Resistance

Resistance: Road to Liberation

A game by Charles F. Wheaton 1

“From our barracks we could see the gas chambers. A heart rending cry of women and children reached us there We were overcome By a feeling of helplessness. There we were, watching and unable to do anything. We had already worked out a plan of escape. But At that moment I decided we must not simply escape. We must destroy the fascists and the camp.” -- Alxander Pechersky Russian soldier and Holocaust survivor who led the revolt at Sobibor extermination camp (Quote taken from the Holocaust Memorial in Boston)

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Resistance: Road to Liberation

Producer and Game Designer: Charles F. Wheaton

For questions or comments email me at [email protected] Or visit my website at: https://sites.google.com/site/theresistanceroad/ or see my blog: www.iaatgd.blogspot.com This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncnd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

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Introduction Welcome to Resistance: Road To Liberation! This is a game about heroism, loss, revenge, justice, and fighting back. Resistance is a World War II role-playing game where the player plays a character that is fighting for one of the many resistance movements in counties occupied by the Axis forces of Germany, Italy, and Japan. I was inspired to create this game after the release of Call of Duty: World at War made by EA Games. However, this was not my only inspiration for this game. I lived in Europe for most of my childhood, so I saw many of the battlefields and places that played great roles in WWII. This copy of the game -- as you see it now -- is only the beginning. I will go back later and revise it to include your comments and suggestions, create more enemies for characters to fight and add supplements to the rules and additional scenarios to the game. One could almost call this the “Beta test” version of this game. I have put a lot of work in to this game and I had a lot of fun making it. I hope you enjoy this game as much as I had creating it and play testing it myself. Cheers and have fun, Charles F. Wheaton

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Role Playing Games 101 A role playing game is sort of like a play; you have something called a Game master or GM, who is a lot like a director. He provides the environment – the backstory, setting, conflict, and plot. However the GM is nothing without players. Players are the actors of the play; they create characters and control their actions. A character is an extension of the player somewhat; the character can be almost anything the player wants as long as the GM approves. Through the combined minds of the players and the GM they create a story of epic proportion. In Resistance this epic story takes place in WWII so it is a story bound to have heroes, tragic heroes, loss, and vengeance. All the player characters in this story have lost something to the Nazis: Faith, freedom, family, home, or country. For the GM a good place to find inspiration might be movies like Defiance, or TV series like Band of Brothers or books like the Streets of Warsaw. Even the Diary of Anne Frank could help with creating your war story. However, in the end, the whole point is to have fun. It is a story that is created and shared by the GM and the players and you can do almost anything you want.

Character Creation The Works: In the game Resistance, there are five main parts to character creation: Class, Hit points (HP), Attributes, Proficiencies, and Skills. Hit points: Each Character has hit points based on their class. A foot soldier has one die twelve for his hit points, a sniper has one die ten, a saboteur has one die five (take a ten sided and half it), a decoy has one die four, and the medic has one die four. Whatever the players roll for hit points for their characters, each player should increase the total number of hit points by an amount equal to the strength of the character. Attributes: There are four attributes, all of which are ranked on a five point scale. These are the four attributes:

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Aim: the equivalent to dexterity in most games. It is how well a player shoots and dodges melee attacks. Muscle: or strength. This is how well a Character performs manual labor or melee combat. Smooth Talk: charm and grace. This attribute allows Characters to talk their way into and out of things. Brains: whether it is hot wiring a car or understanding the plans to a secret weapon you have the education and smarts to understand it. During character creation players get ten points to spend on these four attributes. No attribute can have more than five points and every attribute must have at least one. When in play, the GM may force you or you may want to use one or more of these attributes. For each point in the attribute, you get to roll 1D6. Five and sixes are considered successful rolls (obviously, the more die you get to roll the more likely you are to get a 5 or a 6). To increase these stats a player must tell the GM that they are practicing to improve his attributes. For example if a player says to the GM that whenever his character has down time he is reading books or working out, then after several sessions of play that character should have an increase in that attribute. In the end, the GM gets the final say in when a character gets an increase in attributes.

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Proficiencies: These are the weapons a character can use. If the character is not proficient with the weapon, this does not mean the character cannot use it, it simply means he can’t use it well. When this happens, take a die away from the roll to use it. There are six different weapon proficiencies: Improvised: These weapons can vary from a smashed glass bottle to a two-by-four. Knifes/Bayonets: Whether it be a combat knife to a bonnet on you gun you have been taught to use them well enough to kill someone with it. Pistols: The character can use any hand guns with ease. Rifles: Whether it is an M1 assault rifle or an M39 sniper rifle, the character can use them with ease. Machine Guns: From the Thompson to the FN-30 the character can use them. Bazooka: The character is able to use any anti-tank weapon. Skills: There are no set skills; whatever the character has learned thoughout the game is what their skills are. If the character has learned how to set a time bomb he adds it to his skills. Like in attributes, in the end, the GM is the one who decides when the character acquires new skills.

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Character Classes: There are five classes: foot soldier, sniper, saboteur, decoy, and medic. Each player should select which kind of class they want to be. There can be more than one character with the same class. Foot solider Ruthless and strong, they are the men and women that hold the line when all others retreat. They are also the ones who lead the charge during attack. HP: 1d12 Favored Attributes: Muscle and Aim Proficiency: Improvised Knifes/Bayonet Pistols Rifles Machine guns Bazookas Skills Bullet absorber: Rather than taking one point of damage when shot, you must be hit twice to get a wound Ruthless: A soldier’s wrath is relentless and has a tendency to leave no prisoners. Whenever the soldier is enraged by something (at the GM’s discretion) all enemies in the area must see if they don’t panic and run (which is a roll against brains + any skills you may have that will help) Standard Equipment: Backpack Week’s worth of rations Shovel Flash light Map Radio Pistol (revolver) Rifle (bolt) Knife (hunting) 8

Sniper Axis officers fear the dark because of these masters of death. Snipers are the men and women who give covering fire to their fellow freedom fighters or are the ones who have the pleasure of taking out an enemy of the people from a distance. HP: 1d10 Favored Attributes: Aim and Brains Proficiency: Improvised Knife/bayonet Pistol Rifle Skills Master shot: Snipers are masters of aim whenever they are firing their weapons they get a +1 to their dice throw. Shadows: Snipers sneak and hide until the moment of the kill. They are masters of blending into the shadows. Whenever someone is trying to find the sniper when he is hidden they get a -2 to their dice throw. Standard Equipment Backpack Week’s worth of rations Flash light Radio Map Pistol (revolver) Knife (hunting) Rifle (bolt modified with scope +2 aim) 9

Saboteur Need a train destroyed? Want to kill the power to a portion of the city? Just want to see the bar where all of the German officers go to burn down? Well, then, the Saboteur is the man or women to do the job. HP: 1d8 Favored attributes: Brains and Muscle Proficiency: Improvised Knife/bayonet Pistol Bazooka Skills: Explosives expert: When it comes to blowing things up, saboteurs are the masters, they get a +2 to brains when making a bomb or setting one. Key master: When the door is locked and he can’t blow the door open, the saboteur can lock pick his way in. He gets +2 to aim when he is lock-picking. Standard Equipment Backpack Week’s worth of rations Flash light Radio Map Lock pick Composition B (explosives) Timer Pistol (revolver) Knife 10

Decoy Though not as strong as their counterparts, Decoys can stand up for themselves well enough. Along with distracting the enemies with small talk, decoys are also spies. They can make agreements with less cooperative people and they can find out info from the enemy with some talk as well. HP: 1d8 Favored attributes: Smooth Talk and Brains Proficiency: Improvised Knife/bayonet Pistol Skills Master of disguise: When it comes to getting info from the enemy the Decoy is a master of getting it, but also they are able to blend into the Axis crowd. When the Decoy tries to get info they get a +2 and automatically understand and can speak the language of the enemy. Diplomat: When it comes to forging agreements, the Decoy knows what he or she is doing. Decoys get a +2 to all smooth talk rolls involving diplomacy. Standard equipment: Backpack Week’s worth of rations Flash light Radio Map Pistol (revolver) Knife (hunting)

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Medic “Some Catholics, including Father Amyot, invited me to join them in prayer, secretly of course, in the shed used as a lavatory in prayer we laid before god our suffering, our rages, our faith, our fatigue, our exposure, our hunger, and our misery.” Aime Bonifas Holocaust survivor and member of the French Resistance Quote taken from the holocaust memorial in Boston When a man is hit, “Medic!” is the first to come out of his mouth. Medics are the angels of the battlefield. They keep the men’s morale up and keep them alive for as long as they can. I n the resistance, having a man or woman who knows their way around medicine and a scalpel is something to be cherished and thankful for. HP: 1d8 Favored attributes: Brains and Aim Proficiency: Improvised Knife/bayonet Pistol Skills: Medicine man: The medic knows his way around medicine. He gets 2 additional die whenever he is trying to heal wounds. For each success he rolls, the target gets one health point back. Man of confidence: Whether it is from tough love or by tender kindness, people feel more confident when 12

the medic is around. Therefore, once per day the medic can activate this skill and add +1 to all other player character’s dice rolls for 5 turns. Standard equipment Backpack Week’s worth of rations Flash light Radio Map Pistol (revolver) Knife (hunting) Med kit (last for 5 times of healing) Alcohol (for disinfecting and for drinking)

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Weapons and combat Initiative Initiative is simple; the player takes his Aim plus his Brains score and adds them together, that is the amount of dice you will roll. When all the players and the enemies roll their Initiative whoever gets the most successes goes first. The second highest goes second and so on. Weapons There are six weapon proficiencies and therefore six types of weapons. When it comes to combat, how much damage you cause is determined by how many successes you get with the players Aim (for aimed weapons) or Muscle (for hand to hand combat) roll. However, each weapon has bonus dice based on what type it is. There is then ammo and speed for certain weapons. You can only fire so much and then it may take time to reload This table explains how many Bonus dice are given to the player for each weapon type: Weapon type: Improvised

Bonus Dice: Ammo: speed: +0 0 1 turn (till broken)

Knifes/Bayonet

+1

0

1 turn

Pistols

+0

10

1 turn (reload 1 turn)

Rifles

+1

5

1 turn (reload clip 1, bolt 2)

Machine gun Light

+2

30 1 turn (reload 1)

Machine gun Heavy +4

100 1 turn (reload 3)

Bazookas

+3

1

1turn (reload 2 turns)

When in combat there are + and – given according to the skills the character or enemy may possess. If they are behind cover, this is all at the GM’s discretion with the general rule being that good cover subtracts one die from the total number of dice rolled. Heavy cover (such as a concrete wall) might result in two dice being subtracted.

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Grenades: Though grenades are weapons, they have special rules based on how they work. Grenades are thrown weapons so, when thrown, the player must roll for his aim to see if it will land near his target or targets. Grenades have their own muscle rating so when the grenade lands, if it lands near anything that can be destroyed, it’s muscle rating must be rolled so it can be determined how much damage it does (the grenade muscle rating is 6). Also when a grenade lands, it has a blast radius of 5 yards so anything within that radius will sustain damage. Sneak attack: When attacking an enemy that does not know that the player character is there, the player gets one extra die to Aim if shooting (unless the target is moving then discount this bonus) and one extra die to Muscle when in melee.

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Leveling: There are three ways of leveling in Resistance: personal, rank, and group. There are no experience points in Resistance. This makes if much easier but also a little more complicated. Personal: Personal is for a single player. This is where the player has the Character perform an extended action for a long time in order to boost a single Attribute, Skill, or Proficiency. For example: Charles decides that for a month every morning he will practice his aim with his rifle. After a month or so the GM decides that his aim attribute goes up one. In the end, it is the GM’s decision of which attributes, skills or proficiencies go up and when they go up. Take the same example above but instead of going up in an attribute, the GM gives Charles a skill that improves his aim. It is all up to the GM. Rank: In this way of leveling, the GM has no control whatsoever. The players/characters alone get to do this. At the beginning of the campaign the group must decide the chain of command. They must choose a character to be the leader of the group and who will fill in whatever ranks the unit has all the way to the bottom. In game play this may lead to backstabbing to get to the top of the chain. This will give the characters many moral decisions to make. The way to go up in rank is by re-election by the group, one of the characters dies, one of the character’s turns to the Nazis, etc. Group: This is a new concept when it comes to gaming. As the character’s group gathers more attention from the Allies and Axis powers the better and tougher things get. Basically the more stuff you blow up and the more Nazis you kill the more people take notice of you. When it comes to Group leveling, there are ten levels. Zero is the lowest of the low. At this level, if an Axis soldier sees you in the street he won’t even make a second glance. Level ten on the other hand signifies that you are so infamous among the Axis that even Hitler knows who you are and he wants you dead! At the same time, with the allies at level zero no one has even heard of you. While at level ten you are a crucial part of the war effort and the allies will try their hardest to keep you alive and well supplied. 16

At level two you are able to give your group a name. It is by then your group is known by a small group of Axis and Allies that you can give yourself a name to strike fear into the Axis soldier’s hearts. Performing repeated actions can give the group level jumps. For example, killing one Nazi in a mission is no great feat, but killing ten or twenty Nazis will definitely get some attention. In the end, it is the GM’s decision to give a level to the group. If they manage to kill a powerful Gestapo officer in a single mission then the group may jump a level or two, but again it is the GM’s decision as to what qualifies as being able to go up in Group leveling.

Level

Attention from Axis and Allies

Example of Achievement NA

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You are an ordinary citizen. The Axis and Allies don’t even know you exist.

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You are a criminal in the eyes Killing a single Nazi of the law. murder or arson is a crime anywhere you are no different

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The pattern of murder and arson kill twenty Nazis from you has made the Axis finally realize you are more then just a bunch of murders or arsonists. They know you are resistance members. The Allies (if able) will try to make contact with you

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The local Axis police force has your picture (if they could get any) on a wanted poster. The Allies contact you for small 17

Destroy supply train

missions but do not supply you 4

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The Mayor of the city or town knows who you are and is being pressured by the local Governor/General to get his city under control or he will have to do something. The Allies now pay more attention to you. They will supply you, but their pockets are not that deep for you. The Governor/general knows who you are and wants you dead.

Set fire to a “symbol” of Nazi Oppression in your home town like the town meeting hall now adorned with Nazi flags

Destroy the Mayor ‘s home

The allies will now supply you more often when you ask, as long as it is not too hefty on the budget All of the occupied county’s Axis forces Set fire to the Governor’s mansion have heard of you and want to be the first to kill or capture you so they can collect on the hefty bounty on your head. The Allies want you alive and well so they will supply you with better weapons and better medical supplies. Rumor has it that you even have a stock pile of chocolate and cigarettes. The whole country is whispering about you, but hearing whispers is the Gestapo’s specialty. The Allies now keep you in the loop for any intelligence that applies to you and give you hints of their movements. The Gestapo are hunting you but they are saving their big guns for later. The Allies let you know everything you need to know about their plans and 18

Destroy a Nazi barracks in your home city

Kill the Governor/general

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supplies come on a regular basis. The Gestapo have the S.S. hunting you and the whole country has been told to shoot you on sight. The bounty on your head would even make other Resistance members question whether to stay loyal or turn you in for the cash. The Allies want you at the front of any preparations for a major move on the Axis forces. Whatever you need, you will get. “I WANT THEIR HEADS ON MY TABLE!!!” this is Hitler’s response every time your group’s name is said to him. Eisenhower wants to shake your hand when this is all done and over with.

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Set fire to a “symbol” of Nazi Oppression in your that the whole country will recognize

Help the Allies with a major Operation in your occupied country

The Enemy: Axis Foot Soldier: HP: 7 Attributes: Muscle (3) Aim (4) Smooth talk (3) Brains (3) Proficiency: Improvised Knifes/Bayonet Pistols Rifles Machine guns Bazookas Skills Merciless: If one of the characters of the group is found out to be a part of the resistance, there is no talking to these loyal soldiers of the Axis because they will kill or arrest the character on sight. No smooth talk rolls can be used if the character is found out. Technology on their side: When it comes to technology, the Resistance has nothing on the Axis. Whenever the Axis fight attacks he gets one additional die to his aim. Standard Equipment: Backpack Week’s worth of rations Shovel Flash light Map 20

Radio Pistol (luger) Rifle (clip) or a light Machine gun Knife (combat) Grenades 3 S.S. Soldiers HP: 10 Attributes: Muscle (4) Aim (4) Smooth talk (2) Brains (4) Proficiency: Improvised Knifes/Bayonet Pistols Rifles Machine guns Bazookas Skills Best of the best: The S.S. are the elite of the German army. They get 2 additional die to all aim roles. Fear masters: One of the scariest things anyone could meet on the battlefield is the S.S. coming after you. When in combat with the S.S., the target subtracts a die from brains.

Standard Equipment: Backpack Week’s worth of rations Shovel Flash light Map Radio 21

Pistol (luger) Rifle (clip) or a light Machine gun Knife (combat) Grenades 3 Gestapo HP: 4 Attributes: Muscle (1) 1 Aim(2) Smooth talk (4) Brains (4) Proficiency: Improvised Knifes/Bayonet Pistols Skills Fear masters: Nothing is scarier than the Gestapo coming after you. When in combat with the Gestapo the target loses 2 die for all Brains rolls. Interrogator: When talking to a Gestapo they are trained to get whatever they need out of the subject by any means necessary. They get 2 additional die when they are trying to get information out of someone. Standard Equipment: Flash light I.D. card Map Pistol (luger) Knife (combat) 22

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Acknowledgements: About the illustrations: The art comes from a collection of official Soviet art collected right after World War II called “The Great Patriotic War”. Only one thousand copies were made and the artists responsible for each piece are unidentified. My father bought one of these in Romania after the fall of the Soviet Union. He then offered to let me use the art for Resistance. Editorial assistance: I would also like to thank Sarah Jones for all her assistance with the editing. Any errors still in the document are mine. Play Testers: I would also like to thank the McDowell High School Role Playing Game Club for spending many hours playtesting Resistance. Their comments, suggestions and support were invaluable. Supporters: many people helped me in making this game these are a few I would like to thank: Ashley Tittle, my loving girlfriend who motivated me and encouraged me to keep working on this game. Joe Wheaton, my brother who gave me the idea for group leveling. My parents, who have given me the support and encouragement in pursuing my game design career. Dedication To all those who fought in the resistance and stood up for right and justice and against oppression and prosecution when no one else would.

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