I mentioned in an unrelated thread that I want to develop a campaign where the PC's are little green Army Men, sort of like Toy Story meets Only War. It would be a very gonzo game with a lot of crossovers and genre-mixing, sort of like a child using his overactive imagination while playing with said Army Men. The game would be somewhat tongue-in-cheek in nature and as stated before, tons of crossovers and genre mashups would be part of it all.
The question is what system I should use. Based on what I own, should I use GURPS 3E, BESM 1E, Microlite, the Hero 5E Sidekick, or just make my own system?
Would this game be interesting to any of you guys?
I might've liked it when I was into army men at about age 11-12. There was a series of computer games that tried to do just this (called "Army Men" IIRC) - I think it was an idea with some charm and potential, but I remember not liking those games much - I felt like they meshed in to much conventional computer game design, and sort of killed my interest in the idea by seeing it done it a way I didn't like much. To me, playing with army men had an aspect of having lots of generic guys die, and trying to keep some alive, but frequently failing. The computer series had too many of the typical issues where they force you to keep your guys from dying through hitpoints and make you restore saved games until you win each battle, which just makes games seem more like pointless repetitive exercises to me.
I'd use GURPS because I know it and I know that it works and how it works, and because it provides the unpredictable death I like. However I might not use it because it's a bit on the real human modeling side as opposed to army men per se.
When I played with actual army men as a kid, we had four "game systems":
1. Fiat of players using their imagination about what happens, and collaborative or rival declarations about what happens next.
2. A system with basic physical rules, where each type of figure or vehicle has a distance they can move or fire.
3. Each player placed their men around the room, and then take turns shooting rubber bands at each other's men, with the requirement that you shoot from the location of one of your men that isn't down yet.
4. Players set up their forces outside, and then throw lit firecrackers at each other's men from behind the lines.
Quote from: Skarg;9220971. Fiat of players using their imagination about what happens, and collaborative or rival declarations about what happens next.
Not much point in using this as the basis for rules since it doesn't require any rules.
Quote2. A system with basic physical rules, where each type of figure or vehicle has a distance they can move or fire.
This is part of just about every miniatures game, ever.
Quote3. Each player placed their men around the room, and then take turns shooting rubber bands at each other's men, with the requirement that you shoot from the location of one of your men that isn't down yet.
Basically Little Wars (https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://t2.gstatic.com/images%3Fq%3Dtbn:ANd9GcTZo0iL6khBia-tv_CSm55XDpYQklrZwBgrQAkBNETcEM--oxMQ&imgrefurl=http://books.google.com/books/about/Little_Wars.html%3Fid%3DWxN9CgAAQBAJ%26source%3Dkp_cover&h=400&w=259&tbnid=XkhK_sR7TcmcBM:&tbnh=160&tbnw=103&docid=hujM_7lXMSXDZM&itg=1&usg=__-pIfASm-BhPBE9RVq0mHXB3_10I=).
Quote4. Players set up their forces outside, and then throw lit firecrackers at each other's men from behind the lines.
Any rules system created MUST include this even if only as an option. Also magnifying glasses, matches, and other ways of melting army men.
Any rolls involving strength, stamina, and brute force are modified by how big the (Actual real-world) toy is.
Any rolls involving nimbleness, speed, or smarts are modified by how small the toy is.
Thus, your toy's scale is it's ability scores.
Amazing HG Wells
Quote from: Bren;922116...
Any rules system created MUST include this even if only as an option. Also magnifying glasses, matches, and other ways of melting army men.
We used matches and lighter fluid. Useful "rules" would include "not letting mom find out you're setting thins on fire" and "when she notices you have melted toys, have a prepared speech about how careful you always are when using fire, always in limited safe controlled conditions"...
In keeping with H.G. Wells, the game should be played outdoors on the lawn. Also, staw boaters must be worn at all times.
That last part is CRUCIAL.
Quote from: Skarg;922287We used matches and lighter fluid. Useful "rules" would include "not letting mom find out you're setting thins on fire" and "when she notices you have melted toys, have a prepared speech about how careful you always are when using fire, always in limited safe controlled conditions"...
I recall some of the green army men turned silver at the point of melting. Very Mylar space age looking.
Quote from: Bren;922330I recall some of the green army men turned silver at the point of melting. Very Mylar space age looking.
Huh! Mine didn't - just black or the same green, unless paint was involved.
Quote from: Skarg;922500Huh! Mine didn't - just black or the same green, unless paint was involved.
I think lighter fluid was involved. No idea if that would chemically interact with the plastic. There was an interesting looking guy who ended up looking like a green leg and lower torso, silver upper torso and cone head. Sadly I no longer own any examples.
Quote from: Bren;922521I think lighter fluid was involved. No idea if that would chemically interact with the plastic. There was an interesting looking guy who ended up looking like a green leg and lower torso, silver upper torso and cone head. Sadly I no longer own any examples.
Nice! Huh I don't remember seeing that, and I know lighter fluid was used on my end.
Quote from: Skarg;922688Nice! Huh I don't remember seeing that, and I know lighter fluid was used on my end.
Maybe it was the type of plastic? This occurred about 50 years ago, e.g. circa 1966-1969. If memory serves, the melted guy was made with the first figure on the left.
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Quote from: Bren;922722Maybe it was the type of plastic? This occurred about 50 years ago, e.g. circa 1966-1969. If memory serves, the melted guy was made with the first figure on the left.
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Oh wait! I may be hallucinating, but I think I had very few (1? 3?) of plastic that looked like that (though not with empty hands or those poses, I think a marching rifleman and one with an SMG, with Japanese-looking faces), just found on the street or something and now I think I remember maybe one turning silver with fire and thinking that was freaky. I only had 1-3 so I didn't want to or couldn't experiment more. I even think maybe I showed a friend and he thought I was lying and had painted it or something. But I'm not sure I'm not just hallucinating that. Mostly I had the 1970's-era US Army with M16's, made of plastic with a lighter shade of green.
I recommend Nostalgia RPG.
If anyone has a couple of hours and wants to find out just about everything there is to know about plastic "army men," check out "The Army Men Home Page" at http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/ (http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/). That site has links to pictures of just about every type of plastic army men that were every made.
I used to own thousands of those army men, but now only have a handful left.
--Rusty DM
Honestly, I hope you're using proper 'battlefields' like the kitchen, the living room floor, the dirt (complete with ant attacks).
Quote from: RustyDM;922887If anyone has a couple of hours and wants to find out just about everything there is to know about plastic "army men," check out "The Army Men Home Page" at http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/ (http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/). That site has links to pictures of just about every type of plastic army men that were every made.
I used to own thousands of those army men, but now only have a handful left.
--Rusty DM
I love that website!
When I was a kid, my friends and I would use every conceivable surface as a battleground for our army men. We used to dig trenches and fortifications for our army men in my mother's flower beds, until she scolded me severely. Eventually, we reached a deal. If I would ensure that all of the flower beds were free of weeds, I could use parts of the flower beds for our battlefields. We would even have army men crossing rivers (had to keep the hose running to keep the water flowing, else the water quickly soaked into the dirt) in boats, then the other side would launch clods of dirt using mortar trajectories in an attempt to sink those boats.
One friend had a sister who was diabetic and who had to give herself shots of insulin daily. We used to use the discarded syringes (minus the needles), then fill them with water from a cup, and then squirt the water at the enemy troops to try to knock them down (outdoors only). Inside the house, we would cover random pillows with blankets to simulate hills for battlefields. Also indoors, we would use "elastics" (a fancy name for "rubber bands) to knock over enemy troops.
One friend had a slot car table. We would set our respective armies of army men up on that table, then let the friend's pet hamster loose to wander, knocking over army men all over the place.
But probably our finest hour was when we used my sister's Barbie doll to fight our army men. A couple of buddies and I had just watched "Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman" on TV, so Barbie became the 50 ft. woman. We could raise Barbie's arms over her head, place an army man in them, then flick her arms so the army man went flying! We also could use Barbie's legs to kick army men all over the place! It was great fun, until my sister caught on and complained to our mother, who then put a stop to the fun. But it was a memorable moment.
Just about any war movie battle we watched on TV could be simulated with our army men. We also had German and Japanese army men, so we had proper opponents for our American-style army men. We even eventually got some WWII British troops.
A cool thing today.... I work in computer networking, and when we purchase new network gear from a particular vendor, they throw a handful of army men in every box they ship to us! Those army men come in some weird colors, like dark blue and orange, besides the usual green. So we have army men set up all over the place, "guarding" our network gear.
-- Rusty DM
Quote from: RustyDM;922887If anyone has a couple of hours and wants to find out just about everything there is to know about plastic "army men," check out "The Army Men Home Page" at http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/ (http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/). That site has links to pictures of just about every type of plastic army men that were every made.
I used to own thousands of those army men, but now only have a handful left.
--Rusty DM
Nice site. It doesn't have all of them, as I had a few types they don't show yet.
Quote from: Skarg;922958Nice site. It doesn't have all of them, as I had a few types they don't show yet.
My Army Men RPG is multi-genre and crossover-heavy in nature, so expect other types of troops as well such as Pirates, Ninjas, Knights, Romans, Cowboys & Indians, and the like.
I remember as a kid I would play a lot with Army Men and Cowboys & Indians. I also had a huge collection of toy trains and dinosaurs, as well as some anime toys (namely Digimon and a few Sailor Moon items as well) and I would often incorporate trains, dinosaurs, and Digimon into my Army Men scenarios.
I often liked to go out on the porch with my dinosaurs and Army Men and play Jurassic Park with them, sometimes recreating scenarios from the first two films but more often making my own Jurassic Park and Dino Crisis scenarios.
Well, getting back to the original question of what FRP system to use.... Not sure of that, but you should incorporate all sorts of dangers to the FRP army men, things like high-speed water jets (coming from medical syringes or various squirt gun type thingies), flying elastics (rubber bands), lighter fluid and matches, huge Barbie dolls, and even various roaming monsters, like hamsters (which would be giant-sized compared to the army men). How to quantify damage taken by the army men from those various hazards? I reckon flaming lighter fluid is about the surest way to "kill" army men so badly that they couldn't be "resurrected." Of course, they could also get chewed up by various pets or other animals, too. There is always the danger of stray army men in the grass out in the yard getting chopped up by power lawn mowers.
Speaking of using "elastics" (rubber bands) to shoot down your opponent's army men. I remember reading an article about that somewhere in the 1960s, which is why we started calling rubber bands "elastics" instead. I couldn't find that article with a web search, but I did find a number of YouTube videos folks made with plastic army men. See "Saving Plastic Ryan" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzoe0v46lIs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzoe0v46lIs) for one of them. It is quite graphically violent, even using plastic army men.
-- RustyDM
Quote from: RustyDM;922967Well, getting back to the original question of what FRP system to use.... Not sure of that, but you should incorporate all sorts of dangers to the FRP army men, things like high-speed water jets (coming from medical syringes or various squirt gun type thingies), flying elastics (rubber bands), lighter fluid and matches, huge Barbie dolls, and even various roaming monsters, like hamsters (which would be giant-sized compared to the army men). How to quantify damage taken by the army men from those various hazards? I reckon flaming lighter fluid is about the surest way to "kill" army men so badly that they couldn't be "resurrected." Of course, they could also get chewed up by various pets or other animals, too. There is always the danger of stray army men in the grass out in the yard getting chopped up by power lawn mowers.
Speaking of using "elastics" (rubber bands) to shoot down your opponent's army men. I remember reading an article about that somewhere in the 1960s, which is why we started calling rubber bands "elastics" instead. I couldn't find that article with a web search, but I did find a number of YouTube videos folks made with plastic army men. See "Saving Plastic Ryan" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzoe0v46lIs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzoe0v46lIs) for one of them. It is quite graphically violent, even using plastic army men.
-- RustyDM
I'll consider making systems for these types of damage.
Man, I am so glad I made this thread. It's like I'm being taken back to my early childhood days back in the late 90's and early 2000's.