Are there Fun/Unique/Interesting Differences in American vs. UK gaming sensibilities?

[Silverblade The Ench]

Wlel here in the West of Scotland, folk are not truly "religious", what you had instead was sectarianism, which is a totally different thing in reality, and since the 80s has been weakening, thank goodness.

As I often said to the bigots and thugs on both sides:
"When was the last time YOU were in church/chapel? And if you like shouting about Ireland and it's problems that much, well ******* off over there then, and give the rest of us bloody peace!"


good way to envisage religous strife in D&D, lol! Banites vs Cyricists with parades, riots and pub fights!

hm actually that's another interesting difference: the UK is three seperate nations and a province, within a nation. which gives odd outlooks on political/national views (which IS relavant to D&D cause such systems and strife are great for world building)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

snip ...:
"When was the last time YOU were in church/chapel?

LOL

And if you like shouting about Ireland and it's problems that much, well ******* off over there then, and give the rest of us bloody peace!"

Oh God No! There are enough of 'em on the island already

good way to envisage religous strife in D&D, lol! Banites vs Cyricists with parades, riots and pub fights!

hm actually that's another interesting difference: the UK is three seperate nations and a province, within a nation. which gives odd outlooks on political/national views (which IS relavant to D&D cause such systems and strife are great for world building)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hmmmm, so IS there really a big difference between UK and US gaming scenes? I don't know. Gaming here in the US is not all THAT different now than in the 70's, just a bit less odd maybe. Over the years it seems like it's slowly become not exactly mainstream but not exceptionally worthy of comment either. Other than that it seems about like ever, something largely confined to a fairly nerdy subgroup. Its hard to generalize about the US too, if you go out to certain parts of the country there are still a few bible thumpers eying such things with suspicion, but they have bigger fish to fry. Basically some people will think you're a bit weird if you play D&D etc but it's rarely going to get much comment. People mostly play at home with their like-minded friends, but if you were to say bring it up at work most people would just not be that interested one way or another.

It is interesting that RPing is shunned in the British armed forces though. I don't know what it's like in the US now, but back in the 80's you would find a LOT of the enlisted army guys playing. I wouldn't say it was ever the cool thing to do, but it didn't elicit much comment one way or the other. I suspect it is still that way, I've run into plenty of ex-military gamers anyway.

Mostly, I doubt you'll find a huge amount of difference between the two countries. Its a niche hobby everywhere and it sounds like most of the same systems are popular in both places.

 

[haakon1]

I guess that in the early days of both D&D and Star Wars the other "Evil Empire" that was in the culture was the Soviet One. The UK never had the at-times hysterical anti-Communism of the US. I'm not sure how any of that filtered into RPG culture [Twilight 2000, Aftermath! ??] but I guess that most gamers are now too young to have woken to the sound of thunder in the night and wondered if it were the start of nuclear armageddon.

Hmmm, my scariest moment in the Cold War was in 1989 or 1990, when I spent a year in Oxford. I remember waking up to the rumble of low flying jets, then noticing military trucks driving down the main street, and anxiously going to check the radio for news as to whether "The Balloon went up" over the various end of the Warsaw Pact crises.

I guess in the US, military exercises are less likely to be right over a city.

I grew up only about 10 miles from West Point, so it wasn't unusual to see military aircraft, but never whole formations, and with a dozen camoflagued 2.5 ton trucks rolling around at the same time!

 

[haakon1]

the UK is three seperate nations and a province, within a nation.

3 nations? OK, English, Cornish, Welsh . . . and the province is what, Yorkshire? I guess that makes sense -- the Danelaw and all that. But aren't you forgetting Scots, Ulstermen (AKA Scots-Irish to Americans), and regular Irish? There's gotta be at least 6 "nationalities" over there, not even counted the Manx and the Channel Islanders, who aren't technically in the UK, just personal union in the Crown or some such nonsense.

Sorry, just had to plug for the Cornish. Someday, they'll get their due.

 

[S'mon]

I guess that in the early days of both D&D and Star Wars the other "Evil Empire" that was in the culture was the Soviet One. The UK never had the at-times hysterical anti-Communism of the US. I'm not sure how any of that filtered into RPG culture [Twilight 2000, Aftermath! ??] but I guess that most gamers are now too young to have woken to the sound of thunder in the night and wondered if it were the start of nuclear armageddon.

In popular British TV sci-fi of the late '70s there was the grey bureaucratic Terran Federation of Blake's 7, a counterpoint to Star Trek's happy shiny United Federation of Planets. I think the scriptwriters may have based the Federation as much on the BBC where they worked as on the USSR, though. And sometimes they made British Empire analogies too. IME it never much particularly resembled Nazi Germany though, other than general totalitarian evilness.

The remoteness and non-charismatic leadership of the Emperor in Star Wars also don't seem very Nazi-ish, though I thought the Imperial Fleet had quite a Wehrmacht feel, especially in ANH's boardroom scene.

 

[nerfherder]

3 nations? OK, English, Cornish, Welsh . . . and the province is what, Yorkshire? I guess that makes sense -- the Danelaw and all that. But aren't you forgetting Scots, Ulstermen (AKA Scots-Irish to Americans), and regular Irish? There's gotta be at least 6 "nationalities" over there, not even counted the Manx and the Channel Islanders, who aren't technically in the UK, just personal union in the Crown or some such nonsense.

The United Kingom of Britain & Northern Ireland.

3 constituent countries: Enlgand, Wales & Scotland.
1 province: Northern Ireland.

IoM, etc are crown dependencies, IIRC. I always get confused by them. I do know that most of the IoM has no speed limits, so I want to go back over there

I had to compile a list of "countries" for a drop down for a land registry system. You'd think that would be straightforward, but no, it depends how you define a country...

Sorry, just had to plug for the Cornish. Someday, they'll get their due.

You forgot the Orkney nation...

 

[DragonLancer]

I believe there were some problems in east Anglia, also. Even England is not uniformly a-religious.

I've lived my whole live in East Anglia and I've never heard of anything. Any idea when?

 

[S'mon]

I've lived my whole live in East Anglia and I've never heard of anything. Any idea when?

Some time ca 1985-88 as best I can recall. It was in the newspaper (Daily Mail?) but I'm sure it was of limited scope.

 

[DragonLancer]

Some time ca 1985-88 as best I can recall. It was in the newspaper (Daily Mail?) but I'm sure it was of limited scope.

Thanks. I'm curious now. Might see what I can find on it.