Running a high-fantasy Spec Ops campaign

[Eladrinblade]

Wall of text: It's a 40-point (at least 20 in physical stats) gestalt T3-4 (plus a few lower ones like healer) game, currently at 3rd level. With my current group, I've come to see that they have different tastes than me, and don't care too much about the subtle nuances of the game. They have very little self-direction, and there are no natural leaders among the group, so when they're unsure what to do, they just wander back onto their phones or side-conversations. They don't really care about loot, can't be bothered to update their sheets or make sure who's carrying what, and never do any shopping, even when they have the opportunity (because they haven't read teh books and don't know that they need to buy things to survive, such as cold iron/silver weapons, potions, scrolls, etc).

So, I've taken the opportunity to run a special kind of campaign that I've been wanting to do for a while: a group of the most capable badasses doing the most dangerous/extreme missions; a more cinematic/video-gamey/action kind of game (where I'm going to do all the bookwork myself, naturally :smallannoyed:). They have a team name, and got to choose code-names for themselves (to build up hype for the game, mostly), and each mission has a code-name as well (like "Operation Frozen Thunder").

They are from a hidden, magical, advanced city that gets involved in the wider world to keep the forces of evil at bay. It works through proxies, planted rulers, secret agents, and spellcasters who do things from afar (mostly scry-n-whatever stuff). They secretly aid heroes and champions of good (or anybody going up against a stronger evil force, really). The players' team is this city's first real, special-purpose task-force for getting **** done up close and personal out in the world.

They have a base of operations/headquarters where they are debriefed before each "mission" (adventure). There, they are equipped with WBL gear that they can rearrange/switch up between missions (and can select it knowing what kind of mission they're getting in to), and sometimes get special extra gear (like camoflaged forest warden shrouds for a forest mission). Sometimes, they have mandatory gear (to make sure they survive, like silvered weapons when they are expecting to go up against lycanthropes - since the players themselves can't be expected to make that preparation). The HQ is a floating caslte with some high-magic stuff in it (think the Star Ship Enterprise) - they can contact people from afar, they have an armory, resting quarters, a teleportation bay, etc. The players are low-level, and don't yet have access to some of the better stuff, since they're still in kind of a prototype/untested "not sure if they are worth funding" phase at the moment.

So far, I've made all their metal weapons be cold iron, just because, and they all wear cold iron spiked gauntlets so that they are always armed. They have mandatory rations/water/flint & steel, and other such things. One character (who has 8 str) gets a "feather vest" a shirt-slot item that increases his carrying capacity somewhat so that his speed isn't decreased from encumberance. Eventually, they might be given goggles of night, water-breathing/swim-speed items, specific bane/alignment/element weapons or arrows of slaying, wands/scrolls/potions, etc, for specific missions.

Anyway, also at HQ are healers, info-givers (npc's with knowledge ranks), pre-mission buff-casters, their quartermaster crew (a clan of gnomes with some dwarves, lead by an artificer and consisting of magewrights and experts), and their commander, who gives them their missions.

When each session starts, they are placed somewhere near their objective, in a sandbox of sorts. Here at low levels, they are usually given horses, but at higher levels they will have flying mounts, and eventually will be ported/shifted/gated onto location. They might get the aid of certain Dmpc's, friendly locals, backup-at-request, air evac, etc. At higher levels, they might be able to call in air-strikes, port-in strike teams, ask for divined info about what lies ahead (which is then sent via sending or telepathy) and so on. I'm going for a very modern sort of warfare, yet set in a high-fantasy medieval-ish setting.

I just read through Heroes of Battle, and while I did get some good ideas from it, it wasn't quite in line with what I had in mind (and I was especially disappointed with the medals section; I was hoping it would talk about awarding players with medals, and all I got were a table of lame examples and a simplistic crunch aid). Anybody have any experience with using/awarding medals in a game? Now that I think about it, do special forces even get medals? Since they're secret and all...

Okay, now that we're on the same page, here's what I'd like some help/advice/ideas with; each mission will have a set of ....parameters? Like so:

-Primary Objective:
-Secondary Objective:
-complications
-unexpected events
-changing objectives mid-mission
-"dont let this happen"
-targets (make sure these ones die)
-friendlies (make sure these ones dont)
-Rescue/kidnap
-dropzone/LZ
-time limit
-overwhelming numbers of enemies/several types of enemies at once
-difficult terrain/conditions
-each mission should have a set of specific things that the players get to specially prepare for
-each mission should have a surprise, and one should be a total plan-ruiner right from the start

Anybody have anything to add to or say about this list? Any other things I should consider? Any advice on how to use/implement any of the things on this list? Any general info you'd like to add?

Also, any advice/ideas about transporting the party to the mission site? Staying in contact with HQ? Them requesting help/backup/artillery/airstrikes/etc? Them having or commanding scouts/spies/strike teams/other military personnel?

Really, I'd like this to be a general spec-ops campaign thread, but if anybody has anything to say about my campaign in particular, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[Eladrinblade]

Anybody?

Going once, going twice....

[DMVerdandi]

Would play 10/10.
Reminds me of a manga I was just reading (Densetsu yuusha no densetsu[Legend of legendary heroes]). I really like the anachronistic blend of modern military practice and organization with fantasy classes and such.

Things that can be added to the list.
-Information Rendezvous
-Peace-keeping
-Counter-terrorism
-Item Extraction

When it comes to militarization, one thing that is absolutely essential is generalization. There has to be cohesion in terminology, equipment, objective, and chain of command.
One thing you could do is give each character in the spec ops organization access to campaign specific prestige classes.

If we are going to be talking about a spec ops organization, you will probably need 3 primary prestige classes.

Commando
Agent
Seer

I think it would be cool to have them as maybe 3-level prestige classes.

Perhaps give the commando the ability to use martial abilities or fighter bonus feats, and each day change them out. Have him pick one class and use it's class level as either a fighter or warblade class level in having maneuvers or bonus feats. And all weapon and armor proficiency.

Give agent all skills as class skills, hide in plain sight, and sneak attack.

Have seer take the spellcaster level of the class used to qualify, and change it's spellcasting method. It can add any spell to it's spells known by observing it and making a spellcraft and knowledge check for the appropriate type of spell. Each spell requires experience equal to it's level X 10 as a cost to learn.
All spells known are memorized. Previous class now casts as a wizard.

[Epsilon Rose]

Mission Ideas:
I think you might want to add counter-espianage to the list. This can take the traditional form of "Kill the enemy spec-ops team", but it could also take the form of "Act like this is the case, so that the enemy team thinks we're doing y. Make sure they survive and report back to their command." or "Switch those documents or objects for these documents or objects. Make sure know one knows you made the switch."

Since the organization that's funding them is supposed to be secret, you might also want to have missions where they get info to allies or manipulate their allies into doing certain things, possibly without the allies knowing of their involvement/existence in either case.

Lack of response:
One of the things that's a bit off-putting about your post, that might be causing people to not respond, is how much you're doing and how much your players aren't. It might be a good idea to consider using a system other than D&D. You could look into systems that are supposed to be more balanced and that have advancement more baked in (Legend (http://www.ruleofcool.com/)might be a good, free, example of this with a d20 base) or systems where character and item advancement aren't as big a part of the system as they are in 3.5 (G.U.R.P.S. is a good example of this, and it could allow for more tactical depth to combat anyways, as is FATE (http://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-core/), which is free).

3.5/PF specific rules considerations:
In 3.5/d20 you might want to consider employing certain rules to increase the PCs competence, to make them more reminiscent of a spec-ops team, rather than normal adventurers.

The first among these would be to use gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm), to allow them more versatility.
You might also want to employ Defense Bonuses (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm), so they don't have to go around in full plate.
Banning extreme tiers is also a good idea (1 and 6 are fairly common but some t2 and 5 [if they aren't gestalted with something better] aren't a bad idea).
Finally, you should consider homebrew, both for interesting new and fixed classes and also for overhauled rules. Tome of Prowess (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Tome_of_Prowess_(3.5e_Sourcebook)) replaces the skill system with something more useful and versatile, Races of War (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Races_of_War_(3.5e_Sourcebook)) overhauls melee combat and makes BAB more important, Mana based casting (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Mana-Based_Spellcasting_%283.5e_Variant_Rule%29) lets you get away from vancian magic, and HP overhauls (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=198224) help characters stay alive at low levels while actually making HP loss count for something before you die.


You might also want to look into the Tippy-verse. I could picture a Tippy society employing the kind of tactics and policies your talking about and it has ready made solutions for transport, communications, and basically everything else. If you aren't familiar with the Tippy-verse, the best desciption I've heard is that Tippy looked at the rules of 3.5 and realized that if you actually followed them you'd end up with a society that looked a lot more like the Federation than it did Westeros.

[Eladrinblade]

Lack of response:
One of the things that's a bit off-putting about your post, that might be causing people to not respond, is how much you're doing and how much your players aren't.

This campaign is actually easier to make and run than my others, because the missions are largely isolated from each other, meaning I don't have to worry about stringing them together, and the players have strong and clear objectives, so I pretty much know what they're going to do. In my other games, I have to prepare for pretty much everything and worry about what they're going to do, and how to work everything out so there's no holes. I also don't have to put in as much work into the setting - what difference does it make what the name of this kingdom is if you're only porting in for a few minutes to blow a place up before porting back out? That kinda thing.

I agree that they should do more, but if I can make a game where they don't have to do the stuff that isn't fun for them, and still have plenty of fun myself, why shouldn't I? I want to make it clear that they made their own characters and level them up on their own, they just don't do their inventories accurately or track stuff between sessions (like hp loss or statuses).

As for the rules suggestions, I'm already set on what's allowed and what's not. I've taken the suggestions for missions and added them to my list, so thanks for that, folks.