I’ve been talked into trying a Table Top RPG called “Dragon Age” by a group of friends. Now, I’ve read all the novels and played all the PC video game in the series.
At first, the novels and games were awesome, but as I went deeper into the series I started noticing homo-erotic scenes, “transexual” characters as well as a modern-day Leftist vs. Rightist political paradigms. Note: Dragon Age is supposed to be set in a medieval fantasy setting. I barely finished the last novel and managed to complete the last video game in the series (though I never had a desire to re-play it for a different ending).
Anyway, I read over some of the historical background for the RPG setting and it reads like a modern feminist and quasi-communist take on a medieval fantasy universe. Women and men are basically equally represented in all professions, because “the fantasy realm judges on results not gender.”
Furthermore, the conception of nobility (as in an aristocracy is completely whacked-out). The nobility is “no better than anyone else” according to the rulebook. In fact, the “freemen” (what the peasants/serfs are called) own all the land jointly and “allow nobles to build castles and train knights on it”. The “freemen” can kick out nobles that don’t adequately protect them and change their allegiance to other nobles who do thereby shifting land ownership to other nobles (apparently by vote). I’m sorry, but there’s just so much wrong with this I don’t even know where to begin. I hate to tell my friends that this is the stupidest fantasy setting I’ve ever heard of, but I’m finding it hard to restrain myself.
For a truly mind bending and mind boggling experience, try EVE Online. It has a deep and intriguing back story in which you participate. Everything you do has consequences and you can do almost anything. It is a persistent, 24/7 single shard, or instance universe. There is no set story line or course of action. You don’t win EVE. You partcipate in it. Check it out.