The American Dream « lategaming

15Jan/080

The American Dream

It's called the American Dream,
because you have to be asleep to believe it.

- George Carlin

The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It's over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now.

-J. G. Ballard

"There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die."

- Hunter S. Thompson

the children the world almost breaks become the adults who save it

- Frank, Postsecret

"We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fearâ€”fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer."

- Hunter S. Thompson

I challenge anyone not to read these quotes and think of a plat/storyline/game.

Setting #1:
Generate characters for a 1950s-era game. Encourage the players to find pictures of their characters or archetypes. Give them appropriate skills. If they want to be involved in the themes of the day, that's fine. They also don't have to know each other. We're placing them into a Matrix/Truman-Show style setting where they will quickly start to peel away the flaking paint of a failed social experiment. To a degree, this will be like "Blast from the Past" as the players should be mired in 1950s America before being exposed to the truth. And what is the truth?

Setting #2
Society has broken down and the GM should grab as much 1950s style memorabilia as possible. Maybe it's the 1st Jan 1960, mere months after the bombs hit. Maybe the Red Scare was really really real and the war happened. Players here will be a lot better prepared but should be encouraged to hold onto telltales of their previous lives.

Setting #3
What would you suggest?