[Raellus]

I find it interesting that folks are upset about the fictional POTUS of v4. I've seen him described as a warmonger here, several times, by a few different posters. I read the v4 World At War too and didn't really get that impression of him, but maybe I'm not sensitive to that kind of thing.

Even if that's a fair characterization of how he was written, is it really outside the realm of possibilities that a US president could be bellicose in temperament and policy?

Could one not argue that past US presidents have been guilty of "warmongering"? How about Polk? (Mexican-American War) McKinley? (Spanish-American War) LBJ? (Vietnam-American War- which started during the Ike admin, and escalated during JFK, but LBJ really poured on the gas) George W. Bush? (Iraqi Freedom)

All of the above wars were either started, provoked, or escalated by US presidents (and these don't count any of the minor Cold War brushfire proxy wars in which the US was indirectly involved). None of them were fought to defend the US from a real existential threat. I think it's fair to level accusations of warmongering in these instances. (Lest I be accused of being politically motivated with this list, I am not- it's pretty non-partisan: two were started by Democrats, two by Republicans)

Heck, only one world leader in the entirety of human history has authorized combat use of nuclear weapons in anger, and that was a US president (Truman, another Democrat).

My point is, US presidents have, at times, been the aggressors when it comes to waging war. So v4's fictional POTUS isn't some sort of implausible/unrealistic outlier, by any means.

More importantly, how many players really care about the role of a fictional POTUS in a WWIII RPG?

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