Reich-5

This will be GURPS related, again.

We'll be playing a GURPS setting called Reich-5, a grim looking alternate Earth where FDR was assassinated and William Dudley Pelley became president and we were an almost outright ally of Germany in the World War II era of Earth's history. We will be fighting Nazis. Fuck. Yes.

Movie Related Interlude: I just received Band of Brothers from my mother and aunt (I thing) for Heather's wedding shower. Band of Brothers is fantastic. I love it. I watched it when Dan borrowed it to me and it has been a dream of mine to own it and watch it repeatedly ever since. I think I would really enjoy sitting around with a beer painting a few minis and watching that show, I just could never justify a sixty dollar purchase for ten hours of entertainment when I can get a season of something like Dexter or Burn notice for twenty or less. I do not own any Deadwood seasons (yet) for the same reason. I think I may need to get into some World War II movies here as part of my research for this campaign, not that our WWII has an relation whatsoever to the 1940s of the Reich-5 world. Seriously, it really doesn't other than the fact that there are Germans eager for world conquest in both worlds.

Now the problem becomes: A) Who will DM? B) What does this mean for my campaign and the interest in it? C) What the eff will I play?

A): Dan has an encyclopedic knowledge of the names, places, dates, and events of World War II. However, this is of less use than you would think because this is not our world. Most relevant names are still relevant and some places are as well. Dan has no experience DM/GMing to my knowledge though, which is something of a hindrance, especially since we're using GURPS and not d20ish system he has used before. I could do it, but I would have to do a bit of research (which I am going to do anyway), and I am already running a campaign which people seem to like. Running two campaigns seems to be a bit beyond my capabilities. (How the motherfuckers at Wizards of the Coast run two or three campaigns a piece and manage to play twice or thrice a week is unknown to me. I wonder if they can chalk it up to "playtesting" and get paid for it while they're at it.) Eric has said he could run it, but that would mean sacrificing his 4th Edition campaign, and he is apparently ok with that, and the fact that it is a pre-made setting in the "real" world is beneficial because it frees up some time that would otherwise be spent working on the background of his world.

B): I find my world extremely interesting and love it and have no intention of ending my campaign, I have some plans for my world. I just don't know how Jeff and John will feel about switching game systems mid-campaign. Although, I think I could deal with following this campaign to its natural conclusion still using the 4th Edition system. GURPS would be better, but I don't feel comfortable switching systems and having everyone buy books without trying it first. Jeremy and Eric and Dan and totally psyched about Reich-5, and I am as well, but I don't know if John gets psyched about anything and I don't know how Jeff feels about curb stomping Nazis on an alternate Earth. We'll see. I just hope Reich-5 doesn't overshadow my campaign and make it a boring footnote in our gaming history. That would bum me out.

C): Characters are my vice, as are dice. I like making them and playing them and coming up with moderately nifty backgrounds to give them, well, character. Traith Harris started as a gunslinging sorcerer with two kids and a wife that was a bard who. Is that more characterful than him being a clockwork cyborg? I do not know. All I know is that I like thinking about characters and watching them develop. Keroen evolved as I wrote about him, I had never intended for him to (SPOILER ALERTish) renege on his vow and I had always envisioned him as a stately king, not the amoral homicidal berserk he became, although he is slightly less two dimensional than that.

GURPS is very versatile and I definitely like that, with enough points you can certainly do everything to some degree, but you will not be superbly awesome at it. Anyway, basically I can be anything I want, including a robot, undead, or sentient car. Fuck...with the Alternate Form advantage I could actually be a robot that transforms into car. I love GURPS. Back to characters for Reich-5:

A character I have always enjoyed is the Shadow, as in "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men..." etc etc. I've watched the movie with Alec Baldwin several times, and own it, I kind of might like to get some of the other black and white movies, also own and enjoy the Darkman trilogy (which was Raimi's eff you to folks when he was not allowed to make a The Shadow movie himself, although he'll apparently be doing one in 2012). I've even tracked down some casette tapes and listened to the old radio show. I like it, and the character. He is a psychic gunslinger basically and that has a bit of potential for awesomeness. It's also totally doable in GURPS.

Another idea I have is an early (failure) of the Nazi eugenics experiments to create a super man. He's actually a Thing-like character in that he is something monstrous and very much a bruiser brawler type guy. Crude surgeries and chemical regimes were used to deaden or remove certain nerves in his body while his flesh was slathered in volatile chemicals, all in an attempt to inure him to pain and make him an unstoppable warrior while surgeries were done on him to implant vat grown muscle tissue into him to give him increased strength. He'd have the Numb disadvantage (I think), and probably a monstrous appearance, and he'd have all kinds of stuff like Hard To Kill and Subdue, Pain Tolerance, Damage Resistance, etc. Lots of ST and HP. He could be the resident wall of muscle of the group. I'd make him German, with his backstory possibly being that he served his country and they cast him aside and tried to euthanize him when they thought him a failure. He does not fight the Nazis out of vengeance though, he believes they must be stopped because if they cast him aside despite his loyalty to the fatherland and the fact that he is an experiment that cost them millions of Reichsmarks, what would they do to the common man of Deutschland if they felt it was necessary? I'd probably give him a Code of Honor and a few other things to indicate that he is not a mindless brute. I'd probably try to work in a martial arts style as well so that he isn't just slugging the fuck out of shit, he's actually a competent fighter and understands tactics.

The third idea is just a guy, a crushed down and dispirited citizen of Amerika who has taken to the streets (or the Rockies as the case may be) to pick up a gun like his forefathers and put a round or two into a Kraut. I would make him something of a woodsman type or whatever you want to call it, someone living "off the grid" maybe with Patton or MacArthur, assuming we "adventure" in the time period where they are still alive. I would make everything about him within the human norm, but he would be exceptionally skilled at what he does (shooting, tracking, stealth, etc).

The one that I seem to be gravitating towards is the big dude who is resistant to damage and I am not sure why. At his core he is just the brawler of the group he hits people until there are holes in them. I mean, The Shadow modelled character would be a gunfighter and have fancy pants psychic powers of some kind. That's pretty neat. I dunno, I was just sitting here and I got this image of this guy who called himself Zugspitze smoking a cigar or something and being chained up and interviewed by American rebels. The idea has altered though, his concern is not for the people of Deutschland, but for what the Nazis have locked away in their labs. He's seen things, things even Nazi/SS/etc indoctrination cannot make him to ignore. He is a traitor, not because of his treatment or his fears for the common man's safety, he is a traitor because he fears what the Nazis will in the end make of this world (and others, depending on our placement in the Reich-5 timeline).

Ah well, we shall see.

Music: SModcast 90: Forgeticus! - Kevin Smith & Scott Mosier

Music: Thank You - Led Zeppelin

Music: War Pigs - Black Sabbath