Setting for the Background.

[malika]

There would be various factions of course within each force but I dont see the need to incoorporate them into the game at once, some could best be kept in the background for a while.

You would include the usual upgraded german troopers and then even nastier SS troopers to begin with. Volunteers could be added in time then...

Another thing you should note is that the Soviets were part of the Allies at the time, eventhough each nation would probably have a different organised political and military system they are still allied to each other (much or less)

[xeoran]

Valid points, sorry, I wasnt clear- introduce the new factions as allies later on but just have the three big forces (Axis, Ally, Soviet) with a variety of options.

To be frank theres so much that can be done its not like we'll run out of extras and demi factions for a long while...

[malika]

Exactly! And with the pulp element we can go totally crazy! ;D

[xeoran]

Its gonna be fun! Mm, pulp.....now if we can just get Cthulu in too....

[malika]

Lovecraft superpower daemon right? I dont know how far Darkson wants to take the pulp element but personally Im more fond of the idea that the wars are still fought out by large armies and military organisation etc instead of a few superpower beings.

[xeoran]

Very much so but i also like the idea that occasionally something nasty and occult turns up. It should still be a war and realistic but the occasional pulp frippery is nice.....Cthulu might be a bit overpowered though!

[myincubliss]

xeoran said:

Its gonna be fun! Mm, pulp.....now if we can just get Cthulu in too....

hey aren't you quoting me from somewhere else on the boards?

anyhoo, cthulhu isn't just going to appear on the battlefield - instant win doesn't make for much of a fun game (unless you're the person playing cthulhu (*cough* in the card game *cough*))
surely twould be more of a background thing... nyarlathotep is most likely to take a physical presence, though i'm hoping that we're not going to see the beast (model for the sphinx) roaring around...

hellboy, however... (damn you darkson and you're inspiringness... damn you wizkids for making heroclix...)

[xeoran]

I know but are you going to make Germans the goodies? Thy're always the baddies (in much the same way as Americans are always anti establishment mavericks with non stop ammo, Brits are either poncy aristos or working class fellows...every nation hasa degree of typeset- I'd love to see a game with evil Americans, good Germans or such....
And America is the big market...

[malika]

There isnt really clearly a good guy or a bad guy, its free for the player to decide. You could have games in which the Germans are the goodies or where they are evil. Personally I will keep them all in a grey area since I cant stand the idea of "good guy-bad guy"

[xeoran]

True but look at the German factions so far- Occult led by Rasputin (surely evil, st least capricious), Crazy Pure Aryans (definately evil as they are extreme racists) and Drug faction (crazy scientists as goodies...?!)

Then compare to the cigar chewing happy boys for America.....

[malika]

True but look at the German factions so far- Occult led by Rasputin (surely evil, st least capricious),

I doubt the occult is a truly evil thing. The idea of the Germans being bad guys like "oh look we're so dark and evil" is just...well very...very lame! Pulp is fine, but humor and cliches from the early 20th century will not work on me...

Crazy Pure Aryans (definately evil as they are extreme racists)

Fanatical Germans who want to create the ubermensch. Heck everybody is trying to work on the ultimate soldier. Heck if we look at the US military at that time they had racial segregation within their army in which black men formed their own units.

and Drug faction (crazy scientists as goodies...?!)

Why are the scientists immediatly crazy? Heck US pilots were given speed in order to fly across the Pacific! The idea of combat drugs have been experimented upon by everybody (even waaaay after WWII...what about LSD and Angeldust) The Germans are taking it a level further.

Then compare to the cigar chewing happy boys for America.....

Dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations, smuggling out Nazi warcriminals so they can train death squadrons in Latin America, feeding their pilots speed, large racial seperations, commiting mass murders to those who resist.

Heck if I wanted to I could make a totally evil US faction which would still be historically accurate! I could make the Germans goodies by having honourable (while chemically upgraded) soldiers who are sacrificing their bodies for Great Germania to destroy the unworthy ones and create more Lebensraum to have their families live on. Each faction believed to be doing the right thing, no "bad guy" will do horrible things just for the "badness" of it. If we look at the extermination of jews, homosexuals, gypsies and communists commited by the Nazis we will see that executing them by rifle was very bad for morale of the troops. Thus differen methods were found. When Himler (the guy responsible for taking care of the "Jewish question") went to eastern Europe to check up what was up the first thing he did was puke our of horror. You can see that these figures are still human and believe to be doing the right thing. The ends justify the means sort of speak.

[xeoran]

But its not reality..its a game- i seriously doubt we will see an American army list with Coloured units, options to give your troops speed etc....unfortunately. America rarely faces up to itself in wargames (think of any wargame featuring Americans and generally the only complaint is that they are too focused on money....
As for the Germans- if you were to look at each faction, without knowledge of who they were or any WW2 knowledge whou would you say were the evil ones. Gas masks just look evil really. Its cliched but scientists and occultists usually seem to be evil, alchemists or hippies. Germans could be alchemists (definately not hippies...) but even that is fairly neutral. And the Aryan faction must be evil.....you cant condone racism (you can ignore it- like the US coloured troops though). Years of Hollywood mean that the pulp view is that Germans are unthinking, shaven headed, racist loonies with a few calculating aristocrats and the occassional goodie who usually lets a hero escape....This is a Pulp game so it will be Pulpy...

mean I'd love to see evil Americans vs goodie Germans but i doubt it will happen, this is an American game and they wont want to isolate the home crowd....

[malika]

Im not saying that the Americans should be evil or that the Germans should be good guys. I think Darkson and me discussed this a few months back about letting the player decide how he wants his faction to be. The background would be written from various perspectives showing each faction as potentially good or evil but its up to the player to decide what he/she wants. If you want to play with a goodie good guy American force or a mighty heroic knight in shiny armour Germany its up to you. I also dont think the background of the Germans would be really "race" oriented as in "white people are better than black people" but more along the lines of "we are the ubermensch and are better bla bla" you can make up your own interpretation, stick to Nietzsche's vision of the Ubermensch for all i care

[xeoran]

Well German ideas on Ubermenshe etc said there were five different racial groups of which the superior was the Aryan and that the Aryans had lost much of their special racial power by mixing and mating with inferior races....so they are racist to basicly anyone not blond, blue eyed and tall.....particually if taken to extremes like the Aryan faction.

No the Americans should not be evil (i was going a bit crazy there, didnt explain properly) but that this is Pulp so the Germans will always seem as baddies and Americans as goodies no matter what really. Or at least most people will view it taht way, remeber the conversations on what armies there should be, people automatically categorised the Germans as evil and the Americans as good. Sure it may differ from player to player in how he views his forces but the fundumental image is that Allies are good, Axis bad and Russians neutral.

[malika]

remeber the conversations on what armies there should be, people automatically categorised the Germans as evil and the Americans as good. Sure it may differ from player to player in how he views his forces but the fundumental image is that Allies are good, Axis bad and Russians neutral

When was that and where are those people from?

To quote darkson:

This is NOT a site meant to promote Nazism, the politics of Adolf Hitler, or any other political ideology. It deals with the subject during a particular period of history--nothing else.