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…
So you’re saying you get to choose your class and alignment, walk around exploring the map, and make your own decisions as a party? Sounds like the USSR cause this ain’t happening in an Amazon warehouse
We can just choose our class and race, while he is fine with us playing “good” he’s leaning more into neutral/evil. This is probably due to the fact that we have to align ourselves with the “evil” state and if we go against it then the magical mark on our foreheads will show we’ve been doing thought crimes. If the mark changes to the worst version…. Well we don’t know, apparently “no one has been seen with the worst mark” so I’m assuming they get disappeared to keep good optics about the state. It seems like while we will have some freedoms to explore, our DM is going to keep us on a tight-ish leash.
Thoughtcrimes will not be tolerated.
How can an “evil” civilization work exactly? If the civilization is completely at odds with citizens’ well being it is trivial to have outside powers influence the people. They could be evil in the sense of plundering outside of the empire like the USA.
It is an “evil” empire that has marks that change based on what is the interest of the empire? It is in the best interest of any civilization to meet the needs of its citizens. To neglect the needs of the citizenry creates inefficiencies to the ability of the empire do do its actions. Thus reforming the empire to be socialist is in the greatest interest of the empire.
Maybe this mark is detecting how evil each individuals actions are? If evil is determined deontologically (actions are evil independent of context), you can burglarize rich people and torture them to death to move your morality down to make up for the fact that you are using the funds to build a revolution for the greater good. If enforcers of the law come to visit your group the members have an opportunity to lower their morality even more if they can survive the fight. All of the bodies can be butchered to lower morality even further. Your people can lie and sell the human muscle tissue as pork to lower morality in other ways.