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Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism/Tabletop Games: Difference between revisions
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* ''[[BattleTech]]'' sourcebooks are usually very cynical, whereas the novels and games are a bit more idealistic. Sourcebooks talk about the huge technological disparity between worlds, where a peasant may have to slave away for years in order to buy something like a ''microwave oven'', while a poor man on the capitals could walk into a store and buy a 10 petabyte hard drive and video player. The series started out much more cynical, during the 300 year long "Succession Wars". After the Wars ended, it became a bit more idealistic. And then slammed right back into the cynical end during the Jihad, when WMD use and total war became commonplace again.
* ''[[Warhammer
** Then again this is only the impression we get from the outside looking in, where we know just how alarmingly terrible the vast majority of the galaxy is. From the inside various factions it is a different story. In no particular order:
*** For the average Imperial citizen, their experience of life can be truly anywhere on the scale. Some of them genuinely are peasants who toil away and expire completely unnoticed unless they don't pay their taxes or get drafted. On other worlds the experience of life is much more idealistic with freer access to technology and a genuine middle class. Of course they are likely to be idealistic about bringing the light of the Emperor to the whole galaxy, but they do genuinely believe that they and their government is doing the right thing by suppressing discord and killing enemies. The leaders of the Imperium are certainly very cynical, but they alone truely know the scope of the threats humanity faces and bear the weight of the terrible sacrifices needed to preserve it.
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** The Fantasians are fascist, racists and all sorts of others things, but the point is made that the party and the people are not synonomous.
** The Galactics and Black Empire are Machievallian although each has idealistic factions within it.
* ''[[Dungeons
** And that's not going into the actual published campaign settings, from the idealistic heroism of [[Points of Light]] or the deeply cynical survivalism of [[Dark Sun]].
** The Book of Exalted Deeds, by the way, goes straight to the Idealistic end using that special Monk ability that lets you jump as far as you want. It has a ''[[Heel Face Turn|reformed]] [[Eldritch Abomination|mind]] [[Lawful Evil|flayer]]''.
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** The sourcebook "A Magical Medieval Society" applies someone's medieval history degree to D&D by pointing out that magic would make life more pleasant in the areas of medicine, sanitation, and construction. So D&D's magic concepts applied to reality would count as a fairly idealistic setting as medieval worlds go.
** It might be worthwhile to remember that, per the rules, in previous editions characters motivating their slaughter with 'I'm Good, they are Evil!' are committing [[Fantastic Racism]] (a non-good thing) unless it is warranted, IE, unless the races they are killing are [[Exclusively Evil|Always Evil]]. It is at this point that the DM notes that the plurality of 'evil' races in the monster manual are, in fact, not ''Always'' Evil, and that [[Knight Templar|killing innocents is an evil act...]]
* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'', at least in the RPG incarnation, is a gleeful [[Deconstruction]] of ''[[Dungeons
* ''[[The World of Darkness]]'' series, both [[Old World of Darkness|Old]] and [[New World of Darkness|New]], sits heavily on the cynical side. Given that its premise is that it is the real world but [[Darker and Edgier]] that's not really surprising. One of the uniting themes of all of the WoD games is the grinding down of idealism into a nub of cynical apathy. Practically every idealist that the books talk about either ends up broken and empty or destroyed by their beliefs. While a lot of characters still claim a certain sense of commitment to a cause or ideological faction, the focus on violence as a means to solve problems as well as any number of forms of mind control and reality distortion means that they are going to become pragmatic if they want to keep showing up.
* It is safe enough to say for the sake of the [[Forever War|Endless Warfare]], all Tabletops have to be naturally cynical in nature to perpertuate eternal conflict.
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