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Author Topic: Something worth fighting for as opposed to just plain heroics  (Read 1560 times)

Hastur T. Fannon

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Something worth fighting for as opposed to just plain heroics
« Reply #15 on: June 14, 2006, 08:03:43 AM »
Quote from: blakkie
Oh, and a Battle Tactics type skill defined for the character that helps out the character in a tangible way? Perhaps with the GM helping narate what the character knows if the player is clueless on the topic


I discovered something while playtesting for Tim.  Unless you are a vet or a military historian, everyone is clueless about tactics.  You can probably get away without a Knowledge: Tactics skill in a pseudo-medieval fantasy game, but as soon as you start adding firearms, you ought to be adding sidebars with what the character knows about the right tactics to use in each encounter, broken down by margin of success
 

Sobek

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« Reply #16 on: June 14, 2006, 09:54:00 AM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
Unless you are a vet or a military historian, everyone is clueless about tactics.

QFT
 
I've gamed with a couple of people who thought they were good at tactics (military history fatbeards).  These guys were no more (or less) successful in their plans than any other group.  They were just obnoxious.
 
I've also gamed with a couple of National Guardsmen who actually paid attension.  This was always a treat, even if it meant I wasn't calling as many shots.  Always clean.  Always precise.  Always 100% survival rate -- unless someone broke ranks, at which point someone died almost immediately.
 

Nicephorus

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« Reply #17 on: June 14, 2006, 10:07:28 AM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
I discovered something while playtesting for Tim.  Unless you are a vet or a military historian, everyone is clueless about tactics.

Yep.

One time I played paintball in a large group situation at a paintball park.  Of the 3 people I came with, 2 were about to graduate as officers (ROTC and VMI).  I'm not a tactical genius or a marksman but I can follow directions.  

We used simple leapfrog and flanking tactics.  While the rest of our team was dicking around, we wiped out over a dozen guys who were far more familiar with the terrain and who had much better paintguns.  

Playing games that reward tactics (more Squad leader, less Warhammer) help a bit but nothing beats doing it for a living for a while.

Janos

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« Reply #18 on: June 14, 2006, 11:33:01 AM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
I discovered something while playtesting for Tim.  Unless you are a vet or a military historian, everyone is clueless about tactics.


And sometimes not even then.  I play with three air force guys who are some of the worst at tactical combat I've ever seen.  Groundpounders have those skills, but even being a veteran isn't going to give the perspective.

Then again, real combat tactics just don't have the impact in most RPGs that they do in life, too many of the nuances and little effects aren't there anyway, so this sort of arguement ends up very mute.  Slopes, angles, suprise, deception, overall caution, acceptable losses, staged feints, they just won't have the impact with simplistic rules and a single mind on the other end of things.  Really, the only major factor that can have an impact on RPG tactics that is lacking in most people is a sense of chain of command and leadership.

The ability to follow orders and shut up helps immensely across the board, and isn't just a military trick either, it's just especially hard to do with gamers or hobbiests because of a strong sense of self, and the hobby factor.
 

T-Willard

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« Reply #19 on: June 14, 2006, 11:47:12 AM »
Quote from: Janos
Slopes, angles, suprise, deception, overall caution, acceptable losses, staged feints, they just won't have the impact with simplistic rules and a single mind on the other end of things.

Actually, they can be used, providing the GM is taking them into account, or the module is set up for that.

Picture d20 Modern, some fool PC group charging uphill, with no cover, two guys running an M-249 SAW (with the loader providing backup with his M-4) and shooting at them.

That's a damn deathtrap right there, but how many PC's would do it? Because most of the time, people don't both with bonuses/penalties on the actions.

Give the gunners a total of +4 to strike, no penalties to burst fire because of: A tripod for the SAW; prepared fire zone, complete with range cards and aiming stakes; firing downhill into fools standing upright; sandbagged position.

Drop the PC's speed, running, to only 40 or 60 ft per round, and make them fatiqued after running 500 feet up the hill. Even if they drop prone, they do NOT gain the prone penalty, since the elevation and slope let the LMG gunners see them sprawled out like roadkill squirrels. Then, firing on the move, uphill, they're going to take MAJOR penalties.

If we put the sun behind the LMG gunners, it's gonna get nasty.

You can use the standards of combat, as long as you write them down and apply them evenly each time. Plus, give the players a chance to pull locked in ambushes sometimes.

One thing about modern firefights, is that they are, in general, fast and brutal occurances.


Now, as to the original topic, giving them something worth fighting for? That's simple. Immeserse them in the world. Let them affect the world. Unless they can change the world, and make a difference, they'll never really give a shit. They have to give a shit about the world, the setting, the NPC's, and what is going on. They have to have foes that they can hate and respect. They have to feel they are part of something larger than themselves, and that they are making a difference.

It's tricky, but it can be done.
I am becoming more and more hollow, and am not sure how much of the man I was remains.

Aos

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« Reply #20 on: June 14, 2006, 11:59:24 AM »
I dunno i just have them thrown into slavery and repedetly sodomized by dwarves. Usually, they're pretty motivated after that.:mischief:
You are posting in a troll thread.

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blakkie

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« Reply #21 on: June 14, 2006, 12:03:29 PM »
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
I discovered something while playtesting for Tim.  Unless you are a vet or a military historian, everyone is clueless about tactics.

My Shadowrun group GM is ex-British Spec. Ops, and it wasn't as a deskjockey. Oh, and he and everyone else but me in the group do historical sword fighting (not SCA, actual steel with historically applied Western maritial arts). So I'm running on the assumption he knows more than a little about modern squad firearms fighting tactics, and is at least at an amatuer hobist level of european sword fighting (and everyone else on the battlefield that they faced) historian. The men are more into the nuts and bolts details about fighting and doing things like getting into the local museum to check out their in-storage sword collection to be able to actually pick them up and hold them, the women seem to be more into it just to wack people. ;) Unfortunately I hadn't joined yet when they were running Riddle of Steel.

But yes, generally what you say is true.  But I was thinking more along the lines of sound tactics as define by the game rules, because fantasy with it's magic kinda changes things and the rules themselves are just partial simulations of varying accuracy.
Quote
You can probably get away without a Knowledge: Tactics skill in a pseudo-medieval fantasy game, but as soon as you start adding firearms, you ought to be adding sidebars with what the character knows about the right tactics to use in each encounter, broken down by margin of success

What kind of specific catagories are you talking about here?
"Because honestly? I have no idea what you do. None." - Pierce Inverarity

blakkie

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« Reply #22 on: June 14, 2006, 12:37:46 PM »
Quote from: David R
Blakkie -I think your post deals with questions which I'll answer in the other thread - but just one point- -, I don't thing something worth fighting for translates all the time to something worth dying for. I think it could be an expression of the idea, but by no means the absolute definition of said idea.

They aren't the same, no. Which is exactly why I ammended it.  Although implicitly by choosing to fight you are risking killing someone or dieing yourself, even if you might get an opportinuty to try disengage before that point.
"Because honestly? I have no idea what you do. None." - Pierce Inverarity

Hastur T. Fannon

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« Reply #23 on: June 14, 2006, 12:47:03 PM »
Quote from: blakkie
What kind of specific catagories are you talking about here?


Tim, do you mind me nicking one of the "I wanna make a Knowledge (Tactics) roll" sidebars from the HAAC series to use as an example?
 

blakkie

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« Reply #24 on: June 14, 2006, 01:17:47 PM »
Sorry, brain not fully functioning this morning. What does the HAAC acronym stand for?

Going back to the Cannon Compansion supplement book in SR3 they had the Small Unit Tactics skill with specializations in BattleTac Systems, Vehicle Tactics, and Matrix tactics.  The BattleTac Systems is really infantry applications, that is the name of a battlefield info system. I think Vehicles could easily have been broken down further into land, air, and water but SR skills cover a lot of ground in each so their Specializations tend to skill be fairly general.

The skill could be used either solo, which you just rolled the dice, or in a commanding officer mode where you spent a Complex Action (full action) communicating the information to your allies to give them the benefit.  The benefit was either just to initiative (which is very important in SR3, higher initiative means more actions) or an optional rule allowed successes to translate to extra dice for combat rolls.

They didn't include it in the core SR4, though they did move into the core a lot of other suppliment book stuff. Not sure if they plan to bring it in in a supplement book again, they were trying to avoid adding a lot of Skills like that with SR4, but they were pretty tight for room so they might have had to push that back out to a supplement book again.
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Janos

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« Reply #25 on: June 14, 2006, 02:18:56 PM »
Quote from: T-Willard
Give the gunners a total of +4 to strike, no penalties to burst fire because of: A tripod for the SAW; prepared fire zone, complete with range cards and aiming stakes; firing downhill into fools standing upright; sandbagged position...[snip]...It's tricky, but it can be done.


Not to use the old EN World canard, but that's exactly what I was saying.  

With heavy use of house rules it can be a moderately realistic simulation.  But you've now created a situation where you need house rules just to accomodate that style of play.  That was my point, that level of tactics is completely unncessary/unneeded by players in most RPGs, because the core rules don't allow for it.

It's like saying that no roll to hit will ever adequately duplicate the finesse a true swordsman puts into his strikes.  Unless you create a 1000 page document on the pros and cons with detailed modifiers for each subtle nuance, you're not going to see a significant advantage to a master swordsman playing a fighter character.
 

T-Willard

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« Reply #26 on: June 14, 2006, 02:28:01 PM »
Quote from: Janos
Not to use the old EN World canard, but that's exactly what I was saying.  

With heavy use of house rules it can be a moderately realistic simulation.  But you've now created a situation where you need house rules just to accomodate that style of play.  That was my point, that level of tactics is completely unncessary/unneeded by players in most RPGs, because the core rules don't allow for it.

It's like saying that no roll to hit will ever adequately duplicate the finesse a true swordsman puts into his strikes.  Unless you create a 1000 page document on the pros and cons with detailed modifiers for each subtle nuance, you're not going to see a significant advantage to a master swordsman playing a fighter character.

I can agree with that. That's why house rules are so fun!

Oh, and Hastur, go ahead and grab one of the Knowledge (Tactics) check from HAAC One if you'd like. Just don't include the mission ops themselves.

Crap, speaking of ops, remind me to write ops plans and briefings for each mission. That'll help a lot.
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Hastur T. Fannon

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« Reply #27 on: June 14, 2006, 05:03:14 PM »
Quote from: blakkie
Sorry, brain not fully functioning this morning. What does the HAAC acronym stand for?

Hold At All Costs is Special Ops  campaign series that Tim is writing for the d20 Modern setting "Year of the Zombie".  My group has been playtesting it

Below is a sidebar from one of the encounters in Hold At All Costs One: All You Can Eat.  The PC's are holed up on a roof waiting for their helicopter to come and pick them up when they spot a ZSU-23 (a Soviet anti-aircraft armoured car that eats helicopters for breakfast) moving into position.  It hasn't seen them yet.  If a player decides to make a Knowledge (Tactics) roll to decide what their character thinks they should do about the situation, the GM checks it against this table
Code: [Select]
“I want to make a Knowledge (tactics) roll…”
Result Tactical Recommendation
5 Ignore the vehicle, it will continue on, it’s no threat.
10 Engage the vehicle with anti-tank (if available), otherwise, ignore but report.
15 Engage the ZSU with the M-203 and the SAW, going for the radar dish, if the ZSU is operational, it may prevent the Black Hawk from coming back, more than likely shooting it down.
20+ Disable the vehicle with concentrated fire from the SAW and the sniper rifle, shooting for the road wheels (Hardness 2, 10 HP, destroy 2 to disable track) and hull. (See ZSU special notes)
 

blakkie

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« Reply #28 on: June 14, 2006, 07:15:30 PM »
What about Knowledge Military Vehicles? Does the module give suggestions for thresholds about recalling info on the vehicle such as the radar being a soft spot and the suspension being vulnerable to fragmentation?

We generally handle stuff like that in SR with knowledge skill checks, like good ways to disable vehicles or attack a security detail. Or at least a list of vulnerabilities or expected responses to certain events.

Does it suggest that the GM append "Antiaircraft Vehicle" to the end of the name he normally gives so the players that aren't up on their Soviet armor model numbers can clue in all by themselves? A lot of people just looking at a picture of it would figure out it is for shooting planes and helicopters, with lots of little weapon barrels pointing roughly skyward. ;) What about if they radio it in, will they be informed as to why the Blackhawk isn't coming to help them out, or that they'll need to remove the threat before the helicopter will attempt the pickup? I'm just curious.

Here is an example of how we'd handle it. Keep in mind this is SR, so characters normally have at least a half dozen Knowledge Skills because chargen and advancement has them at 1/2 the cost of action Skills and also at chargen there is a pool of "free" points to buy a starting base of them. I don't know if that is the case in D20M.

A new alternate character i'm just about to swap in is a AWOL Aztech military pilot.**  Among other things he's got knowledge skills for Military Vehicles (specializing is Aircraft), Weapon Systems (specializing Antiaircraft), Military Protocol (specializing in Aztech Military), and Air Traffic Control. He actually has two skills that would be applicable to this situation. The GM might even just forgo the dice roll and tell the player straight off that the PC recognizes the threat to the helicopter (he'd be rolling about 7 dice, and that's a Threshold 1 type info, GM likely to save the time by evoking the 1 hit per 4 dice rule). Afterall this guy's old job was flying military VTOLs, he'll to be very, very aware of this kind of threat. Not exactly what to do about it, but that it's going to be a serious problem for the incoming helicopter to the point that they are likely not to come in.

The specializing in Antiaircraft Weapons Systems makes that the prefered skill here, and rolling 2, maybe 3 hits, on that the player would get a quick list of possible attack choices and with even more hits the GM would give detailed benefits and risks of each and what each action would effectively accomplish. So the player would have a list of potential outcomes and could choose he'd like to try make happen. Things such as the radar dish being a soft spot, or that that vehicle's suspension design is vulnerable to fragmentation.

As such there isn't really a "Tactics" knowledge skill applicable to this, but each knowledge skill includes with it tactics for that field of knowledge.  Knowledge skills are great that way, they can really help out with fleshing out the game. It'd be nice if D&D 4e differentiated between Knowledge and Active skills more, and doled out a nice side of Knowledge specific skills points.

** Our team hijacked his VTOL and we ended up not having to kill him. In fact we needed him as he basically was the "key" to the aircraft. :)  Well the damn rigger kicked him out the backdoor into the swamp and the waiting tenacles of a creepy-crawly, before that player knew I intended to play him as a PC, but the pilot ended up surviving that (fortunately I gave him a compressed air tank implant, which seemed a natural for a pilot). He has basically become a non-person to Aztech. He'd be put on the blood sacrafice waiting list if he actally returned as he flew the VTOL out for us instead of flying it straight into the ground/ocean like a good soilder. As such is a natural to become a Shadowrunner. I figured might as well play him while my main character goes off to get some implants put in (was payment terms my main PC had already negotiated for the run).
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Hastur T. Fannon

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« Reply #29 on: June 16, 2006, 04:21:05 AM »
Quote from: blakkie
What about Knowledge Military Vehicles? Does the module give suggestions for thresholds about recalling info on the vehicle such as the radar being a soft spot and the suspension being vulnerable to fragmentation?


It's all in Knowledge (Tactics).  In the 20+ result section, there's the "(See ZSU special notes)", which includes the interesting fact that the ZSU is made from aluminium and, thus, can be taken out with SAW and sniper fire quite easily