Grimm RPG

>>52150176
I like the WW2 idea, but why make it so literal? Grimm lends itself well to Pan's Labyrinth style adventures where the whole campaign may as well be imagination running wild with children in dire situations. Take out the Golem and replace it with a passageway to the land of Grimm hidden in some old store. Make it a planked up bookstore or toy store or something else the children would want to explore anyways. Maybe one of the books is really the lever for a hidden door.
Adding Golems in the "real world" of Grimm is a trope you may want to keep up your sleeve for later. Magical creatures roaming the Ghetto is a powerful sign that it is all real and you may want to use that to another effect later on.

>>52151071
Thanks, saving the golem for later does seem like a good idea. Maybe I could introduce it in the Grimm lands as a side or guardian for the children and then have it show up in the real world to shock the players. The one problem that I have with the second idea is the method of moving between the Grimm lands and the real world, as I find the waiting flooding the room such a dynamic starting point. However moving between the two worlds causes more difficulty, I do like the idea of using various portals for symbolism. I was thinking of including some sort of in between world, either a wood between the worlds type place or some sort of endless staircase, what do you think?

>>52151162
I recommend watching Pan's labyrinth for transition.

If you want a world in-between make sure that it has its own challenges and doesn't just function as a secure shelter. The watchtower of the video game The Longest Journey springs to mind.

Often those worlds inbetween are some sort of Labyrinth, which offers the added advantage that you can make those places looming. A sense of dread as scratching noises can be heard from various corridors or moans that seem to close in on the characters. Make sure to always give them a way out in this case though unless you want your players to frantically talk over each other or constantly ask about how certain paths look.

A dynamic start to the game can also be achieved in the Ghetto with non-supernatural means. Let them discover the store, explore a bit, maybe give them a roll or two for them to get used to the rules and then have the Ghetto guards start looking for them. Knocking on the barricades, shouting in German for them to come out or maybe even bullets being shot into the store are good motivators for them to use whatever passageway they found.

>>52151560
Any further advice? I was also thinking of them being close to the worlds edge mountains, in some dark woods, maybe have them go to the underworld as part of a quest. It seems that in Grimm the primary motivator for the PC's is to get back home, but with more frequent travel between the two worlds this seems less plausible. Instead I was thinking of them being sent to find Babylon as a refuge to escape the horror of both worlds. Possibly sending them after a key a clock and a candle, for the symbolic effect of the items and the alliterative appeal of the three items.

>>52152111
If you want to keep the overarching theme of fleeing from terror, you may want to make all worlds threatening but give them opportunities to change their lot through constant struggle. Don't make the "safe destination" apparent to them from the get go - false leads are what you want, and lots of them with each giving them increasing amounts of calmness before inevitably failing to give them true safety.

Don't overburden your players in the beginning with a chase after specific items. Concentrate instead on making the real world seem inhospitable and throwing them into Grimms world. Once there, give them a short time to get their bearings before throwing the Big Bad Wolf or whatever Big Bad you have in mind at them. Give them one success, then a failure they can recover from - This is the moment you want to give them hope again by letting things like the key, clock and candle slide. Your players will be far more interested in finding those things if they know that they have failed with common means.

Three items is also a good thing to use to introduce magic into the real world. Give them the location of the first item, make up a story around the second item and shroud the third one in mystery. Let them find the first, fail at finding the second but showing them the middle world as the true location instead and in the end of your campaign make them find the third item in the real world with a motivation for it.

Motivations could include:

>An NPC they have found to like if you are good at making NPC's likeable
>Their souls being tethered to Grimms world due to some shenanigans
>A chance to change their lot in the real world by finding all of those items

It is true that Grimm iteself tells you that going home is the goal. But I like to use "Home" more as a loose term meaning a place of respite and calmness.

>>52152764
Thank you, this is some of the most insightful and helpful campaign advice I have ever received. Just one more idea to bounce off you. I plan on creating a parallel between the villain of the real world ( an SS officer tasked with liquefying the ghetto), with the villain of the Grimm world. ( haven't settled on one yet, possibly the big bad wolf but I prefer something more human, some sort of implacable personification of evil in a vaguely human form, although that might make the parallel too obvious) What is your take on that?

>>52153119
It's a clichee, but for good reason in my opinion.

One of the most memorable villains I've ever experienced in a campaign as a player was one of those that went from "He's just another bad guy" over "Okay, he knows about the big bad" to "He must have been in the service of the big bad the whole time" and in the final reveal it turned out "OH SHIT! HE WAS THE BIG BAD ALL ALONG!".

Grimm has some limitations as far as the big bads with more complex strategies go, but nothing is stopping you from using other evils from folklore for your means - IIRC it is mentioned somewhere in the Grimm book itself on how to do this.

I would use Baba Yaga here, but others can be used too. I would recommend to stay away from Nordic folklore lest your players may suspect something (due to the Nazis often being associated with norrdic mysticism). A lot of slavic folklore creatures have some ability to shapeshift or access to illusion magic and can easily hide among "normies". If you make your player characters slavic in some way, like using the Danzig Ghetto (Nice thing here is that due to Gdansk being a free city at the time, a lot of ethnicities are viable), Baba Yaga may just use that to feed herself.

Just make sure to not play your cards too early. Let him go from just being a name that the characters never see to being the guy that is tasked with finding out how those kids keep disappearing at first. Then you could have another portal be in his office and mention old cyrillic books under a floorboard there while they look for the key.

As far as motivation goes a simple spin would be to say that the SS Officer is just posessed through his dreams, or that Baba Yaga needs to eat the children in the fairytales and cannot get sustenance from them being in the real world.

>>52153318
I was thinking of something along the lines of chernobog or for a more modern example, someone like chigur from no country for old men.
Otherwise I might go for something more akin to typhoon from Greek myth, a raw personification of chaos to contrast the brutal order of the SS Officer.

>>52153398
Ha, I was thinking about putting Czernbobog in my post at first. He's a good template since depending on where you go very different attributes are given to him.

Belobog and Czernbog offer you the advantage that one of the main areas of worship to him, Duklia/Serbia, was conquered by the Nazis. Why not name the guy something to that end from the very start - The last name ending with an -ic would be inconspicuous enough if your players don't know too much about the Balkans.

>>52153460
Seems like a good idea, as my players aren't particularly familiar with the balkans so it would work.