[3:16] the betrayal of planet Girlfriend
Lance D. Allen:
I think I'm going to have to disagree with you on Paul's #2, Ron. I think 3:16 very ably supports that interpretation of Hatred For Home. It was, in fact, my first assumption on what it meant. I'll concede that sympathy for the aliens may have been what was in Gregor's mind when he made that, (he'd have to answer himself for us to be sure) but I think the strength of the game is that the play emerges based on the assumptions and values of the players.
Imagine being a young, patriotic and quite possibly psychopathic youngster enlisted for the 16th Brigade, 3rd Army, Terran Expeditionary Forces. Finally! Some adventure, something more than the boring luxury of Earth, and nothing to look forward to but ennui, despair and a suicide chamber. Not only that, but you get adventure and glory in a good cause, protecting the riches of the mother world from the avaricious eyes that watch from the stars!
Then you get out there, and you're mistreated, like you're the worthless scum of the Earth, rather than a selfless hero. You're put into harm's way, and your rewards are dismissively granted. Corruption reigns in the upper ranks, and you begin to realize that maybe, just maybe, the psych evals weren't very thorough. That sadistic corporal watches you while you sleep, and you've started to lay awake nights, wondering what he plans for you. BUT! That corporal, the bossy sergeant, the arrogant lieutenant, and your equally disfunctional squad-mates are all you've got. You've saved each other's lives. Sure, you shot Trooper Valdez when he tried to steal your combat drugs, and you're pretty sure that Trooper Kee dropped that grenade in your lap on purpose.. But at least they're not the nameless, faceless higher ups who send you uncaring to your death, time and again.
Now you start gaining some rank. You get your orders. You begin to catch on to the real horridness of it. You, your young soldiers, your peers and your immediate subordinates may very be the scum of the earth, but you've also fought and died to save each other and to serve your planet. You realize that they don't care. They hate you, fear you, look down on you. They sent you away, and told the boss to never let you come back home. Baseball, apple pie and mom are all a lie. You start to kill the bugs, not just because you're told to, not just because you're a psychopath, not just to stay alive.. You kill them because you can't kill those sons of bitches that filled your head with tales of glory and honor, and sent you off to die brutally alone and afraid in the blackness. It's not sympathy for the travails of the aliens that drives you to hate your home. It's because home is worthy of your hatred.
If you survive to become Brigadier, and turn the fleet home to blow the shit out of the planet Earth, it's not because you want to save all the fuzzy-wuzzies of the galaxy from the vile human military. It's because you want to destroy those lying, no good, smug, self-righteous tree-hugging hippies. Because you're better than them. Because for all of your flaws (and the files listing your flaws take up terabytes upon terabytes of disc space), you didn't send the young off to die for your comfort.
...which at length is saying that Paul's #2 is by NO means a stretch.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Lance,
That's a nuanced and deeper reading of #2 than #2, I think. Given the way you've stated it, I agree whole-heartedly.
Quote
They sent you away, and told the boss to never let you come back home. Baseball, apple pie and mom are all a lie. You start to kill the bugs, not just because you're told to, not just because you're a psychopath, not just to stay alive.. You kill them because you can't kill those sons of bitches that filled your head with tales of glory and honor, and sent you off to die brutally alone and afraid in the blackness. It's not sympathy for the travails of the aliens that drives you to hate your home. It's because home is worthy of your hatred.
Our views may be very close on this issue.
I think, even, that here you've stated something I agree with but didn't think of as #2. You might be reading a bit into what I was driving at, too; I don't think I said anything about sympathy for the aliens being involved for instance. The sources I referenced are all pretty much what you're saying in that quote, right on the money, to various degrees of intensity.
Best, Ron
edited because I was connection-cut in the middle - RE
Lance D. Allen:
My previous response was 1 part a refutation of your claim that #2 was a stretch, 1 part my interpretation (at length) of how the basic idea of #2 could be interpreted in 3:16, and 1 part textual diarrhea.
The main thrust was summed up early on in my post, in this line: "I think the strength of the game is that the play emerges based on the assumptions and values of the players."
Approach it with criticism of war and the reasons we go to war, and you'll get one type of game. Approach it with the feeling of how our brave and young are disillusioned and mistreated upon return, and you'll get another type of game entirely. Approach it with the concept that war is sometimes righteous and necessary, but sometimes it gets confusing as to when those times are, and you'll come back with a completely different experience. 3:16 is a Rorshak test of your feelings about war, hidden behind the words "kill-happy machismo".
There was a recent thread about how serious 3:16 should be played on S-G. Dude seemed to think that the game was *supposed* to be played as beer and pretzels, and that the deeper themes lurking beneath the surface were incidental and accidental, and really digging into them would be drifting the game. At least one other guy seemed to share that same assumption. That there were deeper issues possible was apparent, much like seeing the tip of an iceberg; you know there's more there, but you may not realize how much.
The beauty of it is that how much lies below the surface is completely subjective.. because that content isn't *in* the game, it's in your mind, and those of your fellow players. You're not digging deep into the game, you're digging deep into your collective thoughts, feelings and values.
All of which may be completely worthless for this particular thread, but I think it bears thought and discussion. I'm probably not the person to guide that discussion though, partially due to my cockamamie sleep/work schedule, and partly my tendency to write stream-of-consciousness about anything that fires my interest or imagination. Floor's yours and/or Paul's. I'll keep contributing as you guide the discussion, and hopefully I'll be able to make enough sense to be of value.
greyorm:
You sniveling maggots want to know how to run a real 3:16 campaign? I'll tell you how! You take a traditional seasonal theme, blowhard Faux News editorializing passed off as news, and go after that bastard Kris Kringle and his damned holiday elves! So get out there and kill some fat fuckin' faeries and bring the secular Christmas of your cherished childhood memories to its knees! Hoo-rah!
This is courtesy of my buddy Ran Ackels, and I'm tossing it up here because, as pointed out already by a couple folks, fiction that feels the way play should feel is the best primer for play: it informs play in ways that rules by themselves don't. It says: do stuff that sounds like and is meant to produce this. Yes, I also know it's a goofy example, but it is also faithful, which I think is the important part.
Gregor Hutton:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on December 22, 2008, 10:59:45 AM
Gregor, have you run into this issue in actual play? If so, what did you do?
Best, Ron
I've not run into this when running the game myself, or in the playtests. And in that I include a fair few games at conventions with people who don't know me (or all the other players in some cases) at all. Though this has made me reflect on what I actually do when I run the game, especially for people I don't know. Why does my enthusiasm rub off, while Paul's in this case didn't?
I have to say, I'd be totally jazzed to play 3:16 with Paul running it and those planets and NPCs.
Anyway, after thinking about it I can say that the book is written assuming you are a group of friends, who want to play the game and are interested in being "Troopers" as portrayed in the book (and there's a lot of latitude there). I haven't played the game with people uninterested in that, or at least who were open to playing at being a "space marine" and "jumping in" for a few hours.
I'll focus on my experiences from some UK conventions in the last few months, because there I have been playing with people almost always unknown to me.
I begin by showing them the book cover, flicking through some pages to show the art and reading out some of the quotes (I guess the ones in black boxes on pages 7, 14, 18 and 19 are the ones I hit most). Up front: we are playing a game about being Space Troopers in a war far from home, we'll find our characters in play, just play, be involved! By showing the front of the book I can read from the back too. And straight to character creation.
I make them tell everyone their name, and then Rep, out loud (often we might not know a player's real name now I think about it -- here you find the loud and quiet players). Then we allocate stats and get the ranks. I always make a point of going through Troopers first, then Corporal, then Sergeant and I read out the quotes from each rank too, while giving out equipment. I hand the book over so they can copy the stats and take in the look and feel of the book.
Then play begins. With louder groups they are often pumped up and start announcing that they are doing shit straight off the bat: working out, dealing drugs, cleaning their guns, masturbating into their rolled-up field manual (a real example), whatever.
For quieter groups, and I've had them like this at first, I pick someone, anyone, and tell them they are in the barracks on board their space ship: the SS <stick name in here> (Good Hope, Dread Victory, whatever flits into my mind). Then I ask them: what are you doing? ("Sleeping in my bunk") Who with? ("No one", "Well, who has the bunk above you?" "Jackson has the bunk below me. I'm on the top bunk." "Oh, top bunk guy, huh? What's Jackson doing?") and so on.
I get them to tell me what they are doing and I feed off that. I sometimes ask for an NFA roll just so we can see that rolling the dice isn't hard, and how to see a success from a failure. I don't stay too long here, but enough to have them "in character".
And I get to role-play the Troopers they have invented, I write the names down if they are memorable. (I find that the quieter groups use my names list more than the louder groups, but that's OK.)
And at some point I will have the Sergeant dragged off to a meeting about the planet. They all get to listen in on the useless briefing. The plain, single-coloured circle as a planet map always gets a laugh (and I personally like it to have a little laughter). Then I ask: what are you doing while Sarge is away? It's always something naughty. I provoke it if it isn't. I guess I'm showing a difference between the Sarge and everyone else even if the Sarge is a good guy that the Troopers like (and that's about 50/50 -- the others Sergeants get high on their power and are total assholes after a mission if not an encounter, and that's fine too).
Then we have the parade to the drop ship. NFA tests to pass the snooty Lieutenant's sharp eye ("where is your entrenching tool, Trooper?" "Here, Sir!" "Take it out, Trooper." "It's not long enough, Sir!" "What?!" "It's not long enough to reach the planet from here, Sir!" ... there is always something that comes out of the dress inspection.)
On to the drop ship, NFA not to puke and into Encounter 1.
Every time, for me, they hit that encounter screaming as they run out the back of the drop ship guns blazing, grenade throwing and up to no fucking good.
I don't know if that helps, but it's been really interesting for me to look back at what I do with people I don't know.
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