This is the second part of our exploration of Scarred for Life, the fantastic series of books about growing up in the dark decades of the seventies and eighties. Gen X-rated popular culture shaped our imaginations and informed our gaming.
Content warning for this one as we quote directly from a couple of controversial games from the 80s.
I’ve had a go at putting chapters on this one. In case they don’t pull through, here is the menu:
00:00 INTRO: The incredible ghost voices that appeared on the free flexi-disc from The Unexplained magazine.
03:53 The GAMESMASTER’s Screen. Ste Brotherstone give us insight from the forthcoming volume of Scarred for Life. Phoenix Command, Alma Mater, The Unexplained: Mysteries of Mind, Space, & Time, The Price of Freedom, and 2000ad. I also mention the wonderful Save for Half podcast who did a recent episode on East Texas University.
57:30 Library Use. Judge Blythy joins me in the Room of Role-Playing rambling to look at Unexplained magazine. I make a mistake – it didn’t last for 115 issues, it was 157!
1:33:0 Advert. Frankenstein’s RPG podcast – I appeared on a recent episode about Magic/ PSIonics and Investigation in SF role-playing games.
1:34:0 I’ll Get mi Coat. Closing time chatter about Agon, Delta Green and a brief mention of the UNIT campaign.
1:46:Outro. The Book Club is on the first Sunday of every month at 09:30 GMT for 90 minutes. Owl Bear and The Wizard’s Staff convention is scheduled to take place on the weekend 2nd September. I will be supporting an online version of the event. Watch this space for more details.
Hmm, this started out in part 1 as a fun look back.
Part 2 has turned into a standard modern woke leftist rant from the echo chamber.
Of course, according to the modern leftist, no one should ever be offended by anything in these “much more enlightened times”. In fact we should suppress and warn others of things that we don’t like or might make someone feel uncomfortable. We should avoid any subjects that are and look down on people who are interested in these kinds of games that aren’t “morally acceptable”.
It’s interesting that the leftists in the counter culture of the past were libertarians who loved freedom of expression, thought and opinion, yet today they have a morally superior tone to everything they say. I detest that. I would never tell others what games they are allowed to like yet leftists seem to think they can.
Of course anyone that took Freedom Fighters or any of those military games that had the Commies as the bad guys seriously back in the day were just “extreme right wing rednecks” according to your guest.
No, Communism in the Soviet Union was actually a bad thing, just ask half of Europe. Reagan famously said “How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
FYI not all people who are anti-communist, are “rednecks” or extreme right-wingers.
I hope that it didn’t come across as a rant and certainly not an attempt to say what people should or shouldn’t say. Sure, it’s a mocking of sensibilities that have changed, but that’s part of the schtick, isn’t it?
I should have provided some more context for the letters page from White Dwarf. There was outrage about the tone of The Price of Freedom as people were taking it at face value. As Ste says, it’s meant to be a satire with many different political stereotypes. The discussion tried to reflect this general misunderstanding.
Perhaps I’ll do a blog post featuring the letters I’m referring to as additional supporting material.
I don’t want to be in an echo chamber. I try hard to understand and not condemn. I hope the podcast reflects that attitude generally.
Thanks for your response Dirk and not censoring my comment. I really appreciate that. It seems if I ever have an opinion on the internet these days it’s not deemed acceptable and I am banned, censored or deleted.
Sorry, Freedom Fighters is of course FGU’s game in which you fight Commies and/or aliens. Okay didn’t realise that about the WD letters page on the Price of Freedom (WEG). Yes, controversial to those not familiar with how America was at that time. I lived in Virginia ’82 to ’85 and everyone took the communist nuclear and invasion threat seriously. Kids would train on rifles at an early age and wear camo daily to elementary school. The most popular toy was GI Joe. After the humiliation of Vietnam America was back and “kicking Commie ass” in places like Grenada. Reagan was talking tough and there was real patriotism going on.
Yes it looks as though the author of PoF was a leftist, but the assumption by Ste that all genuine fans of the game, who resonated with the theme were “rednecks” is poor. I’m not a “redneck”, or ie a white racist stereotype, but I would actually love to play the game if I could afford the resell prices. I am a conservative and I don’t like Communism.
Dirk, I assume you are probably a leftist of the old school? I remember your comments on strikers and unionists, and possibly coal miners? Sorry I’m not too familiar with the UK being down in Australia. No hate at all, you are who you are and believe what you believe. You did not come across as being part of an echo chamber in the discussion at all, it was more your guest. You I think were more being congenial.
All the best.