What happens when you cross Stupid Jetpack Hitler with Soviet Super Science and Diesel Punk? You get Gear Krieg! Gear Krieg is an alternate history game setting from Dream Pod 9 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: Natch. It's doubtful you were taught about German Panzer Divisions being equipped with mechs in history class.
- Cool Plane: Rocket interceptors.
- Diesel Punk: The beating heart of the series. Even the more advanced mecha of the era is made of welded steel and belches smoke like there's no tomorrow.
- Jet Pack: Complete with Nazi stormtroopers!
- Military Mashup Machine: Where do we begin? Probably the Real Life World War II military hardware that is Transforming Mecha. Or the Land Battleship example of Tank Goodness below.
- 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, always in the hand of villains.
- Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Mechs, supertanks, jetpacks and a whole bunch of other stuff.
- Tank Goodness: On one hand, you have realistic tanks like the Tiger. Then you have something like the Ratte, 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 kicker? They're also real designs.
- Two-Fisted Tales: The series' soul.
- Walking Tank: Most PanzerKampfers fall into this category.
- Weird Historical War: Instant weird, just add SCIENCE!!! And MECHA!!!
