I like to keep things with a nice shade of gray. That is to say if politics drive the players to do something it is normally a matter of perspective. If it's eco terrorists bombing a coal mining facility then maybe the mining conditions are horrid and the attack came after a worker was hurt or killed. Heroes come in and stop the attacks on the mine but at the same time the mine owners may suppress the data the eco terrorists based their actions on or worse push to have stricter laws passed on what information they are required to make public.

 

At a higher level, heroes might be tipped of that a politician is working with a known villain organization. While investigating the link they may confirm the link but at the same time find out that his opposition is part of a hard line group maybe something like an anti-metahumans group pushing for forced registration or even determent. Busting the politician in power would but the other candidate in a prime position to take his seat in the up coming election.

 

All this is to say when playing a game it's not about pushing an agenda it's about fun game play. With politics I think you can really have fun with traditional super hero roles by having no clear cut right or wrong and a medium most players can agree on that is rarely clear cut.

[Vinecent]

Re: Politics or not

 

There is no decision about whether you are going to have politics or not in a Champions game. Champions is based on superhero comics and the source material is rife with politics. The real question is how much? and What kind?

 

I am not politically active myself for moral reasons. You shouldn't vote if you're not going to go along with whoever wins the vote. That's the unspoken agreement when you vote. You can't agree to put something to a vote and then disagree when it doesn't go your way......sorry, I got off track.

 

That's kind of the point, though. If you're playing a roleplaying game and you include too much heavy politics, you can get off track quickly.

[Alverant]

Re: Politics or not

 

As an in-game thing' date=' it's a good idea, lots of plot possibilities. If you let real-life politics in, it can get ugly. I had a GM once who was VERY right-wing. Every vaguely leftist NPC was a dirty Communist or secret agent for the bad guys. Everybody on welfare was addicted to drugs and tried to block the PCs investigations. It was . . . not fun.[/quote']

 

I can imagine. Even if done as a game, something like that would get insulting quickly. I wonder how the GM would react if the situation were reversed, every conservative NPC was dirty Fascist or secret agent. Every rich person got their money through immoral means and had decadent hobbies that skirted, if not crossed, the legal limits.

 

Fortunately in my gaming group we've avoided most politics because we have a mix of political and religious opinions. Even in a game having people of one political party always wind up being wrong is insulting. In a different campaign I was in, one of the NPCs was a leftist past the point of parody. I told the GM I was offended and he said he'd balance the scales. It never happened.

 

I think these days mixing politics and gaming is a dangerous mix. It can be so dividing and you have to work to have a balance. Has anyone taken an inventory of the NPCs in the Champions books to see which side has more bad guys? Maybe it's me, but the left seems to be over-represented.

 

In my DC campaign I'm planning, there's an altered history that almost completely separates it from real-world politics. There's over a dozen political parties at the Federal level each with about the same power. Those elected President in the past in the real world were also President in my world, but they were of different political parties and most weren't re-elected and more than a few were assassinated (if someone tried to kill a President and failed in the real-world, then they probably succeeded in the campaign history). It allows me, a novice GM, to introduce politics in the game without a great risk of offending the views of the players.

[wrestlinggeek]

Re: Politics or not

 

I tend not to use real-world politics in my games. I have had corrupt politicians with their own goals come into conflict with the PCs; and it doesn't matter what party they are obstensibly with, corrupt is corrupt. And, of course, any good Villainous Secret Society will have numerous members of both (or all) parties on their payroll, and even in their ranks. And, I have taken some of my own political views to their extreme conclusions to use for plots. For instance, I once planned to have a high-ranking general and his loyal troops lay seige to the White House, Capitol Building, and Supreme Court, because he had taken an oath to protect the consitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, and he felt that all current occupants of those buildings (and, indeed, everyone who had worked in them for the last 60 years or so), fell into that category. Wow, that was a long sentence. My point is, politics makes great story fodder, but real-world politics makes bad feelings (unless all the players and the GM have the exact same political beliefs, which is not likely).

[Trebuchet]

Re: Politics or not

 

Fortunately in my gaming group we've avoided most politics because we have a mix of political and religious opinions. Even in a game having people of one political party always wind up being wrong is insulting. In a different campaign I was in' date=' one of the NPCs was a leftist past the point of parody. I told the GM I was offended and he said he'd balance the scales. It never happened.[/quote']Even though everyone in our gaming group is decidedly right-of-center, politics has very little direct impact on our games. That may be largely because our team MidGuard is a globe-spanning team (with American, Canadian, French, Italian and Russian members) and as such seldom gets involved in national or local level politics. The most outright political situation in our campaign is that a megavillain has (legally; by election) gained power in Columbia and Venezuela and is busily trying to build a "United States of South America" as a power base. Since said megavillain is a sorcerer thousands of years old it's kind of hard to pin modern political philosophies on him. His campaign rhetoric has lots of platitudes about helping the common man and cleaning up government corruption, but I imagine those arguments were made in ancient Greece too.

 

I think these days mixing politics and gaming is a dangerous mix. It can be so dividing and you have to work to have a balance. Has anyone taken an inventory of the NPCs in the Champions books to see which side has more bad guys? Maybe it's me, but the left seems to be over-represented.

I've never really noticed much bias one way or another. The most overtly "political" NPC group is Eurostar, but domination of Europe as a goal is hard to place as either left or right.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Politics or not

 

As a GM Politics has always been the in the Background, but several Adventures have had strong political overtones. Usually ignored by my Players.

 

 

As a Player I love dabbling in Politics. Mostly local politics.

 

 

QM

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Politics or not

 

I wonder how the GM would react if the situation were reversed' date='[/quote']

 

The Gurps IST timeline for instance.

 

I do warn my players that I am conservative (they already know that but...) and when politics come up in game, things tend to lean towards that kind of idealization - A "Good" conservative, and extreme left is sorta "Bad" (of course there are individual exceptions) - but is the above mentioned guy was a 10 on the scale I'm a 2.

 

That is one of the main reasons I tend to not use real world politics in my game. Although in my historical time-line I did have Bill Clinton part of an internationalist cabal (working within the UN) that tried to take over the world. I used my personal distaste for an idea (and person) to run a real comicbook type plot.

[incrdbil]

Re: Politics or not

 

Politics really matter in the PBEM I'm running. With organized hero groups just emerging (the PC team really was the first widely known)--and simultaneously revealing the existence of alien life, not to mention being involved with several miraculous events literally changing much of the world-- they can't help but affect politics. The successful use of superhumans has, for instance, aided one party, which is by default pushing the other party into an anti-metahuman stance (at least in their involvement with crimes, using powers in public, while carefully trying to avoid any discrimination theme). The individual characters politics differ, but as a group and superhumans, they have been involved in aiding one party over another simply for their own convenience.

 

Im in another PBEM, where the characters don't care about politics. My character might know the name of the President, but he ignores all political news, having much more important things to worry about.

[Spence]

Re: Politics or not

 

I like to run Four Color supers in Hudson City. I usually use fictional politics as plot drivers.

 

I absolutely refuse to allow "real world" politics to infect any of my games.

[assault]

Re: Politics or not

 

I half-intend to eventually run a Silver Age campaign set in the late 50s.

 

Communists will, of course, be eeevil.

 

Since I'm a leftie myself, there will be at least a small element of satire involved. This will only one of a number of satirical elements in the game.

[Querysphinx]

Re: Politics or not

 

Whenever you have three people, you have politics.

 

I use politics a lot. My brand new, just-pecking-its-way-out-of-the-shell game involves the rather abrupt appearance of many people with superpowers all over the world. The world hasn't figured out how to deal with them yet, but people, being people, are being scared and panicky.

 

The Pope declared the first public "Spark" to be a miracle (she saved a tram load of kids from plummeting into a gorge, so he didn't have much choice) and then quickly shuffled her under a nun's habit and made her disappear. Miracle workers should not be giving interviews.

 

In the U.S. the national congress is slow off the mark, (as always) but state and local legislatures are passing laws against the "Sparks" almost as fast as they can type.

 

Colorado (my home state) is trying to amend the state constitution to declare sparks "not" human, and thus a species to be regulated by the ag department. (For those of you who don't live in CO; the voters here will sign on to absolutely anything as long as it's a bad idea.)

 

On the other hand, I don't use real politicians in my game, and sometimes I reverse or twist a party's platform so that it is not-what-you-expected. Right is sometimes so far to the right that it becomes left and visa versa.

[Marcus Impudite]

Re: Politics or not

 

Put me down as saying "check the real world politics at the door." With the kind of players and GMs I've played with in the past, I can say with authority that it turns into a powder keg way too quickly.

[hfergus]

Re: Politics or not

 

I also do not use real world politics as is. Just altarnate semi-parallels at best. I'm kinda right wing, but believe me, I agree with "corrupt is corrupt". Also I do think one can go too far right wing. I do have right wingers be very wrong and evil, and left wingers being sincere and honest. Anything else is too one-dimensional. Just about every right or left wing cliche occurs somewhere in my world. Sometimes I use real politicians, and sometimes I say things like "think Ted Kennedy" or 'think Newt Gingrich" as shortcuts as to what my politicians are like. My players are also right of center, but not everything goes their way. (more fun that way.)

 

Good comments so far on the campaigns. I wish people could be more specific as to how their heroes interact with politics though. See my initial post as to what I would like. If I get nothing on that, it's fine though.

 

I'm glad we did not get into a political discussion; that could get very bad very quickly. Thanks for the posts.

[Fedifensor]

Re: Politics or not

 

I avoid putting real-life politics into my game at all costs, as I think they can really derail a game. That said, I will have politics when it fits the plot, and I'll even reference real-world events, but I will make sure to avoid situations where players are tempted to bring "baggage" into the game. I *might* make an exception if every member of the gaming group has similar political beliefs...but that hasn't happened yet.

 

The President is never referred to by name - only as "the President" or "Mr. President" (or Ms. President, for reasons of gender equality).

 

Real-life political figures are not used, either, instead substituting a fictional figure. So the Senators for Colorado won't be Senator Salazar and Senator Allard, they will have different names.

 

Whenever possible, I avoid mentioning a politician's political party. I may use terms like "warmonger" or "social crusader", but I try not to use "Republican", "Democrat", or even "liberal" or "conservative".

 

Polarizing real-life events may be in the game, but are likely changed. For example, in my game world a telekinetic named Teke gave his life to hold up the Twin Towers long enough to evacuate nearly everyone (he finally had a heart attack from overuse of his powers). The event remains, there was loss of life (including a famous figure), but it wasn't nearly as huge of a loss of life as occurred in real life.

 

Basically, my goal is to milk the potential plot hooks without having the game fall apart due to political arguments.

[fiducia]

Re: Politics or not

 

Our standard Champions game has some politics in it but only very lightly. Our team is Federally funded so as such we have a lot of governmental involvement but that isn't the primary focus of our plotlines. We generally tend to assume the current names in the 'real-world' politicians are the same in our 'game' world but the most they tend to add is flavor text to the primary machinations of the next 'super-bad' we're fighting.