Propaganda in FRPGs

Believe it or not, propaganda has a long history, far longer than you might expect.  Early examples date back as far as 500BC, so clearly it is something we should be including in our fantasy worlds.  But do we?

It can be difficult as a GM to handle propaganda, because it is a series of lies.  It’s tough enough to remember everything that is going on in your world and exponentially harder to remember the fake news that is being spread in your world.  But as we all know today, fake news exists and it has an impact on people.  After all, how many fact checkers are there in a fantasy world?  even fewer that people can rely on for neutrality.

Let’s first start with how it works.  How do the people of your fantasy world get their “news”?  Well, they share it like gossip.  Someone hears something and shares it.  We all know how the telegraph game goes where by the time you get to the end the message is completely garbled.  That has an impact, but it is not truly propaganda.

Another news source is the traveling story teller.  Whether musical, poetic or not, these folks are carrying the tales of the various communities from one to the other.  They are probably carrying the news from the capital as well.  At least here, you have one source of news, not the mixed up nonsense that comes through the gossip route, but that one source is going to add some bias.

Some worlds have broadsheets or some other form of “newspaper”.  But these aren’t newspapers the way we think of them.  Often times, they are more like comic books where the image on the front has to be so outlandish that the passerby will buy the thing just to figure out what that picture is all about.  The story tellers fall into this too.  They want to tell interesting stories, so they are prone to add more action to keep their customers entertained.  Here we are getting a lot closer to propaganda, because the propagandist knows that interesting stories get a lot more attention than boring ones.

But propaganda is intentional fake news to get a predictable response from the people.  Do we have examples?  Sure!  Many of us believe that Mark Anthony (the ancient Rome guy, not the singer) was a drunk and a womanizer, but this portrayal is likely due to propaganda of the times.  Many people today still believe that Protestants were tortured and murdered by the thousands during the Spanish Inquisition, but this is all propaganda from the Dutch who were under Spanish rule at the time.  This was the beginning of the moveable type printing press, so pamphlets were all of a sudden easy to produce, and the people of the time weren’t ready to understand that just because it was printed it did not have to be true.  (This is unlike the internet where absolutely everything is true, especially when the facts contradict themselves.)  Many of the stories of the American Indians being the chief scalpers in the history of America are also based in propaganda, but because some of the Indians seem to have believed the propaganda too, there is a lot of mixed up information.

So what does it do?  Well, strong enough propaganda can be used to rile up the people (actually the mob) to commit acts of violence.  Want to get someone lynched?  Make up a lie about them killing a baby.  Chances are the whole town will turn out to not only lynch the accused, but his whole family as well, and possibly everyone else of his race or creed.  This isn’t just a theory; there are many examples throughout history where this happened.

But to what motive?  Why would someone stir up a bunch of propaganda?  For all sorts of reasons, and not all of them are necessarily bad.  Most often the minor propaganda stories are all about ego.  Someone went off to war and comes back telling everyone the most exaggerated stories about his accomplishments.  Is this propaganda?  It is if he’s using those stories to try and get himself elected to an office or maybe appointed to be sheriff.

But that’s tiny.  What’s a big use?  Well, we are focusing on world wars and especially religious wars right now, and this is probably where you see the biggest use of propaganda.  You see the enemy isn’t just the enemy.  They aren’t just other people.  No, they’re cannibals.  They’re rapists.  They use the blood of infants in their religious rites.  These are a people so evil that you need to go grab your hunting bow and come with us to kill them all before they eat your babies.

That’s the main point of propaganda - to get the populace so angry against a political enemy that they are willing to go to war, risk their lives, and kill the enemy.  In order to get this to work, the propagandists want “you” to think the enemy is evil, but they are also dumb.  After all, if they actually were ogres, which is possible in a fantasy setting, then they would be really tough to kill.  Being afraid of the enemy in battle doesn’t help, so they have to be stupid and easy to kill.

Time for a Fletnern example.  The Miracle at Zembmior is when the war god Manoto “threw” a giant “space golem” at a village he was angry at.  The war god Horroag (from another pantheon) put a huge shield in the way and both the golem and the shield shattered into millions of pieces.  The village was saved.

It was pretty easy for the propagandists to say Horroag triumphed over Manoto because the village was not destroyed.  Manoto is evil because he tried to kill all those “innocent” people.  After all, there were women and children still in the village.  But he’s not just evil, he’s stupid, because he failed.  And he’s a tyrant because he was trying to force the people of Zembmior to worship him.  See!  This god is so bad, and his followers are just like him.  You need to get on a ship and sail over there to liberate these poor villagers from this evil god!

Wow!  I wrote the whole thing and I want to get on a boat and go kill the followers of Manoto.  If this example of propaganda shows us anything, it shows us that there may just be a kernel of truth hidden in the lies being spread.  That makes it easier to believe and tougher to denounce.  Was Manoto defeated?  No, he wanted the ... but the village is still there.  Well, yeah, but ... and he tried to destroy it.  Well, probably not, but ... That means he lost and they won end of story!  Arguing against propaganda is never easy!

Remember that propaganda works.  It works best when it plays on beliefs (accurate or not) already in existence, especially if they can include that kernel of truth, though this is not always a requirement.  And when you’re fighting a war, the truth may not be as important as the emotion you want to generate.

This post was written as part of the soon to be released Paladin vs. Paladin aka All About Holy Wars, the latest in our Small Bites editions.  Each Small Bites book looks deeply at one subject, a character archetype, a race/monster, a style of questing, or some other role-playing/world building subject.  This one details everything having to do with paladins aka holy knights as well as the holy wars they fight in, even if those wars are against other paladins (which is when they are the most fun!).

To get the full Game Masters’ edition when it is published, you will need to be a part of our Patreon project.  There will be no free version of this edition.  Seeing as this is a double sized edition (at least over 80 pages) and the culmination of most of the last year (plus) of Small Bites editions, anyone who has been getting involved in our Small Bites project is going to want to have this edition.  Interested?  Click the link here.