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<blockquote data-quote="GuyBoy" data-source="post: 8364680" data-attributes="member: 7031143">Growing up in UK during the Cold War, I think the attraction to D&amp;D as part of US Soft Power was related to, but not identical to, the “Cold War gone Hot” games such as Twilight 2000 and Gamma World ( both of which I played, particularly the latter).We probably need to be careful about even the phrase Soft Power when talking about late 1970s gaming: Joseph Nye of Harvard is generally credited with introducing the phrase in the late 1980s and the book, “Soft Power” was published in 2004. Highly recommended btw.Amid the fear aspects of the Cold War, there was a general attraction in UK to all aspects of US culture at the time. This is the Soft Power attraction I’m referring to, even before Nye codified the concept. It included Hollywood, CBGBs, Happy Days, reaction to Elvis’ death, skateboards, Bazooka Joe, Spider-Man and, yes, D&amp;D. I’m not getting rose-tinted on USA as “leader of the free world” (from around 1980 as a politics student, I was pretty critical of Cruise missiles, Contra funding etc), but generally USA was pretty admired in geo-political terms by most British people ie successful soft power. It’s easy to argue that the most dangerous point of the Cold War was Cuba. That is true, but detente had crumbled by the late 1970s and Able Archer in 1983 was certainly a danger point. So D&amp;D was part of Cold War Soft Power, even though it had no more direct reference to the conflict than Arthur Fonzarelli. Twilight 2000 and Gamma World carried direct Cold War reference but less Soft Power impact, being less popular games. “Mr Gorbachev, cast Passwall on that Wall!”</blockquote>

[QUOTE="GuyBoy, post: 8364680, member: 7031143"] Growing up in UK during the Cold War, I think the attraction to D&D as part of US Soft Power was related to, but not identical to, the “Cold War gone Hot” games such as Twilight 2000 and Gamma World ( both of which I played, particularly the latter). We probably need to be careful about even the phrase Soft Power when talking about late 1970s gaming: Joseph Nye of Harvard is generally credited with introducing the phrase in the late 1980s and the book, “Soft Power” was published in 2004. Highly recommended btw. Amid the fear aspects of the Cold War, there was a general attraction in UK to all aspects of US culture at the time. This is the Soft Power attraction I’m referring to, even before Nye codified the concept. It included Hollywood, CBGBs, Happy Days, reaction to Elvis’ death, skateboards, Bazooka Joe, Spider-Man and, yes, D&D. I’m not getting rose-tinted on USA as “leader of the free world” (from around 1980 as a politics student, I was pretty critical of Cruise missiles, Contra funding etc), but generally USA was pretty admired in geo-political terms by most British people ie successful soft power. It’s easy to argue that the most dangerous point of the Cold War was Cuba. That is true, but detente had crumbled by the late 1970s and Able Archer in 1983 was certainly a danger point. So D&D was part of Cold War Soft Power, even though it had no more direct reference to the conflict than Arthur Fonzarelli. Twilight 2000 and Gamma World carried direct Cold War reference but less Soft Power impact, being less popular games. “Mr Gorbachev, cast Passwall on that Wall!” [/QUOTE]

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