Concluding Mr. Johnson’s comprehensive review started Monday…

STORYTELLING
Here at last Dogs of War gets into the nuts-and-bolts of bringing military and paramilitary settings and stories into your WoD chronicle.

One of the first things that caught my eye is the “trigger system,” an alternate take on the Morality rules in the World of Darkness base system.  This new system seems to present a much more realistic view on the acts a soldier must commit and how it might affect him.  Applying the base Morality rules might well drive a combat solider mad even faster than would happen in a “real” war, and this new system takes this into account.  Killing for a cause, after all, although horrendous, shouldn’t have the same moral effects as cold-blooded murder.  In a sidebar, the book also suggests the trigger system might work well in crime, police, or other high-violence chronicles.  Although I’ve never used this new system in play, I would caution against being too liberal with this new system, lest you take the teeth from the Morality rules altogether.  War tests the soul like almost no other circumstance, so while the trigger system seems to work well in this setting, I’d probably leave it there.

In their section; “Life in the Hot Zone,” Dogs of War takes a look on what it must be like to live in an actual combat area.  The narrative text gives a prospective Storyteller all kinds of ideas about how to describe life in a war zone to players.  These include things you might see, smell, and hear; the behavior of civilians caught in the crossfire; and possible ideas for supernatural involvement.  None of them are pretty.

With the “Situational Awareness” rule, however, Dogs of War gives a fast, easy way to put players in the chaos of modern combat.  The rule is quick and simple, with random attacks coming “out of the blue” based on a Wits + Composure roll, with some modifiers.  These attacks can represent anything from unseen snipers to mortar shrapnel, and by hanging this proverbial “Sword of Damocles” over the players’ heads, manages to give a real sense of threat in a dangerous setting.

In the “War Games” section, Dogs of War tries to provide a slightly more detailed, less narrative resolution system for large-scale battles in which the player characters might find themselves immersed.  I might’ve been a little hard on this section, because me and most of my own troupe came up in actual table-top wargames long before we ever got into role-playing.  This, plus our heavy military interests, have resulted in some very involved “house rules” for mass combat in Storytelling System and WoD games.  Acknowledging that we’re the exception and that our level of mass combat detail is probably far greater than most role-players want, I made the following observations.

Some of the ideas presented in the “War Games” section are half-measures of which I’ve never really been fond, such as reducing health levels of so-called “extras.”  The idea of rolling a single attack and then applying it to a random character (modified by certain overall-all combat conditions of the battle) works a little better, in fact this is how I usually resolve certain “random” attacks like artillery and mines.  Picking one “commander” on each side to roll initiative instead of rolling initiative for all individual PCs and extras is an excellent idea – not only does it save immeasurable time but it also recreates the importance of combat leadership.  Dogs of War also suggests having the enemy attack “in waves,” a good idea if you want a high enemy body count.  Just be warned that this gives your players a huge advantage, allowing all their firepower to be assessed against portions of the enemy in detail.  Another suggestion made is to assess all damage against one extra at a time, rather than “spreading it out” amongst them.  This definitely makes the storyteller’s paperwork easier, but again, gives a somewhat unrealistic advantage to the players, with all bullets magically hitting the most vulnerable targets.  Then again, the PCs are supposed to be “heroes.”

The “Strike Power” characteristics given for sample units, and the system whereby you can create your own units and resolve them in combat, definitely comes the closest to an actual “wargame” simulation of tactical battlefield events.  Many of their values seem a little off (only +5 for a bomber air strike?), and their measurement for the size of the unit is question seems a little simplistic.  But overall the system is fair, elegant, and fast, usually what’s required in a role-playing game.  Their quick three-stage “combat round” reflects pretty well the ebb-and-flow of a battle.  After all, whether you’re simulating Roman legionnaires or Navy SEALs in Afghanistan, your combat has to be fast.  One last thing I liked about this system is the suggestion that a combat unit can be defeated by losing “strength points,” which also reflects morale as well as the composition of the unit.  Almost never does a unit lose a battle by dying to the last man, instead suffering irreparable damage to its courage, spirit, and will to fight.  This is one of the most realistic aspects of the system Dogs of War presents.

New optional rules are also presented for explosions, firearms, “bleeding out,” and shock, all of which are designed to make the battlefield an even more unpleasant place.  Most of these are pretty well-presented, realistic without making the game outright murderous or bogged down in detail.  I especially liked the rule about characters caught close to an explosion’s epicenter taking an additional 50% damage.  Blast and shrapnel damage close to ground zero is indeed horrendous, but falls away with surprising speed as the distance from the epicenter increases.

Lastly, Dogs of War presents a number of NPC templates and character ideas for how to incorporate vampires, werewolves, mages, changelings, and even Prometheans into “military” units.  Of course the bulk of this text outlines just how hard it would be for any of these character types to even contemplate service in a conventional military unit.  Vampires are almost impossible to feed and can’t fight during the day, werewolves can’t be controlled by human officers, changelings are half-mad, Prometheans typically have difficulties with their appearance, etc.  But Dogs of War gives ideas and examples of less conventional “paramilitary” options for these kinds of characters.  My favorite was the “guerilla pack” idea for werewolves, an idea our own troupe has in past military chronicles with great success.  Many times there is a “war within the war,” with WoD factions fighting back and forth in the shadows while the “real” armies duel on the battlefield around them.  Missing persons, dismembered bodies, explosions out of nowhere, and massed gunfire – typically the kinds of things WoD characters have to avoid in a civilized setting – are sadly typical on the modern battlefield. In such a setting, supernatural combatants can quite literally “get away with murder.”

CONCLUSION                                                                                                                        
In all, Dogs of War is a solid sourcebook for any players or Storytellers interested in bringing a military feel into their World of Darkness chronicle.  White Wolf has kept up their tradition for good black-and-white artwork, superlative research, and rules that toe the line between nuts-and-bolts accuracy and narrative playability.  The sidebars are well-stocked with ideas for military story threads, rules explanations, and explanations of real-world aspects of the military world.  In short, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a serious treatment of the military in a World of Darkness chronicle.

Continuing Mr. Johnson’s comprehensive review started Monday…

IRREGULAR UNITS

In its second chapter, Dogs of War talks about all those who engage in warfare without necessarily drawing a government paycheck or putting on a uniform.  This is intensely important in a World of Darkness setting, whether you use paramilitary characters as PCs or antagonists.  As player characters, paramilitary archetypes enjoy more latitude and freedom, which most players enjoy.  As antagonists, a fully-equipped and well-trained military unit (properly and authentically run by a sadistic storyteller) would probably rip most troupes apart, supernatural edges be damned.  Hence, paramilitary opponents usually present a better option.

The first strata of “irregular units” the book deals with are terrorists.  After a carefully-worded disclaimer about what the publishers do and don’t endorse, the writers make some excellent points about just what a terrorist is … and isn’t.  As the saying goes, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.  Depending on who you ask, names like Arafat and bin Laden might be put right next to others like Adams and Washington.  The book also makes the points that terrorists operations are almost always aimed at  political rather than military goals, take decades to achieve fruition, and run the risk of being counter-productive to the goals in question.  Their differentiations between the different types of state terrorism (direct and state-sponsored) was also something of an eye-opener.  All this stands as proof yet again that White Wolf always does its homework and will print five pages of background storytelling material for every page of nuts-and bolts “roolz,” a trait that’s always endeared me to their products.

For guerrilla units, Dogs of War again does an admirable job of distinguishing between these units / operations from conventional military formations and terrorist cells.  It’s amazing how much is not known about what exactly constitutes a guerrilla.  To take a historical example, ask the average layman to explain the difference between the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and the Viet Cong, and you’ll probably see what I mean.  Dogs of War goes a long way in clearing this up right off the bat.  Their inclusion of the UN Charter on the legal definition of a mercenary was also a nice addition, in fact I had no idea such a resolution had been passed.  Even for the “amateur expert,” reading a White Wolf sourcebook almost always teaches something new.  I was also impressed by the description of the “three-tiered” guerilla command structure, complete with the doctrine as written by Mao Tse Tung.

The section on arms dealers, however, I think exaggerates the importance of these people to a slight degree.  Descriptions of arms dealers securing “surplus battleships” might be an example of tongue-in-cheek literary exaggeration, but the overall impression of the section I feel slightly inflates the kinds of gear these people can actually acquire.  That being said, the collapse of the Soviet Union has definitely opened up some warehouses, as anyone who’s watched Lord of War knows.  But even more than this, the arms manufacturers of certain nations (France, the Czech Republic, and Brazil are good examples) are notoriously lenient with just who they sell their first-rate equipment to.  Examples could include platoon and company level infantry weapons (automatic grenade launchers, guided antitank and anti-aircraft missiles), all the way up to armored personnel carriers and light tanks.  However, these are “legitimate” businessmen of billion-dollar companies, and would probably fall more into the PMC template than the shady “arms dealer” in the back of a Karachi café.  Dogs of War does make this distinction, however.

With their descriptions of existing guerilla, resistance, and terrorist networks, Dogs of War is back on target.  In particular, their descriptions of the Tamil Tigers, the Basque ETA, FARC, and Hezbollah are detailed and insightful.  The writers manage to explain many aspects, beliefs, and goals of these lesser-known organizations … all without seeming overly sympathetic.

When Dogs of War starts talking about supernatural WoD characters in the context of “irregular units,” the writers make a number of excellent points and observations.  Foremost of these is simply where in the book this section appears, in irregular units as opposed to the conventional military.  Given the secrets WoD characters must keep and the weaknesses they bear, staying in the “real” military for any length of time becomes almost impossible, as the book states well.  With irregular units, however, options are much more varied, whether the supernaturals join, manipulate or must fight against such forces.

The book also makes some very original observations about how and why different supernatural groups may get embroiled with irregular units.  Many wars in which these units fight are steeped in old hatreds, with children fighting the wars of the great-grandfathers.  Such is fertile ground for Kindred with their long memories and ancient feuds.  As we see in Iraq, much the of the sectarian violence stems simply from which families the combatants are from.  Sounds like vampiric bloodlines and covenants to me.

For the Forsaken, Dogs of War also makes the point that many of these “brushfire” wars are also fought over intense attachments to land.  Such settings can often fit well with the intense territoriality of the Forsaken.  Also, such wars are usually fought within a state rather than between states, another parallel with the Forsaken and their ancient strife.  Lastly, these wars are often fought with a level of savagery well beyond the “legitimate” campaigns between armies, far from the protection of the Geneva Convention.  Thus, the ferocity of the Forsaken can make also them a “creative fit” in such situations.

For the Awakened, however, Dogs of War is correct to remain a little more reserved.  While the book does say that mages might like to “test their abilities” in a setting where spectacular effects are commonplace, the idea of mages engaging in battlefield warfare seems like a stretch … not to mention a cheapening of war itself.  The book maintains that mages are rarely concerned with mundane affairs, at least mages advanced enough to survive the modern battlefield.  Put another way, mages are supposed to be enlightened, and despite all the writings of Clauswitz and Sun Tzu, war is too stupid to be a science and too ugly to be an art.

A WORLD IN CONFLICT

This is probably my favorite chapter in the book, a continent-by-continent synopsis of recent and current wars, sprinkled with ideas on how to possibly bring them into a World of Darkness setting. 

Starting with North America, Dogs of War soberly reminds the reader that war right here “at home” may not be as far-fetched as we think.  With insightful writing about American militia groups and urban gangs (especially the behavioral and social parallels the writers draw between gangs and the “legitimate” military), the book offers paramilitary food for thought for homeland settings, which is admittedly where most WoD chronicles will probably be set.

Next, Dogs of War talks about Haiti and the Mexican Drug War.  Their section on Los Zetas is especially insightful, a drug cartel in Mexico built almost entirely from Mexican military officers (the History Channel’s Gangland, Season Two has an excellent episode devoted to Los Zetas).  The three-way Colombian war between the right-wing government, left wing rebels, and the drug cartels is also handled well, especially the sidebar that discusses the actual tactics and likely objectives of such conflicts.  The Balkans War, Kosovo, and of course the myriad of wars in Africa, are all presented with White Wolf’s renowned attention to real-world detail and conscience.  These are real wars and genocides (with the exception of a few of the “story seed” sidebars, of course), listed for the storytellers and players to use at their peril.

Trying to list everything I like about this section would practically re-type the entire chapter, and there is frighteningly little that is incomplete or erroneous.  Once again White Wolf catches a grim truth:  No matter how horrible the supernatural “shadow” may be, it’s the real-world, everyday backdrop of human cruelty that puts the real “dark” in the World of Darkness.

To be concluded…

Continuing Mr. Johnson’s comprehensive review started yesterday…

When Dogs of War gets into Special Forces, PsyOp, etc, we quickly reach the end of my real-life experience. Given the accuracy of their data so far, however, combined with other “real-world” material I’ve read, we can certainly take White Wolf’s word, at least so far as a role-playing game is concerned.

As for the fictional (i.e. supernatural), material presented in the Conventional Military chapter, we have something of a mixed bag, although the “quality” of this kind of material always depends on the gamer’s subjective choice. The descriptions of “Zero Company” I found interesting (although you can’t really have two “Alpha” companies in two battalions, it would probably be Alpha of the First, Delta of the Second … unless the two battalions belong to different regiments). Company VII, however, I found a touch “silly,” at least in regards to the explosive neck collars. I maybe giving away my age here, but when reading this I got some bad flashbacks to Wild Wild West and The Running Man.

Getting into the “Missions” section of the chapter, I found many of these ideas very interesting and well-conceived. Perhaps my favorite aspect of these “story seeds” is how “un-military” many of their aspects actually are. Military characters remain, despite their background and occupation, people first, and so typically face many of the same problems, fears, and ordeals that civilians do.

Contrasting things firefights in Fallujah with what to do about a character’s missing sister are a great way to get into a military character’s psyche. A few details in these “Mission” write-ups threw me, such as the “rental submarines” in the Heirloom plot, but overall this remains a very good section.When we come to the “Units as a Character” section, we hit some of the most innovative material in the whole chapter. The very first line; “war stories are not about war,” is one of the simplest and yet most accurate lines in the book so far. War can be part of the setting, part of the crisis, or even the “villain” of a story, but it’s never the story itself. Stories are about people, your player characters and NPCs. But in Dogs of War, White Wolf makes the point that in a military a character’s unit may be as important as the character himself. Wars are not bought by men, after all. They are fought by groups of men, and as Israeli tank commanders on the Golan Heights have said: “war is an intensely social art.”

Accordingly, the additional rules material that Dogs of War provides for making up units in a WoD chronicle is a bull-eye hit. I’ve played military-themed RPGs almost exclusively for years now, often in a White Wolf setting, many times not, and this is one of the best “unit systems” I’ve seen published. Many times I’ve tried to adopt the old-school Storyteller System to a military chronicle, and have had to write a lot of this material myself. I wish Dogs of War had come out a few years sooner, it might’ve saved me a lot of work. Their unit creation system is heavy on a unit’s personality and a little light in the details (aspects like Order of Battle, Table of Organization and Equipment, and command hierarchies are mentioned only very briefly), but for a role-playing game, the unit creation concept definitely works.

I also liked many of the sample character templates they included in this section, especially the non-combatants. The worried spouse, the military brat, these are the kinds of characters that often get neglected in “war stories” but are the unquestioned center of a military character’s life. The military templates I was slightly less impressed with. Except for the supernatural aspects they presented (if any), they were pretty much cut from stereotypical molds, and in some regards, not even the right mold. First Sergeants (E-8s) are almost never drill sergeants / instructors, and the Colonel Kane character is a touch high in rank for the character type I think they were going for. Colonels are regimental and sometimes even brigade commanders, their “days in the trenches” are usually long behind them. As with many books, movies, and other forms of fiction, writers have a tendency to “over-promote” their military characters. Knock off two or three ratings and you should be fine.

Dogs of War does an excellent job, however, with their descriptions of PMCs (Private Military Contractors). Some say these are the guys really fighting the war in Iraq, and may be a big reason why that war’s been such a disaster. While this may be a generalization, it can’t be argued that the difference in pay scale between comparable PMCs and conventional military personnel has a crushing effect on our military’s morale (a Marine Corps rifleman may make $25,000 a year these days, while a comparable PMC taking the same risks can make up to three times that).

All this notwithstanding, Dogs of War resists the temptation to outright demonize PMCs, which is a good move since PMCs may be the ideal character types for role-playing characters. Many of these “security corporations” have shadowy facades, and players can experiment with a military setting without the full military regimentation that, if recreated authentically, could admittedly stifle the freedom of a role-playing chronicle.

The quick overviews that Dogs of War gives the militaries of other countries was also a nice touch. The only weakness I would point out is that a lot of the data given is very “high level,” as in the actual organization of a nation’s upper military echelons. This isn’t the kind of data that really proves useful in a role-playing game. In the write up for Russia, for example, they could have put in some more “character flavor” instead of listing actual military districts. Examples could include the fact that most Russian military personnel are not paid for months at a time, their cannibalized equipment is falling apart, their pilots might get only 10 flight hours per year. Because of the vast ethnic differences within the former Soviet Union, Russian military units are often divided by sharp language barriers. Officers typically speak Russian while the troops speak, for example, Uzbekistani. They literally can’t understand each other.

As far as the “flavor” of other nations’ militaries, the best overall summary can be simply this; most nations do not give their soldiers nearly as much latitude of initiative that our services enjoy. This is usually a reflection of the society from which the military stems. Their command structures are more stringent, inflexible, and archaic. Lastly, they’re not nearly as afraid to take casualties as we are, and are willing to fight much longer. We took something like 150 dead during the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq, for which ground operations lasted 100 hours. Iran fought Iraq for eight years and lost upwards of a million dead … and they still called it a “victory.”

To be continued…

We’re launching a new feature on here with the help of a talented writer by the name of Mr. Johnson. This guy writes a mean game, not to mention a mind-blowing review and I just had to draft him into my services for this one. With any luck I can get him to share more reviews like this in the future.

For now, in several installments, here’s his extensive wisdom on “Dogs of War” (A new World of Darkness Supplement)…

DOGS OF WAR Review – PART ONE
James Johnson

In Dogs of War, White Wolf Publishing presents a military sourcebook for its World of Darkness line of gaming products, allowing players and storytellers to bring a more realistic portrayal of military characters and backgrounds into a World of Darkness setting.  As usual, White Wolf has done an excellent job with their “real-world” and historical homework, and presented rules and conversion material to bring these realities into a WoD role-playing game.  As a Marine Corps veteran, author, amateur historian, and long-time White Wolf storyteller (back to Vampire the Masquerade, 1991), I was asked to take a look at Dogs of War and give it a review.  Accordingly, I’ll present opinion and review material in the same general format as Dogs of War itself, with chapters for “The Conventional Military”, “Irregular Units”, “A World in Conflict”,” and “Storytelling”; with a summary review at the end for general presentation, artwork, charts, and other general aspects of the book.

THE CONVENTIONAL MILITARY

            Once again, White Wolf has proven its ability to assemble and present real-world data in its sourcebooks.  Not only do they do a great job with the accuracy and thoroughness of their material, but also refrain from inundating the reader in masses of disorganized or unnecessary trivia.  Furthermore, they provide plenty of hard rules that covert this real-world background into gaming mechanics, character ratings, and examples of play.

            First, the chapter deals with basic military training.  This was the section “truest to my heart,” not only because of my own experiences as a recruit at MCRD Parris Island, SC, but also because I was posted back there as permanent personnel to help run the facility afterwards.  However, Dogs of War only handles the U.S. Army in detail, specifying that other branches (or nations, for that matter) have different training programs which can’t be included for reasons of space.  Indeed, an entire sourcebook could be devoted simply to these myriad of different “boot camp” scenarios. 

            One of the most interesting aspects of this chapter was the idea of actually role-playing a group of characters through basic training, including a list of possible gaming scenarios.  I’ve seen some of these things happen and worse, so these examples are by no means out of the realm of possibility.  The idea of taking a character through boot camp and other early stages of military training is actually a great idea for a prelude session, especially if your troupe are new to the system.  For all the physical ordeals recruits are put through, they are exceedingly well-cared for and protected from abusive drill sergeants or drill instructors,  and getting seriously hurt in boot camp is actually quite rare.  Heat stroke, exhaustion, the dangers of swim qualification and especially weapons training; all are handled by well-trained instructors whose conduct is strictly governed by very stringent safety guidelines.  Of course, accidents do happen and after all, this is the World of Darkness …

            In regards to these scenarios, however, players should be warned of just one thing. Violence between recruits (fistfights, etc) is strictly prohibited, and is definitely one of the most severely-punished offenses a recruit can commit.  Once troops graduate to AIT, however (or MCT / SOI in the Marine Corps), the troops are considered “adults” and left much more on their own.  Offenses of this nature thus become much more common.  If caught, however, the servicemen now face the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice), and not merely endless pushups at the drill instructor’s feet.

            The chapter goes on to discuss some basic choices for a character’s MOS (military occupational specialty – although again, only the U.S. Army can be covered in detail).  Their tables for rank and ratings through all the services are also very well-researched.  Although some small details are missing (presumably because of space limitation), what they do present is essentially accurate.  Some of these “missing” details could be the highest ranks listed on the officer rank table and the NCO rank table.  “General of the Army” is a five-star general / admiral, we haven’t had one of those since Omar Bradley, who retired in 1956 (there was talk of bestowing this rank to Norman Schwartzkopf after the 1991 Gulf War, but he respectfully declined).  These are strictly wartime ratings, not awarded to my knowledge since the end of World War II.  Also, the top NCO ranks (Sergeant-Major of the Marine Corps. Sergeant-Major of the Army, etc), are singular ranks.  This means only one person at a time ever holds this rank in each respective branch of the service, usually for a four-year term, and practically never leaves the Washington beltway.  Lastly, Dogs of War lists Marine Corps warrant officers as being addressed as “Gunny” or “Gunner.”  Gunner is correct, Gunny is definitely not (this refers to the E-7 “Gunnery Sergeant” rating). 

            All this notwithstanding, however, the basic military data presented in Dogs of War has to be among the most complete and accurate ever presented for a role-playing game.  If you have to dig for facts this small to come up with something they have “wrong,” rest assured the publishers have done a damned good job.  One of the most accurate facts they present is where they warn how improper it is to address a serviceman by his/her rank in a different branch of the service.  Calling a Marine lance-corporal an “Army” PFC, to use their example on p. 20, is definitely a problem.  Even worse would be to call your Marine Drill Instructor a “Drill Sergeant.”  Drill instructors are Marines, drill sergeants are Army.  Mix them up at your peril.

            Dogs of War also does an excellent job with its listing of Core Values for the different branches, their “Customs and Courtesies” table on p. 27, and other “color” material for life in the military.  Of course, no book is perfect.  But again, as a vet who’s played far too many role-playing games, this has to be among the best I’ve seen.

To Be Continued…