So I started a new campaign...

[proditor]

After the thread on the Zeppelin Base, I got inspired and started a mostly Golden Age WW2 campaign. I came up with the package deals, the organizational structure for the allied supers (The heroes are amongst the very few high powered supers at 350 points, most are 250), a nifty base for them (The Surcouf after some modification) a basic timeline of events and a list of the known Supers on each side...

 

So now that I got that out of the way, I realized I had no idea what to do for an introductory adventure????

 

I think I want a blend of RP so that folks can get into their PC's, the lingo and attitudes, and then a big explosive finale. Has anyone else run WW2 where the heroes are in the combat, not on the homefront, and if so, how has it gone?

 

Advice gratefully appreciated. Timeframe is May, 1942, Theatre of operation is currently European.

[Trebuchet]

Try something in a peripheral theater. North Africa or perhaps the Middle East (Iraq was a friend of Nazi Germany, although not an actual ally). How about some Nazi agents and/or supervillains attempting to seize control of the Suez Canal (A significant logistical asset of the Allies)? If they can't seize it, they might try to wreck the lock mechanisms. A couple score (hundred) German paratroopers sounds like just the ticket for a new team of superheroes to fight.

 

To warm up new characters in a campaign, I tend to prefer stomping agents/soldiers to supervillains. This is useful for two reasons: 1) Mistakes are less likely to be fatal 2) It's good to remind the players of how much better superheroes are than mere mortals. Besides, everyone loves beating up Nazis.

 

I do "agent stomps" periodically even in my 12-year-old campaign just to remind the heroes who the top dogs are. Never let heroes forget why they are superhuman.

 

"Nazis. I hate these guys!" - Dr. Henry Jones Jr.; Professor of Archaeology

[proditor]

OOOO! I like that!! Moving around a bit was part of the reason for giving them a honking big sub with it's own airplane hanger and a marine detachment after all.

 

The canal does provide a really nice target too...

 

Thanks, I like the beat on the agents idea as a starter so that yes, they realize that they are truly the big fish in the pond.

 

I'll gladly milk any other ideas as well though, so keep 'em coming!!

[austenandrews]

I once ran a GA campaign where the PCs got involved with tank battles in North Africa (after tracking a shipment of mummy-soldiers through the desert, created by King Ibis to aid Hitler's cause). They also dealt with the French Underground (and another team of heroes who had been hypnotized by the Nazis to join Zee Fazerland) and participated in the Allies' invasion of Sicily (alongside the Devil's Brigade, the infamous commando unit comprised of patriotic gangsters who, amusingly enough, the PCs had sent to prison at the beginning of the campaign). Along the way they helped with tin collection, hawked war bonds and received an experimental B-29 to use as a flying base.

 

Probably my best GA run to date.

 

-AA

[Trebuchet]

De nada.

 

A couple of points:

 

1) German paratroops dropped with their weapons in separate containers, so this is a good way to prevent the heroes from being overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. Simply have half to 2/3 of the fallschirmjägers lose their weapons canisters so if the heros see 100 parachutes dropping on the canal lock, they'll only really need to beat 40 or 50.

 

2) The famous german "potato-masher" hand grenades had almost no metal (unlike the American "pineapple" grenades) to make schrapnel, so these can be built as simple 8d6 EX attacks rather than as explosive Killing Attacks. So even a martial artist should be able to survive getting hit with a grenade.

 

With a giant super-submarine, you've got the scenario intro knocked. As they're transitting the canal to head to the relief of Malta, the lookouts spot parachutes dropping over the lock. A couple of Messerschmitts flying cover for the airdrops (and strafing the sub just to get the point across) should tell them what's up.

[lemming]

Originally posted by Trebuchet

Try something in a peripheral theater. North Africa or perhaps the Middle East (Iraq was a friend of Nazi Germany, although not an actual ally).

Iran was closer, but they were both taken over by Allied forces: WWII info

 

Hmm, a thread where mentioning Nazis won't kill it off.

 

Oh, and except for a slight inaccuracy, Treb's ideas are first rate

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by lemming

Iran was closer, but they were both taken over by Allied forces.

 

Hmm, a thread where mentioning Nazis won't kill it off.

 

Oh, and except for a slight inaccuracy, Treb's ideas are first rate

No argument; I was just presenting the Iraq thing as a general brainstorming idea in case he didn't like the Suez canal scenario. (Besides, in a super-World War II campaign Nazi agents would naturally try to recapture places like Iraq. It's totally genre.)

[Agent Escafarc]

Another source of WWII plots is the History Channel in fact I'm watching The Samurai and the Swastka right now and there's at least a good half dozen plot seeds:)

[Agent X]

Running Golden Age right now. Started in January 1940 and we are presently at the end of March 1940. We have had one battle that involved a dozen panzers, a dozen fighters, and a couple of hundred infantry versus the heroes and some British fighters. The weaponry of conventional arms is very effective if it can hit which is very hard to do because the 350 point heroes were able to fight at range very capably and moved much quicker. One of the players had a two-man helicopter that he had to bail out of when it was hit. He and another hero riding with him proved next to impossible to hit for the 40 infantry firing at them. I can say that's probably best to come up with some quick resolution system for dealing with combat of this scale. We fought it out at 1" = 8 hex scale using Axis and Allies pieces to represent armor, fighters, and 10 infantrymen. It can get tedious rolling that many attacks.

[Trebuchet]

Proditor, I hope you'll let us know how the adventure goes after you run it.

[assault]

Re: So I started a new campaign...

 

Originally posted by proditor

Timeframe is May, 1942, Theatre of operation is currently European.

 

Well, on the "Western" front, there wasn't much ground combat happening in 1942. A few commando raids, partisan operations, and the raid on Dieppe in August was about it.

 

There was quite a bit of stuff happening on the Eastern front, North Africa, and so on.

 

Of course, that gives you lots of options! Supers are pretty much commandoes - so raids and defence against Axis raids are all quite viable. Drop them into France, Italy, Norway, Greece or somewhere... Alternatively, just because Malta wasn't invaded historically doesn't mean it couldn't have happened. Drop some Paras and Axis supers on it, and stand back. Alternatively, land them by submarine. For that matter, you could land them in the UK!

 

Other possibilities: there were neutral countries like Turkey, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. Even better, though, would be Vichy North Africa. You know, places like ***Casablanca***. This would work better in 1941 though, before the US entered the war. Oh well, next time. At least you wouldn't have to worry about what the soundtrack would be, and you would have a lot of predesigned NPCs.

 

Alan

[Fitz]

If you want to play around in Northern Europe in '42....

 

How about having the Good Guys assigned to foil an assassination attempt on Churchill by Nazi supers of the Geheime Ãœberlegene Kommando? Of course the whole affair would have to be kept strictly secret and out of the public eye, what with the information and resources being secretly provided to the nasty Nazis by certain members of the royal family.

 

The SuperNazis could be staging from just about anywhere in Europe -- France, Holland, Norway are all nice spots for biffing around the Ãœbermensch.

 

If you want to go for something with a higher OOC irony value and added moral dillemmas, you could substitute Stalin for Churchill. Get the gen on the Nazi plan via British or US Military Intelligence and send in the supers to keep the repellent murderous scumbag alive -- in that situation, they'd have to contend not only with the Nazi super assassins, but also with the paranoia of the NKVD and possibly have to do their job in spite of interference (quite probably lethal interference) from Soviet Supers.

 

That's a nasty one -- if they succeed, Stalin will survive to murder millions and forever taint the Communist ideal with his megalomanic butchery. If they fail, the Soviet Union will be leaderless at a crucial juncture and will almost certainly fall, leaving Hitler to concentrate his forces undistracted by the Soviets. Maybe a little dark for a Golden Age campaign?

[Simon_Harrison]

WW2 Cthulhu

 

The only WW2 I ran was set around the end of the war. The PCs were a tank crew, who had recently been assigned a lieutentant from Military 'Intelligence'. There was a military mission, of course, but then the MI PC revealed that in reality the mission was different, and they were on recon, had to go behind enemy lines blah blah (it was a while ago). The upshot was a mythos plot set in a mansion with complications. It worked very well because the players didn't know they were playing Cthulhu, and I managed to build up the tension and claustrophobia based around being in a tank.

 

Anyway, I think it works well generally, but never forget Cthuloid plots!