02-19-2015, 12:52 PM | #11 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
That's a worryingly plausible idea. It might also lead to the Germans learning for sure that Enigma was being read. And once they know that, they have a powerful disinformation tool, if they can use it sufficiently subtly.
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02-19-2015, 08:19 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
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However, much of the materiel needed for the war effort lay outside Germany's borders -- even outside the borders of the other Axis powers. Germany had no direct control of petroleum products, and its access to rubber supplies lay across a sea largely controlled by the British Navy. Remember, in 1938, the British Empire had started to show serious cracks, but Her Majesty's government still exercised direct control of about 25 percent of the population of the entire world. Its Navy was the largest the world had ever seen, much larger than even the U.S. fleet, at the time. For its part, the U.S. had the greatest industrial capacity of any single nation (not counting colonies, of which we had only a few). We had ample coal, steel and other minerals within our own border, had plenty of petroleum in Texas and the desert southwest, and easy access to rubber in our own hemisphere. By the end of the war, the Allied powers had produced seven times the number of tanks, self-propelled guns and all-important trucks than the Axis powers. We built nearly six times the artillery, mortars and small-arms, and 50 times (!) the shipping tonnage. We had 80 million troops under arms, and the Russians alone had almost as many men uniform as the 30 million who fought for all the Axis powers, combined, all by themselves. What will drive much of the action in your campaign is the key question, "Given the superiority of the Allied wealth, industrial capacity and numbers, how could the Germans have possibly won?" The ability to magically scry helps, a lot. Nothing multiplies force better than timely and accurate intelligence. However, quantity has a quality all its own, and even if the invasion of Normandy had failed, the ever-increasing industrial output of the Allies (U.S. industrial output accelerated for the entire duration of the war) just means they tried again the following year. They already had a foothold in Italy, and friendlies in the South of France, and control of most of the Mediterranean. So, I think you have to look at some of the more boring types of magic seldom used by PCs, but which would profoundly impact industrial capacity. If the Germans used magic to multiply their industrial capacity, and create from scratch huge supplies of rubber and petroleum, then they might see some real potential for victory. At that point, the single most important mission for the PCs becomes, "How did they do that?" What sort of magic allowed the Germans to increase their industrial output so phenomenally? Can it be duplicated? Can it be destroyed? Did it require blood sacrifice, and allow the NAZIs to turn the deaths of 6 million Jews, 1.5 million Gypsies, 3 million Ukrainians, 2.5 million Slavs (mostly Poles), and hundreds of thousands of "undesirables" (gays and those with disabilities) into tens of thousands of tanks and aircraft? After that, you need to know where they got the personnel to operate all of that stuff. Did they use magical healing in their military hospitals? Were stormtroopers magically-enhanced? Did they animate the bodies of the dead, and put them in the assembly lines, to free up living workers for military service? If you look at the disparities between the Allies and the Axis powers, it quickly becomes apparent that the Axis had practically zero chance to win any conflict that lasted longer than a couple of years. So, you need to figure out what they did to change that, and then determine how they keep that power hidden, and what the PCs need to do to discover it -- and then either emulate it, or destroy it.
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-- MXLP:9 [JD=1, DK=1, DM-M=1, M(FAW)=1, SS=2, Nym=1 (nose coffee), sj=1 (nose cocoa), Maz=1] "Some days, I just don't know what to think." -Daryl Dixon. |
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02-20-2015, 07:48 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
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That gave us quite a panorama of Middle-Earth; we had characters starting out outside Minas Morgul, in Gondor, in Wilderland, in the Grey Havens, in the Shire, and in the lands of the Dunedain. By the time we were done I had shown a panorama of all of Middle-Earth in ruins. This isn't necessarily the right option for your campaign, but it's one way to do it.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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02-20-2015, 08:58 AM | #14 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_n...g_World_War_II Also, reaching across the Atlantic to attack the US while the USSR is till an existential threat would be odd, even for Hitler. TSHiggins had many good points about the nature of industrial warfare. You probably need to work out some of the details about _how_ magic totally reversed the situation for Germany. I would also second the recommendation of Thaumatology. It almost certainly has some material in it addressing every question you have about how to use magic. This would include things like demonic possession.
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Fred Brackin |
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02-20-2015, 09:25 AM | #15 | |
Join Date: Nov 2013
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
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OFC they're completely apparent into a bullet-proof-glass-like-aquarium-thing. They can even rotate the heads/brains around with a lot of steam and enginee turning! Are your players experienced? If so... "Jimmy, you just finish grabbing some rations and is returning to the community area... Billy, you check the recently intercepted shipment of guns and is checking the last round of ammo... Joe, on one of your dailies scheduled radio signal scans you have time to notice a very dim static that you're damn bloody sure it wasn't there earlier...BUT before you can say anything you all hear a really damp sound...split second later an explosion hits one of your venting exists and the marching sound of troops rushing in! Billy, you're first...what you do?" |
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02-20-2015, 09:33 AM | #16 | |||||
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Houston
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
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Dangit...this idea does have a certain contagious nature to it... Nymdok Last edited by Nymdok; 02-20-2015 at 09:37 AM. |
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02-20-2015, 09:37 AM | #17 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: On the road again...
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
Dieselpunk necroautomotons! Their "soldiers" are corpses reanimated through Mad Science! as well as magic. :)
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"Life ... is an Oreo cookie." - J'onn J'onzz, 1991 "But mom, I don't wanna go back in the dungeon!" The GURPS Marvel Universe Reboot Project A-G, H-R, and S-Z, and its not-a-wiki-really web adaptation. Ranoc, a Muskets-and-Magery Renaissance Fantasy Setting |
02-20-2015, 09:51 AM | #18 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
See David Brin's "Thor Meets Captain America."
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
02-20-2015, 10:05 AM | #19 | |
☣
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
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Or, if I did, it would be someone else's hidden agenda. Some power needed a lot of deaths and didn't care where they got them, so they manipulated events to put a bunch of racist psychopaths in power.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
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02-20-2015, 10:58 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Houston
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Re: Starting a Campaign, help
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Nymdok |
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campaign advice, nazis |
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