d20 WWII?

[Emiricol]

Where can I find WW2H?

 

[Aaron2]

Ww2h

Where can I find WW2H?

I went searching for it yesterday. Its based on d20 Modern AFAICT.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2429

Hey, I was looking through the free demo. Anyone know what a critical of "20/I/J" means?

Aaron

 

[ledded]

One of the most memorable scenes from BofB for me is the one that starts out with the captian, sorry I forget his name, running. You hear his heart beating. He is alone, crests a hill, and comes face to face with a young german soldier scrambling to get up. The captain hesitates for just a moment then kills him. The episode was a flash back of how he came to that moment. It was very well done.

Anyway, I applaud the efforts of Speilburg and Hanks. WWII is something that cannot be forgotten. And why this country still has no official memorial makes absolutely no sence to me. I don't understand.

Yes, that was a very intense scene with Winters, and I thought he was portrayed quite well in the series (as far as what had been written about him).

I read the book by Ambrose and a couple excerpts from stories written by some of the men who were there (Webster, etc) prior to seeing more than one or two of the series, so I was skeptical before viewing them all.

I was impressed by a few of the memorable stories that made it in there, such as former college athlete Buck Compton's grenade throw that was so hard and spot on that it actually hit a running German in the back of the head and went off (while the others were more 'lobbed' and landing behind them) and the scene were the bazooka guy is kneeling in the open with an officer, tank about to eat their lunch, repeating over and over 'sir, yer gonna get me killed... yer gonna get me killed' while lining up his shot. And dont forget the scene where Winters yells at Malarky(?) in the trench in the D-Day episode when the German tosses a grenade *in between his legs* and he rolls off of it just in time and doesnt take a scratch when it goes off next to him (can you say "evasion"? ). The scene where Winters is walking around in the road, kicking guys in the butt and yanking them off their feet because they're trying to get cover from the 2 or 3 MG42's spraying the entire road with bullets, or the scene from Foy where Lt. Spiers realized he needed to link up to communicate with the units on the other side of the German-held town, so he just takes off and sprints through the middle of town, Germans all around looking at him like he's a nut, then sprints *back* to join his men. Almost too many of these to mention...

Where can I find WW2H?

As another poster said, it's on RPGnow. I'll be picking it up either today or tomorrow and I'll post up what I think of it, though I suspect it will be similar to what DJorgenson already posted.

 

[fenzer]

Thanks Ledded. I had forgotten about everyone of those. Lt Spiers was crazy man! That guy was one of those guys that just scared you, no fear.

Anyway, My FLGS had their Weird War II stuff for 50% off. Needless to say, I now have the entire set. Too bad they discontinued it.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

As good as Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan were, I can't help but think that a WW2 game with D20 Modern would more likely end up more like the plots of Kelly's Heroes, Castle Keep, Where Eagles Dare, or the old Rat Patrol TV series...

 

[Shag]

Thanks Ledded. I had forgotten about everyone of those. Lt Spiers was crazy man! That guy was one of those guys that just scared you, no fear.

The really crazy part that I find so hard to get my head really around, is that..all that stuff ACTUALLY happened. Not like the A-Team...which I have been told isn't real....

You forgot 2 other crazy things that were in the book. When Buck firsts jumps into the Trench when he's attacking those guns...his very first combat mission of the war his Thompson jams on him!

And my other favourite is of Lipton when they first get shelled just outside of Bastone he just laughs at the explosions cause they are so 'cool'...man thats just gotta be a weird form of shell-shock.

Damn sorry that series is just so awesome!

I'm surprised they didn't do another one. Ambrose wrote a ton of books on WWII I'm sure another could have been made into a mini series.
Its too bad all these things are so US-centric...one of the really cool parts of WWII thats no one really knows about is called the 'Winter-War" with the Finns vs the Russians at the end of 1939. Its like the Battle of Thermopylae, but on a National level.
That tiny country held out SO long against the giant soviet war machine...oh hear and know. http://www.winterwar.com/

 

[Aaron2]

I'm surprised they didn't do another one.

My understanding is that they are working on a Pacific one. Its amazing how hollywood SPR seems compared to BoB (except for episode 9).

It would be hard to maintain that level of realism in an RPG. You either have PCs dying off right and left or the player's know that PCs are "important" characters and thus get kinda quirky ala Kelly's Heroes.


Aaron

 

[ledded]

The really crazy part that I find so hard to get my head really around, is that..all that stuff ACTUALLY happened. Not like the A-Team...which I have been told isn't real....

You forgot 2 other crazy things that were in the book. When Buck firsts jumps into the Trench when he's attacking those guns...his very first combat mission of the war his Thompson jams on him!

And my other favourite is of Lipton when they first get shelled just outside of Bastone he just laughs at the explosions cause they are so 'cool'...man thats just gotta be a weird form of shell-shock.

<snip>

Yeah, those were done pretty well in the series, if briefly.

There were quite a few memorable moments from the book and other veterans accounts that were quite good but didnt make it to the show. Such as in the aforementioned bazooka scene, the loader for the guy manning the bazooka came up to him the night before when they were getting into position (just a few hours before the German counterattack) carrying an armload of bazooka rounds very gingerly. When asked what he was doing, he said he removed all the arming pins from the bazooka rounds (which I didnt even know they had). The other guy freaked, afraid they would get themselves killed, and yelled at him to put them back in. The guy just shook his head and said he couldnt, because he pulled 'em in the dark and lost them. They both scrambled around the area, carrying the bazooka rounds until they found the pins and put them back in; they got done not too long before the German attack.

And Dana, I agree, you would have to go with a little more of a 'heroic' feel, with special commando kind of missions with a d20 Modern WWII campaign unless you like tons of just high-mortality combat in your game. Where Eagles Dare would actually be an extremely fun scenario to play out, and a Kelly's Heroes type game would be a lot of fun for my group to play out as they tend to be a bit too chaotic to go around following orders and doing the right thing all the time ;^)

 

[Aaron2]

WWII Adventure

Just exactly do you write a WWII adventure that isn't a Kelly's Heroes/Eagle Dare commando raid? Last night I was trying to write a simple adventure to play test some VforVictory vehicle rules* and couldn't even get started. When I write a normal D&D adventure I usually have ...

1) A setting with (hopefully) some interesting quality. I.E. castle ruins, back alley, crypt, etc.

2) A bad guy or someone opposed to the party and/or their goal.

3) A plot. Usually it involves finding and/or stopping said bad guy.


So, you see my dilema. How can I come up with a plot when what I end up with is just some seemingly random encounters with a bunch of Germans? How do you make a memorable bag guy when you probably can't even speak to each other?


Aaron

*I wanted them to be a crew of a M8. They drive around, dismount for some small arms combat and then maybe duke it out with a PSW 222.

 

[ledded]

Just exactly do you write a WWII adventure that isn't a Kelly's Heroes/Eagle Dare commando raid? Last night I was trying to write a simple adventure to play test some VforVictory vehicle rules* and couldn't even get started. When I write a normal D&D adventure I usually have ...

1) A setting with (hopefully) some interesting quality. I.E. castle ruins, back alley, crypt, etc.

2) A bad guy or someone opposed to the party and/or their goal.

3) A plot. Usually it involves finding and/or stopping said bad guy.


So, you see my dilema. How can I come up with a plot when what I end up with is just some seemingly random encounters with a bunch of Germans? How do you make a memorable bag guy when you probably can't even speak to each other?


Aaron

*I wanted them to be a crew of a M8. They drive around, dismount for some small arms combat and then maybe duke it out with a PSW 222.

I suggest reading up some 'real account' kind of books, like Ambrose's Band of Brothers, or even more useful for me was Gavin's On to Berlin. They give you a good overall view of how various encounters usually came about, though those 2 from more of an elite unit perspective.

But, here is my advice on the matter.

If you want to try to run a non-Dirty Dozen/Kelly's Heroes etc kind of game, you are going to run into strong GM "railroading" issues. If your players are ok with that, fine. But the fact is that they are probably taking orders and somehow part of a larger force/action.

1) Recon. Pick a particular part of the war and send them out to recon the enemy. Make sure they realize that finding out information about enemy strength and disposition is better than just running into Germans and gunning it out.

Alternately, you could have a squad attempt to move behind enemy lines in order to capture a) German personnel to question, b) intelligence leading to another adventure item, c) specific intelligence on the dispostion of a weapon or force, i.e. tank column, rail gun, etc.

2) Ambush. Their unit is set up as a possible breakthrough point by an expected German counterattack along a large front, and their little squad has responsibility for a given area. Let them set themselves up however they want on a given small area and have the germans show up in some predetermined amount of time. Forces them to work together, make certain skill checks, always with the thought that they have to hurry and get set so the bad guys dont catch them with their pants down.

3) Take out the big guns. The Amercians are searching for the big guns (88's, self-propelled artillery, AA, etc) that are raining death down on their ships/infantry advance/armor columns/etc. Like the action in Sicily in The Big Red One, they have to find out where they are and put a stop to them, possibly working with civilians/partisans while trying to avoid getting caught in the confusion of retreating/counterattacking German patrols. The big guns could be high on a set of cliffs, mounted in an old castle, or any otherwise implausible location for game flavor. Or they could be mounted in a network of bunkers and deep trenches/tunnels, the PC's always expecting ambush as they ferret out resistance and discover the dungeon-like quality of the defense system.

4) Clear this sector. The G.I.'s are tasked with clearing a certain set of city blocks of enemy resistance. German snipers, small squads, well-entrenched and hidden MG nests, and little sneaky Jerrys with Panzerschreks are sprinkled throughout. Maybe this is in France/Holland/Italy/etc, and the PC's can attempt to get aid by civilians trapped in the crossfire or avoid getting ratted out by some. They could be presented with the moral dilemma of having civilians between them and the enemy and feel the need to try to get them out of the area prior to engaging the enemy, and the enemy of course never cares about civilian casualties.

5) Hold the line. Battle of the Bulge, that kind of thing. Low on ammo, equipment, clothes, and food, the PC's have to defend a stretch of forest from probing attacks, patrols, and finally a big push with armor by the Germans. Maybe give them one small artillery barrage or air support barrage that they have to use judiciously; they dont know when the big push is coming and they want to save it for that, but at the same time if they get wiped out it would be a moot point. It would help to assign a handful of GM controlled NPC's that can be easily taken out by German attacks or a sneaky infiltrator type ("Oh no, Johnny's throat's been cut, and I was in the foxhole right next to him!") for tension-building or cinematic effects. Remember the horror you can inflict on the PC's with tree-bursting barrages of artillery, fort saves for exposure to weather, etc.

6) Capture the bridge. Much of ETO was about either blowing up or taking bridges intact to have routes into central Europe. Set up a bridge and have them recon it, maybe attempt to work with local resistance, etc. Maybe it's a situation like Remagen where they need to take the bridge before the Nazi's realize you are there and blow it up, but there could be retreating Nazi's making for the bridge at any time so if you go in small and light you may get caught in a crossfire.

As for a particular enemy, you could pick a German officer who is in command of unit(s) that they face multiple times that always gets away. For instance, he could have the big guns under his command and slip away as they make their assault; then later be commanding a small armored platoon they are defending against and direct action against them from the rear, taunting them in English that he learned at the University of Chicago; weeks later he is trying to defend a city sector/bridge that the PC's have to take. Everywhere they follow, there are stories by surviving G.I.'s and civilians of the guys horrible atrocities (slaughtering american prisoners, Dutch civilians, etc): think about the stories of guys like Pieper from the Bulge and other stories of Waffen SS officers.

I'm not sure how much use that would be to you, but maybe there's something. The problem in running a straight non-commando WWII campaign is that you are either going on advance, or defending an area and dont have much contact with people outside of your group for role-playing purposes (other than dealing with superior officers, supply guys, etc). But you can do fun games with limited commando-type action without getting totally over-the-top a la Kelly's Heroes, Guns of Navarrone, etc. That's what they trained Rangers for in WWII.

Oh, and just general advice, give them a haltrack instead of an armored combat car. More PC's can fit in it with a little gear, and you may have a touch more mobility depending on the conditions. Just a suggestion.