Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MicroBalrog on November 27, 2009, 03:47:10 PM
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Miniature Monsters Attack America
Jeff Winkler from the December 2009 issue
In July the Department of Homeland Security acted swiftly to protect America’s cities from Martians, giant dinosaurs, and Lovecraftian horrors from another dimension. The DHS intercepted the first shipment of a strategy guide for the role-playing game Monsterpocalypse—in which players attempt to conquer the planet using “collectible miniatures portraying the most fearsome giant monsters on Earth!”—when it arrived in the United States.
“There was a lot of head shaking,” says William Shick, a marketer at the guide’s publisher, Privateer Press. “We thought it was ridiculous.” Shick had a hard time convincing his loyal customers that the episode wasn’t an elaborate, publicity-seeking hoax. The company remains unsure why the government flagged the guide and held up its release for a week, though Shick speculates that “certain words like base caused red flags.”
This isn’t the first time gamers have had trouble with the law. In a 1990 raid on the offices of Steve Jackson Games, Secret Service agents seized copies of a guide to GURPS Cyberpunk, claiming the game’s rules were a “handbook of computer crime.”
Jeff Winkler (winkler.freelance@gmail.com) is a copy editor at the Northwest Arkansas Times.
http://reason.com/archives/2009/11/27/miniature-monsters-attack-amer
Micro Sez: Someone should tell DHS about Games Workshop. Wouldn't want no Tyranids munching our precious bodily flu- national monuments. :police:
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Oh man, I'd forgotten about the raid on SJG. Oh the lulz. Did any feds get in trouble for that bit of asininity?
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Wow, I used to play Car Wars as a kid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Wars
Never knew what happened to the game.
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:O
Those figurines look 3-dimentional, which is a whole extra dimension beyond the Moonites. No wonder DHS needed to get involved.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages-cdn01.associatedcontent.com%2Fimage%2FA5300%2F53002%2F470_53002.gif&hash=b9a4af49e497f0ada102608f55763b99e7fb00d9)
;/
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:O
Those figurines look 3-dimentional, which is a whole extra dimension beyond the Moonites. No wonder DHS needed to get involved.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages-cdn01.associatedcontent.com%2Fimage%2FA5300%2F53002%2F470_53002.gif&hash=b9a4af49e497f0ada102608f55763b99e7fb00d9)
;/
"I hope they can see this, because I'm doing it as hard as I can."
:laugh:
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The comments are a hoot, if you are familiar with several nerdified preoccupations.
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I assume this is a pun on the Modern Warfare 2 airport scene?
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This isn’t the first time gamers have had trouble with the law. In a 1990 raid on the offices of Steve Jackson Games, Secret Service agents seized copies of a guide to GURPS Cyberpunk, claiming the game’s rules were a “handbook of computer crime.”
I'm not sure how a handbook of computer crime is illegal. I have an entire bookshelf of them.
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I'm not sure how a handbook of computer crime is illegal. I have an entire bookshelf of them.
Call the feds!!! :police: :laugh: