Heroes as part of an organization

[RangerWickett]

I'm trying to work up a sort of mini-game ruleset for a group of PCs who are part of a large organization. They start off at 1st level as the equivalent of newly-graduated FBI agents, so usually they handle fairly basic stuff. But to make them appreciate the scope of the campaign, and give them a reason to, y'know, like their job (as opposed to saying, "Screw this bureaucracy crap. Let's all go be pirates!"), I want rules or guidelines for when they can requisition gear, or call in help at a dangerous scene, or if they need someone to cast a ritual for them.

What I'm thinking is to give the PCs a fairly simple "Respect" rating. How well the rest of the department respects them determines how much help they can get.

Their respect rating starts at 1, can drop to 0 if they really screw up (or piss off their bosses), and go as high as 6.

Respect
0: Department pariah.

1: New but unknown, or well-known laughingstock.

2: Effective agent.

3: Decorated agent.

4: Local hero.

5: National hero.

6: Ear of the king.


Then there's a ranking of the favor you're trying to get. Favors also go from 1 to 6, and can be even higher if you need them in a hurry or for a longer time.

Favors

1: One guy. You plan in advance, and some time in the next week you can schedule to have one low-ranking agent show up and helps you for maybe an hour.
2: As above, but four guys.
3: Twenty guys.
4: A hundred guys.
5: A thousand guys.
6: A small army.

+1 if you schedule it for tomorrow.
+2 if later today.
+3 drop everything and get here NOW.

+1 if they're helping for a whole day.
+2 for a week.
+3 for as long as you need them.

-1 if the job is non-combat and doesn't cost anything significant (i.e., no ritual spellcasting).
+1 for an expert (like a sniper, warmage, ritual caster, or spy).

+1 for each other favor currently ongoing.


Getting What You Want
If the total rank of the favor you want is equal to or less than your Respect rating with the organization, you can get your favor. If it's 1 higher, you have to make a Diplomacy check (Easy DC based on your level). If 2 higher, it's a Medium DC, and if 3 higher it's a Hard DC.

You can also try to use other skills -- maybe you threaten people with Intimidate so they'll get you what you want, or you sneak into the bosses office and use Thievery to forge the orders -- but failed checks will probably have very negative consequences, like reducing your Respect score.


This would all be guidelines, and you could get situational bonuses, obviously. How does it sound?

What else do I need? I guess I also need to figure out how to handle requisitioning items, though I personally just like to use inherent bonuses. (Have they put inherent bonuses in the character builder yet?)

 

[jonesy]

Favors

1: One guy. You plan in advance, and some time in the next week you can schedule to have one low-ranking agent show up and helps you for maybe an hour.

Divide that into specialist services. Scout/scryer (advance information of a location, person, organization, opposing force), thief (keys to somewhere, a location pre-untrapped), warrior (someone to fight by your side), wizard (the same as the warrior, different specialities), etc.

And then use availability. They might request a thief, but when the day comes none might be available, so they get a scout instead. Or they could get the wrong type of spellcaster.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I think it is a good idea, the only real problem is to not allow too much too fast.

I also think the idea that big favors reduce the base score is a good idea, so they will be requested less frequently. Handing out a +1,2 or 3 bonus to the rep score for a certain time frame/task would make a fine reward.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Shall I interpret this as a Zeitgeist factoid?

 

[Jan van Leyden]

And then use availability. They might request a thief, but when the day comes none might be available, so they get a scout instead. Or they could get the wrong type of spellcaster.

Do I smell some traces of Paranoia here?

 

[haakon1]

BTW, the Stargate SG-1 d20 game had rules like this for requesting supplies and so forth, as part of Stargate team (super secret military Special Forces team dealing with aliens). So did the d20 spy game system it was derived from, Spycraft.

And I'll bet GURPS has some versions of this too. There was a GURPS Police game I believe . . . or they said they were making one, last time I paid attention to GURPS, which was ages ago . . .

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, in 4e what all might you requisition? I figure 10th level is the max for any sort of magic item.

Approach One - Reskin current rules
You're provided common items -- one of your level, one of level -1, one of level +1. You are assumed to have wealth from your salary equal to the value of an item of level -1. Basically the same as the core rules, but with a slightly different flavor.

But common items are boring, and as a DM I'll want to hand out uncommon and rare items. When a PC recovers an item in the course of a mission, he can keep it if he's considered appropriate rank (i.e., level) that they trust him with it. Likewise, he can requisition items of up to his level with a successful check (Easy DC for uncommon items, Medium DC for rare).

Maybe if his Respect score is low, you've got to make a check to get something uncommon at all. I'm not sure how good that is.


Approach Two - Inherent Bonuses
WotC is incredibly nice to me and implements inherent bonuses in the character builder.

Your office gives you 1st level common items, and a vague salary that provides you with wealth = cost of an item of your level -1. Everything beyond that is stuff you either make yourself, find, or get rewarded by forging roleplaying connections.

If you don't get any cool magic items, you're still mathematically balanced. This is a lot easier to plan for.



Now, I still need to figure out requisitioning other weird stuff, like boats or whatever, but I guess it could fall to DM fiat based on the situation. The main thing is that if you abuse the power and get stuff destroyed, your reputation would suffer.

 

[OnlineDM]

I think that this is best handled with some good guidelines for the DM, and then a lot of DM judgment. Explain to the DM that the group's standing within the organization and the kingdom will affect what they can requisition. Give some examples (if their boss loves them but the head of the organization barely knows they exist, they can ask for and get X type of thing in Y amount of time. If they need it quicker, that's going to be harder to get - their boss can't pull as many strings - and so on). This goes for requisitioning both goods and services.

Trying to track an exact favor score and modifiers and everything feels like the wrong approach. I see it as a narrative table about the kind of things that they can get when various people feel various ways about them, followed by some discussion of modifiers (rush orders can't be done as easily as non-rush orders; very specific things might take more time or better connections, and so on). One half-page of table-plus-text should be enough to give the DM the gist of how this works.

 

[Aldarc]

I think it would be fairly easy to adopt similar rules regarding requisitioning favors, gear, people, etc. from Spycraft 2.0.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Where do the magic items come from? Are they, or at least the common ones, produced by the organization? If so, there should be no shortage of common items unless dramatically appropriate, so each operative can request those according to his rank or level. After the mission the team would be required to turn in their items as well as newly found ones.

Uncommon items might be beyond the scope of the organization, so the higher-ups would be happy if the field team brings in such goodies. They would be handed over to R&D to be analyzed and, possibly, duplicated. To get such a valuable item for a task might require some Request Roll. A team might earn some reputation with R&D for bringing them cool stuff, which might turn into a bonus for requesting those items.

I had toyed with a similar concept for a 3e campaign, which sadly never saw the light of the day. I thought of an organization founded and headed by several ex-adventurers, who would send field teams do dungeons to clear out the baddies. It was nothing but a tongue-in-cheek framework for a DCC campaign: learn from a briefing, select your stuff and let you teleport to the entrance of the dungeon wherever that may be.