Oh good grief, I feel another RPG coming on

[Rob Lang]

My Cloudship Atlantis game is coming to an end and I am currently putting together an Icar one. I need to fill the gap with something easy and the more I think about it, the more I want to write it.

Commando RPG
has started one but it's not near finished (I've asked for whatever he has for a look). I'd use a modified version of the Cloudship Atlantis rules where the players share a pool of dice in the middle of the table. Trying to do something you're not skilled for uses up these dice, having good ideas or putting effort in makes more of them. I will want to make the combat system a little more involved/interesting because it needs to be edgier than the swashbuckle of Cloudship Atlantis.

The setting would be 1939-1942 in a cinematic Europe where the team would be carrying out missions against the Nazis. A bit of Where Eagles Dare, Bridge Too Far, etc. Add to this a little bit of occult, Nazi mythos and how WW2 computer games treat their heroes and you have a wealth of missions that involve sneaking, speaking in German/French/Dutch/Italian accents, femme fatals, parachuting in, rushing toward Swiss border and stiff upper lips. It's more Special Operations Executive (precursor to SAS) than Royal Marine Commando but I intend to stick only loosely to the truth - my players aren't experts in WW2.

Anyone done this before? Anything I should avoid or do?

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

I've thought about an alternate WWII that kind of stalemated, thus turning more into a very warm cold-war situation. Players end up OSS/SAS/NKVD operitves on missions to sabotage advanced projects that never got off the ground in the real world (Shinden fighters, the A-10 Intercontinental V2, etc.). Although the idea of 1947 tank battles involving M-26 Pershings versus Panther IIs and E-75 tanks is neat, the tragedy of allowing those regimes to go another two years kind of turns the project off.

Probably the biggest pitfall of a project like this, is that the setting has been done before. Try to find some new locations. How about the China-Burma-India Theater of the war? Most US textbooks paint the picture that after the Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk, the British Commonwealth disappeared from the Pacific. That is blatantly untrue of course. UK carries with armored flight-decks (meant for operating in the North Sea - in range of enemy land based craft) suffered far less from the kamikazes. For that matter, the USS Canberra was the only US navy ship named in honor or a foreign vessel - an Australian cruiser that sunk during the battle of Savo Island.

The Mediterranean theater could use some more interest. Or intrigue in the middle east - the UK and Russia teamed up to invade ostensibly neutral Iran to make sure they could keep their supply lines open.

You might want to look up a game called "Grey Ranks". Its got some neat ideas about different types of stress and choosing between your personal life and the mission.

[Rob Lang]