Gear Krieg



"The world would indeed have been a different place had the Roaring Twenties not delivered the wonders promised by visionaries. Instead, war walkers now stride across the battlefield of Europe, huge supertanks thunder over North Africa, rocket fighters duel high above the Pacific, adventurers and superspies battle the Nazi forces in the shadows and scientists work feverishly in their laboratories to perfect the next doomsday weapon for their masters. Powered by advanced science, will the darkness of fascism spread across the world, or can brave men and women prevent it?"

- Introduction to the main rulebook

What happens when you cross Stupid Jetpack Hitler with Soviet Superscience and Diesel Punk? You get Gear Krieg! Gear Krieg is an alternate history game setting that takes on World War II, where the technology curve is a little more steep than in our own reality. Technology, such as personal jet packs, rocket fighters, and walking tanks, are developed during the course of the war, sometimes massively changing events and famous battles. Should be noted that the series practically runs on Rule of Cool.

Has two sister games (both of which also exploit the minis game/RPG bifecta), Jovian Chronicles (a nearish-future SF game featuring larger mechs in space) and Heavy Gear (a more-distant-future SF game featuring smaller mechs for land warfare).

Setting contains examples of:

 * Alternate History: Somehow I don't remember hearing about German Panzer Divisions being equipped with mechs in history class.
 * Cool Guns : Oh Hell Yes!
 * Cool Plane: Rocket interceptors.
 * Diesel Punk: The beating heart of the series.
 * Jet Pack: Complete with Nazi stormtroopers!
 * Military Mashup Machine: Where do we begin?
 * Nazis With Gnarly Weapons: With a few minor additions.
 * Nikola Tesla: Amongst other things he invented a particle beam cannon for the Maginot Line.
 * No Swastikas: As is typical, the Balkenkreuz is used as a marking on all German units.
 * Overshadowed By Awesome: the Real Life World War II weapons have a tendency to be overshadowed by the fictional equipment.
 * Rule of Cool: This series practically runs on it!
 * Spider Tank: one or two examples show up in the series.
 * Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Let's see they have mechs, supertanks, jet packs and a whole bunch of other stuff.
 * Tank Goodness: Let's see you have realistic tanks like the Tiger. Then you have something like this. a 1,000-tonne tank armed with two 280 mm SK C/34 naval guns, 128 mm anti-tank gun, two 15 mm Mauser MG 151/15 autocannons, eight 20 mm Flak 38 anti-aircraft guns and armored with 9 inches of solid steel.
 * The P.1000 Ratte and P.1500 Monster were actual German (paper) designs green-lighted by Hitler, but canceled by Speer in 1943; their inclusion in the game is somewhat reasonable, given the other technological handwaves.
 * Two Fisted Tales: The series' soul.
 * Walking Tank: Most PanzerKampfers fall into this category.