''Gear Krieg'' is an

alternate history Alternate history (also referred to as alternative history, allohistory, althist, or simply A.H.) is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events have occurred but are resolved differently than in actual history. As ...

game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

setting published by

Dream Pod 9 Dream Pod 9 (DP9), formerly Ianus Games, is a Montreal-based Canadian game publisher. Its most notable products are ''Heavy Gear'', ''Jovian Chronicles'', ''Tribe 8 (role-playing game), Tribe 8'', and ''Gear Krieg'', as well as the Silhouette role ...

. It contains information suitable for

role-playing Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing ...

and

wargaming A normal wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to st ...

a pulp-fueled

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, featuring walking tanks and epic tabletop battles. __TOC__

Setting

''Gear Krieg'' is an alternate history take on World War II, where the technology curve is a little more steep than in our own reality. Technology, such as personal

jet pack A jet pack, rocket belt, rocket pack or flight pack is a device worn as a backpack which uses jets to propel the wearer through the air. The concept has been present in science fiction for almost a century and the first working experimental d ...

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

fighters, and walking

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...

s, are developed during the course of the war, sometimes massively changing events and famous battles. From the game's rulebook: "The world would indeed have been a different place had the

Roaring Twenties The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western world, Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultura ...

not delivered the wonders promised by visionaries. Instead, war walkers now stride across the battlefield of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, huge supertanks thunder over

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, rocket fighters duel high above the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

, adventurers and superspies battle the Nazi forces in the shadows and scientists work feverishly in their laboratories to perfect the next doomsday weapon for their masters. Powered by advanced science, will the darkness of fascism spread across the world, or can brave men and women prevent it?"

Rules

''Gear Krieg'' is based on the ''Silhouette'' game engine, a streamlined set of rules that is already described in ''

Heavy Gear ''Heavy Gear'' is a mecha science fiction game universe published since 1994 by Canadian publisher Dream Pod 9. It includes a Tabletop game, tabletop tactical Wargaming, wargame, a role-playing game, and a combat card game (''Heavy Gear Fighter' ...

'', Dream Pod 9's other

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

game. It can be played as either a

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

(RPG), a tactical

wargame A normal wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for Recreational wargaming, recreation, to train military officers in the art of milit ...

, or an hybrid integration of both. Both the RPG and miniature games are built on the same basic rule mechanics. ''Silhouette'' is a realistic, simulationist system that defines characters in terms of ten base

attributes Attribute may refer to: * Attribute (philosophy), a characteristic of an object * Attribute (research), a quality of an object * Grammatical modifier In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure whic ...

(agility, knowledge, etc.), 5 derived attributes (health, etc.), and a variety of skills. Skill rolls make up the backbone of the system, which focuses on effect-based speed of play over grainy detail. The core mechanic involves rolling a number of 6-sided

dice A die (: dice, sometimes also used as ) is a small, throwable object with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. Dice are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, ro ...

, taking the highest result and comparing it to a set threshold number. If the result is higher than the threshold the test is a success; if it is lower the test is a failure. The margin by which the test succeeded (Margin of Success, MoS) or failed (Margin of Failure, MoF) helps to determine the final outcome. Combat is handled by the same system, with characters taking penalty-inflicting wounds rather than depleting a set number of health points. As a result, the system can be lethal, especially on inexperienced characters. To keep the proper pulp high-action atmosphere, the game includes rules that allow players to twist the odds in their favor, in keeping with the conventions of the adventure genre.

Publication history

Just as its support for the first edition of ''

Tribe 8 Tribe 8 was a lesbian punk rock band from San Francisco, considered one of the first queercore groups. The band took their name from the practice of tribadism, with "tribe eight" being a play on the word ''tribade'', a sexual practice sometimes ...

'' was coming to an end,

released their fourth role-playing game, ''Gear Krieg'' (2001), set during an alternate-history World War II with advanced technology with technological anachronisms such as walking tanks. As with the company's earlier game ''

'', ''Gear Krieg'' could be played as a role-playing game or a tactical game. The ''Silhouette CORE Rulebook'' (2003), also known as the "''SilCORE''" book, introduced a standalone version of Silhouette remaking it as a generic system with optional rules to convert d20 to Silhouette; this release immediately preceded the ''Mecha Companion'' (2003), which included d20 stats for mecha from ''Heavy Gear'', ''

Jovian Chronicles ''Jovian Chronicles'' is a science fiction game setting published by Dream Pod 9 since 1997. It introduces a complete universe for role-playing and wargaming space combat featuring mecha, giant spacecraft, and epic space battles. The ''Jovian C ...

'' and ''Gear Krieg'' using the ''d20 Mecha'' (2003) rules from

Guardians of Order Guardians of Order was a Canadian company founded in 1996 by Mark C. MacKinnon in Guelph, Ontario. The company's business output consisted of role-playing games (RPGs). Their first game is the anime inspired '' Big Eyes, Small Mouth''. In 2006 Gu ...

. The ''SilCORE'' book gave Dream Pod 9 the chance to republish their older games using dual d20 and Silhouette statistics, and the next year ''Jovian Chronicles'' second edition (2003), ''Gear Krieg'' second edition (2003), ''Heavy Gear'' third edition (2003), ''Tribe 8'' second edition (2004) and the brand new ''CORE Command'' (2003) were all released this way.

Reviews

*''

Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine ''Knights of the Dinner Table'' (''KoDT'') is a comic book/strip created by Jolly R. Blackburn and published by Kenzer & Company. It primarily focuses on a group of role playing gamers and their actions at the gaming table, which often result ...

'' #49 (Nov., 2000) *''

Pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

'' *''

'' *'' Backstab'' #32https://archive.org/details/backstab-032/page/n83/mode/2up

References

{{reflist

External links