Fear and Loathing in Nixonland
A 1972 Political Simulation
Wikimedia Commons
The date is January 1st, 1972.
Three years after his narrow election in the 1968 Presidential Election, one Richard Milhaus Nixon stands at the crossroads of history. A complex mixture of brilliance, ruthlessness, insecurity and resentment, President Nixon has set out to prove that they - always the elusive they - can't beat him into submission, whether it is the media, the establishment, the Democratic Party, the intellectuals, and above everything else, those liberal elites which he so deeply - and so personally - despises for their smug, self-satisfied superiority.
All things considered, Mr. Nixon hasn't failed yet in his task. Despite endless economic troubles, the increasing social and political mistrust of the turbulent seventies, and above all, the still raging carnage of the Vietnam War, Nixon stands atop the Republican Party as an incumbent which a strong record with which to run, and a clear, but by no means inevitable, path to reelection. For the Democratic Party, which sees in Nixon the living embodiment of the darkest corners of the American spirit, the interpretation differs. Having "won" the 1970 Midterms, and right on the cusp of seeing millions of young voters suddenly become eligible thanks to the 26th Amendment, they sense blood in the water.
And yet things are not exactly what they seem. The old age of smoke filled rooms recieved a crippling blow after the sheer disaster of the Democratic nomination process in 1968, and a whole new system - in which there are more primaries and caucuses than ever before - is in place due to the McGovern commission. The system, of course, is untested, and surprises may yet be found on the race to decide who will take on Richard Nixon in a battle for America's soul and spirit. And while Democratic candidates cannot even suspect it yet, something dark is brewing in the White House as well...
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An Explanation:
While we wait for Spamage's 1900 game to start, and having had favorable comments lately regarding an old project of mine, I've decided to conduct a mini-game by remaking Fear and Loathing in 72', an election game (2015) which almost reached the November 1972 election before I ran out of steam. The remake, however, is intended to be run in the style of KaiserDave's Crumbling Reich. That means that, unlike your average election game and the focus on daily primary campaign schedules, the emphasis here is more on narrative and strategy. So, in essence, what matters is not the level of detail you can attain in campaigning in X spot in 1972 New Hampshire, but how you can sell a specific candidate, idea, or strategy. Or, should persuasion fail, whether you can set up your enemies for failure.
The heart of the game is intended to be the 1972 Democratic Primaries, but the game is meant to be a simulation of the year 1972 in politics. That means that, while most players will be the 1972 Democratic contenders, you can also play as other key individuals in the time period, including key political players who are not running (or are waiting for the Convention) and are influential, members of the Nixon administration with their own agenda, and, of course, those who want to pursue a dangerous world of intrigue by working from the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP or CREEP), whose gameplay will be more geared towards dirty tricks.
For the first phase of the game - up to Convention season - President Nixon will not be playable, sparing me the problem of having to offer a presidential simulator. He will be a powerful NPC that you'll have to confront, sway or deal with, to be made playable once the game shifts into the general election campaign.
Basic Rules:
1. Turns: The game is meant to be run at a brisk pace, taking advantage of the fact that candidates in this era could still announce late entries for a presidential nomination, and in the hopes of sparing players from having to come up with absurdly detailed weekly schedules. Every now and then you will get personal crises, events to react to, updates on upcoming primaries and caucuses, and special events based on sources like HST's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. If things go well, we will roleplay from the start of the year all the way to the presidential inauguration in January 1973.
2. Roleplay: Since you'll be taking on RL politicians as your characters, you're expected to stay in-character within reason, and to minimize metagaming and hindsight whenever possible. Historical events may not necessarily go the same away as in RL 1972. You will have flexibility on how to run your own campaign, but diverging too strongly - example: Ted Kennedy endorsing segregation - will be a surefire way to ruin your campaign or reputation.
3. Historical Simulation: We will be using the dice system for various player decisions, events and warfare, accounting for advantages or disadvantages if necessary, and as we've done in previous games. There may be random events, both positive and negative. However, there will be no stats to speak of, again for the purposes of simplification. You will be allowed to request for endorsers, but there will be six key exceptions who will be made available later at key points: the Manchester Union Leader/William Loeb, Reubin Askew, Mayor Richard Daley, Former President Lyndon Johnson, Mr. George Meany and Mr. Leonard Woodcock, and, if he's not a player character, Senator Edward Kennedy.
Players:
Democratic Party
Governor George Wallace (D-AL): ChairmanSanchez
Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-MN): KaiserDave
Mayor Sam Yorty (D-CA): Spiral
Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA): Dkrol
Senator George McGovern (D-SD): Kuumo
Former Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-MN): FalterinArc
Senator Philip Hart (D-MI): GoTfan
Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (D-NY): Mycool
Senator Scoop Jackson (D-WA): OBD
Republican Party
NSA Henry Kissinger: S019
Senator James Buckley (C/R-NY): Ishan
White House COS H. R. Haldeman: DevoutCentrist
Other
TBD: TBD
