SS Dogs breaking the game - split

[Copperhead]

The SS game wouldn't work because the SS aren't heroes: they ARE the hostile elements from Outside dressed up in uniforms and given authority. If they are considered heroes (with Nazism given the stamp of the One True Way...uggh!), then they still pull double duty as being both. If there is no way the players can find the characters heroic, then there is no way a town will find them heroic, and much of their moral authority is diminished, and must be bolstered by fear.

See, I have been reading this thread since I got into Dogs (very recently), with a growing sense of disquiet..... But I really must chime in with my two cents, old as this post is.  At the very least, so I can have it out and be done with it.

We, in our present liberal and relatively caring society forget that millions of more or less ordinary people have a very different viewpoint and relationship with the SS and it's members.  While a great deal of the glowing praise for the SS was pure propoganda, there was substantial support back home for their existence.  So, in the context of this game, the characters would be heroes.  But it's true, the game breaks down at this point because the players (unless they are very disturbed) are not going to feel heroic.... But I had to point out, that while the characters won't find themselves in the cast of heroes, the NPC's in the town just might.

[Copperhead]

And yes, I realise I messed up with the interface.  The part at the bottom is mine.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

That NPCs — who aren't, of course, real people — see the PCs as heroes has nothing to do with whether the players can play them as protagonists.

[Copperhead]

You're right... of course there are examples of how the SS themselves began with a burning urge to be the heroes of the Fatherland and ended up realising themselves monster but with no option but to despair, revel in it or die.

I guess SSitV would have to be about the protaganists disillusionment with their "heroic" role, or their descent into abject inhumanity.  Either way, it's an interesting, if short lived exercise.