Determining PC success in a larger NPC plan

[Dredwulf60]

Preamble:

So my players in my Mandalorian game have decided to test the waters in joining a Death Watch insurrection against the Empire. Not sanctioned by their own mandalorian clan chiefs, but the PCs they felt they had to do something, even go nomad from their clan to take up arms.

So they suddenly find themselves taking orders in an insurgency chain of command. This is different, as they are used to making their own plans and pulling off their own heists.

So when the head of their terrorist er..freedom fighter force decides to pull off a complex mission, the players find themselves to be merely one small aspect in a larger and more complex action, a lot of the planning of which they aren't even privy to.

But as PCs their actions need to have weight; influence on the outcome...a sense that the PCs can do everything right and yet the big plan can still fail, and vice versa.

Now the easy road is GM fiat of course:
-- I decide whether the big plan succeeds of fails...but that's not my style.

I'm more of a 'chips fall where they may' type, which I find makes the action feel more 'real' to the players because they know the odds...and I'm not always at the helm of the story...they are...and the fates are.

Here's a quick spitball I've been mulling to handle it:

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I establish a known difficulty rating for the mission. The players will be aware of it, because their characters would be able to judge how difficult the task is going to be.

(Is it landing on the beach on D-day..difficulty 50 or is it choppering into Grenada...difficulty 15.)

The NPC commander has a number of assets that I will assign die values to.
The players may know these values if they have any experience with the combatants, their gear and/or reputations.

example:
NPC infantry group: 1D6
NPC starfighter air support: 2D6
NPC demolitions team: 1D6+1
(This is judged by the GM, based on what he knows about the sub-unit's quality and also how important they are to the overall objective. The demolitions team might play only a minor roll on one mission, and they might be absolutely vital to the next).

So if the player characters were not involved in the operation at all, (I wouldn't really bother with this, but for sake of the example) I would roll 4D6+1 which is the tally of all the die codes.
If the result achieved the difficulty, then the overall mission is a success.

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PC involvement

The player characters will have their own objective assigned in the mision.

-They might participate in the general infantry battle, so their objective might be to kill or incapacitate a certain number of enemy.

-They might participate in the starfighter cover in which case they might have to destroy a certain number of enemy ground or air targets, or perhaps one specific vital target.

-They might have their own special objective, such as to take a certain enemy general prisoner.

In any case, if they achieve their own objective then they add a 1D6 to the overall battle die code.

Thus they have a tangible effect on the battle, but victory or defeat may be out of their hands.


I'm thining the overall NPC commander's strategy skill will have some minor affect in there somewhere too...just not too sure where.

[garhkal]

One thing you could do to help out.. Have the success or failure of their 'side mission's, impact the overall plan and outcome..

"OI guys, here are six sub-missions we need you to go do. Each has a slight role in the grand scheme, but if all six can get pulled off, it will really help our cause"..


Did they do only 1? Then it didn't really change anything.
Did they complete 4 or 5? "Difficulty for the ending is lessened considerably".

Did they bugger up two? "Difficulty for the ending is increased"...
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Dredwulf60]

[Dredwulf60]

I've incorporated Garhkal's suggestion by breaking the overall mission into 3 phases.

The Overall Mission is for the insurrectionist mandos to attack Mandalmotors.

Mandalorian insurgents are already in place in Keldabe and have been planning for weeks. They will be aided from the inside by loyalists.
The insurrection will penetrate the factory, kill the Imperial supervisors and any identified mandalorian collaborators. They will then steal as many top-of-the-line starfighters as they can.

Meanwhile, the PCs are with the space-faring section of the insurrection. They will drop out of hyperspace in a large force of starfighters, weaponized light freighters and small assault ships with marauder frigate support.
They will have to fight through the imperial blockade to provide aerial support for the ground forces attacking the factory.
They will be expected to loiter 10-15 minutes with the rest of the air/space force to keep the skies clear and answer requests for ground support.

After the factory action, they will escort the captured fighters back to space, run the Imperial gauntlet and escape the system.

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PHASE I PLANETARY INSERTION
Overall objective: fighting through the defenses while keeping enough assets to be effective.
PC Objective: Destroy 10 enemy fighters. Over achiever bonus: +1 per additional fighter destroyed.
Time constraint: 10 rounds.

Difficulty: 25 for success. 35 for great success
Command factor: 3D6
Fighter squadrons: 4D6
Attack ships: 2D6
PCs: 1D6 (plus over-achiever bonus)

Failure: +10 to difficulty of the factory attack
Success: Normal difficulty of the factory attack.
Great success: -10 to difficulty for the factory attack.


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PHASE II FACTORY ATTACK
Overall objective: Penetrate the factory defenses, sabotage the works and steal available fighters.
PC Objective: Provide air cover over the target and precision air support as requested.
–-Destroy all targets that appear.
Each round roll 2D6:

2: Request to destroy an AT-AT
3: Request to destroy an AT-ST
4: Request to destroy a gun emplacement
5: Request to strafe a storm trooper squad position
6-10: No change
11: add TIE fighter
12: add 3x TIE fighter

–-All requests continue to accumulate until destroyed. Each target not destroyed by the end of the time constraint is a -1 to the PC roll. This can bring the PC contribution into negative value to the overall objective.


Time constraint: 20 rounds+ random factor.

Difficulty: 30 (modified by phase I result)
Command factor: 3D6
Fighter squadrons: 2D6
Infantry attack: 4D6
Commando operation: 2D6
PCs: 3D6 (-1 per remaining asset)

Failure: +10 to the difficulty of escape
Success: Add liberated fighters dice to escape phase.




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PHASE III ESCAPE
Overall objective: fight clear of the planet and escape into hyperspace.
PC Objective: Destroy 10 enemy fighters and successfully jump out of the system.
Time constraint: 20 rounds

Difficulty: 30 (modified by phase II result)
Command factor: 3D6
Fighter squadrons: 4D6
Attack ships: 2D6
**Liberated fighters: 3D6 (only if Phase II was successful)

Success: Insurrection has gained 80 new Fang starfighters and 25 Kom’rk fighter/transports.
2D6 % force casualties.

Failure: Reduce Fang starfighters by 6D6 and Kom’rk fighter/transports by 4D6
6D6% force casualties.

[garhkal]

Looks interesting...
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Grimace]

I think you're on the right track. I was going to suggest something like what is in Star Trek Adventures...an aspect they call "extended challenges". Basically akin to what you came up with, where you have multiple steps, and a difficulty for each step. You need to attain success in each step to move to the next.

Your idea of carrying a failure to the next step is also good, as there are ramifications of action (that, and it's difficult to keep doing some things until you get them correct in a situation like this).

And to integrate other Mandalorian groups in the overall plan into the whole scheme of things, you can come up with a "base stat" for each other Mandalorian group. Then you can roll each base stat of each other group to see if they succeed or fail at each of their tasks. The overall performance of each group, coupled with the PC group's success/fails, will determine whether the whole mission is a success or failure. That could also be used by you to "lay blame at the feet" of the PC group if their group's tasks ended with more fails than successes. "This mission would have been a success if it hadn't been for YOUR bumbling failure!"....that sort of thing.

[Dredwulf60]

Well....it worked great.

Up until everyone died.



The player group was a heavily armed light freighter and a pair of starfighters.

They killed far more than their allotted share of TIE fighters in phase I, earning a large bonus to their portion of the roll.

In phase II there was no backlog of support fire. They destroyed the ground targets almost as soon as requested and the enemy TIEs must have been held up elsewhere because they barely made a showing, giving the PCs local air superiority.

Unfortunately one of the players had some problems with his computer and had to drop out of the session. I judged his fighter, that he had just acquired heavily used, to be suffering navigational and communications problems and he had to abort.

The combat freighter and the heavy starfighter entered into phase III.

Earlier I had voiced my concern that the players were running very lean on saved-up CPs for a group that knew they were going to take part in open warfare.

One player even told me "I prefer to invest in my skills to keep me alive."
Well, the Players own their characters...

Anyway on the way out the TIE fighters were getting pretty thick. The heavy starfighter pilot, who had been suffering a run of wild '1' results got yet another one when a TIE came zooming into a tailing position and tagged him.

Another '1' on the wild die for a soak roll..coupled with a low overall total resulted in....total destruction of the fighter. No CPs left to save the day.

The frieghter battled on. With a dedicated 360 gunner using a heavy repeating laser cannon, it had been a force to be respected. But without the other two fighters to draw off some numbers, it got overwhelmed.

It too was destroyed in a coordinated attack by a group of TIEs.
Neither the pilot nor the gunner had any CPs saved to try to salvage the ship.

But the main mission was a resounding sucess!!!

[garhkal]

DOH..

On the "They had no CP left to save themselves".. I take it that means you buy into the argument they can spend CP on a ship's Hull rolls, to improve its soak?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Dredwulf60]