"JFK Assassination: The Coup D'Etat" Topic

I want to note that I only picked "this is ridiculous" because I couldn't find a more contemptuous option.

"Some people" believe The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are authentic. Like to base a campaign on that?

I agree.

I would run it but the government would be split into factions trying to do this and trying to stop this.

Are you going to equate ALL what-ifs with the 'Elders of Zion'???

I'm working on a Space:1959 campaign and that's just ONE of the myriad of conspiracies.

Lighten up.

It could definitely be in the spirit of The President's Analyst or SJG's Illuminati game.

"Cold War Gone Hot" or "Sealion" campaigns are legitimate what-ifs. They didn't happen, but given some different decisions, might have. Steampunk is complete fantasy, and every bit as legitimate as a LOTR campaign--but no more so.

This one is the favorite conspiracy theory of the Looney Left: that it really did happen--despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary--and somehow the US government, in a serious miracle, has actually kept a secret. It's the exact equivalent of the Protocols, the "Stab in the Back" and the belief that the CIA (or Israel) was behind 9-11, and it deserves just as much attention of exactly the same sort.

I guess you won't be playing in any The DaVinci Code campaigns, then…

But LBJ did have JFK killed with the help of the CIA.

But I voted a "5"

We are currently living in that "what if" world.

Cold War Gone Hot" or "Sealion" campaigns are legitimate what-ifs. They didn't happen, but given some different decisions, might have. Steampunk and LOTR is complete fantasy, and every bit as legitimate as a LOTR campaign--but no more so.

Except that while the Germans did not invade Britain and Steampunk along with LOTR are purely fiction. An actual President of the United States was assassinated! People still after all these years believe this stuff. Making a game out of it besides being in bad taste will just perpetuate these ridiculous theories.

This one is the favorite conspiracy theory of the Looney Left…

This is much more a theory of the Looney Right.

Let me try to articulate some distinctions. A "what if" is something which didn't happen, but which could have. Napoleon could have given Grouchy different orders on the 17th. Hitler could have given Sea Lion the go-ahead. Wargamers do this all the time, and there are few better ways of exploring the options and their consequences.

Fantasy campaigns are based on the assumption that we've gotten science horrendously wrong. Magic works, vampires or elves function, and even Babbage clockwork computers can run video games.

But when your operating assumption is that we've gotten history wrong because someone is suppressing the truth, it's neither of those. It's a conspiracy theory. And there is, in a way, only one. Something is terribly wrong with my life/my country/the world, and it's not bad choices, dumb luck or the hand of God. It's because of Those People, and something has to be done about Them. I can't take the conspiracy theories seriously as historical analysis--but I take that sort of thinking very seriously indeed, and I do nothing to encourage it.

So no, Bill. No Deep State conspiracies, no Elders of Zion conspiracies, and no Priory of Sion conspiracies, either. Historical and fantasy possibilities aren't enough for you?

I agree with Robert. I would like to add that prior to 2016, I wouldn't have believed anyone would suggest, to make of game of assassinating an actual President. But the last two years has seem to given a green light for every suggestion or idea which in past would have been considered in bad taste or taboo.

Some people just cannot except that a lone gunmen shot and killed the President of the United States. No conspiracy. That is all there is to it.

But when your operating assumption is that we've gotten history wrong because someone is suppressing the truth, it's neither of those. It's a conspiracy theory.

The Harry Potter setting is about the truth being suppressed, isn't it? The Muggles are kept ignorant.

The Da Vinci Code is about suppressing the truth about a key disciple of Christ, right?

The Men in Black films are about suppressing the truth that aliens are among us…

You must have missed the word "history."

I crashed and burned on the Potter books, but from my understanding, it's a parallel world as well as a fantasy.

MIB is classified information. Not telling the general public about Bletchley Park until 30 years after WWII is not the same thing as telling them someone else won.

And I'd need to write a book--well, an essay--to describe the stupidity and internal contradictions of the "Prior of Sion" business, which is not about a "key disciple" but more importantly about Christ Himself. But it's classic conspiracy theory: the underlying premise is that the entire Christian world from the First Century onward has been fed a pack of lies, that hundreds if not thousands of people have known this at any one time and have continued to perpetuate the lies.

And the "deep state" JFK assassination theories are like that: Kennedy's staff, Dallas PD, the Texas Rangers, the Pentagon, the CIA the FBI the Warren Commission and the medical examiners were all in on the secret. And no one's blown the gaff in 50+ years because Those People do things like that, and keep their own secrets.

Try reciting to yourself Ben Franklin: "three can keep a secret if two of them are dead."