[d20 Past] The Great War as an RPG setting

[Stormborn]

I was thinking the other day about Marvel's Union Jack, a WWI-era masked adventurer who fought vampires and Germans [and the occasional German vampire]. My thoughts turned to Kim Newman's excellent novel "The Bloody Red Baron," a sequel to "Anno Dracula," in which WWI occurs on schedule despite Dracula conquering England decades before.

As soon as I saw the title of the thread I thought of those books! You might also want to check out Arrowsmith from DC (now in TPB I think) as a Great War with Magic setting.

Set late in the War, or in a war that went long, you could fudge a few historical details and use the equipment listed in CoC d20.

Actually a CoC+d20 Past combo would be interesting and would have lots of material both game realted and otherwise to pull from. The very books you mention have some nods to Lovecraft in them (like Herbert West as a front lines field doctor.)

 

[elforcelf]

A few years ago there was a Coc book all set in the Great War. Rember Doc Salvge and his men meet in a German prisoner of war camp during WW one. elforcelf.

 

[elforcelf]

One of the Young In.Jones WW one ep did have Vampires in it. elforcelf.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

A few years ago there was a Coc book all set in the Great War.

That was "No Man's Land", which is available on DrivethruRPG.

 

[JPL]

Doc Savage and his men meet in a German prisoner of war camp during WW one. elforcelf.

"Escape from Loki" by my man Philip Jose Farmer.

Good stuff.

 

[driver8]

Another thing you could do is to place your campaign on the geographica periphery of the Great War. WWI wasnt as world spanning as WWII, and large parts are the globe arent as directly affected, though it did have other effects on those regions.

A campaign centering on intrigue, mystery or horror in the isolated regions of the Far East or Africa could be fun (ala Africa Queen). Straight up action could be found in the Holy Land or the Arabian Penisula amid the fighting there. (TE Lawrence anyone?) Or perhaps a covert visit to wartime Russia to stop the Lich Rasputin who threatens to overthrow the Czarist government?

Framing a game this way could still preserve the flavor or the Great War without being tied to the wholesale slaughter of the Western Front.

 

[TerraDave]

Another thing you could do is to place your campaign on the geographica periphery of the Great War. WWI wasnt as world spanning as WWII, and large parts are the globe arent as directly affected, though it did have other effects on those regions.

A campaign centering on intrigue, mystery or horror in the isolated regions of the Far East or Africa could be fun (ala Africa Queen). Straight up action could be found in the Holy Land or the Arabian Penisula amid the fighting there. (TE Lawrence anyone?) Or perhaps a covert visit to wartime Russia to stop the Lich Rasputin who threatens to overthrow the Czarist government?

Framing a game this way could still preserve the flavor or the Great War without being tied to the wholesale slaughter of the Western Front.

Good point. The major combatants where active in Africa (north, south and middle), the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, but the fighting that occured there wasn't the sort of mass industrial slaughter found on the western and eastern fronts. Lots of room for strange special missions: my favourite from RL was a group of German inteligence agents that disguised themselves as a circus with the intent of infilitrating British India (they started in Istanbul) and formenting an anti-British uprising.

 

[Esteban]

I would second the recommendation on 'Arrowsmith'. It's WWI but with magic, vampires, trolls, dryads, etc. thrown into the mix. Written by Kurt Busiek of 'Astro City' fame. Here's a review from Amazon.com:

"In the first of a proposed series of Arrowsmith books, Astro City writer Busiek builds a clever extended metaphor to play with the tropes of smalltown-boy-learns-that-war-is-hell stories. It's 1915, and Fletcher Arrowsmith is a Connecticut farm boy who heads to Europe to learn to fly and fight the Prussians. It's all pretty normal—except that in this world, magic has taken the place of technology, Connecticut is part of the United States of Columbia, Fletcher's actually learning to fly on his own (with the aid of a miniature dragon), the aerial battles are fought with swords (when they don't involve "incendiary bolts" or monsters), Fletcher's hometown buddy is a Lothingarian troll with a thick foreign accent, the deadly gas that the Prussians and Tyrolians use turns people into flesh-eating demons and Fletcher must search his soul after he discovers he has helped destroy Holbrück by dropping fire elementals on it. Arrowsmith's mixture of WWI aesthetics and sword-and-sorcery elements must've been tricky to pull off visually, but Pacheco holds his own, drawing with a slick-lined grace and understating the witty variations he's devised for everything from the soldiers' outfits to European architecture. Everything proceeds precisely according to the traditions of the genre, but the setup's ingenious enough to make the clichés tolerable. "