The Holocaust: The CYOA!

[End Master]

Okay this is about writing so this should be of interest to some of you.

http://www.choiceofgames.com/forum/d...historical-rpg

Scroll to about the 13th post where someone suggests doing a CYOA based on the Holocaust.

After you've enjoyed reading the debate (which might be still going on, haven't checked the thread recently), I was wondering what some of you thought on the subject.

I'm remembering that we've had a few CYOAs on here based on various sensitive events. They were all done by Poopypeanuts, but the only one I thought was any good was the Katrina one. The World Trade Center bombing and V-Tech Massacre were way too short and very limited in scope.

[BatCountry]

I vote for a Columbine or Titanic CYOA. Ohh ohh! A Pompeii eruption CYOA!

[End Master]

I can see the Titanic, and Pompeii would be pretty cool.

A Columbine CYOA to me would probably have the same limitations I saw in the V-Tech and WTC Bombing. I sort of see the actual events so limited in scope that you can't really make a good CYOA with them regardless of whether it's in good taste or not.

What made the Katrina disaster a better candidate is due to it being so wide spread and all mass chaos going on for months. By the same token I could see something like the LA Riots being a better CYOA for similar reasons.

Now I can see making a non-historical CYOA about the same subject matter though because you aren't as restricted. If someone wants to make a CYOA about being a terrorist or a school shooter, I say go for it, as long as they're writing it well.

That being said, someone did create a Columbine game with RPG Maker years ago, but it still didn't look that interesting to me.

[Vesnic]

I read some of those comments on the Historical RPG thread, and I'm yet to find there a compelling reason for why a game or CYOA based on the historical Holocaust (not a parody or overt fictionalization) would be by definition disrespectful or inappropriate. Play-acting is probably one of the best ways invented by humankind to teach compassion and empathy. I mean this in a very broad sense, whether you're actually on a stage performing, sitting around a table with your friends pretending to be a merry band of wood elves, or becoming engrossed in well-written second-person fiction. I think the Holocaust would actually be a very fertile subject, allowing the participant to imagine himself along the entire spectrum of behavior and potential.

We are all trained to abhor Nazis and other such evildoers, to piously mumble "never again, never again"; and we are obliged by our education to believe with conviction that we are of a better human stock and would never be capable of such atrocities. But the cold fact of the matter is, if the events of the Holocaust were to replay in some modern context, then some of us would become Nazis, some of us would become war criminals, perhaps a great majority of us would just sit back and do nothing. That's a hard pill to swallow, but in our relatively safe modern times, most of us aren't afforded the sort of real-life test to get to know ourselves a little bit better, to be able to say from experience and with authority: no, I could never do that. Not in a million years. So, barring any real-life proofing, we are left with the option of acting out a similar scenario and thus being afforded the opportunity to think more closely about what it is we're really made of. This is not a perfect replacement, but it seems a relatively safe and recommendable alternative.

Never again? It's already happened again. If the answer to preventing forms of man-made horror was to build sanctimonious monuments and pride ourselves on our own goodness, then genocide would no longer be occurring in the world. Perhaps it's our inability to really face up to our own darkness, or even to realize more than a few narrow interpretations of "self", which hinders us from really learning and growing. If this all comes down to a matter of respect, then I think an historical CYOA or game based on the Holocaust and offering a wide variety of perspectives is the ultimate in respect.

[BatCountry]

I agree with 100% everything you just said Ves; humanity as a whole is nothing but a bunch of bastard coated bastards with bastard filling. I think a holocaust like situation is easily repeatable, in ANY country. Remember Germany was considered an industrial powerhouse, a modern western society; yet look what happens when people become desperate then empowered by a mad man who makes false promises. Who is to say we, in our own countries, wouldn't fall for the same ploy? You just can't.


I like to look for the good in people, but I'm no fool. People are usually dark, selfish and arrogant, and as people unite, get angry for a cause, things always get ugly. I also believe history is cyclical. People ignore the past and the past will then repeat itself. This may sound unpatriotic but if I had to compare the current United States to a past society, I would choose the Roman Empire. It may look different and sound different, but doesn't it just seem like a modern day representation of it? I also believe with advancements in technology, all that really does is just hasten the flow of time, so as the Roman Empire took hundres of years to crumble, the U.S. will crumble in a few decades.

No one likes to think about that kind of stuff and most will call me crazy. But really think about it, don't you think the average Roman citizen probably thought the same way? That Rome could never fall, that they were the mightiest power the world had ever seen? They sure did. Then infighting and barbarian nations eventually fractured and ate up the mighty Roman Empire. Are we really any better then them? The answer is no. I truly believe in my lifetime im going to see some crazy stuff occur that will shake the foundation of the safe little world many people have built for themselves.



More on topic, the 2004 or Japan tsunami would probably make great CYOA. The scope is surely large enough to work well.

[End Master]

Yeah most major disasters that cover a wide area would work. Chernobyl maybe?

Anyway like I said in that thread, I think a Holocaust CYOA could be interesting if written well, but I already knew as soon as that guy brought it up, it wasn't going to be well received. Though to be fair, a lot of them weren't completely dismissive of the idea, just that they would be more in favor of it being more like an educational tool rather than for entertainment purposes.

Of course it wouldn't be thread involving Nazis if someone didn't get accused of racism. Naturally I did you all proud as an IS representative and that person was me, even though I wasn't actually being racist (This time!)

But considering that person tends to call everyone a misogynistic gay bashing racist at the slightest provocation, some of the citizens there were on my side or ignored her completely.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

I think a holocaust cyoa would not only be approrpriate but exceedingly tasteful. Ww2 has always been a fascinating period in human history, that can't be disputed. It would be incredibly difficult to do right, tho. It would need to be a team effort.

[End Master]

No need to make a Holocaust CYOA, one has already been created.

http://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Rose.../dp/0807403075

Oh just to let you guys know, if we ever do get into a situation where we get a choice to either be herded into a death camp or herding others into it, I'll be doing the latter.

However since you folks consist mainly of the few people that I can actually tolerate nowadays without the urge to dress up like a ninja and kill them, if fate intervenes and I find out that its any of you guys scheduled to be in the camp I'm assigned at, I'll do what I can to try to fudge the paperwork or maybe get you into the permanent slave labor detail instead.

At the very least I can shoot you quickly in the head and make up the excuse that you were trying to escape just to spare you any of the horrors you'd have to endure.

[Vesnic]

End, this is incredibly kind of you. It really means a lot to know that you would save my life or at least give me an expedient and painless death if all else failed. If you are indeed able to get me a permanent job, please put me on whorehouse detail. Any STD's those officers have are probably still not as bad as contracting typhoid or dysentery in the camps.

It's nice to know I've still got friends. I would do the same for you, and everybody here. Well, to be clear, I hope I would be brave and become a resistance fighter. But I know myself well enough to know that I don't know what I'd do.

Perhaps a new Holocaust would be a spiritually purifying experience for us all. However, who should the new groups consist of? Instead of Nazis vs. Everybody Else, it's now...

[ChubbyTeletubby]

Indeed, those are the kindest words that ever left your manly though I imagine well managed fingertips.

I would like to say I would do the same. But time has taught me again and again that forecasting my own choices under such circumstances is really not something I'm capable of.

I would, however, shoot any of you in the head. Right now. If that counts?

[Vesnic]

I'd rather be shot through the heart. It's more poetic and colorful (literally!). I want to feel my life seeping away from me, I want to hear the anguished cry of Mother Earth as she receives her fallen daughter back into her eternal embrace. I want the last thing I see to be a sideways stretch of grass full of short-lived insects all chirping their sympathy and licking their chops.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

Fucking brilliant, as always, ves....

Me? Ill take the Hitler approach. Cyanide capsul and a ruger to the back of the throat. One second you're here...

Next? Who knows. Prolly nuthingness. I'm texting this I can take spelling shortcuts. If u don't like it...round me up into a camp with the rest of the undesirables!


Ein reich! Ein volk! Ein chubby!