RE: [WW] To Weird or not to weird

[niceguymrsack@netscape.net]

Lots of good response here already.

Perhaps your players just want a little more say in how the game shapes up.

I run a more loose campaign, and adjust things as we go.

I'll just add that in the group I am running, I've got some folks who are really "into" WWII, and enjoy playing a small character against such a HUGE and imposing backdrop.  I've got a couple who are really looking forward to the supernatural, which I plan to introduce step by step.

I started my guys out on D-Day, made them jump in the water, crawl up the beach, and take out the Wehrmacht machine gun at the top of the bluff.  Now their squad is moving behind enemy lines to take out some artillery.  This moves them in land and into the hedgerows.  So far, everything has been realistic.

What I have been doing is characterizing many of their fallen comrades, as Phil, your best friend in High School, or Brad, who just sacrificed his life to save yours was that scrawny guy in your neighborhood that you and your friends picked on all throghout childhood...

I am trying to throw the tragic feeling of loss in there, to keep things in perspective.

Now, one gentleman has already lost a character (tried to return a grenade... that DC of 20 is hard to make, even with a bennie!) and has since generated a new one... what he doesn't realize is his old character, as a recurring apparition, will follow his old unit around and, once in a while, fall on a grenade (if they really need rescuing...).  I'm starting there, then I will gradually add a little more.

If the party decides to move into prestige classes that support more wierdness, then that's where we'll go.  If not, well have more intrigue with Allied commanders and their own agendas that put our men at needless risk and between that and the obvious Nazi threat, they'll have plenty to enjoy.
If they do encounter undead or beasts, I will do my best to humanize them... A walking corpse WAS a milkman in a small French Village before he became an undead, or perhaps our French Resistance Fighter's younger sister!  Now he has a REALLY powerful reason to hate the Nazi's, or perhaps the war itself.

And Uber Soldiers were once soldiers.  They should have pictures of families or girlfriends on them, some token that they were once just a regular guy.

Boy this is getting LONG...

I think you can mix the two, WWII realism AND the fantastic.  

Good luck.

Eric
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