"i will command the defense of the city myself!"

[alsih2o]

have you ever put your p.c.s in a situation where they are bound to carry out the orders of a doofus?

how is this best managed without it feeling like railroading? how do you best manage to let them succeed at the larger goal without repercussions for not "staying and guarding the sewer gate" or some such?

is it too much to make it clear they should try and lay off their success on the incompetent, socially superior fellow? how is this best done?

any thoughts?

 

[Nightfall]

Yeah if he fails, make damn sure to blame him as well as praise him.

 

[Rackhir]

have you ever put your p.c.s in a situation where they are bound to carry out the orders of a doofus?

how is this best managed without it feeling like railroading? how do you best manage to let them succeed at the larger goal without repercussions for not "staying and guarding the sewer gate" or some such?

is it too much to make it clear they should try and lay off their success on the incompetent, socially superior fellow? how is this best done?

any thoughts?

Try reading through some of the early Horatio Hornblower novels. Or some of the early Miles Vorkosigan stories by Lois McMaster Bujold, like "Young Miles". Early stories in military fiction series often have a clearly more competent subordinate having to deal with incompetent or bull headed superiors.

Some of the classic ways of dealing with this kind of situation are to interpret the orders "VERY" loosely. "Guard the sewer gates" for example could be distorted to going and attacking the enemy forces across the moat, because they were "threatening the gate".

Success after all forgives much, particularly if they lay down a line of BS afterwards about how their superior's orders were so brilliant and inspired. That also works if they just do what makes the most sense and then claim that was what they were ordered to do, or that they "misunderstood" the order. Since doing X made much more sense and he couldn't have meant Y.

 

[clark411]

Any time the player characters are "bound" by the decisions and demands of a non-player character it's going to feel like they lack control, but shouldn't exactly feel like railroading. Unless they are bound to obey the NPCs words by the letter of the law, are on forced marches to specific locations and have all the scenes play out before them with little potential on their part to alter the story, it shouldn't feel like railroading.

So..
1) as mentioned before, let them have the opportunity to "interpret" important decisions that make no sense.

2)If they do things like manning a boring post for a day or are given tasks that, while boring and seemingly nonsensical, are not open to interpretation ("Elite PC-guy, go do Kitchen Patrol!"), they can just be glazed over. Being railroaded and being given plausible duties and responsibilities are two different monkeys entirely. If they "choose" to goof off, fine, but hey- consequences should be plausible too.

3) When the action starts, have circumstances allow them a greater degree of anonymity. The realism can shatter if a group of soldiers just jumps into party mode, moving independantly amongst other forces, but if their commander is knocked out and they don't know what to do.. that means they do what they think's best.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Try reading through some of the early Horatio Hornblower novels. Or some of the early Miles Vorkosigan stories by Lois McMaster Bujold, like "Young Miles". Early stories in military fiction series often have a clearly more competent subordinate having to deal with incompetent or bull headed superiors.

Honor Harrington is another - which is natural, since the series is heavily Hornblower-influenced.

There's a novel from the Venture collection called "Sold - for a Spaceship!". At one point, a military officer is assigned to set up a series of defence posts to hold off an amphibious assault. Unfortunately, his contempt for the politicos and the enemy lead him to order the construction of several sandbagged pits. The posts are all quickly overrun... except for one, whose four defenders, unhappy with the situation, had secretly upgraded their own defences. Their sandbag walls were eight feet thick, and the flamethrower and machinegun they'd smuggled in were rather more effective than the rifles everyone else was using...

-Hyp.

 

[Rackhir]

Honor Harrington is another - which is natural, since the series is heavily Hornblower-influenced.

-Hyp.

I had thought of mentioning her at first, but then I realized that Honor was never really under the command of an incompetent superior. She was frequently placed in bad/hopeless situations by incompetent superiors, but was never actually under the bad orders from an incompetent.

 

[Kelek72]

Imagine what the Untouchable trio +1 would do if ordered to guard a sewer or to go on kitchen duty...

 

[Hand of Evil]

Well, I tell my players the one with the highest CHR is the leader of the party for the most part, which has lead to some interesting plans but more importantly quick decisions.

 

[Davek]

Maybe the incompetant is just more subtle or devious than everyone expects ala 'Tactics of Mistakes' (Dorsai series).