Mongoose Publishing and Twilight 2000

[Snake Eyes]

I didn't even know CoD: Black Ops was set in the Cold War until I actually installed it and started playing through the first single-player scenario. I actually found it kind of confusing and thought it might be some trippy time-travel/flashback hoax, like an old episode of Mission:Impossible.

What that "proves" to me is not so much that there is some huge untapped market for Cold War era pen & paper tabletop roleplaying games as it does that they could have set the latest game in the CoD franchise during the War of 1812 and it still would have sold a million copies. I don't think any other causal linkage has been established.

I really do think that if the part of the RPG industry can be called mainstream as a whole thought there was some unfilled cold-war-gone-hot-whoops-gritty-simulationist-apocalypse niche to be exploited they'd be filling it.

With d20.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by Snake Eyes

I really do think that if the part of the RPG industry can be called mainstream as a whole thought there was some unfilled cold-war-gone-hot-whoops-gritty-simulationist-apocalypse niche to be exploited they'd be filling it.

With d20.

Snake Eyes,

Hey, the Cold War background didn't make you pitch it across the room, did it? That's presumably the same for anyone that played the single-player campaign.

I fully admit that I'm setting the bar as low as I can get away with. I'll take a "lack of disgust" as proof-positive!

As recent history has conclusively proven, the invisible hand of the market isn't perfect! Tastes can change over time; themes can get played out, what are once considered narrow niches can become widely popular (in fact, this can be cyclical). If professional game designers and the individuals who run the companies that make RPGs sincerely believe something isn't profitable they simply won't waste what little time or resources they have in exploring blind avenues. (I don't mean to imply there's some kind of evil cartel or conspiracy to suppress Cold War games, merely that if no one tries then we'll never know.)

In fact, sometimes the players themselves don't know what they want. SPI almost produced historical wargames because of the feedback from their players indicated what they wanted, and nothing more. Someone faked or massaged player feedback (which was solicited on a regular basis) to get the green light for the "Star Force: Alpha Centauri" wargame and it turned out to be wildly successful and basically ushered in hard science fiction wargaming.

That said, there are recent RPGs that make use of Cold War themed games out there (GURPS: SEALs in Vietnam, the RPGs "Cold City" and "Hot War" to name a few off the top of my head) so it's not been completely neglected. For that matter, Decision Games (the sort-of successor to SPI) has published a line of games using the Cold War Battles system: Wurzburg Pentomic, the NATO intervention scenario in Hungary '56 (both hypothetical WWIII-based scenarios) and Kabul '79/Angola '87. (Cold War Battles seem to be related to the SPI Modern Battle series of the '70s.) They also recently produced GSFG, an update and homage to "NATO: Operational Combat in Europe in the 1970's".

Tony

[helbent4]

Regarding Mongoose Traveller's Book 1: Mercenary:

There is a "Survival" roll, but it's more like the "you must leave the service". You can still continue, but in another career.

I agree with Raellus in that SF characters are so common as to make their "special" nature almost commonplace. Still, in Mercenary there are careers loosely based on the classic Mercenary tickets: "Cadre, Commando, Guerrilla, Security, Striker and Warmonger". "Commando" would naturally work for special ops PCs, but pretty much most of the rest would apply with some imagination.

The combat rules seem to add some nice chrome, although the weapons by their nature are generic, of course.

Tony