Playing the Harlem Hellfighters

So I've been wondering about starting a new short campaign with my partners in crime. I usually do mostly fictional stories in various time periods and games but this time I have a precise idea.

I want them to play a group of soldiers of the 369th Infantry Regiment during First World War.

A bit of context : Nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters by the Germans for their toughness and the fact they never lost a man in capture neither a trench during their time fighting them, the 369th Infantry Regiment was almost entirely composed of African Americans, sent to France to fight by America. In their own counrty, they were looked down upon and even harassed.

The French, short on troops and less concerned by race, treated them as equals and gave them French equipment to fight alongside them.

There are a lot more details about how they fought, how the Germans tried to enroll them by claiming the US had done nothing good to them etc... But I need your help : First, I need First World War art (or things that it around this era) and second I need your opinion on the idea, maybe even your take on it.

How to make them question their allegiance, how to make them feel the everyday of the trenches, how to make the battle more exciting when they do happen ?

OP here, will psot some art that correspond to what I'm looking for

post*

No mention of the game you play, I see? Go back to /pol/, my dear /leftypol/.

That would be WoD for the system but I use it in a realistic setting of my own.

I don't think it's that important since we focus more on roleplay and character rather than the system.

Not OP, but why does the game matter when it comes to background building for the campaign?
This isn't D&D where the mechanics overrule the lore and story out of hand.

Thank you.

Still OP, the next pics I'll post are of the Harlem Hellfighters themselves

...

>That would be WoD for the system but I use it in a realistic setting of my own.
You are missing golden opportunity with the whole squad of Blackulas

If I do fantastic setting for it (which I am considering ofr the record) I want them to be humans facing the war, facing the craziness of it and the supernatural elements that lingers below. Think Cthulhu without cosmic horros but rather traditionnal western monsters.

...

So you are doing a WWI Mortals/Hunter game?
Well, a fairly basic premise with a strong social twist, has a lot of support from the setting itself.

Then how about hidden vodun among them sacrificing his squadmates?

Not the OP but I had an idea for a blackula that came in one of two flavors:

1. He was a buffalo soldier who saw a carriage getting circled by natives. Turns out they were werewolves and they fucked his shit all up but allowed the carriage to get away. Somehow he was dragged away from the field and embraced by the grateful Brujha inside of it.

2. A boy coming of age shortly after WWI. With an interest in music and seeing that share croping was for the birds he decides to find his way to Europe where he could hopefully persue his love of music. Does some time as a deck hand on a merchant ship and eventually finds his way as a handy man in a rundown theather in France. Que WWII, He helps the "owner" of the place to escape but finds out she's the ghoul of the actual owner who was fond of his music and grateful for the rescue thus turning him into a Toreador.

That would fit yes. I thought about a vodun but more in the way that he would empower the fighters by killing other soldiers, arguing that whites never did anything for them and deserve no best than get sacrificed for their strengh. Players would have to look into their morals to make the 'right' choice : killing one of their own, a squad member, a battle brother, to save the lives of unknown people, not even part of the same 'race'.

>I need First World War art
I'd try /k/ for it, they are good for shit like that.
>How to make them question their allegiance,
The same way all turncoats operate: give them a far better deal than what they would get back home. In this case, in theory at least, the temptation would be strong, but iirc black American units had relatively low incidents of desertion.
>how to make them feel the everyday of the trenches,
Boring as fuck, mildly to extremely uncomfortable. The real meat of the roleplay should come from between time in the trenches, steadily moving forward until they are unceremoniously cycled to the front line of an assault, watching the haunted faces of other troops coming back, and dealing with other units. I had heard stories that scuttlebutt was about that the black soldiers had tails, and French and British troops would occasionally as about it.
>how to make the battle more exciting when they do happen?
Less is more.
They are ordered over the line, to charge. Smoke is everywhere, what began as an orderly march breaks down as gunfire cuts down men by the handful. An explosion happens nearby, throwing dirt at them and making their ears ring. A pc wipes their eyes clean, sees blood, the man next to him is a bloody ruin a few steps behind the squad. Yelling is in the distance thru the smoke.
It's a counter charge.
Are you using WoD or CotD?

If you're using WoD or something like CoC then black people are no less susceptible to supernatural bullshit than white people are.

And where are you getting that idea from?
Mildly curious.

Thanks for the suggestions

I'm using WoD (nWoD to be precise) cause it's what my players are used to. I put a few twists on the system through time, I wouldn't be able to recall them all since I've not played actual nWoD for a long time.

Hell if I know at this point, whenever I see stuff about WWI or II I instantly think of a horror game because who would ever RP a game about those eras straight without adding something extra to it.

Alright, I'm more familiar with nWoD than the others, but I only ran a single Mortals game that ended with everyone dying horribly...
Well, it seems to be a thing!

The normal nWoD setting always calls back to cthulhu ambiance when I do it, so that's how I want to play it : tiny soldiers, alone in the middle of an unknown land, fighting a battle that is not their own, lost as to what to do, why to do it and not even sure there will be one of them to come back to America to tell their story.

bumpy

Have some WWI art you wanna share ?

Honestly, playing WW1 straight is about as horror as you can possibly get without the supernatural. Shit was a goddamn meatgrinder on every side.

Yeah but it only gets players depressed, not intrigued.