So my first DnD campaign is on hiatus so another player has started their own for us to play in the meantime. My DM for this new campaign is explaining the world and it’s a bit… hmmm. I guess you could say I’m uncomfortable with a setting based on the Soviet Union by someone who doesn’t know anything about the USSR. He explains it as small states forced to be in absorbed into the empire, there’s one rich area and as you get farther away the poorer it gets, the worst area is described as Ukraine. I guess in that area you can be working the land and then some guy forces you to give him money. Our Soviet Union is very repressive and we’re at war with a democratic nation. Every child is given a magical stamp, if you go against the empire or do “thought crimes” you get changed markings. You can get good markings back via “social credit.” I feel so uneasy and I feel bad. I don’t want to be a Debby downer or an ass.
He mentioned Marxism but it seems to be evil in this universe (“with regards to Marxism make sure you don’t get the worst mark on your head”). Also he’s encouraging us to play evil/neutral. I don’t know what to do. I want to make the best of it but damn, I literally play as a Marxist dog in the hiatus playthrough (the current DM is a fellow player on that campaign) so I’m surprised this is happening. Do you have advice on how to make the best of this? Maybe combat misinformation subtly in character? I’m freaking out!
Edit: the currency in this “state” is not gold or typical money, it’s food rations. So when I said if you live in a poorer region and a guy comes demanding money I mean some state official haggles you for taxes which is paid in rations. This haggling seems to only take place in the poorest “Ukraine” areas…
Your Marxist dog may have inspired them to give you a lecture through D&D.
Congratulate them on their creativity of accurately depicting a world based on the British empire and ask if the democratic state is the Haudenosaunee confederacy before the Europeans arrive.
If you keep playing, brush off the insult and play along. Organise the proles and tell them how bad it is that in this alternative universe Trotsky or Zinoviev managed to seize power. Luckily, you will go to a bar and hear about a train robber known only as The Zdahllin, with whom you might decide to join forces. Spread the word that under current leadership, the Union will not be prepared in time to fight another enemy that is on the horizon.
My Marxist dog may have inspired him but apparently he’s been brewing this campaign up since around COVID, I did not know him at the time, and the Ukraine war just “inspired” him more. I didn’t start playing as my dog until last year, he didn’t join that campaign until a few months after we began. I’m baffled that he had quite a few years to build this “Soviet” world but got it so wrong. I didn’t know what I was getting into when he offered to DM us while our previous campaign is on hiatus, I had this whole character with a neat backstory but now I feel like he’s kinda be wasted on this haha.
I’ll try to make the best of it, clearly we’re not in the Soviet Union yet so I’ll have to start another revolution (my Marxist dog is also a revolutionary that is planning one in my previous campaign so I’m just repeating the same shit lol). Thankfully this character is an artificer so bypassing magic stamps and thought crimes might be easier. Thank you for the inspiration! I might even carry it over to the dog campaign as she’s been a revolutionary from the beginning, my poor goblin guy just wanted to be a hermit engineer with a cursed mask. Oh well!
Yeah, I heard this and that’s what it sounded like. It sounded like the usual lib “teaching through metaphor” that they like to do so much.
“I’ll just show him how evil the commies really were when I’m DM, because I’m too much of a coward to admit openly that his character’s views make me uncomfortable.”
He has been working on this campaign for a few years apparently and his idea started well before we ever met. Maybe he is bringing it to the table as punishment but I hesitate to label it as such due to us not knowing each other for very long. If it is punishment that really sucks because my character (and myself) have been nothing but kind towards him and his characters.