What adventures could happen in a World War I setting? (supernatural elements and weird science allowed)

>Be me, stuck with one other guy after war
>Still have equipment because nobody told us to give it back because everyone but us are dead
>Everyone in town is dead
>Only other people I found are some guys from the enemy side, luckily enough they speak English
>We decide to try and head home together, or at least until we get to a working train station
>We walk two days to the next town, which also turns out to be empty except one person
>One of our foreign friends tries to shake him awake, but it turns out it was just a body
>Pull shirt up, torso is basically emptied of organs, clawed out
>fuckinforeignmedicine.jpg
>foreign guys start freaking out, something about some local bumblefuck monster curse, something about times of strife
>"Wouldn't be the first time we've had to kill something we don't know," says my friend
>Cue gun-click
>Low on ammo
>Have to go fight some crazy shit that I hope is just some insane moron who thinks people are tasty

Oh hey it's you again

The Communists/Socialists have taken over (Country Other than Russian Empire), and they're attacking (Wherever the fuck your players are)

Good job being an uneducated idiot who dismisses the global aspect of WWI

romanian front Gypsy magic

Serbian Vampire assassinates Arch-duke

Ghost of Hindenburg revived to lead the troops against the russians

dont change anything about the western front, just describe it as it was, see if the players notice

...

Read Youjo Senki

holy shit why had I not heard of these before? thank you anons

As a (western) eurofag oddly enough I have more qualms about being "disrespectful" with ww1 weird shit than with ww2. I dunno if I'd use it as a pulp inspiration.

I mean, my country was reckt pretty harder in the first than in the second, but it still is strange.

Weird science gets my jollies in a tangle

The italians bring trained yetis (token from the tibetan monks) to fight the austrians in the white war in the Alps (some battles took place at 4000 mt over the mountains glacier)

Between 1871 and 1936, socialists (including pre-Marxist socialists) attempted to take France over multiple times (the shortlived Paris Commune being the most succesful attempt, luckily).The non-Russian country most likely to fall to socialism (after maybe Germany) would be France.

Now imagine a situation in which the war continues into 1920, the Germans slowly but steadily manage to siphon troops from the East into the West (to counteract colonial troops and American intervention) and because of [insert cleverly thought out reason here] actually manage to go on the offensive. Paris eventually devolves into Stalingrad: Western Front Edition. Fighting on the streets, hand-to-hand combat in the middle of gunfights, tanks rolling through the boulevards, a nightmare.

To make things worse, the government has evacuated south (Orléans or some other major city), and insists on keeping the war going at all costs. The good people of Paris (and maybe some battleweary soldiers) aren't too happy about this of course, and under a socialist uprising they fight against both the French/Entente and the Germans/Central Powers, and even go as far as to establish their own government (which is actually centered around the Élysée palace, which the official government had abandoned). The goal of the socialist uprising would be to fully control Paris (and therefore establish itself as the legitimate government of France) and then argue for a peace treaty with the Germans (much like how the Soviets were willing to tolerate significant territorial losses to further entrench the revolution).

So you get three sides in the conflict:
>The Republic (supported by Britain and America)
>The Commune (supported by Soviet volunteers)
>The Opposition (pro-German collaborators, supported by Germany and whatever remains of its allies)
It's of course also possible to fuse the latter two into one, under the assumption that the Germans are willing to tolerate being encircled by socialists.

>and because of [insert cleverly thought out reason here] actually manage to go on the offensive
Perhaps they figured out first how to actually fight a 20th century war and were the first to implement proper combined arms warfare.

>and were the first to implement proper combined arms warfare
Sounds plausible enough, but I'm so stupid I don't understand what that means. Would you care to elaborate on that?

I'm not an expert on the matter, however if I recall correctly by the way armies worked the different divisions (armored, infantry, air, artillery, naval) did not operate in coordination. The reason for this is half that most of them had just been invented, and half the arrogance of officers (of noble descent, of course) who wanted the glory for themselves.

It meant that each division would do its own thing, lacking support from the others. You know how in war movies they're always like "Where's our fucking air support?" because they need it to break through the MG nest that's killing their men? Well, in WWI the only way to go through is to run really fast at it, because no support is coming.

Need some way to assault the other trench? Tough luck, the tank commander is measuring dick with the other side's tanks. And he doesn't take orders from you.

This seems kind of stupid and obvious now, but it was a really big deal back then. The old way of making war was dying, and it was time to invent a new one.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_arms#20th-century_developments

>and half the arrogance of officers (of noble descent, of course)
Would I be correct to extrapolate that this was less of a problem in the French Republic, as their officers would be appointed by merit rather than birth (as opposed to Britain and Germany)? If this is the case, then I have to wonder why the British didn't learn from the Crimean War debacle (especially the Charge of the Light Brigade).

Somebody has stolen the Black Stone (again) and Allah is angry/free (again)

You should learn about the eastern front, east Africa, Gallipoli, Galicia, and pretty much every front that wasn't the western front.

>Would I be correct to extrapolate that this was less of a problem in the French Republic, as their officers would be appointed by merit

Not really, since the French Army suffered from the same clique nature, owning to hard feeling left over from the Dreyfus Affair years before

>If this is the case, then I have to wonder why the British didn't learn from the Crimean War debacle (especially the Charge of the Light Brigade).

Rarely are such lessons learned quickly or easily in war

Combined Arms tactics have been around since the the 1600's. You're right in that tanks and air power had not been developed, but as soon as the allies put tanks at the front they used them to full effect in support of their infantry. Not to mention artillery had been in use to support infantry most of the war, especially when the creeping barrages were put to use.

Biopunk Entente vs Dieselpunk Central Powers.

>What adventures could happen in a World War I setting?
Trying to get food, trying to not get eaten by rats, trying to not go insane, trying to not die. Also, stormtrooper stuff.

Because ww2 has already been mythologized a feel-good story of heroes vs villains whereas ww1 is either forgotten or remembered as both the most deadly and the most pointless war ever waged.

>These are not the frogs we're looking for
>Move along

The vast majority of mainland europe consists entirely of trenches and fortifications, citys have pretty much become forts, towns and villages are almost unheard of due to the rural areas being engulfed by the war.
Advances have been made in farming where a substance commonly reffered to as 'gruel' can be grown almost anywhere, this becomes the staple diet of the europeans.
Children are raised from birth to be soldiers, and society is almost entirely war focused.
The aristocracys of europe have tightened their grasp in response to the rise of socialism.

Players could take the role of scouts who travel between city to city, checking which routes are clear, troop movement etc.

>worldwar1.com/itafront/marmolada.htm

Proof that with war it's always the truth that is stranger than fiction.

>The Socialists rise up in France the chaos they create allows Germany to push forward into France
>Word reaches the German socialists about the success of their French counterparts. They consider this new development in light of the Soviets near victory in their own civil war against counter-revolutionaries
>Emboldened by the rise of socialism as a major power to the east and west of Germany the German Socialist part rises up in a mid 1920 revolution. Germany is now wracked by it's own civil war, and as events grow worse it mingles with the French and Soviet civil wars. Borders lose meaning, and soon Europe is in a free for all from the Bay of Bascay to the Baltic harbor of Petrograd
>If the Socialists can pull out a victory in all three states then the whole world will be poised to be threatened by them. Britain and America reevaluate their options as Socialist parties grow within their own borders. Eugene V. Debbs is gaining momentum in the 1920 US presidential race.
>Italian socialists, hearing the call from the West (France), the East (Russia) and the North (Germany) they begin plotting their own revolution
>. Socialists and Syndicalists in Spain begin the same, but are opposed to each other.
>Irelands remaining free patriots consider the teetering of governments across Europe,and the growing discontent of British Socialists, prompting Irish leaders to prepare their own dual nature, socialist/nationalist revolution in the future, with hope that successful socialist regimes on the continent may be willing to help free Eire from British tyranny.
>Entente colonial troops, swept up in a whirlwind of political change and revolution begin drinking deep from the well of Socialism. As the war drags on they grow discontent fighting a war that never threatened their homelands. Men sneaking from across the battlefield and within their own ranks speak of the key to an end the pointless war: Revolution
The specter of Communism haunts the globe....

Does trenchfoot count as weird science?

>smithsonianmag.com/history/legends-what-actually-lived-no-mans-land-between-world-war-i-trenches-180952513/?utm_source=twitter.com&no-ist

That's a whole goddamn campaign right there

Zombie gas chemical warfare in the trenches.

In terms of using them in a co-ordinated fashion however, that really didn't happen until later in the war. Before that, yes you'd have tanks and infantry fighting on the same battlefield, but they weren't fighting together. Each would just be doing its own thing. Same with aircraft and artillery. You would often try to soften up an enemy position with artillery before sending the troops in, but again, that was two separate operations. Using them in concert came much later.

The way we fight these days (and for that matter, in WW2) is by combined arms. That means all forces on a battlefield working in concert towards common objectives. Essentially, each part of the military (infantry, armour, artillery, aircraft etc) support each other to achieve the objective. This sounds super-basic and completely logical, but it really was revolutionary in 1917 and 1918 when it started being used by the Allies, and one of the main reasons the trench stalemate was broken. The Germans never managed it as well as the Allies, especially when it came to tanks (The Germans only made around 50 or so tanks in the whole war. Compare that to the 3,600 FT-17's alone that the French produced).

Being marauded by an anachronistic drone UACV painted bronze with several cogs haphazardly welded onto it to better fit the setting. The culprit is a man wearing an ill-fitting suit that is almost like mail as he has sewn many gears onto its surface, with a pair of goggles sitting on his top hatted head. As soon as he is defeated, he and his technology is quickly forgotten.

First time that I have seen anyone else mention this game on Veeky Forums.

Damn anarchists!

Tabletop campaign of NecroVision when?

Trenchfoot that leads to horrible mutations maybe?

Would it go under Deadlands or All Flesh Must be Eaten? I suppose you could also rip apart Shadowrun or get some pieces of GURPs.

Check the french rpg : la brigade chimerique

>the sergeant of the base tell the party to kill the Rats in the basement of their makeshift base in the ruins a general store somewhere in northern france

are you C.M.?

>you will never have a generic noblebright Tolkein fantasy/generic GRRM grimderp fantasy progress to WW1
>you will never break the trench stalemate with lizardmen, werewolves, wolfmen, various angels, and roving clouds of darkness as mages chase down biplanes above

Time travelers turned everything into a proxy war by arming their chosen sides with anachronistic technology.

>All the standard non-human intelligent races of fantasy have been colonized by humans in one way or another
I can dig it. I somehow like the idea of kebab elves.

>The vast majority of mainland europe consists entirely of trenches and fortifications, citys have pretty much become forts, towns and villages are almost unheard of due to the rural areas being engulfed by the war.

30 Year's War is a helluva drug, yes.

Possibly. Though I dunno, this is true for the evulz nazi (and japs), but I don't feel qualms about making, say, britons weird science-y (and as we all know weird science means shifting morals at best). Wouldn't that be kinda disrespectful too? I mean, they DID free my country back then.

Woah. Seriously, that was just... woah.

Lovecraft and his ghouls would have a field day with that.

And apparently fictional characters aren't immune to artillery barrages.

It goes further. Throughout history, Combined Arms seems to be one of those ideas that come and go, usually because of corruption, lack of money and general degradation of the respective nation.

People talk about macedonian phalanx, but it is effective only if, at least, with a shock cavarly to charge the rear, preferably with lighter infantry to protect the flanks. Many greek generals after Alexander failed to think of that, or couldn't afford heavy cav.

On the other side of the world, chinese war wheelbarrows depended on infantry support to spearhead attacks and counter cavarly.

Everybody knows their soap is made of fallen soldiers, dogs and horses.

They are just glad they have soap.

Could also be generic and not-so-generic fantasy races fighting each other over a "hugely complicated alliance" system (really just an excuse to exercise nationalism with guns), like real WW1

Or maybe all the generic races on the human side because they were colonized a la Britain against the others.

Don't forget a lot of interservice rivalry bullshit. Apparently, the human-wave tactics of the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese war were actually infantry getting maimed by artillery because the fucking officers refused to talk to each other.

Both sides recruited ghouls with the promise of free snacks. Turns out, ghouls just eat dead humans, they aren't cannibals and now they're heavily armed and pissed off.

Not supernatural, but it would be nice if all the interesting prototype weapons and armour made it into the media.

>Don't forget a lot of interservice rivalry bullshit.
Didn't Churchill approve of Galipoli despite three projections (including one of his own) proving that it'd end in horrific failure because he didn't like that the BEF got all the glory while the navy did very little in terms of fighting?

Some prototypes were downright stupid though. Pic related: the boirault machine with an impressive max speed of 1 km/h.

Leaving aside all the delightful supernatural stuff, how about the entire German East African Campaign?

You've got Lettow-Vorbeck and ~12K troops (mostly African) tying down ~250K British, Portuguese, and Belgian troops for over three years. You've got a German light cruiser hiding in a river delta while the UK sends monitors all the way from Europe to sink it. You've got an armed German steamer controlling Lake Tanganyika so the UK sends two disassembled gunboats overland from South Africa to fight it. You've got a German zeppelin flying 5000 miles to resupply Lettow-Vorbeck only to turn around at the last moment thanks to phony UK radio messages.

There's plenty of weird and wild real stuff associated with WW1.

Was thinking more of a chtulhu-ish scenario. Everything is quiet on the western front, but holy shit what is that on the no man land?
You'd need an isolated stretch of trenches. The scenario might need an truce of sort with the germans.

Fast forward 50 years. Everyone is making jokes about their former "capitalist shitholes" and how they are glad that this bullshit is finally over and how horrible it was.

>tfw you try capitalism and it fails but that's okay because it wasn't real capitalism so you try again and it fails but that's okay because it wasn't real capitalism so you try again and it fails but that's okay because it wasn't real capitalism so you try again etc etc.

Too bad the Darwinists got bullshit op stuff.

>While the masses would not want to hear that in the founding manifesto there are several points that are kept variable thus enabling several solutions.
>Each solution getting it's own tag.

>Mortar shells specially designed to be fired from a Mortier de 58mm type 2, containing a gas that causes animal cells to become unable to cease life function

Jesus Christ

The Russo-Japanese War also fucked everyone during WWII, because though nominally only the Russians and Japanese participated all the other nations were sitting by and taking notes because it was the first modern war between two World Powers. The Brits and the French and the Germans saw the Japanese throw waves of men at machine gun emplacements and win quite often the Russian strongpoints wouldn't fall until they literally were out of bullets and then added that to their tactical maneuvers.

That reminds me of a comic I read where the Allies and the Germans declare a temporary truce in one section of trenches because something is preying on their men after dark. Turns out it's a Wendigo.
Pretty cool comic.
Also, I had an idea awhile back of a bunch of Innsmouth men getting drafted into service during WWI, thought there could be some fun had with that.

Apparently the entire Japanese invasion of China may have been the Japanese military trying to screw over the Navy, since who needs a fucking Navy to invade China?

The Clankers weren't exactly starved for power either, the newer german mechs were wild.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Baltimore