How to make an air battle fun for more than just the pilot?

[Piratecat]

I'll be running a 1920's Adventure! d20 pulp game soon, but the mechanics are close enough to d20 Modern that it makes no nevermind. I'd like one of my scenes to be an aerial dogfight in a plane big enough to carry six to eight people. The challenge I'm facing is that I'm not sure how best to involve the whole party.

Luckily, the plane can boast whatever superscience advancements I want (think Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.) Anyone have any good ideas on how to involve the group, either through clever mechanics or interesting weapons? Thanks -- I'm currently drawing a blank, and any brainstorming will help.

 

[scourger]

Some good advice in one of my many surplus d20 game books is that RPGs are not well-suited to vehicle combat if the whole party is in the vehicle. The problem is that even if all the PCs are involved as gunners (or whatever) the fate of the party may depend on the skill or rolls of the pilot. One shot or failed piloting check takes out the whole party. That has been my unfortunate experience in Star Wars. So, the best way to use it may be to just have it as a plot device.

That said, I have a suggestion if you are intent on having a dogfight involving all the PCs. The big plane could be a sort of transport with smaller defense fighters that launch from it. Sort of an aircraft carrier in the sky. (A zeppelin might work better than a big plane, but whatever.) Then, each PC has his or her own fighter plane or glider or balloon or whatever that he or she flies around and uses to fight off the enemy.

Or maybe the big plane has rocket-man suits or packs that let the PCs fly around shooting the enemy fighters down with handleld weapons. Due to limited range, the rocketeers have to return to the plane (or land as fuel runs out).

Either way, the PCs are out defending the transport while it lumbers onward under the collective protection of the PC fighter wings. This way, if one (or more) fo the PCs fails to pilot or fight successfully and is destroyed, the entire group does not suffer the same fate.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Don't know how well it would adapt to your situation, but Traveller T20 has really good spaceship combat rules. It does a great job of giving every player something to do that can affect the outcome, whether it's making sensor skill checks to add accuracy, engineering eeking out a little more power, etc.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

OK, P-Cat, I'll give you some advice here (The student giving advice to the master, that's a laugh...)

OK, you have the pilot, and a plane big enough for 6 people...

Let's tag two side gunners and a tail gunner (IE: Old bombers), the pilot, an engineer, and the co-pilot.

With a co-pilot, it gives the party a better chance, since there are 2 people to make rolls. If the pilot gets wounded, then the co-pilot has to make a few rolls while the pilot wipes the blood from his eyes, bandage his face, etc.

The tail and side gunners are running the guns, as well as helping the engineer fix damage to the plane.

Whenever the plane takes a hit, the engineer and whoever else can help can try to fix the damage, so they don't go down in flames. Having two characters in the crawlspace trying to fix a fuel leak under combat, while one side of the plane is unguarded, the pilot is tying off a nick to his leg, and the copilot is trying to keep the engine from cutting out while he pulls an Immelman loop...

Well, everyone is involved.

The basics? Don't just have the damage do HP to the plane. Shatter windows, puncture fuel lines, have tears in the plane's hull that need fixed RIGHT then, damage a generator on one of the wings or something like that.

Any hit to the plane causes 1 hp of damage to a random character per damage die. EI: The weapon does 6d6 points of damage, it hits the plane, 1 PC is hit for 6 HP (1/2 damage, reflex save DC: attackers roll to hit).

That any help?

 

[Piratecat]

This is a tremendous help. Adventure! d20 is a cinematic system, so these ideas are just what I need. I actually considered Scourger's idea of rocket packs or the like, but using such things would complicate plot later in the adventure. As a result, I think Warlord Ralt's division of labor will work just fine.

The copilot idea is an especially good one. One PC is optimized for brawling, and can punch the heck out of an enemy... but that doesn't help much at 20,000 feet. If he aids another instead by acting as co-pilot, he can make a big difference on maneuvers.

Heh - if you could barnstorm in a zeppelin, I'd probably use one of those. I'll use one for the bad guys, instead.

 

[takyris]

I keep flashing back to that scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Sean Connery takes out a Nazi plane with birds. I'm not saying you should do that, but the idea of letting strategies work well, letting the players come up with inventive ideas, can really let even the non-pilots get things done.

Only actual piloting tactic I know of is from WW2, when the Allied pilots, who were getting trounced man-to-man by Japanese Zeroes, finally figured out a tactic to use against the maneuverable but lightly armored craft -- the pilots used the buddy system, flying parallel, and when the Zero went after one, the other pilot would get a free shot at the Zero's side. This rocked the nature of air combat during WW2 -- instead of 10 Zeroes taking out 10 or more Allied planes, you had 2 or 4 Allied planes taking out 10 or 12 Zeroes.

So, bearing that stuff in mind... how can the buddy system help people out? Are they fighting at high altitudes, or are they flying through a series of canyons that allow them to fly under giant stone arches or weave through rock pillars? On a massively pulpish level, a situation could go something like:

Smart PC: Rex! Stop trying to shoot the enemy plane! Shoot the rocks off to our right! The ones right there, with the purple and black ridges!

(Rex does it, and it causes a massive rockslide behind them that catches the enemy plane)

Smart PC: Simple evidence of geological instability...

Or (and I havne't seen Sky Captain, so I don't know if this already happens), something where the firefight starts a chain reaction where all those awesome rock pillars and arches start crashing into each other and breaking. The pilot gets to make checks, the gunner gets to shoot things, the mechanic gets a bit more out of the engine or makes repairs, and the scientist geek directs the pilot to safer areas -- and for some reason, they can't just gain altitude -- because they'll be spotted? They have to go in at an altitude of less than 500 feet?

Dunno. Spitballing.

 

[The Grackle]

Instead of rocketeers the plane should come equipped w/a few radio guided missles. The crew members could launch them and make pilot rolls to hit enemy planes. If they flub the rolls, you don't have to worry about them crashing or falling to their deaths, just missing.

There should be a scene where something gets jammed in the wing flap, and somebody has to crawl out there and fix it.

 

[Pbartender]

Here's an idea, PC...

The enemy planes each have a passenger commando who wears a jumpsuit with silk webbing between the arms and legs. The enemy plane swoops in, matches speed with the PCs' transport, and the commando leaps out and glides over like a six-foot-tall flying squirrel wearing aviator goggles.

Now, the pilot and co-pilot have to concentrate on avoiding the enemy aircraft, while everyone else has to repel the boarders.

Whenever the pilot makes a fancy maneuver, everyone fighting inside the plane (including the good guys) must make an opposed Balance check vs. the pilot's Pilot check or fall prone... Bull rushes out an open door... Reflex saves to grab the edge of a wing to avoid falling to your doom... Stray bullets narrowly missing the pilot...

 

[Robbert Raets]

You could have people role-play helping to navigate or making critical repairs, with the regular 'aid another' rules (are those in Adventure! d20?)

 

[Chingerspy]

Think shuttlecraft/starship rather than plane. I'm guessing its a fairly large plane with 6 crew. If its a smaller plane then it will be harder to involve all characters I guess. You're gonna have super-science doohickies so have characters assigned to them.

Navigation - Radar-to-sensors-to-projected courses, etc...
Weapons - Forward and Aft, depends if one character can do both or needs two. maybe one on guns, another on heavier ordnance.
Helm - Pilot obviously
Engineering - if super-science has invaded toolbox then its gonna be possible to have on the spot repairs done to keep in the fight longer. Again this could be two jobs, one on the engines, another on the structure.

Just some ideas quickly thrown down on electronic paper