I have, in the past, played 'Top Secret' with a group that used real time events for the game.. if something happened between gaming sessions, it happened in that game as well.. Just because we stopped one mad bomber in Ireland doesn't mean we stopped the entire plot or all of them.. or that there wasn't yet another cell that we didn't know about. I will buy Afghanistan simply because Holistic has balls.. Now to figure out if I can write suppliments.. hmm.. -R ----- Original Message ----- From: "lizard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 1:25 PM Subject: Re: [Ogf-l] Uhm...joke or not? (Holistic, please respond)
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > In a message dated 1/16/02 12:52:32 PM Pacific Standard Time, > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > << This is almost as bad tasting as the Alf telethon I was forced to watch > > last > > month. >> > > > > Why? Why is this product any worse than, say, GURPS WWII, which allows > > players to roleplay soldiers fighting against the Nazis, or worse than RECON, > > which allows players to roleplay soldiers fighting against the North > > Vietnamese or Viet Cong, or Dungeons & Dragons, which allows players to > > roleplay adventurers fighting against the evil orc hordes, or Sengoku, which > > allows players to roleplay samurai fighting against the enemy samurai clans, > > or Traveller, which allows players to roleplay adventurers fighting against > > the "evil alien empires," or any other product with a similar premise? > > > > Because the war's not over yet. What happens when you're halfway through > having the PC hunts Osama in Somalia, and he turns up in Uzbekistan? > Further, the potential for new terrorist acts to occur in the real world > during the timeline of a fictional campaign may impose some serious > psychological issues on the PCs. If a team of PCs manages to, in the > game, stop a fictional terrorist attack, only to have a real one occur > the next morning, I'd find the fictional victory to be more than a > little soured. One reason RPGs are popular is because they allow us to > strike back at evils which are impossible to confront in the real world; > having the reality of our individual helplessness thrust back at us > makes the game much less appealing. (This means the White Wolf crowd > should love it, but it's too combat-intensive for them...) > > In a World War II game, for example, you can rest secure in the > knowledge the Nazis ultimately lose, even if the plot of the game is "If > we don't intercept that messenger, the Nazis will win!" You can play > with history easily. Playing with current events is much more difficult. > Either your game quickly deviates from reality, losing the appeal of > playing a "real world" game, or you have two GMs -- you, and the world, > and the world is going to trump your plot every time. > > That said, many people have said the waning days of the Afghan phase of > this war did indeed resemble a D&D game -- a lone madamn, surrounded by > an army of fanatical cultists, holed up in a trap-laden mountain > fortress, with a small elite team sent to get him out. But the reality > was that a horde of dragons simply breathed on the fortress day in and > day out, the elite team just counted the bodies afterwards, and the evil > wizard escaped out the back door. > > > _______________________________________________ > Ogf-l mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l > _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
