GURPS WWII

Return to Honor

by Bill Rutherford

Published by Steve Jackson Games, Iron Cross is SJG’s expansion to it’s recent GURPS WW II, which is itself their WW II expansion to the popular Generic Universal Role-Playing System. If you’re a GURPS player, this review can be summed up: Get it. If you’re not, read on…

This 48-page sourcebook details (in a necessarily brief fashion, given its length) the people and armed forces of France during WW II, from the phony war through the liberation to the end of the war. This is of a slightly different format than many of the GURPS books in that RTH is in SJG’s 6.5” by 10” format used for topics that on their own would not fill a full-sized GURPS book. The first 16 pages detail France’s WW II experience. Seven more pages discuss, in a scrambled sort of essay manner, the French army itself, including such things as combat awards, platoon organization (this is pretty good), and a good description of the somewhat confused nature of the French armed forces on the eve of war. Six pages discuss the French underground. The treatment is by necessity a bit shallow but at least identifies most of the disparate and competing French underground organizations (I was reminded of the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War – trade unionists et al – with their wide variety of names and acronyms) and their bases of operation.

Wrapping up RTH are seven pages each of notes on GURPS character generation (this is a role-playing game supplement, after all!) and on French WW II equipment (MS.406 fighter; Char B; Somua S.35; lots of small arms; several motor vehicles), and five pages on running a WW II France role-playing campaign. If you play GURPS and want to run such a campaign, then this book is great value for the money. If you’re a WW II skirmish gamer or merely interested in the period, I would recommend taking a look at RTH before purchasing it because much of the information it presents can be found elsewhere – remember that this book is designed for the GURPS player who may or may not know anything at all about France in WW II.

This book does a pretty good job of introducing that gamer to skirmish gaming or RPG-playing in WW II France. Priced at $11.95, you should find Return to Honor at your local game shop or, failing that, at Steve Jackson Games, Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760. You can also visit the GURPS WWII website at http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/ww2. Heartily recommended to GURPS players, and provisionally, to others.

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