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BudgetDM
2012-05-27, 02:37 AM
So I am currently kicking around three different ideas for games to run in the future. Even though they are all for different system, all three of them are military based. I'm not sure, why this just happened.

My basic question is, how should I go about handling command structure? That is, PCs being under the command of NPCs and (this is the part that I think will be the most difficult) PCs possibly outranking other PCs.

My solution to the first problem is to not have the PC's superiors be jerks.

I'm not sure how to handle the second. One of the games is a Star Wars game, so I think I can handwave command structure, but the other two offer bonuses for having a leader characters. My idea for avoiding inter-party conflict do to this is, basically, telling the person playing the commanding officer to not be a jerk about it. Does anyone else have any idea?

Thanatos 51-50
2012-05-27, 02:44 AM
RE: PCs outranking PCs:
Make sure even your highest-ranked PC has an NPC above him in terms of bureaucratic power. If your High-ranking PC is a jerk, just remind the lower-ranked ones that they can always file a grievance against their superior NCO/Officer, and then have the NPC Commander drop the hammer on the offending Jerk PC.

Kol Korran
2012-05-27, 08:13 AM
part of being in the army IS dealing with jerks, but you're right that not having them be so eases tension. however, it might spice some things up. from personal experience- people in stressful situations will nearly always turn to the person they trust, be it higher rank, same rank or lower rank.

three other things that may help:
- explain to the players before hand the sort of game you're setting up, and assuming they are mature enough- ask them to play along with the scene.

- you know your players. if you're going to give a higher rank to someone, give it to the most responsible, caring for his soldiers but mission oriented player. or for whomever fits the role best, the way you perceive it.

if you can, try have them work as elite specialist teams (commando and the like). rank means nearly nothing (except for monetary and social benefits, and dealing with the headache from superiors) in such tight nit teams. they rely on cooperation.

hope this helps.

BudgetDM
2012-05-27, 02:57 PM
RE: PCs outranking PCs:
Make sure even your highest-ranked PC has an NPC above him in terms of bureaucratic power. If your High-ranking PC is a jerk, just remind the lower-ranked ones that they can always file a grievance against their superior NCO/Officer, and then have the NPC Commander drop the hammer on the offending Jerk PC.

Good idea. I was planning to have some NPCs outrank the leader, but I hadn't given any thought to filing grievance.


part of being in the army IS dealing with jerks, but you're right that not having them be so eases tension. however, it might spice some things up. from personal experience- people in stressful situations will nearly always turn to the person they trust, be it higher rank, same rank or lower rank.

three other things that may help:
- explain to the players before hand the sort of game you're setting up, and assuming they are mature enough- ask them to play along with the scene.

- you know your players. if you're going to give a higher rank to someone, give it to the most responsible, caring for his soldiers but mission oriented player. or for whomever fits the role best, the way you perceive it.

if you can, try have them work as elite specialist teams (commando and the like). rank means nearly nothing (except for monetary and social benefits, and dealing with the headache from superiors) in such tight nit teams. they rely on cooperation.

hope this helps.

I guess it would be unrealistic to have NO jerks, better to just have more non-jerks than jerks.

As for giving command to the most responsible person, the one small problem with that is in all three systems I'm thinking about, being the leader requires you to pick certain feats/feat-equivalents/skills.

I was planning to having the PCs be commandos. Mostly because for the the mass battle systems of the systems I'm considering are non-existant/kind slow/kinda deadly.

Tengu_temp
2012-05-27, 03:22 PM
Your players know each other, don't they? Before the game start make the group decide, OOCly, who should have the commander position. Also, it helps to run a somewhat unrealistic scenario where the leader is open to suggestions from underlings and just has the final word.

randomhero00
2012-05-27, 03:32 PM
I don't see the problem OP. It sounds like you have concerns with your players, and not your techniques. After all, (most of us) we play video games all the time where we are told to do such and such for a quest.

Solaris
2012-05-28, 08:28 AM
Your players know each other, don't they? Before the game start make the group decide, OOCly, who should have the commander position. Also, it helps to run a somewhat unrealistic scenario where the leader is open to suggestions from underlings and just has the final word.

Not as unrealistic as you might think. The "It does what it's told" approach really only works when the superior is a senior NCO and the juniors are young privates. There's some who think it works that way, but there's words for them. They aren't nice words.
It's not that everything's done by committee, far from it, but in the better-run and more elite units juniors do have some input. They're still not to challenge the leader's authority (when I give an order, it will be obeyed), but the ideal (in American-style militaries) is for the leader to only need to put out an end-state objective. Depending on his echelon, he'll either be assisting/supervising directly (if NCO) or monitoring to ensure they're upholding standards (officer).

Honest, we're not stuck in the nineteenth century. Modern warfare, with its emphasis on complex battlefields and small-unit tactics, requires juniors who are simultaneously adept at thinking on their feet and reflexively follow orders.

Crafty Cultist
2012-05-29, 09:46 PM
One solution suggested in heroes of battle is to have the PC's be part of a specialist task force that exists outside the normal command structure. The leadership of the team generally goes to whoever the specialist is for the task at hand.

jackattack
2012-05-30, 05:41 AM
Two thoughts:

Remember that while officers always outrank enlisted, sergeant is a career track, not a transition between enlisted and officer. The different levels of sergeant are in many ways equivalent to the different levels of officer. Good officers understand that and frequently consult with and delegate (or defer) to sergeants. (No offense if you already know that, but a lot of people don't.)

If the unit is composed of members of different forces (by service or nationality), then the authority of the higher ranks may be somewhat diluted. Lower ranks still have to follow combat orders, but the higher ranks don't necessarily have control over every single thing they do.

pendell
2012-06-01, 09:47 AM
Not as unrealistic as you might think. The "It does what it's told" approach really only works when the superior is a senior NCO and the juniors are young privates. There's some who think it works that way, but there's words for them. They aren't nice words.
It's not that everything's done by committee, far from it, but in the better-run and more elite units juniors do have some input. They're still not to challenge the leader's authority (when I give an order, it will be obeyed), but the ideal (in American-style militaries) is for the leader to only need to put out an end-state objective. Depending on his echelon, he'll either be assisting/supervising directly (if NCO) or monitoring to ensure they're upholding standards (officer).

Honest, we're not stuck in the nineteenth century. Modern warfare, with its emphasis on complex battlefields and small-unit tactics, requires juniors who are simultaneously adept at thinking on their feet and reflexively follow orders.


That's the point of "Commander's Intent", yes? It's not a matter of blindly following orders to the letter like an automaton. It's a matter of understanding *why* the commander gave the order and fulfill the intent even if the letter of the order isn't possible.

Example: You're ordered to take a route to a certain objective. It involves fording what appears on the map to be a small stream but instead turns out to be a raging impassable torrent. The correct answer is not to simply go marching blindly into the water, nor to call back to the home office and say" way's blocked, what do we do?" but instead to find an alternate route that gives the same benefits as the original . Get to the objective as close to the original time schedule as possible while keeping other issues such as "avoid detection" or "under no circumstances cross into [map coordinates]".

I'm not sure how else to do it. An army where everyone does as they please is a bunch of civilians or a bandit band, not a military organization that can accomplish anything useful. An army where juniors are allowed no initiative but instead have to call back to their superiors for permission to accomplish even the smallest change is never going to be flexible enough to beat an army whose officers *do* trust their troops. So instead of having troops who have to call back and ask what to do in every situation, you want troops who are smart enough to do what their CO would want them to do, if the CO were physically present.

And of course, "trust" is something you have close by as well as far away. If you trust someone enough to act on your behalf when they're a thousand miles away, then presumably you value their opinion and are willing to solicit it when they're physically present, rather than simply ordering them as if they were just out of basic.

And if you have an environment where officers and soldiers trust and respect each other, that's an entirely different dynamic than you would see in something like , say, the movie Full Metal Jacket.

Is that correct?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Solaris
2012-06-01, 05:01 PM
That's the point of "Commander's Intent", yes? It's not a matter of blindly following orders to the letter like an automaton. It's a matter of understanding *why* the commander gave the order and fulfill the intent even if the letter of the order isn't possible.

Example: You're ordered to take a route to a certain objective. It involves fording what appears on the map to be a small stream but instead turns out to be a raging impassable torrent. The correct answer is not to simply go marching blindly into the water, nor to call back to the home office and say" way's blocked, what do we do?" but instead to find an alternate route that gives the same benefits as the original . Get to the objective as close to the original time schedule as possible while keeping other issues such as "avoid detection" or "under no circumstances cross into [map coordinates]".

I'm not sure how else to do it. An army where everyone does as they please is a bunch of civilians or a bandit band, not a military organization that can accomplish anything useful. An army where juniors are allowed no initiative but instead have to call back to their superiors for permission to accomplish even the smallest change is never going to be flexible enough to beat an army whose officers *do* trust their troops. So instead of having troops who have to call back and ask what to do in every situation, you want troops who are smart enough to do what their CO would want them to do, if the CO were physically present.

And of course, "trust" is something you have close by as well as far away. If you trust someone enough to act on your behalf when they're a thousand miles away, then presumably you value their opinion and are willing to solicit it when they're physically present, rather than simply ordering them as if they were just out of basic.

And if you have an environment where officers and soldiers trust and respect each other, that's an entirely different dynamic than you would see in something like , say, the movie Full Metal Jacket.

Is that correct?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I'd say so. That's a pretty accurate way to describe it.