I can understand how my dumbfuck players might be confused by my description of this campaign as "WWII realism". A lot of ambiguity there, I tell you.
Seriously, how do I communicate to these morons that there aren't going to be any mad scientists or steampunk bunkers in this fucking thing?
You read off your comment to them. Could try that, reasonable adult.
It only makes it worse man, they think I'm, I dunno, obfuscating so it's a big reveal?
Straight up talking to these people is not helping. I'm not sure what game they thought they were joining but this ain't it.
>there aren't going to be any mad scientists or steampunk bunkers in this fucking thing
there were plenty of mad scientists in WWII
Don't be pedantic, you know what I mean
I think OP means mad scientists who actually get results.
maybe don't be such a stick in the mud and let them have fun? No mad scientists and steampunk bunkers or similar things sounds boring as hell
Plenty of bunkers as well. The Germans even built brutalist fortresses.
Just not much steampunk.
The steampunk qualifier was the important bit there, you understand.
Maybe they do want to play in Wierd War II because they think it's cooler? Have you considered adapting your campaign?
Dress yourself as an Obersturmbahnfuhrer and hang their entire family before setting their houses on fire, it should communicate that you're not joking about the gritty tone of the game.
I think you're underestimating how many mad scientists were involved in World War Two. Seriously, many MANY things that seem common to us with the benefit of historical hindsight were essentially mad science for their day.
Nuclear weapons are the biggest one. There was a not entirely discounted theory that an atomic bomb might literally ignite the atmosphere. They decided to test it anyway, despite documented reservations from highly educated and respected physicists that it might literally destroy life on Earth, just to see if it would happen.
Aside from that, all sorts of weapon systems in WW2 were basically mad science for their time. They built aircraft that were so big and heavy they didn't think it was actually possible to fly, such as the B-29. Rocket weapons were entirely unheard of and many dismissed them as insane, until the Germans flung a few thousand of them at London and built a goddamn fighter plane powered by rockets, which killed more of its own pilots than the enemy.
And those were just the actually successful weapons successfully used in combat. Just slightly beyond that you get crazy-ass shit like bat bombs and proto-smartbombs guided by pigeons pecking guiding fins and giant 1500-ton tanks that fire shells the size of jeeps.
>Maybe they do want to play in Wierd War II because they think it's cooler? Have you considered adapting your campaign?
this.
OP, consider that your players are not confused as to this point, but that they're trying to tell you something. They want to have fun and are trying to lay out what would be fun for them.
>Just not much steampunk.
Obviously, ww2 was dieselpunk.
They got results, though. The americans and soviet snagged up as many Nazi (and Japanese) scientists as they could, and gave them full pardons for whatever they had done in return for the scientific data. That's part of why we know so well how long a person in various states of clothing can survive when floating in cold water (as, say, a pilot downed over the atlantic), and even how the americans could get to the moon (rocket research, not so controversial, but still nazi).
There are several of these rotting away in my city, because it's too expensive to tear them down.
One got turned into an Aquarium though, which is pretty awesome.
On that note, you want some fucked stuff in that vein, look up Japan's Unit 731. Basically a whole unit of Mengeles.
Yup, that is really fucked up. The most fucked up thing though is that a lot of the top scientists, as mentioned, were fully pardoned and continued to have lucrative careers in Japan setting up various hospitals and medicinal stores (probably well utilizing their uncommon expertise they had gotten from years of morally unrestrained research). I'm pretty sure one of the top apotechary chains in Japan today was founded by one of these uber-mengeles.
Link for those interested:
www(DOT)japantimes.co.jp/news/1998/08/14/national/green-cross-founder-tied-to-unit-731-preservation/#.We9lT1t-qUk
Nazis invented F2O2, took a look at it, and decided that something that set concrete on fire was a little too much even for them.
I saw stuff saying as much while browsing Wiki. Pretty fucky situation all around.
What's stopping you from running a mad scientist campaign?
Sure, but it's not like you said WWII and they insisted on being unicorn ranchers. You can fit it into the campaign whatever you were originally planning
>There was a not entirely discounted theory
Which may sound scary, until you remember that outside of the realm of pure mathematics most "theories", no matter how absurd, cannot be fully proven false. Remember all the talk about how the LHC was gonna make a black hole that'd devour the planet? That shit hasn't been "entirely discounted" either.
>from highly educated and respected physicists
Tesla had his Death Rays, von Platen his perpetum mobile. The proof is in the science, not the signature. But the signature sells tabloids.
You're also missing a big part of innovation and development here, testing various shit to see what works. Why are the rocket planes mad science and not the jet planes? Because the latter worked, and they're what we have today. But they had no way of knowing that back then. So they tested both, and the rocket plane was found lacking. That isn't in any way mad science, that's actual, normal, sane science and engineering.
>all these people telling op to include special snowflake shit in his realism campaign
I never joined a deathwatch campaign with the intent of playing a catgirl. If they're so insistent on anachronistic autism, though ought to find another gm who is ADVERTISING such an adventure or at least willing to do one
the guy in charge of Unit 731 invented the world's first reliable portable water filter
Wasn't it ClF3?
The rocket plane was actually used in combat, user. And there is NOTHING sane in the engineering of the Komet. That specifically is a product of the final days of the Third Reich when they just didn't give a shit anymore.
The idea is fine. Seeing if it works is fine. Actually putting that into service is mad science.
>Remember all the talk about how the LHC was gonna make a black hole that'd devour the planet? That shit hasn't been "entirely discounted" either.
Anyone with half a working brain said that even if it produced a black hole it would be so minuscule it would evaporate in nanoseconds
>anachronistic autism
But it specifically isn't. That's what people are talking about.
This is like joining a Deathwatch campaign and going "huehue, I want to make a space marine who worships Machines instead of the God Emperor and thinks cybernetics are superior to the blessed human form :^)"
Yes, I forgot about all of the steampunk tech in WW2. Also, yes, WW2 was host to many crazy inventions, both for back then and even now, but that doesnt instantly validate the memey fucking cartoon mad scientist trope being used in a realistic campaign.
Yes, but the point was that, since part of the point of doing the test was to find out what happens, it technically cannot be ruled out with 100% certainty. Only in a very technical, "akshually..." sense, but that's enough for, say, sensationalistic headlines.
Could be.
>all these people telling op to include special snowflake shit in his realism campaign
You going to give an actual reason this is bad, or just throw around buzzwords and false comparisons? Because mad scientist shit in WWII is nowhere near on the same level as catgirls in Deathwatch
I think the Ohka was even more mad. Basically a human guided missile.
Get a different group, dude. A few anons will tell you to compromise. They're dumb.
Oh sure if your players were like "oh yeah I get it but I want weird shit" then compromise would be totally fine.
But if I understand correctly, you told your players "this is a realistic historical campaign" and they were all "lmao he's hiding things".
In this case, your game is going to suck no matter what. Can't have a decent campaign without BASIC COMMUNICATION.
If your players universally expect that, and you can stomach it, you should meet their expectations.
We didn't have clear statistics on damaging human bodies until Mengele kill all those people.
"Striking a nail with a hammer from an arm's length away without ear protection cause slight but permenant hearing loss" is pretty useful to know, etc.
Also he's the reason we're good at organ transplants.
So Iron Hands Techmarine?
Not ww2 era, but
pubs.acs.org
is a treasure.
Well done, you seem to grasp the subtlties.
The other guy is right, I was thinking of CIF3 and got it confused with foof
Wait. Wait.
Op, this is important.
Is this an online game, or an in-person game?
Tolkien orcs had tanks
>Make new character
>DM asks me roll with a DC of 19
>Fail
>Machine guns fire, the party dies
>iron hand
>subtle
It's an obvious exaggeration, but by no means a false comparison, but if you're trying to tell me that some steampunk retard in a WW2 setting isn't being a special snowflake, I think you need to evaluate what your understanding of the word is.
Kill yourself, brainlet
One of them has a foot blown off by a land mine, is sent home with no bullshit bringing him back.
Once they realize that being crippled just gets your character retired and not given a mech leg, they will figure it out.
Maybe they're expecting you to run something that isn't boring.
>war stories are boring
Why are brainlets so willing to admit that they're intellectually inferior enough to absolutely require fantastical elements to enjoy something?
WW1 Boring... Wut? I have no extreme rp experience or ambitions, but a setting like that just sounds amazing to play... if it's an online thing, i would love to join
"And this particular campaign is not going to be covering them."
Is it that hard to understand? Just like the vast majority of campaigns don't cover the Italian front at all, DMs don't and often won't throw players into the entire war.
First time I've told people to fuck off there. Strange times
Ah, yes, the paradox of medicine.
You know. How you're not supposed to do certain things to living people, but the only way to study what happens to living people who suffer those things and learn how to fix it is to do those things to living people?
The insane cannot give informed consent, but to consent to any of the experiments in question after being fully informed, you would have to be insane.
War stories in books and movies are fine, but a combat-focused tabletop game where everyone's a human fighter would get stale pretty fast.
There's nothing stopping combat focused campaigns from being interesting save for your GM and system. But if it's still not your cup of tea, it'd be more polite to not sign up instead of trying to force inappropriate characters into it.
Source on this? I never heard mention of self-propelled vehicles used by them.
People who think fighters are boring simply don't know how to play them, as fighters are virtually meant to be part of a team, whether it's with other classes or other fighters. If you are a team of fighters, you either work as a unit to get the most of the fact that you're interchangeable, or specialize so that each fighter has a specific niche. You have to be creative with you resources and work harder to get the same results as a magician, but when you do you feel like a genius and the later down the tech tree the game takes place, the more resources you have. The soldiers of WW2 ranged from your bog standard GI to a chinese swordsman who was armed similar to a medieval levy to cossacks who were armed like it was still the 18th century and acting like it was still WWI to the British Home Guard who did just step out of WWI using the same equipment to Jack Churchill with his sword and bow to Simo Häyhä who wasn't even given special training: he was just a farmer they told to shoot things, and he shot them well. There's a load of variation of weapons, tactics, and experience between the fighters of the last great war.
And you fucking people are being pedantic. That's all shit that HAPPENED in WW2, stuff that is very clearly under the blanket of "WW2 realism", so when OP says their group wanted mad scientists they clearly meant people trying to make some kind of occult super weapon or a fucking Frankenstein's monster super soldier or creating guns out of tesla coils. Fantasy stuff.
If fireballs and half-dragon chars are what is needed to get you invested in a game i feel sorry for you.
Fuck those guys OP. Ditch them and look for new players.
What if the tabletop game recreates the tone and feel of those movies and books? Then it should be fine.
TEE HEE HEE
Just tell them it's Band of Brothers or COmpany of Heroes.
Or this if you're a Slav youtube.com
Veeky Forums is extremely player centric. So I'm not really surprised that it's advice on this matter is "Maybe you shouldn't run what you wanted to and they signed up for. Just bend over and take it, a little lube will help."
Yeah trying to run a realistic ww2 game in d&d would be garbage. I don't think anyone here is actually mentally retarded enough to attempt that.
Actually, that’s bullshit. Other Nazi scientist contributed to those fields you mentioned, but Mengle was only a torturer. His assistant actually destroyed all of his notes upon capture anyway, due to them not following any sort of rhyme, reason, or even basic scientific structural procedure.
He was just a fucking monster. Ironically, the perfect sort of target I would send OP’s players on a mission to capture or kill.
If talking like an adult is completely off the table, send them after a nazi occultist. Preferably in either neutral territory or a city that's about to be under siege. They have to violently exfiltrate him. Great mission right there, promotes small unit tactics which is how you make the pcs feel special in a military game, and there are literally endless ways of setting this kind of thing up.
Then have literally nothing supernatural happen, he's just some ss officer with funny ideas. Maybe he's hunting some secret society or following the advice of an astrologer. All things that really happened. All things that weren't actually supernatural.
That will drive a definitive nail in the coffin of the game having a tweest.
If your players are irl friends, work with them to build a game everyone wants to play.
If they're online randoms, junk them and hope you find more players.
>the freezing rain soaks you to the bone
>you try to climb up, but you're too weak and hungry
>you can feel the soles of your feet start to calcify as your boots fill up with mud
>the ss shows up in large numbers and forces you into the back of their cramped prisoner trolly
Yeah that doesn't sound like a drag at all
this has me all sorts of steamed, i really hope this is just bait
youtu.be
heres a good video on them if anyone is interested
Hurrr hhHAAA NAAAAAARRRRRR PPFFFTTTLBLBLBLBLBLBBLBLLBBBB
NAH NAR HAHAHAHA
fun fact that some people might not be aware of, there exist other tabletop systems, some even exclusively about WW2, that are not Dungeons & Dragons
This might be shocking, so I understand if you need some time to cope with this user
>doesn't want to step into the shoes of his fathers father
>doesn't want to experience the horrors of war firsthand
>doesn't want to actually have to put thought into combat
They clearly aren't the right people for the game. Maybe switch to Castle Falkentstein or something and run your current campaign with like minded people.
Just tell them "No, this is a realistic WWII campaign." Whenever they giggle and ask about hidden agendas just say "Nope, realistic WWII"
A literal lie.
>Straight up talking to these people is not helping.
Grow some fucking testicles already.
To a lot of people the idea of a straight WWII roleplaying game sound boring as shit and clearly your players share that oppinion.
Care to elaborate for the rest of us, user?
As a DM, you must adapt. I do NOT mean you should turn it into Weird War II. I mean you should realize that the view of your players is in line with young men signing up to fight: They want a cool, bombastic adventure, but as soon as they hit the front lines, reality hits them. This actually sounds like it could be a good coming-of-age story where their idealistic fantasies are shattered by the horrors of war.
It's your game, you were upfront about what the players should expect. Anybody who says you should change it into Weird War II just because your players say so is a fucking moron.
That's speculation, not canon.
The Japanese really weren't studying that shit to cure anyone though, and the whole data stash was found in some second-hand books grab box decades afterwards, so it wasn't even like it improved early diagnostics of any of the diseases they infectected their prisoners with.
The only result was that the US biological weapons program went from "hand out blankets" to "we too can now air-drop the plague on people!"
A lot of players don't want to play as a regular expendable guy in a story about a conflict they can't majorly effect.
It sounds fun to me but a lot of players can't into historical realism.
It's not his game, it's the group's game. The players aren't there to hear a story, they're there to create one.
>all these people telling op to include special snowflake shit in his realism campaign
Just play the US then? They had working radios and radar fuzes on artillery shells.
>the only way to find and study people who have been infected with a disease or suffered a certain wound is to be the one who caused them harm in the first place
user, are you stupid?
you sound like you don't know how to gm a military campaign.
>play as a singular expendable guy
Then don't? Play as a special forces squad operating in neutral/enemy territory to complete secret missions of great strategic importance. You, know, the same way you don't play a level 1 expert mud farmer in D&D or a completely normal, powerless human in WoD.
Very true, but waiting for it to happen naturally makes it pretty hard to study.
A lot of what we know about blunt force trauma, exposure, hypothermia, starvation and dehydration comes from WW2 concentration camp experiments.
This. Your players could just be grunts, but if you set it up right they're the ones taking the bridge that'll change the battle and shift the entire front. Or something else that will ensure their contribution is a pivotal one.
>playing a table top game and having a mental jackoff of what war was like its the same a living the experiences of your forefathers
>this is what ww2 fags unironically believe
you caught my attention with historical RPGs but if its just a bunch of fags blowing their own horns then I'll pass
I'm not saying it isn't true that a good deal of our medical knowledge comes from Nazi scientists and doctors, my objection is to the other user's framing of the situation as some great "paradox of medicine", as though every day doctors resist the temptation to start infecting their patients woth diseases so that they can study them.
I just don't get the point of a historical game. There's a set outcome. Rpgs are all about making choices and decisions and when how it ends is already written I just wonder what the point is.
For opening up into alt universe shit mostly. The only WWII game I could get behind would be one where we start as basic soldiers, come across some nazi science/magic amalgamation experiment that goes wrong and gives us funky powers, then we go full Hellboy.
Yeah. He definitely overstated it. But it's true to an extent. Progress can be slow when there's no moral way to test theories and gather data.
Pretty much why psychology will always be a soft science.
>There's a set outcome
Not if the players fuck up enough.
Really? There's a set outcome when your fictional unit of soldiers go to attack a fictional base to capture a fictional officer?
"Historical" means it takes place in the era and is grounded in reality, it doesn't mean that the game has to just be a history lesson.
How can you people play RPGs and have so little imagination?
There was a guy in China that read a book and figured out how to derive insulin in his basement, with kitchen equipment, and was able to make enough for his entire block, whole under Japanese occupation. If that's not some fantasy mad science shit I dunno what is.
There's a very good reason the Chinese view medical practitioners as sorcerers and mystics.