British Home Front

[Laraqua]

A scenario involving a group of investigators heading through the streets of WW2 London at night when the air raid sirens go off. Far from home, you head into the nearest public air raid shelter only to find.... I'll be looking for people who can post at least once every 1 - 2 days.

[Mr. Handy]

*jumps up and down excitedly, waving his hands*

I've been itching to play this scenario ever since you first told me about the monograph you were working on years ago! Can't wait to do my bit for King and Country!

I've been planning a British Home Front game myself, though it'll probably be years before I get to it. I intend for it to be part of my Doctor Who/Call of Cthulhu campaign.

[Laraqua]

Cool. Who will you be? If it works out we can tie a few more scenarios into the game. The main restriction is you have to be a Londoner who was traveling on foot at night. Feel free to work out character ties, such as being drinking buddies, sweethearts, or what-not.

[Mr. Handy]

I'll have to give that some thought, and I won't have time to create my character tonight, but I'm thinking of a female ambulance driver.

[Laraqua]

Cool. With ambulance drivers, you've got the Auxiliary Ambulances, Red Cross, or St. John's. The only trouble with that one, though, is that your role would send you rushing off to battle stations to get into your ambulance and go back to work. However, I've already figured out how I can justify you heading into the shelter rather than rushing off - there will be an injured victim to help along to the shelter.

[aine]

Please can I join? I'll have a think about a character... I could be the injured person as long as I improve- maybe suspected concussion which wears off fairly quickly?

[Laraqua]

That would be fine for me.

[Mr. Handy]

Sounds good. I don't know enough yet to make a decision between Auxiliary Ambulances, Red Cross, or St. John's. My character's name will be Irene Carpenter. She's the sister of Oliver Carpenter, who will one day be the father of Dr. Lionel Carpenter from Ash.

[Laraqua]

I like how you make her the sister so she can theoretically die without destroying all of the time lines.

[royya]

I can join ... playing a street thug (unemployed / a former porter in the harbor) that wondered the street after visiting the local pub.

[aine]

Okay. Either a large, athletic, working class man, an electrical engineer and part time munitions worker; family were killed in a bombing raid so he spends all his waking moments working to stem his depression. Very good at his job and has just been promoted to work on developing the new magnetic mine sweepers at Lowestoft. As he is leaving London soon he has been working late finishing his last project which is putting in lighting in an air raid shelter...or he can be doing the evening rounds as a Fire Watcher.

Or an older gentleman, not very fit but with great presence of mind. He is involved with code-breaking at Bletchley Park and is out late walking back to his guesthouse from a vital secret meeting with some Poles who have been working on similar codes and have just been smuggled into East London on a trawler. Sort of thing.

[Laraqua]

Aine: I like the working class man. I'm sure I can put some stuff in there to make it all the more valuable.

Royya: The street thug works, just bear in mind that he should have been conscripted by now if he's young, and folks will be expected him to volunteer even if he hasn't been conscripted, unless he's doing vital war work (instead he's unemployed). That's fine. People did dodge the draft, especially criminals living on false I.D. and stolen ration books. Alternatively, you could be underaged and a member of one of the many street gangs. You could even be a looter who goes into buildings when air raids begin (whether young or old) or someone who lives off stealing things from folks in the shelters. Or a regular thuggish sort. They were around too! The skies the limit. It's just the expectations of you that will change.

[yockenthwaite]

Can I join? I usually play female characters so how about a nurse that might be out and about with the female ambulance driver?

[Laraqua]

That works quite well. Female characters have a huge range of roles and parts they can play here.

I think an ambulance driver and nurse works quite well as I've changed the premise of the game a bit. It'll still be an air raid shelter, but one that gets bombed, and you guys all come over to help.

[Mr. Handy]

I like how you make her the sister so she can theoretically die without destroying all of the time lines.

I was thinking along those lines too, as her fate won't alter Lionel or Sarah's past. If she dies, Lionel never knew her. If she goes insane, he might know her as his crazy Aunt Irene. Or she might come through this intact. I had actually been thinking of playing Oliver as a third character in the Home Front section in Ash, but I had my hands too full to take on another, and I had no idea how I could play him without causing a paradox.

My own planned Home Front adventure is supposed to gather everyone together in an air raid shelter early on. There will be some extra steps to get the TARDIS crew to link up with them, but I have some ideas there. I'm planning to have it set in September 1940, so it's still in the early stages of the Blitz. People won't know what to expect, and there's a lot of uncertainty and panic in the air. There's also daylight bombing to worry about too, plus all the fun of the blackout at night.

I discovered Real Time WWII back in early April and have been reading along with it ever since. It's a Twitter feed that details events in the war in real time as they happened, 72 years after the fact. It has tweets about not just leaders but ordinary people caught up in events, and it's fascinating. There's so much I never knew. This is a good time to join in. As Churchill once said "The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin." The RAF and the Luftwaffe have just fought their first big dogfight today (in 1940).

During previous trips to London, I had visited some sites relevant to the war that were great sources of information about the era. I saw Churchill's War Rooms and the attached Churchill Museum, the Imperial War Museum (which at the time in 2009 had an exhibit on how the war affected children, though that was a temporary one), HMS Belfast, and the Britain at War Experience. Also, in the lobby of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is the casing of a bomb that landed there on October 15, 1940. I'll be going to London again in November, and I plan to revisit the IWM.

[Laraqua]

Fantastic link, Mr. Handy. Awesome!

I'm looking forward to running this adventure as it'll be a play-by-post road test of one of my upcoming Home Front monograph's mini-adventures. Play-by-posts never quite work out the same as tabletop, but at least I can add the: "Works for play-by-post too!" to it if it does.

[Mr. Handy]

Another great period series is Foyle's War. I've been watching it for months, ever since they started showing it on NJN (the New Jersey Network). It takes place in Hastings, and is a wonderful mystery/police procedural show as well.

Also, you might want to check out Island at War and Enemy at the Door. Both shows are set on the Channel Islands, the only British territory occupied by the Germans. They came in July 1940 and remained for the duration of the war. I've seen Island at War, which is quite good. Haven't watched Enemy at the Door yet, but I have the DVDs and they're coming up soon on my playlist.

In fact, the Channel Islands deserve a mention in your monograph. Could be an interesting alternative to the standard Home Front setting. Now investigators need to worry about the Nazi occupation, though air raids won't be so much of an issue.

[aine]

What format would you like the characters in? I can use Myth-weavers or copy a sheet from Mr. Handy's game if that's alright Mr. H!

[Mr. Handy]

Yes, that's fine, though The Ninth Planet character sheets probably aren't the best source. They have a number of skills on them from the modern era and beyond. I don't think any of us will be skilled in energy weapons or spaceship piloting.

The Terror Out of Time or Space Oddity character sheets may be a better fit, as they aren't that far off from the era, but the skill lists will still need some tinkering. There are some unique skills for this setting, such as Know London and War Prestige.

[Laraqua]

I've scrapped Know London and fed it into an alternative use of the Navigate skill. War Prestige exists, though.