This article contains content for Schattenkrieg, Nevermet Press’ alternate World War II pulp setting. Our content is community driven so we want feedback from you. Please leave a comment here, write about it on your own blog, or contact the Lead Designer, Michael Brewer, if you would like to contribute directly.
Considering most games are played for entertainment and diversion, it is rare to find one that tackles sensitive or controversial topics head on. Even when a game is controversial, it is usually because the setting or the rules allow for some particular activity to occur, such as sacrificing children to power sorcery. Games rarely make a statement or teach players a point: “This is what the company/designer believes.”
One of the few games that do this very thing is Train by Brenda Brathwaite. Schattenkrieg isn’t one of those games, but it is a setting that might allow for some dark and controversial play. Nothing is stopping players from running evil Gestapo PCs.
In fact, I can foresee accusations from people living on the fringe of sanity that by even developing backgrounds, personalities, and adversaries from the Axis Powers of World War II that we could be encouraging that kind of play.
Stuff like this makes me question my approach to setting design. Should I avoid any references to the Holocaust? If it’s an alternate history, should I be so bold to rewrite that part of it? Should I even be developing the setting in the first place? Even though I’d like to avoid such accusations, I’m not going to ignore the atrocities that occurred during WWII during the development of the setting.
I don’t think I would be doing anyone a favor if I did. It certainly wouldn’t prevent controversial play and I believe I would be doing an injustice to everyone involved in World War II, especially the Jewish (and other ethnic) victims of Himmler & Hitler’s Final Solution. We should always remember what happened during WWII.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
So how do I want to confront this issue with Schattenkrieg? I could ignore that there are sensitive topics and just make a game. Or I could confront them head on and explicitly define where I and Nevermet Press stand. I like sharing my opinion, so let’s go with the latter option:
Schattenkrieg is developed with the explicit notion that the Nazis and their Final Solution were the darkest of evil and was one of the worst atrocities ever committed by mankind. The Nazis in Schattenkrieg are the BAD guys and not suitable for player characters.
If anyone has any questions or comments about how I’m confronting this sensitive topic, feel free to leave a comment below or message me privately using our contact form.
I’m with you on this. Ignoring the sensitive topics is definitely the wrong way to go. Of course a roleplaying game is meant to entertain, but it would be great if it also carries a message. And if some twisted person wants to play some SS officer, you won’t keep him from doing so, but defining where you stand is definitely important.
In my opinion people should never forget the atrocities of the Nazis and that things could repeat themselves if we are not vigilant.
.-= Stargazer´s last blog ..Gears: The only constant is change! =-.
No, certainly don’t ignore it and don’t assume that readers know much about it.
I would include a whole page / several hundreds word about the holocaust. Explaining a little bit about how it happened, scale of the tragedy for jews and non-jews and, most importantly, resources where the reader can find more information.
In general, you might want to litter the document with actual historical information so that readers can tell the difference between between fact and your fantasy setting. To give the context for the info on the holocaust you may want to highlight the 20 million + Russians who died in the conflict, the similar number of chinese and huge loss of life on the Axis side including 100,000s of German PoW who never returned from Russian prison camps.
Also, and this is a personal bugbear, I would also avoid the word ‘evil’ when talking about real world events.
Describing acts as evil, especially when 10,000s of ordinary Germans were involved glosses over the complex reasons why the holocaust happen. (See Mlgram etc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment ). It also confuses the distinction between the real world (where there is no tangible, measurable thing as evil) and your setting where evil, occult nastiness (presumably) exists.
I also don’t think you need to explicitly say the ‘Nazis are the bad guys’ or make any attempt to distance yourself from them. Let the setting and the real world history speak for itself. If you think readers wil get the wrong idea about your believes, you had probably re-write the setting.
@6d6Fireball: Adding some historical facts, perhaps in sidebars might be a good idea. The funny thing is that I never occured to me that someone couldn’t know about WW2, the Nazis and the holocaust. But that’s probably because I am German and WW2 and the Nazis are major topics in our history classes.
.-= Stargazer´s last blog ..Gears: The only constant is change! =-.
Declaring those loyal to Axis politics as NPCs is fair and in keeping with the setting. Political dissidents may be PCs without having the mess of calling specific nationalities ‘evil’.
Having a page to the Holocaust is appropriate, particularly as the Nazis use camp prisoners in Schattenkreig for experimental monsters. Chris is right to mention the other dead, his points about letting history speak for itself and contrasting the setting and real world encourages research, which is always good.
@Stargazer – WW2 is in a lot of curricula but people will let education slide. Also there are those who argue for denial of the Holocaust despite the evidence… but I’m trying to keep things polite here so I’ll leave it at that .
.-= satyre´s last blog ..scarcity, prosperity and reward =-.
All good points. I think I’ll still write up a section pertaining to who I think make the best protagonists (because a Valkyrie style campaign could be very interesting), but I will indeed keep away from placing value judgments about historical evil. I think I still feel justified about calling the Final Solution evil, but I think it avoids opening a can of worms that belongs at another type of table (not the game table).
I had already planned on Holocaust and True History sidebars, but I’m glad everyone agrees they’re a good idea.
I’d go ahead and include the bad guys (making a note where to read extensively on the real history concerning the topic) and detail all their ill deeds. But then I’d go ahead and do the same for the good guys. Don’t make it clear cut case of this nation is bad and that nation is good. Just as there were Jews fighting for the 3rd Reich, and Germans conspiring against the High Command in reality, make sure to detail how the 5th columnists (or whatever you call them) are waging a shadow campaign to seize control from the bad guys and be sure to include some faulty aspects of the Allies too. A note at the beginning indicating that the entire thing is a work of fiction but based on horrific historical facts should be enough to satisfy the forces of political correctness. Forget those that it does not pacify, because there is nothing that will pacify them.
This kind of reminds me of an idea I had a while back for a comic book themed RPG where the 3rd Reich won WWII, concealed the Holocaust, and continued on to be very successful in their efforts to engineer a “master race”.
It seems the core of the Nazis believed they were descended from gods and that interbreeding with humans cost them their superhuman abilities. That’s the reason the Nazis spent so much time and effort breeding blonde haired / blue eyed boys. They were trying to strengthen their “divine” blood line.
The idea was that they would eventually be successful and the PCs would be blonde haired / blue eyed superheroes in training (second generation superhumans) under the tutelage of the Iron Cross (the first and greatest of the first generation of 3rd Reich superheros) who would basically be a Nazi themed Superman wearing a grey suit with black boots, cape and Balkenkreuz on his chest. PCs would be themed with similar symbols of National Socialism and/or German/Prussian identity and go about doing superhero stuff while hints of their country’s dark history begin to crop up.
I thought the idea of genuine (super)heroes unknowingly (at least initially) loyal to a banner responsible for such atrocity would make a deep and dramatic RPG campaign. But the few people I’ve discussed it with are taking legal action to have me committed.