Blast From The Past: Weird War II (original d20)

Wait… You guys are Nazis!

There was an interesting period in gaming that I’ve mentioned a few times, after D&D 3^rd edition dropped and everyone got into the d20 system. One of those who did was Pinnacle, who made d20 books for their various Deadlands settings. However, one of the first non-Deadlands games they made was the Weird Wars setting(s), but instead of using their unique and interesting system, they selected the d20 system. I’m going to come back to this whole thing but I wanted to address it now, as the later incarnations (and expansions) were done in the Savage Worlds, and this isn’t that.

To kick things off, the game gives us a few new classes to replace the ones from the PHB, as magic isn’t very common in the modern world. While this is a bit of alternative history, it’s not that drastically different. Anyway, we get the Grunt class, which is really just the Fighter from D&D, and is designed for Enlisted and NCOs. There is an Officer class, but they don’t really have anything going for them besides Rank. They don’t even have Leadership or something. Then, we have the Medic/Nurse class, which can heal. That’s all. However, as this is a d20 game without a lot of healing magic, this class is important. The next military class is the Scout, which I’m sure you guessed is based on the Ranger but has some Rogue class features. Speaking of Rogues, the only non-military class is the Resistance Fighter (or, as we should call them, the Anti-Fascists), and is more in line with a traditional Rogue.

Now, the core book is called Blood On The Rhine and is focused exclusively on the European area of conflict, in the late war, around 1944-1945 or so. It has stats and information for the various weapons, tanks, and other equipment for the Allied and Axis powers. And I rather like this, as you could use this to include tanks and machineguns in a D&D game. I did that once, it was a good time.

 But, what about magic? Well, it is there but uses Runes instead of normal D&D type spell casting. In order to cast a spell, you have to use Runes that your character has learned and has carved themselves, and make a roll. Side note, the Runes are the Germanic Runes that you’ve probably seen a round. The reason why they’re Germanic is because you’re fighting Nazis. Not playing them, fighting them. Just to be clear. Rune Magic can only be used by OSI Adepts, which is a prestige class. What’s the OSI? Well, aside from the Venture Brothers (which is why I put the quote at the top), they’re the magical super secret group in the US/UK that works with (or is part of the) OSS, which was a real thing. The Office of Strategic Services was a Commando thing, doing super secret things during the war and was eventually rolled into the CIA after the end of the war. The history and missions of the group are really very interesting and I suggest reading up on them if you’re interested. Anyway, the OSI in this setting is the Office of Supernatural Investigations and is run by US General George Marshall, who is a real guy. The OSI recruits members of the military who have run across the supernatural and various Nazi occult experiments. They also try to find Chaplins, who are the other magic users in the setting, the ones who call down the Divine whoop ass for the Lord. If you’ve played Deadlands, you’re already seeing parallels between the settings and mechanics and it doesn’t surprise me much.

As the Pinnacle boys like their horror, and mythology, there’s some other goodies in the core book. Yes, there’s Nazi Wehrwolves, and they are scary. But there’s also Fext, which are effectively invulnerable, and the classic Nazi zombie. There’s also kinda-sorta Nazi Orcs and some other things but not a whole lot. While there’s not a lot of monsters included in the core book, there’s enough to add some flavor to the game and get you started.

 So, with all that out of the way, let’s talk about what this game does. It’s walking a line between historical war action and dark horror. You play a bunch of regular Joes, trying to survive the war, and will end up facing horrors beyond your darkest fears. If you’re lucky, you’ll get some magical back-up as time goes on, but maybe not. You might not get someone who can cast spells but you could get a haunted tank (yeah, there’s rules for that). When this game came out, there were only a few supernatural horror movies set in the WW2. There’s a few more now, which vary in quality, but this genre is kind of dead now. That means that finding inspiration to draw from might not be easy. Of course, you can just watch Band Of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan and just add in some horror elements.

Before I go further, there’s a few things I need to talk about. First off all, the Holocaust happened and it was tragic and we should make sure that it does not happen. The industrial scale of murder of people is one of the worst things we’ve ever seen on the planet. And the Nazis are bad guys and shouldn’t be viewed as heroes or something to aspire to in any way, shape, or form. Killing Nazis is an American tradition. Not joining them. So, there’s going to be a delicate balance you’ll want to do if you run this game, making sure that you’re respectful to the millions of people who were murdered and making sure that the Nazis are bad guys. One of the reasons why I want to run or play this game is because I want to kill Nazis in a safe and healthy way.

 Ahem. Anyway. I mentioned that there’s some expansions and I’m going to take a minute to discuss two of them. The first one is Hell In the Hedgerows, which is a campaign you can run, and even includes pre-made characters. Set in the direct aftermath of D-Day in France, the characters will start in a small French village but will quickly be set against a supernatural threat that feeds on blood. After that, there’s a fight over a Golem. No, not the ones from D&D but the ones from Jewish tradition. So, that’s fun. I’ll keep mum on the last two adventures but it does build to some great scares and heights. I wanted to talk about this one, as if you are interested in picking up the game, this is something you’ll want. Or maybe you can steal the ideas for a game of your own.

The second source book I want to talk about is Dead From Above, which adds in rules for airplanes and air combat. And it can give you haunted aircraft. I mention this one as some people might like the idea of dropping bombs or having a crashed air crew having to escape from enemy lines. It also gets referenced in the other books from time to time.

What at are the other books? There’s a campaign books for North Africa and the Mediterranean, the Russian front and rules for making Russian soldiers, and about the war in the Pacific against the Japanese. The last book is a collection of monsters and spooks you can unleash upon a group. Since there’s a lot of stuff in each one of these, I’ll probably tackle them one at a time in Sources Say.

 I really liked the idea of this game but I feel like the system was a poor choice. The d20 system isn’t conductive to a feeling of suspense or horror in the mechanics. The other thing is that when you make major changes to the system that doesn’t include AC and healing, the game gets much more deadly. Now, I think it’s been updated to the Savage Worlds system but I also feel like that isn’t quite the right fit, either. That’s due to the simplistic elements in that system when it comes to wounds and the like.

I would love to take the time to break the system apart and rebuilt it, as the game is very much what I like to call Blue Collar Horror. Much like Hunter, the focus is on regular people in extraordinary circumstances, and it isn’t the world your trying to save, but yourself and your friends. And that’s where this game can be very, very good. Sure, you want to beat the Nazis but you also want to make sure that your buddies make it home. And that can lead to some really good gaming experiences.

Mastering The Game: Literally Everyone Else In The World

 

Welcome back to Mastering The Game, where the carefully crafted adventure you’ve planned is going to be destroyed by the players and only the XP matters!

This week, I want to take some time to help those of you who are just getting started with making memorable, or at least consistent, NPCs and other people in the game. Because you’re literally everyone else in the world besides the players (and you all win an internet nickel if you get the reference I’m making).

Let’s start off with the basics, everyone who has played a RPG more than once has noticed that NPCs tend to come in a few varieties: Important, Annoying, and Disposable. Also, many a DM has found that there’s another type of NPC: The One The Party Has Adopted OR Suddenly Wants To Hang Out With. If it hasn’t happened to you, trust me, it will.

Some parties or players tend to look at all NPCs as one type, usually “Disposable.” Sometimes, that’s because they’re terrorists or shit stirrers, and sometimes it’s because they’ve had a really bad GM that’s taught them to trust no one. Personally, I tend not to use the whole “they were the bad guy all along!” trope very much, if at all. It’s okay for NPCs to have secret motivations but having people lie to the party and manipulate them for stupid reasons is not my favor of fun. However, that also means that when I do it, it will shock the party to the core. That’s why you should use stuff sparingly, to make their suffering that much sweeter. Wait, did I say that out loud?

Ahem. Anyway. The reason why NPCs are sorted into these broad groups is because there’s a lot of people in the world (usually) and the DM has to pretend to be all of them. And not all of us are drama nerds or fast thinkers. So, we tend to make similar NPCs when we’re put on the spot and have to think quickly because the party just burned the map for the adventure and would rather fuck with some random guard or tavern keeper. When something like this happens, I just ask myself “what does this person want?” and try to act it out. For the most part, people want two things: To do what they want (or have to do) and be left alone. If you’re in one of my games and you run into a lot of surly characters, it’s because you’re chasing the wrong lead or are annoying me. They’re probably not part of some secret conspiracy or plotting to kill you (yet), you’re just pissing them off. 

 But, what happens when you have time to prepare or you need to keep the players guessing about someone’s motivations or importance? What can you do to make the random people (or maybe not so random people) stand out? Well, as I’m sure you’ve probably seen, many guides for the GM have random tables for personality traits. Which are great, for completely random people on the street, but might not work so well for someone in a specific job. The guy who has to talk to people probably wouldn’t have lasted long if he had a terrible stutter. And the woman who runs the brothel probably wouldn’t have risen to a position of power if she had a problem with hygiene. I mean, yeah, there’s always exceptions, but you don’t want them to stand out like a sore thumb. Cyberpunk 2020 has a Lifepath system to use for generating events for players (some other games have stuff like this, too) and they can easily be used for NPCs as well. And don’t be afraid to steal characters from other media and redress them for your game. If you want the party to kill a pirate right away, just have a “closely resemble but legally distinct” Captain Jack Sparrow pop up? I mean, who hasn’t wanted to punch that character in the face at least once?

If you’re looking for making original characters, the best thing to do is to start at where the character is now and work your way backwards. You might want to go back to their early life, compare it to where you want them to be, and work towards the middle. Let’s say I need a town marshal to be an asshole but not a monster. Why is he an asshole? Well, maybe he’s been doing the job for too long and just wants things to be peaceful but can’t let himself retire because there’s no one else “good enough” to take over for him. Why would he think that? Let’s say that from an early age, he liked things neat and orderly. As he got older, his family also instilled a sense of responsibility in him and his parents told him that he couldn’t leave a job half finished. So, how does he end up being the marshal? Maybe he was drawn to it. Maybe he just needed work but those things he was taught made him stick with it. Perhaps there was something that happened that forced him into the job, like someone putting his name out there and he was too honorable to decline. There’s a lot of different reasons you can find. Just start connecting the dots along the way. You also want to figure out what you need for the NPC, so you can figure out how much needs to be fleshed out. If this is just the local tavern keeper the party needs to rent rooms from, don’t take too much time on him, but have a good sense of who he is and why he does the job. If he’s a pain in the ass, how could be stay in business? Maybe he’s the only one in a tiny town. Or maybe the players have been kicked out of anywhere remotely nice (it’ll happen, even to the best of parties, because your enemies don’t care about your preference for turn down service). Or maybe there’s a convention in town and he’s the only one with rooms left open and the attitude change is something recent. There’s a hook for an adventure right there, one you can leave hanging open for another time. The more realistic your NPCs, the more human (relatively speaking, of course), the more likely the players are to pay attention and the less likely the NPC is to end up flayed by the party crazy (there’s always one, mark my words).

Feel free to base NPCs on minor (or even major) characters from fiction. When you hear someone describe your crazy uncle Irving as “a character,” take note. Because your party might like an encounter with your Uncle Irving, except he’s the head of posse of survivalist nutbags that survived the apocalypse and now roam around looking for the aliens that they believe started everything. Trust me, I’ve known people like that. The only good part about encountering them is making your party having to do the same, but turned up to 11. Or combine them with people you’d like to kill, but can’t, because it’s illegal, immoral, and not nice. Like, Alex Jones. Who wouldn’t want to kill a version of him to let off some steam? And now I have a new idea for a mayor of a post apocalyptic town…

Moving on. The trick is to use a method that works best for you. Having a list of names is helpful for giving random characters some depth, along with a list of traits or accents or whatever. Use this for quick characters. If you’re going to be using a character over and over (or at least plan on it), try to have all this worked out, as well as some notes about their background or history. The more important the NPC is, be sure to give them as much detail as you can. There’s a lot of programs you can use for keeping track of character details, usually for writers. However, not everyone needs details and can make everything up on the fly, just make sure you write stuff down, as the players will probably remember even if you don’t. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, you should have a notebook handy and this is when you want to use it.

Now, let’s talk about how to keep important NPCs alive and interacting with the party. This is where things get tricky. What I suggest you do is know your party. If you know they like a particular character in a movie or video game, base your important character on them, without being an exact copy. Give them traits the party seems to respond well to. If you have a group of hard nosed private detectives, give them a mentor that has a similar sense of humor and looks out for them. Use that NPC to give them hints or clues or even the start of adventures. They’ll look out for them, and if they really start to like them, you can then have them kidnapped by a villain and watch the party go through hell to get them back. The downside to this is that they will ALWAYS go to this person for help. And they might not be able to do that every time. The NPC might be on vacation, dealing with something else, could be sick, or, if they have to find their mentor, they might not know anything that can help them. If you’ve mapped out what your NPC can and can’t do, they should be easy to explain to them. To keep other NPCs alive, like the ones you’re just going to need for just this adventure, try to make it clear the consequences will be dire if they attack or kill them. If the NPC is the king or lord of the local area, they’re going to protected by magic and guards. Even if they’re willing to meet directly with the adventuring types, they’re still going to have guards with them and/or a magic user of some kind hanging around. If the party makes some kind of dangerous move, have the guards react. If the party does end up killing or attacking an important NPC, make their lives a living nightmare from that point on. If you’re in the Old West and the party decided to kill the mayor for no good reason, have the sheriff round up a posse to chase them down. Even after they flee the town, make wanted posters turn up after a while. Maybe some bounty hunters or Federal Marshals start tracking them down. Most reasonable parties will only do that once. And only once. Note, none of this applies to killing corrupt members of government when that was what you wanted them to do. Just to clarify.

 Well, that’s just about all I have to say on this topic today. There’s a lot more I could get into but that mostly applies to how to do this in different genres. If that appeals to you, let me know and I might just put my thoughts down.

Let's Talk About: What's Coming for 2022

Hello and welcome back! This time around, I thought I would take a minute to talk about what I have planned for things here for the next year. If this feels like filler, that’s because it is.

Painted Minis:

While I have been buying new minis, I have also painted some of them. Some. And I had some painted that I never posted. So, I’m going to try to get something set up so I can show off my poor painting skills. As of right now, I don’t know if I want to just post what’s finished or if I want to wait until I have a bunch done for one game or another. It’s really going to come down to how often I want to post things. Time will tell what I end up doing.

 Reviews:

I do like doing reviews but I get the sense that no one is here for them. Which is fine, they’re mostly for me to share with friends. If you do see something in my list of games that I haven’t done a review of, and you think I should write one, let me know. I do tend to focus on the more recent stuff of my collection but I do want to get some of the others written out, too. The one I want to write, but keep forgetting about, the Deadlands: Lost Colony. I really should bang that one out.

 Deadlands – The Ferner Five:

Which brings me to the next thing I’m hoping to get done, the final adventure of the Ferner Five. There was a brief non-canon one but I don’t really remember it so I’m not going to do it. I also want to write about where the campaign would have gone, had things not fallen apart, as well as putting out the stats for the characters for anyone who wants to use them. It just means I need to set aside the time to do them. Out of all the things I do here, writing about gaming sessions is probably the most time intensive. Explaining why I don’t do them very often.

Silent Hill Project:

It looks like I’ll never be able to run this game, for a lot of reasons, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about it. I don’t know if I’m going to come back to it and finish it but I feel like I should at some point. And that means that I should get back to writing about my thought process behind the game. We’ll see if I do, as doing that usually inspires me to get back to work on the project proper.

Repairing Road Kill:

I actually finished this one. I know, I’m surprising as you are. I’ve typed up the original rules, as well as my changes, to make a thing called After The End. That said, I do need to go over it again before I put it out there. I also want to play some games of it before too much longer but that means herding cats and not worrying about the current pandemic.

 Let’s Talk:

This new series of articles (which this one is a part of) is something for me to talk about things that don’t fit into my normal categories. As such, you’ll probably see more of these pop up from now on. There’s a lot of things happening in the various gaming communities that I have thoughts and feelings about but since it takes me so long to get one of these done, they might not be topical or “hot” by the time you read them. I don’t really care, this is my place to express my opinions. If you disagree, you’re more than welcome to, there’s a comments section below you can use.

Fantastic Worlds Solo Campaign:

Recently, I finished my review of the game and posted it here. In the time between I started the review and finished it, my opinion of it changed and now I want to really give it a try. As such, I have an outline for a solo campaign of it that I’m planning on doing in the future. However, I want to paint up the minis I’m going to use for it before I do. And that means it might take a while before I get started. The setting will be based on a series of stories I haven’t gotten around to writing yet so you can think of this as a preview of that idea.

 Everything Else:

I have a lot of articles that I do here but they depend on what I’m feeling. And I don’t know what ones to focus on. If there’s anyone reading that has some suggestions, some things they want to see me work on more, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll think about it. With having such a large collection of games and books, I sometimes get overwhelmed with which one deserves my attention. Plus, when I add more to the collection, it makes it even harder. We’ll see where my moods take me and what ends up getting written up.

And that’s all for now. I suppose I could go on about some of the smaller things or newer things but I think I’ve covered everything that I feel is important. I hope you stick around to see what I come up.