I’m so sick of exceptionalism. Every damn thing seems to center around some shitty thinly veiled oligarch, their kids as some hero, or unhappenable origins and an impossible hero. Everything is geared towards cultural acceptance of some authoritarian neo feudal dystopian future.
Stories can be interesting in other spaces. We all exist within those real spaces. We can fantasize about better places and times within similar realities as our own. I view all this exceptionalism like collective narcissism. I can’t tell if it is an universal writing bias or a publishing bias, but I don’t like it.
The dresden files are pretty good and everyone in those books are flawed as fuck. Same goes with expeditionary force by Craig Alanson. Joe Bishop and skippy are both royal fuck ups and assholes.
The Expanse in the first couple of seasons did a decent job of showing that the characters were flawed and not at the center of the world while struggling against a system that is a more realistic portrayal of what monsters exceptionalism really creates.
This aspect of Star Trek the next generation did a pretty good job of contextualizing the fact that the events on the Enterprise were the stories of one of many such vessels.
The Expanse is the first thing that came to mind for me as a counter-example when I read your first comment so I’m glad to see you mention it! It even plays on the exceptionalism idea in book/season 3 and 4 where Holden seems special because >!Miller is appearing to him!< and because >!he isn’t affected by the eye parasites!< only to explain those things away with reasoning stemming from events that already happened in previous books. And any exceptionalism that comes after that is largely due to the reputation or skills characters have built for themselves rather than because they’re “chosen ones”.
If you haven’t read the books, I really recommend them!
I really should. How closely do they follow the show? I like knowing what to expect in general. I lack the human-byte capacity to read into something completely blind and stick with it. With a basic roadmap I enjoy the journey.
I don’t know how long the show went on, but when they did the whole wormhole thing I quit watching. It just wasn’t the same show IMO. Is that a book thing or was that just the show? I mean, I read Dune all the way through the wormy All-Stars game of the last two books by Brian. So I’m not too much of a soft-sci snob, but I’d rather know.
There was some brouhaha a while ago in some DND spaces where some people were like “can we stop doing stories about kings and ‘rightful heirs’? It’s all very regressive and not fun anymore” and some people just lost their mind.
“Don’t make this all PoLitIcAL , this conversation about political systems”.
Anyway. I’m super done with basic fantasy monarchy. My pandemic DND game had
a Republic city-state. The players lead a recall effort against the shitty mayor
an anarchist collective. The players helped stop counter-revolutionaries from restoring the (now undead) king to the throne
an oligarchy of awful wizards in conflict with the surrounding town, with agents from neighboring states trying to shift the balance of power. At this point the players got tired of political intrigue, sadly.
I mean, can’t we just stop calling the eGgHeAdS wizards already?!? Like what maga fool wrote this ultra Right script that calls the Pointy hat Devils Wizards?!
I never got the chance to play DND. Sounds fun though.
Honestly, DND was the wrong tool for the game. DND is best for resource management dungeon crawls, like “we have 20 hit points between us and enough juice to cast Sleep once, do we keep going or turn back?” kind of stuff.
It doesn’t really have many tools for social conflict, for example. Tooling for hooking into characters is sparse. I really like Fate more, and feel it’s more in line with how people intuit RPGs.
I’m so sick of exceptionalism. Every damn thing seems to center around some shitty thinly veiled oligarch, their kids as some hero, or unhappenable origins and an impossible hero. Everything is geared towards cultural acceptance of some authoritarian neo feudal dystopian future.
Stories can be interesting in other spaces. We all exist within those real spaces. We can fantasize about better places and times within similar realities as our own. I view all this exceptionalism like collective narcissism. I can’t tell if it is an universal writing bias or a publishing bias, but I don’t like it.
The dresden files are pretty good and everyone in those books are flawed as fuck. Same goes with expeditionary force by Craig Alanson. Joe Bishop and skippy are both royal fuck ups and assholes.
Do you have a good example of a story which doesn’t fall into this trope at all? One which perfectly encapsulates not doing this?
The Expanse in the first couple of seasons did a decent job of showing that the characters were flawed and not at the center of the world while struggling against a system that is a more realistic portrayal of what monsters exceptionalism really creates.
This aspect of Star Trek the next generation did a pretty good job of contextualizing the fact that the events on the Enterprise were the stories of one of many such vessels.
The Expanse is the first thing that came to mind for me as a counter-example when I read your first comment so I’m glad to see you mention it! It even plays on the exceptionalism idea in book/season 3 and 4 where Holden seems special because >!Miller is appearing to him!< and because >!he isn’t affected by the eye parasites!< only to explain those things away with reasoning stemming from events that already happened in previous books. And any exceptionalism that comes after that is largely due to the reputation or skills characters have built for themselves rather than because they’re “chosen ones”.
If you haven’t read the books, I really recommend them!
I really should. How closely do they follow the show? I like knowing what to expect in general. I lack the human-byte capacity to read into something completely blind and stick with it. With a basic roadmap I enjoy the journey.
I don’t know how long the show went on, but when they did the whole wormhole thing I quit watching. It just wasn’t the same show IMO. Is that a book thing or was that just the show? I mean, I read Dune all the way through the wormy All-Stars game of the last two books by Brian. So I’m not too much of a soft-sci snob, but I’d rather know.
Lost in Translation comes to mind. A peek into the intersection of two people’s lives for a few days
There was some brouhaha a while ago in some DND spaces where some people were like “can we stop doing stories about kings and ‘rightful heirs’? It’s all very regressive and not fun anymore” and some people just lost their mind.
“Don’t make this all PoLitIcAL , this conversation about political systems”.
Anyway. I’m super done with basic fantasy monarchy. My pandemic DND game had
Lots of options.
I mean, can’t we just stop calling the eGgHeAdS wizards already?!? Like what maga fool wrote this ultra Right script that calls the Pointy hat Devils Wizards?!
I never got the chance to play DND. Sounds fun though.
Honestly, DND was the wrong tool for the game. DND is best for resource management dungeon crawls, like “we have 20 hit points between us and enough juice to cast Sleep once, do we keep going or turn back?” kind of stuff.
It doesn’t really have many tools for social conflict, for example. Tooling for hooking into characters is sparse. I really like Fate more, and feel it’s more in line with how people intuit RPGs.