Berlin, 8th of May.
If nothing else, then the date and location alone call for a The Red Star article with the obvious topic of choice being the Great Patriotic War.
Continue reading
The 70th anniversary of the victory in the battle of Stalingrad has me thinking, amongst other things, of The Red Star and specifically brought me to ask “what does victory actually mean in a game?”.
Continue reading
Amongst other things The Red Star Campaign Setting is a military RPG.
It provides copious amounts of information on aspects of the organization and structure of the Red Fleet as they relate to the characters and how it all changes with large scale developments of the setting such as the fall of the URRS.
It also establishes promotion within the ranks of the fleet as an additional reward mechanism for player characters.
Strangely, it does not cover another class of rewards that seem obvious within such a context: It ommits all mention of decorations and medals.
This article aims to rectify this.
Continue reading
Overall, The Red Star Campaign Setting does a superb job of translating the rich world of the comics unto the gaming table.
d20 Modern as a system base is already an excellent fit for this specific task, and the changes, adjustments and additions – from the changed ability increases to the custom FX systems – make it close to perfect in my mind.
Continue reading
As so often, one thing leads to another…
The Red Star is as much about spiritual struggles in the afterlife as it is about physical struggles on the battlefield. The mythical Spirit Realm and the mortal world shaping and affecting each other.
Last week, we took a look at the larger scale of this relationship, as depicted in the comics and described in the campaign setting, and how such may be modelled by houserules in Fate of Nations. Continue reading
In The Red Star comics, we catch glimpses of an afterlife caught between archaic warrior gods and modern industrial complexes, reflecting and being reflected in the shape and events of the living world.
In the accompanying Campaign Setting, more of the inner workings of this Spirit Realm stand somewhat revealed.
Continue reading
We remember the Cold War as being fought in the form of arms and space race, proxy wars, espionage and political clashes, but with the 2012 Olympic Games in London drawing to a close, we can also remember it as being fought – peacefully for once – over a large stretch of the Games held since World War II.
So what about the Olympics in the Cold War inspired setting of The Red Star? Continue reading
Norbert Matausch asked in his German blog the question: which ten printed RPG books would you keep, if you had to go into exile. Hasran, blut_und_glas, Dave, yandere and yennico present their Top 10. An overview of the Top 10 of other player could you find in the German Rollenspiel Almanach and in German forum Tanelorn.
Continue reading
First seen in the 2006 Annual and Sword of Lies, the Samsonov Vampire is one of those things that never had a chance of being covered by the Campaign Setting, which came out two years before.
Crewed by five and combining speed, armor and firepower with an adequate cargo and passenger capacity, the Vampire is an almost ideal vehicle for a group of player characters, either as a mission specific support choice, or as the center piece of a variant campaign in which the players take on the roles of the helicopter’s crew (akin to the krawl crew campaign outline detailed in the appendix of the Campaign Setting). Continue reading
After looking at criminal and military characters, our theme for the third and last instalment of our The Red Star advanced classes series is espionage – somewhat fitting for a Cold War inspired setting.
The Campaign Setting’s background section gives a good overview of the Kommissariat, the combined political police and intelligence agency of the URRS, as well as their Western counterparts from the BCI and their allies and the decades long shadow war they waged against one another. Continue reading