The PDF file contains: scenario, appendixes with history of the places and peoples, random WWII encounters, map of Bierville En Bessin, Battlemaps, Pregen Characters with prefilled Charsheets.
"Medal of Honor and Call of Duty meet d20", with this sentence you could describe the work of Peter C. Spahn and Rick Hershey, authors of the module "WWII: Operation Jedburgh".
WWII: Operation Jedburg is a scenario of the serie "Quick Play Adventures", adventures for d20 system ready to be played, produced by the publisher Small Niche Games.
It's a PDF file of more than 60 pages. The actual adventure is composed of 20 pages, while the remain is made of appendixes with casual encounters (i.e. SS patrols), history of the events, the datas, bios and stats of the Non-Player Characters, stats of the weapons of the WWII, rules for explosives and artillery, a map of the town of Bierville En Bessin and beautiful pre-printed battlemaps of the locations in which there will be the encounters. Furthermore there are plenty of pre-gen characters with equipment, bio, portrait, for players who want to be launched in the action as soon as possible.
The graphical vest of the module is great, from the cover that depicts a scene of a battle in the middle of the town, to the astonishing battlemaps: it's easy to print them, put some minis on them and you're ready to go. Battlemaps vary from a cemetary and monastery, to a mill, a bridge, a roadblock, a Flak88 station, and so on.
The PDF file is in two versions: one with all the graphics, and the other text only to save ink.
Regarding the use of minis, nothing more easy: just grab some WWII US and German plastic toy soldiers... while not in scale, they will suit the action very well.
The scenario is centered about a group of OSS and SOE (secret services) agents that in 1944 are parachuted in French countryside, near the village of Bierville En Bessin, to help french resistance to dismantle nazi structures and soldiers. The following three days will be full of sabotage missions, firefights, rescue missions, reprisals. Players will have to be able with diplomacy, bluff, weapons and stealth to survive the missions.
Another great point is that the scenario is developed in plot-points, leaving wide capacity of choice to the players on how to proceed in the story, and which kind of nazi-asskicking display on the occupants. More, the module is easily adaptable to other systems: with some work you could use it with GURPS, Twilight 2000, Godlike, Spycraft... without even considering the precious stats of WWII weaponry.
Conclusion: if you like videogames of the kind of Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Battlefield 1942, if you like d20 Modern and want to try something historical, if you want your players to be real modern heroes, WWII: Operation Jedburgh is the perfect choice.
Great review, Lucifuge. Thanks! I was checking http://nuke.goblins.net/ for it and didn't expect it to be posted here so soon. This is the first of a line of themed scenarios. Glad you liked it!
Pete
I look forward to the following scenarios of the line.
If the quality remains steady at this high level, I'll get them asap.
Continue the good work!