RPG Errata: Poe's Law and the Dangers of Role-play

Let me start by saying, I am not a “fan” of Warhammer 40k.

I know nothing about the different editions, which codexes worked and which ones didn’t, I don’t know the meta of the game, nor the many myriad social and political intricacies that go into being a devoted fan. I don’t want to come in here like “I spent a few months reading the comment section in Tabletop Tactics videos, so now let me tell you something about Warhammer.”

But I do want to comment on Warhammer 40k, because I have seen a few interesting aspects in “the discourse.” I can’t comment how important or significant any of this discourse is, but it does relate to RPGs — specifically the hobby aspect of it — so I’d like to discuss.

Specifically, I’d like to discuss the Space Marines.

If you don’t know anything about Warhammer 40k, you probably still recognize the Space Marines. They’re the flagship model for the game, and apparently Games Workshop’s best selling army. They are the transhumanist warriors of the Imperium of Man’s army, and can stand toe-to-toe with any number of demons, monsters, and aliens. Some people think of them as the good-guys in the Warhammer universe.

For older fans, this is a horrific idea. The Imperium of Man is a fascist theocracy, with the life of an average human to be measured in mere decades. If you are not in the military, you are a factory slave, devoted to building weapons and armor, repairing machines, praying daily — hourly, even — to the Emperor, and eating and sleeping barely enough to stay alive. Your entire life is devoted to the war machine of the Imperium and its divine mission.

The kicker is the divine mission isn’t all that divine, and the God-like Emperor is long-since dead. The divine magics wielded by the clergy are the same heretical energies wielded by the witches and xenos that the Space Marines are sworn to destroy. The Space Marines themselves are brainwashed into believing that duty is more important than mercy, honor, even life itself. They regularly slaughter innocents on the suspicion of heretical thought, sacrifice their brethren for the sake of a pyrrhic victory, and brutally rule those beneath them with psychotic zeal. They are not “good guys.” No one in Warhammer is supposed to be.

According to some, Games Workshop has been softening the Space Marines for a while. The games Space Marine and Space Marine 2 both show the Space Marines through a cop-aganda lens, treating them like just another honorable military, made up of people who are driven, passionate, and at least to some extent moral. Sure, they’re spiritual, but its not like they’re dogmatic theocrats who’ll kill their own for questioning the will of the Emperor, right? You can say “thank God” whithout being a zealot, right?

Whether Games Workshop has been de-grimdark-ing Warhammer 40k or not, reading this reminded me of the whole The Boys deal, where a bunch of right-wingers completely missed the fact that Homelander wasn’t actually the good-guy of the story.

This trend goes by multiple names in media-consumption: Poe’s Law, The Irony of Satire, The Death of Satire, or even just cognitive bias. As an autistic person, I understand the feeling of “not knowing what I’m expected to think.” If someone shows me a video of a person falling down, am I supposed to laugh? Express sympathy? What reaction are they looking for? In group settings it’s relatively easy: react how everyone else is reacting. One on one, I can usually guess how to respond through clues in people’s posture or vocal tone.

If I’m on my own, reading a book or watching a movie…well…sometimes it’s hard to figure out what the author is trying to say, how they expect me to react. Taxi Driver, Natural Born Killers, Attack on Titan…there are countless texts out there that have characters who we as audience members are clearly supposed to revile, yet are idolized by some fans.

The fact is, commentary on a character’s behavior needs to be explicit. Satire only works if there are certain assumptions shared by both satirist and audience: extrajudicial murder is bad; a buffoon in the white-house is dangerous; hypocrisy is a failing; this certain worldview is supposed to be resisted, not accepted; the protagonist isn’t a hero.

So what does this have to do with RPGs?

Depending on your playstyle, one of the GM’s roles is to be impartial. This is a bit of a trap, because when the world is being imagined, there is no escaping bias. As I’ve discussed before, there are rules in everything, and if you’re not using a system’s rules to decide exactly what happens, you’re using narrative ones.

If a player says “I have a cunning plan,” what does the GM do? Do they reward the players creativity by having it succeed no matter what? Do they punish their ignorance for having it fail if it’s not the planned solution to the puzzle? Or do they independently judge “if it would work?”

A GM with a certain worldview might decide that in this setting, any diplomatic endeavors will work if backed up by a sacrifice of resources, whether gold, equipment, or items. Another GM might have some NPCs accept the resources and then go back on their word. Some GMs might be certain that this setting has no room for idealism, and all diplomacy will fail; you have those swords for a reason. Other GMs might decide all diplomacy will succeed as a subtle subversive commentary on the violent assumptions of the players.

None of these decisions have to be universal; they could change session to session. The table creates a story with every ruling and die-roll, and stories have messages. Sometimes banal ones, other times poignant.

The art of GMing is, as I’ve said before, a complicated one. It is balancing being a fellow player while also being the antagonist. It’s about giving a challenge while also rooting for the heroes. One of the better descriptions of the practice I’ve heard of came from the mouth of Tandalus: “think of it like charades.”

This simple line on page 14 of the Trespasser rule-book speaks volumes about the relationship between GM and the table. In charades, you are doing everything in your power to win — to get your teammates to guess the correct answer — but you have willfully, voluntarily, hamstrung your ability to do so; you can’t talk, you can only move. Trespasser uses this framework to describe the push-and-pull of the GM giving enough information to get the players to recognize risks and accurately gauge dangers, without outright saying “this is a 20 difficulty check with a possible costly and damaging result if you fail.”

At the same time, there are a lot of ways this plays into guiding a story, too. If the GM decides the Army of Light is going to begin a genocidal war, will the players decide that the Army of Light must be bad-guys? Or might they get the message that genocide is appropriate for certain races cases?

Now, this isn’t a common danger: keeping a good conversation going with your fellow players will make it pretty clear if the message is veering into uncomfortable territory, and an up-to-date line/veil sheet will do wonders. All the same, a strictly hands-off GM might find their players going in strange directions, considering what they thought they were communicating.

On the other other hand, the ideal role-play experience is a safe one. Some players might read the setting one way and be positive that they know the “right thing to do,” whether morally or strategically, while other players might disagree. The GM might have their own opinion, and punish the characters for how the players’ ultimately chose. Depending on the situation, this might lead to a larger or more emotionally fraught argument than one might otherwise expect. The last thing any player needs is a sudden and resounding admonishment that “your worldview is wrong and you should think differently.”

And on the last hand…isn’t that exactly what the Olivia Hill rule does? If you think a certain way, this game — nay, this hobby — isn’t for you. Go grow as a person and come back when you’re better. Is that too limiting? Do we keep the space safe for those who are willing to be open and vulnerable, or do we create a space to teach and encourage those who might make mistakes? When those two goals clash, which side do we err on?

For me, and this is purely my own opinion, I will err on the side of safety. Perhaps it’s my own traumas speaking, but the damage that can be done by the careless or causally cruel is not worth the risk. Besides, my poor grasp of social/verbal communication means I’m hardly the ideal candidate to teach anyone about seeing others’ common humanity, much less the importance of giving respect and dignity to everyone.¹

Nevertheless, the decisions that go into making a game’s tone and setting are important, and paying attention to the expectations the table has for the game can have far reaching effects. Don’t be afraid to call out when a character is “being a bad-guy.”

Really, for me it boils down to choosing either a black-and-white story, or one full of gray. If you want the table to deal with situations where there aren’t good options or compromise is necessary, don’t focus on either the black or white parts of the results. If the PCs sacrifice a town to kill a demon, don’t spend the rest of the campaign calling them “the town-killers” and counting up the innocent dead, unless you’re also calling them “the divine demon-slayers” and counting the saved. If you’re telling a story about a cruel warlord and necromancer endangering a pastoral kingdom, don’t force the table to consider whether evil might actually be an improvement over bumbling bureaucracy.

There is nothing wrong with either gray stories or black-and-white, but if you mix the two together, things can get…um…grayer? Muddy. They can get muddy, confusing, and risk ruining it for people who weren’t up for one or the other.

So, in conclusion…have a Session Zero and talk about this wow I say that a lot, don’t I?