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Take World War II To Your RPG Night With War Stories
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<blockquote data-quote="RareBreed" data-source="post: 9067785" data-attributes="member: 6945590"><p>I'm an amateur historian at best. My paternal grandfather served in WW2 and the Korean War and for a time, was the Commandant of the NROTC at Northwestern University in Illinois. He wrote 3 semi-fictional books about Naval officers during the War of 1812 (well, technically, one of them was about John Gamble, a Marine Corps officer who has the distinction of being the only Marine to command a warship in time of war). My brother also got a masters in history with his thesis on the Cold War Soviet Navy. So, perhaps it just runs in my blood.</p><p></p><p>I was but a teenager in the 80s when I became fascinated with the Vietnam War, mainly due to how returning veterans were treated. In high school, hearing stories about how returning Vietnam Vets were treated boiled my blood even as a teenager, and made me want to learn more about this tragic conflict and how my own countrymen could treat their own veterans. As I learned, a thing happened that we are familiar with from web browsing: visiting related links. I wanted to know not just what happened, but why. And if you learn about the US Vietnam War, you have to start following the thread backwards; to the French, the Japanese, and the French again (and even the Chinese if you go back far enough). </p><p></p><p>So, in order to understand the Vietnam War, you have to really go back to WW2, and how WW2 was the first time for many countries to fight back not just against the Japanese, but their European colonial masters, because the chaos of war and the Japanese overthrow of the Europeans gave an opportunity for the natives to regain their own foothold. This played out in the series of uprisings of the Malays against the British in the 50s, and the Indonesian conflict against the Dutch also in the 50s and 60s. The same happened with the Philippines too. To some degree, you can trace the Islamic "terrorism" in the Philippines (I put that in quotes, because from their point of view, they are freedom fighters rebelling against the same foreign occupiers that have plagued their people literally since the Spanish came in the 1500s) to the taste of freedom that the Bangsamoro people got when the Japanese temporarily expelled the Americans from their region.</p><p></p><p>This is the kind of stuff I want to see in a WW2 game. Not the same rehashing of D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge. Not even stuff they almost never cover, like any of the North African or Italy campaigns. I actually want to see stories about the guerrila fighters or paramilitary units like the Chindits. What about the Maquis of France? The aforementioned Hukbalahaps of the Philippines, or Viet Minh of Vietnam? And in these scenarios, you <strong>can </strong>play women or even an atypical ethnic group (for example, in a Maquis campaign, you could be someone from a French colony like eg Tunisia).</p><p></p><p>Playing these groups also throws in a certain moral grey area. For example, the resistance groups of France had some shady goings on, as did the Hukbalahaps in the Philippines. The Moro guerrilla fighters (of which my oldest uncle was a member) often fought not just the Japanese, but the Americans too.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RareBreed, post: 9067785, member: 6945590"] I'm an amateur historian at best. My paternal grandfather served in WW2 and the Korean War and for a time, was the Commandant of the NROTC at Northwestern University in Illinois. He wrote 3 semi-fictional books about Naval officers during the War of 1812 (well, technically, one of them was about John Gamble, a Marine Corps officer who has the distinction of being the only Marine to command a warship in time of war). My brother also got a masters in history with his thesis on the Cold War Soviet Navy. So, perhaps it just runs in my blood. I was but a teenager in the 80s when I became fascinated with the Vietnam War, mainly due to how returning veterans were treated. In high school, hearing stories about how returning Vietnam Vets were treated boiled my blood even as a teenager, and made me want to learn more about this tragic conflict and how my own countrymen could treat their own veterans. As I learned, a thing happened that we are familiar with from web browsing: visiting related links. I wanted to know not just what happened, but why. And if you learn about the US Vietnam War, you have to start following the thread backwards; to the French, the Japanese, and the French again (and even the Chinese if you go back far enough). So, in order to understand the Vietnam War, you have to really go back to WW2, and how WW2 was the first time for many countries to fight back not just against the Japanese, but their European colonial masters, because the chaos of war and the Japanese overthrow of the Europeans gave an opportunity for the natives to regain their own foothold. This played out in the series of uprisings of the Malays against the British in the 50s, and the Indonesian conflict against the Dutch also in the 50s and 60s. The same happened with the Philippines too. To some degree, you can trace the Islamic "terrorism" in the Philippines (I put that in quotes, because from their point of view, they are freedom fighters rebelling against the same foreign occupiers that have plagued their people literally since the Spanish came in the 1500s) to the taste of freedom that the Bangsamoro people got when the Japanese temporarily expelled the Americans from their region. This is the kind of stuff I want to see in a WW2 game. Not the same rehashing of D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge. Not even stuff they almost never cover, like any of the North African or Italy campaigns. I actually want to see stories about the guerrila fighters or paramilitary units like the Chindits. What about the Maquis of France? The aforementioned Hukbalahaps of the Philippines, or Viet Minh of Vietnam? And in these scenarios, you [B]can [/B]play women or even an atypical ethnic group (for example, in a Maquis campaign, you could be someone from a French colony like eg Tunisia). Playing these groups also throws in a certain moral grey area. For example, the resistance groups of France had some shady goings on, as did the Hukbalahaps in the Philippines. The Moro guerrilla fighters (of which my oldest uncle was a member) often fought not just the Japanese, but the Americans too. [/QUOTE]
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