Several roleplaying games of the 1980s dealt directly with the Cold War, or the possible consequences if it turned hot – Paranoia (1984), Twilight 2000 (1984), and The Price of Freedom (1986). This post is about the reviews of the latter two in the British roleplaying magazine, White Dwarf, and subsequent debates in its letters pages.
This is a great post, Doug McCrae. You've done some research, presented us with a viewpoint many of us ( at least me) hadn't heard before, and given us a lot to think about. I missed out on
Twilight 2000 back in the day and hadn't heard of
The Price of Freedom until sometime after 2010, but my friends and I did play a little
Delta Force: American Strikes Back circa 1987-88. I tried to get my friend to run a zombie scenario using Delta Green but he rejected it as being a stupid idea. We could have been ahead of the curve on the zombie apocalypse genre but he was too short sighted.
While the system is playable, the moral stance and attitudes it exemplifies are fairly loathsome. The rules favour the style of behaviour found in 'fun' war films; player characters will occasionally get killed (but not terribly often)... There are rules for infection and radiation poisoning, but they aren't nearly harsh enough. T
Personally, I think this criticism applies to just about every RPG that uses violence as one of its most basic means of conflict resolution. D&D likely wouldn't be nearly as fun if that orc cried out for his mother as he lay dying after being disemboweled by a particularly lucky player character armed with an axe. There are very few RPGs out there that really examine the full horrors of violence. What what makes
Twilight 2000 different?
I guess the big difference with
Twilight 2000 is that it hits close to home in a way that perhaps a fantasy or science fiction game could not. I checked out the recent
Twilight 2000 Kickstarter and was surprised by how many negative feelings it conjured up for me. I don't find the game morally objectionable like Marcus Rowland did, but it conjured up memories of my father going to play war, of seeing tanks on the autobahn, and living in an atmosphere where I had some vague idea that my father and all my friend's fathers, and some of their mothers, were in Germany as a check against the Soviet Union. I came to the conclusion that I just couldn't have fun with
Twilight 2000.
The suggested theme (which beautifully explains the attitude of this game) is to 'return home' to America: Europe evidently isn't worth anyone's time or effort.
Twilight 2000 was game designed by Americans for an American audience. If I was a soldier stuck in Europe my first priority, aside from just surviving, would be to return home where my loved ones are. But I can see why it rankles some people and it's a great example of how some American work goes over like a lead balloon in other parts of the world.
