Crossover Earth '98
Crossover Earth and the Status Quo Jay Shaffstall
The question came up once this turn, and I decided it was something useful to address for everyone. The question was: How far am I willing to allow the game to diverge from accepted reality?
For example, Clinton is currently President of the United States in Real Life. Would I be willing to have him assassinated in the game and replaced by someone else? Or would I be willing to have a major American city nuked? Or the Washington Monument toppled?
Real Life provides a convenient guide to what's going on in Crossover Earth. If you see a Real Life news item about a rain of frogs in Arizona, then you can assume that same event happened in the game. Real Life is useful to fill in the cracks of our knowledge of the game world. For this reason, you can expect that anything that happens in Real Life also happens in the game, unless it would conflict with an existing plot or character action. For example, if in Real Life San Francisco is hit by a major earthquake, the same would happen in the game. But in the game, there might be a hero with the ability to either lessen or eliminate the damage. So the event would still happen, but it might turn out better or worse in the game. In addition, seemingly trivial events in Real Life might be the tip of a huge plot iceberg in the game.
I like to diverge from reality mainly in response to character actions and plot directives. I won't arbitrarily destroy New York City, but if a character wants to try it, he might just succeed. Or a plotline might culminate in the destruction of the city if not stopped by characters.
In short, the game world of Crossover Earth uses Real Life as a guide, but not as a limitation. Villains should feel free to be as meglomaniacal as they like; if they plan well enough, and the heroes screw up, they might just succeed!