RE: No Good Guys? (Re: ATTN Jon T: Free CalTex Government and So

Nathan spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

> >	You know something... This is just an observation mind you, but
the
> > idea of "no-good-guys" seems to be the trend in game background
writing
> > these days. (e.g. WH40K, Heavy Gear, Warzone and quite a few other
games
> > out on the market.)  Have we become so cynical and so pesimistic
that we
> > no longer desire for real heros and obvious villians for the modern
> > myths we weave?  If so, why are we like this.

Perhaps its the fact we recognize that real life is filled (mostly) 
with shades of grey (there is a white and a black at either end, but 
you see them truly infrequently). And perhaps that real people are 
flawed. Heroes in the real world tend to be average folk driven into 
greatness by circumstance and personality. So too with many villains. 
And few men in government in any modern society tend to be 
particularly one nor the other - they tend to be (as is required by 
the job) lawyers, politicians, and beauracrats, all of whom tend to 
be more driven by situation, poll, or perception than by principle or 
true ideology. Witness the dumbing down of our TV and of our 
political campaigns and you'll see that those in power (responding to 
the stimuli provided by their populace) have discovered we either 
lack the attention span or don't have the voyeuristic interest in 
non-sensational, dry, carefully explained policy. We're cultures of 
sound bytes, snap judgements, MTV, and channel surfing. Small wonder 
the days of the likes of the founders of our countries are long since 
history - they'd never survive the modern media circus. 

To put this OT, let's just say that a GZG universe of no true bad 
guys has a tad more realism than a Star Wars (Joseph Campbell esque) 
mythic setting and (strictly as a game observation) makes for a much 
more fun an interesting universe for Wargaming. 

Tom.   
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