We seem to be in an age of World-War II related gaming material. From Gear Krieg (both RPG and miniatures wargame) to the upcoming and much-anticipated Godlike, there’s no escaping The Big One. Pinnacle Entertainment now enters the fray, with the first book in a new series of historical role-playing games, “Weird War II: Blood on the Rhine.” Now before this, I thought that Pinnacle was a one-trick pony. They created Deadlands, which is almost perfect for its genre. They created supplements, they were good. Then came Hell on Earth, Lost Colony (soon) and I started to feel that all they would do is pick up the “Weird West” feel and drop it into any damn setting they pleased. I was cautious when passing by their booth at Gen Con, but the absolutely stunning cover for Blood on the Rhine made me flip through. Only 25 bucks, I thought, so I plunked the cash down and took it away with me. After reading through it, and playing it briefly, I must say, Pinnacle finally got it right. This is one non-Wild West setting where the ‘Deadlands Feel’ works, and works well.
We start out with, like I said, a stunning cover. Our eyes are hit like a shell from a Pzkpfw VI Tiger II tank with a shot of a German ‘Wehrwolf’ in full uniform bounding toward us. All in all, a wonderful pic. Now, onto the interior.
Chapter 1: Welcome to the War
This is a good, thorough history section, right up to D-Day, which is around when the game is supposed to start. I’m no WWII historian, and this section gave me a good crash-course. Unlike all of the other sections, Chapter 1 is devoid of any weird-warpings. This is all facts, folks.
Chapter 2 deals with characters. Blood on the Rhine (as a d20 game) uses five main character classes: Grunt (standard enlisted man), Officer (like the Grunt, but requires more leadership and charisma), Resistance Fighter (essentially a fighter/rouge), Scout (fighter/ranger) and Medic (take a wild guess). These classes are nicely balanced out, and I like the special abilities each get. However, they weren’t that appealing to me. Maybe its because I’m not a WWII nut, but I’ll wait for the prestige classes, thank you very much. This chapter also gives good info on life in the military, on both sides of the war.
Chapter 3 is Feats & Skills. Nothing too spectacular here. We have skills like ‘Field Artillery’ and ‘Combat Medicine’ and feats like ‘Driving’ and ‘Leadership.’ Useful, perhaps. Realistic, maybe. But damn boring. Besides Prayer, there aren’t many skills or feats that invoke a more heroic WWII. Yes, I know the REAL war wasn’t like that. But I for one would like to run a game like that. Give me and my comrades a little to work with.
Chapter 4: Equipment. Lotsa WWII weaponry and vehicles. Not much more to say, besides that is a BIG list and the guys at Pinnacle were very thorough.
Chapter 5: Combat. A big, meaty chapter with new rules to reflect the WWII environment. We got rules for grenades, airbursts, automatic weapons, artillery, vehicle combat, landmines, and any number of different actions. Now, as a more of a non-historical gamer, I found this largely unnecessary. If my players want to know what happens when a shell collides with a nearby building, I’ll roll some dice and make something up. If you’re a diehard WWII guy, this section will be like candy.
Chapter 6: Prestige Classes. Now what we’ve all be waiting for, the WEIRDNESS! Blood on the Rhine includes five new prestige classes, 2 of them normal (the sniper and the commando) and the remaining 3 ‘weird’. These revolve around the OSI, a secret organization in the US government that dealt with supernatural events and creatures in the war. You got your OSI Adept (basic spellcaster), OSI Chaplain (divine spellcaster) and your OSI Operative (Supernatural combater). All and all these classes are quite cool, and they really add the weirdness into the setting. Which means you can easily play Blood on the Rhine as either ‘historical’ or ‘weird.’ If you want a historically-accurate setting with no monsters or magic, just never let your PCs get to the OSI prestige classes.
Chapter 7 is Magic. Here we have the secrets of the OSI and the Nazi Blood Magi. Turns out they both use a brand of Runic Magic that utilizes symbols from the Futhark to cast certain spells from the Player’s Handbook. Basically, you learn a rune, you can cast all of the spells related to it at your level. Not too revolutionary, but cool.
Chapter 8 is Haunted Vehicles. Suitably weird for me. This chapter details vehicles inhabited by things from beyond the grave, and what effects they have on it. Many cool powers, like Ectoplasmic Fuel and Arcane Ammo. Like Deadlands, this gives your players a chance to keep their characters long after they’ve kicked the bucket. Little Jimmy take some shrapnel in combat? That’s ok, he’ll just live in our Jeep for a while.
Chapter 9 is Officer’s Country. This is all of the ‘secret’ info for the War Master (aka GM). There is actually some real history in this, detailing the Nazi’s relation to the occult. Weird wild stuff, friends. Truth IS stranger than fiction. The rest of the chapter gives tasty secrets about Hitler, his Blood Magi, and all of the nasties running around Europe. This is one of the best parts of the book, with folklore monsters such as Wehrwolves, Fexts, and Slaugh. Some of these guys are so cool that a creative Marshall might want to pick up this book just to throw them in on their Deadlands d20 party.
Lastly, we have an adventure, ‘The Dogs of War’. Pretty good, but not really necessary. I would have liked more monsters or prestige classes instead.
Overall, Weird War II: Blood on the Rhine is a good, solid game with plenty of Deadlands-esqe weirdness to make it very, very cool. However, the setting is different enough to make it stand out from Deadlands and similar games. If you have any remote interest in WWII and enjoyed Deadlands or any other alternate history setting, I urge you to pick this one up!
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