Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ledded" data-source="post: 1654614" data-attributes="member: 12744">Aw shucks man... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":o" title="Eek!    :o"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":o" /> . I don't know about 'masterful', but it does have lots of BANG and POW and KABOOM. But thanks for the props anyway. We do these 'one-offs' that we'll do a few games of to cover for when someone is out of town for a while or we want to take a break from our main campaign. I had been wanting to do a straight WWII campaign but was having trouble getting buy-in. We also wanted to do a Supers campaign using Chuck Rice's wonderful Blood and Vigilance. Somebody said 'Hey, why not do both, Capt America and Bucky vs the Red Skull'. So that's what we did. I tried to make it feel a bit like Godlike (a product I'll admit I've never played or even read that much of, but their pictures and story fluff are really nice and attractive). So I took a bunch of stuff from V for Victory, threw in some Hell on Earth from Bloodstone Press, made up a bunch of stuff including compiling my own weapons list with some help from the Wizards and Enworld resident gun experts, taped Blood and Vigilance over the top of it, and busted out my tanks and miniatures. It was quite a bit of fun, but was one of the most research intensive games I've ever done, considering we only played about 5 or 6 nights worth of it (and had a blast the whole time). Most of the reason I did it this way was that we liked the d20 Modern system, and by using that as a base and products/home brew that built off of it folks wouldn't have to learn a new system, so I was able to sell the idea of playing it a lot easier. The PC's started out as 'normals', had certain abilities 'awakened' within them and were yanked from their own units to a special OSS division, called the ESS (Enhanced Soldier Subjects), refered to as 'the Esses'. They got sent on a few missions, mostly got the crap kicked out of them while barely saving the day and whatnot. We used a good bit of vehicle stuff, mostly fairly simple Spycraft-like rules using the Charles Rice aircraft rules reprinted in Hell on Earth. Lots of tanks, half-tracks, mortar barrages, strafing by BF-109's, that kind of stuff. My whole thing was that I wanted to give a sense of realism even though we were playing with 'superheros'; we ended up getting a very nice feel, the players still turn pale and start shaking when I say 'Tiger Tank' or 'Nebelwerfer'. There were as few battles where they literally crawled away just inches from a TPK <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> My story hour and the links to the miniatures page give a good idea of what we did and how our table was set up. Sounds like a great game man, I'd love to be a part of it. I'll post up some of my voluminous resources when I have the chance... I've picked up a lot of photos, stats, maps, recon photography, all kinds of neat stuff I've used as handouts and props and references. I even made a CD of sound effects and WWII-era music and video file footage (American, English, French, and German) to play during the game on Fludogg's PC. Nothing like being at the Battle of Arnhem, the Germans firing at the PC's from 3 sides, and having the background sound-effect track from the Saving Private Ryan Omaha Beach landings mixed with a recording of an actual MG42 firing playing on about 7, and giving the PC's only 6 seconds to give me their action when their turn comes up. Very intense, for the most part. Also funny to play the 'Lili Marlene' track in German when the scout makes his listen check to catch the german column moving into a town ahead of them. Being able to actually hand the players a printout of an aerial recon photograph from WWII of an area they are about to have to enter when they ask for it is a big plus. Band of Brothers, A Bridge Too Far, Saving Private Ryan, The Bridge at Remagen, tons of movies I've loved and used also. I would have mentioned The Big Red One, which I like, but there is always that scene when the Germans overrun them in Africa and the Nazis are driving grey-painted *Sherman* tanks that I've never been able to get over... :\  Band of Brothers IMO is by far one of the best movie references. I have now gotten everyone in our group who hadnt seen them already to borrow my DVD's and watch them, and even the 'I hate war movies' guy loved it and several members of the group are now asking for a straight, no-FX WWII short campaign.   All in all, it's not always easy because of the potential lethality of encounters, but if you play it right it can be quite a bit of fun for everyone. I'm very much looking forward to doing a no-fx, straight WWII campaign one day.</blockquote>

Verification