Re: POLITICIANS AND OTHERS IN GAMING

Michael Llaneza wrote:

 >The trick lies in making sure everyone gets your references. Oerjan
isn't
 >American and should be expected (if not encouraged) to miss some
cultural
 >references made by Americans. And vice versa.

Exactly right. In fact some people who know where I come from are 
occasionally surprised when I *do* understand obscure cultural
references :-)

In addition I (who am not only not American, but not even a native 
English-speaker) often have different impressions of cultural references

than English-speakers do - even in the few cases where all
English-speakers 
get the same impression of said reference.

As an example to help DAWGFACE understand the problems surrounding the 
shorthand descriptions, here's a verbal short-hand description of 
the  chain of command for a scenario which the gamers in my local area 
would understand without any problems. Please try to figure out exactly 
what relations they have to one another, and what type of personalities
I 
am thinking of:

The colonel is like Alf Svensson
The major is like Olof Palme
The captain is like Göran Persson (not physically, though!)
The liutenant is like Carl Bildt
The sergeant is like Ingvar Carlsson

Just to make things interesting, I've deliberately chosen examples where

the persons referred to have quite different reputations in different 
political camps in my country. In addition at least two of them also
have 
quite different reputations at home and abroad.
This means that unless you know what country I'm from and what political

faction I support,  and you *also* know the reputations of the persons 
referred to in these various places and political camps, it may be
somewhat 
difficult for you to determine what personalities I'm thinking of for
the 
various officers in the above chain of command. My regular opponents
have 
all this knowledge, but I suspect that most people on this mailing list 
don't. It would however be very interesting to see what personality 
interpretations you come up with, and
compare them to what I actually meant :-)

(FWIW the distinction between different political camps isn't nearly as 
outrageous as it may sound - several of DAWGFACE's examples would be 
interpreted in *very* different ways in the different political camps of
my 
country as well.)

 >For example, on the off chance, someone hasn't seen the Fighting
Seabees,
 >they might get the idea and they might not. What's a Seabee and how
does
 >that relate to the bulldozer ?

A SeaBee is a small amphibious plane (IIRC the full name is "Republic
RC-3 
Seabee"); it is unarmed so is unlikely to do much fighting (although it
has 
been used as a light transport and liason craft by several armed forces 
including the early Israeli Air Force), and it doesn't relate to a 
bulldozer in any way that I can see...

;-) ;-) ;-)

 >Maybe they don't know who JohnWayne is.

Heard of 'im. Famous for playing a marine getting shot by a sniper IIRC,

and he's given names (or at least caused names to be given) to various 
terrain features at the NTC <VBG>

***

DAWGFACE wrote:

 >well, OERJAN, lets see here: this is in response to your post titled
 >POLITICIANS AND OTHERS IN GAMING.

This was a good reference, though repeating the title of my post was
kinda 
redundant since your own post has exactly the same title. (You only need
to 
specify the title of the post you're replying to when you change the
title 
of your reply to something else, as you did in the initial "HARKEN"
post.)

Similarly it isn't always necessary to include the entire post you're 
replying to; only the bits of it that are relevant to your reply. The
rest 
can be snipped out.

 >LASERLIGHT figured it out without even breaking a sweat, so EVERYONE
is
 >not in the dark.

I too easily understood the *general idea* of referring to "cultural 
arketypes" to explain personalities - not very hard, since I read Tony's

(RIP) book a couple years ago.

However, since I don't share your and Laserlight's collective USAmerican

cultural background *) several of the specific "shorthands" or "cultural

arketypes" you used didn't tell me very much. OK, they probably made
more 
sense to me than the chain-of-command example I gave above makes to
you... 
but your shorthands don't make nearly as *much* sense to me as they
would 
to an American, or even to someone from another English-speaking country

than the US.

*) Such as it is - I'm well aware that different segments of the
USAmerican 
population have rather different cultural backgrounds. However, in spite
of 
their differences most of these segments have more of their culture in 
common with one another than they have with me.

***
In another post, DAWGFACE wrote:

 >For OERJAN, who seems lost here;

[Two reports of the same situation snipped]

Thanks. Explains the John Wayne/SeaBee reference nicely. That leaves the

rest <g> (Well, maybe not the Marilyn Monroe one ;-) )

FYI, the first of the two reports told me exactly what was happening, 
though it read more like an AAR than a pre-battle briefing or sitrep.
The 
second report, the shorthand one, told me that there's a large bulldozer

driven by a man coming out of the forest... but it told me nothing about

what to expect from that dozer :-/

As a slight twist of your reports, replace the man driving the dozer
with a 
curvy brown-haired young woman. (In the heat of combat, it's hard to see

exactly what she looks like.) What type of personality do you think she
is, 
and what threat does she represent?

If I add that she has a *very* tight dark top and shorts that are, well,

rather too short, does your evaluation of her change and if so how? (And

what well-known movie figure is it I am referring to? <g>)

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."