Back in Issue 5 of Critical Miss I wrote a scenario entitled "The Big Push", which was set during the First World War and was designed to offer players desiring of "gritty reality" more "gritty reality" than they had ever dreamed existed.

I envisaged it more as a funny piece to read, a satirical comment on so called "gritty realistic" games. But now Spatula's gone one better. He actually tried running it!

Actually ran this game last weekend, with a few small modifications. We spent just over an hour on character gen, and I really pushed the players to dig deep and make some complex and enjoyable characters. To begin with, I told them the game was set in 1910, so they all made very normal characters, not combat machines. One guy wanted to be an Indiana Jones clone, another wanted to own his own pub. Naturally, I gave them every possible indulgence.

Then I jumped ahead to the war and their characters "volunteered". They were a bit unhappy about this, but when I explained it was all to ensure that they developed really good, deep characters, they seemed to accept it. Then came the actual Big Push. I had decided to use the Cthulhu system, both because it's quick and easy, and because I detest GURPS. It also made a useful large distraction unit, helping to create the illusion that I had some actual plot in mind. But I digress; the result of using Cthulhu was that I may, possibly, have made the artillery too deadly (made up my own rules for it).

Even so, you should have seen the look on the face of one guy as his character got mowed down by machine gun fire in the very first round of combat. I don't think any of them made it more than 30m past their starting trench. One guy tried to run back, using the excuse of bringing his fallen comrades back for medical treatment, but I kept enough "friendlies" waiting in the trench that he couldn't just sneak by them, as he had planned. Eventually, he was forced to rejoin the attack, but he still insisted on leopard crawling his way there. That wasn't altogether stupid, except that a random artillery shell caught him dead-on (I believe I rolled 02).

However, thanks to his gallant cowardice in dragging half-dead corpes back to safety, two of his colleagues actually survived the battle, though with bits amputated or non-functional.

We spent over an hour on character gen, and played for less than 10 minutes. The flogging I got for this was totally worth it.

Also, I mentioned adding my own modifications: Apart from using Cthulhu, I also changed some historical facts a little. For a start, I put the players in a Highland division (I had stipulated at the start of character gen that they'd all be scotsmen from in or around Glasgow) which in reality only took part in the battle several months later. This was done for two reasons: First, to add insult to mortar-induced injury by having my players die wearing kilts, and second, so that I could have a Scottish NPC named Lt James Tait as the officer leading the party on their 'special mission'. James Tait was my great grandfather, and he actually was wounded at the Somme, an event I included in this session. It's not often you get to include real family members in roleplaying games.

http://criticalmissforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=130

Damn. I wish I could have seen their faces.

Tags: critical miss, roleplaying