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Antonio Amato

A world of adventures for Fate set during

the Vietnam War

mammoth rpg
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Antonio Amato

FEAR

mammoth rpg
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Mammut RPG Beta Edition October 2022

Copyright © 2017-2022 Antonio Amato. Some rights reserved.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 4.0
International License. To read a copy of the license visit the website:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The font of the titles is Kenyan Coffee Stencil, while the font of the text is TeX Gyre
Report Card.

Our internet address is www.mammutrpg.eu

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SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION 7
A world of adventures for Fate 8
The Vietnam War 8
The horror genre 8
What you need to play 10
New tasks for the GM 10
Vocabulary 10

SETTING 13
The Vietnam War 14
US Army 15
Jungles and villages 15
Important places 16

GAME CREATION 19
Agree on the premises 20
Choose period 22
Identify problems 32
Create faces and places 32
Creating characters 32

CREATING CHARACTERS 35
Name 36
Rank and reputation 36
Appearances 39
Attitudes 42
Talents 45
Recovery 47
Stress and consequences 49
Goal 50

CONDUCTING THE GAME 53

Campaign 54
Operations 54
Missions 55
Scene 61
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INTRODUCTION

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A WORLD OF FAIRY ADVENTURES

Fear is a world of adventures for Fate in which the

themes and characteristics of horror stories are set in
the context of the Vietnam War. In the role of US
soldiers you will find yourself patrolling enemy territory,
forced to face implacable enemies and unspeakable
horrors (most of the time the fruit of your imagination).
Being an excellent soldier most likely won't do you any good.

THE VIETNAM WAR

A world of war-based Fate adventures could have been

set during virtually any armed conflict. The idea behind
Fear, however, is not to explore the themes connected
to war, but rather to let the conflicts of the human soul
emerge in the face of horror, be it tangible or terrifyingly
evanescent .

If you are
Having been particularly bloody and exhausting - and
looking for
works of fiction having also been the first conflict to be followed by
to immerse yourself television - the Vietnam War easily entered the collective
in the setting
proposed in these
imagination, also with the complicity of Hollywood. So
pages, I recommend there is enough fertile ground in the Vietnam War for
you read Matterhorn
by Karl Marlantes,
you to be on the same page. This is a war that, in one
way or another, you know how to tell.
published in Italy by Rizzoli.

THE HORROR GENRE

Probably at this point someone is wondering what need

there is to include horror in a game that talks about war,
which is already the bearer of horrors.

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The horror genre in Fear is used to emphasize this

aspect of war. From a narrative point of view, horror
serves to insert supernatural and/or frightening elements
into "normal" situations, in such a way as to undermine
the certainties of the protagonists and push them to feel fear.
It's not easy, especially for those who have the role of GM, don't worry
about scaring
GM. In these pages you will find some useful tools for the people who
adding horror to your games. However, know from now are playing
with you. It's
that there is no perfect recipe because, in all likelihood, it not your job!
is the question that is asked in the wrong way. So avoid
asking yourself "How can I scare my players?" and
instead start asking yourself "How can I scare the
characters and force the players to react to the horror?"
It's a subtle difference, but it exists. And that's where you
have to strike.

THE THIRD SIDE OF THE MEDAL

A good aspect - regardless of the type it belongs to - is

simultaneously something that can help you and something
that can hinder you. In addition to this definition, in Fear a
good aspect is also something that reveals a third side of
the coin: the horror side.

Everything important in your game deserves this third face.

Horror is a tool in the hands of players to develop and bring
into play the main theme of Fear: the horror inherent in
overcoming one's limits. So make sure the other side of the
coin isn't simply something problematic, but rather the
quintessential horror of the problem.

Once you have finished creating the game and the

characters, if you are the GM, take a look at all the aspects
in the game and try to find a horror aspect for all those game
elements that seem interesting to you to explore in that key.

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WHAT YOU NEED TO PLAY

All you need is:

• Three to five friends. One of you will be the game master (GM), the
others will be the players;
GM, you will need
the two Fate manuals • Basic Fate and Accelerated Fate;
no to consult all • Dice Dice, at least four, preferably four per
the rules of the
game which have not person;
changed in Fear. In • Character sheets, one for each player;
particular, read (or
reread) chapter 9
• Post-its or similar notes;
of Fate Base. • Markers to represent fate points, approximately needed
30 or 40.

NEW TASKS FOR THE GM

If you are the GM, in Fear you will have two new tasks that are not
required of you in Fate :

1. portray a world at war where danger is everywhere and often

invisible, and make sure you and other players are "on the same
page";
2. make sure you find the third side of the coin for all those game
elements that seem interesting to you to explore in a horror
way.

LEXICON

• GM – Game Master.
• PG – Protagonist character managed by a player.
• NPC – Character managed by the game master.

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Saigon during the Tet Offensive.

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SETTING

«The enemy we face in South Vietnam today, both regu-lar

and guerrilla forces, is challenging us with many old fighting
techniques and a few new ones. We have shown that he can
and will be defeated.»
– W. C. Westmoreland
(General, United States Army Commanding),
Foreword to Handbook for US Forces in Vietnam (1967)

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THE VIETNAM WAR

The Vietnam War was fought for twenty years, from 1955 to
1975, and pitted pro-communist forces against pro-US
government forces in South Vietnam.
The Geneva Conference of 1954 established the division of
the Indochina peninsula into three independent states:
Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Vietnam was also divided in two,
along the 17th parallel:

• North Vietnam, a pro-communist democratic republic led by

Ho Chi Minh, with Hanoi as its capital;
• South Vietnam, a republic led by Ngo Dinh Diem and
supported by the United States, with its capital in Saigon.

The Geneva Conference envisaged free elections and

reunification of the country by 1956. In 1957 the war began
between the South Vietnamese government army and the
South Vietnamese guerrillas supported by the North Vietnamese
government. In 1960, the North Vietnamese government formed
– together with China and the USSR – the National Front for
the Liberation of South Vietnam.

At the end of December 1961, the first US military advisors

arrived in Saigon. In 1963 Diem, the self-appointed president
of the Republic of South Vietnam, was assassinated during a
coup d'état with the help of US intelligence, which brought a
military junta to power. While the direct involvement of the
United States in the conflict progressively increased, successive
governments in the South aroused opposition from the
population, especially in the countryside, where guerrillas (who
were part of the Viet Cong) organized guerrilla warfare and
sabotage actions , aimed at weakening puppet governments.

The theater of war was mainly the territory of South Vietnam

but, with Nixon's rise to power, the US military was secretly
authorized to bomb

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– and, obviously, infiltrate – the territories of neighboring countries such

as Cambodia and Laos.

In 1969, Nixon initiated, together with advisor Henry

Kissinger, what was defined as the "Vietnamization of the
conflict", which envisaged the progressive disengagement
of the US armed forces in favor of a greater commitment
by the South Vietnamese forces.

This led, within a few years, to a peace treaty, signed in

Paris on 27 January 1973. The treaty sanctioned the
suspension - by the United States - of all military aid to the
Saigon government, in exchange for formation of a
democratic government and the provisional maintenance of the two Vietnams.

US ARMY
Although the United States deployed all its military force
(air, naval and land) during the Vietnam conflict, this world
of adventures for Fate focuses exclusively on the land army;
this with the sole purpose of providing an even more direct
and claustrophobic experience.

From an organizational point of view, the US army in

Vietnam was not dissimilar to today's with the hierarchy set
up in corps, divisions, brigades, battalions, companies,
platoons and squads. As you will see later, what interests
you is the formation of a team (p. 37).

JUNGLES AND VILLAGES

Our imagination is certainly influenced by films and comics

set during the Vietnam War. You shouldn't have much
difficulty imagining the rent of the

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jungle or a Vietnamese village, nor in describing Saigon or the

local people.

Try, if possible, to anchor yourself to positive stereotypes (able,

therefore, to get you on the same page) and to avoid negative
ones (one above all, the characterization of Vietnamese civilians
as naive and submissive).

There's an easy way to do it: Fear is a game created and

conceived to mock an infamous war, amplifying its negative
effects and unloading them on US soldiers. Don't use it,
therefore, to be assholes and to perpetuate the supremacy of
the strongest over the weakest.

IMPORTANT PLACES
• Cu Chi – A district about 30 kilometers from Saigon in which
there was a network of underground tunnels that extended
for 250 kilometers. The Viet Cong used the tunnels to hide,
stock up on weapons, or take American soldiers by surprise.

• Hamburger Hill – Name with which it was baptized

the Dong Ap Bia hill in South Vietnam, after it was the
scene of a bloody battle in May 1969.
There were around seven hundred dead and almost four
hundred wounded; the corpses were scattered and piled up
along the slopes of the hill, almost like the layers of the
typical American sandwich.
• Hué – The city of Hué was the scene of one of the battles
that took place in 1968, during the Tet Offensive. The
battle lasted over a month and the old imperial city suffered
extensive damage. The Americans and South Vietnamese
won but suffered many losses and it was a hard blow
especially for propaganda: the enemy was able to overcome
the enemy's resistance and hold the ground for weeks.

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