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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Another WW II Thought



B/X WW II anyone?

So I started looking at making a B/X version of Star Wars because, well, it's Star Wars which just rules all on it's own; and then I had a hankering this morning for some tactical WW II action and I got to thinking, after a while, why not a B/X WW II game too? Honestly, Star Wars and WW II have a lot of the same design issues that need to be addressed; although, unless you are going for a Weird War 2- Nazi Zombies and Werewolves kind of a thing, magic and Jedi are off the table. I was thinking either a Sgt. Rock kind of a deal or, maybe, a resistance thing; commando raids and sneaking around Nazi occupied areas, behind the lines kind of stuff; although patrols could be pretty cool too I guess. I am planning on giving myself bonus points though if I am still fully compatible with D&D, Sturmgeshutz & Sorcery style.

My first actual rules thought is to change the way Hit Points work to something like this-

You roll for your HP like normal, but 0 HP=Knockout.
Hit Points regenerate on their own at like 1/hour maybe with modifiers.
Negative HP start subtracting from your Constitution score as actual wounds.
Medics can "heal" hit point damage with first aid as a class skill, I am thinking once per encounter, it keeps a more "heroic" pace.
Medics can "heal" wounds, I haven't decided how well yet.
I also haven't decided yet if Medic is a Class or a skill available for players to choose, I am leaning heavily towards Class though. Mostly because I hate and want to avoid skill systems.

Obviously, I want to keep this abstract and comic book style heroic, so blast damage is likely to knock heroes out and bullets are likely to graze them or hit their helmets or whatever. NPCs and Nazis probably will just get regular style HP though, why make it harder on the DM?


OK, so here's some Nazi Zombies too.

4 comments:

  1. Really interesting idea. If you're looking for inspiration, Mystique Enterprises has a WWII RPG called "Behind Enemy Lines" and Deep Seven has a really short set of WWII RPG rules called "Battleforce Bravo" (both are available at RPG Now, I believe). Doing your own set B/X style is a cool concept. I like your thoughts on medic as a class. The class idea might lend itself to other types of soldier as well: sniper, demo expert, leader, scout, etc.

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  2. I was thinking that myself. I had GI, heavy weapons, sniper, scout and medic in my head; I am trying to map the B/X classes to WW II archetypes. The GI works as a Fighter replacement, the Scout is a Thief, The Medic is the Cleric, Heavy Weapons is the Magic-User maybe, but it kind of breaks down there. I am still working, it's a process :)

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  3. Very cool idea... I'm looking forward to what you make of it :-)

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