Phil is a youtuber who mostly discusses various classics, such as plays by Euripides or novels by Mishima and Coetzee. I was therefore astonished when I recently discovered that my dieselpunk spy thriller The Ice War got a favorable review by him.
Spoiler alert: Phil reveals all major plot points in this review.
You can buy The Ice War as an ebook or a paperback at Amazon — link >>>
When you buy a car, you look for a model whose performance suits your needs. The generic car, equally good at all tasks, doesn’t exist. This observation also applies to RPG rules: their designer has, hopefully, a clear notion for what purposes his game is intended.
So, when I start working on a new set of RPG rules, I first visualize a key issue: “What do the adventurers do here?” In other words, what kinds of story/movie/TV-series do you wish to emulate? Your decision takes you to the next question: “What important features does your choice require?” (Dogfighting spacecraft? Sneaky espionage gadgets? Clever heists?) Hence, you must establish a set of precepts to serve as the foundation of your project.
My favorite example is West End Games’s Star Wars D6 from 1987, designed by Greg Costikyan. When I read that game for the first time 33 years ago, it was like seeing an intricate piece of machinery put together by a master craftsman. Greg knew exactly what the Star Wars setting required and he designed the game accordingly, scoring a Gold+ medal for his efforts.
One year ago, I decided (at the spur of a moment) to write Expert Nova. From hour one, I knew for what types of campaigns its rules were intended. My intentions are summarized in the following precepts (central ideas are underlined):
A Swedish game designer recently asked me whether he could use my rules for a new game project. When he explained its setting to me. I saw that it lay within Expert Nova’s scope, so I granted him permission. I’m looking forward to see what he will accomplish with the Expert Nova “toolbox”.
Expert Nova is available in Swedish and English …
… as paperbacks — link >>>
… as PDFs — link >>>
* Människan är alltings mått.
** Människan är människans varg.
Summary in English: A reflection on the problems with creating alt-hist game material relating to World War Two, using the never-completed Swedish RPG Partisan as the basis for the discussion.
Nu har det gått över ett år sedan jag förbluffade Sveriges gamers med nyheten att någon hade givit mig en pärm med den enda överlevande utskriften av det legendariska “förlorade” rollspelet Partisan (länk >>> ). Manuset innehöll bland annat tre väldigt olika Sverige är ockuperat-settingar, men den fjärde som vi hade planerat, den om Tredje Riket (stormakt brun) och andra världskriget, saknades av skäl som jag inte minns.
Mitt tjugosjuåriga jag var entusiastisk inför Partisan, medan mitt nutida sextioåriga jag ser på spelprojektet med mer reserverad blick, särskild på dess tänkta Tredje Riket-scenario.
På 1980-talet låg andra världskriget fyrtio år bort och många av Europas och USAs politiska ledare hade upplevt det personligen som soldater (Helmut Schmidt, George Bush senior), som kollaboratörer (François Mitterrand), som motståndskämpar (François Mitterrand [en kappvändare], Jurij Andropov) eller som civilister (Helmut Kohl, Margaret Thatcher). Flera i min umgängeskrets hade ögonvittnen till kriget omkring sig: min pappas kollega John hade varit flygmekaniker på en svensk B16 Caproni under beredskapen och med nöd och näppe överlevt en störtning, en i gamergänget hade en tysk morfar som slagits på västfronten 1944-45 och blivit fransk krigsfånge, jag hade lärt känna Auschwitzöverlevaren Hédi Fried, och så vidare. Det fanns en närhet till dessa fruktansvärda år, vilket gjorde att de flesta nalkades ämnet med självklar respekt — vi levde bland människor som hade sett hur extraordinärt vidrigt detta krig hade varit.
Den närheten är borta idag. De sista veteranerna är i 90-årsåldern. Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan och The Pacific är seriöst menade försök att visa för vårt århundrade hur det var där och då. Men de har tunnelseende — rimligt med tanke på vad en teveserie eller film faktiskt kan omfatta — och gestaltar inte epokens storskaliga massmord, ödeläggelse, skräck och misär.
Hans Alfredson skrev på 1990-talet den alternativhistoriska romanen Attentatet i Pålsjö skog om en tysk ockupation av Sverige. Några försigkomna antinazistiska svenskar genomför på eget bevåg ett dödligt sprängattentat mot ett av de många tysktåg som 1941 for genom Sverige, vilket i sin tur får en rasande Hitler att förklara krig mot Sverige. Alfredsons grepp, en fiktiv självbiografi, fungerar bra, men den är inget källmaterial som jag skulle känna mig bekväm med att använda till ett spel.
Min inställning idag hänger också samman med mina personliga upplevelser av krig, upplevelser som jag delar med tusentals andra svenskar. Under Balkankrigen för 25 år sedan jobbade jag en tid med logistiska spörsmål för våra Blå baskrar i Bosnien (UNPROFOR); jag for aldrig dit ner, men krigets skugga föll över vårt kontor i Södertälje. Samtidigt skrev jag en bok om FN-observatörerna i Kashmir (UNMOGIP). För elva år sedan tjänstgjorde jag sex månader i Kabul som civil specialist i en EU-mission (EUPOL) som sysslade med polisutbildning.
Så utifrån vad mitt sextioåriga jag har sett och hört anser jag att endast några få krig i närtid kan placeras på nästan samma nivå i helvetet som andra världskriget, nämligen Röda Khmerernas massmördarregim i Kambodja på 1970-talet, folkmordet i Rwanda 1994, samt andra Kongokriget kring millennieskiftet (ett sällsynt brutalt krig som krävt miljoner människors liv men som utkämpats i mediaskugga). Retorisk fråga: Skulle de vara lämpliga ämnen för något rollspel? Självklart inte, ty de ligger så nära oss och är så fasansfulla.
Därför är jag idag lättad över att våra försök att skapa Tredje Rikets fiktiva ockupation av Sverige till Partisan har slukats av de elektroniska entropin. Kanske skulle vi ha använt det ockuperade Norge som förebild (jag minns inte), men vårt verk hade ändå endast blivit ett tillrättalagt och nedtonat skrapande på ytan. Wehrmachts vedergällningsmassakrer efter partisandåd (ett antal slumpvis utvalda civilister arkebuseras utan pardon för varje dödad tysk soldat), Gestapos klappjakt och mord på judiska och romska svenskar, de inhemska samarbetsmännens lismande inför den tyske rikskommissariens despotiska styre, eller en svensk motsvarighet till Grini-lägret — hur skulle vi, ett gäng grabbar i tjugoårsåldern, ha kunnat överföra sådana historiska brott mot mänskligheten till en fiktiv situation på ett respektfullt och trovärdigt sätt utan att göra vårt spel ospelbart?
The facsimile edition of my old-school Swedish espionage/gumshoe/parallel worlds RPG Thriller is now also available as a PDF download at DriveThruRPG.
The download costs 80 SEK, that is, about €8. It consists of reproductions of the original typewritten 62 pages from 1983-84, without illustrations or graphic design, plus an explanatory foreword. A more old-school product than that is hardly possible.
Go to Thriller’s DriveThruRPG page by clicking on the picture or on this link >>>
If you want the printed version of Thriller, it is sold at Amazon — link >>>
Summary in English: An facsimile edition of my first Swedish RPG, called Thriller, is now available at Amazon.
Jag har publicerat, Thriller, mitt första rollspel på Amazon: köp spelet här — länk >>>
Thriller är ett actioninriktat agent/deckar/äventyrar-rollspel och det första spel som jag konstruerade själv. Under sommarlovet 1983 arbetade jag som ensam nattvakt på en fabrik i min hemstad Göteborg. Nätterna var sega och trista, så jag tog en skrivmaskin till vaktkuren och skrev Thriller under händelselösa timmar mellan patrullrundorna. Chefen godtog detta, eftersom skrivandet höll mig vaken.
Thrillers setting bygger på agentseriernas värld med hjältar som åker till exotiska platser för att rädda världen från exempelvis maktgalna diktatorer eller internationella brottslingar. Inspirationen kom från dåtida teveserier och serietidningar.
Under 1984 mekade jag vidare med Thriller samtidigt som jag slutförde mina universitetsstudier och skrev Traveller-artiklar åt Journal of Travellers’ Aid Society. Under det året expanderade jag Thriller med Äventyrens värld, en science-fiction-setting där äventyrarna utforskar Jordens parallella tidslinjer; alternativa världshistorier har ju alltid roat mig. Settingen beskrivs på bokens elva avslutande sidor.
Thriller är självklart oldschool – spelet skrevs ju under den epoken – med en BRP-regelmotor baserad på 1T20. Den här boken är en faksimilutgåva av originalmanuset som skrevs på mekaniska skrivmaskiner; sidorna innehåller därför bara skrivmaskinstext utan typografiska krusiduller eller illustrationer.
Traditionally, late December is a time for summarizing the past year and taking a look at what the next year might entail. Here in my blog I focus on my writing endeavors — what’s been accomplished in 2018 and what I hope work with in 2019.
2018: My Accomplishments
Q4 2018 was obviously a hectic time. When I look at the list above, I feel contented with what I achieved.
2019: My intentions
I don’t expect to complete all these projects during 2019, but if I get sunny weather with the wind in my back, and there is plenty of coffee in my thermos flask of holding, I might walk a part of my road. However, an ancient word of wisdom cautions us: Man supposes, God disposes.
Summary in English: My reflections on the alt-history occupations of the legendary and unpublished Swedish RPG Partisan.
I våras fick jag den enda kända utskriften av rollspelet Partisan i mina händer. Spelet var tänkt att få flera settings. Nu har jag skrivit några öppna poster på min Patreon-sida, där jag funderar över egenheterna hos tre settingar och deras potential för spännande motståndskampanjer i ett ockuperat Sverige, dels ur ett dåtida perspektiv och dels ur dagens.
Det är bara att klicka på länkarna nedan.
Länk till Stormakt Brun, Tredje Riket >>>
Länk till Stormakt Röd, Sovjetunionen 1980-tal >>>
Länk till Stormakt Blå, ett skurkaktigt USA 1980-tal >>>
US Army, Tyskland 1982
Polar scene by Rob Watkins (click on picture for lager version)
When I wrote my dieselpunk spy adventure The Ice War (link >>> ) some years ago, I let the story have three protagonists: two people — spy Johnny Bornewald and mechanic Linda Connor — and one continent — Alba, an alternate-history substitute for Antarctica. Transportation across Alba’s icy wastes is mainly by juggernauts, huge diesel-electric vehicles that take people and supplies from one frozen location to another. This illustration by Rob Watkins captures quite well what a freight juggernaut of the Russian army looks like.
I am currently busy fixing a lot of things at home and that is a recipe for serendipitous discoveries: in this case, I unearthed the typewritten manuscript for Thriller, my first complete role-playing game design.
In the summer of 1983 I worked night shifts as a solitary security guard at a factory in my hometown Gothenburg. The nights were long and dull, so I took a small typewriter to work and wrote Thriller during the slack hours between my patrol rounds. (My boss didn’t object, because my hobby kept me awake.) The game was based on tropes from the spy comics (e.g. Secret Agent X-9) and action-hero television series (e.g. The Professionals) that were available in Sweden in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Thriller was an adequate game in those days, though it is outdated nowadays. I submitted its manuscript to Titan Games, the Swedish company that a few years later published Swedish Dungeons & Dragons, but they were not interested. I kept on working on the project for some time: my manuscript contains an addendum from 1984 that outlines a parallel-worlds setting, comparable to Steve Jackson’s much later GURPS Alternate Earths. I remember play-testing a Thriller adventure in late 1984 with Ylva, Christer, and Per, three university friends in Lund. The set-up was a cross-over with Call of Cthulhu, even though the players never realized it. Hence Thriller was flexible enough to handle any kind of contemporary action-oriented campaign.
However, when I joined Target Games in April 1985, I got busy with that company’s games so Thriller ended up in my collection of unrealized game projects.
A scanned PDF in Swedish of Thriller will become available for my supporters when my Patreon page is up and running.
“History knows no happy endings, just crises that come and go.”
This summer has been extremely hot and dry here in Sweden. The unusual weather started in May and still continues two months later. Sweden’s meteorological records go back 270 years and nothing like this summer has ever been registered. The scientific underpinning of anthropogenic climate change is strong so I am convinced that mankind is heading into an era of turbulent weather.
(However, if you, dear reader, happen to be a climate-change denier, this blog post is NOT an invitation to enter your objections in the comment field. The post’s purpose will become clear below, and TL;DR is not an acceptable excuse.)
Mythic and Real Climate Horrors
Norse mythology speaks of the Fimbulvinter, a winter that lasts for three years and heralds Ragnarök when the world will perish in storm and fire. Archaeologists speculate that this mythic winter may been a reflection of an extreme cold-weather event around AD 540, caused by volcanic eruptions. I have lived through many harsh winters so I understand my distant ancestors’ fear of that season.
But these days, a Fimbulsommar appears to be a more realistic threat to my country. Warm summers are generally considered to a blessing among us Swedes, but I have endured hot Augusts in the eastern Mediterranean, in Florida and in Afghanistan, so I have come to understand how long periods of drought and heat can be regarded with as much fear as overlong winters. The Sun is not a merciful celestial entity, something that is obvious in descriptions of Apollon, a Greek Sun god who also is the lord of plague, and in the legend of Phaëthon, a demigod whose failed attempt to steer the Sun chariot across the sky almost causes the end of the world by taking the Sun too close to Earth’s surface.
The warming of Terra will probably disrupt the extant political order severely as people and agriculture will have to move away from the expanding tropics. At the same time, the rising oceans will inundate major urban areas like Dhaka, London, New York and Mumbai.
Melting polar caps will reshape our world
American Revolution vs European Evolution
When I was young, science fiction stories often spoke of a future unified Earth, usually considered to be a “good thing” with humanity coming together in a union of regional “states”. Often such a unification was justified by appeals to reason, e.g., as a way ensuring peace and social stability. But the warming of Terra might instead justify a “unification by necessity” scenario: the challenges to human civilization become so huge that long-term transnational efforts are required to ensure its survival.
The European Union can be seen as a case of transnational cooperation originally instigated by the necessity of avoiding yet another devastating European war. Unlike the United States, which was created by a revolutionary declaration in 1776 and by the promulgation of a constitution in 1787, the fusion of Europe’s nations (starting in 1952 with the CECA Treaty) has incrementally expanded in extent and scope, treaty by treaty. This evolution will probably never end and so I dare not guess what a united Europe will look like by the time my children, all born around the millennium, get grandchildren.
Since three decades, the European Union has had to find new ways of dealing with some serious and unexpected challenges, for example:
— the Balkan Wars in the 1990s, and the resulting political complications, some of which remain unresolved 20 years later.
— nation-building in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001/02. I went to Kabul ten years ago as a member of EUPOL Afghanistan, a civilian EU police support mission.
— widespread piracy around the Horn of Africa after the internal collapse of the Republic of Somalia in the 1990s. EU has organized the long-term counter-piracy missions Atalanta and Nestor.
— the huge refugee influx caused by the drawn-out Syrian civil war in the 2010s
— the spectre of resurgent European authoritarianism, also in the 2010s.
The EU administration in Brussels has therefore been forced to develop central political and administrative mechanisms for crisis management. Whether those efforts have been productive is another issue, but we can at least commend the EU for trying.
A Green Cyberpunk Setting?
Going from reality to the realm of science fiction, I now envision an EU-inspired setting for an RPG setting, perhaps in 2118. Heroism in small steps might be an apt campaign theme, i.e., determined characters strive to handle minor crises that never stop coming.
The loose Terran Federation (TF) is Earth’s dominating political entity. It grows slowly as sovereign nations accede to it one by one to get the full benefits of TF’s civilization-saving ventures.
The TF’s tasks at hand are immense because agriculture must be reorganized at the continental level and new cities built at Earth’s new coastlines. Its Crisis Investigation Center (CIC) dispatches intrepid operators to trouble-spots around the world. Their job is to check what is really going on and figure out what to do about it, their conclusions sometimes leading to the establishment of specialized operations for handling specific problems.
But serving as an field operative of a cumbersome organization is never a smooth ride; in this particular context, CIC agents often need to come up with creative solutions that accomplish what’s needed, while keeping the home office in a state of semi-ignorant complacency. When hotshot freewheelers, for example the militant activists of the Emerald Serenity movement, jump into the fray, the situation of the ground gets even more messy.
Voilà, I have moved from my reflections on this extreme Swedish summer to outlining a setting for a semi-near-future science fiction campaign based on a very troubled Earth, executed as “green cyberpunk”. And that’s the core of this post: a piece of political science fiction inspired by the current grim climate changes.
The Dream Forge 