This year I was lucky enough to be able to pull together player groups for two separate Never Going Home scenarios, as well as a one-shot of Carry. It’s challenging enough to sell groups of players on two different sets of unusual mechanics. I also had to convince them that it would be entertaining to play games about war. To be clear: I wasn’t hawking traditional war games, which allow the player considerable distance, by way of detailed maps and mathematics. The classic sort of war game often puts you in the general’s chair, far removed from the humanity of a soldier out there, on the ground, who is faced with the prospect of taking a life, losing their own, or just witnessing, immediately, the death of others.
Traditional war games do not offer the chaotic and subjective experience that games like Never Going Home—a Weird World War I game—and Carry—a gritty Vietnam War game—try to bring to the table. They are concerned with the psychological effects of war on the individual. Each game does an exemplary job of bringing very difficult subject matter to your table. Neither game is exactly easy to run, especially on a first outing, and even less so with a group of players that is not well-aligned to the games’ style.
It’s worth noting at the outset that both games are very specific in their approach. Not everyone is going to like them. (What’s more—even though I am linking them up here—a group that likes Never Going Home might not be enthusiastic about Carry and vice versa.) When I ran them, my players gave these games a chance, but some were upfront about not wanting to return to one—or both—in the future.
I am fortunate enough to have players who are curious and open-minded, but who also offer honest feedback. Out of the gate, I will say that Carry was received less favorably than Never Going Home. My players felt disconnected from both facts about the Vietnam War and related media tropes. So they weren’t easily drawn into the intense emotions the game is looking to channel. (For the record, I suggested media sources in advance.) My oldest player is in his early 40s, so maybe that accounts for the lack of immediacy. Also it could be that my GMing may not have engaged them. (No one said so, and so I can’t speak to it.)
In a way it seems odd that my players did not mention any distance from Never Going Home. I think that it may be true that the extended chronological gulf may actually help though. World War I feels almost fantastical, as does the inclusion of supernatural elements that are absent from Carry. It could play sort of like D&D, but with gas masks, although I really hope that it did not. I believe that the game’s designers want the Great War to feel deadly serious and not at all whimsical.
That said, whether you’re talking about Carry or Never Going Home, the sense of history comes mostly from style and esthetics. Neither game insists on veracity, because they want to tell emotional stories first and foremost. In running these games—and no doubt in designing them—you have to find a playable space that is suggestive of history but not immersed in it. You don’t want to bury the players in historic minutia, but you also don’t the conflicts involved to feel interchangeable.It’s a difficult balance to strike.
Part 2 coming soon…