Subtexts in Games

NB: This is an ancient post I started but never finished. I've got neither the time nor inclination to flesh it out, so here is the stub of an idea.

As noted before in my posts about Call of Cthulhu and racism, every game you play is enriched by adding in subtext.

Ravenloft - Europe at war, modernism, religion, science

I'd make clerics envoys of the Vatican going to find relics and defeat evil, warriors all in some post feudal army, thieves as those dispossessed by war, and wizards as ancient pagans looking for a way to escape the growing rationalism of the modernizing world.

Dark Sun - Environmental destruction, totalitarianism

See my Dark Sun post for details. Dark Sun as Mad Max.

Call of Cthulhu - race, class, misogyny, superstition

See my CoC racism post for details. The real evil is people, cosmic horror is only such because we are meaningless in the void.