Central Theme / Tabletop Games

• Android: No matter how much technology advances - no matter how far it expands our reach, changes our world, or even if it causes us to question our definition of human - humanity will stay the same... with all the good and bad that comes with it.
• Battletech: No matter the time and place, the pursuit of power — and the wars that inevitably follow — will always plague humanity.
• Continuum: If people could travel through time, what kind of civilisation would they build?
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus: What it means to be evil?
  • Dark Sun: What will you do if the circumstances are bleak enough?
  • Dragonlance: When it is time to be a hero, can you rise above your flaws?
  • Planescape: What is the true nature of reality?
  • Red Steel: Power has a price.
  • Eberron: How would magic affect a society? When the time comes to fight evil, will you even know what it is?
• The Dresden Files: Power is paradoxical: the more you accumulate, the less real freedom you have.
• Exalted has many themes, but the two biggest are that every action has a consequence, and that while violence is often the easiest and fastest solution, it's very rarely the best one.
• Every gameline in the Old World of Darkness has its own theme. Some of them include:
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - How do you remain a moral person in an immoral society?
  • Werewolf: The Apocalypse - How do you keep fighting when the battle seems hopeless? (Alternately: When will you, the player, stop playing games about fighting metaphors and actually go out and fight real-world evil?)
  • Mage: The Ascension - How can we build a better world when we can't agree on what that would look like?
  • Wraith: The Oblivion - How far can you be pushed before you succumb to your dark side?
  • Changeling: The Dreaming - How can we keep from losing our childhood innocence and hope?
  • Hunter: The Reckoning - Once you've seen what's wrong with the world, what are you going to do about it, and how far are you willing to go in the process?
  • Demon: The Fallen - How do you make up for the mistakes of your past? Is it even worth doing?
• The New World of Darkness also has a theme for each gameline. The new ones are:
  • Vampire: The Requiem - How do you pass eternity?
  • Werewolf: The Forsaken - How much responsibility do you have for your ancestors' sins?
  • Mage: The Awakening - What would you do for power?
  • Promethean: The Created - What is the measure of a man?
  • Changeling: The Lost - Hang together or be hanged separately.
  • Hunter: The Vigil - How do you fight against enemies you don't understand? Do you even have the right to?
  • Geist: The Sin-Eaters - What do you do with a second chance at life?
  • Mummy: The Curse - Know thyself.
  • Demon: The Descent - Paranoia; breaking free and defining yourself.
  • Beast: The Primordial - Justification and keeping yourself in balance.
  • Deviant: The Renegades - Isolation, and the cost of revenge.
  • Fangame Genius: The Transgression takes a swing at one, too - the nature of futility (especially the inability for anyone to control or direct culture/humanity).
  • Another fangame, Princess: The Hopeful, is about succeeding in the face of all hardships.
  • Another fangame, Dragon: The Embers, is about divine right facing faded glory. The reboot, Dragon Rekindled, focuses more on power in general: what will you do to gain it, and what will you do with it once you have it?
• Paranoia: Society is inherently insane, and the government is the craziest of all.
• Each Sentinels of the Multiverse expansion has one:
  • Base Game: Comic Book super hero team
  • Rook City: Darker and Edgier
  • Infernal Relics: Supernatural
  • Shattered Timelines: Time Travel
  • Vengeance: Revenge
  • Wrath of the Cosmos: Space.
  • Villains of the Multiverse: Even more revenge
  • OblivAeon: Enemy Mine and Heel–Face Turn
  • Definitive Edition: Comic book super hero team but refined.
  • Rook City Renegades: Darker and Edgier but refined.
• Shadowrun: Is it possible to escape the machinations and schemes of those in power?
• Sorcerer (2001): What will you do to get what you want?
• Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 - How do you fight what cannot be fought? Can the most oppressive society imaginable be justified by its circumstances?
  • Sometimes, there is no chance for peace.
  • Also, Order vs. Chaos.