ITT: The Man in the High Castle as a campaign setting

Not really seeing this. Nazis are about the easiest sale for badguys imaginable. What kind of extremist alt-righters are you gaming with?

They were built in 1973.

It's called Google.

I didn't know that I didn't know they were built in 1973. I thought they were a product of the 50s, and thus had no reason to look it up.

You don't need to be condescending.

I should have thrown "If you're going to play with unfamiliar people" in there. I suppose if you have a good group it'll be gucci. But I wouldnt throw that up on roll20.

Good point, but there's a reason I don't game with people I don't know.

Me either. How do you think your group would handle it?

GURPS actually had a default setting that's pretty much identical
There's a dusty old title called Reich Star, same concept but it's set in the far future
Problem is it's not a particularly interesting or original idea, unless you have a hardon for Nazi stuff

Because alternate timeline shenanigans meant the US was both weak and stayed out of WW2 while Nazis used wacky Nazi science to conquer about half the world while Japan conquered the other half (because documents about Japan's sheer ineptitude and Germany's war plans weren't around while Dick wrote the book)

They'd probably treat it like a low-tech Age of Rebellion campaign. Colorful characters who get in, fuck up the Nazi's shit and then get out.

GURPS does have this as a campaign setting though. See Reich-5. Nothing wrong with some fun alt-history stuff, though it depends on what you are trying to do.

My grandfather served on convoy escorts in WW2. After the war, he wound up as neighbors with a German who had emigrated post WW2. Being somewhat curious about the people who had been trying to kill him, and who he had killed on occasion, he asked his neighbor what was it like living under Hitler. The response he got was: "The working man never had it so good as he did under Hitler."

The reason I bring this up is because the temptation in this kind of campaign is going to be to make Nazi America a cowed populace only held in check by terror. That's not really how dictatorships operate. They operate by ensuring everyone who can possibly mount meaningful opposition to them is dependent on the regime. And the brutal truth is this: If the regime is making sure that everyone who keeps their head down and works hard has three square meals a day and a decent enough place to live, most people are going to support it.

That's what Dick really brought across in the novel. People are just kind of fine with the idea of Japan controlling the west coast. It's normal. People are fine with the Nazis controlling the east coast. It's normal. That's something a lot of resistance themed settings get wrong. They have people too afraid to help because they're scared of the regime. Now, a campaign where most people believe, that it was more or less a good thing that the Germans took the east coast, they got rid of the Jews, the Communists, and all the other parasites that had brought the US to its knees in the depression? Where the resistance mostly runs into a blank wall of people unwilling to upset the applecart? That'd be interesting.

I think an even more interesting way to run the game as german born nazi reformists. Change the party within itself over a course of many years and create positive change. Have inter-party politics and espionage that make the game interesting. It may be more difficult to set up, but it would be original compared to the rest of the cliche scenarios where the axis won.

That's a difficult as hell campaign to run, but if a GM could pull it off, it'd be really neat.

"You're playing Fritz Meinhoffer, born in Germany but emigrated to the US with his family at the age of 12, with his family during the occupation. He is currently advocating for liberalization of travel restrictions and production quotas, arguing that the essentially Aryan nature of much of the American population demands fair treatment by the Germans lest they introduce a schism in the new order with potentially disastrous results. Roll D20 for your meeting with the American chair of the Medienüberwachung (Medwach) committee to allow for community opinions filtered only for calls to sedition to appear in a separate section of newspapers."

Just pick the original book and ignore the god-awful TV series.
It takes a true skill to take such great material and then waste it on such pathetic series

Brin used very similar approach in his "Postman", while still keeping the edge of the bad guys being bad and using fear. Holnists aren't winning because they are evil or competent or because people are afraid of them. No, that's all that causes them problems and mounts resistance on the outskirts of their territory.
What gives them the winning edge is that all the semi-competent people that could oppose them realise they would be better off just turning sides and work for them as a lord, rather than end up conquered as a subject.

And they exploit it ruthlessly.

The funny part is that the whole anti-nazi "resistance" within the Third Reich didn't start until Wehrmacht started to get its ass kicked on the Eastern Front and it was hard to ignore any longer British and American bombers. Situation was still technically good, and perfectly managable, but cracks were already forming.
And before those, there was no resistance.

So basically Fatherland? The '94 movie, by the book by Robert Harris?

Long story short - Roosvelt died a decade earlier. Burgers never even bothered with the war going "somewhere afar". No land-lease to anyone.
And then the nazis with japs came in knocking after getting rid of everyone on their way.

The original book was written when most of WW2 stuff was still top-secred and heavily red taped, so Dick didn't even have a broad idea how fucking awful the war was going for Japs and that Germans never really planned much after getting over western Russia, well, maybe some bits of Urals due to coal and DoWed USA only because Japs did and they were technically allied.

I don't know, "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy" makes me think that Dick knew broadly how unrealistic it all was. He had the British Empire becoming the sole superpower in the alt-history within an alt-history where the Allied powers won the war. He also had them winning because of reasons that would make sense someone living in a world where fascists had won: The Brits had a strong, visionary leader and the Americans didn't. Now given that he he would have known damn well that the British empire was fucked, win or loose WW2, this makes me suspect he understood how fucked up the Nazis really were. That and he apparently read German well enough to do research on primary sources in Berkley.

Well, there is one thing "feeling" something is fishy and another having proof for it.
Which is more than obvious when you look how he potrays Japan.

Yeah. It could also be why he set the book in Japanese held America. If he was familiar with how fucked up the Nazis really were from primary sources, but didn't have the access/language skills for the same thing on the Japanese side, then the Japanese would be easier for him to imagine as the relatively benevolent side.

Fatherland, at least the book one, had the advantage of getting all the red tape removed long before it was written. And it was less about a reformist and more about just average Hans who learns the ugly truth what the "resettlement" meant when he was busy sinking convoys

In the presence of mien enemies also has an alternate WW2 where the US s stays neutral and ends up losing Ww3 to the Germans. But it is from the perspective of a Jewish family who blended in after the war because the mass bombings destroyed enough of the records for them to beable to make shit up.

>not wanting to play as the nazis trying to quash another fucking rebellion led by whiny-ass liberals who'd rather bix nood than work toward a utopian society
We're becoming more and more like /co/mblr every day

Personally, I think GURPS' Reich-5 is a bit better. There, America is controlled by a homegrown fascist party instead of the Nazis and was never actually conquered (though some of its cities were nuked by Germany during an uprising in 1976).

Also, for this setting, I think I'd prefer to play a Communist.

In Germany itself, yes. But there were partisans coming out the ass basically everywhere on the Eastern front.

Nah, my group would have. Everyone I play with is alt right except one jewish liberal.

It's hard to pretend you are not Jewish when the person in question simply asks you to show if you are not circumcised.
On the other hand, I know an old Polish Tatar, who managed to get fucking confirmation from Nazi Race Purity Bureau that he indeed is not Jewish, but local version of muslim, since he put his cause to the authorities when Germans still bothered to check and research things and not just gas you for looking non-Aryan.

Partisans were either locals, who got conqured or commie-supported rabble. Or both. So it's hardly comparable with home resistance.

Meh, MitHC is cool and all, but it ain't got shit on the real 1960s. The Cold War is just a way cooler setting than the one in the show (and forgive me for never reading the book, just summaries).

The only thing the setting has going for it is that divination of past, future, and could-have-beens is both feasible and openly available. A war of oracles could actually be pretty interesting, but almost any other setting you could run would be better using the Cold War.

Unless you do the whole "Nazi's had magic", which could mean that their control over the world was a setup for some massive ritual, and the PCs have to stop it.

You will see partisans in any invasion, no matter the reason or cause. It takes time for them to die down. By the timetable of the show, it makes sense that most of them are gone, but there will always be diehards and rebels without a cause. Not many, but some. The world presented in the show depicts an America where life is good for the average white American that turns into a sliding scale of unpleasantness for not being white.

>not playing a game where your party members are elite S.S anti-partisan units and having periods of intense and brutal combat and action countered by serene breaks in a peaceful and beautiful homeland to make them understand what they're fighting for before slowly taking it away from them as things get progressively worse for the failing Nazi Germany
>mfw

>The world presented in the show depicts an America where life is good for the average white American that turns into a sliding scale of unpleasantness for not being white.
I liked the policeman in what? First episode? You know, your average, rural trooper, helping with flat tire and giving good advices. A former veteran of the defensive war...
... and then he gives the completely casual comment on the nearby crematory, where they are getting rid of the old folks on industrial scale. And suddenly you realise how the entire setting works and how everyone simply got over and used to how things are running now. It was fucking chilling.

Shame the show wasted the entire potential it could have and is just a boring slog and a waste of Rufus Sewell.

What would the logistics be for overthrowing this whole system, I wonder? Formidable, but I suspect not impossible.

Trans nazis.

>but it ain't got shit on the real 1960s
You have the Germans split into two factions: one that believes that it can co-exist with the Japanese Empire, and the other that wants to nuke the Home Islands before launching a global offensive to truly take over the world. The struggle between these two factions and who manages to become the new fuhrer after Hitler dies is a core part of the book, especially when the Japanese try to get in on the plans.

Also, this is a setting where the Nazis colonized Mars and Venus. And depopulated the entirety of Africa before using the corpses as literal human resources and trophies.

I think it's enjoyable. It just needs more action focus, more Rufus, and less of the west coast girl. Also more hitler, Hitler is an inherently powerful character to have on screen.

I would love if the guy who is a spy does more cool espionage stuff, but I haven't seen the second season yet. Going to download the first few episodes and watch them when I travel by plane this holiday.

Eh, the Nazis -- at least in the show -- possess one of the two sane and rational characters. And generally seem to be less Pants on Head evil domestically.

It was less the old folks and more the physically and mentally handicapped, actually. Why waste resources on a permanent drain on society when you can simply eliminate that waste instead? It's the reason for Smith's terror at his son's conditions.

The Nazis own half the planet. The system is impossible to remove.

And if not for meddling kids leaking nuclear information to the Japanese, the future could have been New Order-tier.

I'd fucking kill for a Wolfenstein: New Order campaign.

Weak-minded coward! NOTHING is invincible!

Particularly when fascist governments have serious structural inadequacies that will lead to eventual collapse on their own at a relatively swift pace. So presumably exacerbating that would be important.

>fascist governments have serious structural inadequacies that will lead to eventual collapse on their own at a relatively swift pace
For example?

For example, in Nazi Germany's case, Hitler's lunatic idea to pit numerous bureaucracies against each other, inciting them to compete over jurisdiction out of some belief that this would make whoever "won" stronger.

they started to attack the nazies in 1944, but resistance in germany started right after Hitler took over

Not him, but the utter reliance on a state of total war that leads to the economy completely collapsing as soon as your war machine has either stalled or conquered all their is.

The literally same thing was going in Soviet Union for decades and it felt good until the end.

I mean, I could see some people taking advantage by assassinating a few politicians, considering Nazi politics and the top-heavy nature of the regime were an integral part of the plot, but the problem for the average folk is that you're either white enough that you can keep your head down with minimal fuss, or you're not white and you're too dead to complain. The only other power to combat the Nazis would be the Japanese, who are ironically more benevolent in that they believe in using black people as slaves instead of just outright exterminating them all.

In the novel, the Nazis have managed to stave off economic collapse by using their superior technology to build an impressive industry and exploit the fuck out of every continent.

Yeah, haven't they done to Africa what China's in the process of doing?

Remember that the French economic principle of dirigism which saw such success under de Gaulle for nearly three decades was inherently fascist. Also Italy under Mussolini's economic policies and the guidance of the IRI was doing a wonderful job of rebuilding following the great depression, for Italy the opposite was true of Germany in that their economy would have flourished if they had avoided war. It was their involvement in the war, and the invasion of Italy that turned their economy sour and, and then crashed it.

If Germany could adapt is the better question.

>Remember that the French economic principle of dirigism which saw such success under de Gaulle for nearly three decades was inherently fascist.

You going to come up with an argument for why Economic Dirgism isn't inherently fascist or are you just going to post a reaction image?

Of course, if Hitler won everyone without blonde hair and blue eyes would've been thrown in ovens. There wouldn't be a free and moral society left in the world, don't let any russian agents tell you otherwise.

That was sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell.
Sci-fi nazi empire vs Sci-fi nippon mecha empire would be so fucking cool as a setting.

I could tell and I think it was still awesome element of world building. It's not about "le wacky nazies" memery. It was about people getting used to really, really awful shit. You know, like in the first Terminator Kyle makes an offhand remark how he learned to make explosives in a concentration camp as a kid and it's served as black comedy. Here you have something very similar, only it's served deadly serious, instead first building the image of normality.
Not counting Sewell, who is always awesome, that was literally the best moment of the entire series so far.

Not really. The Soviet Union was always an underachieving head-up-ass state. The fact that it lasted so long can mostly be attributed to a centuries-long Russian cultural tradition of fearing for your life if you speak out against the ruling power.

I always kinda wanted to play Infinite Worlds Reich-5 game of nazis jumping from alternate timeline to alternate timeline looking for the perfect Hitler to uh well, make their own world great again, or to find the one true Aryan homeland.

That's a pretty great idea.

user, you are overestimating the ruler-ruled mechanism and greatly underestimating basic economic issues.
I've lived through 80s in a commie state. You know why people went against the "ruler"? Because there was literally nothing to eat. You weren't starving, but that was literally it. The entire economy crashed and crashed so hard, that the "ruler" lost absolutely any credibility at this point.
I remember my father smuggling few pairs of jeans to Romania and from there shipping to Turkey three sewing machines, from where he brought back 15 bucks.
That what he was making for an entire year, working 10 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Ruler-ruled has NOTHING to do with it. But being so fucking poor you are eating rationed bread has.

>the utter reliance on a state of total war
Nice meme

No, nazi germany's economy was not completely dependant on war. Nazi germany was focused on war because 1: They were in a war 2: Their everything factories were being bombed, and you can't make shoes or trucks to transport food unless the place that makes them isn't being bombed every other week

They managed to turn themselves around from being the shithole that the wiemar republic was into a relative economic powerhouse, one that even after occupation by two hostile countries, is still going strong today. All that by getting rid of central bankers, returning to a gold-backed currency and nationalizing their banks.

Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, but there's no possibe way to summarize exactly what made the nazi economy so relatively healthy (with the exception of wartime) within 2000 characters.

>They managed to turn themselves around from being the shithole that the wiemar republic was into a relative economic powerhouse, one that even after occupation by two hostile countries, is still going strong today. All that by getting rid of central bankers, returning to a gold-backed currency and nationalizing their banks.

This is without a doubt the most autistic thing I've ever read. Stop posting and immediately take your own life.

t. Increasingly Nervous Soros

I'm sorry user-sama, I definitely value your opinion, please don't say such mean things.

speaking of Soros, I don't understand why he isn't rotting in a ditch somewhere considering he profits off of destabilizing the US and every other democratic country

youtube.com/watch?v=fq3abPnEEGE

Of course. That's why the Tsar fell in the first place.
What I'm saying is that the USSR was comprised of batshit inefficient bureaucracies, but it clearly didn't lead to a quick collapse.
The Soviet Union died a long, slow, painful death.

Yet it still managed to be #2 superpower for a long while. Funny how that works.

If you've got enough Atomic Weapons to reduce half of earth to a radioactive hulk, you can get away with a fair bit.

What about a setting like in 'K is for Killing', where America has gone Nazi from the inside, the KKK rising to power?

I liked that book.

>easterman
They really don't have any shame, do they?

Took me a while to get this.

You should try Walküre. It's a simillar setting and has amazing rules.