Report sellers who infringe copyrights!

Posts: 342 · Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 7:07 am

lawrenson wrote:

Hi,

interestingly, Wizkids Pirates is aclassed as a CCG over here, not a wargame. At least, most of the people you ever see playing it are card players.

A lot less female CCG players here. At M-Fest last year there were 700 attendees, of which roughly 12 were female.

The wargamers in the UK now sometimes bring wifes along. There was a huge fuss at Salute (big wargames show) last year as they had Nazi re-enactors who had wifes and kids in little SS uniforms.

Cheers,
malc

I don't think having kids in SS uniforms is about re-enacting.

Posts: 4449 · Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 8:43 am

lawrenson wrote:

The wargamers in the UK now sometimes bring wifes along. There was a huge fuss at Salute (big wargames show) last year as they had Nazi re-enactors who had wifes and kids in little SS uniforms.

Wow. If that had happened in the US, it would have made national news... Shocked

Every convention I have ever been to or worked has a specific clause in the rules prohibiting Nazi costumes or memorabilia being sold or worn.

Mike B.

Posts: 575 · Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 10:50 am

Well, I didnt see it on the news, but about 2 months later there was a TV program about WWII re-enactors, where the presenter tried his damnedest to show them as fascists, and (I thought) failed miserably.
A surprisingly high number were in the waffen ss corps tho - possibly because they had the smartest uniform...

There was an awful big fuss on the wargames circuit here tho, and the organisers of Salute sent out letters of apology to all the exhibitors.

Personally, it didnt bother me a lot. It might not be great to remember these things all the time, but we shouldnt just pretend they never happened.

Cheers,
malc

Posts: 7604 · Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:22 am

lawrenson wrote:

Well, I didnt see it on the news, but about 2 months later there was a TV program about WWII re-enactors, where the presenter tried his damnedest to show them as fascists, and (I thought) failed miserably.
A surprisingly high number were in the waffen ss corps tho - possibly because they had the smartest uniform...

There was an awful big fuss on the wargames circuit here tho, and the organisers of Salute sent out letters of apology to all the exhibitors.

Personally, it didnt bother me a lot. It might not be great to remember these things all the time, but we shouldnt just pretend they never happened.

Cheers,
malc

prb affects others more, who maybe were a little closer to them things than maybe you or i were....or something like that....

i just think its bad form

Posts: 575 · Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 1:14 pm

Well, the Wife had a lot of affected family.

She lost an uncle fighting the germans in the retreat thru italy at the end of the war, and one of her grandfathers was in the merchant navy, and sunk 3 times!

Her grannie wouldnt have any Japanese items - including electrical - in the house because she knew a Burma railway survivor.

Cheers,
malc

Posts: 508 · Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 2:48 pm

lawrenson wrote:

Her grannie wouldnt have any Japanese items - including electrical - in the house because she knew a Burma railway survivor.

I'd respond to that, but won't because you're British & I know a colonialism survivor.

Posts: 1000 · Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 10:17 pm

lawrenson wrote:

A surprisingly high number were in the waffen ss corps tho - possibly because they had the smartest uniform...

Nazis had all of the cool-looking uniforms and weapons, but the direct connection between the accoutrements and the actions are too fresh and real to be broken cleanly. The Stars and Bars flag has the same problem here in the United States --- it's a nice design, but it has too many negative associations.

Didn't Dragonsfoot have a nice flamewar about this a year or two ago? Ah, well. Now back to the wargames discussion . . .

Posts: 1233 · Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 10:45 pm

JohnGaunt wrote:

Didn't Dragonsfoot have a nice flamewar about this a year or two ago? Ah, well. Now back to the wargames discussion . . .

It would be easier to list the things Dragonsfoot hasn't had a flamewar over!

Posts: 342 · Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:22 pm

JohnGaunt wrote:

Nazis had all of the cool-looking uniforms and weapons, but the direct connection between the accoutrements and the actions are too fresh and real to be broken cleanly. The Stars and Bars flag has the same problem here in the United States --- it's a nice design, but it has too many negative associations.

Didn't Dragonsfoot have a nice flamewar about this a year or two ago? Ah, well. Now back to the wargames discussion . . .

There is a sci-fi book, I can only remember something about Iron being in the title, about an alternate universe where Hitler moved to the USA as a boy and became a sci-fi writer. His fans would go to conventions dressed in these uniforms he designed, with banners and emblems, etc... It was mainly about how incredibly racist sci-fi tends to be, where aliens are all either warlike and ignorant, greedy and sniveling, crafty and backstabbing, and instead of having all kinds of different cultures have a single generalized culture that they are all like...

Anyway, that's what this discussion reminds me of. I do know that dressing children up as nazi's is just plain sick.

Posts: 1104 · Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 8:49 am

It's The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad.

Posts: 1210 · Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 7:04 am

found this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/DUNGEONS-AND-DRAGONS-USEFUL-INFO-ON-DISC_W0QQitemZ 180250106698

...who's gonna manage it? Very Happy

Posts: 4704 · Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 9:52 am

I'm working him.

Posts: 4449 · Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:15 am

JZavoda wrote:

There is a sci-fi book, I can only remember something about Iron being in the title, about an alternate universe where Hitler moved to the USA as a boy and became a sci-fi writer. His fans would go to conventions dressed in these uniforms he designed, with banners and emblems, etc... It was mainly about how incredibly racist sci-fi tends to be, where aliens are all either warlike and ignorant, greedy and sniveling, crafty and backstabbing, and instead of having all kinds of different cultures have a single generalized culture that they are all like...

Anyway, that's what this discussion reminds me of. I do know that dressing children up as nazi's is just plain sick.

Reminds me of race day at any Nascar track in the south, were the Stars and Bars are flown proudly, despite the negative connotations attached. There are still people out there than think the US Civil War was fought to "Free the Slaves"; it was a bit more complicated. Regardless, oddly enough it seems a certain level of cretin will always delight in promoting something they only dimly understand by hanging such flags on their cars while at the track. There are people who RESPECTFULLY use the uniforms to demonstrate history and run historical re-enactments...

Tangentally, I have to think the reason there has never been a Jonah Hex movie made (despite his being probably one of the top ten coolest, bad ass characters in comics history) is because he wears a confederate jacket (having served in the South in the War). I wouldn't be surprised, if a movie does get made someday, they retro-fit some lame-ass explanation on his character that he was really a Union soldier; or that he was a "spy" for the Union, or that they just do away with the jacket and background altogether to make his cursing, killing, uncouth bounty hunter character more PC and palatable for the general audience. When you can't sanitize something, just ignore it I guess... Rolling Eyes

Despite the fact his origin makes clear he served with the south during the war to join a friend that enlisted, yet didn't agree with many of their beliefs, like a lot of soldiers in many wars throughout history.....

That being said, I agree with JZ, dressing up kids in Nazi uniforms is pretty sad...and Iron Dream is a great book.

Mike B.

Posts: 189 · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:42 am

aia wrote:

found this:

DUNGEONS-AND-DRAGONS-USEFUL-INFO-ON-DISC_W0QQitemZ180250106698

...who's gonna manage it? Very Happy

4 Gigs of data on playing as an Ant PC? That's got to be official product.

Wink

Posts: 1104 · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:59 am

Badmike wrote:

...and Iron Dream is a great book.

I found Iron Dream to be a great but uncomfortable book.

On the one hand it's this fun, pulpy space opera. On the other hand, the heroes are all Nazis. (Which, of course, was the point of the book and its commentary on science fiction.)

Took me forever to find a copy though. In the end I had to order one from a seller in England.

Posts: 4449 · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:18 am

g026r wrote:

I found Iron Dream to be a great but uncomfortable book.

On the one hand it's this fun, pulpy space opera. On the other hand, the heroes are all Nazis. (Which, of course, was the point of the book and its commentary on science fiction.)

Took me forever to find a copy though. In the end I had to order one from a seller in England.

The Iron Dream is that rare entertainment that is actually MORE controversial in later years....if anyone attempted that book now, they would be destroyed (if they even got it published). Kind of like the TV show "All in the Family"....a classic that was edgy in the 70s and would be IMPOSSIBLE to broadcast now in our PC world....

Mike B.

Posts: 1276 · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:24 am

Quote:

a classic that was edgy in the 70s and would be IMPOSSIBLE to broadcast now in our PC world

Not to be argumentative, but Nickelodeon (yeah, that's right, the children's network) ran a week-long marathon of All in the Family. Of course, they did put a "warning" before it. At least they gave it a shot... not like Wal-Mart.

Posts: 4449 · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:47 am

serleran wrote:

Not to be argumentative, but Nickelodeon (yeah, that's right, the children's network) ran a week-long marathon of All in the Family. Of course, they did put a "warning" before it. At least they gave it a shot... not like Wal-Mart.

I'm not talking about reruns...which have the slightly sanitized aspect of being "30 years old"...I'm talking about an actual remake or even a debut of a show similar to All in the Family. There is not 1 in 1 million chance in hell a show like this could be greenlighted in our overly sensitive PC society nowadays. Consider:

The main character is an unapologetic racist and misogynist, and is never really punished for such behavior throughtout the show. True, he is ridiculed, but each episode ends with him still secure in his beliefs. Although his uneducated viewpoint is played for laughs, it's made clear that this is an "everyman" and not some aberration.

His wife, who he calls "dingbat", is a loving but incredibly unintelligent woman, and not noticibly smoking hot. The trend nowadays is to give the fat, ignorant husband of sitcoms a smoking hot (or at least attractive) woman that is (of course!) much more intelligent than him, so she can wink her eye at the audience when her husband says something over the top.

His daughter and son in law are freewheeling liberal lefties, yet everything they say and do, when sometimes much more intelligent compared to the main character's stubborn prejudice, isn't given profound social relevance. Instead, often their over the top liberalism is also made fun of as much as the main character's strident conservatism.

I could go on and on, but so many standard TV tropisms are broken in this show, if you were to pitch this today, they would toss you out of the office so hard your ass would bounce. The closest show to it nowadays is South Park, which is possibly the most politically incorrect show of all time, and was supposedly inspired by Parker and Stone's love of All in the Family. However, since it's a cartoon, the episodes don't have the same impact that a "real" show of this type would have (although it's inspired lots of controversy over the years).

Mike B.

Posts: 1276 · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:50 am

On this, Mike, we are in complete agreement.

Posts: 342 · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:48 pm

Badmike wrote:

I'm not talking about reruns...which have the slightly sanitized aspect of being "30 years old"...I'm talking about an actual remake or even a debut of a show similar to All in the Family. There is not 1 in 1 million chance in hell a show like this could be greenlighted in our overly sensitive PC society nowadays. Consider:

The main character is an unapologetic racist and misogynist, and is never really punished for such behavior throughtout the show. True, he is ridiculed, but each episode ends with him still secure in his beliefs. Although his uneducated viewpoint is played for laughs, it's made clear that this is an "everyman" and not some aberration.

His wife, who he calls "dingbat", is a loving but incredibly unintelligent woman, and not noticibly smoking hot. The trend nowadays is to give the fat, ignorant husband of sitcoms a smoking hot (or at least attractive) woman that is (of course!) much more intelligent than him, so she can wink her eye at the audience when her husband says something over the top.

His daughter and son in law are freewheeling liberal lefties, yet everything they say and do, when sometimes much more intelligent compared to the main character's stubborn prejudice, isn't given profound social relevance. Instead, often their over the top liberalism is also made fun of as much as the main character's strident conservatism.

I could go on and on, but so many standard TV tropisms are broken in this show, if you were to pitch this today, they would toss you out of the office so hard your ass would bounce. The closest show to it nowadays is South Park, which is possibly the most politically incorrect show of all time, and was supposedly inspired by Parker and Stone's love of All in the Family. However, since it's a cartoon, the episodes don't have the same impact that a "real" show of this type would have (although it's inspired lots of controversy over the years).

Mike B.

On a side note what was the English show that All in the Family was based on? (Was it Rising Damp?)

I always thought All in the family was heavy left-wing propaganda myself, but that's just me.

Another show that wouldn't work in the USA would be 'House of Cards" three British TV movies, I think that was the title. It's done from the villains point of view with cool asides to the audience. The first two are excellent and the third seems to have been made to PC the series because the villain was way to succesful. Can't have the bad guy win.