VBCW out looks and attitudes???

[shadowking1957]

Im slowly being infused with the VBCW universe and  paid my way into the world with the books and some miniatures, my huge pulp collection I can use anyways, and rules I’ll use THW system as it makes sense.

BUT im intrested in the atitudes of the parties and how they react to each other and iniating combat with there fellow nationals whatever they loyalty?
Being involved in the 1985-85 miner strike I wintenssed first hand some things that I think should be or intrest. At the start of the strike the miners and Poilice were on very good freindly terms and had a jovial respect to each other as it worn on it became  nasty and bitter. To a point where hatred was part of the norm, and the police in the end just did not arrest miners in situtations just beat them up, (personal experience and  observation) and the miners sought to ignore the consequences of a lot of actions. Also the women folk of the land joined in and were vocal and  once introduced and saw the consequences became  loyal to the cause without question.
My thoughts are to the  great people on the  forum here not living in 1938  should it some times be represented on the game table the  out look for engaging your fellow national and how. Im a bif LOEG reader and comic fan the black library has the bulldog Drumand  type characer who has what I belive great establishment attitude and loyalty.

Do the sides  try not to fire or cause  injury to start with gain advantages or try to get it down to fisty cuffs or  run its better to hear this on the radio?

Should some sides attempt to talk or bluster there way in?

Only ideas and I know lot like the world  of VBCW and im intrested in what they think?

Tony

[Arlequín]

The Miner's strike analogy (and I'd just like to mention the strike itself will not be up for debate) is a good one. At the start of the strike, it was the local coppers who did most of the picket duty. Living within the communities that were affected by the strike made them sympathetic to the striker's plight. The bulk of the violence came later when outside forces were brought in to supplement the local forces. That is not to say that the incomers committed all of the violence, but that they led by an example that quickly caught on. On the striker's part, one blue uniform looks very much like another, so 'the police' were responsible.

However if you look at things in the context of a civil war situation (which the Miner's Strike wasn't), you get small numbers polarised at either end of the political spectrum and the bulk of people somewhere in the middle and indifferent. It is subsequent events that dictate how a community (be it a extended family, village, or shire) will view itself in relation to the conflict. For example a 'red' raiding party burns down the house of someone they suspect of being a BUF member. The BUF can make capital out of the 'red menace' and maybe gain some support, some people may join the 'reds' in fear of getting the same treatment if they don't get off the fence, or a few might see this as a chance to 'denounce' someone they have a grudge against, or they may have been sympathetic to the left and this goads them into action!

I don't suspect that there would be any great reluctance to open up on strangers, who have been mentally stereotyped as 'the enemy' in any case, but people you know might be a different thing. However in the Spanish Civil War, when either side's troops entered a village, there was never a shortage of sympathisers ready to point out the Falangistas/Rojos as appropriate.

The last point is that Britain in the 1930's was more deferential than it is now. If a recognised authority figure said to do something, the bulk of people wouldn't question it and those that did might think discretion necessary in a volatile climate.

[huevans]

My own 0.02: I have been reading up - well more like "skimming up" - on the SCW after checking out the Empress figs website. Violence was pretty intense and common right off the bat. The factions HATED one another and would happily beat, wreck and kill. Fascists and Carlists gleefully massacred Reds and Reds happily beat and killed not only Righties, but also priests.

If you're pissed off enough to pick up a rifle, you're pissed off enough to beat the tar out of some unfortunate in the other side's uniform that you've nabbed or put a bullet in him.

And that doesn't even begin to take into account the REAL psychos who are always luring in the weeds just looking for a chance to hurt someone else.

I think that the more extreme factions would be violating the Rules of War from the get-go.

[TadPortly]

From a VBCW perspective I think you have to think along the lines of the Geeves and Wooster TV show, but with guns. 

[AKULA]

Should some sides attempt to talk or bluster there way in?

Well, in a recent 3 sided game between the BUF, The Anglican League and the Somerset Freedom Fighters, the BUF Commander negotiated a safe-passage through SFF lines, in order to pursue the League - of course that might have been because the SFF had nothing to stop the BUF armour, of because they'd just opened another vat of cider....

 

[paul c]

In the source books, the implication is that the violence escalates from demonstrations and protests turning violent (see Cable St or Hunger March riots), meetings get wrecked, factions start carrying weapons, shots are exchanged, BUF govt repression worsens, militias/LDVs form and war begins in earnest.

In the part one of the "Gathering Storm" I tried to explore why British working men and women would take up arms against the King in the VBCW world; Len Green's experince reflects the hardening of attitudes over a period. Think Ireland's civil war, Spain 1931-36 etc.

[6milPhil]

From a VBCW perspective I think you have to think along the lines of the Geeves and Wooster TV show, but with guns. 

Well I think that's it to start with, followed by indignation when such and such fired over so and so's head but once the killings really start it'll soon turn to a series of horrors, just like most civil wars do.

We're still in the early days...