POWs as Characters

[Matt Wiser]

How many here had a character in the group (PC or NPC) who had been a POW at some point? In the old CSU Fresno group, we had two. Both USAF, one a helo pilot and one an F-15E WSO. Both female. After the guards at their POW compound disappeared one day in 1999, the POWs took off, but these two were recaptured by a Soviet unit, and used not just for labor (cutting wood, digging latrines, etc.) but also for...."comfort to the soldiers."
Our group found the Soviet unit one night, and attacked their laager; we freed the two, and killed every last Russian we found. (explaining why we have a T-72 and a Ural-375 truck in the unit in the process) We had them as the "bad guy" in the "Good Guy-Bad Guy" interrogation technique, and I'd explain to the prisoner that these two ladies had gone through hell, and were looking to take revenge on any Russian they found. The kind of end where the screaming gave out before the body did, and one of 'em would make a show of sharpening a large combat knife in view of the subject being interrogated.

They did share one thing with a prominent NPC who also had been a POW for a time (Capt. Molly Warren): they had a habit of summarily killing any Russian who fell into our hands-our defectors were "good Russians" because they were on our side. But anyone who fought us and was in a Soviet uniform? Dead men walking, as far as they were concerned.

Anyone else have ex-POWs as part of your group?

[Rainbow Six]

Anyone else have ex-POWs as part of your group?

Yep, but not quite in the same context. Many years ago I played in a game where the PC's were all Warsaw Pact POW's who escaped from the prison camp they were being held in in Florida and decided to make for Texas to link up with Division Cuba. We played them as 'good Russians', helping local communities they encountered against marauders etc (they'd stashed their uniforms and disguised themselves in civlian clothes and several of them spoke good English - one of them was an officer in the Polish 6th AAD who'd been captured at Czechestowa (sp) - before the War his father had been Polish Defence Attache to the US, so he'd lived in Washington DC for a number of years and was a fluent English speaker).

Sadly they never made it to Texas - due to other commitments the game pretty much petered out somewhere in Louisiana, although not before one of group (a twenty something private in the VDV) had met and married a refugee named Britney Spears (obviously she wasn't a celebrity, just another refugee...)

[pmulcahy11b]

...married a refugee named Britney Spears (obviously she wasn't a celebrity, just another refugee...)

Did she still have a crappy singing voice but was a white-hot dancer?:D

[Raellus]

I've used the "escaped POW" angle quite a bit in my Poland-based T2K PbP. It's probably the most convenient, logical, albeit a bit overused, way to add new NATO PCs to a campaign set behind enemy lines three months after the disaster at Kalisz.

Another gamer friend used a "liberated POW" angle to create a mixed nationality, pro-Ukrainian independence irregular combat unit. The Free Ukrainians liberated them from a Soviet POW camp, armed them, and sent them after their former captors.

[pmulcahy11b]

I had a GM once that used that game beginning almost every time. <disgusted voice, it got tired after a while> While the challenge can be fun every so often, it does get, well, tiresome. Don't over-use it.

[natehale1971]

We had someone who played a Warsaw Pact POW character who 'defected' to NATO as part of our group... turned out that in our campaign the POW Camps that NATO had set up became recruiting grounds for the pro-Democratic forces of Warsaw Pact Governments-in-Exile (including the pro-Democratic White Army faction of the Second Soviet Civil War that was going on back in the Soviet Union).

[Adm.Lee]

At Origins last year, I ran a game featuring the rescue mission sent from Krakow to spring a Viper pilot held in one of the nearby towns. He was in the FCoK book, but in the 2 or 3 times I ran that as part of a campaign, no one went after him before.

If I run again next year, I sorta plan to have him as a new PC.

[boogiedowndonovan]

The Gateway to the Spanish Main module has the option of starting the PCs out as POWs on a sinking ship who get rescued by the USS Consitution. It even includes a nifty starting equipment table for various bits and pieces of gear that a POW may have.

I ran game where the players started out in a Warsaw Pact POW camp and had to bust their way out. I thought they were getting bored in the camp so I HOG'ed them and helped out a little bit, but as it turns out they had the most fun trying to devise ways of escape.

[bigehauser]

Interesting that this thread is a recent addition to the forum. I am actually in the process of starting a modernized background 2.2 edition campaign that will specifically involve a POW scenario. I will be running this campaign as a face to face game in North Carolina around the Fort Bragg area.

I think perhaps I should start a campaign setting thread, and update it as things pan out.

[weswood]

Both my forst T2K and my last T2K characters started out as POWs. Hmmmm.

[bigehauser]

The campaign never actually happened, but I am still interested in eventually getting it going.

[jester]

Yep!

At least three times.

One we started out in a POW camp as we found a ruckus and then found the camp guards had deserted.

Another time with a member of this group...actualy 2 members with two games. It is kinda bland at this point.


I even made one about 10 or 15 years ago as a GM, where the members where on a POW train east. Complete with guards throwing rotten potatoes at them from the top hatch as a means of delivering their food.

I did give the PCs a chance to roll for a "Special" item. These items ranged from a bit of C4 to a straight razor. It was a good campaign, the blew open the slats on the cattlecar which fell atop two of their guards at a station. They body slammed a couple guards of 3rd line troops and ran into the hills and the game began.

It is a good means of brining in new players. But it is over used.

I used in the escape from Kalisz games and others, a medical vehicle or one or two wounded in stretchers. Unknowns to the players. But when new people would come in, an easy GM device to have one of the wounded unknowns to recoup and now take part.

[Silent Hunter UK]

I actually played one myself in Rae's The Last War.

[Olefin]

have been involved in several prison breaks where we busted guys out of POW camps - both the temporary kind as described in the classic Escape startup mini-module and from bigger more established ones that we found in Poland on our way back to Germany

in two cases those POW's either replaced lost characters or were used for people who had joined our game late

[Adm.Lee]

I had an idea for a scenario start-up, using the Baltic Marines and maybe the Rook's Gambit for framing.

Most of the PCs are a US Marine recon team (Option: NATO naval special forces/recon, DIA or other agents), sent ashore in advance of the 2nd MarDiv's landing. Their mission had been to contact a Polish commander whose unit was supposed to defect, but they got captured instead, and now they start the game in a PW cage at/near a Polish HQ.

The game starts with them getting set free by a Polish staff officer (possibly also a PC), who was part of the conspiracy to defect. The KGB blew it up last week, and now they all have reasons to get out of here. There may be a traitor to hunt down, perhaps even back at a NATO intel center.

[rcaf_777]

From the Gateway to the Spanish Main

If the players have been captured, the following tells what possessions the players still have with them. Percentages indicate the percentage chance that the players still retain this item.

BDU, Boots, Wallet 100%
Personal Items 80%
Mess Kit, Helmet 50%
Lighter, Mask 40%
Med Kit, LBE 20%
Hidden Items 10%

BDU: Battle Dress Uniform: Shirt, Pants, Underwear. Wallet: I.D. card, dog tags, pictures of family, and 1D6 U.S. Dollars.

Personal Items: Rings, bracelets, and other jewelery not to exceed $25 value.

Mess Kit: A two-piece plate and bowl, with a knife (dull), fork, and spoon, all made of aluminum.

Lighter: Zippo style lighter with minimal alcohol fuel.

Mask: M17A1 gas mask, no spare filters and no agent antidotes.

Medical Kit: Individual battle dressing, pressure dressing.

LBE (Load Bearing Equipment): Belt, suspenders, two ammunition pouches (empty), entrenching tools case (empty), poncho, and a canteen.

Hidden Items: Pocket knife with blade under 2", compass, escape map of last battle area, ect.

Remember that the players have been taken prisoner and repeatedly frisked for weapons. The mess kit knife is useless as a weapon, and the fork prongs are too soft, but the spoon might be sharpened for use as a weapon. What the players won't have are any firearms (they were prisoners, after all), bayonets, grenades, explosives, poisons, knives sharper than butter knives or longer than two inches, entrenching tools, or other tools that could be used as weapons, anything that could be a weapon such as a club or quarter staff, nor will they have large amounts of cash or jewellery. Human nature (read "greed") of the various guards will have seen to that. Fancy multi-function wristwatches are also likely to have disappeared into a guard's pocket. Of course, it is illegal to shake down prisoners for personal gain, but it will happen anyway. Some items may surprise the characters. The Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War permits them to retain personal protective items such as helmets and protective masks. POW camps do occasionally get bombed by mistake and poison chemicals drift where the wind takes them. The referee would be very remiss to permit the players to keep body armour such as the Kevlar vest because these items cross over that invisible divide between protection from the threat of an attacker into the realm of items useful in escape attempts.

[Rainbow Six]

That's one perspective. As always, it's up the individual GM but I think that table is a bit on the optimistic side and a lot is going to depend on the severity of the regime that the prisoners are being held under.

An into I wrote recently for a potential game had the pc's as POW's and they had nothing but trousers and shirts (no boots). The premise was that they were tasked to a deniable op for a Soviet General in exchange for their freedom so the Soviets would reequip them, thus allowing the GM to control what they do / don't have.

I'd be happy to let players make pitches to retain personal items subject to a die roll, but I'd put the chances of rings / jewellery being retained at much lower than 80% (and reducing for each month spent in captivity to represent additional searches). I also think in Europe the chances of them being allowed to keep gas masks, LBE etc after they're captured. Those things are in short supply, so I doubt if anyone is going to care what the Geneva Conventions say - by the year 2000 I can't see many enemy troops being happy to let their prisoner retain his / her gas mask if they don't have one themselves. Ditto body armour / helmets.

[Olefin]

I would think that some POW's might have more on them than others - you always have the expert scroungers in any POW camp that manage to find ways to get things that no one else has - and there are ways to make weapons as well even under the tightest controls (clubs, slings, crude knives and stilettos, etc..) - you could see a character who was a medic being appointed the POW's doctor and thus having a very basic medical kit on him that whoever is running the camp allows him to have

as for shoes that also depends on where the camp is - in the tropics you could see them issued nothing but sandals and their old rotted out shoes whereas in colder areas they would be still be in their combat boots which would be on the point of giving out most likely after years of use and abuse

[Targan]

I would think that some POW's might have more on them than others - you always have the expert scroungers in any POW camp that manage to find ways to get things that no one else has - and there are ways to make weapons as well even under the tightest controls (clubs, slings, crude knives and stilettos, etc..) - you could see a character who was a medic being appointed the POW's doctor and thus having a very basic medical kit on him that whoever is running the camp allows him to have.

True. Brings to mind this guy: Tibor Rubin

He broke out of his Chinese POW camp over and over, and broke back in every time to bring food and medical supplies to his fellow POWs. What a champ.

[pmulcahy11b]

That sort of brings up another campaign-starter: some of you are outside the camp, and some are inside, and you have to bust them out...