baldrick0712
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T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Sat 23 Oct 2021, 15:51

I'm thinking it might be fun to increase the size of the player party considerably with the inclusion of friendly NPCs controlled by the players - a bit like Star Trek "Red Shirts". Depending on a character's rank, the player who owns that character can create a number of NPCs that his character directly controls. For example, a lowly Private would have one NPC he controls (soldiers normally operate in pairs as the lowest sized unit), a PFC or Corporal might have a small fireteam or section, a Sergeant might have a whole squad of NPCs, etc. The player party might then conceivably represent a reduced strength platoon. If the player controls one or two NPCS they would be created in a similar manner to the Archetype creation method but maybe with some penalties to make them not as good as a proper PC. Each player would have a maximum of two fleshed out NPCs and if he has control of more people they would be very basic mooks assigned to one of the NPCs to help their rolls. When rolling for the group's vehicle, you would roll more than once. NPCs and mooks would count towards the PC modifier to the vehicle roll but the modifier cannot be greater than +4. If it is, you split it and roll twice, e.g. roll once with +3 and again with +2. If you had some mad number of PCs, NPCs and mooks like 14 you would keep splitting it down so no roll had a modifier greater than +4, e.g. two rolls with a +4 and two with a +3. You could end up with a tank and several other vehicles like APCs, trucks and Humvees. This could result in some proper skirmish type gameplay.
 
Makhfi
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Re: T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Sat 23 Oct 2021, 23:58

A game like that works just fine. I've refereed a similar game in T2k v2.2 and had no problems with it. The npc's was often used for guard duty and similar 'boring' tasks, but they brought them along for bigger fights as well :)

Those npc's were made just like a player by the controlling player, so if a player died they could continue with their 'backup'. A new npc either joined in-game, or between adventures if no opportunity for a new addition to the team presented itself.
 
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ottarrus
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Re: T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Sun 24 Oct 2021, 05:56

I could see adding a couple of Red Shirts, 'recruits', whatever to a party low on skill sets. After all, not everybody wants to be the mechanic, and God knows you're gonna need one.
But I personally wouldn't go much more than doubling the party's numbers and, like you've pointed out, larger groups are harder to sneak about with and will draw larger firefights.
It should also be remembered that in T2K4, you only get d3 'reloads' for your weapons. Larger firefights means more rounds expended... more rounds by EVERYBODY. You could, for example, completely run out of 5.56N and, after defeating the Soviets, have fewer fewer rounds for their weapons than you had for your before the fight!
However, if the party only adds one or two people to fill skill-sets ['I need a Polish speaking mechanic who can fix this BTR we just captured'], as a referee I wouldn't pile on much at all. The goal isn't to kill the PC, after all
 
Evildrsmith
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Re: T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Mon 25 Oct 2021, 12:37

I pretty much always did this in 1st/2nd Ed games I ran.
Boosting the PC group size opened up the possible starting vehicles options (1st/2nd ed, the group could start with more than one) and gave the groups some more of the 'fun' kit
It meant I could make sure that the group had all the basic 'support' skills covered with a bit of redundancy (appropriate language skills, medic, mechanic, forager, etc) (If the idea of trying to find a mechanic to fix their vehicle appeals to your players, fine, but my group players would have been frustrated by something like that, so better that I ensure they have that 'resource')
It gave them enough people to set up guard duty and carry out basic 'around the camp' duties (preparing food, etc) so that they did not have to worry about fatigue (again, your players may like the challenge of maintaining watch with just a small number of people; mine wouldn't have), and meant that the PC's could leave camp and go and meet someone or explore, while leaving the camp/vehicles safely under guard.
The NPCs also helped out in combat situations (ambushes of the PCs, or ambushes/ deliberate attacks planned by the PCs), and the players quickly caught on to the utility of having a few NPCs helping out, and didn't have them do stupid things in combat that got them (the NPCs) killed.

The last campaign I ran, it was actually a group of 6 characters to start with, with only 2 players - each player had 2 characters, plus there were two NPCs, who (by chance, but conveniently) were the senior ranking officers. This meant I could let the Players plan their actions, but if they did anything too stupid / ordered the NPCs to do something stupid, the NPC's had the military rank to say No.

NPCs also give the referee the option to set up an encounter that is highly likely (or even certain) to kill off a character, without unfairly picking on a player character - exactly the 'Red Shirt' mode suggested!
 
baldrick0712
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Re: T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Mon 25 Oct 2021, 13:53

I'm glad to see that the idea of padding out the group with NPCs has been favourably received. one of my reasons for suggesting it is that I can see a small group of PCs suffering total party kills quite easily in this setting. Some of the encounter cards have off-map 122m howitzers for instance, a single round of which could injure anyone in the target hex and up to 2 hexes away. Having played a lot of "Combat Mission: Cold War" recently (WWIII tactical sim) I've witnessed just how lethal weapons of this era really were - and although the "Twilight" phase portrayed by T2K4e is obviously much lower intensity, encountering any major weapon system is going to potentially kill PCs if not the entire group.

Another idea I had which is a bit crazier would be to have each PC be a leader - e.g. they all start as officers or senior NCOs. For example, one could be a 2nd Lieutenant and three others could each be Corporals or Sergeants in charge of a squad. You could then pretty much have the game represent a whole platoon, most likely of reduced strength, and play out some multi-unit tactical situations. I know this would not be everyone's cup of tea and is straying into wargaming territory but it's something I might try out - maybe solo.
 
Evildrsmith
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Re: T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Mon 25 Oct 2021, 15:44

Baldrick,

A few years back, the last proper RPG campaign I ran was Call of Cthulhu - Rome (shameless plug - all written up and on BGG).
The PCs were senior/experienced legionaries, and each had seven (initially...they got whittled down) more junior troops acting at their direction. Since formally, they had equal ranks, the NPCs followed orders on the grounds that the PCs were the grizzled old hands rather than rigorous rank structure, so couldn't be ordered to do anything suicidal.
The players were only giving limited knowledge about 'their troops' (Partly to provoke paranoia in the first session, not knowing if the troops were trustworthy), so they had something like:
"Fred is solid in combat, but don't every gamble with him, people say he cheats. People are probably right
Tom is an excellent soldier, and the best tracker in the unit bar known, and you count your blessings he's with you
Harry makes up for it - he's a useless layabout that always seems to get away with blaming someone else for his mistakes",
along with a simple percentage score reflecting each soldiers combat ability (easier to do in a game of investigation where any combat is mostly melee).
The PC's tactics (leadership) skill if used successfully boosted the abilities of the troops under their command.
It did work quite well - I think it was making each NPC an individual with just that little bit of personality detail that made the players view the NPCs as useful team members (rather than disposable red shirts).

Doing something like that in T2K4 would seem a fair bit more challenging, but seems feasible. Good luck, and let us know how it goes!
 
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omnipus
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Re: T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Mon 25 Oct 2021, 20:51

I have something that could be very useful for this in my campaign (and supplement I've been working on largely based on it)!
Trust Skills
I designed it with dealing with outside factions in mind, but it would work equally well for a small group of reluctant NPC followers, with the idea that yeah -- everyone in this world is a survivor and not likely to take dumb risks to change that.

Works like this: each faction, sub-faction, or group is treated essentially as a "skill." They have trust in you of rankings A, B, C, D, and none. When you want something from that group (that they are reasonably able to provide), you roll your trust die. The ref should apply modifiers as appropriate (is the ask of a suitable scale to the PC's reputation, is it something that furthers the goals of the group, how valuable and useful is the thing they want otherwise, etc.)
  • If you get multiple successes, they will go out of their way to grant it to you at low or no cost. (they prioritize your mission)
  • If you get one success, they will provide the thing you want, or some equivalent, at a very fair cost/expectation in return. (they give your mission good priority)
  • If you fail, they will provide what you want only if you meet some significant other demand. (your mission is of lower priority than whatever they already are dealing with)
  • If you get a mishap, you have asked too much or too poorly and you must either make rapid amends (probably by fulfilling a significant ask) or lose a rank of trust with this group.
You can push this roll, but a mishap while pushing the results should be even WORSE. Using the results of another roll (such as persuade or command) or simply the basic roleplayed approach to determine the modifier is usually a good way to go. I try to always communicate to the players the general scope of how the other group might interpret this before they roll.

It may sound like there's some overlap with the bartering system but you absolutely shouldn't use it for basic requests of material goods. You should use it for big, mission critical things, personnel, or NPC tasks.
"We are going to locate the Baron's HQ, but to do so, we'll need to requisition one of the few operating armored vehicles, and fuel to travel 100km and back within 3 days."
"We located the HQ and have good intel on the terrain and defenses. We need 10 good fighting men to support our raid."
"We are setting out on a recce into enemy territory. While we are gone we need a small team to go deliver an important message and this wagon of goods to the local magistrate."
"We want to take the only healthy adult male away from your family farm to scout the heavily mined fields up in front of us while we trade pornographic magazines and observe from very far away."

Context and position obviously matter a great deal. This makes it a super easy flexible way to deal with such things that also brings the goals and ambitions of groups of NPCs into play. It works better for dealing with outside parties than with direct reports and so on; there are already rules for that more or less. But I'm gonna do a little thinking on how I might adapt this system to better fit a small group of NPCs that are "permanently" interwoven with the PCs.
Last edited by omnipus on Mon 25 Oct 2021, 20:56, edited 1 time in total.
Author, Central Poland Sourcebook -- now available on DriveThruRPG
 
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omnipus
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Re: T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Mon 25 Oct 2021, 20:55


The players were only giving limited knowledge about 'their troops' (Partly to provoke paranoia in the first session, not knowing if the troops were trustworthy), so they had something like:
"Fred is solid in combat, but don't every gamble with him, people say he cheats. People are probably right
Tom is an excellent soldier, and the best tracker in the unit bar known, and you count your blessings he's with you
Harry makes up for it - he's a useless layabout that always seems to get away with blaming someone else for his mistakes",
This is a great approach! It helps build out relationships and the world around the characters and, in an ideal world, might even make them reluctant or sad if they have to send Tom into harm's way.
You could even take it a step further than that, of course. Harry doesn't make a lot of friends and the players would probably see him as a more expendable asset. But he goes way back with the other guys and if he bites it, they're not going to be real happy or inclined to follow in his path...
Author, Central Poland Sourcebook -- now available on DriveThruRPG
 
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ottarrus
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Re: T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Tue 26 Oct 2021, 00:44

I use a vague 'reputation' scale.
It's nothing hard and system crunchy, but when I generate an NPC that the party will have around for awhile I give them a personality with assets and deficits. Nobody's perfect and in any group of people [be it an office, a work crew, or a military unit] there are people you can trust to do certain things and people you can't. Everybody has strong talents and oftentimes strong weaknesses to go with them.
For example, in the Traveller game that I'm running tomorrow night, one of the NPC's [the party's ship engineer] is great at his job aboard ship, has some skill demolitions and he's a pretty good marksman... but he's never been in a real firefight! And when it drops in the pot, he will suffer a moment of combat paralysis that the players will have to deal with. THAT piece of info the party will find out only when the fecal material strikes the rotary atmospheric oscillation machine. The ship's medic and steward [the ship has a small passenger capacity], acts like she's bored all the time but she actually likes people and is pretty compassionate. She's not gonna be real happy when the laser beams start flying either.
None of this is done to cripple the party's efforts, but to give the NPC's a life and personality. I like to replace the 'red shirt' with a 'co-star' in the episode.
 
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Ser Stevos
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Re: T2K4 "Red Shirts"

Tue 26 Oct 2021, 18:20

My advice on adding more NPCs to the group is remember that as the referee, you are solely responsible for them during combat and other rolls. My current game, there's three NPCs with the party, and let me tell you, sometimes that is even a bit much especially with being new to this system and wanting them to have some personality. The idea of letting them "aid" the players in combat could make things easier but I have no clue how that would affect gameplay.

Definitely talk to your party. If someone wants to be the mechanic, hunter, cook, etc and would enjoy that, don't let an NPC step on their toes by being better at it. If your players want to go with a more base building campaign than a roaming around game then having more NPCs will be right up their alley. Or maybe the players would rather focus on their own characters than random soldier A.

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