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Grey Ranks

The Grey Ranks: Child soldiers, Warsaw, 1944. At sixteen, you've seen enough to know it's now or never. The uprising is on and you're in the thick of it - for your familiy, your country, your faith - and now, most of all, for your first love.

Grey Ranks is a collaborative storytelling game for 3 to 5 players. Players in Grey Ranks take on the roles of child soldiers during the bloody Warsaw uprising at the end of WWII. In this game there's no GM, or rather, every player is a GM in their own right. Play takes place over 9 chapters, each corresponding to a specific date of the uprising.

The Book

The book is a 6x9 softcover with 139 pages including an index. The cover art is ok, though done in a cartoon style that didn't really impress me. Same goes for the interior art, which does actually manage to look much better than the cover in places. I would have preferred something grittier, maybe a photo here and there, to make the whole thing more real and less like a cartoon. All in all, it's a very discreet looking book, not the kind that springs at you from the shelf. The editting and layout is top notch thou. There's an index at the back for easy reference and sidebars with informative facts and setting information. Starting in part two the rules text is broken up by actual play descriptions which really helps you to get a handle on the system.

Contents

There are six parts of the book which break down as follows:

Part one: History and Background This part of the book, not surprisingly, deals with the history leading up to the events of the game. The chapter discusses subjects such as the german invasion and occupation of Poland, the Home Army and its communist counterpart The People's Army. Of course the main protagonists, The Grey Ranks, former boy scouts and girl guides, now engaged in resistance activities, such as light sabotage and harrasment of the occupational forces, are also covered.

Part two: Building a Crew Character creation. Each player creates a teenage partisan. The character must be polish, be part of the Grey Ranks and between 15 and 17 years of age. Character sheets don't have "stats" in the classical rpg sense. The things that will have to be decided about a character is:

Name Pseudonym (call sign within the Grey Ranks, such as Granat or Zeus) Age(15,16 or 17) District (The part of Warsaw your character calls home) Thing you hold dear(This is decided after the first introductory chapter of the story and can be either country, city, faith, family, friend or first love) Reputation(Chosen for your character by the other players, based on what happened during the introductory chapter, reputation must be something representing ematurity.)In addition to the main characters, each player should also make up one additional character(nothing more than a name and reputation) for the initial supporting cast.

Part three: Playing Grey Ranks Grey Ranks is designed to be played over three sessions, each session consisting of three chapters. A chapter takes place on a specific date, just before or during the uprising, starting with July 2nd 1944. Each chapter has every player frame a mission and a personal scene. Each player gets two dice before the chapter, one is a d4 by default, the other can range from d4-d12 and is chosen according to the players position on the Grid(see below). A leader is chosen among the players, who then states the overall mission that the characters are trying to accomplish in the chapter. Each player in turn, then chooses to frame either a personal og mission scene. Personal scenes are framed and played out, the player then chooses one of his dice and rolls. This results in either a good or a bad outcome, which should then be roleplayed. Mission scenes are a bit different in that the player contributes one of his dice to the missions overall dice pool, which is rolled by the leader at the end of the chapter to determine the success of the mission as a whole. The higher the dice the player contributes, the worse his mission scene will go. yet the chance for the mission to succeed overall is increased. This makes a successful mission one with serious consequences for each member of the group. When each player has had a chance to frame both a mission and pesonal the chapter ends and the next begins. Things Held dear and Reputations can be "burned" to upgrade dice, and get rerolls in the case of Things held dear. Doing this however will change the character, turning a negative reputation into a positive, and exposing the thing held dear to danger.

The Grid is a map of sorts, that tracks each characters emotional state. At the end of each chapter, players move their character on the Grid according to success or failure of the mission and personal scenes. The corners of the Grid are to be avoided, as they represents extremes such as Martydom, Nervous Breakdown, Suicidal Depression and Derangement. If you hit the same corner twice, then your character is written out of the story in the following chapter, if not sooner.

Since you will rarely have two good dice(one always defaults to a D4), this means that you will have to choose whether you want success in your personal scene, at the cost of your mission or vice versa. The rules a very easy to get into, though they are hard to explain with few words. The rules are very tight and drives the narrative easily and forces the players to make hard choices.

Part four: Radio Lightning The voice of the free polish people. Radio Lightning broadcasts are read before each chapter. Each broadcast contains inspiration to base scenes on, it also makes sure that players know what's going on in Warsaw at that particular date.

Part five: Situation Lists These are lists corresponding to positions on the Grid. They list short setups or tantalizing hooks that players can use freely to inspire their scenes. These are very handy, driving the narrative in the right direction. Without these lists, the game would require a lot more knowledge of history to play right.

Part six: Supplementary Material This section contains a pronounciation guide and names lists to get that authentic polish feel. It also contains a character sheet and a copy of the Grid.

Conclusion

This is a very mature game, dealing with som heavy subjects. This is not a game about killing Nazis and claiming glory. This is a game about being young in a world falling apart all around you. Done wrong, this game could have been a terrible insult to the brave polish people who fought and died during the war. Fortunately this work has been done right, it takes it subject very seriously and playes are driven to experience all the horrors of war. Author, Jason Morningstar, treats the subject matter with all the respect and delicacy it deserves. I would gladly recommend this game to mature roleplayers, it might not work for everybody, especially people looking for a fun,easy and emotionally light experince. However, if you want to experience some deep, heartbreaking stories with your friends, then look no further than Grey Ranks.