cyst13 Posted July 9, 2004 Report Share Posted July 9, 2004 This is a pretty straight-forward thread. I'm wondering whether anyone is using the war in their games in any way. I'm tied into a medieval campaign, right now, and thus can't deal with it myself. But it seems like a goldmine of story possibilities. If you are gaming the war, please include as much detail about what you are doing as possible. Also, list the sources you are using for info. Thanx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbsousa Posted July 9, 2004 Report Share Posted July 9, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? This is a pretty straight-forward thread. I'm wondering whether anyone is using the war in their games in any way. I'm tied into a medieval campaign, right now, and thus can't deal with it myself. But it seems like a goldmine of story possibilities. If you are gaming the war, please include as much detail about what you are doing as possible. Also, list the sources you are using for info. Thanx. I haven't touched on it yet, but that is where Slug will be found, exhorting both sides to escalate the violence and humiliation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samaritan Posted July 9, 2004 Report Share Posted July 9, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? I had planned on doing a write-up for a version of King Nebuchadnezzar (as a spirit who possessed a German worker during the excavation of 1904- one of the ships that was bound for Germany sank, losing a good deal of gold... figure that the host had forced it to sink, and now Neb has the funds to fuel a take over of some sort, and a whole crew's worth of undead servants) I was over there last year and got to see the ruins of Babylon first hand... man, what an AWESOME place for ideas for maps of ruins, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trechriron Posted July 9, 2004 Report Share Posted July 9, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? I have a cyberpunk setting I am writing at the moment, that includes the Iraq war in the history. A pivotal event surrounding it and the current election tie into the setting's history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oroborous Posted July 9, 2004 Report Share Posted July 9, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? As a person who has been in Iraq for the war, I would steer well clear of the war itself and possibly steer it towards a “lost squadron in the sands of time†type setting. Modern men with modern weapons drawn into ancient Babylon, Ur, Mesopotamia, and the like. Iraq would make a great setting for a fantasy meets 21st century campaign, but as a straight war campaign I think it would be f’ed from the get go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyst13 Posted July 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? Oroborous, In order to enlighten me, can you tell me why a current day Iraq War would be f'ed from the start? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted July 11, 2004 Report Share Posted July 11, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? Oroborous, In order to enlighten me, can you tell me why a current day Iraq War would be f'ed from the start? Well, for one thing, it would fly with veterans of the war. They;ve already been through it once -- why would they want to go back? The other problem is thta none of us who haven't been in the war would really know what it is like to be in that situation. Some things simply cannot be explained or simulkated on the gaming table. Finally there is the matter of potential prejudice. RPG campaigns set in wartime tend to run along the lines of "Kill them all, le the GM sort them out". This may work for some people with Orcs and Goblins (although i disagree with that approach), but it would definitely not fly when a real population is involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Soulcatcher Posted July 11, 2004 Report Share Posted July 11, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? Undoubtedly, for people who have been in the war, there would be no desire to relive that HELL! However, other gamers could probably game it, but it certainly wouldn't bear any resemblance to reality. No game really simulates reality, just a non-existent fantasy version of it. Thats fine for gamers who really dont know war. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vondy Posted July 11, 2004 Report Share Posted July 11, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? One of my gamers spent almost nine months over there with the marines already. I don't think he wants to pretend to be over there now that he's back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadmaster Posted July 11, 2004 Report Share Posted July 11, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? With the exception of its recent (well actually still ongoing nature) and the associated risk of offending someone, I don't see why it would be any less playable than the Vietnam war (Recon, came out just a few years after the US pulled out), WW2 (Gurps, Behind enemy lines, Weird War), the various African wars (MERC), the war in Afghanistan (d20) or Somalia (d20). I would steer clear of certain areas, just as you would in alot of genres but where you go will be dictated by your players, I know people who have played SS troops in WW2 settings, my first thoughts when I heard that was they're Neo-Nazis reliving some Nazi fantasy, but it turns out some just like all the spiffy stuff the Germans had and the SS got the best (German armor is a very popular modeling subject so I guess this view is common in other hobbies too), another actually used the Nazi angle to create some additional drama for the players (do you folow orders or find a way to keep your morality). I know alot of us preach about reality in games (I'm very guilty) but it is rare to really be realistic in most games, who wants to role play a real time 36 hour stake out, or play out all the failed experiments before the inventor gets the super serum needed. I don't see why the Iraq war would be any differant but you should be considerate of your players feelings if they have a personal involvement, that could be said of many genres though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lupus Posted July 12, 2004 Report Share Posted July 12, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? With the exception of its recent (well actually still ongoing nature) and the associated risk of offending someone' date=' I don't see why it would be any less playable than the Vietnam war (Recon, came out just a few years after the US pulled out), WW2 (Gurps, Behind enemy lines, Weird War), the various African wars (MERC), the war in Afghanistan (d20) or Somalia (d20).[/quote']Vietnam war's further back in history. I try to stay away from real-world recent history in my games. It always comes off to me like half-arsed political commentary. The Vietnam War's far enough back for me (I wasn't alive while it was on) for it to not have the same feeling. But when I run modern-day stuff, I don't use any real names of, say, Presidents past about 1975, or any companies that still exist apart from small ones that never feature in the game. I don't mind merger companies (like Cyberpunk's EBM), but using real-world stuff just invites out-of-game prejudices or wish-fulfilment. Sure, we've all wanted to blow up Microsoft, but I don't want my game to be a venue for such stuff. Similarly, I have no desire to have the Iraq War (either of them), 9/11 or any other recent big events in my games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McCoy Posted July 12, 2004 Report Share Posted July 12, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? With the exception of its recent (well actually still ongoing nature) and the associated risk of offending someone' date=' I don't see why it would be any less playable than the Vietnam war (Recon, came out just a few years after the US pulled out), [/quote'] I still can't see movies about the Vietnam war for fear of triggering a flashback (weird, since I was never in Vietnam). NFW I would ever role-play the Vietnam war. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oroborous Posted July 12, 2004 Report Share Posted July 12, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? Here are my reasons for thinking an Iraq war game wouldn't be so fun. I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression of me. I love a good war game just like anyone else, but this war is missing some of the things that make RPing a war fun. For me, at least, playing a crack troop in some historical war is tantamount to sneaking through some terrain, offing a few guys before they can scream for help and then extracting with whatever goal we were supposed to achieve. Good wars have epic battles where thousands face each other in glorious battle. The PCs sneak around and do decisive things in the background. What is missing right now is a readily identifiable enemy. Nazis had swastikas, commies wore red, Charlie wore black pajamas, and they were all someone you could off without remorse, because they were bad. There isn’t any one person you can look at over there and say “Rebel!â€. The other thing that is missing is proactive action. While I was there, most offensive action I saw was reactionary. Someone blew themselves up or launched a few mortars and then the choppers flew over or a strike team kicked a door in. I don’t think I would want to play a game where I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sure, there are raids and the like, but they don’t always get their man, and the chances of them ending badly for the PCs are greatly increased. More than one soldier has been maimed or killed by the smiling little kid who tosses a grenade into the back of a transport and then disappears before all Hell breaks loose. The last thing that I think would hamper this historically based war game is that the war is still ongoing and the outcome isn’t certain. There aren’t enough big battles in this war to draw from either. Most resistance was token, while most smart Iraqi soldiers put on blue jeans and went back home. I think you would have to stretch believability in order to challenge and delight the players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agemegos Posted July 12, 2004 Report Share Posted July 12, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? I'm not doing the war itself, but the last HERO System thing I ran before I came up here (ie. in February 2003) was a little campaign in which the PCs were secret agents of the Catholic Church (in a special organisation reporting to the Cardinal Prefect de Propaganda Fide). In the climax of the campaign they had to go into Saudi Arabia undercover to intercept an attempt by some seriously misguided 'Christian' fanatics who had a stolen atomic warhead and were trying to blow up Mecca during the Hajj in an act of vengeance for the WTC attack. So the campaign was topical, but not actually in Iraq nor during the war. The best fun I had in the campaign was the scene in the equivalent of Q Branch in which all the techy secret gadgets were not spy stuff but things to allow the PCs to practice their religion (and fulfil their obligations: one PC was a priest and obliged to say Mass every day) in secret. Rather than smugglings guns and bombs the we James Bond does they were equipped to smuggle communion wafers and wiine, consecrated vessels, chrism, etc. The look on the players' faces when 'Q' demonstrated their secret equipment was priceless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyst13 Posted July 12, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 12, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? Yeah, I can see that playing US soldiers in Iraq wouldn't be as stimulating as US soldiers in Nazi Germany. But I wasn't really thinking about playing soldiers. I recently saw The Control Room, a documentary about Al-Jazeera covering the war, and I was thinking how nifty 'twould be to run a team of journalists. They could run around investigating stories, interacting with the population, dealing with military brass. Journalists have the incentive and opportunity to squiggle through every layer of the society. While I agree it would not be possible to have a fully realistic campaign conducted back here in the states, I think it might be possible to research it well enough to give American players a deeper feel for the people whom they see on the news each night. If you move away from the PCs committing violence, I think RPGs can be very useful in extending imaginations to encompass all the human aspects of current events. Also, much less chance of offending player sensibilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapsedgamer Posted July 12, 2004 Report Share Posted July 12, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? I used to game to escape reality for the most part. I would never really want to play a straight military campaign of any type, though I have always thought that wars are good fodder when mixed with other genres. It might be interesting to play supers in a war on terror scenario. I would think that the real war in Iraq is too close to the heart to be a fun gaming experience for most people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadmaster Posted July 12, 2004 Report Share Posted July 12, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? I'm not saying its going to be the next D&D but any conflict provides a certain amount of material to draw from. Sure playing some GI riding around in a Hum-Vee waiting to get RPG'd or blown up with a road side bomb would leavew something to be desired. But how about an intel based game either US Spec Ops, CIA or even operatives with the new Iraqi government, one could even run a quasi Morrow Project playing an engineer unit rebuilding the country (with some liberal artistic license to make it more exciting). The idea of the journalists could be workable as well but again I think you would need some looseness with reality. As far as no "Bad guys" I'd think the guys beheading people would definately count, there are certainly enough terrorist groups running around to make a moraility free blood bath feasable if thats what the players need, I mean come on even the Iranian government has condemned some of these terrorist groups. Back to Recon it came out less than 10 years after the war ended and was done by a vet of that war (or the son of, never have been sure which), then you can throw in the Sayeret & Track commander supplement which came out the year after the Beirut bombing of the Marines barracks relating to the Arab / Israeli wars, that is certainly not a touchy subject. Again not saying that it makes a great setting particularly with the in the face news every night but it certainly is doable with the right GM and players. I don't have any great interest to play in or run such a thing but it could be done. Obviously such a campaign is going to require tact to avoid the dungeon crawl mentality and there are going to be many who don't think it is a proper subject for a game (obviously from many posts here). Just my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oroborous Posted July 13, 2004 Report Share Posted July 13, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? Cyst, I hope you read the Time person of the year story where one of the photojournalists had his hand blown off by an insurgent grenade that was thrown into the back of their transport Humvee. He lived, but he won't be the same. Agemegos, Your story reminds me that early parts of the last Hero campaign I was in focused on catching a fictional Catholic priest suspected of being a pedophile. This was almost a year before the scandal broke out. (just a little freaky in my book) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyst13 Posted July 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? Yeah, war correspondents, especially photojournalists, take enormous risks with their lives in order to do their jobs. I once had a long conversation with an ex-photog who covered the world's wars and now edits other war photogs. One of the things he pointed out is that veteran war photographers actually have much more under fire experience than most soldiers (this was before the current occupation). He also showed me how many armies that do not like having their activities photographed are now specifically targetting photogs in the field. He had himself been targetted by Israeli snipers when he was in the Gaza Strip. Dangerous though it may be, though, it still makes for fascinating stories. And fascinating stories and danger are what RPGs are all about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted July 13, 2004 Report Share Posted July 13, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? Are All flesh must be eaten campeign involves Iraq right before the original war... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logan D Posted July 13, 2004 Report Share Posted July 13, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? The best fun I had in the campaign was the scene in the equivalent of Q Branch in which all the techy secret gadgets were not spy stuff but things to allow the PCs to practice their religion (and fulfil their obligations: one PC was a priest and obliged to say Mass every day) in secret. Rather than smugglings guns and bombs the we James Bond does they were equipped to smuggle communion wafers and wiine, consecrated vessels, chrism, etc. The look on the players' faces when 'Q' demonstrated their secret equipment was priceless. I'm having a Monty Python flashback here - "Crikey!! It's THE BISHOP!!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyst13 Posted July 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 14, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? JmOZ, Details? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted July 14, 2004 Report Share Posted July 14, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? Well, before 9/11 ever happened, I had a plan to introduce an Islamist/Arabist villain group/org called Shah Mat(Checkmate), with about 6 to 8 members and a few hundred or thousand agents. It was not exactly a deep nuanced treatment. There was the leader, Saladin, who considered himself the heir incarnate to his namesake's mantle; Sheba, a skilled gadgeteer/martial artist, and the group's "queen"; Roc, who could change into a giant birdman; Jihad, a mystic avatar-warrior type, complete with big honkin' scimitar; Jann and Ifrit, with namesake-related abilities; and a couple others. The agents had the usual gear, with a twist--a moderately powerful self-destruct device. I think it'd be hard to game the war in a 4-color game, and a black ops style military supers game, it'd get awfully messy very quickly(make sure the players have a few backup characters lined up...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted July 14, 2004 Report Share Posted July 14, 2004 Re: Is anyone gaming the Iraq war? JmOZ, Details? Okay, my GM set us up as a Military Recon type team going into Iraq to scout ahead essentialy. Well a Blackbird went down are mission was to get the Black Box, Rescue the pilot, in that order. We were the only ones in the ares We then discovered the Iraque were using an old WWII era base as a Prisson, so we broke in and found signs of various human experiments and genetic clensing. This whole time (about 6 game sessions we thought we were playing a game called "Special Ops") We rescued the pilot, only to have him turn out to be a zombie, with my GM saying "Welcome to All Flesh must be Eaten: The game of Zombie Survival" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.