Blood and Guts: Feedback

[Dana_Jorgensen]

I do have to relate an amusing, somewhat relevant anecdote. Just talked to a friend of mine who had the pleasure of serving his country for several years, and did indeed get shot at. With this thread on my mind, I asked him: "You ever use one of those TOW missiles?"

"Ay-up."

"Which weapon system did you use? The Hellfire, the Longbow, or one of the Hellfire variants?"

He smiled, looked at me and said:

"Whatever one was in the f*&kin' box." [/B]

This illustrates the whole problem with relying on vets as a research source. The vast majority of military personnel are support personnel. Generally, it takes 3 to 10 support personnel to support each soldier in combat. These support personnel are doomed to military careers without a lot of color. So they deny the reality of what they did in the military and instead make crap up to tell whatever persons ask about their careers.

If your friend had actually used a TOW, he would have told you it was a TOW, TOW-2, FOTT, or other system in the TOW family and not a Hellfire of any type. He would have not said "Whatever was in the box". They ship in transport tubes, not boxes. Only the little stuff that one man can carry, like a LAW, BDM or AT4 ship in crates, and even then, inside the crates are transport tubes/launchers, which are issued to troops well before entering the battlefield.

 

[jonrog1]

This illustrates the whole problem with relying on vets as a research source. The vast majority of military personnel are support personnel. Generally, it takes 3 to 10 support personnel to support each soldier in combat. These support personnel are doomed to military careers without a lot of color. So they deny the reality of what they did in the military and instead make crap up to tell whatever persons ask about their careers.

If your friend had actually used a TOW, he would have told you it was a TOW, TOW-2, FOTT, or other system in the TOW family and not a Hellfire of any type. He would have not said "Whatever was in the box". They ship in transport tubes, not boxes. Only the little stuff that one man can carry, like a LAW, BDM or AT4 ship in crates, and even then, inside the crates are transport tubes/launchers, which are issued to troops well before entering the battlefield.

Oh, sorry, I believe you missed the point that he was making to me. He was joking.

He was using "box" metaphorically. He knew all my terms were incorrect. He was simply reminding me that whatever the fine folk of the United States Government gave him to shoot at other folk with, he used.

(He's always been a bit of a square-jaw since we were kids, and he finds tech talk boring or ridiculous, depending on his sobriety. Oddly, my foster brother who was a crew chief on a C-130 and led a life of liesure, drinking in foreign bars, and NOT getting shot at can wax rhapsodic for hours on tech. Go figure.)

I was extrapolating his pithy saying to the idea that the vast majority of players, given fewer choices in their game-stat models, would not mind either, if it got them to the "shooting" (that is, gaming) faster or more effectively.

He felt no need to rub my nose in the fact I didn't know the difference between these things, as he's both my friend and a very nice, if habitually terse, guy. Rather than be grindingly literal, he was being intentionally brief for the sake of a gently chiding joke. Always easy to miss those in postings, because of the lack of verbal inflection. (And I think I've just proven, it takes nine times as long to explain a joke as it does to tell it.)

I'm sure, knowing now that it was a joke at my expense, and I assume having served yourself, you now certainly wouldn't leap to the conclusion that he was making crap up about about his career.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Unfortunately, as a vet, I find I have even greater need to assume a questioning attitude about anyone's military experience, because I understand the truth of the matter. It all stems from when I got stuck with a greenhorn ROTC second lieutenant fresh from artillery school who liked to brag about his experiences in combat in Panama during Operation: Just Cause, though his service records clearly stated he didn't enter service until five months after Just Cause ended, and also stated that his trip to join us in Desert Shield was his first assignment outside the continental United States. Like I said, for most people, military service is an unglamourous job where most folks provide support capacity rather than fighting capacity. Even for those who can expect to be on the front lines, the vast majority have missed the opportunity to fight in a real battle. Closest they come are the OPFOR excercises they go through at the NTC at Fort Irwin against the 11 CAV. That leaves behind a lot of unfulfilled testosterone dreams.

Anyway, after debunking that LT's story, I started paying very close attention to the stories people were telling and I noticed a lot of dishonesty. After a long term personal project of comparing stories to service records, close to 45% of the stories were outright lies because the people telling them were never in the proper combination of place and time to have experienced them. Another 25% were suspect, because while the person may have been in the right place and time, various other details in their service record made the occurances either very unlikely or outright illegal, ranging from things like a motor pool mechanic talking about running an Abrams through its paces during regular training at Fort Hood, to a soldier talking about a bar brawl offbase on a night that according to records made him AWOL from his schedule night duty. Fact of the matter is, for the most part, military personnel are the among the biggest shovellers of bull cookies, second only to truck drivers. Too bad only the truck drivers let you know they're pulling your leg.

In fact, when listening to the tales told by anyone engaged in a career that provides an expectation of lethal danger, they should be taken with a grain of salt, because the percentage of people who are actually put in harm's way is small. For example, if a cop has one story about the day he was almost killed on duty, you can probably believe it. If he has 100 stories to tell you about all the days he almost died in the line of duty, doubt he was ever a cop to begin with.

As for your friend, I don't know the man. So of course what he says will be questioned by me.

 

[Vigilance]

So I think this answers your original question Jonrog "is there no humility or professional courtesy on these boards".

Seems the answer is "no" from some quarters

As for questioning someone's career, had Monte or Chris Pramas taken a tude with me like "your book would bother me but I know I'll write something better" I could *almost* swallow it given what they have accomplished in this business relative to me.

But you know what? They would never say that.

Chuck

 

[jonrog1]

As for your friend, I don't know the man. So of course what he says will be questioned by me.

See, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. But I can understand, after your long experience, your justified cynicism.

My foster brothers and friends who served (I was the only one of the oh, six or seven of us who went to college instead of going in) are also quite blunt as to the insanely boring nature of their entire careers so I wasn't aware of all the macho sh*t-talking that goes on. Even R--, the only one of them to see combat, downplays it constantly, so I once again assumed modesty was standard. One of the things that makes me admire them, actually. I wasn't aware that the reverse was the standard. I bow to your superior experience.

I just personally wouldn't have jumped to "your life-long friend who I've never met is a liar " quite so quickly. Particularly as the first assumption was based on missing a quite deliberate joke. It could be misconstrued as arrogance or condescension, which I'm sure wasn't your intent.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Unfortunately, as a vet, I find I have even greater need to assume a questioning attitude about anyone's military experience, because I understand the truth of the matter... a lot of unfulfilled testosterone dreams... Anyway, after debunking that LT's story, I started paying very close attention to the stories... close to 45% of the stories were outright lies ... Fact of the matter is, for the most part, military personnel are the among the biggest shovellers of bull cookies...

You know, I can definitely see where you're coming from. A lot of vets throw around bullsh*t stories full of made up facts and figures. They get their testosterone jollies by assuming a superior attitude and pretending they know something worthwhile.

Wulf

 

[Psion]

While I find Tzeentch's take on a few points a little anal, I am not going to be anal on a few points, with the full knowledge that some things are really beyond the scope of what is important for most RPGs.

It just so happens that I am:
- An ex-submariner and,
- Currently am an engineer who working on navy air traffic control systems.

Air Traffic Control - I really realize this is way beyond the level of detail that will likely ever be important, but you put this much detail into your skill, so I guess I will too.
On full sized carriers, the system I work in has the capability to make this perfectly automatic; the function of the controller is pretty much just to make sure that they link up to the system right. At best, the controller's involvement might be to "aid" the pilot granting a +2.

In the right wind conditions (which are usually insured due to the way the ship deliberately points itself), the landing can be made automatic, and effectively ignores rain, fog, and other limitations to visibility. However, it won't compesate for things like hurricane level winds. Further, the pilot has the capability at all times to take control of the plane.

Rigorously modeled in d20 terms, I would say that this is the equivalent of granting "take 10" with a fixed skill bonus (say, +10) for landing, and ignoring penalties due to limited visibility or pilot fatigue. Then, allow the pilot to make his own check if it's not good enough.

Submarines -

I know it's a simple model, but I could see it done a little more accurately with just a few tweaks.

First off, the text seems to imply surface weapons will be effective against a submarine at periscope depth. This is not likely; surface to surface (and air to surface) weapons are not designed to travel through 50 feet of water; this is why anti-submarine weapons are so important on carriers.

Second, you imply that the pilot of the submarine's skill will be used as a hide check. The "driver" is usually an E-3 or below with relatively little experience, so that might not be wise. The person manning the throttles actually has a bigger effect on detection of the sub (if you open the throttles too fast, cavitation occurs, which is easily detected by sonar.) However, if you want to peg one person's skill as being important to detection, it would probably be the officer of the deck's "profession: sub commander" (or somesuch) skills, as he is the one giving orders when to turn, change speed, etc., which can be important.

Minor quibble: Super Hornet

The super hornet is not widely fielded yet. The sailors on the last carrier I visited ooohed and aaahed at the F-18E that came with us on our last trip. It would probably give a better feel for the currently deployed units if you also provided stats for an F-18C/D.

 

[Vigilance]

The air traffic control point makes perfect sense to me- the skill was really modeled around special ops helping pilots make landings on bush trails- and so while it covers the skill, I didnt model any equipment to help that skill, like you describe

However, for the future book I have in the outline stage that kind of info is perfect

For subs- what I was going for was the "hunt for red october" feel, where the sub slowly slips behind its Russian counterpart. So drive seemed appropriate. Unrealistic, but cinematic

Chuck

 

[Vigilance]

A different perspective just caught my attention:

http://www.gamewyrd.com/review/339

 

[H&K Kid]

Sorry if this has already been addressed but how does one do character generation using Blood and Guts? Do you start off as one of the classes in D20 Modern (i.e. Fast Hero) , take a starting occupation then chose an MOS? Would really appreciate it if someone can outline the steps needed for me .