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D20 Modern WWII Pulp
- Thread starter JediSoth
- Start date
Stormborn
Explorer
Adamant Entertainment has a Nazi's supplement for Thrilling Tales, and I believe that there is a Modern Dispatch or two with Nazi Superscience weapons. I think there was a Polyhedron issue that had a WW2 supplement. You might also want to pick up the GURP Weird War II supplement for lots of excelent real world and not so real world ideas for such a setting.
If the game is set prior to the out break of WW2, but after 1934, you might have a group of PCs who work for a private foundation that could work as a counter agency to Nazi efforts to acquire occult artifacts from around the world. If you want a more War based setting i suggest starting with more advanced characters, say 3-4th leve at least, and have them all be operatives of a special OSS agency trained to deal with the Nazi super weapons and other things showing up in the midst of it all. I find it helpful in such a game to suggest character description, just one sentence PCs, and have the players pick from them and develop the character as they see fit. For example, a special OSS group might contain:
The sole survivor of an eliete commando squads encounter with something terrible in the wood in France.
An Anglican priest recruited for his expertise in European occultism.
A samuri sword weilding Japanese American who volunteers for service to keep his family out of the camps.
A French spy who worked undercover as a dance hall girl before being recruited for this.
The Brit boffin who takes apart "unknown objects" for HRM.
A gypsy witch who's looking for revenge for what the Nazi's did to her family.
Etc.
Creat a number of ideas that you think would work in the campaign you have in mind, say about 3x the number of players, and let them pick and flesh them out and roll them up.
A third possibilty, for the powergamers, is have the team be a special "Creature Commando" Squad - made up of vampires, werewolves, demons, flesh golems, etc.
Remeber that this kind of gaming is going to be assignment based. Think about all the intelligence that might go into planning missions for your group, and all the things that might go wrong. Yes, some times the millitary or secret services didn't plan everything well, but as a GM you should be able to tell the PCs up front how they get in, what they find, what they are supposed to do, and how they are to get out. On the ground all that can change, but the PCs commanders should have a plan.
If the game is set prior to the out break of WW2, but after 1934, you might have a group of PCs who work for a private foundation that could work as a counter agency to Nazi efforts to acquire occult artifacts from around the world. If you want a more War based setting i suggest starting with more advanced characters, say 3-4th leve at least, and have them all be operatives of a special OSS agency trained to deal with the Nazi super weapons and other things showing up in the midst of it all. I find it helpful in such a game to suggest character description, just one sentence PCs, and have the players pick from them and develop the character as they see fit. For example, a special OSS group might contain:
The sole survivor of an eliete commando squads encounter with something terrible in the wood in France.
An Anglican priest recruited for his expertise in European occultism.
A samuri sword weilding Japanese American who volunteers for service to keep his family out of the camps.
A French spy who worked undercover as a dance hall girl before being recruited for this.
The Brit boffin who takes apart "unknown objects" for HRM.
A gypsy witch who's looking for revenge for what the Nazi's did to her family.
Etc.
Creat a number of ideas that you think would work in the campaign you have in mind, say about 3x the number of players, and let them pick and flesh them out and roll them up.
A third possibilty, for the powergamers, is have the team be a special "Creature Commando" Squad - made up of vampires, werewolves, demons, flesh golems, etc.
Remeber that this kind of gaming is going to be assignment based. Think about all the intelligence that might go into planning missions for your group, and all the things that might go wrong. Yes, some times the millitary or secret services didn't plan everything well, but as a GM you should be able to tell the PCs up front how they get in, what they find, what they are supposed to do, and how they are to get out. On the ground all that can change, but the PCs commanders should have a plan.
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Forbidden Kingdoms has 20 pages of setting material devoted to the Nazi era. FWIW, The book also has two prior pulp eras (Steam Age, and Tesla Time the other two). It's right up your alley with it being a slightly alternate-history adaptation of things going on at the time.
Forbidden Kingdoms was developed before D20 Modern, but a Modern conversion of the classes had been published. Both can be bought as .pdfs from RPGNow rather cheaply.
Forbidden Kingdoms was developed before D20 Modern, but a Modern conversion of the classes had been published. Both can be bought as .pdfs from RPGNow rather cheaply.
ledded
Herder of monkies
I ran one that was probably a bit flashier than you are looking for, but it was a ton of fun.
d20 Modern base, WWII stuff from a variety of sources and some homebrew, Blood and Vigilance for d20 Modern supers.
Stormborn's advice is all good, IMO, so I'll just add a couple to that based on my experience:
1) Decide on the scope of adventures within the campaign. Is it mostly secret-agent/small team type stuff? Or are you going to be in situations where you need to go up against the German war machine? Do you think there will be many adventures involving aircraft or maybe just a little/none? This will help you decide on just how much extra work or extra products, and which ones, you might need.
2) Figure out how "coarse" you want the believability/historical accuracy of period encounters to be. For instance, do you think you'll need a good and accurate system for handling encounters against (for instance) tanks (which d20 Modern doesnt really handle by itself), or is a simple stat block for a tank with a little hand-waving enough.
If you (or your players) are not an armchair historian of WWII (like I am) then these 2 things dont matter that much, however if you are then you will find that most supplements covering the time period widely vary on stats/systems for various things such as firearms, aircraft combat rules, handling antitank weapons, etc, and you'll just need to find the ones you like. It all depends on how you want to run it.
I wrote a story hour for the game we were in called "We were like gods once...". There is a link in my sig if you are interested in checking it out. WW2 Pulp Supers fighting Nazis and all that jazz.
d20 Modern base, WWII stuff from a variety of sources and some homebrew, Blood and Vigilance for d20 Modern supers.
Stormborn's advice is all good, IMO, so I'll just add a couple to that based on my experience:
1) Decide on the scope of adventures within the campaign. Is it mostly secret-agent/small team type stuff? Or are you going to be in situations where you need to go up against the German war machine? Do you think there will be many adventures involving aircraft or maybe just a little/none? This will help you decide on just how much extra work or extra products, and which ones, you might need.
2) Figure out how "coarse" you want the believability/historical accuracy of period encounters to be. For instance, do you think you'll need a good and accurate system for handling encounters against (for instance) tanks (which d20 Modern doesnt really handle by itself), or is a simple stat block for a tank with a little hand-waving enough.
If you (or your players) are not an armchair historian of WWII (like I am) then these 2 things dont matter that much, however if you are then you will find that most supplements covering the time period widely vary on stats/systems for various things such as firearms, aircraft combat rules, handling antitank weapons, etc, and you'll just need to find the ones you like. It all depends on how you want to run it.
I wrote a story hour for the game we were in called "We were like gods once...". There is a link in my sig if you are interested in checking it out. WW2 Pulp Supers fighting Nazis and all that jazz.
GURPS Weird War II by Ken Hite is an awesome resource.
I think JSA: The Unholy Three is awfully good, with gritty pulpified versions of all the DC Comics mainstays.
I wrote a little minigame / rules supplement called INFINITE: Epic Modern, which is a sort of "capstone" supplement for introducing epic level characters and a secret world of pulp heroism into d20 Modern campaigns of any era.
I think JSA: The Unholy Three is awfully good, with gritty pulpified versions of all the DC Comics mainstays.
I wrote a little minigame / rules supplement called INFINITE: Epic Modern, which is a sort of "capstone" supplement for introducing epic level characters and a secret world of pulp heroism into d20 Modern campaigns of any era.
Last edited:
JediSoth said:
That's pretty much the entire basis for our Thrilling Tales line of D20 Modern products.
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