GURPS WWII: A World Ablaze, Its Destiny in the Balance

Rating:
Summary: Freedom Fighters rejoice
Review: GURPS: World War Two is the beginning of an ambitious campaign by Steve Jackson Games to bring the battles of World War Two to life for gamers. And it makes a wonderful starting point.

It seems hard to believe that there are only six chapters in this book - but there is quite a lot of detail in these chapters. Beginning with "The World At War" this chapter explains the background for a World War Two style campaign. It covers a lot of world history in a good capsule format that GM's may want to read thoroughly for campaign ideas. "The Combatants", gives a comprehensive section on the major players in the war, both on the winning side and the losing side. "Characters" gives you everything you need to create player characters and NPC's for a WWII campaign. The character templates in this section give GM's a quick starting point. The "Armoury" chapter gives your characters some weapons to fight with, as well as a basic equipment list. The "Vehicles" section adds many cars, trucks, and tanks to your WWII campaign. In "Move Out!" there's campaigning info for players and GM's. There's even some ideas for crossover campaigns and alternate endings for the war. Finally, for those who may not own the basic rules, the book concludes with a copy of "GURPS: Lite" - a basic intro to the GURPS RPG for those who may not own the basic book. This edition of GURPS Lite has been custom tailored for GURPS: World War Two.

The 28 pages of detail about the course of the war is not to be missed, and can even be appreciated by non-gamers for its attention to important events in World War Two such as the sinking of the Bismark. The 20 pages of details on Britain, the US, the Soviets, Germany and Japan give us an inside look at the organization of armies,units and tactics, special ops, and intelligence, although it's easy to see that this could be expanded. The 23 pages of info on characters is fairly comprehensive and includes 14 sample characters. The 36 pages of detail on vehicles gives some of the major equipment used in the war, as well as ideas on how to use what you know to create totally new equipment that may not have been covered in this section. The 16 pages of "Move Out" even includes info on what might be happening on the home front, as well as what is happening behind enemy lines. The "Basic Training" section of GURPS Lite allows GM's that don't have the basic rules to create military and non-military characters and NPC's for this campaign.

This book is a great starting place for GM's, and that is probably its only flaw. When covering a subject as large as World War Two, you have to have space - and even the 208 pages of material here are not enough for a comprehensive look at World War Two. However, there are other books already printed continuing the series, and more forthcoming. I can't recommend "GURPS World War Two: Iron Cross" highly enough for GM's wanting to "fill in the blanks". This book is a great addition to the GURPS library and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to try an adventure or a whole campaign set in this time of peril.