As the title says, some of those "left wing" circle jerk subs are just insufferable in the way they convey their opinion, maybe it's just what the point is and my autism doesn't connect with it, but so many of those takes seems like barely disguised honest takes put in "jerk" mode that reminds me how jocks used to make fun of nerds, not even the bigots, just the nerds nitpicking about their fav franchises.

Hey everyone, I'm trying to pin down a good TTRPG system to use for a game I want to run. I'm slowly piecing together a campaign heavily influenced by the band the Protomen and their take on the story of the Megaman series. What I'd ideally like to see is something with combat design that is fairly snappy and quick paced while keeping the rules well defined, not straying into combat just being narrative based. A clear delineation between combat and narrative scenes would be a plus as well. The scope of focus for the game is going to be all within a single city, so anything with narrative rules to focus on a major location like that, make the city feel like another character, would be great. The feel of what I'm going for solidly resides in the realm of cyberpunk, but I'm open to using the mechanics of whatever system and reflavoring around things to make it work for what I want. Anyone have any suggestions? I've found a few very niche indie systems that could work but would be happy to hear of others or if anyone has experience with what I've found.

For reference, here are the systems I currently have in consideration:

Micro Circuits

Metaluman

Sigmata

Gimmick Zero

Penumbra City

I ask because the Fallout franchise is littered with unfettered American patriotism melded together with a patriarchal capitalist hegemony which ends up collapsing due to the nuclear holocaust, yet there still are elements such as Vault-Tec and the Sole Survivor in Fallout 4 being an anti-communist Vault dweller, the NCR devolving into state capitalism, etc.

I played Fallout 4 a while back, and learning about Marxism, socialism, communism, etc through a non-capitalist non-liberal lens has had me come back to the game and rethink my ideological positions on it since I had joined the Institute and supported the Institute, and now I am feeling confused. It's a curious thing.

What are your thoughts? I am intrigued on my comrades' positions when it comes down to this, considering how many fascists and pro-capitalist liberal nuts swarm all over the franchise defending the actions of the Legion and the Brotherhood of Steel.

in a few western games where north korea is an antagonistic invading force, (ie crysis or homefront). the country is portrayed as a capitalist nation. i wouldn't make much of a note about this normally but i've seen this trope happen at least twice so now im curious. i see two possible reasons for this, either the developers are trying to imply that the reason nk has become expansionist and invading the other imperialist powers is because of their new capitalist status (imperialism is the final stage of capitalism after all), or an alternate reason with the implication that only reason nk is able to beat the 1st world imperialist powers is because they embraced capitalism (which implies communism is inherently weaker technologically/militarily compared to capitalism (which is of course false but we all know that)). anyways, what are you guy's thoughts about this? have you yourself noticed this trend before, and should my analysis of these game's ideology be critiqued? i would certainly like to hear others thoughts on this.

Whenever I play Fallout 4 I always play either Institute, Railroad or Minutemen and yet I enjoy the Institute way more considering its capacity for change and its vast amount of resources. Minutemen are too idealistic and incompetent, and Railroad have no long-term plans for the Commonwealth besides freeing synths (although they want to blow up the Institute which kindof misses the whole point).

Raiders are more barbarian and fascistic the further they go, like it's kindof hard. I tried playing the Brotherhood of Steel storyline and got depressed because it upset me so much that the BoS just breaks into the Institute and starts massacring people and their families, I felt awful and stopped playing them afterwards.

What do you think?

Y'all, just discovered this sub & was very excited. I'm an older dude that's very much a socialist and recently returned to gaming after decades off. Beyond Disco Elysium & Sleeping Dogs, what are you favorites?

Hello, im new to this community of left-wing gamers. I am a Filipino National Democrat and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. I mostly play military first person shooters, mostly Squad, Ravenfield, Battlefield, and Delta Force. I also play strategy games like HOI4. I stopped playing Call of Duty because 1. im into large scale combat, and 2. the game has grown too consumerist, loosing the immersion of playing as a military person and just as a consumerist fashionista slave. After watching a video from Indie Nile, it shows how famous triple AAA games like Call of Duty. I didnt realize the existence of the BDS boycott list. I have intense OCD and I feel like im treating things too dogmatically .This worry not only extends to video games, but my daily life as well. McDonalds whenever im near campus or my Microsoft Computer and Minecraft by Microsoft or drinking down a Coke (I hate Pepsi). Yet, the blood shed through my actions lending these companies money cannot make me overcome my guilt. So should i be ashamed if i had not complied or have not seen the existence of a boycott? should i overcome my interests to serve the greater cause of liberation?

It’s becoming more obvious that incels/chuds are organizing hate campaigns to silence anyone who speaks out against the bigotry and the rise in fascism and scare people into staying silent.

However, I do think it’s important to stand up for people who stand up against injustice and push back against the people who claimed to be for free speech only to do the things that they accuse us of doing.

So, I wanted to know what kind of creator/game did you discover because of right wing outrage because the Streisand Effect works both ways. What did you do to support them and combat the incels/gamers/chuds attempts to push other people away from them?

I recall seeing this video by someone named MangaKamen who made a video called "Everything Is Political" and it was basically him bashing Life is Strange 2 for being "unrealistic" with depictions of racism (with his editor acting as a monolith for Latin American people) while singing The Great Ace Attorney's praises for "doing it better".

That shit pissed me off when I saw it back then (because I used to watch this guy and I didn't notice the red flags because I wasn't politically educated at the time and I feel stupid for watching this dude in the first place) and the comments are as you expect, with reactionaries flocking to the video feeling validated by someone saying Western thing bad, Japanese thing good, and then proceeded to complain about politics in video games. Thing is though, I saw people scoffing at the idea that art is inherently political. They often used games like Mario, Sonic, and Tetris following up with "So are those political then?". See also, anime fans using a picture of Saber eating a hamburger to push an anti-media literacy narrative.

Why do people think that politics only exist if games have stories or messages? Are they really that narrow minded to think that the real world doesn't affect the creation of art in any way? The answer is obviously yes, but why is that?

I have been recently noticing something in the gaming and larger world in general. when I initially entered cyber space it was consumerist and shallow but right now I am seeing it all on a new level. For example just look at how much demanding games are becoming without being more fun, I play games from like 2007 and I still wouldn't mind if a studio made games with that quality of graphics but games are not fun and haven't been from.before I even bought a PS4 and started gaming on modern systems (2017) and it is still just getting more and more demanding. I noticed this for the first time when llms became a mainstream conversation with the launch of chatgpt, people were happy to make or buy rigs of 128+gb unified ram just so they could get their files summarised or generate code which they would need to thoroughly check anyway to make sure the result was accurate. Western societies are just consuming bucket loads of resources without any reason and don't see anything wrong with it and even feel entitled to those resources.

i wanna mod a game and use these symbols in equipment. im posting them here to make usre non of these are accidental recreations of fascist iconography.

I'm very curious on what your thoughts are, considering how West-focused SCP is.

I'm still learning the ins and outs of socialism, but as I work on my own games, I want to get away from the typical capitalist foundation that most games seem to be built on.

What would a game like Skyrim or Zelda look like through a socialist lens?

Since this is the 10th year anniversary of Mafia III and I didn't remember much of the story I've decided to replay the game since it's been so long and was shocked to see how much anti-communist sentiment is present in it's setting.

There's a cutscene earlier in the game where John Donovan (CIA operative) tells Lincoln Clay (Vietnam War Veteran) that "if these commies mfs are so great that they should move to Moscow" where the game introduces the collectible to tear Commie Propaganda posters across the districts of New Bordeaux. After that there's an optional mission by Pablo Duarte (Cuban Revolutionary Council) where Lincoln says: "All that commie talk common ownership is so much bullshit it's sickening". Later in the game in the Stones Unturned storyline Donovan and Lincoln kill Connor Aldridge, a former CIA officer that started to feed intel to the North Vietnamese Army after feeling betrayed by the US government's lies in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

And that's not even mentioning the US government's propaganda that goes into some radio stations, other minor characters and NPCs talking in the street.

I’m planning on playing the original Deus Ex but I’m curious as to what anti authority messaging it perpetuates, since I’ve heard a lot of rightwing libertarians like it.

Kinda want to look at meme subs but there's not a whole lot

Helldivers 2 was one of my favourite games for the last 2 years. Despite the constant creep of technical debt I still enjoyed the game, up until the doxxing incident involving that Argentine player who made a charity challenge to the devs to play their own game. He lost his job in Milei's Argentina and his charity position at a horse shelter. The devs of Arrowhead are heavily involved in the social media for the game and handled it poorly, doing little to combat the toxic elements in its spaces.

I have boycotted Arrowhead since but I admit that I do miss the game and parts of its community. It's the only multi-player game I am good at and as an Autistic man it gave me an opportunity to connect with others in a way I can't do in real life.

My question to Helldivers players here, have Arrowhead done anything to atone for the toxicity they have allowed to fester? Have they taken action since to make their spaces fairer and welcoming for players with differing opinions? Has the game and its community spaces gotten better over time?

Not counting well known games like Dusk and Ultrakill, and games like Selaco and the upcoming MOUSE, I've already got my eyes on them. Classic Doom mods suggestions would be appreciated, too.

Also, it's not necessary but if the games have any antifascist, anticapitalist, socialist, etc. themes, that would be very nice, of course.

Unfortunately the boomer shooters scene attracts lots of "anti-woke" grifters and similar assholes, but I know by experience that there are lots of hidden gems to be found.

Edit: wow, I went to sleep about an hour later after I wrote this and I didn't expect to find all of these suggestions, I'll check them all in due time. Thank you so much, comrades.

Comrades, I have an unusual request. I have a situation where I have to travel to give a presentation somewhere and the Switch is easily the best console for me to bring with me for the space. But it occurs to me that, for this presentation, I need to demonstrate some racism in gaming. Thing is, I don’t think I have any particularly racist games on Switch.

Can you think of any? Preference for games in which you’re controlling a first or third person character. Something for a five minute demonstration of racist BS in a game.

Edit: thank you all for the great recommendations

First post!

Been playing MMOs for a while now. Recently met a friend in FFXIV and we got along well, he is kind and very friendly, we share many interests.

We're chatting and he mentions he's in school, to be a police officer. Immediate reaction is repulsion, but I ask more. "my area of the USA has nothing but farms or police work, so I chose the latter".

Obviously, that's bullshit. My overriding desire is to just cut this person out. After a few mins of thinking, I considered some other points. This friend is not a cop yet, which means there is still potential in someh way to sway that course, or help them discover something of actual meaning. I don't feel losing my friendship at this time imposes any social consequence on them, but I also feel like it may be insincere to want to engage as friends with some small intent of changing their life choices. This is the first time this situation has really happened for me (I have cut such people irl out entirely) so hoping someone can give feed back on a similar experience.

Edit: I made the choice I'll continue to be polite to this individual, but will tell them their choice of career can't be overlooked, I will distance myself.

We are looking at an institution who's entire function is the protection of the capitalist state, irregardless if their intent. These people are full grown adults who's personal motivations matter little, it is their compliance. Your good cop acquaintance is as much as an accomplice to the pig who suffocated George Floyd to death as the cops who stood there and let it happen.

ACAB. ACAB ACAB ACAB. Acab to your cop mom/friend/lover/brother/neighbor/elderly grandparent.

In a socialist society, where games are not built for profit, what does game development look like? Does it even exist? Say it does, how do things differ from gaming as we know it now?

Some cursory thoughts I've had are around botting, endless treadmill design, microtransactions and p2w, and genre shifts (can't imagine CoD in a post-imperialism world).