I talk about diversity of voices in my last blog. However, there are times where we want our voice to matter most, to be able to change the world that we desperately need to repair from all the evildoers, from all the damage our past inhibitors lived. We must keep fighting, again and again until there's a massive change. But the thing is, that change won't happen in our lifetime.

I've watched Based Indonesian's tiktok, here, and it inspired me to write this blog.

This blog is meant first and foremost to my Indonesian friends, although I think anyone with a shitty government can relate to a degree. But, looking at Indonesia's situation, it's...hard to accept that we're just too far removed. It's too late to make a sudden change. The corruption has goes into layers unimaginable, seeping to every layer of society. Blaming the government isn't wrong, but we see this funnel of corruption happens even in our everyday life, and the sad thing is most of them are doing it for survival. Extortion happens in every layer of business, as simple as parking your motorcycle to buying a measly water, you'd need to pay a cent out of your pocket, when a cent matters alot here and you have the right to have free parking. If you want to get your driving license, it's much better, faster, and predictable to "shoot" (english for tembak) your license to your local police officer. You straight up bribe them, and they'll skip you the formality of test and everything else, and you have your license there. This process is virtually everywhere within the government bureaucracy, and it's downright sickening. Disheartening.

We see our politicians use our hard earned money to buy themselves the most useless shit ever. We see our president made consecutive blunders, embarrassing our country further and further. And the truth is, every corruption, every act of evil can be accomplished by these rats because of decades of destructive political manuevers. Big names fights for control, while the common people die more and more everyday. We are nobody. Achieving class consiousness is nigh impossible. Have you seen how many in-fights that we have? People blaming other groups of people simply because they're not the same. Queer people getting persecuted as a convinient scapegoat to distract the people from the real issue. People keep continually defined by their physical features. If you're Chinese, then you must have a shop, and every hundreds variations of stereotype that I don't even bother remembering, because Indonesians loves forcing boxes to other people. We are a country full of diverse people yet this difference isn't uniting us, instead pierces us from within, and the elites are purposefully doing that.

So, if we want to craft a better country, we can't simply "dismantle" this country in simple steps. Even if it was possible, it would take so many decades to undo the damage. Politicians needs to be wiped clean. Political parties needs to be gutted of their power and return to their purpose, representing the common people. This takes so many time, many effort, even if we all band together. This is the unfortunate truth. We must keep fighting, but know that our lives will probably be the same until we die. The streets will probably still be full of holes. Congestion will still be our future. Stories of corruption will still be our meal. Bigotry will be as common as breathing air. The nation that tells itself it was built on diversity will continue to stab itself, organs choking each other, because we're so dysfunctional.

Let me tell you a story. Few months ago, I went back to parliamentary debating. Essentially, debating with structure. It has been more than half a decade since my last competition, and I don't intend to return, I just wanted to experience again. Longing for nostalgia perhaps? Anyways, we got a motion for this particular round. It goes something like this:

In A World Where God Does Not Exist, This House Would Invent It.

I'm government, or the pro team. My job is to convince the judges that essentially humanity would be better if we invent religion. It's a pretty hard debate I'll give you that, so I'll skip to the part that I feel is relevant to right now. One of the arguments that I casebuild was, essentially, religion allows humanity to think beyond it's rationale to focus on preserving the future rather than the past.

Picture this. You are someone. A group of person. Maybe say, cavemen for simplicity. You have two options, you either continue to hunt food over and over until the animals are all gone, or you take the risk and time to learn how to farm those animals and make a stable food source for the future. This is a gross oversimplification, but my point is, as humans we always choose to keep ourselves alive. How the hell are you going to live if you don't have food. Given the choice, you would hoard resources so that you can sleep peacefully and wake up tomorrow with safety knowing you can live another day. This isn't selfish. This is basic survival instincts. No sane human would choose to end their lives so that others may live. By logic, this does not compute. But then, I asserted that with religion, you are able to surpass that logic and choose options that benefits your future instead of who you are right now. Another example is a city can choose to either spend it's budget on lavish decorations or bountiful foods, or spend their precious time, energy, resources to upgrade it's city facilities (roads, trash management, etc) so that their future, be it in the near or far future, can enjoy the benefits. But these things are not instant. The citizens can't just...enjoy the benefits in the present. Only their future selves and any future residents can enjoy it.

It takes something strong to make humans diverge from logic. We are ultimately creatures that forms our choice via logic, but we are driven by our emotions. Usually, our emotions, our will to satiate our self-interests trumps over everything else. Hell, it's still exist until now. You've always bought meals for yourselves, bought yourselves a present, planned yourself a trip, etc. But, that's not who we are entirely no? We occasionally buy our friends meals, we buy them gifts here and there, went together with your buddies to somewhere else? We are social creatures after all, and this platonic relationship sometimes overpower our self-preservation.

Here's the thing. I'm not asking you to believe in religion. I don't see myself as someone that believes in god. However, you HAVE to have faith. You have to have faith that we, all of us, will have a better future. You have to have faith that everytime we fight our oppressors, the fruit of our labour will become worthy, someday. You have to cling to that faint light, or else you will succumb to despair. And having faith is not easy, trust me. Having trust in your own people? I've seen what Indonesians do. We fight. We blame. It doesn't help the government let our poverty rate skyrocket and allocated the education funds for it's shitty programs. Our people are easily influenced by propaganda. By logic, it's hard to accept that we can break free from this oppression. But we can. But I can't help you with that. I can't convince you that maybe there's a slight chance from all the possibility that our future can be certainly green. I can't give you a data or statistic to prove my point. You HAVE to believe in me, and you HAVE to believe in yourself, and ultimately to US ALL. You can even extend this belief to the entire world. Maybe, just maybe, there will be someday where borders don't separate us no more. Just maybe. But I don't know when that time will come.

Where do TTRPGs come into this? It comes down to imagination. We cannot build a future we cannot first imagine. We have to practice hoping. We have to practice believing that oppressors can be defeated, that communities can be rebuilt, and that the broken systems we navigate every day aren't an eternal absolute. And this, right here, is exactly where the dice come in. This is why we sit around tables for hours on end. A revolution always starts with ideas being formulated and stories being told. We are those storytellers. When the real world beats you down with relentless, depressing news, your tabletop session becomes a safe laboratory to experiment with resistance. It is where we remind ourselves that we actually have agency, that a nation can choose its fate, and that true change must come from the people's desire. Hope is a muscle, and rolling the dice is how we train it.

If hope is a muscle, then you can't expect your hope to strengthen if you only watch videos of people going to gym. Sure, watching a movie or series that gives you hope can be good. But what? These are just short term solutions. It's like dopamine in your system. It's not going to last long. It's not viable. Passive consumption won't do shit. Stop being a mindless consumer. Practice your own brand of hope, and that's why TTRPGs are the perfect medium for this.

To have hope is not easy feat to maintain. Hope is akin to a skill. Some people are naturally talented in it (innately hopeful), but if there's a time where your hope is being tested, it may not be strong enough. Hence, hope must be trained. Hope must be practised at all times. Hope must be reminded, even when you're bored about it. Hope must not be taken for granted. And how can we achieve this? With stories. Stories that inspire us to have hope. Stories to reminds us that we do have power, and that as little as we are, our little hands and voice does shape the world. Our stories, told within our sessions, can inspire your table, or other fellow enthusiast, that the world is still worth fighting. Tell the tale of a kingdom drowned because their king is a dirty colonialist and he slaughtered his people. In the face of despair, what does the people do? What do you do as the band of heroes? You have to recognize that hope is born out of despair. Hope is an active resistance to the terrifying, oppressive world.

Here's a quote from Zizek that I found relating alot :

"...The true courage is not to imagine an alternative, but to accept the consequences of the fact that there is no clearly discernible alternative: the dream of an alternative is a sign of theoretical cowardice, functioning as a fetish that prevents us from thinking through to the end the deadlock of our predicament. In short, the true courage is to admit that the light at the end of the tunnel is probably the headlight of another train approaching us from the opposite direction..."

In D&D or Pathfinder, when a kingdom rots from the inside out, a band of heroes kicks down the door. When a monarch gets corrupted by greed, a high-level Paladin is there to smite them and restore the peace. When Gotham drowns in the criminal underworld, a billionaire puts on a cape to save the city. In fiction, the system is always saved by an anomaly, a chosen one, a superhero, a destined adventuring party. But in real life? No one is coming to save us. There is no mythical band of adventurers coming to fix our bureaucracy, and billionaires certainly aren't putting on capes to save the common people. Simply praying that a better future will arrive on its own is a comforting illusion, but it will never bear impactful fruit. Your hope must be born out of the bottom of the barrel, empowering despair that no one will fight for you except you. You are the only one left to save your own future. You have a selfish choice: you can ignore your surroundings, keep your head down, and just survive right now, or you can sacrifice a piece of your comfort to fight for a better tomorrow.

I'm not asking you to put down your swords. I'm asking you keep fighting. Keep being the band of heroes that the future needs, and although the future won't erect statues of glory for your sacrifice, or tell the glorious tale of the heroes that fought the government in the past, know that everytime you decide to preach to your friends, or you donate to the ones in need, you too are making an impact. You are saving the world. The future owes your existence to your blood and tears.

Gameable Content

I’ve made a little motivation table. It’s for a very simple reason. I’ve made the motivation table specifically so that your character can continue to resist, even when whoever tried before can't anymore, so you took their mantle. Resistance cannot be singular, it must be generational.

2d4 Motivation Table