russian civil war (osterns)

[bennyj]

do you think that GURPS WW2 could be amended for play during the russian civil war?

i'm very interested in playing an Ostern game (like a western but set during the russian civil war)

would i need to make many adjustments??

[jason taylor]

I think Russian Civil War is more Cliffhangers, then World War II. Also the Russian Civil War has less of a formal feel and was apt to temporary outbreaks of classic-style warlordism.
Neither the Whites nor the Reds look like particularly attractive sides. The Whites behaved like barbarians(I don't just mean they were mean-I mean they actually seemed to revert to primativeism)and the Reds behaved like stereotypical Evil Commies(there was good reason for this: at the early stages of Soviet History, one's show of extremism could make the difference between power and slow death even more then at latter times when Communism bureaucratized into an almost respectable form). There are exceptions, not all Whites or for that matter, all Reds were like this obviously. But the Russian Civil War seemed to bring these types to the forefront. Of course if you want to play a Red or a White for the fun of being evil it is reliativly easy especially a Red as these out of self-preservation tended to go beyond satire thus making the role easy to play in an idle momment(The Imperialist, Capitalist running dogs cannot halt the inevitable multisyllabic will of the Working class).
The best bet for your campaign would take roughly three forms none quite exclusive of the others.
One is a Foreign Agents campaign. An observer from a respectable country could be sent to check in. Or intervene in some ways. You would either be neutral or allied to the Whites. But your alliegiance would be to someplace where Civilization still maintained itself however vaguely defined.
Another is a Nationalist campaign. Fighting for the Independance of a former Czarist domain gives a cause that is more paletable then that of either the Whites or the Reds.
The third is a Survival Campaign. In this motif, the PCs are not really fighting for anything accept to survive. This can really take several modes. They can simply be peasants caught up in it all. The flight of Rebbe Saunder's congregation to New York in The Chosen is an example of this for any Chaim Potok fan. They can be aristocrats who conclude that their safety is not considered a high priority of The People. But another really good one and one that goes with a Nationalist campaign is as foreign troops just trying to get home. Much of the Red Army was composed of German POWs recruited as mercenaries with the price being a ticket home(a price not paid). A very good idea for this sort of thing though would be as part of the Czech Legion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Legion

A corps of Czech Nationalists in Czarist service during the Great War they confined their campaign chiefly to getting home making it something like the March of the Ten Thousand. As a footnote, there is a legend that they took several railroad cars full of the Czar's gold with them. If so good luck to them as the Czar no longer needed any gold seeing as the Reds had just sent him to a place where the value of gold had lowered somewhat. But in any case that would make a good sort of tale.
A darker kind of thing would be survival-within-the-Revolution. This would be an intrigue centered campaign, not an "I want to be evil so I can have fun killing innocent NPC's campaign." The GM would be obliged to construct a nightmareish maze of conspiracies which the PC's have to survive. It would be kind of like an Illuminati kind of thing. In fact if you exagerrate the competance of the Revolution beyond human level(always an easy thing to do and even easier then), it really would be an illuminati campaign.
A good sourse would be Setting the East Ablaze by Peter Hopkirk.

[jason taylor]

One unique idea is the Finnish Civil War. But that is an uninteresting war and is best mostly as a novelty. But it was a spinnoff of the Russian Civil War.
A more interesting spinoff is the Russo-Polish war. That is a quite interesting and comparitively neglected war.
And there is the Archangel campaign. To my mind, it's main interest is it's obscurity. But something could be gotten out of it.

[jason taylor]

Another possibility is an "angels of mercy" campaign where the PCs try to run an NGO in a place where neither side has a notably idealistic regard for the customs of war.

[Ramidel]

Ahem. A large portion of the Whites -were- Czarist/Nationalists; by the end of the war, the majority of the movement was probably monarchist Slavophile.

Anyway, Jason, I think it's a bad idea to say that just because a side either was, as a whole, evil, means that it's automatically out as a side. In a situation like a civil war, there's no good choices. Now, granted, the Red Army was a genuine military force that controlled the Russian Heartland and slaughtered anyone who looked like they might question the will of The People!!, so it's harder to be a sympathetic unit (the saner Mensheviks tended to meet nasty ends), but that's the Survival-Within-The-Revolution campaign.

However, the White Movement doesn't have that kind of unity, and you can't say that the White Army went barbaric because there was no "White Army" to speak of; there was a collection of monarchists, republicans, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. The PCs could easily be good-guy Whites; their response to the barbarity of other White units will shape the direction of the campaign. Are you going to tolerate their actions in the name of "strange bedfellows" and keeping the Bolsheviks down? Or are you going to purge them and risk falling divided?

Another group that had a vague chance of winning and was a generally-sane and generally-unified military force was the Ukrainian People's Republic. Other separatist states might also be on the table; I mention Ukraine mostly because if the Hetmanate had held together and thrown the Reds back, the RSFSR would probably have collapsed.

So don't count this war out. Moral ambiguity makes it a -more- interesting war to fight in, not less.

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by Ramidel

In a situation like a civil war, there's no good choices.

Wasn't that what he said?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Ramidel

Ahem. A large portion of the Whites -were- Czarist/Nationalists; by the end of the war, the majority of the movement was probably monarchist Slavophile.

Anyway, Jason, I think it's a bad idea to say that just because a side either was, as a whole, evil, means that it's automatically out as a side. In a situation like a civil war, there's no good choices. Now, granted, the Red Army was a genuine military force that controlled the Russian Heartland and slaughtered anyone who looked like they might question the will of The People!!, so it's harder to be a sympathetic unit (the saner Mensheviks tended to meet nasty ends), but that's the Survival-Within-The-Revolution campaign.

However, the White Movement doesn't have that kind of unity, and you can't say that the White Army went barbaric because there was no "White Army" to speak of; there was a collection of monarchists, republicans, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. The PCs could easily be good-guy Whites; their response to the barbarity of other White units will shape the direction of the campaign. Are you going to tolerate their actions in the name of "strange bedfellows" and keeping the Bolsheviks down? Or are you going to purge them and risk falling divided?

Another group that had a vague chance of winning and was a generally-sane and generally-unified military force was the Ukrainian People's Republic. Other separatist states might also be on the table; I mention Ukraine mostly because if the Hetmanate had held together and thrown the Reds back, the RSFSR would probably have collapsed.

So don't count this war out. Moral ambiguity makes it a -more- interesting war to fight in, not less.

I am not quite sure, "everyone is evil" counts as moral ambiguity.

In any case there is always moral ambiguity. Oops, we wrecked a poor peasant's house. We thought that thirteen year old farm boy was a German sniper. Oh, well.

[Xenarthral]

If you want to be really picky, the Russian Civil War is pre-Cliffhangers -
Cliffhangers officially begin in 1925...

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Neither the Whites nor the Reds look like particularly attractive sides.

Which is why you use the "revisionist western" approach and side with
the basmachi. :)
Or the Greens.

A good sourse would be Setting the East Ablaze by Peter Hopkirk.

His On Secret Service East Of Constantinople might have some use as well.

Originally Posted by jason taylor

And there is the Archangel campaign. To my mind, it's main interest is it's obscurity. But something could be gotten out of it.

What about Transcaucasus?