As anyone familiar with Sly and the Family Stone knows, when There’s a Riot Goin’ On appeared in 1971 it marked a decisive change in the mood of the band.  Gone was the sunny optimism that seemed to flare out on albums like Stand.  In its place Sly erected a monument to his growing sense of isolation, despair, and drug-induced paranoia.  For this reason alone “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” seems like a perfect title for this campaign.

This campaign will be set in an altered U.S. of the early to mid 1970s.  In many ways the United States of this campaign is a grimmer and more perilous place than its “real” historical counterpart.  Although this is clearly an altered version of America in the 1970s, the players should have a sense that it is never that far from the reality of that period.  Ideally and more importantly, the alterations should serve as a reminder of the continuing presence of that “past.”  My hope is that by playing in this altered version of the past, a past that continues to bear on us, the game will help cast into relief some of the perils of the present.

Some background:

We were a failing remnant, tamed to mere submission to the coming blow                                                                                                                       
Mary Shelley, The Last Man

Following the end of WWII, many Talents were overwhelmed by the losses borne by their fellow parahumans.  Nevertheless, even with the defeat of Germany, the almost daily reports of the huge losses sustained by Europe’s Jews and a growing concern that the Soviets would fill the vacuum in central Europe left by a defeated Germany alerted the U.S. government to a continued need for the unique abilities of Talents.  Despite their greatly reduced numbers, Talents continued to be used by the U.S. in espionage against the Soviet Union, something many Talents resented due to what they regarded as an exploitative use of parahumans and a willingness to imperil them rather than normals.

This understandable resentment led some parahumans to use their users, to working both sides of the Cold War in a desperate attempt to thwart the plans of those who would exploit their talents.  Although the vast majority of Talents who undertook such duties remained loyal, a few did not and felt little remorse at betraying those they felt had already betrayed them.  For the many who served their country and its leaders faithfully, grumbling about the mistreatment they experienced at the hands of their employers but doing little to change it, their loyalty did not prevent many of their former employers from turning on them during the McCarthy period.  Unscrupulous members of HUAAC used the complaints of the most vocal parahumans—and in some cases real evidence of treasonous activity—to cast suspicion on the vast majority of Talents.  Talents were dragged before the committee just as Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman, Bertolt Brecht and others were before them.

It was not an act of treason, nor possibly even of defiance.  But it was a calculated withdrawal, from the life of the Republic, from its machinery.

                                               Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

When McCarthy’s tyranny was finally broken in 1954, many Talents were completely disillusioned with the U.S. government.  Although Talents with remarkable powers—even more impressive than those that appeared during the war—continued to emerge and to work with the U.S. government, increasingly over the next decade and a half, many paranormals chose to withdraw from the organs of government and normal society.  Several events during the period secured this disillusionment and withdraw.

First, the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 deeply affected many Talents who saw in the rise of the young Senator from Massachusetts some small hope of a return to decent government.  Of course many Talents were well aware of the young president’s failings on civil rights—a failure of nerve that did nothing to reassure them that the administration would be any more courageous in protecting the rights of its new parahuman minority—but others were reassured by the refusal of African American leaders like King to break with the administration.  Whatever marginal hopes the young administration held out for them, however, were silenced by the shot that rang out in Dallas on a fine November day in 1963.

The truth of the Kennedy assassination is this: Oswald was the lone gunmen and the magic bullet really did kill him.  Of course, this is not the whole story.  Oswald was the shooter, but his shot did not kill the President.  Or rather, his shot would not have killed the president had it not been for the influence of the paranormal who directed the bullet.  The Warren Commission never realized that they were on the threshold of a terrible truth when they named the bullet that killed Kennedy the “magic bullet.”  Just why Kennedy was killed is a matter of speculation, but it very likely had something to do with a belief that he was going to end American involvement in Indochina (Vietnam).  An arrogant and ungovernable military industrial complex and an ambitious Vice President assured that Kennedy would never get that chance nor ever return from Dallas.

Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling.  The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals.  The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways.  It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War.  It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world.  Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up.  The true war is a celebration of markets.

                                                           Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

The repercussions that followed Kennedy’s assassination could not have been more disastrous.  America’s involvement in Vietnam deepened under Johnson and has only intensified under Nixon.  In this version of U.S. history, America does not withdraw from Vietnam in the 1970s and the war appears to be dragging on indefinitely.  Recently a few paranormals have returned to service for Nixon, busting the heads of anti-war demonstrators, but outrage by middle America over televised images of their own children being attacked by Talents has led many Talents to further retreat from public life.  Nixon’s use of parahumans against the anti-war movement however, while controversial, seems to have had the desired effect: a slackening of its momentum and an intensification of American involvement in Vietnam.  Of course, all this points to the fact that in this version of America the presidency is increasingly under the sway of the military-industrial-commercial complex and its desires.

The war drags on, making demands on more and more of America’s youth with its insatiable need for bodies.  Abroad, America continues its policies of neo-imperial adventurism, seeking to win the hearts and minds of the most rapidly growing portion of the world’s population in order to ensure the continued expansion of its markets.  At home, a defeated anti-war movement, a fearful middle America, and an increasingly wary generation of Talents have practically ensured America’s transition to the Weather Underground’s deepest fear: AmeriKKKa.   

That evening I unrolled my magazine and read Tom Wolfe’s celebrated article about the “Me Decade,” as the 1970s were soon to be known.  The story depicted some hip and hedonistic social trends—well-to-do society women seeking spiritual perfection, turning pleasure into religious ecstasy, preferring psychic self-improvement to social awareness.  The phrase Me Decade, amplified by other journalists of the day, became a shorthand for a culture of narcissism.  Perhaps because that very day I had witnessed a young man die, I hated that cliché.  The times were not narcissistic; only certain people were.  And by using them as a benchmark of the decade, writers like Wolfe diminished the value of those who lived otherwise. 

            Peter Carroll, It Seemed Like Nothing Happened: America in the 1970s

Recently within the U.S. there has been a turn away from politics and toward spirituality and personal enlightenment.  Many paranormals have found a place within this new insular American culture by passing off their paranormal powers as the product of personal spiritual development.  Given on the one hand the retreat of so many Talents from American social life due to cynicism about the possibility of any real change and, on the other hand, the inward turn towards spirituality, personal development and a conscious apoliticism of many others, the time is ripe for a return of a savvy, new and engaged generation of Talents.

Thoughts about the campaign:

First, one desire I have for this campaign is simply to find as many ways as possible to satisfy both the “official version” and what I would call the “conspiratorial view” of American history.  The Kennedy assassination is a perfect example of this.  In most of their forms the “official” and “conspiratorial” versions of the Kennedy assassination cannot be reconciled: either Oswald was the lone gunman or there was a conspiracy and (at least) a second shooter.  The Wild Talents rules, however, have made it possible for me to take the Warren Report’s findings and still make the assassination a conspiracy.  That’s fun, and I want to find more ways of doing that if possible.

Second and more importantly, I want to emphasize some key themes that emerge in many popular understandings of the late 1960s and 1970s.  For many who lived through these events, this was a period of radical inter-generational conflict.  Nowhere is this expressed more clearly than in George Segal’s famous sculpture of the period In Memory of May 4 1970: Abraham and Isaac which symbolically depicts the willingness of an older generation to sacrifice its children.  Here I can play with some permutations of that theme in a different key.  In this version of a Wild Talents America an older generation of Talents seeks to keep their presence and their abilities hidden due to their feelings of exploitation at the hands of the U.S. government and due to the fears and prejudices against their talent by normal society.  The players, by contrast, will take up the roles of a younger generation, admittedly chastened by some of the experiences of the past, but who nevertheless seek to re-engage with American public life in the hopes of restoring some of its promise and curbing some of its most rapacious tendencies.  This sets up great generation conflict and provides for better motivation for the “villains” (the older generation of Talents) to oppose and try to thwart the efforts of the players.  In addition, it will make the conflicts more complex since the players will be faced with opposing an out-of-control government on the one hand and their fellow parahumans on the other.  Lot’s of potential here.

In addition to generational conflict, the campaign will also allow players to explore some of the dominant themes and tensions within the civil rights movement of the 1960s, particularly questions of whether to pursue a policy of separation or one of integration.  Again this theme gets developed in a different key due to the presence of parahumans.  Finally, the whole question of the possibility of social change (and the means to accomplish it) is certainly going to be a focus of group play.  What will the players do about groups like the Weather Underground or the Red Army Faction?  Will their methods differ substantially from such groups, or will they form a kind of uneasy alliance with them?  Will they succumb to the growing despair and become a kind of self-fulfilling version of Tom Wolfe’s “Me Decade” characterization or will they resist it and attempt to live differently?  I think this could produce some really wonderful stories as the group decides how their characters will respond to such issues.