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<blockquote data-quote="Ian Sturrock" data-source="post: 970091" data-attributes="member: 4944">Hmm.&nbsp; Well, I wrote most of the book, and IRL I'm broadly pro-European, anarchist, anti-war, and an eco-activist.&nbsp; But I'm not here to talk about politics.&nbsp; Just to point out that a game designer's personal politics may apear to have little or nothing to do with the game he produces.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />We aimed for realistic technology, but the politics TBH are all exaggerated, not especially 'realistic.'&nbsp; Without said exaggerated politics, emphasising the worst aspects of all the countries and cultures involved and ignoring the best aspects, there would be no rationale for a 'Total War.'&nbsp; One of the intentions though was always to ensure that if anyone was going to be uncomfortable with their nation's portrayal, it should be everyone -- hence the aforementioned 'no good guys' stance.&nbsp; To my mind the UK should come across as fairly unpleasant -- we tried to emphasise the racism, the Europhobia, the national identity confusion. . . that said, ISTR that the sections on the UK in the core rulebook were written by the American writers on the team, and so may have ended up more complimentary than a sufficiently honest and bitter Brit would have written them!A truly realistic world war RPG set in 2089 would likely be no fun at all -- too much starvation, thirst, and ethnic cleansing.&nbsp; Moreover, though, future politics are notoriously impossible to predict.&nbsp; Think of all the great SF games and books created in the 1980s that so foolishly failed to predict the end of Communism and the destruction of the Berlin Wall!&nbsp; Hindsight is always 20/20, eh?Anyway, all in all, I think I'd rather blow up some national monuments with tacnukes than talk politics again. . .</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ian Sturrock, post: 970091, member: 4944"] Hmm. Well, I wrote most of the book, and IRL I'm broadly pro-European, anarchist, anti-war, and an eco-activist. But I'm not here to talk about politics. Just to point out that a game designer's personal politics may apear to have little or nothing to do with the game he produces. :) We aimed for realistic technology, but the politics TBH are all exaggerated, not especially 'realistic.' Without said exaggerated politics, emphasising the worst aspects of all the countries and cultures involved and ignoring the best aspects, there would be no rationale for a 'Total War.' One of the intentions though was always to ensure that if anyone was going to be uncomfortable with their nation's portrayal, it should be everyone -- hence the aforementioned 'no good guys' stance. To my mind the UK should come across as fairly unpleasant -- we tried to emphasise the racism, the Europhobia, the national identity confusion. . . that said, ISTR that the sections on the UK in the core rulebook were written by the American writers on the team, and so may have ended up more complimentary than a sufficiently honest and bitter Brit would have written them! A truly realistic world war RPG set in 2089 would likely be no fun at all -- too much starvation, thirst, and ethnic cleansing. Moreover, though, future politics are notoriously impossible to predict. Think of all the great SF games and books created in the 1980s that so foolishly failed to predict the end of Communism and the destruction of the Berlin Wall! Hindsight is always 20/20, eh? Anyway, all in all, I think I'd rather blow up some national monuments with tacnukes than talk politics again. . . [/QUOTE]

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