Silly Campaigns I'll Probably Never Get to Run: High School Tankery

So it's been more than a week, since my last post.  I've spent most of that time writing, then deleting my next post.  Those of you that have been following this blog, probably know that most of them have been rather serious.  That's what I had been trying to write, another serious post.  The problem was that I'm sick of writing serious posts.  I just don't find them fun to write at the moment.  The blog is called Stories and Other Such Distractions, right?  So why don't I distract myself from serious posts; by writing a silly post?  After I had this little conversation with myself I had the perfect thing to write about.

Essentially the thought process that led up to this post.

So for those of you that aren't aware of the fact.  I'm something of an otaku (that's Japanese for someone who's obsessed with something, when used in English conversation it  usually refers to a fan of anime).  I am also a history buff, one of my specialties being World War 2.  As such one of my guilty pleasure Anime Series is the show Girls und Panzer.  If I'm honest with myself it's a money-grab series.  Regardless the concept is so out of left field as to have grabbed my attention.  Before watching this series I never really had an interest in Tank Warfare.  It just didn't interest me.  After watching Girls und Panzer, a few of Lindybeige's videos on Tanks, Arnold Schwarzenegger's escapades in his M-47 Patton and Extra Credits History's videos on the Battle of Kursk, I've become something of a Tank nut.  Now you may be thinking, why don't I just run a straight World War 2 campaign?  Simply put?  I want this to be more for fun, than for story.  More like Steve Jackson's Car Wars, with tanks, than Fury.  Good clean fun, not a horrifyingly gritty War Story.  It's like playing with your toy trucks, when you were a kid, only a little more structured.

The Campaign (If you can call it that) 

So this campaign would take place in essentially the world that Girls und Panzer, takes place in.  A world where World War Two tank warfare has become a high school sport.  (If it had been offered at my school, I might actually have had an extracurricular, other than theatre on my transcripts).  Why?  Does it really require an explanation?  It's just cool alright.  Two things that I'd change about the setting would be as follows.  

• The sport (hereon referred to as Tankery) would be uni-sex.  (I found the explanation for why it was all-female in the Anime was unsatisfactory). 
• The schools aren't on old Aircraft Carriers.  (Again one of those things about the series, that just didn't work for me).

For a system I would either use Mutants and Masterminds (The Mecha and Manga sourcebook as well as the Golden Age sourcebook, would make great resources) or GURPS.  For GURPS I would use a variant of the Armour Crewman Template from GURPS WW2.  Dropping certain skills, advantages and disadvantages, that might be appropriate for a Soldiers, but not for High School athletes.  The Motor Pool sourcebook in particular would be especially useful for such a game.  I would handle tank on tank combat by ruling that any hit that would ordinarily injure the crew.  Would instead just take the tank out of combat (the show hand-waved this away as them using special shells), so no one actually gets injured (except maybe getting knocked unconscious in the most serious cases).

The players would be from a school that's starting out in Tankery.  Equipped with a mishmash of Tanks from various different countries.  (This way the players can choose whatever kind of tank they want to crew).  Each player (hopefully about five total) would be responsible for the creation of a tank's crew.  The one restriction I would put on the selection of tanks would be that they can't be ridiculously rare or overpowered.  (A school just starting out isn't going to be able to get their hands on a Tiger).  

So there you have it a silly campaign that I'll probably never get to run.  Hope you enjoyed reading this, after my long break from writing.  I hope to get back to some more serious posts later on down the line.  Until then, have a nice day and may the dice always be in your favour.