I am, of course, NOT speaking about their soccer team, which is scary-awesome.
[yes, despite the USA and Mexico losing over the weekend, I am still watching World Cup action...I'm rooting for Die Mannschaft at this point, or La Furia Roja should they win out in the semi-finals]
No, I am talking about this tendency in RPGs to cast the Germans as the heavies/antagonists in their games. I mean really, are these makers of fine automobiles the epitome of a soulless scourge of evil?
I guess it's the whole Nazi thing...man, those guys are never going to live that down. I mean it's not like the English and Spanish and Portuguese and French and Dutch and Italians didn't wipe out whole civilizations all around the world during their Imperialistic/Colonial periods, right? You know...in Africa and Asia and the Americas and the Caribbean and Australia and the Pacific Islands, etc.?
But noooo, "Nazis" are the big bogey man, since they had the gall to bomb developed western nations. Well, and they did systematically murder millions of people (as opposed to the Russian pogroms only semi-systematically murdering hundreds of thousands or the French Revolution killing tens of thousands). However, as those murdered (for the most part) were German citizens, one would think the main people to fear the Germans would be, well, Germans.
Okay, sure...Nazis did awful, awful things. There's really no getting around it. But do Germans ALWAYS have to be associated with Nazis?
Recently, I've been sniffing around the Tannhauser board game, because it has all the kind of crazy ambience I totally dig and riff off for inspiration. Tannhauser is an alternate history type action game that throws steampunk and demons into a World War setting. Basically, you are acting as heroic Allied forces blowing demon Nazi soldiers all to hell with big guns...and trying not to get sucker punched with sorcery or a stick grenade.
Except that the alternate history is that the Tannhauser war is an extended WWI...and there weren't any "evil Nazis" in WWI.
At least as far as I know...I'm not a World War historian. I just like the ideas of trench warfare and barbed wire and gas mask goggles and bayonets and sharpened spades...you know, all that Charge of the Light Brigade stuff? Or maybe, I should say All Quite on the Western Front stuff...yeah, the Germans were at odds with MY country back in the day (that's America) but does that mean they were "Evil?" Or were they just on "the wrong side?"
I suppose I'll have to do some research on the subject. Right now, I'm pretty good with Nazis = Evil. But I'm not so sure I want to cast Germans as the Big Bad all the rest of the time.
And why am I bringing this all up? Well, maybe 'cause I'm working on a couple-four new games right now. Yes, the television watching has been quite a work-out (FINALLY finished Battlestar Galactica last night and the World Cup starts up again tomorrow), but there is some hope over that something might be coming out of La Casa Blackrazor (a.k.a. Beaglehaus) sometime in the very near future. I know I've been developing this TERRIBLE habit of over-promising and under-delivering, but I really REALLY plan on giving y'all some good stuff in the very near future. Hopefully, within the next 24-48 hours even...we'll see.
All right, gotta' run...