The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Disclaimer: I apologize for any mistake, convoluted sentence structure and other assorted "bugs" in the following text. English is not my first language, and this is the best I can do...

Introduction

Gear Krieg - The Roleplaying Game ("GKRPG" from now on) is the much awaited RPG rulebook for the Gear Krieg Miniature Wargame. The idea is to detail a "variant-universe" World War II, complete with armored walkers (basically one-man tanks/mecha similar to those detailed in Heavy Gear) and other "super-science" trappings like death rays and jet fighters. Just imagine WWII with Doc Savage and assorted heroes/scientists from the pulp era and you will get the picture.

A lot of people seemed to like the idea to pit a Wermacht Tiger Tank against two "General Early" combat walker (a sort of Marshall tank equivalent). I was not very interested in miniature wargaming, but the idea of a Pulp-era rpg using the Silhouette system appealed to me, and probably a lot more people, and DP9 finally produced the RPG system. As usual for them, the RPG can be used either alone or with the tactical game.

The package

GKRPG is an hardback volume of 208 pages. Internal graphics are black and white, and the style is different from the usual DP9 "anime-inspired" stuff. The quality is adequate, but not very "pulp-era", at least to my eye. In some cases they used actual photos, but the B/W images are not very detailed, I suspect that they used colour pictures which did not transfer well to B/W printing. Lack of contrast seems to plague some of the maps, too. Apart from these nitpicks, the volume is weel-organized, complete with index and a couple of useful appendixes (containing vehicle data, animals templates and so on).
There is an outline for a globetrotting campaign which may be adapted to any period in the 1937/1940 span.

The World

GKRPG starts around 1941. There is a detailed history of the present situation with ample space devoted to the main nations and forces. Bear in mind that even introducing super-science weapons history seems to take a pretty predictable course: France has death-rays cannons in its Maginot line, but they are just as useful as their historical equivalents in our world (i.e. completely useless) thanks to Guderian's tactics. The Battle of Britain still goes more or less like the one we know, even if both Axis and Allies have access to radars and jet fighters. Lend-and-Lease, Pearl Harbour, Operation Barbarossa... you name it, GKRPG has it. Just remember to automatically substitute "Tanks and Walkers" whenever you would just say "Tanks" while describing some particular episode of WWII.

This is not a bad idea per se. First of all, DP9 (or GMs) can always introduce weirder ideas in the future, if they want. On the other hand, by reducing discrepancies with history both GMs and players can easily adjust their real-world knowledge of the period. For another example of this, Konrad Zuse (!) perfected its computer before the start of the war, so computer-analogue are used by Allies and the Axis forces, but their role is limited to help perform calculation (i.e. to assist in driving combat vehicles, deciphering codes, calculating torpedoes or missiles trajectories or to help designing a new plane) but there is no "Internet" or data storage/processing.

Superscience and other strangeness

What I did not like very much is that apart from the pulp-era inventions and the usual homage to Edison and Tesla there is no other "strangeness" in GKRPG world. In other words, if you want to do "The Rocketeer" you will be ok, but if you fancy "Indiana Jones" or "The Mummy" you are out of luck. There is no (rules supported) way to introduce supernatural events in the game, even low-key ones. I am not familiar with the "Fantasy" game by DP9 (Tribe 8) so I can't judge the feasability of adapting rules from it.

So if you want to just use the Silhouette system for replaying some of your vintage "Justice Inc" or "Daredevils" adventures be prepared to supply your own rules for supernatural elements.

All in all the various trappings (radars/computers/death rays etc) have not been intended as the main focus of the game. Use them sparingly, just to ignite adventures ("You must recover plans for X before Nazis beat us to them...") but don't let them steal the limelight. If you just drop them altogether you still have a good WWII/modern era system.

The various historical section are complemented by some hooks and hints to things which could be used for a campaign, like secret experiments on mutations in Belgian Congo, Fifth Column agents in USA or sinister Japanes plots in the pacific.

Just one more note about the power level of this game. Please remember that even if "pulpish" this is not a superhoers game. So while Indiana Jones and the BlackHawks are doable, Captain America or Mandrake the Magician are probably better left to other games.

System and feel

If you like action and combat the Silhouette system is hard to beat. So if you stick to the Military-Espionage-Cliffhangers model you will find that GKRPS works very well. It can easily adapt itself from gritty realism to over-the-top pulp fiction without stress (this scalability was already introduced in "Jovian Chronicles" another DP9 game). The authors just added some extra "Pulpish" idea like Destiny Points, used to save characters from incredible odds, and new rules to cover unarmed damage (which allow people to survive most brawls without serious injuries).

Another minor modification to the "standard" Silhouette is the disappearance of "complex skills". All skills are considered "easy", even if some vestigial reference to "Simple" skills remains in the experience section of the rules. There is a short section on archetypes to be used both for PCs and their opponents, but it is just a description of the various roles (Femme Fatale, Daredevil, Scientist) without game-specific data. There is nothing comparable to the various occupational templates seen in Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles.

All in all, the rules seems to be well suited for a pulp-era game. Uncharacteristically for DP9 the game devotes some pages to a dice-driven scenario-generator. It is difficult to decide if this kind of systems are really worth the effort. I usually prefer to invent my own stories or adapt published adventures, but I did try to produce one using the included system. Here is a brief synopsis of the results:

"Action-driven, single event adventure. The PCs must act as bodyguards/hired muscle for a local official who convinces them to follow him (along with a grizzled NPC) in the underground villain's lair, allegedly trying to unravel a local legend or rumor. The complex is protected by poison, animal guards and other traps which could imprison the players. The villain is acting as some sort of Robin Hood figure for the locals, and despite the presence of a corrupted associate the PCs should wonder how much he differs from themselves. The Narrative twist should see them finally cooperating with the villain and making him reconsider his actions."
I did embellish it, obviously, but just a little (and dropped the "Horseback chase" which I was unable to fit with the rest) so it is obviously a far cry from dungeon generators.

The good, the bad and the personal

I wanted a generic pulp-era game (something akin to Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes) so I was mildly disappointed. I was not thrilled by the WWII with Mecha idea, but this is just a personal thing; by focusing on WWII a lot of pages are dedicated to detailing the various nations and the years just before 1941. The 20's and 30's are much less detailed. I fully understand that this is more than reasonable, considering that the game is the RPG part of a WWII tactical game, but if you want to play an earlier period some of the contents will be useless.

The manual tries to cater for other kind of stories, including some stuff about Mafia, the Yakuza and other criminal organizations, but its main drive remains focused on espionage and military/commando adventures.

There were some typos, but nothing very serious (apart from an annoying omission regarding damage rating for standard rifles: apparently you will need to reverse engineering the damage from another weapon like the BAR)

All in all it is a good framework for modern era adventures, and if you don't need to continually spring vampires and mummies to yours players you will probably find a very good buy. I think you can use it for a lot of different things, from "Guns of Navarone" to James Bond, but if you are not familiar with the Silhouette system I suggest you to try out some short combats before creating PCs, however. The combat system is quite unforgiving, so even enabling the various Pulp-features you could be surprised at how dangerous it can be. Silhouette is a solid system, and if you find Feng-Shui too wild or think that BESM is not for you I think you'll like Gear Krieg. Just be prepared to work on it a little to adapt it to your needs.