Well, since I've already stated my basic belief that this is only a game I thought I ought to at least give an opinion as to how good this game is. As means of a quick background, I spent three years in the US Army including a tour of duty in Vietnam (November 1968-November 1969), I've also written several modules for the old Twilight: 2000 RPG, and consider myself a pretty decent amateur military historian.
When PEG first announced its intentions of publishing Weird Wars, I was both delighted and skeptical. I loved the old Weird Wars comics as a kid but I had reservations about the d20 systems usefulness in this particular genre. However, my enthusiasm won out and I purchased Weird Wars right out of the packing box at my local game store.
What kind of game did I get? Elton Robb in his excellent review pretty much covered most of the details however, there are a few points that I would like to cover.
First of all I will state again out front that there is no way in Gods Great Cosmos that anyone can realistically duplicate what goes on in a real war. I don't care if its an rpg, board game, miniatures, computers, or whatever. There is no way that this is going to even come close and thank God for that. At best, games can only entertain and inform and Weird Wars does a very good job of that. The artwork and photographs fit very well and the cover is one of the most dramatic and exciting that I've seen in a long time.
Using the d20 is an overall good move. This means that a number of folks that might have been hesitant before to try this genre can do so now with a system that they're familiar with. There are a couple of "downsides" to this though. First, you really do need the 3rdEd Players Guide which is aggravating if you're like me and really don't have that much interest in DnD. Still, it is a necessary evil which segues into the other problem that I have with d20 and that's alignment. I don't like alignment systems. Fortunately, in Weird Wars this is a minor thing and can be dispensed with. I find, however, that using DnD alignment classifications for the Nazis to be, I don't know, lame or something. It slightly detracts from an otherwise well done text.
The real disappointment, in my opinion, is the Character Sheet. I like mine clean and neat. I don't care for faux coffee stains or wrinkles because they tend to look silly when you've got about 20 sheets printed up. To make matters worse, PEG went and printed the stat name IN the box instead of beside or under it which means that you've got to write over it when you make an entry. This can lead to confusion when you're in the middle of a combat encounter. I hope that in one of their forthcoming supplements that they correct this.
In conclusion, I would like to say that overall Weird Wars is well worth the time and money. With d20 Call of Cthulhu and Traveller on the horizon who knows just how weird some of these wars could get. One last thing. To all of you out there who want to load this or any other game down with all sorts of socio-political baggage I say this: Get A Life! For the rest of us, let's have some fun and star in our own adventure movie.
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(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)