Take World War II To Your RPG Night With War Stories

Role playing games have roots in historical wargaming. Gygax and Arneson were inspired to add fantasy elements to their wargame campaign which began the foundations of Dungeons & Dragons. While historical wargames have flourished, they have often struggled in the roleplaying arena. While there are classics like Boot Hill and Gangbusters, RPG often seem to need a fantastical element to resonate with gamers. War Stories, by Firelock Games, looks to buck this trend by encouraging gamers to tell stories in World War II without monsters, magic or Cthulhu anywhere near the table. The company sent me a copy of the main rules for review along with some game aids. Did these rules survive first contact with the enemy? Let’s play to find out.

War Stories uses the classic Year Zero Engine created by Free League Publishing. This is the same engine that powers hit games like Tales From The Loop and Alien. Free League has a reputation for designing games that tailor the engine to the genre. Designers G. I. Garcia, Dave Semark and Michael Santana take an opposite approach here by sprinkling elements from those Free League titles, including elements from games like Blade Runner which traded in dice pools for escalating die types. If you’ve ever wanted to see what the lifepath system for Twilight: 2000 looked like for the original D6 die pool, you could probably lift it from this.

The core resolution remains the same. Players assemble a dice pool of d6 and look for rolls of 6 as successes. Players can choose to reroll some of the dice for more 6s at a risk of losing resources or taking damage. It’s here that War Stories takes a step away from other Year Zero games. Most of them incur a level or stress or a condition in exchange for a reroll. The designers instead take a little inspiration from Cortex Plus. Any ones rolled in the pool, called duds, are not just taken out of the pool but they also give the opposing side a Plot Point style resource to spend on future rolls. It adds a bit more tactical gaming to a system that’s generally known for being narrative.

Tactical elements abound in the War Stories book. It is a game where various World War II armaments get lovely illustrations (Indeed, the artwork throughout the book looks great). Combat feels a bit heavier than the usual Year Zero game with damage rolls, defense rolls and the like. But then, this is called War Stories, isn’t it? The opening rules discuss scaling the game from gritty, historical combat to cinematic action adventure tales. There are plenty of optional rules to add in or take out, which I like, but I also wish the designers had discussed which rules they use to achieve the different styles of the game. The default settings seem to lean towards a Saving Private Ryan type of game that nods to the grueling realities of war while still giving players a chance to have heroic moments for their characters.

The game walks a similar line in regards to historical accuracy. The archetypes contain two character types that are open to women in combat; the partisan fighter and the war correspondent. While the game drills down into specific elements of the war including a run down of what a paratrooper took with them into the field, there’s some discussion about how important accuracy is. The designers seem to take a similar tack to background that many tables take to rules accuracy; if it hampers your fun, change it. Nobody will send a history teacher assassin squad for anyone running a game with a mixed race and gender tank crew.

The book focuses on the European theater and squad based tactics. This is a game on squad based tactics featuring infantry. There are rules for larger battles but they exist primarily to add flavor to the skirmishes of the PCs. The rules on creating background characters seem inspired by Star Trek Adventures where a minor character can assist a main character or step in for a main character if they have no business on the current mission. Beware those mass battles, however; bad rolls can kill off beloved supporting characters as part of the cost of war.

War Stories is a heavier take on the Year Zero Engine that tackles a unique genre in RPGs. Fans of history should take note.

 

[Von Ether]

How true this (unfortunately) is. I have often wondered why RPG gamers veered off into the fantastic so much. Back in the 80s, there were quite a few popular games that had nothing to do with fantasy or science fiction. It made me think, is it a supply or demand causation? Was fantasy what gamers mostly wanted, so that's what game companies gave? Or is that primarily what game companies made, and that's what most gamers became accustomed to?

What I noticed about my early gaming background was that I mostly played games where you were just a regular human, albeit a perhaps highly skilled one. The games I most played included games like:

• James Bond 007
• Justice Inc
• Top Secret (mostly 1st ed, but a little 2nd ed)
• Twilight 2000 (1st and 2nd ed)
• Aftermath
• Bushido
• Living Steel
• Recon (both the original edition from RPG Inc, and the remake from Palladium)
• A homegrown Vietnam era campaign using the Phoenix Command Combat System rules
• Traveller 2300

I also wanted to play, but didn't have a chance to play the following:

• Behind Enemy Lines
• SPI's Commando (a hybrid RPG/tactical game)

Other than a fair bit of Champions and some Car Wars, it was relatively rare that I played fantasy or other non "realistic" RPG's. Of course, I did play some AD&D, a handful of Runequest, and even some Thieves Guild back in the day. After the WotC debacle with the OGL, I realized that a very large number of gamers simply don't know any other RPG's other than D&D (another mystifying topic in its own right). However, there are a large number of gamers who do know games of other genres exist, but simply don't want to play them. I have always wondered why fantasy resonates so deeply with gamers, and I suspect that over the decades, the escapist aspect of fantasy has become more appealing than playing a character who doesn't have powers...and thus has less control over things.

As for WW2 in particular, my grandfather and all his brothers served in WW2 on my father's side. I wish I had been a little bit older so I could have asked my grandfather or great uncles some questions. I remember that my grand father's friend was at the battle of the Surigao Strait, and I remember him saying that they had fired so many rounds at the Japanese, that they were down to firing starshells (illumination rounds) at them. Another of my great uncles was in the 82nd AA, and was in D-Day and Operation Market Garden. Another great uncle, like my grand father, was in the Pacific with the seabees. My grandfather himself commanded a destroyer escort early in the war, and later commanded a destroyer escort squadron. He helped with naval bombardment at Kwajalein, Tarawa, and Guadalcanal (IIRC), and was also at the retaking of the Philippines.

I'm also half Filipino (well, quarter Filipino, quarter Bangsamoro), and on my mom's side, my oldest uncle (tito in Tagalog, or bapa in Tausug) was a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese. My mom said he never talked about the war, but according to my aunts (tita or babu), his unit would go Japanese head hunting at night. Where my mother is from, the Moros (the Muslim part of the Philippines in Mindanao, including the Sulu archipelago, Cotabato, and southern Palawan) had basically already drive off the Japanese. The Japanese were so terrified of the Moros that they basically slept in their ships at night. By the time MacArthur had returned, a large part of Moro Mindanao was effectively already free of the Japanese.

I do hope we get more of the Pacific campaign, and for that matter, non-American campaigns. For example, the Chindits in Burma or Merril's Marauders.

I know for many at that time, they were history buffs and maybe war gamers first, gamers second.

And when I say, wargamer it was a different hobby, they never used balanced forces. They would set up the whole thing on the table as a reenactment with the host being referee and star history expert for the night. The games were played to see if you could do better than the original generals did.

Again, I’m not saying this was everyone, but as computers wargames started handling the math better, this type of history simulation gamer started to leave minis and RPGs behind … and they alsostarted passing away.

The gamers getting old now are the Star Wars/Trek generation and that’s the bulk of gamers who played or made nerdtroped games as things changed in the late 80s.

But things go in cycles so all of this might come back. Funny enough, Firelock has a WWI wargame. WWI has had a reputation of not being as an exciting setting for gaming since front rarely moved that much during the war. So if they can spice up WW I, then their WW II should be a hoot.

And let’s not forget that before the Internet and meta at a local friendly game store was hyper isolated and specific. After D&D, the secondly popular RPGs would be different from store to store.

 

[RareBreed]

I actually did historical wargaming with my father as well as role playing when I was not even a teenager yet. We started out playing Johnny Reb, a 15mm American Civil War miniatures game, and a couple times some Napoleonics (forgot the rule set we used... Fire and Steel?). I even still have some of my Union and Confederate troops (I had Stonewall Jackson's Brigade, and my dad had the Irish Brigade). Tucked away somewhere, I should also have some Scots Greys, Cold Stream Guards, and Royal Highlanders 15mm minis too.

You might be right about the old grognards being of a different time and mindset. Heck, I remember having to read manuals to play PC Sim games (Falcon anyone?). I think as time marched forward, there came more and more competition for people's time. So who has time to dig through rules and simulations? That's too much like....gasp...real life!. I also think that younger generations simply aren't as interested in history for whatever reason. Maybe with today's CGI and plethora of entertainment (Netflix, Apple TV, Prime, etc etc), there's just so much fictional stuff that it's hard for historical pieces to shine. It's hard to believe that Band of Brothers is now 22 years old (feels like yesterday!) and that is already almost a generation away in time before smart phones, and before even broadband internet was common place.

I understand I'm in a tiny minority of folks which kind of sucks, but it is what it is. It's nice that solo roleplaying has really taken off. I wonder how many folks would be interested in more wargame/simulationist/historical settings, but lack a group who is willing to play in that style? Perhaps solo roleplaying is a path forward for this genre of gaming.

 

[dragoner]

Years ago I volunteered to take veterans down to the VFW for a meal, "Baked Steak Night" is what they called it. WW2 and Korea guys, I sat at their table, it was a lot less bragging, as people they had seen a lot in life, and one guy a Ranger who hit the Beaches at D Day in a sub, to guys stringing telephone wire in Korea, they said the same everyone did their part. It was a conscript army though.

I like playing wargames, even did some design, one I did about the Eastern Front, The Great Patriotic War, was turned into a browser game by some Czechs. I had help from Russians, Poles, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, and Romanians. Though for RPG's sort of seeing how chain of command and everything works, military games don't really work I find. Players do not like to lose agency in that way the military does it.

 

[Dork Day Afternoon]

Alright, well this like all sorts of awesome!

 

[aramis erak]

From what I've observed, most military games set during either of the World Wars tends to focus on playing the Americans or the British with some lip service paid to the Soviets. If you have a campaign where everyone is part of the Red Army, it's easy to fit a woman in the infantry, but not so simple if your campaign is centered around American or British forces.

From what I've read, the women didn't really start to get into the Red Army proper until after the invasion by the Germans. But many were in civil defense assignments.

And as with most of historical games, people who play these thigns are going to have to figure out how to deal with some rather uncomfortable truths. At this time, the US military was still segregated and women weren't assigned to combat roles. How do you choose to address that? Do you address it at all?

The time also was one where the US Army was multiple separate enrollment services...
and the Army, Navy, and Marines all did things differently.

Without taking a couple pages, explaining even the shallow level to useful levels is problematic. If you want truly historical female active duty PCs in the US Military, make them US Marines... the only service where they weren't auxiliaries, but members of the actual main service. (They weren't allowed in combat units. But otherwise...)

 

[MGibster]

From what I've read, the women didn't really start to get into the Red Army proper until after the invasion by the Germans. But many were in civil defense assignments.

I used to work in a military museum, and we had in our collection a large assortment of photographs from the Associated Press during World War II. One of my favorite photos was from the eastern front featuring a Soviet nurse attending to a wounded soldier in the middle of a firefight.

Without taking a couple pages, explaining even the shallow level to useful levels is problematic. If you want truly historical female active duty PCs in the US Military, make them US Marines... the only service where they weren't auxiliaries, but members of the actual main service. (They weren't allowed in combat units. But otherwise...)

I think the most common expectation for this kind of game would be for the PCs to be serving in combat units.

 

[RareBreed]

I probably wrong as I know just enough about history to be dangerous, but wasn't France the ones that instigated the Viet Nam War?

Well, usually the natives don't like to be occupied by a foreign power...so yes. Almost all of South East Asia was colonized by a European power except Thailand. The rest of Indochina by France (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam) , Burma (Myanmar) and Malaysia by England, Indonesia by Holland, and the Philippines by Spain and America.

But which Vietnam war do you speak of? The French used the pretext of the killings of Catholics (including Bishops) in the early/mid 1800s to invade Vietnam. Later in a turnabout, while Catholics were a minority in Vietnam, Ngo Diem (the President of South Vietnam that both France and the United States would eventually abandon), was a devout Catholic and his brother was an Arch Bishop. Hoping to get more recognition for his brother, he confiscated Buddhist temples and monasteries, and forbade some Buddhist holidays...one of them being the Buddhist equivalent of Christmas. The famous picture of a monk self-immolating was not a protest about the French or the war. It was in defiance to the Catholic persecution of Buddhists.

Talking about war in Vietnam could also mean the fighting against the Japanese during WW2 (and the Viet Minh....the precursors to the Viet Cong...also fought against the French). At first, despite being Communist, Ho Chi Minh and othe Vietnamese communist leaders thought the Americans would be more sympathetic to their cause given similiar origin stories. And indeed, many Americans were in support of Ho Chi Minh, including military officers. But by late 50s, and early 60s, the whole Domino Theory was entrenched, and it became anathema to support Communism at all.

So, after the French catastrophically failed at Dien Bien Phu, the Americans thought if Vietnam fell, neighboring South East Asia would succumb too. The Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon aka Hukbalahap (for New People's Army) was gaining steam in the Philippines over grievances with the Hacienderos (typically Mestizo, or mixed Eurasian Filipinos descended from the Spanish/Mexican authorities) who held almost all the wealth and power in the Philippines. So this fear of Communist contagion to neighboring countries began the inexorable lead up to war by the Americans against (ostensibly) the North Vietnamese. The South Vietnamese government was rotten to the core, but if you were anti-communist, you were golden in America's eyes at the time (eg, see the Contras vs Sandinistas, or why we supported a dictator like Ferdinand Marcos for so long)

And while technically fought in Cambodia, you could call the Vietnamese "rescue" of the Cambodians against Pol Pot's madness as a "Vietnamese War" since no one else in the world was doing anything about the Killing Fields. And then lastly, there was the failed war of the Chinese against the Vietnamese...which I actually don't know that much about (other than the Chinese being mostly humiliated).

This is why I love history, and why I am somewhat mystified why gamers want fantasy so much. Real history is far more intriguing and fascinating than anything George Martin or even JRR Tolkien ever dreamed up of. While historical military games do have some challenges such as being true to history (what about minority representation? Well, if it is ok to play a race/gender the player is not...I honestly don't see it as being a big deal to play a ethnicity/gender authentic for the period). The problem of player agency was never really a problem for our group. First off, players (not characters) should learn to become more cohesive. A team of characters needs to be just that....a team. Not a gang of maverick lone-wolfves who just happen to have the same end-goal in mind. If this means taking orders, even from one of their own, should not be an issue.

And if this really is an issue, and players (not characters) truly don't like the idea of being told what to do, then there's always solo roleplaying

 

[RareBreed]

The Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon aka Hukbalahap (for New People's Army)

Oops. Hukbong Bayang Laban sa Hapon means "People's Army against Japan" (I should have remembered that, but my Tagalog is very limited). I forgot that they changed their name to Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan which is the "People's Liberation Army" only later. Ironically, the communist groups disavowed the "peasant" army at first, but over time the Communist influence would grow.

 

[aramis erak]

I used to work in a military museum, and we had in our collection a large assortment of photographs from the Associated Press during World War II. One of my favorite photos was from the eastern front featuring a Soviet nurse attending to a wounded soldier in the middle of a firefight.

In '41 and early '42, women volunteering for the Soviet Army were turned away; by 1943, more than 200k were serving in the medical corps in various roles, including corpsmen, nurses, and doctors. Either during or not long after the war, they were also in combat arms, but I can't get to my books to check. If the wikipedia page is accurate, by end '42, 2000+ female snipers...

The Soviet Air Force (which was separate since the early 30's) had women pilots starting in the 1930's... and they did fly combat missions in the war. One of the benefits of a sociopolitical revolution during a time of technological revolution is that the military can be reforged to better fit the tech than in stable socio-political nations.

I think the most common expectation for this kind of game would be for the PCs to be serving in combat units.

I would agree... but one might find a Woman in the USMC in a technically second echelon role (secretarial, driver, "radioman," even a few mechanics - Source, GySgt H. Hardwick, a WW II veteran, may she rest in peace) at a regimental HQ platoon, while the Nursing Corps were rear echelon. Which mattered in Europe, but not in the Pacific.
I suspect most groups will be male dominated and most parties likewise.

One of the niceties of Deadlands is that they use the extension of the USCW as excuse to make both sides more modernly politically correct for the era that was historically the later Indian Wars timeframe.

I'm left on the fence about War Stories, tho'. I don't know if I could sell my player base upon it.

 

[MGibster]

One of the niceties of Deadlands is that they use the extension of the USCW as excuse to make both sides more modernly politically correct for the era that was historically the later Indian Wars timeframe.

It doesn't hurt that Deadlands is a game where a rabbi, a samurai, and a cowboy can all walk into a saloon and it's not the beginning of a bad joke. i.e. The setting is ridiculous(ly awesome) filled with fantastical elements and a tone that doesn't take itself too seriously, so it's a little easier to cater to modern sensibilities. I mean, if a dude named Darius Hellstrome who is the spitting image of Vincent Price doesn't take you out of the game then what's a gender and racial equality, right?

I'm left on the fence about War Stories, tho'. I don't know if I could sell my player base upon it.

I'm kind of in the same boat. I took a chance with the recent version of Twilight 2000, but decided to shelve any campaign considerations following the recent antics of Russia in the Ukraine. Though I must say the TW 2000 material did help me recognize soviet IFVs and tanks. The vast majority of games I run or participate in have fantastical elements in them. I'm not sure how keen my players would be for a war game with no fantastical elements.