[RPG]: Covert Generation, reviewed by migo (3/3)

[RPGnet Reviews]

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13284.phtml

Robin Ashe's Summary:

Animorphs meets Cyberpunk. Covert Generation is a kid spies game, with lots of pop culture and genre material to draw on.

Go to the full review (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13284.phtml) for more information.

[Cazmonster]

Migo - I just wanted to thank you for the review. I really appreciate you taking the time and effort to read the book and put together a cogent review.

I do want to speak to 'game targeting' something Migo brought up regularly. I didn't so much write the game with a target audience outside of 'Gamers'. Yes, the game is about kids, but that doesn't mean that it's any more for them than anyone else. Other folks have read the intro and come away thinking that it's really written for parents to read.

It's not. The entire intro piece is part and parcel to the book layout and cover design. The book is supposed to look and read like it was put together by a member of the Covert Generation. It's a tool to induct new Agents as much as it is a game book. Think back to the old Uncle Albert's Catalogs for Car Wars - those were as much a look at the world of Car Wars as they were game rules material. Covert Generation is the same.

[migo]

Migo - I just wanted to thank you for the review. I really appreciate you taking the time and effort to read the book and put together a cogent review.

I do want to speak to 'game targeting' something Migo brought up regularly. I didn't so much write the game with a target audience outside of 'Gamers'. Yes, the game is about kids, but that doesn't mean that it's any more for them than anyone else. Other folks have read the intro and come away thinking that it's really written for parents to read.

It's not. The entire intro piece is part and parcel to the book layout and cover design. The book is supposed to look and read like it was put together by a member of the Covert Generation. It's a tool to induct new Agents as much as it is a game book. Think back to the old Uncle Albert's Catalogs for Car Wars - those were as much a look at the world of Car Wars as they were game rules material. Covert Generation is the same.

Now that you mention that it does make sense. Perhaps it was a bit too subtle? I was a little confused reading through it and had to make some guesses. It really makes sense though if I think about my "Animorphs meets Cyberpunk" description, it blends aspects of both. Nice touch!

[Jack]

This game actually sounds very interesting...but it loses me at the premise so aptly summed up as:

"The players play agents with a goal to take out Generation X - which is responsible for everything that's bad in the world right now."

Seriously, I should love this game. I love Underground, Wyrd is Bond, and many more games where you have kewl powerz and fight "Da Man."

Also, I play games with superheroes, demons, monsters, etc... and I just can't take this leap of logic, sorry. And yeah I get there's a level of satire and all...I get that, I just can't use that to overcome my "yeah right" at the premise combined with years of distaste at actually being blamed for what's wrong with the word by sell out hippies and young adult neo-cons.

Now that said, make a companion game where you play agents of Gen X trying to stop overzealous and largely misguided members of Gen Y who are in fact attacking Gen X after being manipulated through pop culture by the true masters of world, the aging and powerhungry Baby Boomers and I'll buy two. :)

[Cazmonster]

Hey Jack - I'm sorry to hear that you don't like the game. From somebody who likes Wyrd, teenage revolutionaries should be up your alley.

But okay, I can see why you don't like your generation being blamed for what is wrong with the world.

The game world isn't exactly our world. It's close, no doubt. The central premise behind The X isn't that the world is screwed up because of their being complacent. The world got screwed up when they decided to take the reins of power from the Boomers. Behind the scenes, they blackmailed, hacked and sucker-punched their way into power.

All those Boomers, the ones planning to retire on their pensions? They wound up back on the street with almost nothing. Pensions Enroned and disappeared.

All those political folks, like the Craigs and the Clintons and the Vitters? There's an X behind them somewhere, pulling their little guilt strings to keep them good soldiers.

So, it's not you wearing the black hat. It's somebody willing to be a villain, somebody willing to sacrifice the world's future for their own good.

With that stated - could you have played the game taking on the Bush/Regan administrations and the S&L Scandals and Iran Conta with teen revolutionaries from the late 80's/90's?

[Jack]

So, it's not you wearing the black hat. It's somebody willing to be a villain, somebody willing to sacrifice the world's future for their own good.

With that stated - could you have played the game taking on the Bush/Regan administrations and the S&L Scandals and Iran Conta with teen revolutionaries from the late 80's/90's?

Yeah I get that part of the premise, I just personally can't make the extra leap that it's Gen Xers doing it.

I know too many Gen Xers trying to get some piece of the pie while fighting tooth and nail with the Boomers above them and the GenY kids below them (there was a whole thread about this on Tangency awhile back) to buy that our generation just decided to seize power. When you see your upteenth buddy lose a promotion to someone's kid with half the experience and twice and the connections, or when you see 45 year olds and their 16-20 year old kids protesting against gays (no really not just gay marriage, being gay in general) and abortion when you're just trying to get to turn in your International Human Rights seminar paper, or even just have to hear the 20th Beatles song used in an investment banking add targeted at folks in the 50s and so on you admittedly get a bit prickly about the idea that you're the threat.

So yeah, I get the premise and don't begrudge the game it's idea. I just can't get into it since it feeds an idea I see a few too many people actually trying to sell as something other than gaming fodder and satire...that somehow I (or even someone in my generation who isn't already connected into the power structure) is "The Man."

And hey, I'd love to be the Man. I'd legalize gay marriage, improve race relations, and still get to have threesomes with my hot Asian masseuse/bodyguard and my equally hot British accountant/driver. My foot soldiers would photograph Jack Thomspon having sex with a Real Doll dressed as Sonic the Hedgehog and my cronies at the New York times would insure the picture was front page the next day. I'd ensure that the sons of the rich and priveleged are the first ones called up from their champagne and roses National Guard postings in the event of a national crisis, and I'd probably legalize a bunch of stuff and then retire to my own private island.

And again, someone makes that game and I'll buy two. As is, I can't get behind a generational war that empowers my generation in ways I suspect might be impossible (too many people my age describe feeling "skipped" for that to seem real to me) and victimizes the people older than I am who I think left a lot half done and rests the hope of the future on a generation I see taking a few too many backslides. YMMV and all.

And while I'm sure I could probably grab the game and use it to play other teen rebels...maybe my generation's kids trained and taught by the last ideological holdouts of Gen X to tear down Gen Y's materialistic self absorbed empire of crazy. And the game probably would work for that.

But, and I totally don't mean to be mean here, why would I pay money to buy a game whose setting I find kinda insulting? I get the intent isn't there and it's meant to be fun...but I can run other stuff that won't annoy me when I read the rules and setting "as is."

So really I hope the game does well for all involved. But free market and freedom of expression aside, I have to put my own monetary foot down somewhere.:)