Question: Who are the Bad Guys?

[WBWilder]

I've thought more about doing a French vs Algeria campaign but am in a quandry.

In a scenario or a campaign invariably one side becomes the good guys and the other, the bad guys.

So who do we make the bad guys. If I make the French the bad guys, our gamers in France are going to be quite upset. To them it would be the same if I made a scenario about the US vs Vietnam and the Viet Cong are the good guys!

Now that would not go well at all (except for the former VC, who might enjoy it...if perchance there are one or two who are playing the game).

And I'm not really sure who are the bad guys in this case. The Afghans were the good guys when they were fighting the Russians, Bin Laden included. Now they are the bad guys.

Iraqis were the good guys when fighting Iran. Now we are at war in Iraq. So I guess one has to be politically careful and correct these days, or should it really matter?

WB

[Faust]

WBWilder said: The Afghans were the good guys when they were fighting the Russians, Bin Laden included. Now they are the bad guys.

Not entirely true. The "bad guy" Afghani's were those aligned with either the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. The common Afghani person, from my understanding, was quite happy to see the Taliban removed from power.

WBWilder said:Iraqis were the good guys when fighting Iran. Now we are at war in Iraq. So I guess one has to be politically careful and correct these days, or should it really matter?WB

Similar to above comment: The Iraqi's are not necessarily the bad guys right now, only the insurgents. While public Iraqi opinion of Americans is on a general decline, they are (or at least were in 2003) happy that we have removed Saddam Hussein from power.

[Marek_Tucan]

IMO do as you like, someone's eventally going to be upset anyway;o)

The terms "good/bad" in such wars are quite relative. Say who was good in Indochina in 1950's, French or Viet Minh? Who was good in Yugoslavia in WWII, Tito's partisans or Chetniks? Depends vastly on opinion of he who evaluates it.

[halstein]

I don't think it realy is any need for good-guys vs. bad-guys. After all, most players are intrested in a good game.

Also the side one plays, does not reflect wich side one thinks is good. Many wargamers like to play Nazi-Germany, but very few thinks the Nazis are good-guys.

Halstein.

[DRG]

Bill, you well know the quote about winners writing history and that applies here as well. One mans freedom fighter is, without question, another mans terrorist. I started out writing a huge "on one hand.... but on the other hand" post ranging from Tim McVey to Iraqi insurgents then deleted it because it would just have polarized people.

As Marek says, whatever you do will get someone's nose out of joint. Try an walk the line and stay neutral. Present the historical event then let people play out the battle and see what happens. There are probably HUNDREDS of SP scenarios in all the different variations of the game built from the perspective of the German SS that would have **not** impressed people at all 40 years ago. If you wanted to build a scenario based on events in Yugoslavia in the 90's good luck picking "the good guys" there!

The best you can do is try to stay neutral. It's the best you can do for any sceanrio.

Don

[geoff]

Seems to me the good guys are the side you allocate to the human player and the bad guys are the one you allocate to the computer (apart from your/my own personal/secret preference of course).

And I guess the decision on who you allocate to the human comes down to which side has the biggest challenge in the scenario you are creating. If you are recreating a historical scenario then the side with the challenge is up to the historian, but in that case the scenario you choose to create reflects your preference! (Of course, some historical scenarios are totally one sided and present no challenge for the victor and an impossible situation for the loser.)

I don't know much about the french / algerian conflict except that it was french "government" troops against the algerian insurgents. The french eventually pulled out, and there was a lot of ill-feeling, at least amongst the officers, against President de Gaulle for making the decision to pull out (the plot of Frederick Forsythe's book the Day of the Jackal was based on this ill feeling.)

A challenging scenario (and thus fun to play) would be one where a smaller side has a chance of winning against a larger side, and thus the human would get the smaller side. So in a french / algerian scenario, I would expect the french would have the smaller side, and would be the human player, and so by default the "good guys".

Of course, you could always create two campaigns - one to be played as the french, the other as the algerians!

[Nightblade]

The problem in Algeria was a very complex one, but in the same time simple, as it is not different to the Iraq situation today.

In Algeria, the french colonists were living together with the algerians natives , most of the french colonists were simple workers , mostly poor.
Algerian natives got access to the same schools as french colonists and were not considered "second zone people".

So where was the problem if all was that good ?

The problem was at first in France not in Algeria. There were rich people living in France, making the algerian natives working for them in Algeria but with a lower pay that any french colonists.
Laws from France were not really giving algerian natives the same rights as french colonists.

Due to that difference, some algerian independantists movements were created, on theory it was simple justice, but unfortunately the theory does not live for long due to how people behave.

What launched this guerilla war is the fact the insurgents and affiliated were killing civilians, not only french colonists but even their "algerian brothers" (as the terror goal was to make them afraid enough so they join them gainst french).

At first the french army went there to protect civilian french colonists (again not really caring of algerian natives murdered by the "insurgents") but when the french army noticed the murders of whole villages inhabitants by the insurgents and affiliated, the french army went out of the "civil" way to deal with the them.

The fact some , as always in a war young, french soldiers notice their friends horribly mutilated by the way insurgents dealt with their enemy , did not helped to keep things civil.

And because of that, mistakes and blindless killing has been done and again innocents were killed.
For the algerian natives the choice was then difficult : insurgent were killing them to make them cooperate with insurgents ideas, and french army were killing them too just because they looked like insurgents.

Later, as despite the victory was for the french army on the conflict, De Gaulle decided to leave, because the war became a bit expensive and not popular with people in France due to the media coverage , mostly controlled by opponent to the war.

Feeling betrayed by De Gaulle, the OAS was created made from french colonists and some head people of the french army
The OAS was a secret "army" that was killing :
-convinced FLN members.
-supposed to be traitors to their ideal.

But again, people behave differently thatn their theorical ideal : they killed a bit more than that, and in the middle were caught again some innocent algerian natives civilians.
Making the OAS/french army even less popular for the algerian natives.

Finally , some of the generals affiliated to the OAS made a "coup d'etat" in Algeria , to go against De Gaulle decision.
De Gaulle dealt with them by executing them all.

When the french army left on De Gaulle decision, they took the french colonists with them (as they all recieved the famous "valise ou cerceuil" message , we can translate by "the bag or the coffin" ).

But , as an end to that situation (maybe a "political gift" as a part of the no killing on french colonist leaving) an inhuman act from De Gaulle that would produce a lot of killing : the french army disarmed the algerian natives army that were on their sides and prevented them to come in France.

Now imagine what happened when those unfortunate algerian natives soldiers, waiting without weapons in the ex-french bases were caught by the newly independant Algeria troops ?
Yes , that's right : a massacre.
One more on this war.

Can you see some similarities to what happened in Vietnam or Iraq today ?
History repeat itself again and again and it is not something good.

I can agree that the french army could'nt be considered as the "good" , because of innocent blood on them and what they did to the algerian natives that believied De Gaulle at first then were left behind.

But you can't in all honestly consider the insurgent as "good" , becuase of the huge amount of innocent blood they have on their hands too.

That said, SP:MBT is a wargame , and unless the specific scenario is obviously pointing out who is the "good" or not, recreating battle situation in the wargame is not pointing to good or bad.

Usually in a scenario, i try to play both sides because of the tactics , the strategy involved, not because of the "right side". I don't consider real life and a game mixing, game stay not real by definition.

In my opinion, leave the "good" and the "bad" for the reality and design the scenario for tactic and strategy.

[Listy]

Aghhh! my last Bastion agaisnt the PC Virus has been breached!

Thrice damn you WB!



When you cna worry about "Good" or "Evil" Pixels, you've got to much time on your hands, now go desgin some more senarios using the UK.

[Coleco]

Part of playing Wargames is that you have to have the ability to look past that.I usually just play with whatever country I like the equipment of.

[WBWilder]

WOW! WOW! And all of this from just the suggestion of such a scenario! My, oh my!

Still, this is very good conversation. I think the main point I have gathered from this is simply do the battle and let folks decide for themselves.

In that sense the text file must also be neutral, not leaning one way or another.

As is often the case, most soldiers in the trenches are not so much concerned with philosophical right or wrong, they just want to stay alive, whatever it takes.

And as for the bloodletting of the innocent, well, that to me does not qualify at all in the sense of whatever twisted honor that there is in warfare.

Final result. I will probably do it. There are other themes less controversial and more apparent and those I will do first.

Thanks gentlemen, for expressing your views on the subject.

I heard you Listy! Get back to work. You got it!

I guess "Height of Battle" or "Bushwhacked" was not enough.

Okay, coming up, the UK paras and their landings at Port Said. That work for you?