"Never Going Home" Weird/Horror WW1 game

[robh]

Bundle of Holding have the entire "Never Going Home" WW1 Horror RPG set at a big discount.
A dark RPG setting heavily influenced by the art of Charles Ferguson Avery. PDF's of the core rules, the "magic" and monsters books plus several campaigns and adventure scenarios are reduced to $12.95

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/NeverHome2025



Although created as an RPG the game is based on the activities of a "unit". Individual player characters appear, act and die (frequently and horribly) within the unit which makes it ideal for a narrative skirmish wargame, there is little or no tracking of experience via the individual characters.

It has an Inq28, Sludge or Turnip28 type aesthetic and could be the setting for some very cool figure kit bashing to create the soldiers and monsters.
There are details on the Bundle of Holding site about the included books and more on the Kickstarter page (including artwork) from when the game was launched.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jiangshi/never-going-home-world-war-occult-role-playing/description

[robh]

This set of books is available again at the discounted price from Bundle of Holding for a temporary offer.
Link above updated.

[fred]

Is it a traditional RPG in that it is a DM running the world and the players comprising the party? Obviously set in weird WWI.

[robh]

Is it a traditional RPG in that it is a DM running the world and the players comprising the party? Obviously set in weird WWI.

Yes, a DM runs the game world and the foes while the player characters form "The Unit". Each player can easily handle multiple characters. Characters die (or go insane) very easily in the setting, so giving players a group of individuals to play is better than having to develop a new PC every time a death occurs, even though the process of creating characters is very, very simple.

The published adventures require characters to explore locations, investigate clues and take actions which will have a bearing on later episodes.
It has more in common with early D&D than the railroad adventures of the later versions. The DM has to do the work to take the bare bones events and develop the scenarios around them. It is not a pick up and play thing.

[fred]

Thanks for confirming.

Sounds good - but probably not what I?m looking for which is probably more of a PvP skirmish game. But the price point is tempting for the amount of content.

[Red Orc]

Yes, a DM runs the game world and the foes while the player characters form "The Unit". Each player can easily handle multiple characters. Characters die (or go insane) very easily in the setting, so giving players a group of individuals to play is better than having to develop a new PC every time a death occurs, even though the process of creating characters is very, very simple.

The published adventures require characters to explore locations, investigate clues and take actions which will have a bearing on later episodes.
It has more in common with early D&D than the railroad adventures of the later versions. The DM has to do the work to take the bare bones events and develop the scenarios around them. It is not a pick up and play thing.

Sounds interesting. Do you think there's scope to turn into a a warband-v-warband game? Instead of having player 'Unit' v DM, what if there were two players, each with a 'Unit' (warband), and the DM stuff was abstracted away to dice rolls? Does that seem like it might be doable from the rules (I'm not asking you to do it, just for an idea of the feasibility of such an approach).

[robh]

Sounds interesting. Do you think there's scope to turn into a a warband-v-warband game? Instead of having player 'Unit' v DM, what if there were two players, each with a 'Unit' (warband), and the DM stuff was abstracted away to dice rolls? Does that seem like it might be doable from the rules (I'm not asking you to do it, just for an idea of the feasibility of such an approach).

Where there is a will.......

But not easily I think.  Never Going Home (NGH) needs someone willing to run the game as a lot of the encounters are informational rather than combative. Its roots as an RPG rely on being able to construct a narrative thread that the players interact with but which is not dependent on their actions (nor on any specific character surviving from one session to the next).
Not all "NGH" games result in combat, apart from almost inevitable encounters with, what in D&D terms would be, wandering monsters. Enemy patrols and positions in most cases.

For warband vs warband putting a Never Going Home skin onto the mechanisms of something like Grimlite/The Doomed would be easier. You could play the 2 units as distinct scout patrols from the same regiment competing for renown against horrors taken from the NGH bestiary (although you could use a lot of Grimlite horrors as written).

I use Grimlite as an example as I am familiar with it and could see a way to make it work as you want. But as Weird WW1 seems to be the cool thing currently maybe one of the newer rulesets may work better (Trench Hammer, The Last War or Trench Crusade).