Re: [OFFICIAL] Re: No Good Guys?

In message <l03010d01b1db41f9d792@[195.188.107.158]> Ground Zero Games
writes:
> >Doug_Evans/CSN/UNEBR@UNebMail.UNeb.EDU wrote:
> >>
> >> Also, the repression by NAC definitely feeds to the 'no good guys'
line JT
> >> mentioned earlier. ;->=
> >
> >	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.

I think you're looking in the wrong place for "modern myths". GZG
games are generally angled towards a "hard science fiction" ethos
of (gleefully) harsh reality, as opposed to some mythic nonsense
about young princesses and old wizards. Heavy Gear is the same. I
don't know anything about Warzone.

There is, you know, more than one genre of SF-and-fantasy. I don't
think there's any general shift towards Hard SF games over any
other genre... look at all the gothy stuff out there.

[...]
> When I said (typed?) the "no good guys" line, it was actually in
response
> to someone (sorry, can't recall who) that was quite violently opposed
to
> the idea of the NAC in particular being seen as the Men in the White
Hats,
> while all other nations were just scummy foreigners (and therefore
bad).

That was me... and I didn't really imagine that you and Mr. Blease
could be so crass. I was stirred to my long-winded rhetoric over
the idea being peddled that it would be lucky if the soldiery of
some listed nationalties, 300 years hence, would merely be
rapists, while some would obviously always be beyond reproach. I
never did find out where that was supposed to be going... <shrugs>

[...]
> This doesn't mean, however, that there are no INDIVIDUAL heroes (and
> villains) - there can be as many of these as you like, valiantly
fighting
> for the principles they believe are right.

Why would a hero even have to fight for a principle? To draw
analogies with war films, I was blessed with the interesting
coincidence that after I had been to the cinema to catch "Starship
Troopers" (a well executed satire, rather than a proper war film)
the telly provided me with another opportunity to see the
wonderful film "Zulu", which has to be the king of war films.

The soldiers in "Zulu" aren't fighting for any principles. They
aren't fighting any great evil. They aren't the forces of The
Rebel Princess Victoria fighting The Evil Zulu Empire. They aren't
all fighting for the memories of lost womenfolk, or to go through
some mythic boy-turns-to-man crap. They're just a bunch of
engineers and PBI in the wrong place, and their black foes aren't
portrayed as black-hearted either. Yet it remains a very moving
and unlaboured depiction of backs-to-the-wall soldierly *heroism*.
Entirely non-mythic, non-Joseph-Campbell, non-Hollywood *heroism*.

I guess the counterexample would be the dreadfully lame and
overlong "Braveheart" which clumsily constructs a nation of evil
repressive and corrupting murderers, rapists, and homosexuals to
battle against, while building up it's hero with so much heroic
motivation that it remains a wonder that he didn't explode. Bleh.
I found it too awful to even laugh at. I can live without that
laboured crap on the tabletop.

"Your Mileage May Vary".

-- 
David Brewer