Elements of a Military RPG

[The Shaman]

ohhh... I have to know... did you find any suckers to stick with the ACMA Troupes Aeról Portées Mle. 56?

OMG!

This is the first reference I've seen to this! I've got to work this into the game.

If you want a comp copy, just let me know.

That would be very much appreciated! My e-mail is active through the site.

Thanks very much - I'm sure my players will get a kick out of this!

 

[Bobitron]

I'll agree with Mr. Dustyboots about the hierarchy being important; when a General walked into the tent to brief the team in the last 'Over There' I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

David, as one of Shaman's players, thank you for the accomodation. That little beast looks like fun.

That Algerian War game is my favorite of all the ones I play in. I think Shaman has done a great job portraying the relationship between the NCO's and the men.

 

[Barak]

That vary a lot. There's a lot of possible militaristic type campaigns, and what would be important to each depends on the setting, the system, etc.

In many way, WFB is a great example of a militaristic game. But you can't recreate a WWII battle with it, that's for sure.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I have played a number of systems, and CP2020 and Aliens (by FASA) come closest to mechanical set-up for a military style. Both have rules for providing covering fire.

For a SW game, its quite easy to do military despite the lack of mechanics. I have played in two campaigns whose focus was special forces type military action. Let me tell you, doing a snoop-n-poop out on an active battlefield is just plain nasty!

For ideas, grab the book and game 'Republic Commando'. The game has little replay value and takes about 8 hours of concentrated play (and you pretty much guarenteed to be sucked into it for those hours ) but shows off what a SW battlefield could look like.

The basics are RPing, not mechanical. Chains of command, missions that are linked to the higher units success or failure, lots of things that go BOOM. Best options are to do a special forces or insurgent scenarios. {basic difference between the two is how well the team is supplied} As much as people have nay-said 'Heroes of Battle' it does have a decent proposal on how to run a campaign within a war.

Of course, your milage may vary. The groups I have played with have been made up of mostly military folks anyway. Hence 3 'military' games in a stretch of 5+ years

 

[Nagual]

WOD (especially Aeon Trinity had some good mechanics for the use of cover/suppressive fire) it could be worth checking out? I'm in the process of simplifying these rule for my own table-top miniatures game (special forces --black ops...)

 

[DragonLancer]

I've tried to run some military RPGs (Starship Troopers, Weird Wars and more recently DeathWatch) but I always hit the same snag. I find that after three or four scenarios the game falls back into the same old tropes... do as you're told, investigate this, capture enemy commander, capture/recover fuel and supplies...etc. Because the characters are part of a solid command structure they don't get a lot of freedom to decide their own actions (unlike most RPGs where they can say what they want to do), and there is only limited scope for scenarios during a few days R&R.

How do you guys get around that?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've tried to run some military RPGs (Starship Troopers, Weird Wars and more recently DeathWatch) but I always hit the same snag. I find that after three or four scenarios the game falls back into the same old tropes... do as you're told, investigate this, capture enemy commander, capture/recover fuel and supplies...etc. Because the characters are part of a solid command structure they don't get a lot of freedom to decide their own actions (unlike most RPGs where they can say what they want to do), and there is only limited scope for scenarios during a few days R&R.

How do you guys get around that?

First step is to determine whether the players want to get around that or not. I personally like that reallistic structure. But you can also make their decions on the ground matter a lot in those missions.

A lot of our network games are set up so players are part of a federal agency (usually the FBI). It isn't military, but the hierarchy issue is still in play. So they are basically told what to investigate most of the time (though an agent that becomes a squad supervisor has more authority and flexibility here.

How I get around it is by limiting the railroading to to the set up (something needs to be investigated and their squad is assigned to do so). But within that investigation it is total sandbox. They can follow which leads they want, go to which locations they want. As long as everything they are doing is reasonable. I think the hardest part is in a structure like this, consequences for veering off course are more immediate and severe. They can't just fly to Haiti on a hunch if they are supposed to be investigating a murder in Chicago (though they can ask their SAC if they can go or have a fly team sent there).

What became apparent to me the more I learned about FBI structure (and DOJ structure in general), the more I understood how different options could be persued. I don't know how well this translates to military, but I suspect the more you know on a granular level how military hierarchy works (and how exceptions and special requests work), the easier it will be to work player freedom into the mix.

 

[RedTonic]

That problem is what I liked about the Stargate: Atlantis show. At least in theory, if not in practice. Get cut off from the usual command structure... Command falls to the next highest ranking officer (or enlisted, if no officers remain!)... Lots of fieldwork, lots of variety in that fieldwork, and a constant need to adjust to changing circumstance (which means some, er, leeway in interpreting orders and achieving imperatives).

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Want more military realism? Easy! Just add boredom, bureaucracy, KP, and burning feces in 55-gallon drums!

-- Break, Break --

Constructive suggestion? Do a little reading in the better books in individual military history to mine some ideas:

Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane, Civil War (fiction))
The Defence of Duffer's Drift (E.D.Swinton, Boer War, (fiction, but a good primer for simple scenarios))
All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque, WWI)
Company Commander (Charles B MacDonald, WWII)
Band of Brothers (Stephen Ambrose, WWII)
Brazen Chariots (Robert Crisp, WWII)
About Face (David Hackworth, Korea-Vietnam)
Platoon Leader (James McDonough, Vietnam)
Dispatches (Michael Herr, Vietnam)
A Rumor of War (Phillip Caputo, Vietnam)
Tank Sergeant (Ralph Zumbro, Vietnam)
The Heights of Courage (Avigdor Khalani, Golan Heights '73)
The Defense of Hill 781 (James McDonough, Modern post-Gulf War (fiction, but like Duffer's Drift a good start point for scenario ideas))