Modern Police/Crime Subboard?

[Gailbraithe]

It seems like a lot of people are interested in gaming the narco conflicts of the 80's and 90's, and there's a rapidly growing body of miniatures and terrain suitable for such conflicts.  Would there be any interest in creating a subboard off of The Conflicts that Came in from the Cold[/i] board dedicated specifically to urban conflicts between gangs and law enforcement (and maybe even expand it to include 80's "action film" style games?).   Or maybe splitting the forum into a 1945-1980 board and a 1980-2000 board?


It seems to be a very popular topic, but it gets a little lost in this forum where the primary interest seems to be (duh) Cold War era military conflicts.  I've been really into 7TV for the last few years, but it's hard to figure out where to post stuff.  I mean I could run a game with a street gang going up against ghosts, but what forum does that AAR get posted to? 

[Arrigo]

not interested in gang warfare at all... but I think that the separation would be a nice idea. For those interested it would be easier to find what they want and keep track of news and other people project, for those not interested like me, would reduce a bit the congestion.

Best,
Arrigo

[Gailbraithe]

I think I actually titled this post incorrectly.

I think there should be a forum between The Conflict That Came In From The Cold and Superhero Adventures to cover Modern era games that don't violate the "Nothing Past 2000" rule.  Something that covers games that are too late in period to be "Pulp" but set too early to qualify as "Near Future."

Like, for example, if one were to do a game based on Big Trouble In Little China, where would that go?  It's essentially a Pulp adventure game, but the setting is Chinatown circa 1986, so technically it belongs in this forum.  But it really has squat to do with the Cold War.

Crime-based games, whether its government forces vrs narcos or turf wars between gangs, have a huge crossover with other action/adventure trope stories, but also have little to do with the Cold War.  I just think there should be a separation between the realistic military stuff and more off-the-wall modern action/adventure stuff.

[Arrigo]

I agree,

also once I dwelled in the near future board... and it was not really near future, but a mix of everything from Endor to cyberpunk... I am working in a near (very near to be exact) future setting for fun, but it has nothing to do with the rest of the future board. IF I come about to do something with it and post... probably it will be in this board, if not because the majority of pictures will be more of interest here than there!

Like when I see post on 7TV, street wars or the like, I think they are 'cluttering' the cold war board with miniatures I really do not see as relevant... and then I realize that if I play those games it would be difficult to find what they want from the 'clutter'.

And recently I have seen more and more past 2000 stuff here...     just to make things even more confused!

[Ultravanillasmurf]

My thoughts are that the existing Conflicts that came in from the cold sub forum is too limiting.

Maintaining the good taste aspect, I would suggest continuing the ban on discussing conflicts this century.

I would suggest three boards:

The existing board to cover 1945 to 2000 military games.

A SpyFi/crime board - possibly counter terrorism counter insurgency but with strong content rules on taste.

Ultramodern - covering near future conflicts and kit. Whether this includes retro-ultramodern such as Twilight 2000 needs to be decided.

[edit - changed wordimg CT to CoIn]

[Arrigo]

This would be a good approach. But I think that, to avoid opening a big can of worms... we can avoid the ultramodern board. It would be a nightmare reopening old wounds. Not that I think it is not worth. This board right now is too cluttered with things that are barely fitting together. Alos I have seen thread in the 'future' one that can neatly fit in the spy/crime board. It should include even CT ops if not because a lot of what is doing in spy-fi games is CT in nature (by default, if we want to look at the movies, Spectre is a Terrorist organization). Of course discernment is necessary (as everywhere).

The ultramodern board... on one hand it would be useful for dividing commercial announcements and to have a neat place. But again if we discuss near future conflict and kits we can easily spill... (but certainly it will be a good fit for my Project Majestic setting and the still unnamed one I am working on...). I would suggest Twilight 2000 stick on the cold war, if not because it is firmly rooted in the east-west confrontation. also the original stuff was basically cold war stuff. 

The caveat of an ultramodern board is that it could slip back in the old issues... but frankly put several thread in the current cold war board are just that under another guise. We love Empress and Spectre models too much. End of the line...

IMHO: the three board option is the best, but a two board one will be easier to implement under the current policies. If I am not mistaken I think we had an ultramodern section back in time...

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I have changed the loaded wording CT to the less loaded CoIn.

[Arrigo]

I have changed the loaded wording CT to the less loaded CoIn.

I think you made a mistake. COIN is a different animal from CT. It is a military operation so largely at home in the cold war board. Leading a SWAT team taking down bad guys is CT and it is what plenty of players will do in Spy and Police games after all. It was CTU in 24 not COINU...    No need to re-purpose words. You had a good idea, I just warned of some potential troubles.

[Doug ex-em4]

Can someone translate the the abbreviations. Please....!

Doug

[Ultravanillasmurf]

My elderly Concise Oxford Englissh Dictionary (1990) defines an Insurgent as "rising in active revolt".

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Can someone translate the the abbreviations. Please....!

Doug

Sorry, I had them in full in the relevant post, but.

Counter Terrorism (as in the fictional agency in 24) and Counter Insurgemcy.

[Gailbraithe]

Let's be careful to not go off onto a tangent about insurgency vs terrorism.

To be clear, I'd like to see a board for action/adventure genre games with modern settings.  But I don't mean anything that would even come close to violating the 2001 rule.  The only terrorist organizations I'm interested in wear boiler suits and name themselves after deadly snakes, like COBRA and VIPER.  Or HYDRA.  Hydras are kind of snake like.

Like the reason I started this thread is because my next big project is this:


That's right, Beverly Hills Cop.  I'm building my first modern urban board, I'm statting up the Beverly Hills PD and Victor Maitland's Cartel in 7TV2e, and collecting the models I'll need.  And I was thinking I would make a thread about it, then wondering what board it should get posted to.  It's a skirmish wargame between law enforcement and a criminal cartel set in LA in 1984.  The correct board is...The Conflict That Came In From The Cold?

That just seems wrong.  My goofy little Beverly Hills Cop game does not fit in with the serious military stuff, but it doesn't really fit in Pulp, Superheroes or Near Future either.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) is an international criminal organisation amongst whose weaponry are such diverse elements as: ...

[number1section1]

If I may would it not be easier to just rename the board rather than splitting it into two, it seems that people are more confused by the name 'conflicts which came in from the cold'.

[Captain Blood]

Thanks for the suggestions. The admin/moderator group will take it into consideration.

A couple of things to point out by way of context:

1. The name of the board isn't meant to be literal. Several of our LAF boards have very descriptive names ('The Second World War'), others have more playful names like 'Pikes, Muskets and Flouncy Shirts' (rather than just 'Renaissance', for instance). When we coined it, 'Conflicts that came in from the cold' seemed an engaging shorthand for anything and everything post WW2 up to the end of the C20th - effectively, for most of that time span, the era of the Cold War. But also taking in the 60's, 70's and 80's - the heyday of spy-fi and TV police shows etc (for the 7TV enthusiasts).
So we could change it to a more flat, descriptive name - but some may object to that as removing a little dash of personality from the forum. These names have been in use for a while and are part of our own funny little history... 

2. We used to have quite a lot more sub-boards, but took the decision (the last time the forum was significantly reorganised) to rationalise these down to fewer boards. Clearly, how you organise these things is a choice. There's a case for sub-dividing almost all the current boards in some way. In some cases, you could end up with an awful lot of sub-boards if you followed it to its logical conclusion. We can have a proliferation of multiple boards each with a narrow subject matter. Or we can have fewer boards with a broad subject matter. Whichever way we do it, we're not going to please everybody. There are pros and cons either way. We took a conscious decision to do it one way. But we can certainly consider the question again in light of this specific request.