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Old 01-28-2016, 10:49 AM   #21
The Colonel
 
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Default Re: WWII Gaming Advice

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Originally Posted by VariousRen View Post
Is the goal to actually have conflict in the party while they find who the spy is? Even if there isn't one, there would be a lot of paranoia in a group like that. Since rifles are so deadly, a single traitor could easily go full-auto and mow down the party when their back is turned.

Unless the danger of a German IN the party is a main theme of the game (it would certainly be interesting if it was! Sort of like an RPG version of mafia.) I would leave it out completely in case it derails the adventure completely.

On a related note, if anyone does something like this and includes an anti-PC, make sure to make it clear to everyone playing that an anti-PC exists! If not, PC's will normally accept basically any strange introduction, player excuse, ect. without questioning it because they are suppose to be working together.
This being during the Grief period, paranoia should be entirely appropriate - although until the PCs encounter a Grief team, arguably, the risk of any given American being a Brandenburger might not occur to them.

Running into survivors of a Grief attack might be a good encounter - especially if faced with someone who flees rescue or a wounded man who tries to defend himself from his rescuers. Or to have their first encounter with a Grief team who gun down some random NPCs (also demonstrating how much fun small arms fire is to receive)... and make sure you give each PC their own "sealed agenda" packet. Perhaps including some legitimate secrets (for example on PC is actually a deserter/murder or other criminal who escaped when the provosts guarding him were killed by enemy fire) so that they have their own reasons to be cagey that are nothing to do with being German. Although, as already noted, planting a very obvious character with a Germanic accent - perhaps from an interwar immigrant family or rural Pennsylvania Dutch - might be an amusing red herring.
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Old 01-28-2016, 12:27 PM   #22
Thunderjoe
 
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Default Re: WWII Gaming Advice

Quote:
Originally Posted by VariousRen View Post
Unless the danger of a German IN the party is a main theme of the game (it would certainly be interesting if it was! Sort of like an RPG version of mafia.) I would leave it out completely in case it derails the adventure completely.
Given the setting, that could very easily be a big part of it but I'm not going to do it because it is still my first game GMing. If the players get paranoid on their own their own, however...

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Originally Posted by Minuteman37 View Post
Well just so you know I wouldn't be against taking part in this, it's been a while since I've actually played GURPS and would like to get my feet wet again.
You should be able to find the game here. It isn't the easiest thing finding GURPS players online to play a game so anyone is welcome.

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Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
Or to have their first encounter with a Grief team who gun down some random NPCs (also demonstrating how much fun small arms fire is to receive)...
The first encounter I have planned is the players being at a checkpoint waiting in their truck for their turn for be checked and let through when a few of the vehicles turn out to be full of Germans. The surprise of the sudden firefight allows the Germans to pass through the checkpoint and in the confusion afterwards nebelwerfer fire rains down. The PCs are the only survivors of the attack.
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Old 01-28-2016, 04:33 PM   #23
fredtheobviouspseudonym
 
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Default WWII Gaming Advice -- More Detail on Bulge

The Bulge, at least early on, was a distinctive and unusual battle for the Americans.

First, remember that most guys on the front line in Dec. 1944 probably got there after the breakout from Normandy (July-August '44.) The turnover in front line troops was pretty high. So most of the US troops had only experienced Germans either on the run or holding in place. The power of the German attack in the Bulge panicked lots of guys (including Bradley, Hodges & Eisenhower.)* It was a remarkable military feat for the guys on the front to form up & resist the German attack. So some sort of psychological shock would be appropriate. Rumors are rife. "Geez -- the Krauts have a hundred thousand tanks and magic airplanes! We'd better start thinking about where our Dunkirk is gonna be . . . " not much of an exaggeration.

Second, US troops used to a secure supply network got a shock. Some rear-area units were overrun by the Huns -- others just bugged out. "Which way is Bordeaux . . . ?" So the regular doses of chow & ammo often dried up -- adding to the sense that everything in the US Army was going belly up.

Third -- due to decisions made by General Bradley in the late summer of 1944 there was a great inadequacy of winter clothing & other related supplies. So US guys in the Ardennes were using summer-weight jackets stuffed with straw or leaves or newspaper to try to stay warm, or wearing multiple (as in 3 or 4) cotton shirts under their field jackets. Clever guys who had had their families send them sweaters & long johns were much envied and often mugged for their warm duds. By the onset of the battle trench foot (look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_foot) had taken the equivalent of the front line infantry of four divisions off the line (almost 10% of the whole US infantry force in the ETO); other sufferers had to fight with this ailment.

Fourth -- the Ardennes really was a freaky environment for the GI. It's almost all forested, with narrow roads and small, steep-sided valleys as standard terrain. It's claustrophobic, almost like fighting in a jungle. If you can see the enemy you're in range of virtually every weapon he's got, including grenades. So it's kill or be killed at a moment's notice -- great time to develop some severe psychological syndromes. And for the first week or so of the attack the skies are a low overcast; no sight of the sun. So the GIs were really NOT comfortable in that environment -- remarkable that they did as well as they did.

Also -- to get the feel of that time & place, read Rick Atkinson's "The Guns at Last Light" -- as about three chapters on the Bulge. Also Charles B. MacDonald's "A Time for Trumpets" -- MacD. was an infantry company commander in the 2nd Infantry Division during the Bulge; he was wounded in late January, 1945. So get the word from a guy who was there.


* See Atkinson's book, "Guns at Last Light," and Millett & Murray's "A War to be Won" for examples. Eisenhower begged the US diplomats to, in turn, beg the Soviets to advance the onset of their winter offensive to rescue the beleaguered Americans. The effect at Yalta was, to say the least, problematic. Ike also demanded 100,000 US Marines as reinforcements. Given how Ike & other senior US Army generals felt about the Marine Corps, this is VERY significant.

Last edited by fredtheobviouspseudonym; 01-31-2016 at 01:23 PM.
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Old 01-28-2016, 05:34 PM   #24
Þorkell
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Default Re: WWII Gaming Advice

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Originally Posted by Not View Post
Easily done. Armies are a large organization, and they run on paperwork. But to be safe, check the Basic entries for Forgery and counterfeiting and see what an opposed test requires. I don't recall at present.
I did, there is no mention of an opposed test in the Forgery skill text. The forger rolls his skill each time a document of his is inspected. Counterfeiting is only for money.
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