disciplinary actions

[ifurin]

I'm currently running a game where all of my players except one are rebel agents. (actually employed by the rebellion) They were sent on a simple mission to guard a group of technicians. On the way back to the rebel fleet they stopped to rendezvous with and resupply another undercover agent. when they get to the rendezvous point (a luxury liner) they find everyone on the ship dead. After a couple of hours searching the ship for survivors the leader of the party decides it's time to leave and report this to their leaders. Several members of the party disagree and start looting the ship. The leader then tries commanding them to leave and they ignore him. He then gives them a time limit, they again ignore them and continue looting. The leader then gathers the still loyal members and leaves. My question is when the rest of the party eventually make it back to the rebellion what would be appropriate disciplinary actions? Keep in mind one of the deserters isn't actually a rebel or a civilian contractor, he just hung around until people stopped questioning why he was there and snuck into the party.

[vong]

technically: Actions un-becoming of a Rebel Officer. Dishonorable Discharge.

could go less severe - demotion in rank, cut in pay, demand items be returned to rebellion. they are basically stealing from their employers.
_________________
The Vong have Arrived

PM me if you want user created content uploaded to my site: http://databank.yvong.com/index.php

[Praxian]

Well, there's a lot of things the Rebellion could do. Question is would they? Is it early rebellion where it's in it's infancy (in which case the players would be ok in doing what they need to do like loot to make themselves better able to do future missions) or later in the Rebellion where they are well stocked and can supply people with what they need?

If the latter, the Rebellion itself would still probably not do much. While it's the Rebellion era, they need everyone and everything they can get. Not to say it wouldn't have repercussions. The players would be on a quiet black list of people to only use on missions where stealing would be ok. Also, they wouldn't be put under the leadership of the various super-generals (Cracken for one) for any missions at all. Any person with real talent that joins the group would likely be siphoned off and sent to a real group that follows orders to become better (and not returned). Basically the group gets missions that focus on the outer rim things, and they quit getting supplies because well, they take everything they need (and don't need) from the dead and dying.

[cheshire]

Hrm... that's theft. They're looking at discharge. Depending on how much they took, they could be looking at a military prison. I don't doubt that the civilian is going to have some very tough questions to answer... for that matter, the rebel agents are going to have tough questions in terms of why the drifter is allowed on missions where there is sensitive information. Given that he participated in the theft, it's obvious that he civilian is not of the character that the Rebellion is going to want.
_________________
__________________________________
Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Gamer]

This is how I see it.
Rebel deserters could get woeful disobedience against the commanding officer, desertion, looting of civilian property or if the review board feels fit, piracy.
Desertion alone could garner the death penalty as could piracy.
The fact the rebel deserters had no problem ignoring the commanding officer to go loot dead civilians means the rebels are unfit for any such type of future missions and are a security threat.
This is not a case of SF types using their own initiative this is just a bunch of thugs looting dead civilians.
The commanding officer of the group could be deemed unfit for command and loss of rank and possibly at risk to be busted all the way down to enlisted.
The commanding officer not only lost control of his unit he allowed the deserters/pirates to continue to loot the ship like a bunch of pirates.

In the case of the civilian the rebels could go all the way up to piracy for him and placed on a safe world prison for the duration, since the civilian now has military knowledge shouldn't have and is a major security threat.
Those who let him just hang around are now in a lot of trouble as nobody asked any questions as to why this unknown figure was hanging around created a major breach of security.

This is not a social club this is a military if they just give these deserters and the civilian a slap on the wrist they risk this problem spreading.
This type of manpower is worse than having a shortage of manpower.

Stealing from civilians, especially dead civilians is not going to rally the civilians at large to the rebel cause, it will cause many to see them as the Imperials portrays them, as nothing more than terrorists and pirates.

IF this was a ship that was a legitimate target then the repercussions would be far less severe, but unless this liner was carrying a lot of high ranking Imperials it's very unlikely it was a legit target.

Something I'd throw at them later at minimum for the consequence of their actions, presuming these characters are still in play.

If the group left ANY at least semi-functioning droids behind and didn't alert the authorities of the condition of the ship, the Imperials will have images of them and now they could be wanted for piracy and god knows how many counts of murder.
In the end the group of deserters could be wanted by both the rebels and the imperials.

[bobenhotep]

disciplinary actions would depend on how the co handled it.

he could do nothing, and not say anything. a smart player might use the fact that an unapproved civilian was around to blackmail the commander into not saying anything, because the group commander would be in the soup for that.

he could report their insubordinate/ illegal actions, and go to the command above him. they might be sentenced with labor on some rebel manufacturing world, or be given a letter of reprimand, and be given the chance to redeem themselves, by doing something extraordinarily dangerous, or be assigned to somewhere really nasty.

the empire might do some CSI and lift DNA, fingerprints or something and pin the whole thing on the player characters. then the rebs would drop them like hot rocks or hide them for their own safety.

if no imperial action happens, but they get thrown out, they could become freelancers or bounty hunters or something
_________________
D&D 5e DM and WEG Star Wars GM for two kids who will hopefully carry on with RPGs for years to come

The Chijawa said so, that's why.

[Kemper Boyd]

I'd transfer them to a SpecOps Mission Group.

[Grimace]

Why in the world would a group of looters of dead people qualify as Spec Ops?

I'd say prison time, dock in pay, reprimand, possibly even discharge. And a warning that if something like this ever happens again, they get slapped with piracy against civilians and the penalty for that will be enforced to the maximum extent.

[garhkal]

[Hellcat]

It depends on what their really trying to do with the looting. Are they just out to get goodies or are they actually trying to determine what happened so it is less likely to happen again. It's something the Alliance has to know, why is everyone dead. If the party leader decided not finding any survivors was enough, then that could be dereliction on their part as the Imperials could have broken Alliance codes which code put other missions in jeopardy. Or was it a case of pirates and the leader goes back and reports the Empire had done the massacre after appearing to have broken Alliance codes when really it was just a case of a pirate attack that resulted in everyone being dead and the pirates being unable to carry everything off.

If the others were trying to gather intelligence by taking what they could get that would help understand why everyone was dead and who did it, then that's going to be more acceptable. But if their just trying to increase how much equipment they have, then disciplinary may have to be taken. As Praxian said, it depends on the period. Early on the Alliance couldn't afford to be too picky on who fought for it and who didn't. Like it or not, it had to take folks that might have been viewed even by the Alliance as criminals. In this case, say the Alliance get's 75% of the take, and they take all the really good items. Later, they can start to imprison people for criminal actions.
_________________
FLUFFY for President!!!!

Wanted Poster

[ifurin]

As for the time line, it's 4 months until Yavin. The major problem, for me, is that these are PC's. The only in game reason for doing this is greed. Most of the decisions to loot the ship came from out of game when the leader said it was time to leave. These players don't respect him at all, so when he gave an order the looters did everything they could to disobey it. Three of the players are rather immature and they don't want to grow as players. The fourth looter created his character to disrupt party unity (i only recently learned of this). So there was nothing the leader could have done and if he had tried to shoot any of them (even a warning shot) they would have killed him. This player was ELECTED (out of game) to be leader because he was trying to grow as a player and he has been doing a good job. He has come a long way these past dew years but these four don't want to acknowledge it. Since the problems are coming from these players and not their characters i'm trying to find suitable punishments that won't require them making new characters. Seeing as new characters will only exacerbate the problem.

[Gamer]

The problem is apparently you need new players.
It seems fairly obvious these players aren't meant for this type of campaign, trying to salvage it seems a waste of time to me.
I don't even see it getting any better even if they escaped from a rebel prison and became pirates.
you'll still have the interparty conflicts just due to player conflicts.

[hisham]

Interesting. This happened to me once.

Group was all SpecForce IIRC. They had a mission to Kinyen, and after being briefed they went to buy gear at a store. They ended up pulling weapons on the storekeeper and looting the store. This was on a New Republic controlled planet, btw.

I let them go on their mission. They accomplished it. And they returned back to base to celebrate. Upon landing, they were surrounded by a platoon of NRSF troopers, with the commander saying out what I was thinking at the time, "You raided and looted a store in this city and you happily come back here like there are no consequences? Seriously?"

The players paused to think about it.

With 40 or so troopers with blasters trained on them, the PCs dropped their weapons thinking they'll be released soon to go on other adventures. I told them their characters were tried and found guilty of assault with deadly weapon as well as theft and will be incarcerated in maximum security penal colony for x amount of years, x being a number you aren't supposed to care about cause you guys are rolling up new characters for the next session.

Then, the next 10 sessions or so with these guys were some of the best games I ever GMed.
_________________
The Enteague Sector | Cracken's Collection of Crackpots
In D6, of course.

[Grimace]

Yes, you're having more difficulties with players than with characters, really. Contrary to what Gamer mentioned, though, I don't think you should jettison your problem players.

You almost need to start a new game, one where they aren't blaster monkeys and you lay out the penalties for if they start shooting or looting everything. Then, additionally, let the PLAYERS know you're not going to run a pirate game and you're not going to run an "evil" or "dark" game. Figure out from the players if the reason they're not growing as players is because they're bored, or they want to play something different or whatever it is.

Like Hisham suggested, though, you can just lock up these deserters and looters when they show up and then you can start with a new game with new characters (give the one player the option to use the same character if he desires, since he wasnt the one acting poorly).

Big thing, though, talk to your players. Figure out what the problem is. Why is the one player making characters to disrupt party unity? Why are the others not attempting to make more developed characters that do more than "loot the bodies". Remind them this isn't D&D and the characters are paid they don't have to loot everything and violence isn't the best answer to every problem.

Likewise, evaluate yourself with your GMing ability. Look at whether you're favoring one or two players more than the others. Look at whether you're always running the same types of games and all of these games have devolved into the same sorts of problems. You may need to take some of what they say and adjust how you run games or what game you run.

Hopefully by doing this, starting with new characters, and figuring out what's wrong with your player group dynamic you can get the problems worked out.
Hope this helps some.

[Raven Redstar]

You shouldn't have let them get off the ship.

But, since you did, I would have the empire set a trap. Tracking devices that attached to any ship docking with the luxury liner. If a call wasn't sent out to the empire, they watch where the ship goes, and send a small fleet to wherever these people go. 2-3 Star Destroyers, 4-6 Interdictor Cruisers, 8-10 Tartan Patrol Cruisers, and maybe some Broadside Missile Cruisers. I surely hope that they're not stationed on Yavin, because if they are, they managed to destroy the rebellion with their antics.
Something for them to think about for the future. Anyway, I would have the rebels try to mount an escape, but lose 60-80% of their personnel and ships in the attempt, another 10-20% captured. This could make for an interesting story though... much darker than the original movies. Luke, Han and Leia escape the Deathstar only to return to Yavin to find it destroyed.
When they do meet up with any rebels again, the commander tells them that he can't believe this has happened... their incompetence has shattered the rebellion, and if it were up to him, they'd be clapped in binders and taken away for execution, but they need manpower right now.

I would then have the commander send them on the most dangerous missions, trying to let them die in the line of duty, since he can't kill them himself. See if the players manage to bring the rebellion back from the brink. Makes for an epic story line, and hopefully gets the players to act more in character.