World War II GURPS

Panzerkraken · June 04, 2018, 08:53:08 AM

In a spate of recent fascination with GURPS, I've been reading some game logs. This one in particular has been a terrific read, no mechanics at all, just a wonderful story of alternate history, time travel, and supernatural WWII. I'm sure it's been linked before (too lazy to search) but I thought it could use a referral.

Link Here

RPGPundit · June 06, 2018, 07:31:12 PM

You know, for ages I would have thought the ideal game for running a WWII campaign would be GURPS. But now, there's Operation White Box, and there's also not one but two different WWII Cthulhu games that could either one be played completely straight (with no tentacles, that is). And so I would choose any of those first.

Nerzenjäger · June 07, 2018, 02:29:02 PM

I am running Operation Whitebox with the Tactical Expansion (using ASL maps now and then). It's a great system for WWII. It even has suggestions for adding the supernatural to the game and a 3rd party adventure going in that direction (I think it was "The Argentine Connection").

Omega · June 07, 2018, 06:05:39 PM

I know two people who used Albedo for that. Remove the animal people and SF, maybee dial back the NATO eta tech a bit and it makes for a very good WWII game.

Larsdangly · June 07, 2018, 06:22:51 PM

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1042771I am running Operation Whitebox with the Tactical Expansion (using ASL maps now and then). It's a great system for WWII. It even has suggestions for adding the supernatural to the game and a 3rd party adventure going in that direction (I think it was "The Argentine Connection").

Can you tell me more about the Tactical Expansion? I've long wanted to use my massive collection of ASL maps for some sort of hex and chit roleplaying combat.

Nerzenjäger · June 08, 2018, 02:15:17 AM

Quote from: Larsdangly;1042816Can you tell me more about the Tactical Expansion? I've long wanted to use my massive collection of ASL maps for some sort of hex and chit roleplaying combat.

The Tactical Combat module uses the typical "Move+Attack/Action" framework, optimised for WW2 armoury.

However, it goes down to the individual scale as opposed to ASL's battalion level. It's really fun, but you can't use ASL maps for it RAW. The "theatre of the mind" standard combat OTOH works really well with them, because many of the offical combat encounters in OWB--and especially the one pagers--happen on maps that are similar to ASL maps, but have no hexagons. ASL maps make combat therefore much more engaging, because you can evaluate distances correctly.

Tweaking the tactical combat to ASL's scale shouldn't be too hard either.

Larsdangly · June 09, 2018, 10:55:41 AM

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;1042896The Tactical Combat module uses the typical "Move+Attack/Action" framework, optimised for WW2 armoury.

However, it goes down to the individual scale as opposed to ASL's battalion level. It's really fun, but you can't use ASL maps for it RAW. The "theatre of the mind" standard combat OTOH works really well with them, because many of the offical combat encounters in OWB--and especially the one pagers--happen on maps that are similar to ASL maps, but have no hexagons. ASL maps make combat therefore much more engaging, because you can evaluate distances correctly.

Tweaking the tactical combat to ASL's scale shouldn't be too hard either.

How does OWB handle distance, time, speed and range? Those are probably the most important things that would have to be reconciled with an ASL map

Nerzenjäger · June 09, 2018, 12:13:42 PM

Quote from: Larsdangly;1043067How does OWB handle distance, time, speed and range? Those are probably the most important things that would have to be reconciled with an ASL map

Like S&W Whitebox mostly.