What would you NOT play?

[Darkest Star Games]

On another post (about Sharpe’s) there was mention of “Adventure Gaming”, and admittedly I’ve played and do play a fair number of somewhat PRGish tabletop miniature games.  I love having a wide variety of things to play and do enjoy learning new games and rules, and it is very rare that I come up against something that I just will not play, period.  Something like this happened the other day, though to be honest is was more like refusing to develop a game than actually play it.

A couple of us were chatting and it started out with a simple concept: pulp gaming like a modernized Indiana Jones serial.  Sounds pretty benign.  Amd so the brain storming began and it took a turn pretty quickly.  Went from lighthearted “find the treasure” ala Clive Cussler novel to a more seemingly assassinatory thing.  We talked about a mad Chinese scientist trying to make zombie virus, crazy Chechen warlord wanting to steal nukes, the whole gamut, but the one that put the brakes on everything was “stop the Mad Mullah from destroying historical sites and artifacts”.  That idea started as “well, the middle-east is topical” and followed with “remember when the Taliban blew up those Buddha statues/carvings” and thence to “wish we could have stopped that…”

One of the guys pointed out that if we went through with the game that it’d draw a lot of flak from all sides and was probably a bad idea to put on a blog, let alone to take to a convention or something like that.  After some discussion he made a lot of sense, even I (who thought “aw come on, people can take it with a grain of salt and not be all triggered by it) buckled after I was reminded of the people that freak out when we run our big Pirate game and they see slaves as one of the trade goods (they don’t care about the naked cannibals that go after the priests, nor the brothels in the ports, nor the Chinese junk that sells “young sandwiches” (made from real youngin’s!)) and usually just have to express themselves about it to a bunch of pirate costumed semi-drunks who have great sense of humors until someone pees in the pool…

So, project terminated as it germinated, due to bad taste.

 

Have you had similar?  What have you refused to play on principle?

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Otto Schmidt]

I’ve played “Redneck Life” by Gutbustin Games which is pretty sadistic and in completely bad taste, and it can be fun with the right group.  First off this question is somewhat invidious on its own as it is dealing with subjects that CAN be taken and perverted to personal attacks. To address what was said, when you’re talking about people with neither morals, scruples and a sense of decency so “slaves” being sold by them as just another piece of merchandise is probably better than in real life where the pirates would have just tossed them overboard and let them drown as their ship was too small to accommodate them and they were too much trouble to look after– also being witnesses.

But on the larger question of what we won’t play, it depends. I play modern games  of between the wars to middle of WWII but I use Imaginations. I don’t care to game as one of the three greatest moral evils ever to inflict mankind. So two of the Imagi-Nations are “Fahrvergnuggen” or the 7 3/4 Reich, and another is WWWF, The Workers Winter Wonderland of Freeland.  The third is the Empire of Terramasu– or Samurai Night Fever!  You can pretty much guess who is who.

I won’t game Vietnam, and certainly not modern games against terrorists. I have a weak spot in my love of art, which is the highest of human expression and all we have to remember the achievements of the millions who have gone before. Art is sacred.

But for me the question is not what I won’t game, but that what I like to game, the wars of the 18th century in Europe are so much more fun and pleasurable it is hard to pry me loose from them. The art, the literature, the customs the society. It is fascinating.  I prefer surrounding myself with things of beauty and thinking nice things than wallowing in the liminal.  Thus in my 18th century games, I prefer them because everything is created in whimsical fashion. There are heroes and heroines, but the villains are never truly evil or mean, but reduced to gross charicatures  like Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier, or Osmin from “Abduction from the Seraglio” and like Die Fledermaus, everything is a case of mistaken identity and can be put down to a bit too much champagne.

I don’t like zombies either. It traduces the most sacred underpinning of civilization, our rites of the dead.

To put it simply. There is enough misery in the world and I have no need to bring it into my hobby.

Now as far as Pirates selling slaves as trade goods and the whole question of slavery…

If you could make it where the pirates capture a huge bevy of beautiful girls who are wards in chancery to a very modern major general, and they all decide to get married with impunity… no wait, that’s been done.

Or a young beauty and her serving maid are captured by pirates and sold in the slave market, but they are bought by this virtuous honorable Pasha, call him Selim, who would never think of forcing himself on her and he gives her maid to Osmin his overseer and she henpecks and nags him to death… No wait that’s been done.

Or another young Italian beauty is captured by corsairs and sold to a Pasha who has gone off his wife and wants a big fine lusty Italian girl instead, and she resists his advances and convinces him that she will yield to him only if he agrees to become a pappatatzi…  no wait that’s been done.

Or a pasha who comes to Italy looking for a lost slave girl he fell in love with and takes up with an old Italian Merchant’s gorgeous wife, then finds the slave girl… no wait that’s been done.

Or a slave who is kept by the pirate captain because he has taken a liking to him and makes him his manservant. Then one day tells the slave a secret that he is NOT the dread pirate Roberts… no wait that’s been done.

Or there’s no slaves, just servants who are aroused to anger when their Count is planning to insist on the right of the first night when his wife’s maid is going to marry his barber, and there’s all this fanforade about cabinets and chairs and switching the countesses costume with her maids costume…. no wait that’s been done.

Who wants to play those games when there’s so much fun stuff to play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mike]

I was just about to post that link..

I would have posted it too if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids.

 

[Darkest Star Games]

Ah yes, I did participate, didn’t I?  I’ve hit my head since them, probably more than once.  Was just floored that our discussion for a conv game went so far out so fast!  My bad y’all!

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[shelldrake]

What I wont play is really limited to games that need a lot of miniatures to make an army and or require a large playing area, both of which I can’t do.

As for being ‘PC’ – if it happend historically, then I don’t see a problem with it, re the Pirates and slaves.  When it comes to this scenario if the slaves are part of an objective to rescue them then it is ok.  By making the ‘things’ that are not ‘PC’ the enemy for a game is fine.

I won’t play a game that requires players to commit crimes against humanity, but I don’t see a problem of playing a game that includes terrorists if they are the target of a raid and in their hideout. Burning a village during a raid is fine… just not round figures up for execution.

A viking raid (or similar) where they need to carry people off is fine too.

My miniatures don’t commit hate crimes – people do in real life.  I can tell the difference between a game with toy soldiers and what actual people do/did.

[MartinR]

As noted, this has come up before, both here and on other forums.

I used to be more precious about these things, but these days I think you can make a game out of anything. Some subjects I wouldn’t run as a public session though, as individual and public tastes vary somewhat and it is a hobby not a job.

Professional Wargamers have game all kinds of distasteful subjects of course.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Phil Dutré]

As for gaming style:
I will not play anything that comes too close to a tournament setting, or games that revolve solely around army lists. Wargaming is not a competition sport.

As for historical themes:
I will not play ongoing conflicts, but anything upto the Cold War is fine. W.r.t. ongoing conflicts, the dust has not yet settled, and I see some gamers who cannot distinguish between the game and their own political views. Not good for a social and friendly setting. (BTW, this is sometimes a problem I’ve also encountered in WW2 games).

As for fantasy/scifi themes:
Anything goes, as long as its a well-thought out setting that gamers can relate to, and there’s a narrative component.
In my youth, there was always  the crazy roleplying GM who insisted on running a D&D/Rifts/Torg/StarTrek/Cthulhu/Superhero/JudgeDredd crossover campaign. Fun when generating characters, boring and utterly incoherent as a game.
A mad nazi-scientist creating hordes of Nazi-zombies can be fun for a single game.
A mad nazi-scientist creating hordes of Nazi-zombies who are really Aliens that timetravelled from Area 51 and are in league with the Old Ones in a plot to unleash a virus that will kill all of humanity only to get saved by The Doctor is a bit too much.

[Ivan Sorensen]

No problem discussing an old topic, maybe we have new people now 🙂

“Will not play” would depend on multiple things right?

A: “I find it gross”.

Stuff in bad taste, atrocity simulations, conflicts currently on-going etc.
Scenarios where the author is grinding a political axe, I won’t touch regardless of whether I agree with the axe-grinding or not.

B: “I find it silly”.

For historical gaming, I find my tolerance for silly things is very limited. Any mention of “weird war” and Im out.
The guys who do this stuff seem to have a great time with it, so more power to them, but I’ll be somewhere else, thanks 🙂

C: “Just doesn’t have my interest”.

I have pretty much zero interest in ancients and I find that I rarely enjoy setups where the two sides are dramatically different (such as many scifi bug scenarios or much colonial gaming).
I’ve tried both and I find that the styles just aren;t interesting to me.

If its a convention or club game, it depends more on the people there:
If the people at the table are acting like cretins, I’ll say no thank you.
If I wanted a lecture from some unhinged stranger about how [insert group here] are ruining the world, I’d create a facebook account.

[Who Asked This Joker]

I’m kind of done with anything WW2 except for early war Western Europe and Western Desert theater.  I will not game any anything past that chronologically.  Just too topical and for the most part was not a game to anyone who served.  Most of the WW2 veterans I’ve known are gone now but in their memory, I continue in this vein.

I don’t do gang violence, concentration camps, massacres or any other distasteful game situations like that.  I am no completely on board with Viking Raid type games, at least not with the kids.

Other than that, I’ll try about anything if done in good taste.

John

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln

[Altius]

Well, of course, I would never game the usual list of morally reprehensible activities that go beyond simply shooting tiny men for entertainment – rape, concentration camps, flying airliners into skyscrapers, that sort of thing. But be honest: how often do those things come up in a game, anyway? If you’re sitting across the table from a guy who wants to make a game out of massacring civilians, then you have bigger problems than what’s happening on the table, my friend.

I probably should add ‘targeting children’ to that list of no-no’s but the scouts in my post-apocalyptic skirmish force are all teenaged boys and they always end up shot to pieces by aliens or mutants in every game.

I’ve gradually lost interest in modern gaming*, mostly because I’m not interested in the typically stupid-as-hell political theories and jingoistic opinions that often follow one of these games. I find that substituting sci-fi skirmish (near future, preferably) is a good way to avoid that nonsense while still vicariously killing tiny people, which is good. I’ve also found that I’ve lost the taste for ACW games after all the national drama of the last year, but that might change in time.

Oh, and frilly shirts. I won’t play a game involving people wearing ridiculously frilly collars and sleeves. Lines have to be drawn.

*Its too bad because I’ve got some nicely painted modern Afghanistan forces and some 1970s Portuguese Colonial War forces all in 15mm that are just going to sit in the box on my shelf until I die, apparently.

Where there is fire, we will carry gasoline

[telzy amber]

Ivan Sorensen wrote:

If I wanted a lecture from some unhinged stranger about how [insert group here] are ruining the world, I’d create a facebook account.

  Here here

[kyoteblue]

I have a Facebook account….

[Otto Schmidt]

The other dimension to this  is epitomized by the phrase “What went ye into the Wilderness to see?”  If as according to the original poster you are sitting around brain-storming  edgy games that’s one thing  and can be a lot of fun between you as to the edginess alone. On the other hand putting it on as an actual game opens a door which you may not be happy when you see what walks through.

People play games to have fun and not to be taught moral lessons.  Further you always run the gauntlet of disturbing feelings perhaps buried deep in the mud of the mind.

Imagine you are television executives sitting around brainstorming a new comical series. Someone comes up with the idea of a show about Allied Prisoners of war in a German stalag.  How can that possibly be funny!!!???  Dunno– ask Hogans Heroes. Of course the rules of comedy are different… are they?

I recall one convention where a friend of mine entered a sort of patrol in Iraq or Blackhawk down scenario. Here you got points for killing the bad guys and lost points for killing  the good guys. I tried to steer her away from this but she wanted to play. So the game begins and she comes up to go first.  the GM says to her “You see a man leave a building  and walk down the street. What do you do.:”  Immediately the answer I dreaded comes out of her mouth.” Shoot him down!”  The GM is shocked and explains again that it might be wiser to interrogate him to see if he’s one of the enemies.” She snaps back, they’re all the enemy.” Thus began the massacre of the village, and while her actions might be somewhat understandable having lost a brother in the twin towers, the rest of the gamers joined in with what can only be a cathartic experience.

You never know  what you’re going to awaken. I said to the GM later “Well, you got what you came for.”

To my friend when I asked her about it on the ride back from the convention, she said only “I’m so tired, I’m so tired…” and breaking off on the verge of tears.  A few days later she finished it with “I’m so tired of people feeling sorry for these scum.”

When you delve into the human psyche- bring a shovel and hold your nose.

Even worse.

I had a friend who put on a science fiction game where this alien race was being attacked by your typical space storm troopers. The aliens were fairly easy to kill.  The secret of the game was at it heart a misapprehension of intention. The aliens were not trying to kill the storm troopers only establish contact. My friend wanted to see how long it took the players as manipulators of the storm troopers to overcome their indoctrination and realize that the aliens weren’t harming anyone.

Fair ‘nuf.

Well a few of the storm troopers got it very quickly and were noticing ‘Hey, none of us are hurt, none of us are getting killed and they’re almost letting themselves get slaughtered, and they pulled back. Several other gamers  gleefully went on killing the aliens because they could, just for the fun of killing something and if the aliens weren’t fighting back  it made it all the easier. They saw no moral dilemma in just plain killing.

 

In war games it’s best to leave these things out of it.

Attempts at self-righteousness and moral chest thumping are mocked by the Monsters from our Id.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guy Farrish]

Sounds to me like your stories are excellent examples of why it can be worth playing the awkward or ‘edgy’ scenario.

Not all games have to be ‘fun’.

(Anyway, define ‘fun’).

Reading Ian Fleming can I suppose be ‘fun’, entertainment at a basic level.

Or you can read le Carre and be entertained at a higher level with insight into the human condition in extremis that most people will never experience for real.

I think you have clearly shown that there are games that may not be ‘fun’ in the Mary Poppins sense but entertain and engage at a different level. Some people like having a look into the abyss, especially if they can shut the book, or pack away the models and step back from the brink.

I don’t see self-righteousness or moral tub thumping – I see a desire for a different gaming experience than simple ‘fun’.

I would worry more about people trying to extract ‘fun’ from some situations in war that do not lend themselves to it, than people trying to explore some of the harsher realities of warfare.

I hope in the debrief on the alien game the error the killing spree people made was gently, but clearly, explained to them in a way that did not make them feel they had been made fun of but that they could take something positive from.(Being different doesn’t make you a legitimate target – sounds like a good learning experience to me).

[Otto Schmidt]

Unfortunately Guy, the GM did explain the situation. The result was rather grim.  The “kill them all” were unfazed. “It was their own fault that they didn’t fight back” was the answer. The GM was simply repeating the Milgram and Zimbardo experiments.

As I said no one wants to play a game to be taught a moral lesson.

 

 

[Guy Farrish]

All games teach moral lessons, whether we are aware of them or not.

Our experience differs slightly – I have seen and played in games where unexpected moral dilemmas were ‘developed’ in a game. The games were engrossing (they only work properly if they are) and some spotted the deeper questions, some didn’t and there were differing reactions at the reveal stage, but some people definitely wanted more.

I am more likely to enjoy participating in a game that has this dimension than one that simply, for example, pits ‘elite troops’ against militias or levies in a killing spree with no moral backdrop.

On the other hand I enjoy games that recreate battles or situations that undoubtedly ended in a bigger ‘butcher’s bill’. A moral conundrum if ever there was one!

[Author]

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