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]

Originally Posted by Matt Wiser

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]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

...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?

[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).

[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.

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.

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.