[Burning Wheel] - No Pasaran!

[nerdnyc]

Sunday I am starting a Spanish Civil War campaign using the Burning Wheel Game system - adapted for the setting. Luke Crane has been a great help with answering questions about era weapons, tactics and optional rules.

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Cast of characters: a Mexican physican, an American painter, a German bodyguard and a British journalist. I have prepared several supporting cast members, mostly Spanish, French and Russian.

The Mexican, a member of the Mexican Communist Party, attended a rally with a member of the POUM asking for supports to travel to Spain and help fight for freedom; he heeded the call.

The American, a dust bowl farmer's son, who went to college after serving in the Army. He became a painted and travel to Europe often and befriended Picasso. When the war started he became interested due to Picasso's involvement.

The German was a bodyguard and personal assistant of an important political figure in Germany. When Hitler comes to power, his employer is taken away and he barely makes it out of Germany escaping to Switzerland. When Germany agrees to help out Franco and the Insurgents, he realizes that the battlefront against fascism is in Spain.

The British journalist, a liberal supporter, goes to fight with a romanticised idea of war. He is also comissioned by The Worker, a socialist newspaper, to act as their war correspondant.

They are all going to meet on the train going to basic training outside of Barcelona. The American mgiht be asked to help in training, but he has never seen action.

After training, they are going to be part of a party militia, the POUM (Marxist Unity Party) that is going around to the smaller towns and villages routing out Nationalist supporters. This will provide some low-level combat and a better feel for the environment.

The politics of the people will really come out when they are debating about whether a small landowner must give up his property for collectivisation. Many priest and nuns were attacked, as well as churches, monastery and convents burned. The group will have to figure out what they will do when surrounded by such strong anti-clerical sentiments. The Mexican, although a Communist, is still a devout Catholic.

The POUM will be called to be part of the Republic's assult on the Balearic Islands, first landing on Ibiza and then moving on to Majorca. Marjorca was (and will be) a much harder fight. The Repubic army eventually withdrew, but we'll see how well my team does.

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I have never played in, let alone run a historical RPG. I am very excited  and hope that the players really get into it. I am still debating about how closely to follow the actually events and/or to allow my players to change the outcome of the war.

After all, how much can 4 men do?

[Mike Holmes]

After all, how much can 4 men do?

Is one named Oppenheimer by any chance?

The question of how much to let players affect a known metaplot like a war is actually a simple matter of preference, IMO. But make sure that you're all on the same page with it. Otherwise the players may feel that the metaplot is railroading them at times. If they accept it up front, this isn't a problem.

Have a discussion with them, and see what shakes loose.

Mike

[Luke]

i drool, i cry. why can't someone run games like this for me?!

I want to play Eric Blair in the Spanish Civil War!

Oh the humanity!

-L

[nerdnyc]

So, the first session went very well.

The players and I worked out all the backgrounds before the game. They adapted their modern characters very well from the fantasy lifepaths. We changed a couple things to make them more modern. (i.e. - Script was replaced with composition for the City-Born, Student.)

They arrived in Barcelona and signed up to be part of the POUM. A converted cathedral was the setting where all the characters met for the first time. This cathedral was the main meeting place for POUM activities in Barcelona. Banners and posters replaced paintings and statues.

Jacob, the American painter, was lifting up some canvas to inspect the religious artwork that was hidden underneath. Diego, a Mexican doctor, comes over and begins a discussion about art, censorship and the role of the church. William, a British journalist, asks the two men to pose with the artwork for a photograph. He has been commissioned to take photos and write articles for the London-based Daily Worker.

The three men sit through a long speech about the happenings of the war from Miaja, a leitenant in the militia. They learn all about the different groups involved, what happened in the first couple days and what the republic needs from them.

They are going to be moved to a small town 40 miles west of Barcelona for training. On the train they meet Paco, a sixteen year-old Spanish boy who has joined the POUM. Both of his parents are union organizers and most people that walk past them on the train seem to know him. Paco is very excited to be hanging out with people from foreign countries and although very passionate about the cause, he doesn't seem to take the war to seriously.

At camp, they learn marching commands, rifle skill and more about the situation. Tempers flair one day when a woman refuses to keep going through drills. Diego and William help the commanind officer convince the woman of the importance of unity on the battlefield.

[more later]

[taepoong]

Are you having them roll social skills for these transactions or has it all been storytelling and no dice so far?

[nerdnyc]

I had William help Diego on his Persuasion roll.

[later]

After training for a week the commanding officer gave them a small mission - to visit a neighbooring village and arrest Santiago Diaz, a Nationalist poet and writer, who is thought to be hiding at a wealthy landowner's estate.

The men go with a handfull of other milita members in a flatbed truck to the neighbooring village. Senor Carrara, is pleasent but insists that Santiago Diaz is not there. The men search the house and discover(due to filled water basins accidently left in the rooms) that two extra bedrooms were occupied the night before.

They search the guest house and finally discover Santiago Diaz hiding in the hay loft above the stables. He surrenders out of fear of getting stabbed with a bayonet. (Both Jacob and William were randomly stabbing bales of hay)

Diaz is taken back to camp for a quick and one-sided miltary trial for treason against the people of Spain. Jacob notes that whenever the word treason is brought up, it's never good. Diaz is found guilty and will be executed by firing squad. Our 3 men are assigned to the firing squad, as an honor for helping capture him. (The officer just wants them to get their hands bloody. He wants them to get used to the idea of firing guns at people.)

Diego talks his way out of being on the squad. He argues that his oath is to save lives, not to take them. (Since doctors and teachers in war-time Spain were treated with special respect, the officer let's him get off.) The others shoot and kill their first "enemy". (All fail steel test and hesitate before firing.)

[Luke]

again, i'm curious. Did you have the doctor make a test to convince the officer? Or were you predisposed to letting him have his way in this matter?

In either case, did you grant him a test for his Persuasion skill or allow him to put a test toward his Will Aptitude to learn Persuasion?

-L

[nerdnyc]

Diego, the doctor, rolled his Persuasion against the woman's(not the officers) will. I granted him a routine test.

There has been little rolling and mostly discussion between the characters and my NPCs. They rolled to search the house, they rolled to try to talk info out of Carrara, the land-owner and when they had to make steel test to execute Diaz.

There were a couple other rolls here and there, but I'm saving the dice for next game when they are invading Ibiza, an island off Barcelona. They are scared to death of making a beach landing. (They don't know that the Republic took the island rather easily.)