Players in a military order

[Doug McCrae]

This thread has the wrong title. The issue isn't players in a military order. The issue is which is worth more - a surprise in session one or the players understanding the true nature of the campaign. Arguably it's a bait-and-switch, though not as extreme as some.

 

[Herobizkit]

If I were running such a game, I would call the first scenario "Scenario Zero" or "Prelude". Have the PC's play (slightly) younger versions of themselves, have the events unfold, and then present the actual start of the campaign as "X years later..." where the PC's are where they are now.

It works in video games... it might work with your players.

 

[haakon1]

I've ran or played (mostly played) many campaigns where the PCs were in the military. They weren't D&D games, though; they were mostly GURPS Special Ops games, Twilight: 2000 (with and without the T2K setting), and the like.

I've done it with D&D too. I don't get what the players are afraid of with a military campaign. My guess is one of two things:

1) They don't like the military in real life, and that feeling bleeds over into game life. If they did it a shot, they might actually LIKE ROLE PLAYING someone who thinks differently from themselves. I ran a RECON (Vietnam War special forces teams) game in college with a British Army veteran/reservist student, a law student who was in Marine Officer training, some regular students, and one hippie pothead student who was totally opposed to the military. VERY fun group -- some of the fun coming from stretching into "unsuited" roles.

2) They think it means you will tell them what to do and they will be railroaded. Tell them they won't and move on. In my experience, the "reason the party is together and has missions" has little to no discernable affect on the freedom of action of the party. How many fictional cops tell the boss to shove it and do what they want? ALL of them!

 

[haakon1]

I think the key is to still allow the players freedom and give them the benefits of the military side of life (medals, back up in an emergency, promotions, dramatic deaths/saves of NPC buddies) without too many of the negatives (unwanted interference from idiot officers being the classic, excessive death of NPC buddies as well.)

Precisely. Though the "bureaucratic snafu" or "evil boss" plots have to be used eventually. It's a contractual obligation of the genre.

 

[Haltherrion]

Have you told the objecting players up-front that the military is only a starting condition, and that the order will shortly cease to be a factor?

Not yet; I'd like it to be a complete surprise but the next time I try, I may hint at it since the current course has failed so miserably

 

[Haltherrion]

Honestly, it sounds like your players are not interested in being members of any organization whatsoever. I think you just gotta let it go and give them more of a sandbox-style game they want...or step down.

From your post it seems like you're trying to think up of ways to "bribe" your players into playing your type of campaign. That might work in the short run, but it won't be much fun in the long run because neither you nor the players are getting the kind of experience you want.

Personally, my favorite kind of D&D campaign is fantasy-special ops...and I had some great campaigns with other players that felt the same way. But its not one-size-fits-all.

You gotta play to your audience...

I do play to my audience which is why I haven't run that type of start yet

I like to have a little buy-in with the players while preserving something dramatic for the campaign start; it usually helps kick things off crisply. When I offer them the outline of several starts, it is with the intent that any of them would be fun for me and the players and to date, they have consistently avoided one class of start I have presented. Just an observations, nothing I can't deal with.

In any case, that's my own method of starting the campaigns. I can certainly tip my hand more on one of the start options but to date, I've prefered not to do that as I think that undercuts one of main reasons for doing that start. A few inticements on that path don't seem unreasonable. I've always liked aerial mounts myself; I'd probably go that myself.

As much as I was interested in relating my own situation, as I was more interested in seeing folks experience with military and other situations where there is a superior, such as the ones Coyote described.

As it happens, the current campaign is very sandbox-ish and the mercenary order they chose not to join has done its part by falling to some foes and adding some background to the world that may or may not involve them depending on what choices they make.

 

[Haltherrion]

Go watch Band of Brothers and The Pacific... I think it's easy to see how small groups of soldiers have a cool mission that is beyond just someone generic in the line.

Oh I agree; I need to get my *players* to watch those shows

 

[Haltherrion]

If I were running such a game, I would call the first scenario "Scenario Zero" or "Prelude". Have the PC's play (slightly) younger versions of themselves, have the events unfold, and then present the actual start of the campaign as "X years later..." where the PC's are where they are now.

It works in video games... it might work with your players.

That's an interesting thought. I might actually try that. ALmost allof our games have an elaborate "draft" process by which players select their PCs from a slate of possible characters. It is something we've all come to look forward to and lends itself well to one of the players/co-refs painting talents (he loves to paint up a batch of players).

As an alternate start, could have them work up a number of possible prelude characters and then play out a prelude session for each group, one of which could be the military order. I like that.

We should have done this for our current campaign. We were just transitioning to 4E and ran a number of test sessions to try out the new system. Those test sessions could have been the prelude session.

 

[Haltherrion]

This thread has the wrong title. The issue isn't players in a military order. The issue is which is worth more - a surprise in session one or the players understanding the true nature of the campaign. Arguably it's a bait-and-switch, though not as extreme as some.

Not at all, Doug. If they had actually chosen the military order and I had not given them sufficient warning that the order might not persist then it would be about bait and switch. But since they have never actually selected it, they weren't switched. The thread was about player's reluctance to select or play such an option and what others experiences have been here.

Regarding the premise, in most cases, they were told they would start in a military order and not necessarily remain in one. They seem reluctant to even serve under a position of authority for any period of time.

In the current situation, I made no such statement but the adventuring company is well described in the setting material and it is clear that company members can opt in or out of contracts. It was a band of adventurers not a real military order.

Anyway, part of this may be as much that they always have 1 or 2 other options and have prefered those to the military order.

 

[Haltherrion]

I'd also encourage you to tip your hand. The surprise value of playing through the order being shattered is probably not worth having to overcome players' initial reluctance to the hook.

I've actually run a scenario like this, only I told the players flat-out "You'll be the remnants of a mercenary group that's been betrayed and demolished." They built their characters from that premise, we began the game with a description of how Things Went Down, and the first stuff they were doing was scouring the battlefield for survivors and dealing with... scavengers. The game lacked the element of surprise, but I think that was a good thing: everyone knew that their real character concepts would be people who were in a mercenary group and now must figure out how to get revenge/rebuild, rather than people who are in a mercenary group and were without dramatic hooks they could trust.

Surprise can be a very good thing, but it's exceptionally hard to surprise people with the truth of what your latest long-running game is really about and have it come off well.

I may tip my hand at some point. To date I've been happy enough to run the non-military order options that I haven't worried too much about it; just commenting on the players' strong reluctance to go this route. But the concept continues to attract me so I may work out a different start with them.

Given their own desires for independence and with a properly stated premise, I don't think the order falling early on will be a negative surprise for the players; I think it is there preferred situation in fact.