Wherein your humble scribe presents a small group of lightly-statted NPCs for use with Basic RolePlaying.

Iorgos Vassilides and his compatriots are a group of Greek resistance fighters recruited to help November Company with a series of raids against the occupying Nazi army. Vassilides and company are more than happy to assist, thanks in no small part to the better equipment and food provided by the Allies.

Iorgos Vassilides
STR 18 CON 14 SIZ 15 INT 12 POW 10 DEX 10 APP 12 HP 15
Rifle 45% (1d8), Revolver 40% (1d6), Brawling 55% (1d3+1d6), Knife 35% (1d4+1d6)
Skills: Command 35%, Demolition 15%, Dodge 45%, K: Greek Mountains 85%, L: English 20%

Apollo Papasotiriou
STR 10 CON 16 SIZ 11 INT 15 POW 11 DEX 16 APP 12 HP 14
Rifle 75% (1d8), Revolver 55% (1d6), Brawling 35% (1d3), Knife 35% (1d4)
Skills: Climb 55%, Demolition 15%, Dodge 55%, Hide 35%, L: English 10%, Spot 75%, Tracking 35%

Martinos Papasotiriou
STR 16 CON 13 SIZ 17 INT 11 POW 13 DEX 13 APP 9 HP 15
Rifle 50% (1d8), Revolver 45% (1d6), Brawling 50% (1d3+1d6), Knife 35% (1d4+1d6)
Skills: Bargain 35%, Demolitions 40%, Dodge 35%, Fast Talk 40%, Insight 25%, L: English: 10%, Slight of Hand 45%

Isidoros Cosmatos
STR 16 CON 15 SIZ 9 INT 13 POW 16 DEX 11 APP 16 HP 12
Rifle 40% (1d8), Revolver 35% (1d6), Brawling 45% (1d3+1d4), Knife 65% (1d4+1d4)
Skills: Dodge 40%, First Aid 55%, K: Greek Cities 65%, L: English 55%, L: German 30%, Listen 55%, Medicine 25%

A while back I posted a couple of NPCs (here and here) I had put together in relation to a World War II scenario I intended to run over Thanksgiving using Basic Roleplaying, but other gaming got in the way (darn the luck!). Before I realized that was going to happen, though, I started work on some brief notes designed to help the players produce “new recruits” quickly, since we were likely to have 6 hours at most for gaming. Rather than toss these, or worse, risk losing them to my “special” filing system, I thought I’d post them here. They ain’t pretty and they ain’t detailed, but if you know BRP then they should make sense. Oh, and cheers to the mighty Charles Green for his work on Dragon Lines, where I more-or-less swiped the skill distribution concept from.

Given that the game was intended to be a one shot (or, at best, a once-a-year shot) I was purposefully limiting all of the players to making soldiers rather than letting a motley crew of spies, femme fatales, and archaeologists (or femme fatale archaeologist spies) take the stage. Still, I believe there’s enough room for customization below that the characters would all have been unique enough for the game. At least, I think they’d have been unique enough for a vintage WWII movie, which is the feel I was going for, after all.

But enough about me. Here’s the notes:

• Attribute Determination: roll 2d6+6 seven times, place in desired order
• Step Six is on
• Professional Skills
  • Put 25 points each (in addition to skill base) into each of the following:
    • Brawling
    • Dodge
    • Firearm: Rifle
    • First Aid
  • Put 25 points each (in addition to skill base) into any six of the following:
    • Artillery: Howitzer, Mortar, etc.
    • Climb
    • Command
    • Drive: Jeep, etc.
    • Firearm: Machine Gun, Submachine Gun, Revolver
    • Grapple
    • Heavy Machine: Tank
    • Heavy Weapon: Tank Gun, Turret Machine Gun
    • Hide
    • Language: French, German, Italian, etc.
    • Listen
    • Jump
    • Medicine
    • Melee Weapon: Bayonet, etc.
    • Missile Weapon: Crossbow, Thrown Knives, etc.
    • Navigate
    • Repair: Mechanical
    • Ride: Horse, Camel
    • Spot
    • Status: Army (base 20)
    • Stealth
    • Technical: Radio Ops
    • Throw
• Put INT value into 10 skills of your choice, either Professional Skills above or other era-appropriate skills (Perform: Jitterbug, anyone?)
• Army Status skill indicates rank as follows:
  • 01-29 Private
  • 30-39 Corporal
  • 40-49 Sergeant
  • 50-59 Lieutenant
  • 60-69 Captain
  • 70-79 Major
  • 80-89 Lt. Colonel
  • 90-99 Colonel
  • 100+ General

For the record, I am in no way, shape, or form a WWII buff. I built a few airplane models (P-51D Mustang, P-38 Lightning) and played with army men when I was a kid. I’ve watched a fair number of vintage WWII movies (and too much Rat Patrol), but not a lot of the modern ones. I’ve never played any of the WWII-based computer games. I have played Wings Of War WWII (and WWI, but that’s not important right now), but only a few times. In short, I am a complete and utter tourist in the genre. This means that I’m open to suggestions if anyone has any, but they must be delivered gently and with patience 🙂

I hadn’t gotten too far into thinking about the exact weaponry that was going to be involved, and I was likely to depend on what info I could track down at Wikipedia on the subject. I’d also considered picking up a few of the GURPS WWII books in PDF format, but once I realized we weren’t going to be playing this particular game, I decided to save my pennies for another day. Maybe next year when this particular group of old-timers gets together I’ll think about trotting this out again. And thanks to the blog, I’ll actually be able to find it!

Addendum: As the title of this post suggests, I was planning on referring to the game as November Company. It was a nice reference to the fact that we were going to be playing around Thanksgiving. I discovered a little later (thanks, Wikipedia) that “November” wasn’t used as the indicator for “N” in the phonetic alphabet until 1956, which is just a bit after the time period in question. If this ever does get run, I’ll likely stick with the anachronism though because, as I said, I’m a tourist. That and the fact that November Company sounds way cooler than Nan Company. Naan Company, on the other hand, sounds tasty.