Had a conversation with a PMC friend that put the bug in my brain to run some Revised Recon.  Ran a game of it just once, combat system is dreamy, but I just didn't know enough about the 'Nam to make it feel right.  Researching actual LRRP (Long-Range Recon Patrol) experiences in 'Nam now.  

Anybody have any ideas, feedback, hilarious anecdotes?  Resources that would come in handy?  Post'em up, grunts.

(Should probably mention to head off the inevitable: Recon does NOT use the Palladium system.  It's pared-down as hell, comparitively.)

Watch Hamburger Hill and Full Metal Jacket. Tour of Duty, if you can find it cheap.

I played lots of original Recon back in high school, but never tried Revised. Like any real world RPG, you can run into the problem of the know-it-all player or the angry political player with a delusional vision of history.

We had both of those guys in our group. We fragged them regularly.

http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Walk-Rain-Fresh-Voices/dp/0446365009/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

The author of this was a Drama teacher at my old high school ("cool story, bro!") - thats about it for helpful bits from me on this sort of topic, I'm afraid.  But, there are obviously tons of reference material out there to pull from.  

Real-life story-wise, I served with a guy who said he was in the 173rd Airborne in Vietnam.  He didn't go on about much about that time 'cept he liked how in Afghanistan, we got to drive everywhere instead of going on on foot patrols.  Also, he mentioned smearing himself with dung to better hide from Charlie while manning an LP/OP at some point.

In retrospect, I have no idea in what context someone would admit to putting poo on themselves but then again, we had a cross-leveled kid from Wisconsin who had more than one "so drunk I pissed on myself / pissed on the couch / pissed _____," story that I was probably desensitized at that point.

Heh, I loved Recon. My first experience with it in the early '80s was "Interesting." The GM was a former Navy SEAL(dropped from the Teams due to a knee injury on a training jump) and a couple of the players were Nam combat vets.

It might be a no-brainer, but don't forget to check out the Recon sub-forum at Palladium.  There is quite an assortment of ideas there for Recon.

http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=13&sid

Suggest you keep an eye on the History and Military channel for Vietnam documentaries. Also plenty of auto-biographies out there by people who served in Vietnam.

Quote from: Shawn Merrow;522775Suggest you keep an eye on the History and Military channel for Vietnam documentaries. Also plenty of auto-biographies out there by people who served in Vietnam.

I've been scanning Netflix, there's a couple useful series streaming now.

Quote from: Kuroth;522744It might be a no-brainer, but don't forget to check out the Recon sub-forum at Palladium.  There is quite an assortment of ideas there for Recon.

http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=13&sid

Honestly, I had to really sift through there to find anything useful - mainly 'cause 4 out of 5 posts seem to be either "using Recon with a modern settting" (not what I'm interested in, for this project), or "when is Recon Modern Combat coming out already".    There are a few gems there, though.

The supplement Advanced Recon has four adventures, beside some optional rules that can be ignored or used however one sees fit.  It is a setting supplement more than a rule supplement.  This information is included in the Deluxe edition.  So, if you have that edtion, you already have what is in Advanced Recon.

The Adventures:
Project Boot-Strap
The Opium War
Radio Wars
The Spider's Web

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=2627&products_id=60643&src=palladium


Ninjas & Superspies works with Recon with extremely little conversion. Both are by Wujcik, and that is reason enough to have them. However, adding Ninjas & Superpies as a whole would make Recon more like Hot Shot: Part II than Apocalypse Now, though this is just my perspective on it.

These Rifters have adventures that are for use with either Recon or Ninjas & Superspies. These tend to be more serious in tone, and they would work well with Recon.  An example of conversion between the games is that Hell Frozen Over has three very short paragraphs on what should be taken into account when running the adventure with Recon rather than Superspies.

Rifter #6: Intrique in Singapore
Rifter #14: Destiny's Call
Rifter #16: Hell Frozen Over
Rifter #25: Guns for Hire

I GM'ed Revised Recon and owned that supplement. I never used the adventures as written but used pieces of them for encounters and missions. In one of the books, can't remember if it is the main one, there are rules for Tunnel Rats. That is a good rule subset for running a game with only one or two players. I even used it for solo play once using the random tunnel generation rules.

Quote from: Kuroth;522931Ninjas & Superspies works with Recon with extremely little conversion. Both are by Wujcik, and that is reason enough to have them. However, adding Ninjas & Superpies as a whole would make Recon more like Hot Shot: Part II than Apocalypse Now, though this is just my perspective on it.

Heh - I actually have N&SS, dying to run it some day, but I'm more likely to run it in conjunction with TMNT & Other Weirdness.  (Go figure, the only 3 Palladium games I own are Wujcik's.    )

QuoteThese Rifters have adventures that are for use with either Recon or Ninjas & Superspies. These tend to be more serious in tone, and they would work well with Recon.  An example of conversion between the games is that Hell Frozen Over has three very short paragraphs on what should be taken into account when running the adventure with Recon rather than Superspies.

Rifter #6: Intrique in Singapore
Rifter #14: Destiny’s Call
Rifter #16: Hell Frozen Over
Rifter #25: Guns for Hire

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about.  Thanks for that, I'll track those down.

N&SS is a surprisingly fun RPG. I am quite happy with how they deal with Guns vs. Ninjas.

Quote from: Spinachcat;523005N&SS is a surprisingly fun RPG. I am quite happy with how they deal with Guns vs. Ninjas.

There are some additional articles in Rifter that are more geared toward Ninjas & Superspies that could be used in Recon or some combination of the two.  So, they are good to know about if one has both.


Rifter #3: Grappling & New Martial arts Rules
Rifter #7: World Warriors
Rifter #9.5: Where’s Wayne?
Rifter #18: Mysteries of Southeast Asia

Speaking of two of Erik Wujcik games, he wrote a pair of general campaign design advice articles that are also very good.  He uses his first campaign Dragonwright from back in 1978 as an example in the pair, which provides fun insights into his own  campaign style. They are useful for any game like any of his advice.

Rifter #1: The Name Giver
Rifter #2: Think Big

We played the original alot back in the day. I loved that the missions were brief suggestions of a situation, as GM I ran that one on the fly and it always went over pretty well. It was pretty educational too as most of our knowledge of the Vietnam war came from movies. Someone always died.

No one has yet mentioned the comic book "The 'Nam" so I will. One of the best war comics ever, written by a vet. Try to find the early issues if you can.

I would love to put together a game set in Vietnam, but the biggest problems are the same as any structured military style setting - from Vietnam to Star Trek.  Players just usually chaffe at not having the freedom to do exactly what they want, which makes a "grunt level" Vietnam game problematic.  There is always the special forces operators route, but I don't personally find that all that interesting.  What were you thinking?

If I were to run a Vietnam game I would be tempted to have the PCs be an advisory team sent out into the deep boonies to train and support a local village militia.  It would make an ideal setup for a PC group: they would have a lot of autonomy, be far enough away from help that they would have to solve most problems on their own, and you could really focus on the relationship between the Americans and the Vietnamese villagers, which is what I think would be interesting.  I would highly recommend " Once a Warrior King" by David Donovan as an awesome primer to this sort of campaign setup:

http://www.amazon.com/Once-Warrior-King-Memories-Officer/dp/0345479076/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332433017&sr=8-1

If you want to get into *very* deep anthropology geek territory, the single best book to understanding village life in Vietnam during the war years that I have ever encountered is "Village in Vietnam" by Gerald Cannon Hickey :

http://www.amazon.com/Village-Vietnam-Gerald-Cannon-Hickey/dp/B001DBKZ6Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332433325&sr=1-1


-TGA