Shrapnel Games Blog

So you’re grinding your way through the week, looking forward to running your players through your latest adventure of supreme deviousness, when you get a call from one of your players. Apparently the group wants to take a break from the world of fantasy gaming, and after a marathon session of watching The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, and Das Boot, the general consensus is that they want to do some military role-playing. Real world military role-playing they add, so forget stealing adventure ideas from Rambo III, and they definitely don’t want to see any Nazi werewolves unless they’re post-war guerilla fighters. They want their game to be grounded in reality.

A realistic military RPG can be a tricky proposition if you’re used to running your party through dungeons as they battle mighty dragons for their mountains of swag. While you’ll find that there are always certain similarities to be found in any genre of role-playing, running a military RPG (and one not aimed at the comic book or action movie crowd) differs considerably in many areas; areas you may not be used to thinking about since fantasy gaming is so different. The purpose of this article is to provide advice to those gamemasters (GMs) who are wanting to run a realistic military RPG but are inexperienced in the genre.

The first thing as the GM you’ll need to address is how long is your group interested in playing this kind of genre? Will it be a full campaign lasting months, a mini-campaign lasting weeks, or just a one-night stand? Deciding the length will depend not only on what your group is expecting, but also your vision for the game.

One-night stands are the easiest to prep, and allow both you and your players the most freedom. With no history leading up to the adventure, and for that matter no future afterwards, the party can be an eclectic group that would normally not make sense in a long term campaign. Because the adventure also boils down to an elaborate set-piece affair as the GM you can tailor the party exactly to the adventure. One-night stands in a historical context are great if you want to run your players through a single battle. The downside is common to all one-night stand sessions, with the danger of players performing ridiculous actions with their characters since they will never use them again. That is of course a problem stemming from the players themselves, and not the game, and will ultimately be decided by how much control you exert over the players, and if they are mature gamers to begin with.

Campaigns in a military RPG are excellent options, allowing the players to experience a variety of situations over the course of your playing time. The campaigns could be grandiose affairs, charting the actions of the characters over the course of an entire war, or could be smaller to cover something like the landings and breakout at Normandy. Campaigns also allow character growth, and a more natural sense of team building than the one-night stand option. The downside to a campaign is that the deadly nature of combat will necessitate character turnover, although in a military RPG this is handled fairly easily. More on that later, though.

As you plan out how long the game will be it’s important to also consider factors such as when and where does the game take place, both of which should influence your decision on the type of campaign. If you’re interested in gaming the raid on Saint Nazaire doing it as a single session makes sense, while obviously having players live out a tour of duty in ‘Nam would necessitate a full campaign. Something else to think about when deciding this is what will the players be playing? Having them as the crew of a PT boat may be fun for a single session, but may not have enough legs for months of gameplay.

Speaking of when and where it’s highly recommended that you stick to the modern era (Second World War onwards), as this period offers logical roles for small groups. The further back you go the more focus there is on massed formations, and the less fun there’s to be had in a role-playing situation (unless your players want to role-play standing in formation and blasting away with muskets at fifty paces all night). That’s not to say you can’t create interesting situations in a pre-modern game, but it does become more difficult. If you do want to try something from the days of yore it’s highly recommended you keep it as a one-night stand.

Once you’ve decided the length of your military game, along with what the focus will be, it’s time to decide what the player characters can become. In some ways this is easier than a typical fantasy game because there’s a common cause (go out and kill the enemy) pre-built into the game, so as a GM you can avoid the cliché old-man-in-the-tavern-with-the-dungeon-map-of-glory setup. Where it gets more difficult is that players will not have the same amount of freedom when creating their characters as in a fantasy setting.

For starters there’s only one racial option, human. Next, characters will usually have to be from one particular nationality, which in turn will depend on what the game is portraying. You can stretch that somewhat since many battles involved multiple allies per side, but this ends up working better in a single session than long term because of the tactical scale involved. Finally, there’s the class of character to be portrayed.

In fantasy games warriors fight, thieves sneak, priests heal, and wizards lob fireballs. To some extant you can have similar roles in a military RPG, with foot soldiers, scouts, medics, and support weapon teams. Where it gets dicey is if the players want to go for more exotic roles such as tankers, fighter pilots, or navy personnel.

Unless everyone wants to take those roles on, and thus turn the game into a campaign focusing on a tank platoon, fighter squadron, or single vessel, the exotic roles simply will not fit. The only way to make them fit is to take away the cool toys associated with the various roles. For example, the party could come across a downed fighter pilot or tanker whose tank was disabled. A particularly brave GM could even run multiple plots at once. Perhaps one player plays a pilot trapped behind enemy lines, while the rest of the party takes on the role of the squad sent to locate him. In the end it’s much easier to have the characters take on similar roles, primarily as your basic foot soldier.

At this point you should decide whether the characters will be members of the rank and file, or special forces/commandos. From a gameplay perspective putting your players in the boots of special forces makes your life a lot easier, since the majority of SF operations can be conducted independently, by a small group such as your party. Just make sure they realize that the A-Team should not be an example of how they should play their characters.

The party composition is close to completion, but there is one last thing you and your players need to consider: rank. Unlike every other RPG out there in which a party leader usually ends up being the loudest, most talkative player without any true power, in the case of a military RPG the party leader really is the leader of the group. Depending on the group, this can become a very sensitive subject.

If you have players who heavily invest in role-playing, and will get into the spirit of things, by all means assign characters different ranks. If your players are like the other 99% of role-playing groups someone will end up griping about having to take orders, and before you know it a case of fragitis breaks out. Avoid this by making everyone equal rank and throw in a NPC officer, if required. Ultimately the players will be following orders from up top anyway, so a little fraternization amongst the party can be overlooked during the heat of the game.

All right, you’ve decided the length of the game, where and when the game is taking place, and who the party shall represent. Now it’s time to work on the adventure(s).

If your game is set against a specific historical backdrop (i.e. the battle of Stalingrad versus a more generalized ‘It happens during Barbarossa’) be sure to research the background. Since this is meant to be a realistic historical RPG, invest your spare time in ensuring that the correct military units are present, learn their equipment and overall history involved. There are countless books and websites dealing with military history, and even the most historically-challenged GM should have no problem digging up the proper details.

Unlike fantasy games in which the party can literally save the world, in the military RPG genre the players are nothing more but individual cogs in the gears of war. If you are basing the game on a historical battle create a timeline before the game begins of the major events, and if possible, weather conditions. As you plan your adventure out use the timeline as a basis for the events that you wish the party to be involved in. Additionally, by describing the events that are taking place outside of the party’s immediate area of concern, it creates a much more vibrant, and lifelike world and helps players immerse themselves in the game.

Go ahead and plan out the major encounters/events and then proceed to the creation of random encounter tables. When creating the tables keep in mind that this is supposed to be realistic. While in the realm of fantasy random encounter tables can provide an diverse mixture of foes without regard to why they’re roaming, one based in reality must reflect the situation. It would be unrealistic to encounter a lone tank on patrol in a dense urban environment, but not so unusual in the wide open countryside. Think about changing fronts, and what types of troops will be encountered on your maps.

Maps are another factor that you will have to take into consideration. While fantasy games are no stranger to maps, especially those of forgotten dungeons and towers, in a military game maps are the utmost importance for your game. The proper use of terrain will often make the difference between victory and defeat, so your players will expect you to provide them with details of the landscape when needed. If you’re not a regular mapmaker one cheat is to use the maps from tactical board wargames.

The last thing you need to worry about is character death. Whatever actual gaming system you use to game your adventure out it should be deadly to provide the proper realism. Now, because the players’ characters can never have the same awareness level that a real person in a real situation can have, having a realistic damage model should not equate to a GM license to kill. You’re role-playing war, not Paranoia. It’s not fun for anyone if in the first five minutes of the game the players are strafed by a squadron of SU-25s and end up as pink mist.

Characters will die though, especially if it’s a long term campaign. Character replacement is actually easier to accomplish in this type of game than in a fantasy setting. Ever try to rationalize why there’s a paladin hanging out in the middle of the Great Desert of the East, waiting to join a group, right after Borka the Battlecleric died from a snakebite (damn saving roll!) while the party crossed said desert? In combat though replacements are a way of err, life, so rotating a new character in poses little problem. The exception would be if the party is performing a mission deep behind enemy lines, but even then you can simply have them run into another patrol performing a similar mission.

Because war is death personified it’s best to pad out the party with NPCs. Since most role-playing groups consist of only three or four folks—much smaller than even a typical squad—filling out the party with NPCs even fits in the genre. When a character dies the player simply takes over one of the NPCs.

At this point you should have enough suggestions to break out the notebooks and start working on your military RPG session. When done right a good military RPG can be just as engaging as the best tactical board game, if not even better. To get you started, I’ve included some idea kernels to flesh out below. Each idea has a title, followed by the type of game (ONS = One Night Stand, MC = Mini-Campaign, FC = Full Campaign), and some details to springboard off of.

Escape from Saint Nazaire (FC)
The campaign takes place immediately after the famous raid on the port of Saint Nazaire, with the players taking on the roles of British commandos attempting to escape occupied France.

Chosin Reservoir (ONS)
Players take on the role of Marines during the Korean War during the bitter fighting in the Chosin reservoir. The scenario lasts one full day.

With Extreme Prejudice (MC)
The party is a special forces team infiltrating North Vietnamese territory during the Vietnam war on a mission to assassinate several Cong leaders.

Rattenkrieg (FC)
Players take on the role of German soldiers fighting for their survival in Stalingrad.

Bad Day in the ‘Stan (ONS)
The party is the surviving members of a downed US or UK helicopter in Afghanistan currently awaiting rescue and under siege from the Taliban (could also substitute the Mujahadeen for Taliban and make the players Soviets during the Afghan war).

Sand, Sand Everywhere (MC)
The players are a B-24 bombing crew that got lost on the return leg of a bombing run in the Med and had to force land in the African desert. Now they have to find their way back to friendly lines, all the while avoiding enemy forces, violent natives, and the GM’s shiv, the environment.

Band of Brothers (FC)
The campaign follows the series of the same name starting off with the D-Day operation. Each session follows one episode.