Review: The Blue Book of the War, edited by Herbert Strang

The edition I read was reprinted in 1917, and I think originally came out late 1916 (preceding the revolution in Russia and collapse of the Eastern Front). I believe this book was aimed at older children (it’s a little similar in style to The Wonder Book of Aircraft). The mindset is fascinating and the writing engaging.

Most books about The Great War nowadays tend to conjure images of terrible grind, both in terms of trench warfare not moving very much, and in terms of immense grimness. And those things are not wrong. But they’re also not the complete story.

In the Middle East and Africa, things moved with greater pace, and the middle of the book is dedicated to stories of naval exploits, many of which I had no idea about (British submarines getting up to mischief in the Bosphorus, for example).

The mentality of the book is of another age, with the start of a battle described as an adventure beginning. There’s both a recognition of how terrible war is (quoted below) and a celebration of the human spirit that can arise in conflict.

Early on, the book is poignant (a letter home from a soldier the day before he got killed in one of the many large battles standing out in the memory). But the overriding sense is of a quite alien attitude to both Britain and war, the latter perhaps closer to Livy’s Romanesque glory than today’s immense reluctance. I was wondering if it would be a parochial book, yet one of the examples of heroism cited was of a priest who gave the last rites to an enemy soldier, and whilst there is some German-bashing there’s also praise for Turkish manoeuvres around Suez, Von Mackensen’s Eastern shenanigans, and the final chapter is dedicated to heroism from British allies (Frenchmen, Russians, and Italians singled out, with kudos also given to the Sikhs, Maoris, and others).

Must admit, I found the book to have a lively writing style, and yet was perhaps even more interesting from a psychological perspective. The differing topics of the various aspects of the naval conflict and doings further afield ensured that, whilst the focus is on Britain and her Empire, there is plenty about other arenas where our involvement was either minimal or non-existent.

I shall end this review with a few excerpts that I made note of as I read:

“War is a terrible, hideous thing.” [A short time later in the same paragraph]. “Yet there is something even more terrible than war, and that is the weak and cowardly acceptance of what we believe to be evil for the sake of saving our skins.”

“We shall not, therefore, be surprised when we learn that by far the greater part of British naval strength and resources has in the Great War been devoted to the efficient maintenance of its patrol services: and we may well wonder at the weakness of human nature which impels us to esteem a dashing exploit, carried through in, perhaps, a few minutes, more highly than we regard the faithful endurance of hardship and the vigilant discharge of duty continued for long, weary months amid the stress and perils of the northern seas.”

“Their brigade was lying in front of Gorizia and was much inconvenienced by the enemy’s fire from a particular hill that dominated their position – a hill so craggy, in fact, as to seem quite inaccessible.”

Thaddeus

Musing on RPG Morality Mechanics

RPG videogames have a range of approaches to morality. Mass Effect and Fallout 3 went for straight good and evil with paragon/renegade and good/bad karma respectively. More recently, faction-based approval/disapproval, such as in Pillars of Eternity, has become more popular, perhaps as it offers a more nuanced take on things.

I think there are a couple of interesting other ways that morality could function in RPGs, (focusing on a more medieval/fantastical world rather than a sci-fi universe).

The old medieval medicine system (if we can call it that) involved four humours. There was blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. That could easily be translated into morality/behaviour, with blood and phlegm good, bile bad, and blood/yellow bile action-oriented and phlegm/black bile more thoughtful.

A sanguine (bloody) character would be your bold hero, diving into the fray, keen for action and leading from the front. A choleric (yellow bile) would be aggressive beyond morality, eager for bloodshed and more concerned with self-interest than public esteem.

I think that’d be an interesting approach because it has overlap between a thoughtful/action-oriented approach and good/bad. If certain options are only open to good/bad characters or thoughtful/action-oriented characters then in a given playthrough you’ll have a set of options that (unless you copy your playstyle) will differ when you replay the game. It’d also mean your actions matter.

Another way to go about such things would be to make gods more than window dressing. I’m not a vegetarian, but it’d be interesting if you had to pick gods/a god and live according to their precepts, and that could include a nature-based vegetarian style. Similarly, you could have a pacifist religion (perhaps excepting saving your own life), a god who demands his followers drink alcohol daily, one whose acolytes swear poverty, another whose worshippers must regularly participate in frisky time (making brothels part-business, part-temple), and so on.

The price for contravening your god’s whims would be divine punishment, including gameplay penalties, and a quest to restore you to the god’s favour. Or you could jump spiritual ship, which would make you loathed by your former co-religionists. As for advantages, you could start off with minor bonuses and have the opportunity through side-quests to climb the spiritual ladder to enhance them.

This is slightly similar to the faction-approval approach mentioned near the the start, but there are some significant differences. Not least is the limitation on approval (you can’t join the Lovely Peaceful God’s cause *and* worship Angor the Intensely Violent). Another is that it’d be largely (maybe entirely) optional, whereas faction interaction, at least to an extent, is usually a requirement in games that have them.

And it could easily co-exist with a faction system. Maybe you need to persuade leader X to help you. Sure, you can do that via the old approval system, but if you’re the High Priest of his religion (through prolific questing) it’d be cool to just order him to help on pain of excommunication.

Charitable works is another area that could work. Not only would, say, setting up an orphanage boost your reputation, it could also help get beggar children off the streets, improving your relations with businesses who don’t want half-starved urchins cadging coin next to their stalls.

Thaddeus