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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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 Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Sometimes the best solution is roll playing Wink i.e. let them roll up new characters. But if the characters and players seem salvagable I might try one of these options.
OptionA: I might have decided the Imperials would try to capture/stun the PCs so they could question the Rebels. Cut to: "An odd humming sound wakes you. You are in what looks like an Imperial cell. The cell door opens. The humming sound is much louder and you see a scary, shiny black Interrogator Droid floating into your cell." Let's see who has a good willpower roll. |
That way only works with a few caviats..
1) if the imps were all shooting on kill, using frag grenades, it is hard as heck to even come close to justifying they 'salvaged' them from the dead to interrogate.
2) if they are under orders to kill all enemies, i cannot see the commander breaking that order to capture people..
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Bren
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| Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 6:42 am Post subject: |
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garhkal wrote:
| Quote: | That way only works with a few caviats..
1) if the imps were all shooting on kill, using frag grenades, it is hard as heck to even come close to justifying they 'salvaged' them from the dead to interrogate.
2) if they are under orders to kill all enemies, i cannot see the commander breaking that order to capture people.. |
Agreed. My assumption was the commander of the base noticed the maniacs,  I mean the players, attacking the base and, given their small number, ordered the troops to capture the Rebels for my Option A or B. That action seems quite in keeping with the tone of space opera like Star Wars.
What orders the stormtroopers get is well within my control as the GM.
It's never hard to make the opposition too tough for the PCs. What is more interesting, to me, is to find a level of threat that they can (probably) defeat that still feels like a challenge for the them. I tend to adjust threat levels based on circumstances.
garhkal, it sounds like you run a gritty style rather than a heroic/space opera style and from other posts I gather that you set the threat level ahead of tiime and players either succeed or not based on how the dice roll. Different styles of GMing. Mine works for my players, since your players keep coming back to occassionally be killed then I conclude your style is working for you. 
Different styles are good as long as everyone is clear on what they want and what they are likely to get. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Different styles are good as long as everyone is clear on what they want and what they are likely to get. |
Exactly. It distrurbs me a bit to read GM posts about games where players do things that are completely unthinkable to the GM, when it seems like a simple discussion of GM and player expectations up front could have prevented that.
I am very clear about what type of game I am running and my player expectations, so I don't run into this problem. But it is a two-way street and I always ask the players what type of game they want to play. If we can come up with a way to incorporate what they want or at least come to an acceptable compromise, then everyone is happy. If not, then the players have the choice to leave if they absolutely can't bring themselves to play the type of game the rest of the group wants to play. I can't think of a single time anyone left. Perhaps there a few didn't come back after one adventure though. 8)
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 12:10 am Post subject: |
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I wouldn't class it as more of a gritty, less space opera one, but one in which plausability on the enemies actions is more over any 'me wanting to write a novel' like story...
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Bren
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| Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:24 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | ...plausability on the enemies actions... |
Plausibility of enemy tactics is gritty, generally space opera is not so much. The movies are space opera. Not a lot of plausible actions there. Three classic examples from A New Hope: (1) the storm troopers that boarded the Tantive IV. They are boarding troops and yet on that entire Star Destroyer they don't have (a) a single sun grenade or (b) any knockout gas canisters. And thats assuming Vader wanted prisoners to question. We know they have regular frag grenades. Why the frack did they just walk forwards into Rebel fire. Couldn't they have knocked a couple of holes to flank the defenders during the boarding.
Stormtroopers in Starwars are trained with the same manual as the German soldiers used in the old TV show Combat! On that show the American soldiers typically fired from cover, the Germans would run from one bit of cover towards the next, stopping in the open to exchange fire with and get shot by the American troops.
Similar thing with why they stormtroopers wear white rather than some type of camo color or chameleon paint. It's not cause it makes tactical sense, but it makes for a nice contrast between faceless and shiny Imps and the Rebels. Pure space opera. Just like the old cowboy movies where the bad guys literally wore black hats.
(2) second example - the Death Star exhaust port. I mean really, those are the best engineers in the Empire? 
(3) third example - the failure to launch enough fighters (of the hundreds on board) to just deny the Rebels the ability to reach the Death Star.
Narrative style vs. the dice never lie style of play is a different issue. I could run narrative style play with a gritty feel. The Runequest campaign I ran decades ago was not at all narrative style and definitely had a dice never lie tone. Bad tactics (magical or mundane) would get you killed in a single Strike Rank and the villains did not cackle over the PC's fate nor tell them their master plan. 
If I was running 007 the villains would tell you their master plan, just before leaving you in the fiendish death trap since they didn't have the time to personally watch you die.
Now there's a new TEC skill - Fiendish Death Trap Design, maybe an advanced skill from construction or engineering or is it a specialization?  |
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Bren
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| Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:38 am Post subject: |
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Whill wrote:
| Quote: | | Exactly. It distrurbs me a bit to read GM posts about games where players do things that are completely unthinkable to the GM, when it seems like a simple discussion of GM and player expectations up front could have prevented that. |
I also found the same can be true with tactictical decisions even when the style of play is understood. I have a player who often sees a scene very differently than I see it. This leads to the player selecting tactics that may not make a lot of sense to me. If play is slow enough to explore the why behind this, it often turns out to be either a miscommunication of the scene or a misinterpretation of threat level, appropriate tactics, etc.
On the other hand, the same player can have brilliant leaps of intuition to solve mysteries or figure out what is going on behind the scenes. While we don't expect players to actually be able to fly a starship or shoot a blaster we do somehow often expect them to select tactically sound approaches or to invent witty or persuasive dialog. There are limitations to the genre and the system, I guess. |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:26 am Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | The movies are space opera. Not a lot of plausible actions there. Three classic examples from A New Hope: (1) the storm troopers that boarded the Tantive IV. They are boarding troops and yet on that entire Star Destroyer they don't have (a) a single sun grenade or (b) any knockout gas canisters. And thats assuming Vader wanted prisoners to question. We know they have regular frag grenades. Why the frack did they just walk forwards into Rebel fire. Couldn't they have knocked a couple of holes to flank the defenders during the boarding. |
All true. Which is why i don't run my sessions like a movie. More like a serial, such as band of brothers, or the pacific. Lives ARE lost in those shows...
| Quote: | | Stormtroopers in Starwars are trained with the same manual as the German soldiers used in the old TV show Combat! On that show the American soldiers typically fired from cover, the Germans would run from one bit of cover towards the next, stopping in the open to exchange fire with and get shot by the American troops. |
Which to me is doing a massive dis service to what they are listed as.. With how the films showed storm troopers to be i can in no way, consider them the "elite" shock troops they are supposed to be by the source books. Heck they fight worse than some pirates.
| Quote: | | Similar thing with why they stormtroopers wear white rather than some type of camo color or chameleon paint. It's not cause it makes tactical sense, but it makes for a nice contrast between faceless and shiny Imps and the Rebels. Pure space opera. Just like the old cowboy movies where the bad guys literally wore black hats. |
Yup. it was ment to show the 'awesomness' of the stormtroopers. "Look at us. We don't have to worry about tactics to defeat you, including camouflage cause there are so many of us!"
| Quote: | | (2) second example - the Death Star exhaust port. I mean really, those are the best engineers in the Empire? |
I can easily see it. I know many people here on earth, that build something, and overlook a simple flaw, someone else sees.
| Quote: | | (3) third example - the failure to launch enough fighters (of the hundreds on board) to just deny the Rebels the ability to reach the Death Star. |
That was more hubris than showing a lack of tactical skill.
| Quote: | If I was running 007 the villains would tell you their master plan, just before leaving you in the fiendish death trap since they didn't have the time to personally watch you die.
Now there's a new TEC skill - Fiendish Death Trap Design, maybe an advanced skill from construction or engineering or is it a specialization? |
Which is why you would never find me running a 007 esque game. [/quote]
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Bren
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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For brevity I am leaving out my quotes and some of what garhkal wrote.
garhkal wrote:
| Quote: | | ...All true. Which is why i don't run my sessions like a movie. More like a serial, such as band of brothers, or the pacific. Lives ARE lost in those shows |
This is part of why I characterized your play style as gritty compared to what we see in the Star Wars movies. I still think even in gritty style, it is possble to have players survive at a higher rate than NPCs. Afterall I seriously doubt that Band of Brothers rolls dice to see which actors won't be coming to the set ever again.
| Quote: | | Which to me is doing a massive dis service to what they are listed as.. With how the films showed storm troopers to be i can in no way, consider them the "elite" shock troops they are supposed to be by the source books. |
You are paying attention more to the fluff description rather than the stats or the way they are depicted in the films. You are not alone in that, but it's not my preference. I think the Emperor is more interested in loyal troops than elite troops and the Empire has so many troops they are comfortable and frequently successful with mass wave attacks. Just like we see in the Clone Wars cartoons and just like the Russians used in WWII. All that elitness fluff may just be Imperial propaganda.
| Quote: | | Heck they fight worse than some pirates. |
Maybe not if the pirates fight like Hollywood movie pirates.
| Quote: | Quote:
| Quote: | | (2) second example - the Death Star exhaust port. I mean really, those are the best engineers in the Empire? |
I can easily see it. I know many people here on earth, that build something, and overlook a simple flaw, someone else sees. |
But a simple, unnoticed, massively fatal flaw? This is the equivalent of blowing up the battleship Missouri with a single 3" shell. I've seen the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge film, but I'd be interested to see examples of such massively fatal engineering failures for military systems in the real world.
| Quote: | Quote:
| Quote: | | (3) third example - the failure to launch enough fighters (of the hundreds on board) to just deny the Rebels the ability to reach the Death Star. |
That was more hubris than showing a lack of tactical skill. |
But you find hubris at the squad tactical level unreasonable?
Garkhal, I hope my comments aren't coming across as too antagonistic. I sense you are playing a differen style of SW campaign then I do. I've found your comments helpful in understanding your style and I've found you often have good thoughts on many of the topics here. |
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Critias
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Joined: 30 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: |
But a simple, unnoticed, massively fatal flaw? This is the equivalent of blowing up the battleship Missouri with a single 3" shell. I've seen the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge film, but I'd be interested to see examples of such massively fatal engineering failures for military systems in the real world. |
The history grad student in me wanted to write something a little more serious about this, but then I remembered that Cracked.com already covered some pretty memorable "real life Death Stars" in fairly amusing fashion: http://www.cracked.com/article_18679_5-real-historical-death-stars-complete-with-baffling-flaws.html
 [/url] |
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Bren
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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Critias, thanks for responding. I checked the link.
1. Chateau Gaillard’s garderobe - NO. This is just a variant of the enter the castle/town through the sewers that is a common trope in fantasy role play.
2. Singapore port defenses – NO. Out flanked, a not uncommon occurrence in military history, the Maginot line from the same war, different continent provides another example.
3. Water gate (or lack there of) and the walls of Babylon - NO. Really a variant of 1 provided by some engineering work. Might as well class the Roman attack on Masada as an engineering failure of the defense.
4. Sinking of the Mary Rose - YES. Gotta five you this one. I would argue this is the best example of bad design. The fact that improperly secured ports were the cause of the sinking heightens the similarity.
5. Helepolis bogged down - NO. Siege towers getting stuck was an expected hazard. The mass of this one increased the likelihood and probably made it more difficult to recover. If the ground had been dry or stony the tower might have performed correctly.
Now, if the defenders had shot a fire arrow through an uncovered artillery port, hit the oil supply causing the tower to immediately burst into flames, that would be an example of Deathstar like failure.
Except for the Mary Rose I don't find any of the examples are comparable. And recall Henry only had one Deathship built. The Emperor built two of them.
BTW, what happened to Palps ability to foresee the future? He's clever enough to outsmart the entire Jedi order and he can't see two big explosions in his future? |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:48 am Post subject: |
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Bren, i am doing as you did..
| Bren wrote: |
This is part of why I characterized your play style as gritty compared to what we see in the Star Wars movies. I still think even in gritty style, it is possble to have players survive at a higher rate than NPCs. Afterall I seriously doubt that Band of Brothers rolls dice to see which actors won't be coming to the set ever again. |
LOL.. i have known one person who worked on a set for a tv show, who did say he saw dice around... though i think it was more for people who were playing yahzee..
| Bren wrote: |
You are paying attention more to the fluff description rather than the stats or the way they are depicted in the films. You are not alone in that, but it's not my preference. I think the Emperor is more interested in loyal troops than elite troops and the Empire has so many troops they are comfortable and frequently successful with mass wave attacks. Just like we see in the Clone Wars cartoons and just like the Russians used in WWII. All that elitness fluff may just be Imperial propaganda. |
Guess i might be paying more attention to their fluff. Heck, if all they wanted were masses of troops, why would they have to worry about training them.. why not just use slave labor.. would have the same effect.
| Bren wrote: |
Maybe not if the pirates fight like Hollywood movie pirates. |
It also depends on whether they went to the "A-team school of shooting 8) 8)
| Bren wrote: |
But a simple, unnoticed, massively fatal flaw? This is the equivalent of blowing up the battleship Missouri with a single 3" shell. I've seen the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge film, but I'd be interested to see examples of such massively fatal engineering failures for military systems in the real world. |
From chatting with some vets who SERVED on those ships, if they had a bomb manage to get into the smok stack, it would have done the same thing...
| Bren wrote: |
But you find hubris at the squad tactical level unreasonable? |
Yes. The smaller the unit, the less likely someone's ego is going to get in the way of things. And remember it was Moff Tarkin (one of the biggest egos in the Empire) who said not to worry....
| Bren wrote: | | Garkhal, I hope my comments aren't coming across as too antagonistic. I sense you are playing a differen style of SW campaign then I do. I've found your comments helpful in understanding your style and I've found you often have good thoughts on many of the topics here. |
Don't sweat it.
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Bren
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| Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 9:06 am Post subject: |
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All quotes are from garhkal
| Quote: | | Guess i might be paying more attention to their fluff. Heck, if all they wanted were masses of troops, why would they have to worry about training them.. why not just use slave labor.. would have the same effect. |
Well I assume the Stormtroopers are clones, just like the GAR. So in my campaign they are (programmed and indoctrinated) slave labor and very loyal.
| Quote: | | It also depends on whether they went to the "A-team school of shooting |
No, the Stormies aren't that bad shots. They do hit and injure (Leia) or kill (nameless Rebel NPCs) their targets. The A-Team never seems to hit anybody. Don't know if it's the same in the new movie.
| Quote: | | From chatting with some vets who SERVED on those ships, if they had a bomb manage to get into the smok stack, it would have done the same thing... |
Now this is interesting and potentially seems similar to the Death Star. How do you say, use the Force Hideyoshi in Japanese? I wouldn't think a single bomb would cause a catastrophic explosion on a battleship, but I suppose if it blew out the bottom or set of a magazine you could get rapid sinking. Wouldn't the stack have some sort of grating or baffles to try to prevent a bomb from reaching the interior and armor plate around it to protect the rest of the ship?
| Quote: | | Yes. The smaller the unit, the less likely someone's ego is going to get in the way of things. And remember it was Moff Tarkin (one of the biggest egos in the Empire) who said not to worry.... |
Makes sense, pretty much what I thought you would say as well.
Thanks, I just think it is always good to check. |
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:41 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | [
Which to me is doing a massive dis service to what they are listed as.. With how the films showed storm troopers to be i can in no way, consider them the "elite" shock troops they are supposed to be by the source books. Heck they fight worse than some pirates. |
Yes, but if you make Strotroopers as competent as real elite shock troops they should and would run rampant over the PCs. THey guys are supposed to be good, yet Luke, Hand and Leia go through them like they are, well, movie extras.
IMO, I think the difficulties lies in the fact that Luke, Han and Leia are NOT beggining player characters. I think the orginal, fairly pathetic stats for most of the NPC mooks were written up to please fans of the films, allowing newbies to go through stromtroopers with thier begging characters the same way the heros do in the films. THat is great for letting players recapture the feel for the films, but leads to some problmes once the PCas start to get a little experience.
I just assume that it's a big galaxy and some troopers are rushed into service without being fully trained. Fully trained ones have abilites closer to Clone Troopers (as written up in GG:15). Clone Troopers, as portrayed in episodes 2, 3 and both Clone Wars TV shows, don't suck. |
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:56 am Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: |
For me, a cardinal sin is breaking the tone of the game and that will vary for each game system and each group of players and GM. In certain settings, characters should make tactically bad decisions because that's what the character (not the player) would do and/or that's what the genre calls for. In a realistic campaign letting the villain capture you would be dumb. In a 007 campaign, not letting the villain capture you would be dumb. Your 00-agent would end up nowhere near the secret base, and wouldn't know about the super laser that is going to drill into the earth's crust, and thus couldn't shut off the laser and foil the villain and rescue the beautiful/handsome foil in time.
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Good point. I'm very fond of the 007 RPG, but most of the playes I've gamed with have had a lot of difficulty with the game. Generally this difficulty has less to do with the system, and more do do with the fact that the players tend to bring along a lot of "baggage" with them from other RPGS (expsially D&D) that doesn't apply in the world of James Bond. Players were ingoring the briefing, fighting to the last to avoid captured, chargging into autmatic weapons fire, and getting scared off when they discovered that the bad guy had some sort of fortress and lots of guards.
Evnetually I workd up a short of crib sheet that gave a overview of the general course of events in a Bond novel or film and handed it out to the players.Some were quite surprised to discover that having someone trying to kill you is, in Bond, a good thing.
A lot of that has applied to players in Star Wars too. A lot of players have brought along beliefs as to how things work based on years of playing D&D that just don7t apply in Star Wars. For example, lotting gear from fallen foes is consildered "spoils of war" in D&D, but might be considerd looting, theft and piracy in Star Wars.
Part of the difficulty is that even when the GM tries to explain to the players that something isn't so, the players often believe that they know better, based on thier years of experience in other games. |
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Bren
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| Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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atgxtg: | Quote: | | Evnetually I workd up a short of crib sheet that gave a overview of the general course of events in a Bond novel or film and handed it out to the players.Some were quite surprised to discover that having someone trying to kill you is, in Bond, a good thing. |
I can see where a crib sheet could be helpful. I also find a discussion with the players about the tone and expectations for character behavior works well with many (but not all) players.
We used to play Star Trek before switching to Star Wars. It was very helpful when deciding how to approach a scenario to remember it is based on the TV show. So when beaming to a derilict vessel, if there is an atmosphere you don't put on an environmental suit cause that makes it hard for the audience to see the character's face. It really helped to prevent us from loading up on tons of gear that would only waste time or ruin the point of the scenario.
We occasionally do similar things in Star Wars. In fact we OOC treat the campaign as a TV show and joke about what the fans think about what happened in a scenario.
From your post to garhkal: | Quote: | | allowing newbies to go through stromtroopers with thier begging characters |
The begging characters typo cracked me up. Who as a GM hasn't had them? Or to use a line from the musical Oliver..."please sir may I have some more (character points)" or if you prefer FPs. |
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