Quote:
Originally Posted by Targan
As a non-US resident, I have no great negative emotional response to a post-Twilight War USA being a total mess.
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I agree with Targan. I bought Howling Wilderness when it first came out, read it once or twice and that was that. It made absolutely no impression on me one way or the other, and I doubt if I've even looked at it in over twenty years other than perhaps as a point of reference to check something in the timeline. On the other hand, when I first read the Survivor's Guide to the United Kingdom I had what seems like the same reaction that some of the US members had to Howling Wilderness - I didn't like it for a number of reasons and found parts of it to be unrealistic and / or extremely cliched, which is ultimately why I ended up spending something in the region of six years writing an alternative version. For me, it isn't a case of levels of damage inflicted or whether my country "wins" or "loses", it's about what is, in my opinion, realistic. Obviously - and thankfully - it is impossible to ascertain what would or would not be realistic in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange, so ultimately we all set our own standards as to what we think is realistic or not and play our campaigns accordingly - as Olefin says, the game is what you make it and what you want it to be.