The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Glory Days- A Brave New World Sourcebook.

224 page softback book. £15 or $25.

Introduction

Continuing on with my BNW reviews, we come to the WW2 sourcebook. I bought this book because I'm always interested in the roleplaying opportunities and adventures set in periods of 20th century war. Its an area than lends itself to great drama and amazing movies and books whether in Vietnam, WWI or the Gulf. However it seems to me to have been a sensitive subject when it come to roleplaying games (though admittedly not for wargames). After all, there is always a chance that a relative of the players or GM may have died or been injured in such a conflict, and it would be tasteless to remind him or her even accidentally.

Historically based modern warfare RPG's are comparatively rare. Twilight 2000 and Merc took the easy option of an alternative present setting whilst White Wolfs 'The Great War' setting used WW1 as a background to the conflicts in the Shadowlands. Only 'Recon' really tried to portray the Vietnam war in all its gore and confusion and even it switched between the real world and fictional setting. I'm looking forward to Pagan Publishing's 'Our Darkest Hour' which will backdate their Cthulhu/Delta Green setting to WW2. However I doubt we'll ever get a pure historical WW2 RPG or even a 'Kellys Heroes' or 'Dirty Dozen' type game in my lifetime.

So, in the meantime we've got Matt Forbecks alternative reality game Brave New World and his vision of how WW2 went in a world with superheroes. This period is vastly different from the contemporary US described in the main rulebook. In the 40's, deltas are genuine, popular heroes. The public follow the exploits of crimefighters and supervillains in the papers. People dress up in daft costumes and gadgeteers create devices To Rule The World! Its a time of hope and freedom, a domestic utopia set against a world at war. Talking of which.....

In the Brave New World chronology, Hitler and the Axis forces do seize most of Europe, open an African front, attack Russia and bomb Pearl Harbour as usual. America enters the war in December 1941 as expected, but the war ends suddenly in 1943 when Superior, the first alpha kills Hitler and then forces the Japanese Emperor to surrender. Having consulted my history text books, it seems this period (1943-43) then only covers the Dieppe raid, Allied success at Alamein and Tunisia, and the invasion of Sicily. The Russians eventually relieve Stalingrad in 1943 and start winning the war of attrition against the Wehrmacht. Meanwhile the Japanese who have near complete control over South East Asia are gradually defeated in naval and carrier battles with the US island hopping campaign. The early end to the war means neither D-Day nor the fall of Berlin occurs which robs the campaign setting of some of the most dramatic moments in the war.

Unfortunately Glory Days doesn't mention any of this, instead concentrating on a situation snapshot of the war in July 1942. The US has just mobilised and troops are moving with the elite Delta Squadron leading the way. I should also mention that the game is written in Forbecks usual irritating style of one narrator giving his biased view. This time we have the young 'Sparky' an awestruck 18 year old delta who believes in America and hero worships the patriotic Yankee so much it hurts. Ironically Sparky is the delta fated to be killed in a Nazi concentration camp and return as the mighty alpha Superior! Lets just say that I believe Superior is comes back from the dead a changed man as his support for JFK's fascist regime demonstrates.

Players Section

The book starts with a 'Now you've joined the U.S. Army' and Delta Squadron section. It discusses rank structure, the chain of command, boot camp, commanding officers and the structure of Delta Squadron with its 3 Platoons. Alpha Platoon help with Special Ops and air defence in London, Bravo are helping the British and Commonwealth forces in Africa whilst Charlie Platoon assist MacArthur in the Pacific Theatre. It also describes 'the Liberty' an enormous 'aerial carrier' which is basically an air strip, or aircraft carrier held up by 4 enormous gondolas and defended by delta fliers and aces alike. Naturally this is a Gadgeteer creation, but one that requires 5 of the mad scientists to keep it aloft. The vessel is stationed over the Atlantic and is used to help transport Delta Squadron around and provide mobile air superiority. I find this pulp heavy plot device a rather nice touch, putting me in mind of the 'Rocketeer' film.
Next with 5 chapters devoted to the 5 fronts important to the Americans, namely 1-Home (US),2- Europe and UK, 3- North Africa, 4-Russia and then 5- the Pacific. Each is an overview of the current situation with much mention of the protagonists and antagonists present. Unfortunately the 'normal' units and battles are glossed over in favour of delta personalities.

First off, we have an overview of the US as women start working in factories, female deltas taking over their male counterparts crimefighting duties and the sale of War Bonds. Howard Hughes makes a cameo as his 'Ladies of Liberty' organisation ferret out Nazi spies, profiteers, gangsters and Axis sympathisers. Fairly boring.

Occupied Europe and the UK. On this front the British delta Force the 'Imperial League' is described along with the delta aces who won the Battle of Britain. Occupied Europe is a hotbed of espionage and skullduggery as the British SOE, French Resistance and American OSS play cat and mouse with the German Gestapo and their delta 'Kriegfuhrer' group (translation- Warlords?).

Africa is the most active land war that American delta are likely to be posted to. Rommel and Monty are fighting over the critical city of Tobruk with German and Italian deltas trying to commando sabotage the besieged city's defences whilst American, British, Commonwealth and native forces defend it.

Russia is the exclusive preserve of the Russians 'Red Brigade' warring with the Kriegfuhrer as their human compatriots freeze and starve. Russian werebears and Lazurus' die in Leningrad whilst the Germans southern army marches on the Caucuses and Kharkov. By and large, Forbeck portrays the Russians as almost as bad as the Germans. (Sparky calls them back stabbing 'pompous jerks'.) Still there are a few good Russian deltas who the PC's could work with, though there is no mention of Commissar and NKVD units who would kill retreating Russian soldiers for cowardice

The Pacific section is surprisingly short on details of the Allied forces and US Navy, concentrating instead on detailing the Japanese and their forces. Japan has its own delta force which patriotic Japanese join in order to become new samurai and do their duty for their emperor. As you'd expect, Forbeck concentrates on their Kamikaze policy as well a the delta twist to it of having a flying delta carry a 'bomber' type (a delta who can explode his body and then reassemble) who is then dropped on Allied ships. Amusing but stereotypical.

New Powers, Gadgets and Rules.

A big section of the book, these 60 pages list 10 new power packages, gadgets and new vehicle rules. The power packages all have a WW2 or foreign flavour. The packages are the Aces (+5 to pilot any vehicle, be it planes, boats or cars), Communicators (Telepaths who can send/receive mental messages, but cant read minds), Dessicators (desert dwellers who can suck water out of nearly anything, including people), Dunemasters (sand, sand, glorious sand. These guys can breathe, swim, spray and surf sand), Freezers (cold people who flash freeze others but seize up in hot temperatures), Gassers (breathe out clouds of toxic gas), Junglers (Tarzans with plant and animal control), Translators (read, write, speak anything including Enigma codes and foreign languages), Werebears (AD&D werebear) and finally the Wereshark (turn into Jaws, tends to go into berserk feeding frenzies).

Gadgeteers in Glory Days are a lot better off than a typical BNW game. Instead of poor inventors struggling to assemble components, now their respective governments fund them up the wazoo. They can attach as many weapons as they like legally! They also get to field test their inventions straight away with the best possible pilots or operatives. And because of the way they must upkeep their gadget, then the Gadgeteer get to go on all those dangerous missions too! So we get a big list of pulp 4-colour gadgets that any 1940's mad inventor would be happy with. We have the aerial carrier, Jet-bikes (quite literally a motorcycle chassis with two enormous jet turbines bolted on), tanksuits (diesel powered mecha), Mobile fortresses (ponderous supertanks) and amphibian tanks. Fortunately there is no mention of the Manhattan Project....

The new rules include lengthy critical hit tables for any vehicle type you can think of, chase, ramming and crash rules. All the military weapons needed are covered, including torpedoes, land mines, AA guns, artillery and mortars. Stats are given for all these weapons from a 3" Howitzer to a Katyusha rocket launcher. Vehicles are statted and I see that Spitfires are faster and more maneuverable than Messerschmitt 109's. But where are the British Hurricanes and destroyers? Overall, the vehicles lists are representative, but not completist.

GM's Section.

These 60 odd pages briefly talk about the different adventures possible in each theatre of war. But even without Sparky's narrator voice this discussion is filled with padding. After all, do I really need to be reminded twice that I can change the course of events from both the real world and BNW chronology? Because Forbeck chose to give a atmospheric snapshot of events in 1942, he acknowledges that the GM will have to do a great deal of personal research. To his credit, he offers a short bibliography of relevant 'easy read' historical texts. Then we are presented with game stats for average soldiers, and then gives stats and descriptions for 33 deltas who were previously covered in the theatre overview chapters. Finally an adventure, entitled 'Foiling der Fuhrer' is thrown in. Set in North Africa it concerns the PC's attempts to track down and destroy a German secret weapon before Rommel can use it to finally crack the siege of Tobruk. It is an average quality adventure. Unfortunately its been badly edited. For example, a map is provided for a bar where the PC's meet their contact. Yet there is no need for the map as there is no difficulty finding him, and no chance of violence occurring. A second map of the Germans camp lists one building as belonging to Capt. Durghart, a decorated British delta! I thought, hold on, is Capt. Durghart a traitor or something? But no, the relevant text lists the building as that of the German lab assistants and no mention is made of Durghart. Even the final section on rewarding successful players has missing text.

CONCLUSIONS

Poor editing appears throughout the book, not just in the final adventure. Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) is referred to correctly only once. Thereafter its initials are mangled to become the OSE. Other spelling errors occur a few too many times as well. Big margins and extraneous art mean easy reading but low words (and little useful content) per page.

As for the portrayal of the different nationalities, Forbeck adopts the movie stereotype approach. The Americans and Allies are all good and wholesome whilst the Germans and Russians are bad guys whose deltas are psychotic torturers. The Italians are cowards, whilst the British are viewed as posh voiced, upper class, prejudiced twits. The Japanese of course are fanatical samurai wannabes who mistreat all their prisoners and carry swords. Although there are elements of truth in these views, they cannot really be called realistic. If you can stomach these movie style pulp generalisations then its perfectly playable. I believe this product is mainly aimed at Americans (who are portrayed in the most positive light) whilst other nationalities may need to reach for medication to avoid frothing at the mouth. After all, relying on the movies 'U-571' or 'Saving Private Ryan' as Forbeck does for inspiration will skew your view of history.

Now I realise that its quite hard to denationalise our view of history. Afterall, we've each been brought up with educational curriculums, books and movies that tend to reflect our own countries in the best light possible. Personally I'd recommend a look at the more serious historical works than the pop culture movies e.g. Jeremy Isaacs classic 'The World at War', or Bullocks biography of Hitler and Stalin.

If you have read my other BNW reviews, you'll be aware that I've criticized other BNW products for excessive secrecy. 'Glory Days' doesn't suffer from this problem, as both timeline, personalities, and setting are obvious. Unfortunately the listed deltas have power packages described in the Ravaged Planet, Defiance and Delta Prime books. If you want to use them, then you'll need all these books too as no summary is given in 'Glory Days'.

So to sum up. Is Glory Days a detailed historical sourcebook for WW2? The answer is a resounding No. Lifestyle, technology, cultural and political systems are badly missing. Almost inexcusably there is no coherent timeline for the war and GM's will have to do plenty of research.

On the other hand, if you want Glory Days as a source of ideas to run deltas in a WW2 atmosphere then it does the job. If you want to have stats and a way of running your favourite WW2 movie with the BNW system then this will do it. The German Kriegfuhrer are appropriately two-dimensional supervillains whom your players can battle in the cause of life and liberty!

Overall then, the style is somewhat mixed. I liked the diesel-tech gadgets but politically correct interjections from Sparky and a reliance on film stereotypes mean it only gets a style rating of 3.

As for the substance, though lacking in real life details, it has plenty of game world statistics, gear and rules. I'm also giving Forbeck credit for producing a one of the few WW2 sourcebooks so, I'll give it a substance rating of 3.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Glory Days
Author: Matt Forbeck Category: game Company/Publisher: AEG Line: Brave New World Cost: $25 or £15 Page count: 224 ISBN: 1-887953-10-8 SKU: 8100 Capsule Review by Stephen Joseph Ellis on 10/02/00. Genre tags: Historical Superhero	Glory Days- A Brave New World Sourcebook. 224 page softback book. £15 or $25. Introduction Continuing on with my BNW reviews, we come to the WW2 sourcebook. I bought this book because I'm always interested in the roleplaying opportunities and adventures set in periods of 20th century war. Its an area than lends itself to great drama and amazing movies and books whether in Vietnam, WWI or the Gulf. However it seems to me to have been a sensitive subject when it come to roleplaying games (though admittedly not for wargames). After all, there is always a chance that a relative of the players or GM may have died or been injured in such a conflict, and it would be tasteless to remind him or her even accidentally. Historically based modern warfare RPG's are comparatively rare. Twilight 2000 and Merc took the easy option of an alternative present setting whilst White Wolfs 'The Great War' setting used WW1 as a background to the conflicts in the Shadowlands. Only 'Recon' really tried to portray the Vietnam war in all its gore and confusion and even it switched between the real world and fictional setting. I'm looking forward to Pagan Publishing's 'Our Darkest Hour' which will backdate their Cthulhu/Delta Green setting to WW2. However I doubt we'll ever get a pure historical WW2 RPG or even a 'Kellys Heroes' or 'Dirty Dozen' type game in my lifetime. So, in the meantime we've got Matt Forbecks alternative reality game Brave New World and his vision of how WW2 went in a world with superheroes. This period is vastly different from the contemporary US described in the main rulebook. In the 40's, deltas are genuine, popular heroes. The public follow the exploits of crimefighters and supervillains in the papers. People dress up in daft costumes and gadgeteers create devices To Rule The World! Its a time of hope and freedom, a domestic utopia set against a world at war. Talking of which..... In the Brave New World chronology, Hitler and the Axis forces do seize most of Europe, open an African front, attack Russia and bomb Pearl Harbour as usual. America enters the war in December 1941 as expected, but the war ends suddenly in 1943 when Superior, the first alpha kills Hitler and then forces the Japanese Emperor to surrender. Having consulted my history text books, it seems this period (1943-43) then only covers the Dieppe raid, Allied success at Alamein and Tunisia, and the invasion of Sicily. The Russians eventually relieve Stalingrad in 1943 and start winning the war of attrition against the Wehrmacht. Meanwhile the Japanese who have near complete control over South East Asia are gradually defeated in naval and carrier battles with the US island hopping campaign. The early end to the war means neither D-Day nor the fall of Berlin occurs which robs the campaign setting of some of the most dramatic moments in the war. Unfortunately Glory Days doesn't mention any of this, instead concentrating on a situation snapshot of the war in July 1942. The US has just mobilised and troops are moving with the elite Delta Squadron leading the way. I should also mention that the game is written in Forbecks usual irritating style of one narrator giving his biased view. This time we have the young 'Sparky' an awestruck 18 year old delta who believes in America and hero worships the patriotic Yankee so much it hurts. Ironically Sparky is the delta fated to be killed in a Nazi concentration camp and return as the mighty alpha Superior! Lets just say that I believe Superior is comes back from the dead a changed man as his support for JFK's fascist regime demonstrates. Players Section The book starts with a 'Now you've joined the U.S. Army' and Delta Squadron section. It discusses rank structure, the chain of command, boot camp, commanding officers and the structure of Delta Squadron with its 3 Platoons. Alpha Platoon help with Special Ops and air defence in London, Bravo are helping the British and Commonwealth forces in Africa whilst Charlie Platoon assist MacArthur in the Pacific Theatre. It also describes 'the Liberty' an enormous 'aerial carrier' which is basically an air strip, or aircraft carrier held up by 4 enormous gondolas and defended by delta fliers and aces alike. Naturally this is a Gadgeteer creation, but one that requires 5 of the mad scientists to keep it aloft. The vessel is stationed over the Atlantic and is used to help transport Delta Squadron around and provide mobile air superiority. I find this pulp heavy plot device a rather nice touch, putting me in mind of the 'Rocketeer' film. Next with 5 chapters devoted to the 5 fronts important to the Americans, namely 1-Home (US),2- Europe and UK, 3- North Africa, 4-Russia and then 5- the Pacific. Each is an overview of the current situation with much mention of the protagonists and antagonists present. Unfortunately the 'normal' units and battles are glossed over in favour of delta personalities. First off, we have an overview of the US as women start working in factories, female deltas taking over their male counterparts crimefighting duties and the sale of War Bonds. Howard Hughes makes a cameo as his 'Ladies of Liberty' organisation ferret out Nazi spies, profiteers, gangsters and Axis sympathisers. Fairly boring. Occupied Europe and the UK. On this front the British delta Force the 'Imperial League' is described along with the delta aces who won the Battle of Britain. Occupied Europe is a hotbed of espionage and skullduggery as the British SOE, French Resistance and American OSS play cat and mouse with the German Gestapo and their delta 'Kriegfuhrer' group (translation- Warlords?). Africa is the most active land war that American delta are likely to be posted to. Rommel and Monty are fighting over the critical city of Tobruk with German and Italian deltas trying to commando sabotage the besieged city's defences whilst American, British, Commonwealth and native forces defend it. Russia is the exclusive preserve of the Russians 'Red Brigade' warring with the Kriegfuhrer as their human compatriots freeze and starve. Russian werebears and Lazurus' die in Leningrad whilst the Germans southern army marches on the Caucuses and Kharkov. By and large, Forbeck portrays the Russians as almost as bad as the Germans. (Sparky calls them back stabbing 'pompous jerks'.) Still there are a few good Russian deltas who the PC's could work with, though there is no mention of Commissar and NKVD units who would kill retreating Russian soldiers for cowardice The Pacific section is surprisingly short on details of the Allied forces and US Navy, concentrating instead on detailing the Japanese and their forces. Japan has its own delta force which patriotic Japanese join in order to become new samurai and do their duty for their emperor. As you'd expect, Forbeck concentrates on their Kamikaze policy as well a the delta twist to it of having a flying delta carry a 'bomber' type (a delta who can explode his body and then reassemble) who is then dropped on Allied ships. Amusing but stereotypical. New Powers, Gadgets and Rules. A big section of the book, these 60 pages list 10 new power packages, gadgets and new vehicle rules. The power packages all have a WW2 or foreign flavour. The packages are the Aces (+5 to pilot any vehicle, be it planes, boats or cars), Communicators (Telepaths who can send/receive mental messages, but cant read minds), Dessicators (desert dwellers who can suck water out of nearly anything, including people), Dunemasters (sand, sand, glorious sand. These guys can breathe, swim, spray and surf sand), Freezers (cold people who flash freeze others but seize up in hot temperatures), Gassers (breathe out clouds of toxic gas), Junglers (Tarzans with plant and animal control), Translators (read, write, speak anything including Enigma codes and foreign languages), Werebears (AD&D werebear) and finally the Wereshark (turn into Jaws, tends to go into berserk feeding frenzies). Gadgeteers in Glory Days are a lot better off than a typical BNW game. Instead of poor inventors struggling to assemble components, now their respective governments fund them up the wazoo. They can attach as many weapons as they like legally! They also get to field test their inventions straight away with the best possible pilots or operatives. And because of the way they must upkeep their gadget, then the Gadgeteer get to go on all those dangerous missions too! So we get a big list of pulp 4-colour gadgets that any 1940's mad inventor would be happy with. We have the aerial carrier, Jet-bikes (quite literally a motorcycle chassis with two enormous jet turbines bolted on), tanksuits (diesel powered mecha), Mobile fortresses (ponderous supertanks) and amphibian tanks. Fortunately there is no mention of the Manhattan Project.... The new rules include lengthy critical hit tables for any vehicle type you can think of, chase, ramming and crash rules. All the military weapons needed are covered, including torpedoes, land mines, AA guns, artillery and mortars. Stats are given for all these weapons from a 3" Howitzer to a Katyusha rocket launcher. Vehicles are statted and I see that Spitfires are faster and more maneuverable than Messerschmitt 109's. But where are the British Hurricanes and destroyers? Overall, the vehicles lists are representative, but not completist. GM's Section. These 60 odd pages briefly talk about the different adventures possible in each theatre of war. But even without Sparky's narrator voice this discussion is filled with padding. After all, do I really need to be reminded twice that I can change the course of events from both the real world and BNW chronology? Because Forbeck chose to give a atmospheric snapshot of events in 1942, he acknowledges that the GM will have to do a great deal of personal research. To his credit, he offers a short bibliography of relevant 'easy read' historical texts. Then we are presented with game stats for average soldiers, and then gives stats and descriptions for 33 deltas who were previously covered in the theatre overview chapters. Finally an adventure, entitled 'Foiling der Fuhrer' is thrown in. Set in North Africa it concerns the PC's attempts to track down and destroy a German secret weapon before Rommel can use it to finally crack the siege of Tobruk. It is an average quality adventure. Unfortunately its been badly edited. For example, a map is provided for a bar where the PC's meet their contact. Yet there is no need for the map as there is no difficulty finding him, and no chance of violence occurring. A second map of the Germans camp lists one building as belonging to Capt. Durghart, a decorated British delta! I thought, hold on, is Capt. Durghart a traitor or something? But no, the relevant text lists the building as that of the German lab assistants and no mention is made of Durghart. Even the final section on rewarding successful players has missing text. CONCLUSIONS Poor editing appears throughout the book, not just in the final adventure. Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) is referred to correctly only once. Thereafter its initials are mangled to become the OSE. Other spelling errors occur a few too many times as well. Big margins and extraneous art mean easy reading but low words (and little useful content) per page. As for the portrayal of the different nationalities, Forbeck adopts the movie stereotype approach. The Americans and Allies are all good and wholesome whilst the Germans and Russians are bad guys whose deltas are psychotic torturers. The Italians are cowards, whilst the British are viewed as posh voiced, upper class, prejudiced twits. The Japanese of course are fanatical samurai wannabes who mistreat all their prisoners and carry swords. Although there are elements of truth in these views, they cannot really be called realistic. If you can stomach these movie style pulp generalisations then its perfectly playable. I believe this product is mainly aimed at Americans (who are portrayed in the most positive light) whilst other nationalities may need to reach for medication to avoid frothing at the mouth. After all, relying on the movies 'U-571' or 'Saving Private Ryan' as Forbeck does for inspiration will skew your view of history. Now I realise that its quite hard to denationalise our view of history. Afterall, we've each been brought up with educational curriculums, books and movies that tend to reflect our own countries in the best light possible. Personally I'd recommend a look at the more serious historical works than the pop culture movies e.g. Jeremy Isaacs classic 'The World at War', or Bullocks biography of Hitler and Stalin. If you have read my other BNW reviews, you'll be aware that I've criticized other BNW products for excessive secrecy. 'Glory Days' doesn't suffer from this problem, as both timeline, personalities, and setting are obvious. Unfortunately the listed deltas have power packages described in the Ravaged Planet, Defiance and Delta Prime books. If you want to use them, then you'll need all these books too as no summary is given in 'Glory Days'. So to sum up. Is Glory Days a detailed historical sourcebook for WW2? The answer is a resounding No. Lifestyle, technology, cultural and political systems are badly missing. Almost inexcusably there is no coherent timeline for the war and GM's will have to do plenty of research. On the other hand, if you want Glory Days as a source of ideas to run deltas in a WW2 atmosphere then it does the job. If you want to have stats and a way of running your favourite WW2 movie with the BNW system then this will do it. The German Kriegfuhrer are appropriately two-dimensional supervillains whom your players can battle in the cause of life and liberty! Overall then, the style is somewhat mixed. I liked the diesel-tech gadgets but politically correct interjections from Sparky and a reliance on film stereotypes mean it only gets a style rating of 3. As for the substance, though lacking in real life details, it has plenty of game world statistics, gear and rules. I'm also giving Forbeck credit for producing a one of the few WW2 sourcebooks so, I'll give it a substance rating of 3. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)