Quote from: Graewulf;1040698^This. Whenever I hear someone say 'Smartphones and social media are great. Everyone has a voice now.' I want to punch that moron in the face. Hard. Everyone doesn't need a voice. There are FAR too many stupid and ignorant people out there spewing nonsense, misinformation, and just utter bullshit for it to ever be a good thing.

Until a natural disaster happens, and all of a sudden smart phones and social media are useful. I personally used Facebook to contact neighbours during the flood of 2013.

Quote from: Graewulf;1040698^This. Whenever I hear someone say 'Smartphones and social media are great. Everyone has a voice now.' I want to punch that moron in the face. Hard. Everyone doesn't need a voice. There are FAR too many stupid and ignorant people out there spewing nonsense, misinformation, and just utter bullshit for it to ever be a good thing.

Personally, I honestly believe that the Internet is the greatest evil known to man.  It gave the Crazies a platform to congregate and shout at everyone.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1040709Personally, I honestly believe that the Internet is the greatest evil known to man.  It gave the Crazies a platform to congregate and shout at everyone.

Isn't that why we are here?

Quote from: Krimson;1040710Isn't that why we are here?

Touché.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1040709Personally, I honestly believe that the Internet is the greatest evil known to man.

The Internet is an amazing tool, like a knife or a hammer.

You can do a lot of things with knives and hammers. Not all are positive.

It's been ages since I ran a modern setting game. Back in the 1990s I ran an Illuminati campaign, which featured a secret political establishment that controlled and manipulated all media and all major political parties and academia.  At the time I was naive enough to think that was fiction.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1041697It's been ages since I ran a modern setting game. Back in the 1990s I ran an Illuminati campaign, which featured a secret political establishment that controlled and manipulated all media and all major political parties and academia.  At the time I was naive enough to think that was fiction.

Of course it's fiction:)!
The enemies you're ranting against aren't secret to anyone;).

GDW tried to "keep up" with current events with Twilight:2000 2nd edition and the game suffered for it.  I think they can be forgiven since a lot of us back then had "Cold War Fatigue" and we were just interested in enjoying the decade-length, yay-we-didn't-die-in-the-presumed-nuclear-holocaust party that started in 1990.  So framing WWIII in the context of "Whoops things went wrong with the fall of the Berlin Wall" etc. seemed their best option to keep the game realistic and fresh.

But, any T2k player will tell you that running it as alt-history is far better than trying to mold its events in terms of actual current political climes.  2013 was a hot mess, I mean, an absolute shitheap (seriously, French SSBNs sailing up a river to lob nukes into Eastern Europe? WTF?) in terms of background.  

No, it worked/works best as alternate history.  Generally speaking I find not dragging current events into games is the way to go.  If you do, at best your game will seem stale as events outstrip what you've described and at worst you might be perceived as pushing an agenda in-game if you're with a more public group vs. just some friends hanging around.

Not really. But the only kind of contemporary-setting games I would be likely to run would be horror games.


Or maybe Over the Edge.

Quote from: CarlD.;1040039In my case, this is mostly focused on superhero and similar setting any modern era games (or near future like cyberpunk and early transhumanist) have you employed current issues as inspiration for scenrios and events? Has you team of high end mercs had to infiltrate NK or somewhere the middle east? Have you street level vigilantes had to deal with a school shooter or terrorist using a car or bombs (see the Netflix's Punisher for an excellent example of this, IMO). Does your game's dramatic or melodramatic moments ever touch on politics?

In the 90s, I ran a short campaign of Thatcher 2000, a SuperHero setting set in a world where Margaret Thatcher had become the Iron Lady, ruling a Thatcherite Britain with an iron hand. It used things from that time, as well as elelments from the 1980s.

If so how did it turn out? If not, is it by deliberate choice or juat how things worked out?[/QUOTE]

It was a deliberate choice. However, it dodn't really fit the players' idea of what a Superhero game should be about (all shiny and heroic) as the first thing that happenes was they were accused of being subversives, having uncovered a plot to use children in the mines.

Quote from: Ewan;1042522Or maybe Over the Edge.

I've never run OtE as a political game; rather it's about the soullessness of institutions. So yes, to the evils of bureaucracy but not specifically right- or left-wing government.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1043856I've never run OtE as a political game; rather it's about the soullessness of institutions. So yes, to the evils of bureaucracy but not specifically right- or left-wing government.

Some people might see that as a political statement, too;). Some people would want to pass it as a fact, but it's not yet proven that bureaucracies have to be soulless!

Some of them even have hundreds of souls that they're crushing every day:D!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1043856I've never run OtE as a political game; rather it's about the soullessness of institutions. So yes, to the evils of bureaucracy but not specifically right- or left-wing government.

Indeed.

And the in-game politics of OtE, the politics of Al Amarja, are weird. Really weird. So there's not a very close match up with the world outside my window. I like that.

Quote from: Omega;1040176Did a series of modern adventures using Beyond the Supernatural that dealt with investigating slave trade in the middle east and one of the PCs going undercover. The supernatural elements for that adventure were zero. Though the players did not know that and kept expecting some horror to be pulling the strings. But turned out to be good ol human greed.

That sounds plenty dark. Human nature can make for really fine horror all by itself, no monsters needed. But have you ever felt a little, I guess, guilty for not including supernatural elements in a Horror scenario; almost as if you let the player expectations down or pulled a Bait and Switch? I've had that nagging feeling a few times in the past.

Quote from: AsenRG;1040365I just don't play with people I'd call fucktards;).

Good strategy

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1040663Excuse me, I have a question.  When did School Shootings become political?

They aren't in and of themselves but the discussion around them can involve some very partisan issues particularly in the U.S. such as gun control and the 2nd Amendment.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1040709Personally, I honestly believe that the Internet is the greatest evil known to man.  It gave the Crazies a platform to congregate and shout at everyone.

Quote from: Krimson;1040710Isn't that why we are here?

Point Taken.

Of course, you COULD do a politically-themed game of OtE, if you made Al-Amarja's government more in line with one of the varieties of banana-republic third-world dictatorships, of either the right or left-wing variety.