While I was autopiloting my way home yesterday from Oop North I struck upon an idea. The premise was that in a modern, realistic setting, you're not going to find it easy to keep a character alive. Even if you do, an injury is likely to put you in hospital for a long time. So how do you get around that? Well, a while back when they announced a Warhammer 40k MMO I was struck by having a squad as a character, as in DoW2. I don't see why this shouldn't work in a traditional RPG.
So the basic idea is to have a squad, led by your 'primary' character, who would be the squad leader. Instead of the usual abstract hit points, the thing stopping your character dying is the men under your command with your primary character automatically being the last to go down. That's not to say the other guys are cannon fodder though, they have a simple XP system that allows them to be more useful as they survive longer, and may leave the campaign injured to come back later.
The principles behind the game mechanics were to make things pretty simple so that keeping track of several people at once wouldn't be a chore. A handful of stats, damage which affects the squad as a whole rather than working out individual shots, equipment to fit slots. I'd be hoping it would pan out more like a tabletop version of X-Com, Dawn Of War 2 or Brothers In Arms.
It's the barest of bones of ideas, but I wanted to canvas opinions. Does it sound interesting? If so, does anyone have any input or preferences;
How big should a squad be?
How many players would work relative to squad size?
How simple should it be?
What settings would work?
Would it be better to have combat map based?
Should squad members be allocated personalities/stats by the player, or randomly rolled?
What do you think, beardies?
Squad Based Beards
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Roman Totale
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I'm not sure. I think a lot of the best elements of RP are born out of the fact that there is such an investment in the character.
That said I suppose it's different for everyone. I wonder if people would be more reckless (in a way that is out of character) if they had what is essentially extra lives to go through first.
It could work, but I'm not sure. I think vulnerability in characters is a good thing.
That said I suppose it's different for everyone. I wonder if people would be more reckless (in a way that is out of character) if they had what is essentially extra lives to go through first.
It could work, but I'm not sure. I think vulnerability in characters is a good thing.
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buzzmong
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I agree with Roman, I think a lot is in character investment but that's not to say it couldn't have it's merits.
I am musing on some sort of skill pool and consolidation system in regards to squads. Make a big squad and you could do a number of things but not very well, but you'd have the added bonus of flexibility and being able to absorb losses, or spec out small squad which can do one or two things well but run the risk of losing much more ("eggs in one basket" factor) if/when your squaddies die/get injured.
Obviously if you tied different bonuses and perks into squad size it would make a bigger difference, eg) a small squad is easier to conceal, but a bigger squad gets different equipment like heavy weaponry being assigned to it or more support from elsewhere. Plus things like covering fire from a big squad is more meaningful in game terms.
I think it might be hard to GM though because you'd have to devise quite large and expansive environments as I reckon there would be less player interaction with players taking their squad off on their own, rather than like SLA/DnD where the players all form a squad together and do tasks together in the same location.
I am musing on some sort of skill pool and consolidation system in regards to squads. Make a big squad and you could do a number of things but not very well, but you'd have the added bonus of flexibility and being able to absorb losses, or spec out small squad which can do one or two things well but run the risk of losing much more ("eggs in one basket" factor) if/when your squaddies die/get injured.
Obviously if you tied different bonuses and perks into squad size it would make a bigger difference, eg) a small squad is easier to conceal, but a bigger squad gets different equipment like heavy weaponry being assigned to it or more support from elsewhere. Plus things like covering fire from a big squad is more meaningful in game terms.
I think it might be hard to GM though because you'd have to devise quite large and expansive environments as I reckon there would be less player interaction with players taking their squad off on their own, rather than like SLA/DnD where the players all form a squad together and do tasks together in the same location.
Fair criticisms. I was planning on making the squad leader the personality, the character you generated, and the others more like directed NPCs. So pretty much everything you did would be the squad leader (although there's no reason you couldn't send off individuals on little missions), but you'd have a small group of lesser characters which support you. The squads couldn't be too big, otherwise it would get in the way of players interacting. I was thinking four underlings, or thereabouts. I wasn't planning on making numbers an option set by the players.
The men as 'lives' is a key principle, but I'm not sure it would make you more reckless. Less so in fact - your NPCs would gain skills and experience, so while they might not be particularly valuable as personalities they'd be difficult to replace.
Even so, I can see why it would detract from the interaction, and I think it would be less RPG than SLA etc and slightly more a tactical combat game. Depends if that floats your boat I suppose, and it's probably not as hard to do something similar on the computer. I'm struggling to think of ways to make a dangerous but playable system though - for years I've tossed around the idea of a movie-style one-off campaign set in the Second World War, but I can't think of a way of making it realistic without being deadly, or survivable without it being abstract.
The men as 'lives' is a key principle, but I'm not sure it would make you more reckless. Less so in fact - your NPCs would gain skills and experience, so while they might not be particularly valuable as personalities they'd be difficult to replace.
Even so, I can see why it would detract from the interaction, and I think it would be less RPG than SLA etc and slightly more a tactical combat game. Depends if that floats your boat I suppose, and it's probably not as hard to do something similar on the computer. I'm struggling to think of ways to make a dangerous but playable system though - for years I've tossed around the idea of a movie-style one-off campaign set in the Second World War, but I can't think of a way of making it realistic without being deadly, or survivable without it being abstract.
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Roman Totale
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Grimmie
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I guess you could give different groups 'types'. So, a demolitions squad, a support squad, medical squad, tactician squad, cavalry squad, marine squad..
That way no one player would be able to go off and do everything on their own, you could split squads of four in two to share roles with other players, taking the PC off with one of their NPC buddies while the other two go and fulfil a less important role.
i dunno lol
That way no one player would be able to go off and do everything on their own, you could split squads of four in two to share roles with other players, taking the PC off with one of their NPC buddies while the other two go and fulfil a less important role.
i dunno lol
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Joose
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My only concern would be the numbers. Average gaming group being 4-5 people, each controlling a squad of presumably 4-5 people, and suddenly you could have 25 player characters to keep track of. Unless you are using models or something to track them, its going to be bloody hard just to remember where everybody is, let alone what they are doing there. We often have problems with this with a quarter the amount of doods 
The other issue would be combat: it would either have to be abstract as fuck or each combat round would take forever.
Its an interesting idea in theory though. Just not sure how it could be made to work.
The other issue would be combat: it would either have to be abstract as fuck or each combat round would take forever.
Its an interesting idea in theory though. Just not sure how it could be made to work.
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Joose
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Doggers, you utter git. Thanks to this thread, ive spent all morning thinking about non-standard RPG ideas, looking at making things more wide scale. I'm now brewing up an idea for a sort of "strategic" RPG that would be a bit like a cross between traditional RPG ideas and Risk.
Another project to work on. Yeah, that's what I need. Maybe if I spread myself between enough random things, my attention will eventually divide by zero and end the world. Something to aim for I suppose
Another project to work on. Yeah, that's what I need. Maybe if I spread myself between enough random things, my attention will eventually divide by zero and end the world. Something to aim for I suppose
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FatherJack
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The base unit as a squad, unit or indeed whole platoon has been explored in a number of (largely Japanese) computer RPGs and war games.
Often the unit is simply treated as if it was an individual by the game's mechanics and just appears as separate units to the player - this is certainly a way to simplify the maths involved.
As Roman notes, it is a bit impersonal and what many games do that try to give their protagonists personality is to refer to the squads by their squad leader - who plays a part in the story, but their squads are just nameless grunts.
Dragon horse on the Saturn had named squad leaders, with up to 100 troops in each battle. The leaders could only be directly damaged by the other squad leader or by troops only once all his own troops were gone. When both sets of troops were gone, they duelled to the death.
Last Remnant had a more flexible approach, main characters could be squad leaders, or members of another character's squad. They were typically the most powerful units, but were fleshed out with other units who were effectively NPCs. It meant you could either strengthen certain squads by putting more characters in them, or have more less-powerful squads at your disposal.
I guess it depends on the setting and what you want to achieve. If it makes sense that a general can simply pull more troops from a pool and go out to battle again, then it could be a good model. If it's simply to have a buffer between your character losing a fight and being nearly dead, then you could just implement rules to manage this - say giving them armour or shields which when depleted give them the option to take a loss rather than continue into risking their health.
Often the unit is simply treated as if it was an individual by the game's mechanics and just appears as separate units to the player - this is certainly a way to simplify the maths involved.
As Roman notes, it is a bit impersonal and what many games do that try to give their protagonists personality is to refer to the squads by their squad leader - who plays a part in the story, but their squads are just nameless grunts.
Dragon horse on the Saturn had named squad leaders, with up to 100 troops in each battle. The leaders could only be directly damaged by the other squad leader or by troops only once all his own troops were gone. When both sets of troops were gone, they duelled to the death.
Last Remnant had a more flexible approach, main characters could be squad leaders, or members of another character's squad. They were typically the most powerful units, but were fleshed out with other units who were effectively NPCs. It meant you could either strengthen certain squads by putting more characters in them, or have more less-powerful squads at your disposal.
I guess it depends on the setting and what you want to achieve. If it makes sense that a general can simply pull more troops from a pool and go out to battle again, then it could be a good model. If it's simply to have a buffer between your character losing a fight and being nearly dead, then you could just implement rules to manage this - say giving them armour or shields which when depleted give them the option to take a loss rather than continue into risking their health.
Ref squad types: I was thinking along the lines of being able to buy your squad members like equipment - a certain amount of points to spend and you could have a medic or sniper for example. Similarly with equipment, giving a grunt a bazooka to gain anti-tank capability.
Ref sqad control and combat: FJ pretty much had it. I was thinking combat would be on squad scale, like Brothers in Arms, DoW or Company of Heroes. The rules necessarily abstract to keep it quick - damage and movement done per squad rather than individual. It means you could impliment more tactical rules like covering fire and suppression that's difficult to manage in detailed individual combat. Ammo tracked by magazine rather than bullet, and longer combat rounds. I'd like to be able to fork a man off the squad for individual actions, but I've not really considered how. The numbers would be more limited than the JRPGs FJ mentioned, but only because I don't see it as being ptractical for the type of adventure to have more than a platoon's worth of troops. I'd also make enemy squads leaderless to simplify it again, since they're realy only targets for the PCs at the end of the day.
The reasons for having a squad is exactly to act as a meatshield for your character. Making the game a little larger scale is just a by-product that makes it unusual. Shields and armour aren't something I could put in a realistic, modern setting though. Despite the abstract rules I'd stil like to keep the premise of it realistic, just using quick rules to decide outcomes on a less detailed scale than, say, SLA.
If you're wanting to make an alternative style RPG can I suggest you either chip in with whatever I end up with or develop it as a sub-game of Fulcrum? It's easy enough to distract you as it is
Ref sqad control and combat: FJ pretty much had it. I was thinking combat would be on squad scale, like Brothers in Arms, DoW or Company of Heroes. The rules necessarily abstract to keep it quick - damage and movement done per squad rather than individual. It means you could impliment more tactical rules like covering fire and suppression that's difficult to manage in detailed individual combat. Ammo tracked by magazine rather than bullet, and longer combat rounds. I'd like to be able to fork a man off the squad for individual actions, but I've not really considered how. The numbers would be more limited than the JRPGs FJ mentioned, but only because I don't see it as being ptractical for the type of adventure to have more than a platoon's worth of troops. I'd also make enemy squads leaderless to simplify it again, since they're realy only targets for the PCs at the end of the day.
The reasons for having a squad is exactly to act as a meatshield for your character. Making the game a little larger scale is just a by-product that makes it unusual. Shields and armour aren't something I could put in a realistic, modern setting though. Despite the abstract rules I'd stil like to keep the premise of it realistic, just using quick rules to decide outcomes on a less detailed scale than, say, SLA.
If you're wanting to make an alternative style RPG can I suggest you either chip in with whatever I end up with or develop it as a sub-game of Fulcrum? It's easy enough to distract you as it is
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HereComesPete
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This is a bit meandering so apologies!
I think FJ's mention of his epiphany in the D&D thread actually covers my feelings on this quite well.
I rather harshly cut down rpg'ing into the below options.
Option A) You invest a part of yourself into the story that is your character, their nuances are like your own, their habits reflect you or are diametrically opposed to yours as a vicarious means of living shit out.
Option B) Paranoia/Cannon Fodder style. You invest little emotion into them and push instead for the goal, you can still enjoy a well made story like this but it requires a differing mentality to your avatar.
The story is the key, you can go through it in a wide variety of ways, but if there's nothing to engage the player then no matter how esoteric the medium in which the player interacts it will fall apart.
If you can provide a story and a method of moving PC's from start to end it'll work, regardless of how crazy the rules or char creation etc is.
As Joose stated
watching groups of people is hard to do, so you have to care less for them individually as a player and be a lot busier as a gm. Treating pc's as facets of a personality works well in board and video games (baldur's gate, neverwinter nights, fallout etc), I'm not sure it would translate well to a forum.
In a way this links in to the group planning dice pool discussion we had.
I think FJ's mention of his epiphany in the D&D thread actually covers my feelings on this quite well.
I rather harshly cut down rpg'ing into the below options.
Option A) You invest a part of yourself into the story that is your character, their nuances are like your own, their habits reflect you or are diametrically opposed to yours as a vicarious means of living shit out.
Option B) Paranoia/Cannon Fodder style. You invest little emotion into them and push instead for the goal, you can still enjoy a well made story like this but it requires a differing mentality to your avatar.
The story is the key, you can go through it in a wide variety of ways, but if there's nothing to engage the player then no matter how esoteric the medium in which the player interacts it will fall apart.
If you can provide a story and a method of moving PC's from start to end it'll work, regardless of how crazy the rules or char creation etc is.
As Joose stated
watching groups of people is hard to do, so you have to care less for them individually as a player and be a lot busier as a gm. Treating pc's as facets of a personality works well in board and video games (baldur's gate, neverwinter nights, fallout etc), I'm not sure it would translate well to a forum.In a way this links in to the group planning dice pool discussion we had.
Well, as I say, the PC would be the squad leader and the rest NPCs. You're right about the story though. I've seen a campaign mode add loads of depth to games like Blood Bowl and Necromunda, and that's barely a story.HereComesPete wrote: As Joose stated
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FatherJack
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Can you comment a bit more on this either here or in the D&D thread as I'm struggling to see where what I'd consider my style of playing games fits into this?HereComesPete wrote:I think FJ's mention of his epiphany in the D&D thread actually covers my feelings on this quite well.
I rather harshly cut down rpg'ing into the below options.
Option A) You invest a part of yourself into the story that is your character, their nuances are like your own, their habits reflect you or are diametrically opposed to yours as a vicarious means of living shit out.
Option B) Paranoia/Cannon Fodder style. You invest little emotion into them and push instead for the goal, you can still enjoy a well made story like this but it requires a differing mentality to your avatar.
Option A seems rather black and white. You're either "you" or "evil you" (reverse as applicable) with not a lot of grayscale between. Surely you'd only ever create two basic characters with this model.
Option B you seem to poo-poo a little, as if a character that isn't you is unworthy of the emotion you invest in them, or that one is being detached perhaps even dishonest by playing them.
I don't see a massive distinction, as B can become A if you say publicly your character is a bit like you. More disturbingly (to me) people can simply assume your B character, or worse your nega-A character is you.
That's why I came out out said it's all fiction, hopefully opening the door to anyone else with similar concerns. Sure, as a story-writer there's a part of you or someone you know in every character you create, but to use that as a stick to beat anyone with is like continuing to berate Wil Wheaton for playing Wesley Crusher.
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Roman Totale
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I either create characters that are a bit of me, or are just ideas that seem fun.
For example, Dirk in SLA is mostly me. Likes investigating stuff and has delusions of being a ladies man.
Chopper - a little bit of it is me, mostly when I'm at my most unhinged. But generally he was created as an unsophisticated (i.e polar opposite of Dirk) hitting person. I was also reading a lot of Deadpool at the time I made him, which probably shows.
In contrast, Smith from Pete's SR campaign shares no similarities with me whatsoever. The idea for a character just popped into my head at the last Grimbash.
I also don't write a lot for the character history when I first start. A lot of the time I have a good idea of the character, but only start to flesh it out once I've played them a bit and put them through some scenarios. The one I've made for Grimmie's D&D, I've got loads of things planned for him, but nowhere to start with a history. As with most things, I don't like to plan it out - the best parts come on the fly.
And I can't wait to start my D&D character!
For example, Dirk in SLA is mostly me. Likes investigating stuff and has delusions of being a ladies man.
Chopper - a little bit of it is me, mostly when I'm at my most unhinged. But generally he was created as an unsophisticated (i.e polar opposite of Dirk) hitting person. I was also reading a lot of Deadpool at the time I made him, which probably shows.
In contrast, Smith from Pete's SR campaign shares no similarities with me whatsoever. The idea for a character just popped into my head at the last Grimbash.
I also don't write a lot for the character history when I first start. A lot of the time I have a good idea of the character, but only start to flesh it out once I've played them a bit and put them through some scenarios. The one I've made for Grimmie's D&D, I've got loads of things planned for him, but nowhere to start with a history. As with most things, I don't like to plan it out - the best parts come on the fly.
And I can't wait to start my D&D character!
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HereComesPete
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Sure can. I was referring to theFatherJack wrote:Can you comment a bit more
That's how I view the games that I GM and the games I play. A lot of srs bznss types I know judge people in real life by the actions of their avatars, but to me that's just stupid. The cutting things into A and B styles was a different idea entirely and just happened to be there. however I shall elaborate on those a bit more as well.FatherJack wrote:I realised I wasn't doing that at all - I was telling a story.
In terms of A it does read as rather black and white, but it wasn't my intention to do so. I see it more that people will generally pick a type of character across gametypes. Then change that up for a different experience. I tend to play big angry things with big guns or swords and then I'll deliberately go for a sneaky squishy thing and then I'll pick a character I'm not sure I'll like, just to see things from a different perspective. It's quite surprising sometimes what you do/how you play when you deliberately invest in a character that you took a gamble on.
It's not a case of being me and not me or good and evil me, more I like to exaggerate facets of my character through the avatar I'm using and to really get my beard on.
Option B still creates outstanding games, but I find it tends to mould the game in a different way. The game needs to work harder to get decisions and results from the player in my opinion, if it can't provoke an emotional reaction at some level, even if it's 'yay I just killed the big dude after my fifth attempt', then it won't hold their attention.
Games like paranoia I see as falling into this category, you die a lot and re-spawn a lot, the story generated by the GM and the PC actions is great fun, but the character you use has little bearing on the game itself. When I played it years ago, I just made some random dude because I knew he would die and that the lols would be in what everyone tried to do to each other. The emotional response is there but it's not focussed on or through a single aspect of that story.
In fact in some ways I feel like this when playing half life 2, as Freeman I spend a lot of time unfucking the world. But as he never speaks etc he's not really there and he's not my avatar in the story, there's no character, just a vessel to go through the story. But at the same time the story is amazing and the responses it generates aren't character based but world based.
Er, I think that answers it? Or possibly is just another long thought ramble.
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HereComesPete
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Ah, missed that bit.Dog Pants wrote:
Well, as I say, the PC would be the squad leader and the rest NPCs.
Would you not fall into the trap then of the semi-autonomous NPC's being reduced to some kind of external appendage of the main PC? Although you could of course do things like have a sidekick type kidnapped or die etc and revert focus to the group as opposed to the singular head of group.
I think this would work well in a space hulk style game (expanded rather more) you have a clear cut objective, you know there's danger and you use the group skills to help the main guy. In space hulk the main effort really was everyone went overwatch so you could get flamer guy to toast everything.
If you develop a system I will certainly give it a go (or chip in if needed) as I'm intrigued as to how it would work.
fauxedit - In a way the inquisitor tabletop game works a bit like this. The inquisitor is of course the big daddy, but the group he gathers around him are essential to success, if they fail he'll most likely fail. And I'm sure I've seen rules for a single player to run a group through a GM'd game as opposed to a player per model.
Yep, that's pretty much it. You don't want to have to keep track of loads of characters. Issue them personalities by all means, but basics that would add a few skills that really are just an extension of your main character. They'd be essential to success without a doubt - for a start if you lose them it's your balls on the chopping block next, no safety net. Also, your squad leader isn't likely to tow a bazooka around, but one of his grunts will and you'll be glad you did when an armoured car arrives in the town you're staying in.HereComesPete wrote:Would you not fall into the trap then of the semi-autonomous NPC's being reduced to some kind of external appendage of the main PC?
Effectively the grunts are just tag alongs for the purpose of combat. They provide your hit points, some of your skills, and your weapons and gear. Out of combat the interaction would be the squad leader, possibly roping in a grunt for teh odd specialist task (a medic coming in to first aid an injured civilian, or a soldier with the 'conman' personality blagging food).
As it stands I'm not going to start developing it because I don't think it would get played, but I'm enjoying discussing it. That's another nice thing about beardygames though, you can develop your own.