Intense war-games

[Bankuei]

  I just wanted to drop a quick note on what actually is the horror in war.  The horror in war, and in most slasher movies, is quite simply, the level of dehumanization that occurs to both the perpetrators and the victims.  
   When you see living humans, treated as meat, slashed, cut, exploded, shot, burned, what have you, you either feel immediate revulsion or else you dehumanize them; in effect, treat them as not humans.  You yourself must distance yourself as the perpetrator did.
  The nature of war is that man is dying mostly for someone else's political ideals and/or greed.  It's one thing to educate why we should not have war.  I myself, cannot read historical books about slavery, in Africa, Asia, Southamerica, and the general results of colonialism and all its aftermath without wanting to go out and beat people senseless.  
   Nothing is more frustrating that knowing the sheer amount of atrocity that has gone unpunished, and continues to do so in our world without even  a face to put it to.
  As intense as a game is, its still just a game.  It's not the same as listening to a fellow human scream for hours, knowing that you cannot take back what you have done.  I doubt too many people will learn the lesson to be taught, while a sad few will glorify it.  
  Not to be too serious about this subject,  but I think 9/11 showed us what war is like, to be attacked on your homeland, and you cannot identify why.  I pray that we can keep all our conflicts, ego posturing, and dreams of violence and conquest to sports, roleplaying games, videogames, and small bar scuffles.

I hope we do find a good way to teach people peace,

Bankuei

[Gordon C. Landis]

A discssion of war in RPGs leads me to reference this page I mentioned in another thread:

http://www.geocities.com/thesnarkhunt/brutaltruth/brutaltruth.html

I'm NOT a big GURPS fan, but there are some interesting ideas there.

Gordon

[Mithras]

That is a great link.

I was considering some mechanism similar to Scott Lynch's EACH SOLDIER'S FATE SYSTEM.

Very nice.

[Mike Holmes]

With all the nasty words I've had for Paul's idea, I should mention that he has a lot of really awesome stuff (some of which I've stolen and use on a regular basis). :smile:

Oh, yeah, and I hear he's a pretty mean PBEM player as well.

Mike

[Thededine]

Also see:

http://www.criticalmiss.com/backissues/issue5/bigpush3.html

Apparently GURPS is resonant with the horrors of war -- probably its lethal combat system.

In any case --

I think it's also important to note that, while War -is- Hell, it is other things, as well.  The 'classical model' that states that 'War brings out the Best in Mankind' does have some merit -- in no other setting will thousands, if not millions, of men (and, theoretically, women) take up arms and sacrifice their lives for a greater good.

True, in the recent past we have seen numerous wars where that 'greater good' is more a puppet show from the powers that be -- in particular Vietnam (proxy war vs. USSR) or the Gulf War (protect oil interests), but that does not detract from wars previous to that -- World War Two, while not without political manuevering behind it, was also a worldwide crusade to stop horrible atrocities.  The Civil War, even if it did not start over slavery, became about slavery, and had thousands of men risking their lives so that slavery might be blotted from their country.

Instead of focusing exclusively on the depravity of war, setting the depravity of war counterpoint to the honor and glory of war may be more rewarding.  Even in Vietnam, which had little honor and glory, the noble side of humanity can be displayed.  This would, most likely, be along the lines of Three Kings (soldiers in the Gulf War stumble onto a terrorized town, and defend it despite the fact that their orders do not tell them to) or Apocalypse Now (soldiers take that dip into depravity only to come up against a general who is orders of magnitude worse; they kill him in a pseudo-sacrificial action to purge themselves of the madness), with pockets of honor and even goodwill set against the backdrop of insanity.  It makes the honorable even brighter than it would be on its own.


[ This Message was edited by: Thededine on 2001-10-22 23:29 ]

[contracycle]

I think it's also important to note that, while War -is- Hell, it is other things, as well.  The 'classical model' that states that 'War brings out the Best in Mankind' does have some merit -- in no other setting will thousands, if

No, it does not.  But is certainly brings out the very worst.

not millions, of men (and, theoretically, women) take up arms and sacrifice their lives for a greater good.

More accurately, when millions of sheep are pursuaded by their shepherds to march right into the abbatoir.

[Balbinus]

I'm not really convinced that Three Kings or Apocalypse Now (both of which I have seen) speak to the glory of war or noble sacrifice.  Rather the opposite IMO, the sheer pointlessness and brutality of war.

Yes, in Three Kings they turn out to be good guys but that is essentially unrelated to the war itself, the film has the war as backdrop but is not really about the war (except possibly in commenting on the far from noble motives for the war taking place, the war is fought for profit and the heros discover they have other values beyond those which ostensibly brought them there).

APOCALYPSE NOW SPOILER ALERT

Apocalypse now has sacrifice, but ultimately is an extremely dark film.  The war is portrayed as an act of collective insanity, drug fuelled madness descending ultimately into chaos and horror.  By the end the protagonist and nemesis are indistinguishable, the protagonist has become that which he opposed.  The old king is dead and the new king is in place, to borrow from the Campbellian imagery the film uses.

END SPOILER ALERT

Modern industrial war does of course give rise at times to humanity's noblest instincts.  The soldier who carries his wounded comrade back across enemy occupied territory, risking his own life to save his buddy, this is a heroic figure.  The man who remains to cover an escape perhaps.  But mostly it is brutal and efficient.  We speak of the military machine with good reason.  Professional soldiers are just that, professionals.  Men and women doing difficult and dangerous jobs under stressful conditions.  This can certainly be roleplayed in a Gurps Special Ops kind of way but it doesn't give an impression of mass warfare involving conscripts.

When you bring conscripts into the picture I think war often becomes brutal with a sense of futility.  Think MASH, patching up horrifically wounded boys so as to send them back out to be killed.  The first world war with serried ranks of men marching into machinegun fire.  Vietnam with teenagers from Idaho dropped into a jungle being killed by people they'd never even heard of before.  A place where even children in the street could be carrying bombs to kill you with.

Glory and honour in war are best brought out, IMO, in historical cultures which prized such things.  Modern industrialised warfare has little space for it, its difficult to be noble when death is random and impersonal.

Its worth remembering also that those thousands who took up arms were mostly conscripts, the alternatives to taking up arms were usually prison and in some periods execution.  Its less self-sacrificing to go to war when the alternative is prison, disgrace or death.  These people had no real choice.  That does not lessen what they did, but the bulk of conscript armies consist of just that, conscripts.

[Mithras]

On 2001-10-22 16:33, Mike Holmes wrote:
With all the nasty words I've had for Paul's idea, I should mention that he has a lot of really awesome stuff (some of which I've stolen and use on a regular basis). :smile:

Thanks Mike! Don't worry about criticising this project. Even as I write it I'm still wrestling with the question 'what is the point?', both from the stand-point of the infantryman, and the player.

Staying alive isn't enough, is it? Can you imagine watching the first 20 mins of Saving Private Ryan extended out for 5 hours?? Players would come away feeling fatigue - thankful it was all over!

Story is essential. For story you need character conflict - that is conflict outside of the guns and bombs and VC. I think that is essential. But in doing so you immediately fictionalize the war, youput a pattern over it, give it shape and sense. War often has no sense. What was it Scott Lynch quoted in his Omaha Beach scenario BRUTAL TRUTH? "Let's get out of the water and get killed someplace else!!"

Story is good. You want 4-5 hours of entertainment for god's sakes, don't you? I just feel that if you choose a war as a setting, you should do your damndest to make that setting as scary as possible. If anything it should throw your story into high profile.

"We saved Sailor from re-enlisting and succumbing to the awful bribery of the Recruiting Sergeant, just before he was due for DEROS (going home) - and we survived that badass mission through My Tho where the bastard VC mined the footbridge, and that f***ng Phantom pilot tried to drop napalm on us thinking we were NVA."

Mike also said:
Oh, yeah, and I hear he's a pretty mean PBEM player as well.

Well we'll have to see about that. If I get as far as standing on the rim of the Ulysses Patera and look out north-west to the horizon to see the top half of blood red Olympus Mons glowering over the pink horizon then I might agree with you. See you there.

_________________
Mithras

Zozer Game Designs: Home to ultra-lite game The Ladder, as well as Roman epic fantasy ZENOBIA, Cthulhu add-ons, MARS the RPG and more -  http://www.geocities.com/mithrapolis/games.html

[ This Message was edited by: Mithras on 2001-10-25 13:58 ]

[unheilig]

This is easy Paul.

The goal: stay alive and stay human.

method: subplots.

In the midst of this war, you find a lost 2 year old.

boom.

guns, bombs, horror... and now a very human subplot.
By either finding the lil' guys parents, or by finding a safe caretaker for him, you gain some sort of Humanity Points or something.
"so shines a good deed in a weary world"

these types of "little victories" would be the breathing points amidst the horror.


I wanted to work on this with you, remember?
:wink:

Tom

[Mithras]

On 2001-10-25 14:04, unheilig wrote:
I wanted to work on this with you, remember?
:wink:

Tom

That's true - I haven't forgotten! I have stopped work for now though. I can't see myself getting back into gear until December.

I've had some good feedback from our Target Audience design group, so will be more than willing to pass around stuff to be read, hacked at, rewritten, rolled up and thrown away etc!

What you've described in your post pretty much encapsulates the vision I have I think. Just hope I can get the balance right.

[Thededine]

On 2001-10-23 06:41, Balbinus wrote:
I'm not really convinced that Three Kings or Apocalypse Now speak to the glory of war or noble sacrifice.  Rather the opposite IMO, the sheer pointlessness and brutality of war.

Yes, in Three Kings ... the heros discover they have other values beyond those which ostensibly brought them there.

Yes, exactly.  That's my -point-.

APOCALYPSE NOW SPOILER ALERT

Apocalypse now has sacrifice, but ultimately is an extremely dark film.  The war is portrayed as an act of collective insanity, drug fuelled madness descending ultimately into chaos and horror.  By the end the protagonist and nemesis are indistinguishable, the protagonist has become that which he opposed.  The old king is dead and the new king is in place, to borrow from the Campbellian imagery the film uses.

END SPOILER ALERT

I'd disagree with your interpretation, here.

First, yes, AN is a very dark film.  It's about Vietnam; it's going to be dark.  When I suggested that there were other elements to war that might be used, I wasn't saying that you should play Vietnam or any other war in shiny-happy terms.  Far from it.  My suggestion was more how you characterized Three Kings: in the midst of this dark insanity, the better human values shine brighter.  Those points of light are few and far between.  Most succumb to the darkness, but some (the PCs) struggle towards the light -despite- the odds.  That is drama.  Slowly going insane is an experiment in hypothetical psychology.

That said, AN is -not- about the simple replacement of the corrupt Old King.  The protagonist has seen what Kurtz has seen, and understands Kurtz on a deep and personal level -- /but/ he does not succcumb to Kurtz' depravity.  He is better than Kurtz because he sees the jaws of Hell and is able to do what is necessary (kill Kurtz, which is what Kurtz himself wants to happen but can't bring himself to do).

To relate this back to gaming, the PCs get taken on a horrors-of-war ride.  The -conflict- comes from struggling to survive the experience, not only physically but also emotionally.  'Surviving' and even triumphing do not mean being unchanged -- far from it.  The characters -will- change, and they will be traumatized, and they will be scarred, but they will remain -human-, and to do that, they need to hold on to human virtues.  The most easily accessible virtues in a war setting are honor, glory and doing the right thing.

Modern industrial war does of course give rise at times to humanity's noblest instincts.  The soldier who carries his wounded comrade back across enemy occupied territory, risking his own life to save his buddy, this is a heroic figure.  The man who remains to cover an escape perhaps.  But mostly it is brutal and efficient.  We speak of the military machine with good reason.  Professional soldiers are just that, professionals.  Men and women doing difficult and dangerous jobs under stressful conditions.

It is those diamonds in the rough that I'm talking about.  I'm not trying to suggest an army of happy-smiley soldiers marching off to war.  Secondly, that 'difficult and dangerous job under stressful conditions' is also (sometimes) a -necessary- job.  Even if the 'shepherds' that Contracycle mentioned aren't in the war for the noblest of reasons, that doesn't mean that the soldiers (PCs) are also there to protect US Oil Interests or fight proxy wars.  Since the game is about the characters, and not the shepherds, the game is therefore about what the -characters- are there for.  If this is some sort of ideal, then the game can be about that ideal.

When you bring conscripts into the picture I think war often becomes brutal with a sense of futility... Its worth remembering also that those thousands who took up arms were mostly conscripts, the alternatives to taking up arms were usually prison and in some periods execution.  Its less self-sacrificing to go to war when the alternative is prison, disgrace or death.  These people had no real choice.  That does not lessen what they did, but the bulk of conscript armies consist of just that, conscripts.

What better way to develop those themes of glory, honor and nobility than when you start with people who didn't want to be there in the first place, and are thrust into the situation?  Then you can -discover- these themes and virtues, instead of start off with them and have the game run in thematic circles.

Glory and honour in war are best brought out, IMO, in historical cultures which prized such things.  Modern industrialised warfare has little space for it, its difficult to be noble when death is random and impersonal.

Just because you don't see the whites of their eyes does not make self-sacrifice (whether you die, or only risk it) any less noble.  The conception that Modern War is 'less noble' than Classical War is only a byproduct of those cultures valuing honor in their wars and us not valuing it in ours.  If we can look back on them and see them being proud of themselves, and we aren't proud of ourselves, then 'obvious' comparison is made that, back then, war was glorious and honorable.

War has always been Hell.  By that, I mean that War is the Descent into Hell -- Orphic, Dantean, Campbellian, I could care less which model -- but the Descent serves two functions.  First of all, it informs the character with experience they could not have acquired elsewhere.  Secondly, it allows the character the possibility of escape -- so that they can -apply- the lessons of that experience to the rest of their lives.

If your tour-through-hell war campaign has no destination besides eventual insanity, -why- is it worth playing, and why are the characters compelling in any way, shape or form?

[Mithras]

On 2001-10-26 21:53, Thededine wrote:
To relate this back to gaming, the PCs get taken on a horrors-of-war ride.  The -conflict- comes from struggling to survive the experience, not only physically but also emotionally.  'Surviving' and even triumphing do not mean being unchanged -- far from it.  The characters -will- change, and they will be traumatized, and they will be scarred, but they will remain -human-, and to do that, they need to hold on to human virtues.  The most easily accessible virtues in a war setting are honor, glory and doing the right thing.

I agree with these sentiments, especially your comments that the characters will change and be traumatized. There's no getting away from it is there? I think any 'reality of experience' RPG needs to provide some hope of clinging on to humanity. The goal isn't to take the village or even not get hit, but to stay human while doing so. There are obvious comparisons with Vampire here, I suppose. Forced to commit daily atrocities - how far and how fast do you fall?

A note here on Spielberg/Hanks' Band of Brothers that retains the brutalising imagery and camera techniques of Saving Private RYan, but packages them up into a 10 part series that follows a unit throughout the liberation of France. This series does show war at its nastiest and most frightening. A real eye opener. But does include 'off-stage' emotional development. In my opinion, though, it is very very weak. I have no idea what the lead characters are feeling or thinking ... so there's not much counter-point to the terror of the amazing combat scenes.

Remember combat films in the days before Saving Private Ryan? The old WW2 movies, where glorious music played the troops into battle, all the bullets used the same stock sound effect, men fell over and rarely bled, explosions were just puffs of stage-effect flame and you knew someone was going to get shot because you could predict the script.

I'm glad those days of cinematic censorship are over.

[erithromycin]

With regards to degradation and all that, I thought I'd mention a system I've used with some success. We call it corruption.

Your average human being has a corruption of 1. They'll lie, maybe cheat a little, occasionally steal or swear. They're not perfect, but they're alright.

A hardened criminal, is not averse to hurting someone for their own needs, but only in a small way [a light kicking]. This is corruption 2. You are jaded.

3 requires that you reach for violence or somesuch a little more readily. Fraud becomes part of your arsenal, as does blackmail. Moral standards start to slip. You are numb to violence.

4 means that violence is the first tool in your arsenal. Suffering is a means to an end, and nothing to worry about. At this point you're pretty much a monster.

5 means that you actively enjoy the suffering you cause.

The scale goes up to 10, but only for NPCs. Player characters become a nightmare at 5, so are retired.  

Corruption accumulates as Permanent and Temporary. 1/3 is PC 1, TC 3, when TC is 10, PC goes up, and TC is reset to the new level of PC. You'll have noticed that at 9/10 you hit an infintite corruption loop. At this kind of level, the mechanisms of your depravity are likely such that almost nothing can stop them.

The system was devised for a Vampire LARP that I'm still an ST for. Corruption gains you access to disciplines and other neat stuff, but means that various things do you more harm, and you can clearly be pointed at and labelled evil, which is often a bad thing.

Corruption is awarded for 'bad deeds' and removed [at a much slower rate] for good deeds. The supernatural element isn't likely to be important, but it does serve as a loose framework to trace a moral collapse.

Perhaps it should act as  a penalty in various interactions? A measure like SAN in CoC may serve a similar purpose, though I'm of the inclination that there should be two:

What you've done, and What you've seen. The latter is perhaps a little harsh, unless the degree it affects you is somehow connected to your involvement in the act that produced the results you witness.

Of course, those are just my thoughts.

drew