Remember The Price of Freedom RPG? It was basically the movie Red Dawn with the numbers filed off. How about Twilight: 2000?
The 1980's were a great time for Cold War style RPGs. Heck, thats when Merc and Recon also hit the bookshelves, allowing you to be a mercenary in Cold War Hotspots like South America and Africa, or fight in the jungles of Vietnam.
I don't see similar games being produced these days. When I say similar, I mean working off the current events of the past decade. No "Let's play some Navy SEALS and take out Osama" and such. Maybe the lines are too blurred these days. Perhaps the Cold War, while always in the back of your mind, was more fantasy then terrorists using jetliners as bombs and the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I do remember playing Twilight: 2000 back in my high school and college years. A squad of Americans left behind enemy lines, fighting for survival. Eh, it didn't play out all that well either. It's probably a good thing we don't have a Navy SEALS game. You can only kill Osama / Orcus so many times ;)
I LOVED T2K. Still do. I have damn near the whole shebang on digits.
ReplyDeleteA few buddies and I tried to give T2K a go back in the 90s when I was still in the Army. Since most of us had served in the Cav units in Germany, and could potentially return if things turned sour in Europe, we didn't find the premise too appealing.
ReplyDeleteMy big problem with military games as rpgs is the established hierarchy that militaries need to be effective. I can see it work in small unit/team settings.
Playing wargames with elements of RPGs is how I like to mix the two. I think Battletech/Mechwarrior does this well
For me after 18years in the Army, I want nothing to do with a Military RPG, However, Spycraft is the current tool of choice for some buddies of mine, Plus Crafty Ggames produces a Twilight 2013 book...
ReplyDeleteI love Twilight 2000. I still have pretty much all the books and modules. With the ConstantCon and Google+ thing going on, I've even considered thoughts of trying to run the classic Warsaw campaign of it starting with the Pirates of Vistula.
ReplyDeleteYup, I love it too. It's still feasible to play it today. I didn't like the newer versions take on history, but coming up with a more modern backstory wouldnt be too hard. But why bother. Playing in an alternate earth past timeline is fine with me.
ReplyDeleteOn top of the more hypothetical nature of the Cold War, I think the speed of news and communication definitely makes it harder to run a Modern Warfare-type game. Nowhere is really far away enough to make up stuff and the truth is only a few clicks away.
ReplyDelete"Hey, I just saw the new Rambo movie! We should do something like that for game night!"
*reads up on the current situation in Myanmar*
"Guys, I think I'm too depressed to do the game tonight."