Editing Nazi (section)

==Nazis and [[/tg/]]==
Long ago, /tg/ realized something that most competent GMs have: Nazis represent a great liberating force for any GM, for they represent a force that any player need not feel any remorse over resorting to violence against, because Nazis are the textbook template for villains in most settings. They desire world domination, see themselves as the apex species and view most others with utter contempt, wanton disregard for common life, have an industry primarily geared towards war, are the most powerful warmongers, and they have that evil-yet-sublime aesthetic to their armies. Nazis are a modern setting variant of using [[slavery|slavers]] as your enemy in a fantasy game: they have little to no redeeming values, so they're great enemy fodder.

The association gives the players a motivation and creates the understanding that these people are Completely Evil™, allowing the GM to focus on other aspects of the story. Indeed, one can get similar results by simply providing details that lead us to conclude that any group you are facing off against are this universe's version of Nazis. That said, that same context makes using Nazis a double-edged sword, and a lazy GM (or author, script writer, or whatever; this is hardly unique to roleplaying) can royally screw up if one uses them incorrectly. Used incorrectly, Nazis become a kitten-eating one-dimensional caricature of villains descended into self-parody, which ''can'' work if the world is built for it. Kitten-eating Nazis work best in "goofy" settings where it's fully possible, and indeed expected for the final boss to be Hitler himself riding a cyborg dinosaur, but in a setting trying to take itself seriously, such flat villains do just that - fall flat and fail to incite the proper emotional reaction. Remember that the '''key''' to successful Nazi use is that emotional reaction. That exportation of real world baggage is the point, perhaps the sole point to use Nazis over some other villain. Nazis have the additional problem of not even needing to be exaggerated that much to make the worst of them into something like this. So care must be taken when one plays the Nazi card, or it will come off as trite.

Entire stretches of [[d20 Modern|d20 Past]] are shown various ways to implement ''Indiana Jones''-style Nazis into any campaign during the early 1900s, and [[Savage Worlds]] has an entire supplement devoted to thwarting Nazi super-soldier plans during WWII. More clever GMs can do even more interesting things with it, such as backing up the savagery of the Nazis with [[Fist of the North Star|a humanizing element to make them more understandable, even if antagonists]], whilst another interesting setting, proposed for [[GURPS]], starts the players off ''as'' Nazis and has them turn against their former comrades as the movement becomes harder and harder to justify. It's also worth remembering that Nazis can be used for comedy as well; they ''ARE'' Germans after all, and when they're not conquering the world they're prancing around in lederhosen, drinking beer from steins and boots, and churning out hardcore bdsm pornography. All of these lead to some pretty great storytelling, just so long as the GM knows how to play them correctly and prevent them from becoming a wackier version of an [[Ork]].

...And then you have [[Racial Holy War|this bullshit]], which misses the point entirely and renders us all stupider for the knowledge of its existence.