Take World War II To Your RPG Night With War Stories

A heavier take on the Year Zero Engine.

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Role playing games have roots in historical wargaming. Gygax and Arneson were inspired to add fantasy elements to their wargame campaign which began the foundations of Dungeons & Dragons. While historical wargames have flourished, they have often struggled in the roleplaying arena. While there are classics like Boot Hill and Gangbusters, RPG often seem to need a fantastical element to resonate with gamers. War Stories, by Firelock Games, looks to buck this trend by encouraging gamers to tell stories in World War II without monsters, magic or Cthulhu anywhere near the table. The company sent me a copy of the main rules for review along with some game aids. Did these rules survive first contact with the enemy? Let’s play to find out.

War Stories uses the classic Year Zero Engine created by Free League Publishing. This is the same engine that powers hit games like Tales From The Loop and Alien. Free League has a reputation for designing games that tailor the engine to the genre. Designers G. I. Garcia, Dave Semark and Michael Santana take an opposite approach here by sprinkling elements from those Free League titles, including elements from games like Blade Runner which traded in dice pools for escalating die types. If you’ve ever wanted to see what the lifepath system for Twilight: 2000 looked like for the original D6 die pool, you could probably lift it from this.

The core resolution remains the same. Players assemble a dice pool of d6 and look for rolls of 6 as successes. Players can choose to reroll some of the dice for more 6s at a risk of losing resources or taking damage. It’s here that War Stories takes a step away from other Year Zero games. Most of them incur a level or stress or a condition in exchange for a reroll. The designers instead take a little inspiration from Cortex Plus. Any ones rolled in the pool, called duds, are not just taken out of the pool but they also give the opposing side a Plot Point style resource to spend on future rolls. It adds a bit more tactical gaming to a system that’s generally known for being narrative.

Tactical elements abound in the War Stories book. It is a game where various World War II armaments get lovely illustrations (Indeed, the artwork throughout the book looks great). Combat feels a bit heavier than the usual Year Zero game with damage rolls, defense rolls and the like. But then, this is called War Stories, isn’t it? The opening rules discuss scaling the game from gritty, historical combat to cinematic action adventure tales. There are plenty of optional rules to add in or take out, which I like, but I also wish the designers had discussed which rules they use to achieve the different styles of the game. The default settings seem to lean towards a Saving Private Ryan type of game that nods to the grueling realities of war while still giving players a chance to have heroic moments for their characters.

The game walks a similar line in regards to historical accuracy. The archetypes contain two character types that are open to women in combat; the partisan fighter and the war correspondent. While the game drills down into specific elements of the war including a run down of what a paratrooper took with them into the field, there’s some discussion about how important accuracy is. The designers seem to take a similar tack to background that many tables take to rules accuracy; if it hampers your fun, change it. Nobody will send a history teacher assassin squad for anyone running a game with a mixed race and gender tank crew.

The book focuses on the European theater and squad based tactics. This is a game on squad based tactics featuring infantry. There are rules for larger battles but they exist primarily to add flavor to the skirmishes of the PCs. The rules on creating background characters seem inspired by Star Trek Adventures where a minor character can assist a main character or step in for a main character if they have no business on the current mission. Beware those mass battles, however; bad rolls can kill off beloved supporting characters as part of the cost of war.

War Stories is a heavier take on the Year Zero Engine that tackles a unique genre in RPGs. Fans of history should take note.
 

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Rob Wieland

Rob Wieland





R_J_K75

Legend
So the campaign book starts off on D-Day June 6, 1944? Seems like a logical place to start but seems like there is lots of potential for more books from the start of the War to, the Pacific theater and even the 10-15 years of events leading up to the start of the War. I'm not expert on WWII but IIRC there's a school of thought that the war could've been prevented or at least very short-lived had England and France honored their non-aggression pact with Poland and stood up to Nazi Germany as they had agreed instead of doing nothing after Poland was invaded initially. Going back further, for a country that was supposed to pay reparations and not have a military as a result of WWI, didn't Germany decide to test out their new military by sending the Luftwaffe to bomb Spain? This seems like it could be a cool game with lots of story possibilities but a hard sell to the average gamer.
 

So the campaign book starts off on D-Day June 6, 1944? Seems like a logical place to start but seems like there is lots of potential for more books from the start of the War to, the Pacific theater and even the 10-15 years of events leading up to the start of the War. I'm not expert on WWII but IIRC there's a school of thought that the war could've been prevented or at least very short-lived had England and France honored their non-aggression pact with Poland and stood up to Nazi Germany as they had agreed instead of doing nothing after Poland was invaded initially. Going back further, for a country that was supposed to pay reparations and not have a military as a result of WWI, didn't Germany decide to test out their new military by sending the Luftwaffe to bomb Spain? This seems like it could be a cool game with lots of story possibilities but a hard sell to the average gamer.
Germany and Italy supported Nationalist / Fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Italy was far more involved than Germany btw. Britain and France failed to support Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement was violated and Germany occupied the rest of that country. The Czechs had been ready to fight before Munich, but were sold down the river for "Peace in our time" by their allies, which apparently meant about 6 months.

As for the Pacific and Europe, two very different conflicts. My Dad was a WWII Europe vet (yes, I'm old) and my Uncle Jack went to the Pacific. Neither was too talkative. I didn't know much about my Dad's wartime experience until late one night when he got up soaked with sweat and started a pot of coffee. He had nightmares his entire life about combat and a concentration camp they liberated. That's PTSD in modern terms, and WW II vets had it too. My Dad had been wounded, decorated, returned to his unit, and was being shipped from Europe to the Pacific when the war ended. I gather they were a fairly depressed bunch about then. Then the bomb was dropped and the war ended. I'm not sorry he didn't get to make the direct comparison.
 

R_J_K75

Legend
Germany and Italy supported Nationalist / Fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Italy was far more involved than Germany btw. Britain and France failed to support Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement was violated and Germany occupied the rest of that country. The Czechs had been ready to fight before Munich, but were sold down the river for "Peace in our time" by their allies, which apparently meant about 6 months.
It was a long time ago when I was in college and had to take some elective courses, so one I took was a History of WWII. I thought it was Spain that Germany attacked but I'd take your word over my faltering memory. Even if I could find my text book I'd be hard pressed to find the section I'm thinking of. My overall point even if my details were off was that Germany built up an army well above and beyond they were supposed to according to the Treaty of Versailles and nothing was done about it.
My Dad was a WWII Europe vet (yes, I'm old) and my Uncle Jack went to the Pacific. Neither was too talkative.
I had a friend my age growing up who had something like 8 brothers and sisters, he was the youngest, and there was something like 40 years between him and his oldest brother. A few of his brothers were on the front line in Viet Nam and he told me that when they got home it was never brought up and they never once talked about it.
 

My grandparents (R.I.P.) suffered the Spanish civil war. This can be the most controversial topic among Spaniards. And if you dare to say these were the good guys and those the bad boys, you can get into troubles. I don't advice to say "Nationalist/Fascist forces" but Francoist or Natinal side, and the other as "republicans". The main media can tell a version about "who started the fight" but half country could disagree about who should feel guilty and ashamed.

My paternal grandfather told me once when his sergeant wanted to talk him seriously he answered "my sergeant, my sergeant!" with a (challenger) tone as warning he shouldn't test his patiente or "it would seem an accident". I mean in the true battlefield the authority is not about being rude as Sgt Hartman from the movie "the metalic jacket". My maternal grandmother lost her brother in the battle of Ebro. His last letter arrived at Christmas, and then at that home it wasn't a so happy day.

Manila, the capital of Philipines suffered a lot in the WWII. Here we should take care about the scars from the past.
 

It was a long time ago when I was in college and had to take some elective courses, so one I took was a History of WWII. I thought it was Spain that Germany attacked but I'd take your word over my faltering memory. Even if I could find my text book I'd be hard pressed to find the section I'm thinking of. My overall point even if my details were off was that Germany built up an army well above and beyond they were supposed to according to the Treaty of Versailles and nothing was done about it.

I had a friend my age growing up who had something like 8 brothers and sisters, he was the youngest, and there was something like 40 years between him and his oldest brother. A few of his brothers were on the front line in Viet Nam and he told me that when they got home it was never brought up and they never once talked about it.
I teach the U.S. end of it every year as part of the survey of U.S. History (History B-17B). I review the origins of the war as part of it. My fathers experience was what led me into history. And yes, Versailles wasn't enforced and Britain and France missed an opportunity to head the whole thing off. I had a number of cousins off to the wonders of Vietnam. U.S. involvement ended (and later the whole war) while I was in high school. And yeah, they weren't talkative about it.
 

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