An observed pattern sheds surprising light on how RPG styles differ from one nation to another.

Image from Pixabay, no artist information provided. Described elsewhere as “Stock Art”.

Time Out Post Logo

I made the time-out logo from two images in combination: The relaxing man photo is by Frauke Riether and the clock face (which was used as inspiration for the text rendering) Image was provided by OpenClipart-Vectors, both sourced from Pixabay.

This is the latest in my series of time-out posts in between the Trade In Fantasy series.

The YouTube viewer that I use most often displays, at the end of a video, thumbnails of other videos that you might like to watch, based on what you’ve watched recently and what’s popular at the moment. Out of 12, there are usually 2 or 3 that intrigue me enough to write them down for later viewing.

Today (as I write these words, a few days in advance of my next post), I saw one that connected with other things that I’ve seen to reveal a rather profound thought, and that’s what I’m writing about today.

Not Supermen

A lot of Americans seem to think we Australians are a breed of supermen and women, or at least born with something extra that lets us… ‘ignore’ is not quite the right word, but it will do for now – ignore danger.

It’s a well-known trope that everything in Australia is trying to kill you, it’s just that some critters aren’t very good at it. We’ve:

There are also

…and more besides – and we take it all in our stride.

In part, we do so because we’ve grown up with these dangers all around us, and learned that if we’re calm and sensible and behave accordingly, we can usually get through without trouble. I was always taught as a child not to make any sudden moves when you see a black snake, because it’s generally more scared of you than you are of it – but to be very wary of brown snakes, because they’ll attack because a blade of grass is bent the wrong way; that male funnel-web spiders are especially aggressive in the heat when they are out searching for mates, especially after heavy rain or in high humidity but they were all to be treated as dangerous, and so on; that you are far less likely to encounter anything dangerous on patrolled beaches, always to swim between the flags, and if the flags aren’t up there’s usually a good reason for that, and so on.

In contrast, while there are some dangerous fauna in the US, it’s encountered a lot less frequently. They have

  • rattlesnakes in the desert but few deadly reptiles elsewhere;
  • there are brown bears, but they aren’t aggressive unless surprised, threatened, or protecting young;
  • grizzly bears may attack, but are far less frequently encountered;
  • there are sharks in some waters,
  • and alligators in the everglades (but again, this threat is localized);
  • there are black widows in some places;
  • and there are mountain lions (cougars), but they are, and, like the brown bear, less likely to attack if you don’t do anything stupid.

Compared to Australia, the wilderness is as safe as houses, most of the time – unless you’re in a swamp.

The ten most dangerous animals (to man) in the US are 1. Deer 2. Cows 3. Dogs 4. Black Widows and recluse spiders 5. Venomous Snakes 6 Cougars 7. Horses 8. Black Bears & Grizzly Bears 9. Alligators and 10. Sharks.

Profound Thought

So here’s the profound insight: These differences in environmental hazards filter through to our gaming experiences and the way we react to dangers in various game environments.

Because Americans see dangerous wildlife as exotic and especially perilous, they treat these with a great deal of respect and even apprehension; to Australians, being surrounded by the deadliest native creatures 24/7 is the normal state of affairs. We want to understand what makes them tick, so that we know what to avoid doing to upset them, but in general, we’ll leave them alone if they’ll leave us alone.

Americans are also conditioned by their culture to be suspicious of authority and lone shooters. It’s a danger they face daily, at least it sometimes see that way. Political intrigue is simply a fact of life, to be ignored until it poses a direct threat to the individual. So these things tend to generate less interest as a general rule, and be viewed as less threatening (most of the time).

While Australian politicians have had their fair share of political scandals, we tend to be a pretty unforgiving lot when there’s even a whiff of impropriety. Because we aren’t used to them, conspiracies and corrupt administrations and alien societies that seem threatening are more apt to be of compelling interest to us, and are viewed as far more dangerous even if they don’t yet threaten us directly. They threaten us more, so we tend to be both fascinated and more prone to take action against them.

For this reason, our political attacks are often more directed at creating a scare narrative with the political opposition at its heart.

Both sides, then, feel more threatened by the unfamiliar, and this causes them to evaluate different types of threat in different ways.

If you’re an American GM prepping a game for an American group of players, and an Australian happens to sit in, they won’t have the same triggers and priorities as the rest of the group – trying to push their buttons will elicit different reactions to those that might be expected. And the same is true of the converse position.

A Third Perspective

Let’s see what this principle can tell us about a third group, European gamers (excluding the English, whose experiences have been quite different).

This was ground zero for two world wars and the communist takeover post WWII. There were puppet regimes, corrupt administrations, incompetent governments and some who just seemed impotent to alter the course of events. But these taught the Europeans that they were stronger together than they were apart; with American hegemony as the common touchstone in the west, this led to the formation of the EU.

Individual nations had different experiences, but the totality meant that they had no need to imagine darker times – they were used to them. And they had little reason to trust most authorities, at least early on.

As a result, European TTRPG tend to be darker and earthier than those of the more optimistic Brits and Americans. See, for example, Looking into The Dark Eye, a guest article by Lena Richter, which reviews and introduces the Dark Eye, an RPG system that was (and probably still is) more popular in Germany than D&D.

Then, there’s the nations of Eastern Europe, who had their own nightmares to survive until the fall of the Soviet Union. In Poland, Warhammer is King, especially 2nd Edition, according to some; others put Call Of Cthulhu on top, with WRPG and 5e fighting it out for second spot. Still others put 5e on top with one of the others in second. But D&D 5e permits a wide range of tones and styles; the others are more definitive. I would expect their local D&D to be a little more Dystopian with the PCs representing what little hope can be found in the extant game world, according to this theory.

One commentator makes the sharply relevant point that those over 30 tend to go for CoC and WRPG over D&D; that it is only those with markedly different life experiences – the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, 34 years ago; you would expect a more optimistic outlook from younger gamers.

The people of Ukraine are, sadly, too busy with a real-world nightmare to worry about gaming these days. Back in the day, it was Pathfinder and D&D slugging it out. I get the impression the two were more evenly matched than was the experience in the US, which seemed to migrate constantly to whatever was newest and shiniest. I hope that you can soon game again, my friends!

Of course, D&D is popular all over; if not in first place, it’s usually not far away. But there are a heap of local games and those, in aggregate, tend to be more illuminating as to the ‘local flavor’.

The perspective Anglaise

Britain’s experience with governments deemed untrustworthy tends to be more recent. Thatcher’s England seems to be where most of it started, a new rebelliousness being in the air (hence Punk). Before that, there was Churchill’s fall from glory, though he is still reverenced as the leader who brought them through World War 2, battered and bruised but unbroken. “Staunch” is the word that comes most evocatively to mind.

During the Punk era, it was not uncommon to diss the Royal Family, but that didn’t seem to last very long beyond that point; I suspect the major grievance was that they didn’t reign Thatcher in (because that’s not the way that Queen Elizabeth operated). From the royalty perspective, there were several stumbles that marred their popularity through the 80s – the messy divorce of Charles, now King Charles, and Princess Diana; her death and the failure by the Royals to recognize the popularity that she had amongst the general public; Scandals involving Prince Andrew. But each time, they bounced back, and by the time of her passing, Queen Elizabeth was as popular as she had ever been.

This creates a disconnect between temporal government and the underlying “British Ideals” that they are supposed to manifest, and that the Royals embody. Hope and idealism are always present, but those in charge of delivering on them are frequently seen to have feet of clay. There are times when exceptional circumstances demand that they rise to the occasion, and sometimes they do so (Churchill), and sometimes when they don’t (Chamberlain, in the modern popular perspective – though I think he’s judged over-harshly; I think he was playing for time, for Britain was desperately unready to fight WW2, and the ‘Peace In Our Time’ speech designed to tell Hitler what he wanted to hear. But that’s just my opinion.)

So, what would Brits most fear, and how would that play into their gaming? I think the process of collapsing into Dystopia is preeminent, the failure of those elected to safeguard them, the abdication of responsibility. The situation currently being experienced in the US is probably perceived as far worse than it actually is, because from this perspective, they are living through the British ‘worst nightmare’.

Accepting that D&D / Pathfinder is almost certainly dominant, we must look lower down the rankings for clues as to the dominant style. My research says that Free League Publishing (from Sweden) have become a significant player in the marketplace, adapting their “Year Zero” system to a variety of popular franchises. Call Of Cthulhu remains popular, unsurprisingly, and games from ‘small’ publishers like Steve Jackson Games on down have splintered and dug out toeholds in the market. Another significant game is obviously going to be the science fiction of Cubicle 7’s Doctor Who franchise.

From all of the above, Staunch Defense against “The Darkness” in an environment where temporal authorities can’t protect the population for any of multiple reasons would seem to be the dominant characteristic. That, of course, is the overriding theme of the Harry Potter series, too – small wonder that it is perceived as quintessentially English / British (depending on who’s doing the looking). And that seems to fit.

A look Eastward

To close out this examination of the principle, let’s look at Japan.

Japan is the world market in which D&D / Pathfinder is weakest, at best being equal number 1. Call Of Cthulhu is equal number 1 in some respects, perhaps the similarities between the country’s respective experiences in World War 2 creating resonance. But I can also see CoC tapping into the Anime zeitgeist of the country. More obviously anime-based games and games reflecting the Samurai traditions and history are also popular.

Eyes Forward

I am deliberately avoiding offending anyone by trying to apply this principle to the extant changes occurring in the US right now. I’m not sure that I could avoid coloring the results with my personal opinions. Suffice it to say that polarization is going to impact the popularity of certain styles of RPG, certain game systems, differently. I’ll leave the contemplation of specifics to individuals who can make their own assessments of how the current political and social environment is going to influence the next decade of gaming there.

What can be said is that, at the end of the day, no matter which game and which themes are the most popular amongst those around you, we are all playing RPGs, and that alone should create a bond that can bridge and transcend the divisions. At least, that’s my hope for the future.

If all goes according to plan, next week I’ll have part 1 of a 2-part guest article for everyone, while I continue to work on the next couple of parts of the Trade In Fantasy series (over 7K words written so far). These are going to be monster posts – the first thing that happened when I started on them was adding another 24 sub-sections to section 5.7! Those 7,000+ words carry me through 5.7.1.4 – I still have 5.7.1.5 – 5.7.1.18 to go, plus 5.7.2 and 5.7.3 at the very least. If they are of similar length to what’s already done (and I hope they are much shorter), that will be another 10K words – and the following installment (if it’s not cut in two) is likely to be 2-3 times that total length! I’ve got my work cut out for me…

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