WWII: What should my RPG setting be?

[S'mon]

He was certainly effective, but he was also a blunt instrument. Like with Stalin, recognizing that quantity has a quality all its own isn't particularly brilliant. I would give the brilliance nod to several of his opponents. And even among the Soviets, I'm more impressed by both Vasily Chuikov and Konstantin Rokossovsky, both of whom, I think, showed better understanding of subtlety and tactics.

Well, it's like comparing Robert E Lee with Ulysses S Grant. Generals like Lee and Rommel are 'brilliant losers'; Grant or Zhukov might appear plodders by comparison, but they are victorious plodders.

"recognizing that quantity has a quality all its own isn't particularly brilliant" - I tend to disagree. I read a lot of military theory exalting the WW2 German Wehrmacht (eg William S Lind) and their perfection of maneuver warfare, their ability to psyschologically and physically collapse their foes through the skilled application of maneuver tactics. But the Germans lost, despite excellent training and excellent tactics. Zhukov, like Grant, had troops relatively poorly trained, and with less of a 'professional warrior' ethos than their opposition. Both men recognised the need for the consistent application of overwhelming force at the decisive point. Their tactics might not look particularly pretty or elegant - but they worked, consistently - against highly capable foes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In the words of Depeche Mode "Everything counts in large amounts."

 

[S'mon]

Let's face it, until the Germans began fighting the Soviets and the British, and later the Americans, they were just running roughshod over inferior troops. The Poles, the Slovaks, the French, the Dutch, not exactly the creme'de'la'creme of military forces in the WWII time frame.

I wouldn't put the French in your list of second-rate powers. Before WW2 they were highly regarded, and they had held off and ultimately helped defeat the Kaiser's army in 1914-18, though sustaining terrible losses and suffering a widespread mutiny. I'd say it would be more true to describe the French as normally a potentially first-rate fighting force, but more vulnerable than the Anglo-Germanic nations to a sort of psychological collapse where they lose the will to fight. Other nations have their own psychological foibles - like the British tendency to resist ferociously until 'honour is satisfied' and then surrender quite meekly, or German pessimism. The French's particular foible made them particularly vulnerable to Blitzkrieg.

 

[billd91]

Well, it's like comparing Robert E Lee with Ulysses S Grant. Generals like Lee and Rommel are 'brilliant losers'; Grant or Zhukov might appear plodders by comparison, but they are victorious plodders.

"recognizing that quantity has a quality all its own isn't particularly brilliant" - I tend to disagree. I read a lot of military theory exalting the WW2 German Wehrmacht (eg William S Lind) and their perfection of maneuver warfare, their ability to psyschologically and physically collapse their foes through the skilled application of maneuver tactics. But the Germans lost, despite excellent training and excellent tactics. Zhukov, like Grant, had troops relatively poorly trained, and with less of a 'professional warrior' ethos than their opposition. Both men recognised the need for the consistent application of overwhelming force at the decisive point. Their tactics might not look particularly pretty or elegant - but they worked, consistently - against highly capable foes.

It still sounds a lot to me like crediting the Hulk for being a canny warrior because he smashes everything in sight with an overabundance of strength. Masses make up for deficiencies, which the Soviets had a lot of. Grant's genius was recognizing the power of mass in the 1860s. That shouldn't be considered brilliant 80 years later.

 

[S'mon]

Let's not overlook the fact that the American GI was just a better soldier. Smarter, a better shot, more resourceful and braver.

(Chairman crawls in, pulls the pin with his teeth, and tosses the grenade over!)

According to the (American) number crunching I saw, he was only 90% as good as the German soldier! Not that that is a big criticism; the Germans were the best soldiers man-for-man in WW2, behind only the Finns.

And there weren't many Finns.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The recognition of the power of mass goes back to ancient times...as does the recognition of how to deal with it. See the battle of Thermopylae.

Sometimes, brilliance is seeing the obvious AND capitalizing on it.

 

[Silver Moon]

My question (not having seen the module), is: "If these Aliens are so smart to have been able to conduct Space Travel and reach Earth, why would they care about our affairs here, and want to intervene? And if so - why secretly?

The premise of the Timemaster game system is that these aliens, called Demorians, want everybody to be at their own self-described level of perfection. Humans are imperfect, so must be eliminated. The 72nd Century Time Police are also of Earth origin, so they want to change Earth's history so that the organizaion is never created. They are also shape-shifters. The secrecy is so that the Timecops don't catch them.

 

[Walker N. Waistz]

Doing a "Timemaster" game using the "Partisans in the Shadows" module, set in German occupied France in 1941. The PC's are time-hopping commandos (timecops) set to put things back on track from aliens trying to make changes for Germany to win WWII. The prepackaged module is pretty good 'covert team/trust no one' scenario, which works well for a "Part I", but I would like to then flow into a more action-packed scenario for the commandos to finish up wth. As time-hopping is involved it could be at any point between 1941 and 1945, just so the villains are the Nazis. Any thoughts?

To make sure you have the system stuff you need, a game set in the time-period might be good: Godlike, Trail of Cthulhu, and Weird Wars come to mind. For Weird Wars, you'd have to strip out the werewolves and stuff, but that shouldn't be too hard.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Seconding Godlike- lots of good, yoinkable stuff in there.

 

[Silver Moon]

System stuff is not an issue, I've done two prior "Timemaster" modules with this group (A 17th century romp against the Spanish Armada; and visit to the Legend of King Arthur).

Based on all of your posts I've decided to expand this into a 3-part module, with a scenario against the Soviet Army as well as during the Battle of Normandy. Please feel free to provide more suggestions as to specific plot points for those.