I've pretty much stopped posting abour RPGing on the net. This is a pity, because it's something I've enjoyed most of my life, and most of the fun has come from modern or near-future games.

But The Bleak has stopped all that.

The Bleak is the horrid realisation that everything we said and believed the other side was doing was just a description of ourselves.

I can't play modern or near future games, because my view of the world is so bitter at what I see as the betrayal of our values. I play Twilight 2000 (a WW3 game) a lot, but I can't buy that 'Soviets were evil bastards who would beat our troops in the prison camps and shoot prisoners' shit any more because I know that I'm actually describing us. When did we become everything we were warned against? Why did all those people do all those things, just to be sold out and us to become Yet Another Evil Empire®?

Where did the idealism go? Even the arch-pragmatists seem to honour the idealists who brought about their particular world view. Why has their time gone?

I can handle the world being shallow, self interested and greedy. I just can't handle the lie that it isn't like that.

You could always do what lots of people do, and treat roleplaying as escapist.

You could escape into a world in which there really are good guys and bad guys. Or into a world in which your guys were bad, but you'll make them good.

Or some shit like that, I dunno.

Fucked if I know, mate, I'm always a bit stumped when I come across this middle-classed intellectual's nihilism.

Um... how about... "shut the fuck up and roll the dice"?

Solution A: listen to emo records and cry in the corner
Solution B: play some orc-bashing, loot-taking fantasy game like real men(tm) do.
Solution C: cf. "Blizzard of Ozz", John Michael Osborne

Solution d - get involved in local, or higher, politics.  Try and make a difference in the real world rather than bemoaning your fate.  You know whats wrong - you've seen it yourself.  Make a difference.

I'm trying that, and this is the best advice I've seen so far. The only thing is that most people are more comfortable with the lie . . .

Oh my. Sounds like someone's growing up.

Also sounds like someone's reading too much DailyKos. Stop listening to the rabid left wingers. We ARE the good guys. Or at least, the good-est guys.

Look at it this way - our "torture" consists of loud music, bright lights, and cold water. The bad guys torture consists of power drills and irons.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0524072torture1.html

Now, if that's equivalent in your mind, you need some help. Just saying.

Quote from: SosthenesSolution B: play some orc-bashing, loot-taking fantasy game like real men(tm) do.
Solution C: cf. "Blizzard of Ozz", John Michael Osborne

I vote B & C at the same time.

An empire in steep decline always does desperate things.

RPGPundit

An Empire under assault by barbarians that refuses to treat them as such is always an Empire in decline.

The US is no empire. No cool uniforms, no empire. I rest my case.

Quote from: SosthenesThe US is no empire. No cool uniforms, no empire. I rest my case.

True, but unfortunately our uniforms are better than those of our enemy, so following the immutable Law of Feathered Helmets, we're destined to lose this one I'm afraid.

Quote from: WerekoalaOh my. Sounds like someone's growing up.

That was my thought, too, but not so derisively.  I think there is a kind of hinge-point where idealism and a sense of mortality collide, and a more pragmatic perspective needs to be developed and adopted.  If you're lucky, you already spent your youth as a hard asshole, and the transition is much gentler.

QuoteWe ARE the good guys. Or at least, the good-est guys.

If I'm reading the original post correctly, the problem he's grappling with is not only the realisation that our* hands were never as clean as we liked to tell ourselves, but that we aren't as good as we used to be.  The fact that the US as a nation, and increasingly as a people, are embracing realpolitik and steely-eyed pragmatism as virtues in lieu of traditional values is pretty sobering.  Don't take this as a refutation of the claim that we're "the good-est guys," but understand how this sort of moral relativism may be small solace.

Now, swinging this conversation onto the topic of roleplaying, one possible option is to start playing (or even writing!) RPGs that deal with difficult, real world issues in progressive, or at least neutral, fashion.  Of course, that sort of thing might get you branded as a pretentious Swine, but if you're upset about the tacit message conveyed by dystopian roleplaying, then try to find a way to play with optimistic themes instead.

!i!

*Whomever "we" happens to be -- presumably the United States, but possibly Europe or "The West" as a whole.

I recommend picking up GURPS: Atomic Horror and role-playing against giant alien ants in the 1950s. Things were simpler then.

$real_age  = $age
$age = $age - 15

Oh noes! The McCarthy era! Cold War! Segregation!
Just tell me the color of those giant alien ants, hah? Hypocrite! Hate-monger!

$age = $real_age

Why, they're Red Commie Alien Ants, of course! And there's no segregation - everyone's white, of course. And McCarthy was RIGHT - or do you have something you're not telling us....?