Foreward
Before I get too far into this, I should point out that I recognize that Warcradle has plans to make significant changes to the background story for Dystopian Wars. However, as yet the details have not been revealed to the general public, so I felt it this would be a good opportunity to take a look at how the “old” fluff compares to our own real world history, with the idea that this post can serve as a point of comparison once the new fluff is revealed in the fullness of time. On with the show!
Introduction
Scene: A Friendly Local Game Store. I’m playing a game of Dystopian Wars with a friend on a table in a corner, having great fun rolling buckets of dice and sinking ships. A curious stranger, drawn by the unique aesthetics of the game, stops buy to have a look.
Me: Hi there! How are you today?
Stranger: Oh, hello! What game is this?
Me: This is Dystopian Wars.
Stranger: Oh, cool. What’s the game about?
Me: It’s essentially World War II, 70 years before it actually happened, with all kinds of crazy steam-powered stompy robots and flying aircraft carriers.
The scene I just described, with slight variations, has played out numerous times for me over the years that I’ve been playing Dystopian Wars (DW). The game’s setting focuses on a world-wide conflict, and the natural thought progression is to try and place the fictional war showcased in the game into context with a real conflict from our own history. In other words, the game begs the question “Which real war is the Dystopian War most similar too?” For me, the comparison of DW to World War II (WWII) seems to come naturally, almost unbidden, and in this essay I want to examine why that is so. From my perspective, DW is closest to WWII due to the level of technology employed, the geo-political alignment of the great powers involved, and the scale of the conflict. Continue reading →
