# Fortress America: When Gaming and Politics Collide



## Morrus (Dec 19, 2011)

This news item is more related to board games than it is to RPGs, but it raises a general gaming point worth discussing. What happens when gaming and politics collide?

Fantasy Flight Games is creating a new edition of Fortress America, a game originally published in 1986 which pits America against three other nations. It was originally slated to have the following blurb text:

_"It is the early 21st century. Having suffered a series of devastating terrorist attacks, the U.S. wields a newly developed and horrifyingly destructive weapon technology with desperate fury, lashing out mercilessly at any government suspected of harboring its hidden enemies. Entire nations are erased from the map. The world is stunned by the brutal display. Facing few options, an unlikely coalition of nations joins forces to attempt one final plan: the invasion of America."_

It appears that many of the company's fans found that text to be inflammatory, and FFG apologised:

Our initial announcement of Fortress America included flavor text that was interpreted by readers (quite justifiably) as politically inflammatory. That text has been since altered to correctly reflect our game's backstory. Our marketing department misread certain key thematic elements of the game, and took unauthorized dramatic liberties with the text. We apologize for any offense this may have caused.

And the new blurb text was released; it reads as follows:

_In the 21st century, the United States unveiled a military defense system that completely changed global politics. Through a series of satellites and powerful lasers, the U.S. gained a flawless defense against intercontinental missile attacks. The rest of the world feared that this defensive network might be used to launch an attack, and they united to demand that the U.S. dismantle it. A lengthy diplomatic stalemate gripped the globe. With the world at a crossroads, coalitions of nations were formed unlike any that had ever existed before. A plan was devised to destroy this perceived technological threat through military action. It involved attacking from three directions at once, for the nations of the world knew that every army dreads fighting a war on two fronts... and America was about to face three._

Thanks to *Tabloid Believer* over at Circvs Maximvs.

IMPORTANT NOTE: EN World usually has a rule against discussion of religion or politics. We're going to see - _in this one thread only_ - if we can relax the rule a little in specifically indicated news threads. We'll be keeping a close eye on this thread. You may discuss politics politely (still no religion) BUT you MAY NOT insult another member or nation. Be nice, and we _might_ just do something like this again. Try to discuss it in terms of political concepts and how they relate to gaming, NOT what you think of any specific country.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 19, 2011)

I think blaming the marketing department was kind of weak. If a company is going to isse an statement like that it shouldn't feel like they are trying to shift blame to a small part of the organization. 

Any product like this is going to run the risk of a backlash. Nothing wrong with taking a risk on that front. I've been there before. You just have to choose your words carefully and trust that your audience will know where you are coming from.


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## Morrus (Dec 19, 2011)

I think it's clear that FFG should use the text that will be more profitable for them. If the latter will result in more sales than the former, then so be it.

However, I am curious about negative reaction to something that's clearly fiction.  Nobody's going to mistake a board game for a historical text book, and plenty of games change history in massive ways.  What's wrong with changing the future in massive ways, too?  

I don't see it as commentary on anything - just exciting fluff text for a board game.


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## Reynard (Dec 19, 2011)

Like all art forms, games cannot help but comment on the times and context in which they are created. It is usual for this commentary to be both subtle and unintentional -- the game itself is an artifact of its time and , like a novel or film, one can mine it for insight into that context. But like other artforms, cultural commentary can be intentional or even "the point" of the work. Whether this works in any given piece of work or game certainly depends on a lot of factors, but it's the attempt that counts in this context.

What we are seeing in this particular example is the fairly common "market censorship" at work. No one is trying to intentionally muzzle FFG, but a visceral reaction from the market -- the actual people that might be likely to buy the game -- causes a "course correction" in development. It is like the removal of the Twin towers from the first Spiderman movie posters, and wholly *unlike* the recent Lowes debacle centered around the TV reality show "All American Muslim" in that the latter was the result of intentional efforts of a small but vocal group, while the former was more a broad cultural whince.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 19, 2011)

Morrus said:


> I think it's clear that FFG should use the text that will be more profitable for them. If the latter will result in more sales than the former, then so be it.
> 
> However, I am curious about negative reaction to something that's clearly fiction.  Nobody's going to mistake a board game for a historical text book, and plenty of games change history in massive ways.  What's wrong with changing the future in massive ways, too?
> 
> I don't see it as commentary on anything - just exciting fluff text for a board game.




I think the first text reads like a commentary on recent US foreign policy. That isn't going to bother everyone but it will trouble some customers. My experience with board and wargamers is they are a diverse group politically so it is probably not a wise decision to put something out there that appears to be taking one side of an issue (unless you targeting a specific political demogrsphic).


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## RTGoodman (Dec 19, 2011)

I have not played the original Fortress America game, but it seems like the revised flavor text here matches that description much more closely. HOWEVER, I think the original flavor text they had for this new version, all politics aside, sounds MUCH more interesting. 

It IS possible to play historical games (or alternate history games) and keep the politics there as an integral feature. Heck, there's even a political LARP out there called NSDM that they run at a lot of the major conventions (and military service academies) that's nothing BUT politics, either in the modern world or during the Cold War. I know as a society in general we have this knee-jerk reaction to get upset and argue about politics, but I think gamers should (and usually DO) have the self-restraint to realize it's just a game.


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## Razuur (Dec 19, 2011)

Yeah, this is one of those things like the Red dawn remake.  Afraid of angering the Chinese, they change the invaders to... North Korea.  Because North Korea could mount an invasion of America.  Uh huh.  Very believable and exciting!

Or Persians being angry at 300.  one of my best friends is persian, and she loved it.  She thought it was great FANTASY.  

Games, movies, etc - these things are fantasy.  Pretend.  

And then when creators back pedal it just tends to dilute their product.  To me, the first descript sounded more "exciting" than the second to me.  The world gangs up on us because we have the perfect defense?  Okay...  So America becomes a bad guy in a game.  Wouldn't be the first time.

People are going to play a game because it is fun.  

This reminds me of another thread out in the webiverse about a game product that focuses on gypsies, and how someobody who comes from a real world gypsy background was offended that there were any negative stereotypes in the product.  It is a game, and these are mythic archetypes put together to create a unique gaming experience.  My wife is from a gypsy background, and she loves anything related to it.  it would like me being offended at the telling of Irish and their whiskey jokes.  I am Irish and the first ot make those jokes!\

It is just a game folks, relax!  Have fun!  Otherwsie, vote with your pocketbook!


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## Shayuri (Dec 19, 2011)

In 1986, that original text was probably just fine. People read it and laughed because it was so farfetched. America overreacting because of terrorism? How CAMP!

By 2011? Yeah, hits a bit closer to home. Regardless of how you percieve subjects like terrorism and military doctrines and so on, reading something like that threatens to make the game a politically polarizing thing rather than an entertaining past-time. Probably a bad thing. You and your opposite-political-spectrum-friends can argue about who-bombed-who later. Right now you just want to PLAY.

In that sense, changing the text is wise. It can even be seen as updating it and/or modernizing it, rather than self-censorship.

The question of why people find a fictional game background offensive though...well, my sense is that people never really believe that fiction is JUST fiction. We always believe that there's a reason something was put into print. Concepts like 'terrorism' and 'America acting horribly' and 'the world uniting against America' weren't chosen at random, after all. They were chosen to create a specific narrative. That narrative can make a good background for a game, but LOTS of narratives can claim that.

So what makes people mad isn't the fiction itself, exactly. It's the choices that the designer/author made about how to create and present the fiction. They'll ask, "Did America HAVE to be the badguy, or did you just WANT it to be? And if so, why?!" And so on. They protest the extent to which the fiction represents a _point of view_ that is being promoted.

I guess.

I mean, speaking as someone who's not offended, but has heard offended people speaking...that's the impression I get.


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## Morrus (Dec 19, 2011)

So does anyone have any opinion on which version sounds more fun?

The first text sounds more exciting to me than the second.  The second one sounds kinda bland.


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## ChristianLindke (Dec 19, 2011)

You can read the original flavor text, which falls somewhere between the two new ones, at the Hasbro website.

What amazes me is how topical all of the descriptions seem, including the one that is almost 20 years old.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 19, 2011)

The first one, I agree, definitely sounds like the marketing department was a little more, ahem, _personally invested_ in that description. That said, an invasion of the United States on three fronts is about as fanciful as Sauron's forces attacking. The folks objecting should chill.


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## jaerdaph (Dec 19, 2011)

I like the first one, but only because it pissed someone somewhere off and got their panties in a bunch.


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## Umbran (Dec 19, 2011)

Morrus said:


> I don't see it as commentary on anything - just exciting fluff text for a board game.




The point of using the real world as a setting is to use what the players already know as a point to grip them, and so you can assume certain basic points without having to spend a lot of time explicating them.  But then, your fluff needs to be plausible in the context of the real world - otherwise, you're not just failing to make use of your assumptions, but actively working against them.

It then follows that FFG felt that the fluff text was plausible, that casting the USA as the villain of the piece (with "brutal displays", "lashing out mercilessly" and taking part in destruction of whole nations that sounds suspiciously like genocide) was believable.  

That this would be a tender spot in many people's minds should come as a surprise to nobody.


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## Morrus (Dec 19, 2011)

Umbran said:


> The point of using the real world as a setting is to use what the players already know as a point to grip them, and so you can assume certain basic points without having to spend a lot of time explicating them.  But then, your fluff needs to be plausible in the context of the real world - otherwise, you're not just failing to make use of your assumptions, but actively working against them.
> 
> It then follows that FFG felt that the fluff text was plausible, that casting the USA as the villain of the piece (with "brutal displays", "lashing out mercilessly" and taking part in destruction of whole nations that sounds suspiciously like genocide) was believable.
> 
> That this would be a tender spot in many people's minds should come as a surprise to nobody.




But by that logic, _Escape from New York_ is plausible.

Fiction doesn't have to be plausible.  There's plenty of implausible fiction set in the real world.  I don't find either of the above scenarios plausible.


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## Mark CMG (Dec 19, 2011)

Here's what Invasion America (a forerunner to Fortress America) put out by SPI in 1976 (my classmates bought me a copy that year as a gift when I was in the hospital), put in their advertising -


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## TerraDave (Dec 19, 2011)

First text better, and actually more current.

The idea of a missile defense system actually provoking an attack is very 80s and evocative of star wars (not the movie, the reagan). That is, until they realized that actually making a system like that was never going to happen and they are still trying to come up with one to stop a single missile from Iran or North Korea (and they better get on it with the later). 

(and let the politicking begin).


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## Kaodi (Dec 19, 2011)

You could always go for Option C: They both suck. 

But from a certain point of view, I think the first one has a similar problem to the upcoming movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged (blech) : namely, there is nothing futuristic about horrifying weapons of mass destruction. They are called nuclear bombs, and they have been around for a long time. Similarly, there is nothing particular novel or futuristic about a train. So, given that, it may be that the first version just sucks, outside of the geopolitical flavouring.


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## Stumblewyk (Dec 19, 2011)

The first text sounds *FAR* more interesting, and far more exciting.  But I guess I'm wondering just who is being offended by it?  Even if you want to say it's inspired by recent U.S. international policy, it's still brilliantly far-fetched and an obvious hyperbole.  If your skin is so thin that someone satirizing U.S. foreign policy by taking it to it's most ridiculous extreme offends you, then I think you need to step back and take a few deep breaths.

It's a game, it contains a valid kernel of international criticism of U.S. policy, and it sounds cool as all get out.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 19, 2011)

Morrus said:


> So does anyone have any opinion on which version sounds more fun?
> 
> The first text sounds more exciting to me than the second. The second one sounds kinda bland.




I agree with others that the second was kind of bland. Either approach would have worked but in both cases I think being over-the-top is key. Number two doesn't feel larger than life.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Dec 19, 2011)

The first one sounds like the summary of a series of news headlines from an independent point of view, the second one reads like a spin-doctored press release from the White House, Pentagon, or a modern corporate news source.

Pretty much what happened.


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## Umbran (Dec 19, 2011)

Morrus said:


> But by that logic, _Escape from New York_ is plausible.




Perhaps I wasn't using the right word, but another isn't popping into my mind.

What I mean is that the real issue isn't about how plausible the scenario is, but in how people *feel* about that plausibility, and about what they think you're trying to say in pointing it out.

_Escape from New York_ and _Demolition Man_ (to have an example from the 1990s as well), were both logical extensions of things folks were thinking about at the times they were made.  They were sort of _reductio ad absurdum_ arguments against certain trends in society - you could see the logic, but they weren't too terribly realistic pictures of how things would really turn out.  Distant enough to be safe, but plausible enough to engender thought.

But we just removed the last combat troops from Iraq within the past few days.  We are not talking about something that's all that distant.  I'd find it surprising indeed that anyone up enough on current events to write that copy wouldn't expect it to poke people in sore spots.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 19, 2011)

Yeah, I'd say the first text sounds better, more engaging. The second text reads like they just got slammed and decided they had to write the most neutral prose they could in order to avoid further controversy. I would have sent it back to marketing and said, "You've now replaced inflammatory with boring. Fix it."


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## Squire James (Dec 20, 2011)

It does touch a little bit of a nerve, because though I supported the effort I thought Iraq suffered from a lot of "mission creep" that didn't really have to be there.  Of course, the news media was around to make every success look like it didn't matter (or wasn't a success at all), and every failure catastrophic... the word I hear from actual military people who were there is much different from what I hear from the media.

What I dispute is that the U.S. would do any such thing (whoever's in charge).  It's like a company trip where all the software engineers ride a plane to their party site, and the pilot announces the plane is using software created by that company.  Most of the passengers leave in a panic, except one guy sits calmly in his seat.  The pilot chuckles and asks that last guy why he didn't leave with the others.  He replies, "This plane isn't going to crash... in fact it isn't going anywhere!"  I feel basically the same about the U.S.


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## GreyLord (Dec 20, 2011)

I'll be honest, I didn't like the original blurb that FFG put out.

I disliked even more those who sought to try to say the US was doing exactly what the blurb stated and were also Americans (As far as I know, the US hasn't actually eradicated any nation entirely off the map, nor has it any plans to...UNLESS those same people claiming that America will do that and are Americans would ALLOW their own nation to do it...in which case...they should blame themselves).

What about the blurb that disturbed me was that this blurb went a complete 180 degrees from the original game Fortress America (and perhaps Invasion America).

America wasn't mindlessly lashing out, and it wasn't eradicating nations at will with it's defensive lasers.

It was instead wrapped around the idea as brought in by movies such as Red Dawn, that of a Democracy competing with the other super power at the time, that of Communisim (or in the above blurb...socialism).

So what happens when the world has turned to ideas different from the Democracy of the US, and invades the US...effectively turning the US into a fortress?

In the original new blurb it didn't seem so much as Fortress America...as Fortress World.  If the US had that power to simply eradicate nations off the face of the earth...it shouldn't be nations attacking the US...it should be...the US get's a turn to eradicate some nation off the world map per turn...if that's what they are really fighting against.  And yes, if the US had that type of offensive power to simply fire defense lasers and wipe a nation off the map...and other nations attacked it into what would appear to be a losing war...I would imagine they'd use it as the apocolypse scenario.

But this isn't a game about the US eradicating the world...at least the original wasn't...and the new game isn't.  The original wasn't about the US trying to impose itself on the world, or the US trying to hunt down the communists.  It was about the US defending itself on three fronts.

The original was more about the conflict of political ideology of Socialism/communism vs. that of a Democratic Republic...or any Democracy/republic.

I'd say terrorists are NOT a super power as akin to the USSR of the 80s.  Maybe they could do something with the Chinese block of the East, with the Socialistic block composed of some of the ideas of South America...as per the game from the 80s.  The problem is that there is no longer any real big Communist/Socialist scary guy to the East.  I suppose they may take up that some of the more volatile nations in the Middle East and Africa get riled up with a socialistic complaint and unite to conquer the area and then challenge the US...but that's not what they apparantly did.

Instead of a challenge of political opposites in the same vein...it was more of putting it as if the US was destroying nations at will to hunt for terrorists...so in return the nations join the terrorists against the US????

First, last I checked the US was joined by many others in it's hunt for terrorists.

Second, most nations have problems with those terrorists and in many ways joined the US in joint operations.

Third, if the US did something that extreme to wipe others out without limit, other nations would first unite in the Middle East to take out Israel (fortress Israel?), perhaps some would wipe out the Kurds, and then others would wipe out a few of the nations in Europe...without US help.

It just doesn't seem to be in the same spirit as the original game to me.

Overall...I didn't like the original premise, it seemed completely OPPOSITE of the original...and I think that put me off on it, but it didn't mean I wouldn't buy the game.  Other items actually were of more interest to me in what they changed from the original.  The story is just so much filler to give some sort of plausible background and not actually important to the game play overall I'd imagine (which is still the three front war against the US).

What shocked me though was how many Americans were so eager to use it as a pad to voice their own low opinions of themselves (afterall, as Americans they have a say in what their government does and how it acts...if they don't like it...GET INVOLVED and change it!!!!  If one doesn't in the US...they only have themselves to blame).

In fact that disturbs me FAR more than anything dealing with the game itself.  That people would put their own nations down can be understandable in some instances, but when it's a nation where THEY CHOOSE THE LEADERS, THEY VOTE ON THE ISSUES, AND THEY DECIDE THEIR NATIONS FATE...and then they complain about their own nation...it only makes me feel as if they hate themselves for some reason...and all of those around them.

Either that or they don't recognize the power they have with the ability to vote, to rally people to their cause, to assemble (though I admit, with some of the ways they've been treating the Occupy movement recently...I suppose that ability to assemble has been called into question a little bit) and call for action, and other actions in the US's democracy to make them feel so powerless as if they don't matter.

The first makes me angry, upset, and a little nervous that someone is so self loathing as to hate themselves and me.  The latter makes me sad that there are those who don't realize the power they have in their own hands to make change and a difference.

I don't see FFG as backing down or wimping out.  I think they also realize that such text was seriously able to inflame some emotions...and being in the US...it wouldn't be a good idea to inflame such emotions anymore than to be located in China and try to create a game that said the Chinese govt. was a bad entity doing bad things (well...maybe a better idea in the US than china...in the US they won't jail you and then flail you alive with bamboo sticks until your skin falls off and you bleed in a slow painful torture...but don't die type of way).

I think it was more of one FFG individual got the request to put something up for a news article, wrote it up and posted it but didn't run it through anyone to see if it was a good article or not.  Later, when run through the wickets it was seen that it was worded differently than how the leadership actually intended it to be worded.

Edit: 



Nemesis Destiny said:


> The first one sounds like the summary of a series of news headlines from an independent point of view, the second one reads like a spin-doctored press release from the White House, Pentagon, or a modern corporate news source.
> 
> Pretty much what happened.




To tell the truth that's the other thing that disturbed me about the original blurb.  It sounded more like someone trying to shove their political opinions down my throat more than something to interest me in a game.  I don't care what you may put out for a game...but try to shove your political opinions down my throat on a game that really didn't support those political opinions in the original...and expect me to really pay for such an opinion...sorry...I can read a bunch of those for free without buying a game in the first place.

However...as I already stated, that was hardly any reason NOT to buy the game...I just didn't like the way they set it up via that particular blurb...and those blurbs from FFG aren't typically the exact descriptions they give on the box anyways.

I didn't really like the theme of Chaos in the Old world (in fact I find the theme rather disturbing) and yet I bought and played that game as well...thought it pretty good even as far as gameplay goes.

Anyways, I've been too longwinded on a topic that is perhaps too political for me.


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## TheAuldGrump (Dec 20, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> The first one, I agree, definitely sounds like the marketing department was a little more, ahem, _personally invested_ in that description. That said, an invasion of the United States on three fronts is about as fanciful as Sauron's forces attacking. The folks objecting should chill.



Hey! I happen to _be_ a Mordor-American, and I find that offensive!

Had Gandalf not broken several treaties by sending infiltration experts - eugenically selected for their small size, against treaty! - into the sovereign territories of Mordor then you would all be licking Mordor boot by now! 

The Auld Grump, in the land of Mordor, where the shadows stretch the truth, just a little bit.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 20, 2011)

See, now although I differ in some minor ways with what GreyLord has written, I guess I'm hung up on the fact that this is, aside from any incipient political critique it contains, a science fiction premise. One needn't argue that the U.S. is doing or is preparing to do what the game describes. One simply has to create a plausible narrative in which it could happen.

So on the one hand, it's odd to claim that America is doing anything like what this game describes, but it's also odd to suggest that the U.S. wouldn't do these things. In the SF universe that the game presupposes, the U.S. apparently has. So, I'm going to hold fast to the "it's just a story" approach to premises like this, and worry about the underlying criticism of U.S. policy that it entails later.


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## Dire Bare (Dec 20, 2011)

Razuur said:


> This reminds me of another thread out in the webiverse about a game product that focuses on gypsies, and how someobody who comes from a real world gypsy background was offended that there were any negative stereotypes in the product.  It is a game, and these are mythic archetypes put together to create a unique gaming experience.  My wife is from a gypsy background, and she loves anything related to it.  it would like me being offended at the telling of Irish and their whiskey jokes.  I am Irish and the first ot make those jokes!




I get what your saying, but while both the Irish and the Gypsies (Roma) suffered discrimination in the past, the Gypsies STILL suffer a lot of discrimination in Europe, so they naturally (and quite fairly) are a bit more sensitive than the Irish.


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## Alzrius (Dec 20, 2011)

Stumblewyk said:


> The first text sounds *FAR* more interesting, and far more exciting.  But I guess I'm wondering just who is being offended by it?  Even if you want to say it's inspired by recent U.S. international policy, it's still brilliantly far-fetched and an obvious hyperbole.  If your skin is so thin that someone satirizing U.S. foreign policy by taking it to it's most ridiculous extreme offends you, then I think you need to step back and take a few deep breaths.




That about sums it up for me.

Quite frankly, I don't like it whenever anybody starts saying that something is so offensive to their values that it has no right to exist (as it currently exists, that is; this includes demanding something be changed).

It's fine to have an opinion (ideally, an informed one), but to say that your opinion is so sacrosanct that anything which offends it is unfit to *be* means that you're saying that your opinion is somehow more valid than that of the creator of whatever it is of which you disapprove. That's not just arrogant, but it's also when we start to move into true intolerance.

I've disliked a lot of America's foreign policy over the years, but fiction is fiction even if it has a commentary on contemporary politics. There are commentaries all over the internet, in the newspapers, on television; why should some people feel that a game, of all things, isn't entitled to express a sentiment based on the people who wrote it? If you don't like it, then just don't read/buy/play it!

It's this attitude of "This upsets me - change it!" which I think threatens actual liberty far more than any particular message that people want to change.


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## Dire Bare (Dec 20, 2011)

Squire James said:


> What I dispute is that the U.S. would do any such thing (whoever's in charge).






GreyLord said:


> I'll be honest, I didn't like the original blurb that FFG put out.  _<<snip>>_




As we're allowed to get political . . . .

The idea that America would never do such a thing as start lazering other countries off the map is a part of one of the negative aspects of American culture.  Our arrogance.  We're the best, we have the moral high ground, we're _the good guys_ . . .  Our country has done some pretty terrible things in the past, we're doing some not so great things to others right now, and it isn't beyond reason that we might become a country that does terrible things in the future.  We are, like the other nations of the world, a nation of human beings, beautiful and flawed.

The new "Fortress America" doesn't posit a near-future world that is a natural progression of our current path as a nation, and doesn't pretend to.  However, it does posit a near-future world that could potentially come to be if certain aspects of our existing culture take prominence and we make the wrong choices.  I don't find the scenario far-fetched at all . . . well, maybe the country-erasing megaweapon part, but that's the macguffin of the story.

FFG has turned a game capitalizing on the us-vs-them, democracy-vs-communism memes that were so prevalent in the 80s (not that they've gone away) to a dystopian warning against the worst elements of American culture.  Just like a good dystopian novel, the story serves as a warning to not take this path . . . it isn't an American-bashing story at all.  I find it fascinating and very bold of FFG to take the original premise which was a "rah-rah America!" premise to an "watch out America, we tread on dangerous ground" premise.

Of course, none of this should affect the gameplay!!!  Three mega-countries invading the US on three fronts!  With hover-tanks!  Woo-boy!  I used to own the original and found the game unbalanced, but I loved it anyway for those nifty primary-colored hover tanks.

Note, my opinions are no doubt colored by my political and philosophical leanings . . .

HOVERTANKS!!!


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 20, 2011)

I find the idea of hovertanks offensive.

EDIT: Dammnit Gronin, I can't give XP for XP!


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## tuxgeo (Dec 20, 2011)

Morrus said:


> Fantasy Flight Games is creating a new edition of Fortress America, a game originally published in 1986 which pits America against three other nations. It was originally slated to have the following blurb text:
> 
> _"It is the early 21st century. Having suffered a series of devastating terrorist attacks, the U.S. wields a newly developed and horrifyingly destructive weapon technology with desperate fury, lashing out mercilessly at any government suspected of harboring its hidden enemies. Entire nations are erased from the map. The world is stunned by the brutal display. . . .
> _. . .
> ...




Reminds me of Systemic Shock by Dean Ing: War against the Far East.

Also reminds me of Reagan's SDI ("Strategic Defense Initiative"): advanced technology.  

I agree that the first example of text for the new release is more evocative.

_Edit: I find the idea of hovertanks preposterous._


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## Alzrius (Dec 20, 2011)

Dire Bare said:


> The idea that America would never do such a thing as start lazering other countries off the map is a part of one of the negative aspects of American culture.  Our arrogance.  We're the best, we have the moral high ground, we're _the good guys_ . . .




This reminds me of an op-ed I read on CNN a little while ago, stating that although most Americans think that their country is exceptional, there's a sharp divide between the political right and left over just what it is that makes America exceptional.

It's an interesting piece, and seems to underscore the reason why some people were offended by the flavor text for this game.


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## Andalusian (Dec 20, 2011)

I hate the original version of the FFG blurb text because, as GreyLord pointed out, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You've got an America that's developed some terrifying new weapon capable of wiping out whole nations, but when the world decides to team up and neutralize America, for some reason America doesn't just use their super weapon to obliterate its enemies. Where's the logic in that?

The second version doesn't make much sense either. It's hard to imagine everyone deciding to attack America over a missile defense system. Still, I can ignore the rubbish premise as long as the game is fun in actual play. 

I actually owned the original version back in the day, but only played it a couple of times because it took too long to finish (me being only about 12 at the time). I wonder what I'd think if I tried it now. I'll have to give this new version a look.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 20, 2011)

Maybe the nature of he weapon is explained in the rules.


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## frankthedm (Dec 20, 2011)

I'm having trouble believing the first blurb wasn't made intentionally to be controversial. FFG is not stupid and wouldn't put a blurb like out that unvetted. They damn well wanted to stir the pot.


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## Wiseblood (Dec 20, 2011)

I want to be The United States of America.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Dec 20, 2011)

Remus Lupin said:


> I find the idea of hovertanks offensive.



Ground-based vehicles are oppressive!


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## I'm A Banana (Dec 20, 2011)

Lots of smart posts, here.

An offended reaction to the original text sort of puts me in mind to the offended reactionsof people to the Onion story about the Abortionplex. 

There are people who are prepared to be offended by anything. 

I think Fred Clark over at Slacktivist has some really good points about this kind of manufactured outrage (warning: lefty fundamentalist christian blog links!). This is the central idea, but I think the thing's well worth reading: 



			
				Fred Clark said:
			
		

> I have a theory that the central motivation for much of American politics is a manufactured indignation.
> 
> This indignation is stoked by the habitual taking of offense, whether or not such offense is actually there to be taken. The cultivation of such offendedness serves two emotional needs: 1) It’s exciting for those whose lives are otherwise kind of dull and pointless-seeming, and 2) It allows the people taking offense to pretend that they are better than those others whose behavior, imagined behavior, or very existence is cited as the pretext for the offense.




So, yeah, not so much actually offensive as just a convenient target for the manufactured outrage of American politics. 

It's probably smart to change the blurb, as all it would take is some media charlatan or small, influential group to decide this was the rally point dou jour and really hit FFG harder than it probably deserves, but the fact that it is necessary to change the blurb makes me a sad panda.


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## Kaodi (Dec 20, 2011)

I encourage any Americans who think that the ordinary people would prevent the government from doing this sort of thing to take a very close look at what the people seem to be about to allow their government to do _right now_. Fortress America is a game, Battlefield America  is real life (piece is by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern). 

It may even be the case that it would never do that sort of thing. But the assumption that what is stopping it is the people of America is naive in the extreme, given current circumstances.


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## Leatherhead (Dec 20, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> The first one sounds like the summary of a series of news headlines from an independent point of view, the second one reads like a spin-doctored press release from the White House, Pentagon, or a modern corporate news source.
> 
> Pretty much what happened.



Independent point of view?
To me it sounds more like the plot from a North Korean cartoon.

Oh, for those who don't know:
This is the cartoon I was referencing.
(The U.S. are the evil looking wolves with the big laser airships)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNR4kR1uC-w]North Korea Animation 5-1 - YouTube[/ame]

Come to think of it, the cartoon would make a better game synopsis.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Dec 20, 2011)

Leatherhead said:


> Independent point of view?
> To me it sounds more like the plot from a North Korean cartoon.



Of course it does - you're (presumably, based on your location) an American citizen. That's why I said "independent" - America and her foreign policy looks a lot different from an outside perspective.


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## Charles Dunwoody (Dec 20, 2011)

I think the first text is too soon. I game with a friend whose team leader was killed in Iraq just last year. Throwing words around like horrifying, fury, mercilessly, and brutal creates a certain picture of the U.S. 

The real point is that the U.S. military would be the ones that have to perform the violent acts described in the first blurb. The idea of doing something so terrible so violates what American soldiers, Marines, airman, sailors, and Coast Guard believe that we can't wrap our minds around it. I don't care what the President or some general says, when I was active military I would take a court martial and be shot before carrying out orders like those described in the first blurb. I was taught that in boot camp; you don't obey an unlawful order.

Hell, my wife's grandpa was just honored for serving in WW II (her other grandpa served as well, E-1 to E-7 in four years, but he has passed away). Her uncle and both my uncles served in Vietnam Nam. Both sides of our families are filled with veterans who stuck our necks out not on American soil but overseas to protect both U.S. interests and those of nations whose freedom was under attack (France, Great Britain, China, and Kuwait to name a few).

The text came too soon. There are still U.S. military personal fighting in Afghanistan. The bodies of our buddies who died in Iraq are barely cold yet. Give us gamers who happen to also be veterans a few months to grieve and for those just returning from Iraq time to readjust to being home before throwing the U.S. under the bus. 

Or not. I fought so that FFG has the right to make games with whatever the hell blurb they want on it (long as it doesn't break the law, which it doesn't). If they want to turn the U.S. into the bad guys and ignore the many times we've fought for democracy (Europe, Asia, and Africa in two world wars) and the underdog (Kuwait in the first Gulf War for example) they've been given that right to do so. I don't think the first blurb makes sense, but others do so maybe it works. Of course, FFG changed it so maybe they see veterans point of view after all.

I don't have to like the first blurb though or the thought that went into dreaming it up. And I have the right to voice my disgust. I've more than earned that right as well. If I can't have the opinion that the U.S. is a nation to be proud of, I suppose ENWorld shouldn't have opened this thread up at all.


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## Leatherhead (Dec 20, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> Of course it does - you're (presumably, based on your location) an American citizen. That's why I said "independent" - America and her foreign policy looks a lot different from an outside perspective.




I was trying to make a joke there, you see.

Also that bit about perspective reminds me: Independent isn't the same thing as unbiased. The US can be a downright intimidating place if you aren't "part of the fold."

Of course, I don't believe there is such a thing as unbiased, so I don't know what point I am trying to make here.


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## Orius (Dec 20, 2011)

frankthedm said:


> I'm having trouble believing the first blurb wasn't made intentionally to be controversial. FFG is not stupid and wouldn't put a blurb like out that unvetted. They damn well wanted to stir the pot.




I have to wonder the same thing, though the original blurb is the sort of thing that would initially annoy me.  But looking at the initial statement more deeply, it's somewhat ludicrous.  A devasting terrorist attack that would lead the the US to lash out to that degree would have to be pretty bad, just compare to the 9/11 attacks.  A terrorist group that would be able hit America that hard would likely be seen as an even bigger threat than anything America does.


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## S'mon (Dec 20, 2011)

The premise seems silly.  Having thousands of nukes and by far the biggest military on Earth already makes you immune to invasion.  Having an effective SDI just makes you even _more_ immune to invasion.

For an 'invade America' scenario to work, you first need to (1) negate everybody's nukes through widely available, flawless SDI.  Then you need to (2) degrade the US military and build up the aggressor nations' militaries so that the US is conventionally weaker than its enemies.

I can imagine (2) fairly easy; the USSR went from having the most powerful land forces on Earth ca 1975 (although the US had superior air & sea forces), to being a basket case ca 1995.  (1) really requires magitech, though.

If I was going to do a fortress America game, I'd probably set it before the development of nuclear weapons.  Eg in the early 1940s Nazi Germany defeats France and Britain, remains allied with the USSR, and joins with Imperial Japan to invade the USA.  That's really the last time I can see an invade-America scenario being remotely plausible.


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## S'mon (Dec 20, 2011)

Morrus said:


> However, I am curious about negative reaction to something that's clearly fiction.  Nobody's going to mistake a board game for a historical text book, and plenty of games change history in massive ways.  What's wrong with changing the future in massive ways, too?




The US attacked Iraq in 2003.  This was not popular in certain quarters.  Talking about the US attacking other countries in a future scenario is too close to home to avoid controversy.


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## S'mon (Dec 20, 2011)

ChristianLindke said:


> You can read the original flavor text, which falls somewhere between the two new ones, at the Hasbro website.
> 
> What amazes me is how topical all of the descriptions seem, including the one that is almost 20 years old.




I notice that the original text makes no mention of the American nuclear weapons arsenal.  They could have at least stuck in a line about the US unilaterally nuclear disarming or something.


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## S'mon (Dec 20, 2011)

GreyLord;5754223  That people would put their own nations down can be understandable in some instances said:
			
		

> I'd say that was last the case in Athens, 5th century BC.


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## varden (Dec 20, 2011)

Umbran said:


> ...casting the USA as the villain of the piece (with "brutal displays", "lashing out mercilessly" and taking part in destruction of whole nations that sounds suspiciously like genocide)... That this would be a tender spot in many people's minds should come as a surprise to nobody.




Yeah, I'm a little offended by the US being cast as the bad guy and I wouldn't buy the game just for that reason. 

I'm an RPGer anyway, and I've found these types of game to be pretty dull, and it seems like this doesn't really have anything to do with the game play but it still bothers me and I wouldn't support FFG.


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## saskganesh (Dec 20, 2011)

I've played the '86 version, back when it came out. It was OK.

Kudos to the poster that mentioned the SPI boardgame. SPI later created "balance" by issuing an-everyone-versus-the-USSR game, Objective Moscow.

My impression is that both SPI titles were supposed to be more beer and pretzels sci-fi-lite wargames, and not sincere simulationist "studies" such as the Next War, Fulda Gap, NATO Division Commander, South Africa and so on. 

In the 70's SPI also had the balls to publish games based on contemporary conflicts: Year of the Rat, Sinai, Search and Destroy etc. These were also presented more soberly. 

SPI also had a Quebec Seperation game. That created some controversy here in Canada, but it probably didn't mean more than a few thousand units were sold.

I digress. Anyway, if the FFG game marketing copy is seen as offensive or over-the-top, I think people are missing the tone.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Dec 20, 2011)

S'mon said:


> The premise seems silly.  Having thousands of nukes and by far the biggest military on Earth already makes you immune to invasion.  Having an effective SDI just makes you even _more_ immune to invasion.



There's this country over in Asia, perhaps you've heard of them - China? Yeah. Poised to overtake the US economically, and they've been building up their armed forces relentlessly. I do believe they are actually the biggest military on earth at the moment, manpower-wise. Technologically, they're catching up. They just commissioned an aircraft carrier, and have been developing a 5th generation air superiority fighter.

Point being - the scenario is not so far-fetched that the US can be overtaken.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 20, 2011)

I don't see how people can dismiss the first as being offensive to some people. Portraying the US as a completely irrational villain is going to rub some people the wrong way. I find the second blander, but who cares? It's a board game; it's not going to matter in play.

I'm not sure exactly why the first rubs me the wrong way so much. Implausibility has something to do with it; the US has a reason for the wars it gets involved in, and walks a complex line of diplomacy around the world.

I compare it to the Underground RPG, which I like. In the Underground RPG, the US government is a caricature of the real one, having sold advertising in the Constitution, engaged in wars in small countries to support TV shows, etc. But it's a recognizable caricature, and within the bounds of the genre, it's realistic, in some sense. I'm not sure I can explain the difference, but I certainly feel it.


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## I'm A Banana (Dec 20, 2011)

Kravel said:
			
		

> I don't care what the President or some general says, when I was active military I would take a court martial and be shot before carrying out orders like those described in the first blurb.




Well, I'd hope the stuff in the first blurb is cartoony and hyperbolic enough that no one would take it too seriously. Even if someone thinks that America is a big scary warmongering monster, I can't imagine anyone believing that this is a realistic scenario (with hovertanks!). 

I do think it's important to keep in mind that people with less...independence...can and certainly have done really, really unpleasant things, in actual fact, sometimes just because of an order. From Milgram to My Lai to more recent events, it certainly doesn't require exceptional circumstances. It might be fanciful to think that America would declare war on the rest of the world, but it's not fanciful to think that people in general -- regardless of their national allegiance -- are capable of real, horrible things, even in the name of something they think is noble.

I say this as a man from a military family, with a grandfather who was in the Navy, a father who was a Marine, and a brother who is currently in the Army. WWII, Viet Nam, and Iraq are all familiar to us. I know for certain that they've all fought for the noblest of reasons. But I also know that war is an inherently dehumanizing process for everyone involved. Even if it's The Good Fight (say, fighting WWII-era German), it inevitably brings with it people doing The Wrong Thing (say, the Japanese Internment Camps), on both sides. 

The game's a fanciful sci-fi future, as impossible as _Mad Max_ in its own way. But the idea that well-intentioned and morally-upright people do awful things in the name of something good that they believe in is a well documented historical fact of humanity. I think it's...dangerous, I guess, is the word...to ignore that. 



			
				Kravell said:
			
		

> If I can't have the opinion that the U.S. is a nation to be proud of, I suppose ENWorld shouldn't have opened this thread up at all.




I'm proud to be part of a country where both this game, and the people who don't like it, can co-exist. I'm proud of a country where the military is made entirely of volunteers. I'm proud of a country that clings to high social virtues like freedom of religion and freedom of speech and human equality and the concept of a ruler chosen by the ruled, despite the times when it has struggled with those virtues. 

That doesn't excuse or forgive the shameful things that have happened. I'm proud of my nation in spite of those things. I know it can do better than that. For me, it's important to see the country as it is, and to be able to love it as only a patriot could, to see its potential, to praise its greatness, and also to criticize its failings, because its not like the US is DONE improving. 

I think that part of making this country great involves cultural media -- games, novels, movies, shows -- that show where we need to be extra-careful not to repeat our shameful mistakes of the past. This game is part of that constellation, saying "Hey. Don't go off all half-cocked chasing the dragon, here. Keep it together."

Saying that with hovertanks, sure, but still...


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 20, 2011)

I have to admit I am sort of mystified by those who think its somehow innately offensive to portray the U.S. as the bad guy, even in a clearly science fiction scenario. You really don't have to scratch too hard to find examples of real American irrational aggression (Spanish American War, more, erm, "recent" events), and real American atrocities and evils (slavery, genocide against Native Americans).

America, like any nation, is an admixture of noble qualities and aspirations, and real human tragedies and failures. To suggest that we wouldn't -- even hypothetically -- be able to fall again is to ignore how frequently and easily we've fallen in the past, particularly at those moments when we've been most confident in our righteousness.

And here I recommend Reinhold Niebuhr's "The Irony of American History."


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## S'mon (Dec 20, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> There's this country over in Asia, perhaps you've heard of them - China? Yeah. Poised to overtake the US economically, and they've been building up their armed forces relentlessly. I do believe they are actually the biggest military on earth at the moment, manpower-wise. Technologically, they're catching up. They just commissioned an aircraft carrier, and have been developing a 5th generation air superiority fighter.
> 
> Point being - the scenario is not so far-fetched that the US can be overtaken.





Nukes are the great equaliser. No country has ever attacked the mainland of a nuclear armed power.  Even if China overtakes the US militarily*, she is still not going to want to get nuked. 

*Which will only happen a long time after China overtakes the US economically.  The USA had a bigger economy than Britain for around 40 years before she had a bigger military.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Dec 20, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Nukes are the great equaliser. No country has ever attacked the mainland of a nuclear armed power.  Even if China overtakes the US militarily*, she is still not going to want to get nuked.
> 
> *Which will only happen a long time after China overtakes the US economically.  The USA had a bigger economy than Britain for around 40 years before she had a bigger military.



China has plenty of nukes of their own, be they original designs or purchased from USSR or former Soviet states.

Fact is, the USA is an empire in decline and China is the new rising superpower. I don't like it either, but there's no point pretending that it isn't happening.


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## S'mon (Dec 20, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> China has plenty of nukes of their own, be they original designs or purchased from USSR or former Soviet states.
> 
> Fact is, the USA is an empire in decline and China is the new rising superpower. I don't like it either, but there's no point pretending that it isn't happening.




Eh, on the politics blogs I bang that drum as loud as anyone!


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## Crazy Jerome (Dec 21, 2011)

I'm more offended by the lame attempt to be edgy, my reaction being similar to seeing "nonconformists" all dressing alike, talking alike, thinking alike ... 

After the many years of drek that passes for informed thought out of your typical TV, film, magazine, etc. effort, I have a difficult time caring what a board game company does in this vein. It is as if the 10 year old in the 70s cut some slits in his regular jeans to ape bell bottoms and started aping the mannerisms and speech of his older siblings. It's even kind of cute as long as it doesn't stay in my face too long. 

I'll shrug and go back to playing Agricola--and soon, I hope, Ora et Labora.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 21, 2011)

Remus Lupin said:


> To suggest that we wouldn't -- even hypothetically -- be able to fall again is to ignore how frequently and easily we've fallen in the past, particularly at those moments when we've been most confident in our righteousness.




It's the way the first one has us cackling manically. IIRC, the original Fortress America didn't feel the need to demonize the Soviets; it just let them be imperialists.

Again, I turn to the Underground RPG. You make a setting where the US makes genetically modified supersoliders to fight wars in Third World countries for the TV ratings? It's exaggerated, but it's possible. You make a game where the US wildly blows up so many countries that the rest of the world gangs up on us? That's simply out of character.


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## Squire James (Dec 21, 2011)

Dire Bare said:


> As we're allowed to get political . . . .
> 
> The idea that America would never do such a thing as start lazering other countries off the map is a part of one of the negative aspects of American culture.  Our arrogance.  We're the best, we have the moral high ground, we're _the good guys_ . . .  Our country has done some pretty terrible things in the past, we're doing some not so great things to others right now, and it isn't beyond reason that we might become a country that does terrible things in the future.  We are, like the other nations of the world, a nation of human beings, beautiful and flawed.
> 
> ...




Since the game isn't to my tastes, I can render no judgement on the gameplay and what the game means internally.  I can only render judgement on the info I was given, and I found the first blurb repugnant.  What exactly is wrong with a certain amount of self-righteousness?  What's wrong with playing the paladin?

Actually, when I think of the term "Fortress America", I kind of think of what would happen if we followed the views of certain libertarians and actually only concerned ourselves with what happens within our borders.  We really would be a Fortress if we were on the defensive ALL the time!  Not to mention letting all those countries get hovertanks before us!  Have we no shame?!


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## Dire Bare (Dec 21, 2011)

Squire James said:


> What exactly is wrong with a certain amount of self-righteousness?  What's wrong with playing the paladin?




Nothing wrong with _playing_ the paladin, which can, but does not require, playing the paladin as a self-righteous character.

However, there is a reason why the adjective "self-righteous" is rarely, if ever, used as a positive one.  Don't confuse "self-righteous" with "righteous".


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## Aberzanzorax (Dec 21, 2011)

S'mon said:


> The US attacked Iraq in 2003. This was not popular in certain quarters. Talking about the US attacking other countries in a future scenario is too close to home to avoid controversy.




This.

America is not allowed to _attack_, only _defend_. That's the tale we've been told by the politicians in regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. We're only defending/responding to attacks that have already been launched against us.

(See Bush Doctrine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )


> The phrase was first used by Charles Krauthammer in June 2001<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-WAPO_KRATUHAMMER_20080913_0-0>[1]</SUP> to describe the Bush Administration's unilateral withdrawals from the ABM treaty and the Kyoto Protocol. The phrase initially described the policy that the United States had the right to secure itself against countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups, which was used to justify the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-NYT_Weisman_20020413_1-0>[2]</SUP>
> Different pundits would attribute different meanings to "the Bush Doctrine", as it came to describe other elements, including the controversial policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a potential or perceived threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate; a policy of spreading democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating terrorism; and a willingness to unilaterally pursue U.S. military interests.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-Time_Allen_20070502_2-0>[3]</SUP><SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-NationalReview_Levin_20060816_3-0>[4]</SUP><SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-USAtoday_Page_20030317_4-0>[5]</SUP>




Now, I don't think that the U.S. was the "bad guy" in Iraq or Afghanistan, but I also don't think we were the "good guy".

Personally, I think a game wherein the us is officialy the bad guy would be very compelling.


It's an interesting thought excercise in a culture where being against the war in Iraq when it first started was "unpatriotic" and meant "we were against the troops". 

I'm actually more uncomfortable with the unilateral nationalism present in our culture (speaking as an American, no offense to those from other lands) than I would be with a more critical view of our own actions and policies. 

Generally, I think the US is a pretty great country, but it ain't perfect, and it can do bad things, even on the global scale. I fear that even saying that would offend and inflame some people in this country/culture.


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## saskganesh (Dec 21, 2011)

Aberzanzorax said:


> This.
> 
> America is not allowed to _attack_, only _defend_. That's the tale we've been told by the politicians in regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. We're only defending/responding to attacks that have already been launched against us.
> 
> (See Bush Doctrine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )




Which is bizarre, as America, like other successful imperial ventures, has a history of aggression. It's been largely a successful history, with only a few failures.

For many people the very idea -- "a history of aggression" -- is controversial let alone the subject of imperialism.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 21, 2011)

Well, these last two posts are an example of what I found compelling about the original text: It takes that history of aggression and expands it to absurd lengths. And I think the Afghanistan example is apt here. The original text noted that the U.S. was attacking, not gratuitously, but as a response to terrorism. The issue is not really whether the U.S. was justified in invading Afghanistan. I'm of at least two minds on that myself. The issue is whether that real-life situation -- country lashes out in response to terrorism -- can be given the science fictional gloss of "with a new super weapon, creating threat to world stability."

Controversial? Yes. But not beyond the pale in my judgement as the setup for a science fiction game.


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## 1Mac (Dec 21, 2011)

Umbran was struggling upthread to come up with a better way of explaining the problems with the first blurb. I agree that "plausible" is a bad way of thinking about it, because it's clearly satire. But satire needs to be rooted in facts to be effective; that's what satire is for. It takes real-world people and circumstances and jukes up the absurdity to highlight some truth.

So what we're really discussing is whether blurb 1 is effective satire. Which means that what we're discussing is whether the notion of a capricious, paranoid United States lashing out at any country they suspect of hiding terrorists has any connecting thread to modern reality. And what you think of that notion is largely shaped by personal politics.


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## Squire James (Dec 22, 2011)

Dire Bare said:


> Nothing wrong with _playing_ the paladin, which can, but does not require, playing the paladin as a self-righteous character.
> 
> However, there is a reason why the adjective "self-righteous" is rarely, if ever, used as a positive one.  Don't confuse "self-righteous" with "righteous".




I'm not confused about it, though I haven't taken many ranks in Internet Post Crafting so I can't always get my point across correctly.  I happen to think that much of what is perceived as self-righteousness by critics of the U.S. is actually righteousness.  Other Opinions Exist, of course... I'm not saying they're any good, though!


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## prosfilaes (Dec 22, 2011)

1Mac said:


> So what we're really discussing is whether blurb 1 is effective satire. Which means that what we're discussing is whether the notion of a capricious, paranoid United States lashing out at any country they suspect of hiding terrorists has any connecting thread to modern reality. And what you think of that notion is largely shaped by personal politics.




It was not the US in Iraq. It was the US, the UK, Australia, Ukraine, South Korea, Georgia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, and that's just the countries with more than 1,000 men on the ground at some point. A couple dozen other countries also joined in the invasion.

The point is that the US has struck out at a lot of nations. But this concept that the US in doing so would offend all its allies is not effective satire.


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## S'mon (Dec 22, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> It was not the US in Iraq. It was the US, the UK, Australia, Ukraine, South Korea, Georgia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, and that's just the countries with more than 1,000 men on the ground at some point. A couple dozen other countries also joined in the invasion.
> 
> The point is that the US has struck out at a lot of nations. But this concept that the US in doing so would offend all its allies is not effective satire.




I've argued with UK Conservative party politicians about the wisdom of the UK supporting the US invasion & occupation of Iraq (I was against it).  Their argument basically came down to: it didn't matter whether US policy was right or wrong, the UK needed to support it, whatever it was.  So yes, I agree with your point.


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## 1Mac (Dec 22, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> It was not the US in Iraq. It was the US, the UK, Australia, Ukraine, South Korea, Georgia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, and that's just the countries with more than 1,000 men on the ground at some point. A couple dozen other countries also joined in the invasion.



Yep, good point. The same is essentially true for the Afghanistan and Libya invasions as well. Remembering that does make the idea of a unilateral United States opposed by the entire world that much more of a stretch.

Also, for me, the idea that the United States would just start attacking any country suspected of harboring terrorists has a very flimsy thread to how our real-world anti-terror campaigns were deliberated. No matter what you think of those wars, they weren't knee-jerk, paranoid impulses.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Dec 22, 2011)

S'mon said:


> I've argued with UK Conservative party politicians about the wisdom of the UK supporting the US invasion & occupation of Iraq (I was against it).  Their argument basically came down to: it didn't matter whether US policy was right or wrong, the UK needed to support it, whatever it was.  So yes, I agree with your point.



There was considerable debate here in Canada about that issue, but fortunately, at the time we had a politician with enough of a spine to say, "no."

Of course the same can't be said now.


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## Alzrius (Dec 22, 2011)

1Mac said:


> But satire needs to be rooted in facts to be effective; that's what satire is for. It takes real-world people and circumstances and jukes up the absurdity to highlight some truth.




The problem is that whether or not satire is "effective" is a matter of opinion, just like "rooted in facts." What is or is not a "fact" tends to be the subject of considerable debate, and so anything based on that - including satire - is going to be subject to considerable disagreement.



> _So what we're really discussing is whether blurb 1 is effective satire._




With all due respect, I don't think that's what we're discussing; it's not what I'm discussing, certainly.

I believe that the real subject of the discussion here is the appropriateness of changing a statement to be more "acceptable" because some people found the original statement offensive or otherwise unpalatable.

I, personally, don't care for doing so, and take a dim view of those who advocate that something should be changed simply because they don't like it.


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## Stormonu (Dec 23, 2011)

Personally, I like the second blurb simply because it is closer to the game that I played back in the 80's.  And I certainly intend to pick it up as soon as I can as it's one of the old MB games we used to have that lost over the years (with the original pic of Saddam on the box cover).

It's not that I don't think the US could ever "fall from grace" - we seem to be very quickly following in the footsteps of Athens without taking stock of where we're heading.

[quote:S'mon]Their argument basically came down to: it didn't matter whether US  policy was right or wrong, the UK needed to support it, whatever it was.[/quote]

That feels very wrong to me.  Governments should be called out when they make missteps not simply blindly followed; history has shown where that path leads too, and it isn't to democracy. [note: I'm not necessarily pointing at any specific actions, but if you disagree with what a government is doing, and it's supposed to be a democracy, you need to speak up about it).


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## Gilwen (Dec 23, 2011)

I liked the first text better for the intro of the game, found it to be much more interesting than the lengthy and flat newer blurb. 
I'm American and found it not inflamatory but then again I can separate reality from fiction.


Gil


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2011)

Stormonu said:


> That feels very wrong to me.  Governments should be called out when they make missteps not simply blindly followed; history has shown where that path leads too, and it isn't to democracy. [note: I'm not necessarily pointing at any specific actions, but if you disagree with what a government is doing, and it's supposed to be a democracy, you need to speak up about it).




We did.  Labour is no longer in power.


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## MrFilthyIke (Dec 23, 2011)

I won't join the debate on the issue, but I do own the first Fortress America and prefer the first blurb.  It is more interesting.  And I am American.  I won't buy this specifically because of the blurb change.  I talk by not spending $$$.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 23, 2011)

Alzrius said:


> I believe that the real subject of the discussion here is the appropriateness of changing a statement to be more "acceptable" because some people found the original statement offensive or otherwise unpalatable.
> 
> I, personally, don't care for doing so, and take a dim view of those who advocate that something should be changed simply because they don't like it.




I have a hard time making sense of that in a commercial environment. If you're a professor happy with your salary, go ahead and make your art however you want. But these are people making a full-time living off their games.

Are you saying that theme doesn't matter? If you find some themes are so distasteful or uninteresting that you won't buy games using them--a game where you race to fuel the ovens with bodies at your concentration camp, or a game where your pony-unicorns race to deliver the fairy ice cream with sparkles to the children--then game companies who use them will lose out on sales to you. That's the censorship of the dollar. If you have a theme that a lot of people in your target audience don't like, and you want to make money, you should change it.

I have little sympathy for FFG here. What you decry, I suspect FFG hoped for. They sent out a blurb testing the waters; when they got back too much negative response, they toned it down. They tested the theme as wise companies did and got some publicity for their upcoming game in the bargain.


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## 1Mac (Dec 23, 2011)

Alzrius said:


> The problem is that whether or not satire is "effective" is a matter of opinion, just like "rooted in facts." What is or is not a "fact" tends to be the subject of considerable debate, and so anything based on that - including satire - is going to be subject to considerable disagreement.



Well yes, and my point was that what you think the facts are are "rooted in personal politics," as I put it. I thought the point of subjectivity was covered in that statement.


> With all due respect, I don't think that's what we're discussing; it's not what I'm discussing, certainly.



It's what lots of other posters were discussing.


> I believe that the real subject of the discussion here is the appropriateness of changing a statement to be more "acceptable" because some people found the original statement offensive or otherwise unpalatable.
> 
> I, personally, don't care for doing so, and take a dim view of those who advocate that something should be changed simply because they don't like it.



That's about the _only_ reason to advocate that something be changed!

This wasn't censorship. No one forced FF to retract and reprint a marketing blurb for their game. If a good chunk of FF's fanbase complained about the blurb, they weren't violating FF's right to free speech; they were exercising their own right to free speech. FF could have chose to either heed or ignore these complaints, and they apparently decided they were worth addressing.


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## Lanefan (Dec 23, 2011)

I don't care much about either blurb - they're both just trying to introduce a game that is, at its heart, suppsoed to be about 98% fictional.

What would offend me would be to buy the game and find it to be rigged such that the US always won or always lost. (I've seen this before in other war games, where it's set up such that with equal player skill on both sides one specific side will win most or all of the time)

Lan-"I can has hovertanks"-efan


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## prosfilaes (Dec 23, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> What would offend me would be to buy the game and find it to be rigged such that the US always won or always lost. (I've seen this before in other war games, where it's set up such that with equal player skill on both sides one specific side will win most or all of the time)




The original is fairly highly rated. I only played once, where America won and we lost, but I'm sure I could have stomped those capitalist running dogs if there was a chance for a rematch. FFG gets a lot of flack for fixing things that weren't broken in their reprints, but they have a pretty good reputation, so I don't expect them to break it.


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## thzero (Dec 23, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think blaming the marketing department was kind of weak. If a company is going to isse an statement like that it shouldn't feel like they are trying to shift blame to a small part of the organization.
> 
> Any product like this is going to run the risk of a backlash. Nothing wrong with taking a risk on that front. I've been there before. You just have to choose your words carefully and trust that your audience will know where you are coming from.




Being an American, I actually don't find the initial wording that inflammatory.  FFG is based in the US, so freedom of speech, idea, etc. is all well and good.  It is just a game.  And frankly there is a lot of sci-fi, especially military stuff, that has been far worse.

However, I do agree pointing your finger at your "marketing department", unless you've tossed them all out the door, is rather lame.  But then again, whats the rule in advertising, there ain't no such thing as bad press?  Whether this was intended, it may stir up additional "publicity" without FFG needing to do much.

As to the Iraq War and whether such a scenario could lead to what happens in the game. Well we can see it hasn't.  However, whether you liked, hated or whatever the war (and while obviously hindsight is 20/20 and there were lots of mistakes made to some degree there has, hopefully, if the Iraqi's don't blow it considering the recent news, been some good to come out of it; and I'm not sure anyone can say it was a bad thing that Hussein was tried in a court of his own people) I think it shows that it probably won't happen.  Now I supposed someone could have unleashed Armageddon with nukes on the offending parties in retaliation (US, Russia, etc. does have bigger bombs) which could have led to such a scenario, but I still think the "Cold War" is still in effect some degree with no one wanting to unleash the beast, so to speak.  That and obviously it would have been overkill which should in turn provoke a response from American allies, and others in high world regard, over the abuse of power so to speak.


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## Alzrius (Dec 23, 2011)

prosfilaes said:
			
		

> I have a hard time making sense of that in a commercial environment. If you're a professor happy with your salary, go ahead and make your art however you want. But these are people making a full-time living off their games.
> 
> Are you saying that theme doesn't matter? If you find some themes are so distasteful or uninteresting that you won't buy games using them--a game where you race to fuel the ovens with bodies at your concentration camp, or a game where your pony-unicorns race to deliver the fairy ice cream with sparkles to the children--then game companies who use them will lose out on sales to you. That's the censorship of the dollar. If you have a theme that a lot of people in your target audience don't like, and you want to make money, you should change it.
> 
> I have little sympathy for FFG here. What you decry, I suspect FFG hoped for. They sent out a blurb testing the waters; when they got back too much negative response, they toned it down. They tested the theme as wise companies did and got some publicity for their upcoming game in the bargain.




I'm not complaining about FFG having changed the product statement; I'm complaining about the complainers who apparently raised enough of a stink that they convinced FFG to change the statement - those people are the problem.

It's fine for people to have their own opinion, but I can't stand the idea of people wanting something to be changed for no other reason than it offends them; I find that to be unforgivably arrogant, to say nothing of borderline fascistic. Just because you don't care for something is no reason to say that it can't exist - my problem with that attitude has nothing to do with whether the person they're complaining to capitulates or not.



			
				1Mac said:
			
		

> Well yes, and my point was that what you think the facts are are "rooted in personal politics," as I put it. I thought the point of subjectivity was covered in that statement.




I was underlining your point. 



> _It's what lots of other posters were discussing._




Yeah, but as I said, it's not what I'm discussing. I'm discussing the idea of intolerance towards that which someone doesn't like.



> _That's about the only reason to advocate that something be changed!_




I disagree. A discussion is good; healthy debate is good. Simply saying that something is bad just because you don't like it is not good - it's closed-minded. You don't have to look at something or participate in something you don't care for, but it still deserves to exist.



> _This wasn't censorship. No one forced FF to retract and reprint a marketing blurb for their game. If a good chunk of FF's fanbase complained about the blurb, they weren't violating FF's right to free speech; they were exercising their own right to free speech. FF could have chose to either heed or ignore these complaints, and they apparently decided they were worth addressing. _




That's not the point I was making, though.

The issue for me wasn't FFG's reaction to the people who were apparently outraged; it was those "outragers" themselves.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 23, 2011)

Alzrius said:


> I'm not complaining about FFG having changed the product statement; I'm complaining about the complainers who apparently raised enough of a stink that they convinced FFG to change the statement - those people are the problem.
> 
> It's fine for people to have their own opinion, but I can't stand the idea of people wanting something to be changed for no other reason than it offends them; I find that to be unforgivably arrogant, to say nothing of borderline fascistic. Just because you don't care for something is no reason to say that it can't exist - my problem with that attitude has nothing to do with whether the person they're complaining to capitulates or not.




Just because you don't care for our complaints, is no reason to say they can't exist.

As I said in the message you respond to, in a commercial environment, the fact that enough of us don't care for something is reason to say it can't exist; FFG doesn't want to print up 5,000 copies and then junk them a few years down the road. It can't do that many times and continue existing. They want to hear about it now.



> You don't have to look at something or participate in something you don't care for, but it still deserves to exist.




In an idealistic sense, there's a case to be made for that. In the real world, there's going to be one Fortress America published. Saying that FFG's first version deserves to exist is saying that the second version, and any other conceivable new version of Fortress America, doesn't deserve to exist. I don't accept that we shouldn't advocate for the one version of Fortress America that will get published to be the best it can be, with the parameters for best being an individual choice.

If this were an instance where a bunch of non-gamers were getting noisy, I might argue their opinions are irrelevant. But a substantial core are people who are going to look at the Amazon page or hold the box in their hands at the game store and consider whether they can justify putting the money down. Those are the people FFG wants to hear from, the people that matter.


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## Alzrius (Dec 23, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> Just because you don't care for our complaints, is no reason to say they can't exist.




Your complaints can exist, you should just keep them to yourself. 



> _As I said in the message you respond to, in a commercial environment, the fact that enough of us don't care for something is reason to say it can't exist; FFG doesn't want to print up 5,000 copies and then junk them a few years down the road. It can't do that many times and continue existing. They want to hear about it now._




And as I said in response to that, this isn't about FFG's response to the complainers; it's about the complainers themselves. 

No one has the right to say how something else should or should not be. You have the right not to buy something; you do not have the right to say how it should or shouldn't be. You can say what you'd prefer, but expecting someone else to change something for you is unforgivably narcissistic.



> _In an idealistic sense, there's a case to be made for that. In the real world, there's going to be one Fortress America published. Saying that FFG's first version deserves to exist is saying that the second version, and any other conceivable new version of Fortress America, doesn't deserve to exist._




You keep conflating the issue between what FFG releases and how people react to that. I'm talking about the latter, you're discussing the former.



> _I don't accept that we shouldn't advocate for the one version of Fortress America that will get published to be the best it can be, with the parameters for best being an individual choice._




The people who are complaining aren't making a statement of marketability - they're saying that because something is offensive to their personal beliefs, it needs to be changed. It's not a question of how well something will be received by the market at large.



> _If this were an instance where a bunch of non-gamers were getting noisy, I might argue their opinions are irrelevant. _




It's not a question of games or non-gamers. Nobody has the right to expect that that which they don't like should be changed. Your outrage is not a compelling reason to expect others to conform to your beliefs.



> _But a substantial core are people who are going to look at the Amazon page or hold the box in their hands at the game store and consider whether they can justify putting the money down. Those are the people FFG wants to hear from, the people that matter._




And the fact that they don't like something isn't a question of whether or not they can justify putting the money down. "Putting the money down" is a question of if it can be afforded, but that's not what they're judging. They're not even judging if they like it or not - they're going one step further by saying that not only do they not like it, but that it needs to be altered so that they will. That's a step too far.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 24, 2011)

Morrus said:


> We did.  Labour is no longer in power.




I never got the impression that that was largely over the war though.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 24, 2011)

Alzrius said:


> Your complaints can exist, you should just keep them to yourself.




You first.



> And as I said in response to that, this isn't about FFG's response to the complainers; it's about the complainers themselves.




So even if FFG wants to hear it what people have to say, and they want to tell FFG, they still shouldn't say it?!?



> No one has the right to say how something else should or should not be.




Then you have no right to say how postings here should or should not be. 



> You have the right not to buy something; you do not have the right to say how it should or shouldn't be.




In the commercial world, those are not distinct. When people don't buy a product, it stops existing. 



> You can say what you'd prefer, but expecting someone else to change something for you is unforgivably narcissistic.




All anyone is doing is saying what they'd prefer.

Expecting someone else to change something for you is normal in business. People go into fast food places all the time and ask for no tomato on their burger. In cases like boardgames, the creative aspects and the cost saving of mass-production make that harder, but Deep Thought Games, who hand-assemble every game, provide plenty of options about how you can get your game delivered, and I'm sure there's a lot of other changes you could get on request, like maps printed on vinyl. I suspect you could get pretty much arbitrary changes done to a game for a not completely unreasonable price--except that I believe all their designers have day jobs, and thus may not be bound by market demands.



> The people who are complaining aren't making a statement of marketability - they're saying that because something is offensive to their personal beliefs, it needs to be changed. It's not a question of how well something will be received by the market at large.




That is how the market is receiving the proposal.



> Nobody has the right to expect that that which they don't like should be changed. Your outrage is not a compelling reason to expect others to conform to your beliefs.




Again, the irony is just thick in here.

It is not reasonable to expect that if you do not like something, that it will be automatically changed. It is reasonable that if you do not like something, voicing your opinion gives people a chance to hear you, either in singular or in bulk, and consider your stance. 



> "Putting the money down" is a question of if it can be afforded,




No; that's but one fragment of the issue. Most likely I will be able to afford to buy Fortress America when it comes out. The question is, will I get to play it enough and will I enjoy it enough to make it worth my money? And if the theme detracts from my enjoyment, or if other people won't play with me because of the theme, then the game is less valuable to me and I'm less likely to buy it.

And heck, dumping everything else, free speech is a right. That someone should blow off steam by complaining about something that doesn't really affect him and that he can't really affect is generally fine. And (to beat a dead horse) complaining about people complaining fits right in this category.


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## Alzrius (Dec 24, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> You first.




What, you didn't see my adorable smiley?

Seriously though, you're attempting to undermine my point by saying that my complaining about the complainers is no different than them. That's not correct. They can hold whatever opinions they want; I'm simply saying that their sense of entitlement to have whatever upsets them changed is selfish and harmful.



> _So even if FFG wants to hear it what people have to say, and they want to tell FFG, they still shouldn't say it?!?_




Again, people have no right to expect that something should be changed just to suit their personal tastes. I can't make it simpler than that.



> _Then you have no right to say how postings here should or should not be. _




See above. Pointing out people's selfish conduct is not itself selfish conduct.



> _In the commercial world, those are not distinct. When people don't buy a product, it stops existing. _




As I said before, this isn't about FFG's response. It's about the narcissists who think that something needs to be altered to suit them.



> _All anyone is doing is saying what they'd prefer._




No, they aren't. They're saying that things need to be changed because it offends them. That's saying that that which offends them needs to cease existing in its current form.



> _Expecting someone else to change something for you is normal in business. People go into fast food places all the time and ask for no tomato on their burger._




Those are completely different - in fast food, you have a set of options presented to you; it's part of the menu to have no tomato on your burger. This is more an instance of someone demanding that something *not* be on the menu just because they don't care for it.



> _In cases like boardgames, the creative aspects and the cost saving of mass-production make that harder, but Deep Thought Games, who hand-assemble every game, provide plenty of options about how you can get your game delivered, and I'm sure there's a lot of other changes you could get on request, like maps printed on vinyl. I suspect you could get pretty much arbitrary changes done to a game for a not completely unreasonable price--except that I believe all their designers have day jobs, and thus may not be bound by market demands._




See above. This isn't about FFG's business policies, nor is it an exercise in market supply and demand. The problem is with the people who think that their tastes need to be catered to by excising that which they don't like.



> _That is how the market is receiving the proposal._




I'm talking about the senders.



> _Again, the irony is just thick in here._




Not so much, no. Allow me to further show you why there's no irony:



> _It is not reasonable to expect that if you do not like something, that it will be automatically changed. It is reasonable that if you do not like something, voicing your opinion gives people a chance to hear you, either in singular or in bulk, and consider your stance. _




You missed the part in my last post where I said that discussion and debate are good. If you're trying to say that I'm trying to silence people, the same way others are trying to silence that which they don't like, then that pretty well shows the fundamental misunderstanding in your point.

People should talk about things and debate things. Opposition opinions should be aired and heard. You have the right to your *informed* opinion, and part of being informed is knowing what other people think.

When your opinion is a demand for conformity, however, then you've crossed the line from a reasonable debate into making an ultimatum (if not an outright threat). That's not good for anybody.



> _No; that's but one fragment of the issue. Most likely I will be able to afford to buy Fortress America when it comes out. The question is, will I get to play it enough and will I enjoy it enough to make it worth my money? And if the theme detracts from my enjoyment, or if other people won't play with me because of the theme, then the game is less valuable to me and I'm less likely to buy it._




That's your purview. If the theme is part of what makes other people more likely to buy it and enjoy it more, however, then your demand that the theme be changed is an attack on what they like.



> _And heck, dumping everything else, free speech is a right. That someone should blow off steam by complaining about something that doesn't really affect him and that he can't really affect is generally fine. And (to beat a dead horse) complaining about people complaining fits right in this category._




Nobody is saying that people don't have the right to be jerks; I'm not advocating that these outragers be locked up. I'm just saying that what their doing is selfish and harmful to others. Likewise, I've already stated why complaining about them isn't the same - I'm not saying they can't exist, the way their saying that what they like musn't be allowed to exist.


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## S'mon (Dec 24, 2011)

Remus Lupin said:


> I never got the impression that that was largely over the war though.




The Iraq War boosted Liberal Democrat support, since they were the only one of the three main parties to be against it.  However it does not seem to have had a long-term effect; anti-war Labour voters generally still stuck with Labour.  The Lib Dems lacked the capacity to extend their base significantly.  When Labour lost power in 2010 my impression is it was more about the economy - the failure of banking regulation and government overspending, which left us in a poor position when the global economic crisis hit in 2008.


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## Samurai (Dec 24, 2011)

I find the first version very offensive and totally unrealistic.  It matches a warped version of America peddled in classrooms by socialist professors.  I find it no different than if the next version of Axis and Allies had a blurb that said:
*
" Can players lead heroic Nazi Germany and proud Imperialist Japan to victory against the brutal, evil, butchering forces of America, Britain, and Russia that beset them from all sides?  Can you establish a glorious thousand year Reich in Europe despite the jealous invading forces that would seek to topple it?  Will you solidify your just and benevolent control of Asia and the South Pacific before the rabid, bloodthirsty American fleet is rebuilt from the sound thrashing it got at Pearl Harbor?  Play the game and see!"*

Now, from the point of view of the Axis, the above description would probably be pretty accurate, but to the Allies, it's atrociously reversed.  The Fortress America blurb 1 is the same... it reads well to America's enemies.

But either way, I don't plan to buy the game.  I owned the original, and never cared for it all that much.  America starts out strong but the invaders get more and more reinforcements, and the goal was simply for the single American player to try and hold out for a set number of turns against the onslaught.  It came down to luck at the dice more than anything else because each set of invaders could only attack from a single front, so America threw everything it had on the line, the invaders threw all their forces on the line, and each hoped to get lucky rolls.  There wasn't a great deal more strategy than that.  At least with games like Risk and A&A there was some variety between games, some strategy, some different tactics to try.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 24, 2011)

Well, at least you didn't resort to hyperbole and caricature to make your point.


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## Dire Bare (Dec 24, 2011)

Samurai said:


> I find the first version very offensive and totally unrealistic.  It matches a warped version of America peddled in classrooms by socialist professors.




The "story" in the first marketing blurb is certainly extreme and unlikely to occur in reality . . . most folks posting in this thread seem to agree, even if some of don't feel the basic idea of America lashing out at the world isn't all that far-fetched.

And if you find it offensive as well, well that's fine, although we disagree and I have a hard time seeing your (and others) point of view on that.

But a "warped version of America peddled in classrooms by socialist professors" is a unfortunate use of hyperbole that is inaccurate, ignorant, and resulting to name-calling.  Language like this is why the regular "no politics" rules exist on ENWorld, and it isn't helpful to the discussion at all.


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## Dire Bare (Dec 24, 2011)

Samurai said:


> I find the first version very offensive and totally unrealistic.  It matches a warped version of America peddled in classrooms by socialist professors.




The "story" in the first marketing blurb is certainly extreme and unlikely to occur in reality . . . most folks posting in this thread seem to agree, even if some of don't feel the basic idea of America lashing out at the world isn't all that far-fetched.

And if you find it offensive as well, well that's fine, although we disagree and I have a hard time seeing your (and others) point of view on that.

But a "warped version of America peddled in classrooms by socialist professors" is a unfortunate use of hyperbole that is inaccurate, ignorant, and resulting to name-calling.  Language like this is why the regular "no politics" rules exist on ENWorld, and it isn't helpful to the discussion at all.

Please continue to post your opinions and participate in the discussion, but please do so with some respect for those whose opinions differ from your own.  (not a mod, just a friendly request)


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## Samurai (Dec 24, 2011)

Dire Bare said:


> The "story" in the first marketing blurb is certainly extreme and unlikely to occur in reality . . . most folks posting in this thread seem to agree, even if some of don't feel the basic idea of America lashing out at the world isn't all that far-fetched.
> 
> And if you find it offensive as well, well that's fine, although we disagree and I have a hard time seeing your (and others) point of view on that.
> 
> ...



It wasn't hyperbole, here in California, such people exist in fairly large numbers.  I've had classes with some of them back in university, and I lived in the SF bay area for years and knew some there.  Heck, the Occupy movement shows how influential they've become.

But that's beside the point, the point is the ridiculous and far-fetched description of the game's events.  It literally turns the good guys into bad guys and vice versa, the same as the description I wrote above for Axis and Allies.  (I know, some folks don't believe in such a quaint notion as good and bad guys, but again, I direct you to the Axis and the Allied powers in WW2... would you say there was no good or bad there either?)  The original game was about the American homeland being invaded on 3 fronts by the Communist Chinese, the Soviet Union, and a group of Latin American Communist revolutionary forces.  3 groups of Communists invading the continental US... what could be more black and white than that?  

My father had to flee his country of Hungary when the Soviets invaded and occupied it.  He lost most of his family (only his step-mother and 1 aunt made it out) and all his belongings he couldn't carry behind the Iron Curtain and came to America as a refugee, so I have a rather personal dislike of Communist/socialist ideology, and an appreciation for the freedom and democracy we enjoy here in the US.  Painting the US as rabid aggressors lashing out and destroying entire countries is disgusting and unrealistic to me, and I'm glad they changed the ad copy.  I know there is a move to try and paint things in shades of grey rather than black and white, but calling Communists and terrorists heroes and saviors of the world and the US a vile enemy to be destroyed just goes too far IMO.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 24, 2011)

Well, based on your description of college professors, you've certainly got a handle on What qualifies as "ridiculously far-fetched."

But to object to the game on the basis of the idea that it is definitionally impossible for the US to go so far wrong is to a) miss the point of the game and b) exhibit a degree of hubris about US righteousness that actually makes things akin to the narrative o the first description more likely. I prefer my politics sober and pragmatic and my science fiction cautionary and risky.


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## Samurai (Dec 24, 2011)

Remus Lupin said:


> Well, based on your description of college professors, you've certainly got a handle on What qualifies as "ridiculously far-fetched."
> 
> But to object to the game on the basis of the idea that it is definitionally impossible for the US to go so far wrong is to a) *miss the point of the game *and b) exhibit a degree of hubris about US righteousness that actually makes things akin to the narrative o the first description more likely. I prefer my politics sober and pragmatic and my science fiction cautionary and risky.




Ok, what is the point of the game?  The first edition worked fine with 3 Communist invaders attacking the continental US.  What is it in this new version that requires America be evil?


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## S'mon (Dec 24, 2011)

Dire Bare said:


> Please continue to post your opinions and participate in the discussion, but please do so with some respect for those whose opinions differ from your own.  (not a mod, just a friendly request)




Hm, as someone who strongly opposed the Iraq War (sadly, not from the start) and views the US as quite capable of aggression (pre-9/11 Kosovo War vs Serbia, just as much as 2003 Iraq), I didn't see anything particularly offensive in his post and I'm glad this isn't rpgnet where we'd all be required to toe the rpgnet Party Line.

As for goodies and baddies in WW2 - well Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were bad guys, but so was the USSR, which helped Nazi Germany carve up Poland (a military dictatorship BTW) in 1939.  Britain, America and France were relatively 'nice' internally, but hardly paragons of virtue in all ways.


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## S'mon (Dec 25, 2011)

Remus Lupin said:


> Well, based on your description of college professors, you've certainly got a handle on What qualifies as "ridiculously far-fetched."




Eh?  I *am* a college professor, and he described many of my colleagues down to a 't'.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 25, 2011)

Alzrius said:


> Seriously though, you're attempting to undermine my point by saying that my complaining about the complainers is no different than them. That's not correct. They can hold whatever opinions they want; I'm simply saying that their sense of entitlement to have whatever upsets them changed is selfish and harmful.




I don't see them as having any more of a sense of entitlement then you do. 



> As I said before, this isn't about FFG's response. It's about the narcissists who think that something needs to be altered to suit them.




Why does anyone besides FFG have the right to object to people asking for changes in their product? FFG wants to alter the game to suit them. You're being selfish and harmful in interfering with FFG in its attempt to find out what its customers want.



> Those are completely different - in fast food, you have a set of options presented to you; it's part of the menu to have no tomato on your burger. This is more an instance of someone demanding that something *not* be on the menu just because they don't care for it.




I have never seen it as part of the menu to have no tomato on your burger. If you want arbitrary changes at a food place, there's a good chance they will go along with what you want if they can (at some price). 

So you admit there are times when it's okay to ask for changes in a product. Again, there will be one final Fortress America; people aren't asking that it be taken off the menu, they're asking for it to be on the menu in a form edible for them.



> You missed the part in my last post where I said that discussion and debate are good. If you're trying to say that I'm trying to silence people, the same way others are trying to silence that which they don't like, then that pretty well shows the fundamental misunderstanding in your point.




Don't tell me there's a misunderstanding; show me.



> When your opinion is a demand for conformity, however, then you've crossed the line from a reasonable debate into making an ultimatum (if not an outright threat). That's not good for anybody.




There's no threat or ultimatum involved. I don't know how you think they should conduct a Presidential election in your world; every statement is an assertion that your candidate and only your candidate should be president. That's a much more serious demand for conformity then asking that a reprint of a game have a theme palatable to you.



> That's your purview. If the theme is part of what makes other people more likely to buy it and enjoy it more, however, then your demand that the theme be changed is an attack on what they like.




And their statement that they don't want the theme to be changed is an attack on what I like. I don't see why we should dance around the fact that we have different desires for what Fortress America will be and that we can't both win. Let us both advocate loudly for our position, and FFG can choose who to listen to.



> Likewise, I've already stated why complaining about them isn't the same - I'm not saying they can't exist, the way their saying that what they like musn't be allowed to exist.




They're not saying that FFG can't exist, either. They're saying that a piece of mass-produced product shouldn't have a certain theme, and you're saying that individual statements of personal opinion shouldn't have a certain theme. I find the latter much more oppressive.


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## Samurai (Dec 25, 2011)

Morrus said:


> The premise is the US vs. the world. Are you saying that the position reversed is that America is "the good guys" and the entire world is "the bad guys"?  Or am I misunderstanding your characterisation of my, and many others', countries?  Because - at least to me - such characterisations are the one thing that _would_ lead to the absurd fictional scenario presented.  I certainly hope that's not a generally shared opinion in your country, or we should all start getting really scared as to the fate of the world.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I'm not calling you a Communist or terrorist (and I have no idea where you got the notion that I was), I'm saying that the game has traditionally had 3 Communist countries invading the US, and the updated version sounds as if it involves terrorists.  Is England one of the invading countries in this new edition?  It wasn't before.  Are they now saying that England will side with terrorists against the US?  Shouldn't that be offensive to British people as well as Americans?


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## Morrus (Dec 25, 2011)

Samurai said:


> I'm not calling you a Communist or terrorist (and I have no idea where you got the notion that I was), I'm saying that the game has traditionally had 3 Communist countries invading the US, and the updated version sounds as if it involves terrorists.  Is England one of the invading countries in this new edition?  It wasn't before.  Are they now saying that England will side with terrorists against the US?  Shouldn't that be offensive to British people as well as Americans?




They're saying what they says in the blurb, presumably - the world rises up against the US. I don't see any mention of communists or terrorists there.


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## Alzrius (Dec 25, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> I don't see them as having any more of a sense of entitlement then you do.




I see a great difference between people who require that something be changed because it offends them, and my pointing out that that's arrogant, narcissistic, and selfish. I'm not saying I'm entitled to anything; they're saying they're entitled not to be offended.



> _Why does anyone besides FFG have the right to object to people asking for changes in their product? FFG wants to alter the game to suit them. You're being selfish and harmful in interfering with FFG in its attempt to find out what its customers want._




Your questions are built on fundamentally incorrect premises. First, my pointing out the selfishness of the people who require something to not offend their sensibilities in no way impedes FFG from changing their own product. Second, everyone has the right to object to something - they don't have the right to say that because they object to it, it must be altered. 

Everyone has things they don't like, and reasons that they don't like it. It's when they say that these reasons constitute a basis for it needing to be changed that they've gone too far.



> _I have never seen it as part of the menu to have no tomato on your burger. If you want arbitrary changes at a food place, there's a good chance they will go along with what you want if they can (at some price)._




Sometimes you have to ask the waiter. 

Again, you can _ask_ if something can be changed. You can't demand that something be deleted from the menu. 



> _So you admit there are times when it's okay to ask for changes in a product. Again, there will be one final Fortress America; people aren't asking that it be taken off the menu, they're asking for it to be on the menu in a form edible for them._




I always said that it was okay to ask for changes. It's not okay to say that things must be changed for your sake. People *are* asking for a menu-change - they're saying "I don't like this, make sure it's altered just for me."



> _Don't tell me there's a misunderstanding; show me._




I just did.



> _There's no threat or ultimatum involved._




There is. When you say "this must be changed to match my world-view," you're stating that you no longer recognize something's right to exist (as it is now). That's an implicitly threatening statement.



> _I don't know how you think they should conduct a Presidential election in your world;_




I don't know how you conduct debates in yours, since you make flame statements like "how they do things in your world."

If you can't keep the debate polite, perhaps you should consider no longer participating in it.



> _every statement is an assertion that your candidate and only your candidate should be president. That's a much more serious demand for conformity then asking that a reprint of a game have a theme palatable to you._




This is, again, fundamentally wrong. A more accurate analogy would be to say that a candidate who doesn't agree with you on everything needs to be killed for it.



> _And their statement that they don't want the theme to be changed is an attack on what I like. I don't see why we should dance around the fact that we have different desires for what Fortress America will be and that we can't both win. Let us both advocate loudly for our position, and FFG can choose who to listen to._




You can advocate your position as much as you want. But when your position is "I don't like this - because of that, you need to change this for me," then you're not advocating anything except that your opinion is somehow more weighty than that of others.



> _They're not saying that FFG can't exist, either. They're saying that a piece of mass-produced product shouldn't have a certain theme, and you're saying that individual statements of personal opinion shouldn't have a certain theme. I find the latter much more oppressive._




Another fundamentally incorrect statement. They're saying that this must conform to their personal beliefs. I'm saying that no one has the right to make others - or the work of others - conform to their personal beliefs. If you find the former statement less oppressive than the other, then you're misguided.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 25, 2011)

Alzrius said:


> Second, everyone has the right to object to something - they don't have the right to say that because they object to it, it must be altered.




The distinction is noise, IMO, unless they're actually going to do something about it, more then just not buy the game. 



> Another fundamentally incorrect statement. They're saying that this must conform to their personal beliefs.




Who is? Who are you arguing against? With respect to the posts I've seen on the subject, that's hyperbole.



> I'm saying that no one has the right to make others - or the work of others - conform to their personal beliefs.




I have no problem with that statement. But I don't see anyone threatening to come to the FFG offices with a bat, or sue them or even organize a boycott. I have problems with implications that saying something is offensive is tantamount to making others conform to their personal beliefs, and I don't see how, if those are equivalent, that you aren't trying to make people conform to your personal beliefs.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 25, 2011)

Samurai said:


> Ok, what is the point of the game?  The first edition worked fine with 3 Communist invaders attacking the continental US.  What is it in this new version that requires America be evil?




The point of the game is to create a fight scenario between the US and someone else, with catastrophic global stakes. The narrative simply exists to set up that scenario. In a post-soviet world the US vs communists wouldn't be as compelling, though I think one with Hina as a major antagonist could work well.

I would also say that, whether you like it or not, the last decade has given many people legitimate reason to doubt the idea of the US as the good guy by default, and that to me represents the cautionary aspect of this game.


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## Samurai (Dec 25, 2011)

Remus Lupin said:


> The point of the game is to create a fight scenario between the US and someone else, with catastrophic global stakes. The narrative simply exists to set up that scenario. In a post-soviet world the US vs communists wouldn't be as compelling, though I think one with Hina as a major antagonist could work well.
> 
> I would also say that, whether you like it or not, the last decade has given many people legitimate reason to doubt the idea of the US as the good guy by default, and that to me represents the cautionary aspect of this game.




Well, while that characterization may be "common knowledge" in some circles,  I disagree that the last decade has done that at all.  We were attacked on 9/11 and we responded by going after the terrorists and their supporters the Taliban in Afghanistan.  We spent at least as much time building schools and helping people there as we did going after terrorists.  And then we looked around to see who might attack us next, and saw that Saddam was flaunting UN resolutions, denying access to inspectors, trying to buy yellow cake uranium, shooting at our planes, and had a long history of supporting terrorists, so we decided to take him out and create a democratic state for the people of Iraq.  The world is much better off without that dictator, and his end caused a domino effect still being felt today, causing others to topple as well such a Qaddafi in Libya.   That could well be a catalyst to remarkable change in the middle east if they can resist the Islamist forces that would enslave the people under Sharia the way the dictators did before.

But I don't want to get too side-tracked.  I don't feel that many people (potential customers) saying it's offensive and the makers changing the fictional background is the same as censorship.  It's just common sense... if you offend and insult your customers, they won't buy your product.


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## S'mon (Dec 25, 2011)

Samurai;5758107.  And then we looked around to see who might attack us next said:
			
		

> Yeah, but the trouble is that these kind of justifications can be applied to almost any* nation, hence the fear of US aggression.  To be fair, plenty of anti-US people would paint the US as an aggressor whatever she did; the trouble with Iraq was that they suddenly had actual evidence to support their position.
> 
> *The one unusual/egregious thing Saddam actually did do, plot to assassinate HW Bush in the early '90s, was not cited as a reason for the invasion.


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## Alzrius (Dec 25, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> The distinction is noise, IMO, unless they're actually going to do something about it, more then just not buy the game.




You're entitled to your opinion, but I think intolerance is a bad thing, even when it's "just" limited to intolerant expressions.



> _Who is? Who are you arguing against? With respect to the posts I've seen on the subject, that's hyperbole._




It's spurious to now ask for specific examples of people spouting this belief; everyone who objected to FFG's original flavor text does not post on EN World. That's also beside the point, since I'm speaking in generally of people who adopt the attitude of "change that which bothers me."

Some people have that opinion about some things, and that's what I'm speaking to. Intolerance is bad; taking a stand against intolerance is not bad even if you call it intolerant to intolerance.



> _I have no problem with that statement. But I don't see anyone threatening to come to the FFG offices with a bat, or sue them or even organize a boycott._




One doesn't need to make an explicit threat to say that they don't tolerate something's existence. Simply saying you don't recognize its right to exist carries a threatening element by itself, as its saying that you don't agree that it deserves to _be_.



> _I have problems with implications that saying something is offensive is tantamount to making others conform to their personal beliefs, and I don't see how, if those are equivalent, that you aren't trying to make people conform to your personal beliefs._




You keep displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of my point. I'm not saying people can't be offended by things - they can. I'm saying people have no right to expect the things that they're offended by to change for the sake of assuaging their sense of outrage.

Be offended all you like. But that offense stops at the point where you expect things to change just to suit you; you don't have that right.


----------



## tuxgeo (Dec 25, 2011)

Remus Lupin said:


> The point of the game is to create a fight scenario between the US and someone else, with catastrophic global stakes. The narrative simply exists to set up that scenario. In a post-soviet world the US vs communists wouldn't be as compelling, though I think one with *Hina* as a major antagonist could work well.
> 
> I would also say that, whether you like it or not, the last decade has given many people legitimate reason to doubt the idea of the US as the good guy by default, and that to me represents the cautionary aspect of this game.




I have to think that "*China*" was meant instead of "*Hina*" in the first paragraph. (Hinamatsuri - festival of the dolls. Love Hina - famous hotspring/harem anime show.)

The new version of the game is, IMHO, pot-boiling: what was a fairly believable scenario in the 1980's is less so now, because of the imbalance of military might. Few nations have more than one aircraft carrier; China is still getting its first. The Exocet and Silkworm missiles are a threat to US naval power, and technology does change rapidly, but the heaviest military threats to the US right now are nukes and terrorism -- nukes because they're so formidable, and terrorism because it can get to places where troops in the open could not go. 

Iraq had the fourth-largest army in the world around 1991; the US and her allies crushed that. IMHO (again), I think the science fiction of this game is its strong point: FFG _needs_ to have quite a bit of science fiction in the game in order to make an even marginally-plausible game scenario. That stated game scenario doesn't make a lot of sense (again, "to me") without a healthy dollop of "pretend the situation is as wild and crazy as *this*."


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## Samurai (Dec 25, 2011)

tuxgeo said:


> I have to think that "*China*" was meant instead of "*Hina*" in the first paragraph. (Hinamatsuri - festival of the dolls. Love Hina - famous hotspring/harem anime show.)
> 
> The new version of the game is, IMHO, pot-boiling: what was a fairly believable scenario in the 1980's is less so now, because of the imbalance of military might. Few nations have more than one aircraft carrier; China is still getting its first. The Exocet and Silkworm missiles are a threat to US naval power, and technology does change rapidly, but the heaviest military threats to the US right now are nukes and terrorism -- nukes because they're so formidable, and terrorism because it can get to places where troops in the open could not go.
> 
> Iraq had the fourth-largest army in the world around 1991; the US and her allies crushed that. IMHO (again), I think the science fiction of this game is its strong point: FFG _needs_ to have quite a bit of science fiction in the game in order to make an even marginally-plausible game scenario. That stated game scenario doesn't make a lot of sense (again, "to me") without a healthy dollop of "pretend the situation is as wild and crazy as *this*."




Yeah, I think if that situation did happen, they would not stage a 3-pronged land invasion of the US because they'd know that a) their invasion forces would be wiped off the map by that super-weapon, b) followed by the countries that launched them being wiped off the map for their impudence.  I mean, if you're going to say America has truly gone evil, then that's what would happen to a land invasion.

Their only option would be a massive barrage of nuclear weapons, and hope that it happens fast enough that only 1 or 2 countries are destroyed by the super-weapon in return, and that the nuclear retaliation from the US doesn't kill them in return or start a nuclear winter on Earth.


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## Plane Sailing (Dec 25, 2011)

On reflection I dislike both the blurbs. The first sounds more exciting, but if the us had a super weapon that could obliterate countries, surely an "invasion America" scenario would be, uh, rather short?

The SPI Invasion America scenario at least had the virtue of tapping into the worries of those days (communist threat expanding, etc). Although I can envisage plenty of "bad America" scenarios, I find it hard to conceive of one which makes a large scale conventional invasion necessary or even possible!


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 25, 2011)

Samurai said:


> Well, while that characterization may be "common knowledge" in some circles,  I disagree that the last decade has done that at all.  We were attacked on 9/11 and we responded by going after the terrorists and their supporters the Taliban in Afghanistan.  We spent at least as much time building schools and helping people there as we did going after terrorists.  And then we looked around to see who might attack us next, and saw that Saddam was flaunting UN resolutions, denying access to inspectors, trying to buy yellow cake uranium, shooting at our planes, and had a long history of supporting terrorists, so we decided to take him out and create a democratic state for the people of Iraq.  The world is much better off without that dictator, and his end caused a domino effect still being felt today, causing others to topple as well such a Qaddafi in Libya.   That could well be a catalyst to remarkable change in the middle east if they can resist the Islamist forces that would enslave the people under Sharia the way the dictators did before.
> 
> But I don't want to get too side-tracked.  I don't feel that many people (potential customers) saying it's offensive and the makers changing the fictional background is the same as censorship.  It's just common sense... if you offend and insult your customers, they won't buy your product.




You are of course welcome to disagree, but polls around the world support the contention that there is a deep suspicion of the US and it's motives around the world. You can argue that those suspicions are misplaced, and they may be, but that doesn't change the perception. And the Iraq war, the rhetoric surrounding it, and it's results tend to give good grounds for that suspicion.

But again, my point is only that the game is using that set of conditions to set upnanscience fiction scenario that is US vs. the world that is compelling in a contemporary context.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 25, 2011)

tuxgeo said:


> I have to think that "*China*" was meant instead of "*Hina*" in the first paragraph. (Hinamatsuri - festival of the dolls. Love Hina - famous hotspring/harem anime show.)
> 
> The new version of the game is, IMHO, pot-boiling: what was a fairly believable scenario in the 1980's is less so now, because of the imbalance of military might. Few nations have more than one aircraft carrier; China is still getting its first. The Exocet and Silkworm missiles are a threat to US naval power, and technology does change rapidly, but the heaviest military threats to the US right now are nukes and terrorism -- nukes because they're so formidable, and terrorism because it can get to places where troops in the open could not go.
> 
> Iraq had the fourth-largest army in the world around 1991; the US and her allies crushed that. IMHO (again), I think the science fiction of this game is its strong point: FFG _needs_ to have quite a bit of science fiction in the game in order to make an even marginally-plausible game scenario. That stated game scenario doesn't make a lot of sense (again, "to me") without a healthy dollop of "pretend the situation is as wild and crazy as *this*."




Yes, that should be "China". I'm still getting used to my iPad' s virtual keyboard.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 25, 2011)

> But I don't want to get too side-tracked.  I don't feel that many people (potential customers) saying it's offensive and the makers changing the fictional background is the same as censorship.  It's just common sense... if you offend and insult your customers, they won't buy your product.




By the way, I'm in agreement with you on this point, if not much in terms of the background politics.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 25, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Yeah, but the trouble is that these kind of justifications can be applied to almost any* nation, hence the fear of US aggression.  To be fair, plenty of anti-US people would paint the US as an aggressor whatever she did; the trouble with Iraq was that they suddenly had actual evidence to support their position.
> 
> *The one unusual/egregious thing Saddam actually did do, plot to assassinate HW Bush in the early '90s, was not cited as a reason for the invasion.




It is striking that almost everything Samurai lists as a justification for war has long been shown to be untrue, and to have been known to be so at the time.


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## Samurai (Dec 25, 2011)

Remus Lupin said:


> It is striking that almost everything Samurai lists as a justification for war has long been shown to be untrue, and to have been known to be so at the time.




You are factually wrong.  Everything I listed has been proven true.  He did flaunt at least 16 UN resolutions.  He did kick out UN inspectors and refuse them access for years.  Not only did he try to buy more yellow cake from Niger, 550 tons of uranium were found and removed from Iraq.  (U.S. removes 'yellowcake' from Iraq - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq - msnbc.com)  He routinely shot at our planes over the No-fly zone.  And he frequently supported terrorists, giving money, arms, and training to groups, harboring terrorists, and paying the families of suicide bombers.

Every one of those is factual history, look it up.


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## Flatus Maximus (Dec 25, 2011)

Samurai said:


> Not only did he try to buy more yellow cake from Niger, 550 tons of uranium were found and removed from Iraq.  (U.S. removes 'yellowcake' from Iraq - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq - msnbc.com)




Did you read the article you quoted? It doesn't seem like it, so let me draw your attention to the following quote: "Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers *since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.*"

In other words, we knew about this stuff looong before we invaded.


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## Alzrius (Dec 25, 2011)

Samurai said:


> Not only did he try to buy more yellow cake from Niger, 550 tons of uranium were found and removed from Iraq.  (U.S. removes 'yellowcake' from Iraq - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq - msnbc.com)




It's worth noting that the issue of them trying to buy yellowcake from Niger wasn't proven - rather, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to investigate the claim after the Italian government shared papers purporting that to be true with the U.S. and U.K. governments.

Wilson didn't find any evidence of such a transfer, and wrote an op-ed piece saying so publicly (though a Senate Intelligence committee later challenged Wilson's claims). Scooter Libby subsequently leaked the information that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent to the news media, ostensibly to "punish" Wilson for publicly disagreeing with the Bush White House.

Likewise, the yellowcake that was already found in Iraq had been there since before 1991, and was the result of some old, defunct attempts to generate nuclear power for domestic (Iraqi) consumption.

All of the above, and more, can be found on the page dedicated to this topic over on Snopes.


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## Samurai (Dec 25, 2011)

Flatus Maximus said:


> Did you read the article you quoted? It doesn't seem like it, so let me draw your attention to the following quote: "Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers *since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.*"
> 
> In other words, we knew about this stuff looong before we invaded.




So?  I said we found and removed yellow cake uranium, which is true, why does it matter when he got it?  And the officials in Niger said he'd recently tried to buy more, though Wilson tried to downplay their statements in his report.


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## Samurai (Dec 25, 2011)

Alzrius said:


> It's worth noting that the issue of them trying to buy yellowcake from Niger wasn't proven - rather, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to investigate the claim after the Italian government shared papers purporting that to be true with the U.S. and U.K. governments.
> 
> Wilson didn't find any evidence of such a transfer, and wrote an op-ed piece saying so publicly (though a Senate Intelligence committee later challenged Wilson's claims). Scooter Libby subsequently leaked the information that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent to the news media, ostensibly to "punish" Wilson for publicly disagreeing with the Bush White House.
> 
> ...




Scooter Libby did not leak Plame's identity, Richard Armitage did.  And he admitted that fact to the Special Prosecutor.  Libby got mixed up on a timeline of events, and thus was hit with charges, but he was not the leaker, and Fitzgerald knew he wasn't from the the beginning.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 25, 2011)

Samurai said:


> So?  I said we found and removed yellow cake uranium, which is true, why does it matter when he got it?  And the officials in Niger said he'd recently tried to buy more, though Wilson tried to downplay their statements in his report.




Oh, come now! You can't possibly believe your own rhetoric at this point. The yellowcake pretext for war was rooted specifically in the claim that he was trying to obtain new yellowcake from Niger. That was the specific claim that Powell made in his UN speech.

As for your other claims, it's that Saddam expelled inspectors from Iraq in the 1990s, after they had been caught spying for the US:

"Back in 1999, major papers ran front-page investigative stories revealing that the CIA had covertly used U.N. weapons inspectors to spy on Iraq for the U.S.'s own intelligence purposes. "United States officials said today that American spies had worked undercover on teams of United Nations arms inspectors," the New York Times reported (1/7/99).According to theWashington Post (3/2/99),the U.S. "infiltrated agents and espionage equipment for three years into United Nations arms control teams in Iraq to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military without the knowledge of the U.N. agency." Undercover U.S. agents "carried out an ambitious spying operation designed to penetrate Iraq's intelligence apparatus and track the movement of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to U.S. and U.N. sources,"wrote the Boston Globe (1/6/99) FAIR ACTION ALERT: Spying in Iraq: From Fact to Allegation

In the runup to the war, Saddam allowed inspectors to return, and those inspectors begged the US for more time to complete its work before the invasion in 2003. The only left (voluntarily), when it became clear the invasion was taking place irrespective.

"United Nations weapons inspectors have been advised by the US to leave Iraq, a sign that a US-led attack is imminent.

Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Monday: "Late last night I was advised by the US government to pull out our inspectors from Baghdad."

ElBaradei is leading the nuclear weapons inspections in Iraq. He says similar advice has been given to UNMOVIC, the inspection body responsible for all other weapons and lead by Hans Blix." UN weapons inspectors told to leave Iraq - 17 March 2003 - New Scientist

I can go into more detail on your other points later, but I'll just say at this point that my original point stands. You got every point wrong.

The order to withdraw has not yet been issued to the scientists carrying out the inspections and Blix is scheduled to give a report to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that would call for them to be given more time.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 26, 2011)

Alzrius said:


> It's spurious to now ask for specific examples of people spouting this belief




If you can't post examples of what you're arguing against, if you can't explain your position in that way, I don't see how you can accuse me of misunderstanding. 

You said:


> This is, again, fundamentally wrong. A more accurate analogy would be to  say that a candidate who doesn't agree with you on everything needs to  be killed for it.




No. No one is discussing whether we should kill FFG or anyone associated with this game. Heck, no one is proposing annihilation of the blurb. The question is, should this blurb be the one blurb on the FFG game, which is fairly parallel to, should this person be the one person holding the title of President of the United States.



> Intolerance is bad; taking a stand against intolerance is not bad even if you call it intolerant to intolerance.




Intolerance to intolerance can be tyrannical. How many churches preach that their way is the only way? How many businesses ruthlessly crush their competitors? On the flip side, how many politicians would love to silence any intolerance towards their position? 



> I'm not saying people can't be offended by things - they can. I'm saying  people have no right to expect the things that they're offended by to  change for the sake of assuaging their sense of outrage.




How should they communicate that? I don't understand the distinction you're drawing here.

If people never went to a business and complained about something, the world would be a worse place. The rude employees would never get disciplined or fired, and the places serving bad food would continue serving bad food. Unless, of course, they go out of business, which is a pretty drastic solution to a problem that could have been solved by talking to a manager.


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## Alzrius (Dec 26, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> If you can't post examples of what you're arguing against, if you can't explain your position in that way, I don't see how you can accuse me of misunderstanding.




I don't need to post examples because I've already told you precisely what it is I'm arguing against: intolerance. I don't have any statements from the people who didn't like FFG's original flavor text, but that's not really the point. The point is that people don't have the right to not be offended by something, and so have no basis upon which to demand that that which upsets them be changed.




> _No. No one is discussing whether we should kill FFG or anyone associated with this game._




Hence why I said it was an analogy. It's not literal.



> _Heck, no one is proposing annihilation of the blurb. The question is, should this blurb be the one blurb on the FFG game, which is fairly parallel to, should this person be the one person holding the title of President of the United States._




That's not the question. The question is, do people have the right to expect something to be changed just because they don't like it? That's analogous to someone expecting that just because they don't like someone for President, that person should be killed.



> _Intolerance to intolerance can be tyrannical._




If you're saying that anything can be taken too far, or otherwise made into something harmful, then I'll agree to that. But the flip side is to stand around and do nothing while people are intolerant in the first place.



> _How many churches preach that their way is the only way? How many businesses ruthlessly crush their competitors? On the flip side, how many politicians would love to silence any intolerance towards their position?_




The first two are examples of intolerance, rather than intolerance towards instances of intolerance. The last example isn't relevant to the discussion we're having - it's not in the "wanting" that the intolerance is found; it's when that politician thinks they have a right to actually silence that person that things go too far.



> _How should they communicate that? I don't understand the distinction you're drawing here._




The distinction is between communicating their offense, or stating why they feel that way. When people are making "I" statements, they're simply saying what they feel, which tends to be fine. It's when they start making "you" statements, saying what the other person "should" do, or "must" do, or "needs to" do, etc. that the problem comes.

Your offense is yours. You can talk about it, but you can't make it someone else's problem.



> _If people never went to a business and complained about something, the world would be a worse place. The rude employees would never get disciplined or fired, and the places serving bad food would continue serving bad food. Unless, of course, they go out of business, which is a pretty drastic solution to a problem that could have been solved by talking to a manager. _




Again, this isn't what I'm saying. People should talk to managers and express themselves and say exactly how they were disappointed and why - but they don't get to decide what action (if any) gets taken, even if they demand that someone be disciplined or fired. It's not their decision to make.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 26, 2011)

Alzrius said:


> I don't need to post examples because I've already told you precisely what it is I'm arguing against: intolerance.




One word adjectives are never precisely what you're arguing against. Clearly our definitions of intolerance don't come close to meeting.



> But the flip side is to stand around and do nothing while people are intolerant in the first place.




Standing around while people are "intolerant" of a game blurb? No problem.



> The first two are examples of intolerance, rather than intolerance towards instances of intolerance.




Exactly. Your "tolerance" doesn't extend to most of the religions in America.



> The distinction is between communicating their offense, or stating why they feel that way. When people are making "I" statements, they're simply saying what they feel, which tends to be fine. It's when they start making "you" statements, saying what the other person "should" do, or "must" do, or "needs to" do, etc. that the problem comes.




So no giving advice. Is that all?



> Your offense is yours. You can talk about it, but you can't make it someone else's problem.




That's a truism. Rant and rave all you want, but the other person doesn't have to care. Which is why I don't care about people saying they must not use that blurb; it means nothing and has no impact.


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## Boy Genius (Dec 26, 2011)

Gosh, here's a crazy thought:  If you create a game...don't make your own country the bad guy.  It seems like that little piece of marketing wisdom could have saved a lot of headaches.


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## S'mon (Dec 26, 2011)

Boy Genius said:


> Gosh, here's a crazy thought:  If you create a game...don't make your own country the bad guy.  It seems like that little piece of marketing wisdom could have saved a lot of headaches.




I suspect that in Britain most boardgame buyers would happily buy one with us as the bad guys, but that's unusual.  The US seems about evenly split, and outside the Anglosphere it would pretty much unheard of to have a negative portrayal of your own country marketed.


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## Alzrius (Dec 26, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> One word adjectives are never precisely what you're arguing against. Clearly our definitions of intolerance don't come close to meeting.




One can argue against a specific concept or idea that's embodied in a single word, adjective or no. I also, for example, dislike "ginormous" and don't think it should be in the dictionary. 

But that's anther argument. 



> _Standing around while people are "intolerant" of a game blurb? No problem._




It's ignoring the little problems that allows the bigger problems to come along.



> _Exactly. Your "tolerance" doesn't extend to most of the religions in America._




If those religions are intolerant towards others who have different beliefs, then no I don't think that their intolerance is a good thing. How is that bad?



> _So no giving advice. Is that all?_




Advice should be given when it's asked for, I believe. But again, this isn't about advice. It's about people thinking they're entitled to have others change to conform to their beliefs.



> _That's a truism. Rant and rave all you want, but the other person doesn't have to care. Which is why I don't care about people saying they must not use that blurb; it means nothing and has no impact._




You seem to be arguing my point here. I'm not saying you have to care about other people who are intolerant; I'm saying that I think that their intolerance is a bad thing, and so I speak out against it - that's all.


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## LurkAway (Dec 26, 2011)

Morrus said:


> The first text sounds more exciting to me than the second.  The second one sounds kinda bland.



The first one is very emotional and sensational and polarizing ("horrifyingly destructive", "desperate fury", "lashing out mercilessly", "erased from the map", "stunned", "brutal"). I'm usually turned often turned off by histrionics in real-life. Histrionics in pure fantasy is quite normal when painting villians but, as stated above, I can't see this scenario as pure fantasy. The 2nd one is more moderate in tone, sounds more like there are 2 sides to the story, and I think I'd have more fun with that version because I don't feel like I'm playing some sort of propaganda game.


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## prosfilaes (Dec 27, 2011)

Boy Genius said:


> Gosh, here's a crazy thought:  If you create a game...don't make your own country the bad guy.  It seems like that little piece of marketing wisdom could have saved a lot of headaches.




They were and are in a hard place. If you want to reprint Fortress America for today, and feel you need to update your theme for today, where do you go? 

It's been done before. Music and movies do it all the time. The Underground RPG savagely satirized the US government. The US government was the bad guy in Brave New World, though that was definitely an alternate world. 

In this case, I think they missed the mark because Fortress America was right in line with a bunch of anti-Commie stories that Americans told, and twisting it 180 degrees annoyed a lot of people. Also, when making the US the bad guy, like Born in the USA, Apocalypse Now, Escape from New York, and the Underground RPG, you've got to tell stories that your audience accepts. When Underground makes the dominant party the Plutocrats, with the Republocrats the loyal opposition, that ties right into stories that Americans tell each other. The first blurb, that the US might go crazy and start blowing things up, is not a story Americans tell each other.


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## Nemesis Destiny (Dec 27, 2011)

prosfilaes said:


> The first blurb, that the US might go crazy and start blowing things up, is not a story Americans tell each other.



Perhaps not, but it IS a story the rest of the world tells each other. I'm not saying it was a good idea, given that the US is probably still their largest market, but that doesn't necessarily make it any less believable to anyone who isn't American.


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## Bladesong (Dec 27, 2011)

*Just Glad...*

I'm just glad they are re-releasing the game...it was the only one in the series that I was unable to obtain.


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## Jhaelen (Dec 27, 2011)

S'mon said:


> I suspect that in Britain most boardgame buyers would happily buy one with us as the bad guys, but that's unusual.  The US seems about evenly split, and outside the Anglosphere it would pretty much unheard of to have a negative portrayal of your own country marketed.



Hmm. I think the situation here in Germany is even more unusual. Could you imagine anyone trying to publish a (board) game portraying the Germans as the good guys?

Germans either have to be the bad guys or the game has to be utterly neutral towards every faction/country.


Regarding Fortress America I thought the old marketing text sounded a lot more appealing. 

When it comes to games I'm completely unpolitical. If the game's great I don't care if it's called Fortress America, Fortress Russia, Fortress China, or Fortress Germany.
Having said that, I really prefer fantasy or sci-fi settings that are mostly unrelated to the real world.


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## NN (Dec 27, 2011)

The premise of the game is utterly stupid, in all versions.

However, as a game it may be fun.

Therefore, the correct solution is to embrace the stupidity, and FFG should write an utterly absurd over-the-top Ollie-North-on-an-ether-binge early-80s-cold-war-retro type intro text that revels in its own absurdity and anachronisms.

Apologies if anyone already suggested this, i cant be bothered to read 9 pages.


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## S'mon (Dec 27, 2011)

Jhaelen said:


> Hmm. I think the situation here in Germany is even more unusual. Could you imagine anyone trying to publish a (board) game portraying the Germans as the good guys?.




Yeah; I, er, had decided not to discuss Germany when I posted.  

_Don't mention the War._


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## S'mon (Dec 27, 2011)

Nemesis Destiny said:


> Perhaps not, but it IS a story the rest of the world tells each other.




Discussing "If there was a civil war in Europe, which side would the Americans bomb?" is a favourite pastime.


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## S'mon (Dec 27, 2011)

NN said:


> The premise of the game is utterly stupid, in all versions.
> 
> However, as a game it may be fun.
> 
> Therefore, the correct solution is to embrace the stupidity, and FFG should write an utterly absurd over-the-top Ollie-North-on-an-ether-binge early-80s-cold-war-retro type intro text that revels in its own absurdity and anachronisms.




That would be a much better idea, yep.


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## Desh-Rae-Halra (Dec 28, 2011)

I like the first one much better, it has an 80's theme flavor. The second one might as well be "Toyota, Honda, and Kia are trying to take over General Motors"


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## Relique du Madde (Dec 30, 2011)

Boy Genius said:


> Gosh, here's a crazy thought:  If you create a game...don't make your own country the bad guy.  It seems like that little piece of marketing wisdom could have saved a lot of headaches.



I thought making America the badguy in everything was acceptable  since that is what Hollywood, educational system, and a large chunk of our political system has been doing for years.  So what is the problem?


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## Dire Bare (Dec 30, 2011)

Relique du Madde said:


> I thought making America the badguy in everything was acceptable  since that is what Hollywood, educational system, and a large chunk of our political system has been doing for years.  So what is the problem?




Really?  There is certainly a strong distrust of government in the American psyche, which is expressed in the political sphere.  But that's quite different from "making America the bad guy".  I see many movies, novels, and games making individual members of the government, at various levels (fed, state, local) "bad guys", and even sometimes power structure groups within the government as "bad guys" . . . but still, I don't see very much at all Hollywood making America the "bad guy".

And the educational system?  Please.  Our public school system in just about every state does a pretty good job of _removing_ our worst episodes as a country from the textbooks, whitewashing America as the "good guy".  Our higher educational system (colleges) tends to look at American history with more sober eyes, but still rarely portrays America as the "bad guy".  There are certainly individual professors who just might do this, but it is certainly not a trend.


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 30, 2011)

Relique du Madde said:


> I thought making America the badguy in everything was acceptable  since that is what Hollywood, educational system, and a large chunk of our political system has been doing for years.  So what is the problem?




I've clearly been living in a different version of America than you for the last decade.


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## Relique du Madde (Dec 30, 2011)

Remus Lupin said:


> I've clearly been living in a different version of America than you for the last decade.




Yeah... you don't live in California.


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## Morrus (Dec 30, 2011)

Relique du Madde said:


> I thought making America the badguy in everything was acceptable  since that is what Hollywood, educational system, and a large chunk of our political system has been doing for years.  So what is the problem?




Maybe a tiny percentage of Hollywood which you notice, but I can assure you that the vast percentage of it continually portrays the opposite of what you suggest it does.


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## Relique du Madde (Dec 30, 2011)

Morrus said:


> Maybe a tiny percentage of Hollywood which you notice, but I can assure you that the vast percentage of it continually portrays the opposite of what you suggest it does.




Yeah, but it is still a percentage which is sickening even if its hidden deep within  the subtext of a work.  Don't get me wrong, I don't believe america is the bane of the world's existence; however, I'm not one of those who get viscerally upset when something is produced in America that tries to further that belief because America should do is censor a product that expresses a belief that is contrary to your own.  Once we start doing that we enter into a slippery slope...  That said, products like this actually serve as a warning of what could happen to our country if certain trends continue.  That in itself is important.

But, at the end of the day, if you don't like the product description or what it is about, all you have to do is not purchase the game; since unlike certain things, there is no law that obligates you to buy _Fortress America_.


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## Morrus (Dec 31, 2011)

Relique du Madde said:


> Yeah, but it is still a percentage which is sickening even if its hidden deep within  the subtext of a work.  Don't get me wrong, I don't believe america is the bane of the world's existence; however, I'm not one of those who get viscerally upset when something is produced in America that tries to further that belief because America should do is censor a product that expresses a belief that is contrary to your own.  Once we start doing that we enter into a slippery slope...




Could you rephrase that paragraph? I'm not trying to attack your grammar,  but you may have made a few typos which have rendered the whole section incomprehensible. At least, I can't figure out what you meant - though it may well just be me.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 2, 2012)

Morrus said:


> Could you rephrase that paragraph? I'm not trying to attack your grammar, but you may have made a few typos which have rendered the whole section incomprehensible. At least, I can't figure out what you meant - though it may well just be me.




I was puzzling over it as well.


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