This time around, the boys review "The Boys of '67", "Thermopylae", "The Spartans", "Traitor's Gate" and "Myths and Legends: King Arthur".
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Satan wasn't available, so Brad will be GMing Rob through an RPG based on the classic gamebook Under The Wire. Brad is the DM, and Rob plays his character, Alistair Braggart.
When last we left our intrepid hero (which can be found here, Braggart wasn't really doing much. Let's change that, shall we?
RED LEADER: [over radio] Red Leader calling Squadron Six-Two. Climb to 20,000, V formation.
BRAGGART: "You want me to blow up Parliament with Natalie Portman?"
RED LEADER: [over radio] Keep the R/T clear please, gentlemen.
YELLOW LEADER: [over radio] Yellow Leader calling Red Leader. Bandits at two o'clock below.
BRAGGART: "We've got ages then, it's not even midday!"
RED LEADER: [over radio] Red Leader here, message understood. Control - one hundred plus bandits, half Dorniers, half Messerschmidts, six miles out, moving north-north-west. Making attack now.
BRAGGART: "Have fun."
RED LEADER: [over radio] Red Leader to squadron. Formation attack. Choose your own targets, gentlemen.
BRAGGART: "Shit, I'm squadron aren't I? I bloody knew it."
Brad: Ahead and below is a stream of German aircraft.
Brad: You feel the Spitfire shake as an Me109 fires into your tail. Diving violently away to the left, you hope that someone is behind him. The answer to your prayer comes quickly.
Rob : Wow, that was all it took to summon God? A couple of douches, a gamebook and a pizza place?
DICK: [on radio] Got him, Braggart. He's a flamer.
BRAGGART: "Bit homophobic, but thanks."
DICK: [on radio] That's gratitude! You owe me a drink.
BRAGGART: "Alright, but no reacharound this time."
Brad: The Germans are turning for now, their formation in tatters.
Brad: The two aircraft zoom towards you and before you can act they have riddled your fuselage with cannon fire. The Spitfire shakes with the impact and great tongues of flame pour from your engine. Desperately, you rip back the canopy, knowing you must bail out or fry.
Rob : I'm not having Fry bail out before me!
Brad: As you heave yourself out of the cockpit of your burning Spitfire, the sudden blast of air whips you out and away from the aircraft. You count as you fall, then pull the ripcord of your parachute.
Rob : "One! Ah-ah-ah!"
Brad: The oil from the fire has covered your goggles and you push them up onto your forehead after the chute has opened. You are still rubbing your eyes as you hit the water. The channel is calm and not too cold.
Rob : That's helpful.
Brad: You unharness your chute and kick off your heavy flying boots.
Rob : "Why *do* I wear these?"
Brad: Struggling free of the lines of the chute you get your rubber dinghy inflated and, exhausted, heave yourself into it.
Brad: You bob about in the dinghy for what seems like hours.
Rob : It's eight minutes.
Brad: The sky by now is empty and all you can see are the gulls circling above you.
Rob : "Wait, those look a lot like vult...shit."
Brad: Darkness is closing in and you prepare yourself for a very uncomfortable night in the Channel. As darkness descends, you hear the sound of a motor - not an aircraft, a ship! Out of the darkness, a shape looms...
Rob : "Cthulhu?"
Brad: It is a patrol boat.
Rob : "Ah. That's...somehow worse."
Brad: But as it comes closer and the searchlights mounted on its deck pick you out, you see to your horror that it is German, not English! There is little you can do. You are about to become a prisoner of war.
Rob : Opening credits.
Brad: As the E-boat pulls alongside your dinghy you see your enemy at close quaters for the first time. One German mans the heavy machine-gun at the rear of the boat, pointing it at you; three others stand ready to haul you aboard.
Rob : "Sheißelhoff."
OFFICER: RAF kaput!
BRAGGART: "Ja, ein *bißchen*..."
Brad: You are finished; for now, anyway. With the help of the Germans you struggle aboard and are given a blankey and a steaming mug of coffee.
Rob : A blankey? Surely not the book's wording there?
Brad: No, but it's funnier to say it is. You settle down in the relative warmth of the forward cabin and almost at once fall asleep.
Rob : All snuggly-buggly, I take it...
Brad: I like the idea of one of the Nazis coming and seeing you, slapping his hands to his shocked face and squeaking "Ach! Mein blankey! Der Englander haßt mein blankey!"
Brad: You awake as the boat pulls into Calais harbour. The scars of the bitter struggle for this town only a few months ago are still obvious. No...wait...it's just France. It always looks like that. Shithole of Europe.
Rob : Calais has that Cité Europe though, that's not bad.
Brad: Europe contains Belgium. Just saying. The docks are littered with half-submerged ships, blocking channels and denying the Germans the full use of the harbour. The wharves are alive with activity.
Rob : Fucking Klingons, always busy...
Brad: Dock workers are busy unloading cargo while German soldiers stand guard in impassive ranks and staff cars roar up and down the quayside. Presently, the boat's crew throw lines to the shore and soon the boat is tied up. Boxes of ammunition and stores are strewn carelessly about. What you would give for a bomber squadron attach here. The E-boat captain gestures for you to rise and reluctantly you drag yourself to your feet. Following the captain, you jump off the boat and head into the crowd...
Remember good, old-fashioned gamebooks? They promised all the fun of a role-playing game, with none of the social interaction - what more could a teenage boy desire? The thing is, that while the gamebook became a great gaming experience in its own right, the only RPG it could possibly have simulated was one being GM'd by Satan himself. 90% of decisions led to certain death, and combat was often fatal.
Satan wasn't available, so Brad will be GMing Rob through an RPG based on the classic gamebook Under The Wire. Brad is the DM, and Rob plays his character, Alistair Braggart.
Rob : Ok, so I'll put my Pilot at a 6. Agility at a 6. Luck at an 8, because let's be fair - it's me. It's not been so long since we DDMed that I've forgotten how rapey my luck can be in these games.
Brad: Heh.
Rob : So that's 20 so far.
Brad: It is.
Rob : Fuck, this is tricky to keep within the 50. Ok, 8 on Persuasion, 8 in Firearm, 6 in Language and 8 in Driving.
Brad: That's fifty dead on. Sure?
Rob : Ja. That's the 6 language coming in handy already!
Brad: Ready to kick off?
Rob : Sorry, Omer! Yep, alles gut.
Brad: In many ways, World War II was a continuation of the 1914-1918 war.
Rob : Yeah, just with a decent sized intermission.
Brad: The Germans, led by their dictator Adolf Hitler, were determined to wipe out the shame of their defeat at the hands of the Allies. Germany reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936; in 1938 she annexed Austria; and in two stages in 1938 and 1939 she occupied virtually all of Czechoslovakia.
Rob : Yep, that's accurate so far.
Brad: Apart from making verbal protest, no country tried to stop her.
Rob : Of course, a great way to stop a dictatorship.
"WOULD YOU NOT?!"
Brad: Then on 1st September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Two days later Great Britain and France at last declared war. Poland fell, and for the next six months things were very quiet, so much so that people began to call it a phoney war.
Rob : "HEY! YOU'RE A PHONEY!"
Brad: But in April 1940, the hammer struck again. Denmark was taken almost totally by surprise, and Norway surrendered in June, despite British intervention. On 10th May, Germany moved on the West; they overran the Netherlands in four days, and Belgium in three weeks. France herself fell in just seven weeks.
Rob : Which was good, for France.
Brad: The British Expeditionary Force of 250,000 men made a valiant fighting retreat to Dunkirk, to be rescued quite amazingly by an armada of small boats. Britain now stood alone, with the threat of immediate German invasion hanging over her head. All that Germany needed to do was to destroy the Royal Air Force...
Rob : Good luck, fokkers!
Brad: Your name is Alistair Braggart, and you a Flight Officer in the Royal Air Force. The date is September 1940. You have been literally living on Biggin Hill air field for the past two months, continually on stand-by.
Rob : I use less battery that way.
Brad: Every time the siren wails, at least three times a day, you leap into the cockpit of your aircraft. The Luftwaffe, flying mostly Messerschmidts (Me109s) and Dorniers, have stepped up their attacks and despite their heavy casualties, are gradually wearing your squadron down.
Rob : Where the hell is ME109, Birmingham?!
Brad: Berlin, I think.
Rob : Wow, Medway council has a *Lot* to do. No wonder they're TERRIBLE AT MOST OF IT.
Brad: Keep targeting LOCAL MARKETS like that, and you'll soon be able to quit your job and doodle for a living. For almost a month.
Brad: Only four months ago, you were a newcomer to the squadron; in the last few months you have seen many good pilots die horribly. Now you are an expert amongst the newcomers.
Rob : I'm an expert comer among the new. It's why I'm on that register.
Brad: Each time you go up, you think it will be your last. The seemingly never-ending round of snatched sleep, bolted food, diesel fumes and the deafening roar of cannons and Merlin engines are gradually wearing you down.
Rob : Merlin engines? Do they sound like magic?
Brad: Yes. Yes, they do. If it ends this conversation, yes.
Rob : Amazing.
Brad: One afternoon, during a brief lull in the chaos, your mind moves to thoughts of your home and family. They must have been evacuated from London by now; the last time you spoke they were on the point of going. Heaven help anyone still in the capital. You've intercepted dozens of attacks, but dozens more have got through unmolested to drop their bombs on the city.
Rob : I do aim to molest as many as possible before they bomb my family.
Brad: In the ass.
TO BE CONTINUED...
