Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism/Tabletop Games: Difference between revisions

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* 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.
* 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.
* ''Rym'' leans hard to the cynical side, what with multiple apocalypses, genocidal alien necromancers, and an empire pretty much devoted to enslaving and exploiting everyone else. And in the middle of all this is a tropical island chain of [[Purity Sue]] otter-people. [[Author Appeal]] comes to mind.
* ''Rym'' leans hard to the cynical side, what with multiple apocalypses, genocidal alien necromancers, and an empire pretty much devoted to enslaving and exploiting everyone else. And in the middle of all this is a tropical island chain of [[Purity Sue]] otter-people. [[Author Appeal]] comes to mind.
* ''[[World Tree RPG]]'' manages to avoid either end, with [[Fantastic Racism]] and a [[Schizo Tech]] level of civilization that's constantly in danger of monster attack and [[Eldritch Abomination]] invasion, yet is portrayed as fairly pleasant for the main races most of the time.
* ''[[World Tree RPG]]'' manages to avoid either end, with [[Fantastic Racism]] and a [[Schizo-Tech]] level of civilization that's constantly in danger of monster attack and [[Eldritch Abomination]] invasion, yet is portrayed as fairly pleasant for the main races most of the time.
* Pathfinder's default setting of Golarion leans towards cynicism in the current timeline -- one of the gods died a century ago (after he was about to make his big [[Hope Spot|second coming]]), prophecy no longer properly works, the remnants of one powerful empire is now openly ruled by devils while another is on the verge of collapse. Most of the explicitly 'good' nations are either isolationist or too focused on containing/combatting a specific threat to make the world better. However, from a meta perspective, this cynicism serves a purpose: once, when someone on the Paizo message boards commented on how many of the more powerful nations are evil, one of the developers said something to the extent of "Gee, one would almost think the world might need some [[Player Characters|heroes]] to come save it."
* Pathfinder's default setting of Golarion leans towards cynicism in the current timeline -- one of the gods died a century ago (after he was about to make his big [[Hope Spot|second coming]]), prophecy no longer properly works, the remnants of one powerful empire is now openly ruled by devils while another is on the verge of collapse. Most of the explicitly 'good' nations are either isolationist or too focused on containing/combatting a specific threat to make the world better. However, from a meta perspective, this cynicism serves a purpose: once, when someone on the Paizo message boards commented on how many of the more powerful nations are evil, one of the developers said something to the extent of "Gee, one would almost think the world might need some [[Player Characters|heroes]] to come save it."
* ''[[KULT (Tabletop Game)|KULT]]'' is another example of a very cynical setting.
* ''[[KULT (Tabletop Game)|KULT]]'' is another example of a very cynical setting.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' is an interesting case in that its position on this scale has shifted considerably within one edition. Early 2nd edition was hugely cynical; later 2nd edition is significantly less so (although the exact degree [[Depending On the Writer|depends heavily on the writer]], and [[Your Mileage May Vary|frequently on the reader]]). This has caused the mother of all [[Broken Base|Broken Bases]], as many feel that the more recent stuff has drifted too far from the original cynicism, while others maintain that the cynical stuff had too much risk of [[Darkness Induced Audience Apathy]]. [[Flame War|Results have been predictable, and very messy]].
* ''[[Exalted]]'' is an interesting case in that its position on this scale has shifted considerably within one edition. Early 2nd edition was hugely cynical; later 2nd edition is significantly less so (although the exact degree [[Depending On the Writer|depends heavily on the writer]], and [[Your Mileage May Vary|frequently on the reader]]). This has caused the mother of all [[Broken Base|Broken Bases]], as many feel that the more recent stuff has drifted too far from the original cynicism, while others maintain that the cynical stuff had too much risk of [[Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy]]. [[Flame War|Results have been predictable, and very messy]].


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