welsh
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Re: War Dogs

Tue 25 Jan 2022, 21:02

There was a discussion on the FB group some time back & I gave this a little bit of thought before I got busy & discarded it. Attributes, skills & specialties for dogs would accurately model how dogs learn & work, but it's just too complex. I think it best to allow a single specialty such as explosives detection, etc. and leave it at that.

The thing is, trained dogs are very good at their specialties. Way better than the normal task system allows. It's not a +1 to the human handler's skill. If you set a detection dog to work, it will very likely find the thing it is trained to detect, unless the thing is not there. The downside is the dog needs continual training to maintain that level of skill. And dog skills are very narrow. They only react to the things they're trained to react to.
 
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ottarrus
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Re: War Dogs

Tue 25 Jan 2022, 21:16

There was a discussion on the FB group some time back & I gave this a little bit of thought before I got busy & discarded it. Attributes, skills & specialties for dogs would accurately model how dogs learn & work, but it's just too complex. I think it best to allow a single specialty such as explosives detection, etc. and leave it at that.

The thing is, trained dogs are very good at their specialties. Way better than the normal task system allows. It's not a +1 to the human handler's skill. If you set a detection dog to work, it will very likely find the thing it is trained to detect, unless the thing is not there. The downside is the dog needs continual training to maintain that level of skill. And dog skills are very narrow. They only react to the things they're trained to react to.
All very true. A narcotics dog isn't gonna point at ducks breaking cover any more than a bomb dog is going to trigger on the smell of coffee-and-heroin [that's a specific one that my local PD trains the dogs for]
And we're not even getting into breeds and so on.
Until we get some guidance from FL on this, I think I'll proceed on the assumption that all trained and cared for dogs have C in each attribute, are trained in two specific skills and one specialty from a VERY narrow list. Their training gives them a +2 die bump in their specialty if the dog's trainer works the dog regularly, but only +1 if not.
 
JokersGamble
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Re: War Dogs

Fri 28 Jan 2022, 06:04

My take on this would be to use the Wolf stats in the Refs Manual as most trained search and attack dogs are GSD or Malinois. That gives them a D in both Mental and a B in both physical stats. For detection dogs, give them a specialization that gives a +1 to Recon to detect whatever they are trained for (narcotics, explosives, etc.) Search and rescue could have a +1 to survival to track someone. I would give attack trained dogs a +1 to their Close Combat skill.

To show the handler/K9 mechanic I would also say that the search and detection specializations would allow the dog to use the handlers Int stat on it's Recon/Survival roll to show the handler controlling the dogs search pattern. For the attack dog I would say that the handler can use a command as a free action to direct the dog to attack a certain enemy they can both see.

Edit: Thinking now, the Wolf doesn't have Survival so that wouldn't work well. Maybe the specialization allows it to use it's Recon to track since it's using physical senses and not knowledge.

Also, I would definitely say that the dog counts as one of the group items at character generation. It's a very powerful tool, having a recon of A. Being able to detect bombs and having a strong passive recon to keep you from getting snuck up on is really useful.
 
SykesFive
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Re: War Dogs

Fri 28 Jan 2022, 19:37

For the canonical "end of WWIII" setting, I am curious how many trained dogs would be left in 2000 after years of global war and scarcity. They would probably be extremely rare. Also I suspect training would have been curtailed around 1997 so just about any dog would be halfway through its career.
 
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Vader
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Re: War Dogs

Fri 28 Jan 2022, 19:50

Or the exact opposite.

There’s a good reason why dogs and mankind have shared our culture in partnership for more than 20,000 years — for getting past tough times, whether it be for protecting against predators (human or otherwise), hunting or foraging for food, keeping track of livestock, warning against dangers of any kind imaginable … there simply exists no more resource efficient tool available to Man than the dog.
Before you use the word "XENOMORPH" again, you should read this article through:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/aliens-throwaway-line-confusion
 
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ottarrus
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Re: War Dogs

Fri 28 Jan 2022, 21:49

Something else to consider, just to throw a wrench into things, is that most military dog handlers are not dog trainers. They can and do reinforce a bonded dog's training, but they don't actually know how to do the all-important initial training from a pup. Currently this level of training is contracted out to civilians in the US military, and I have absolutely no idea how DoD handled breeding and training before the GWOT.
So how many people actually know how to train a military working dog in FLG's T2K4 timeline? I'm gonna take a WAG and say 'not many'.
 
paladin2019
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Re: War Dogs

Sat 29 Jan 2022, 01:05

The US's working dog program is Lackland AFB (the USAF MP school, because USAF has executive agency for MP operations). It has always been an internal function since the Malinois/BSD program began. (Lackland is responsible for the loss of the "Mali-gator," actively breeding out part of this aggressive predisposition.) Very few dogs are purchased by DoD anymore. Did Lackland and its various schools and programs survive in your version of T:2k? Can replacements be RSOI'd to units in contact?
 
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ottarrus
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Re: War Dogs

Sat 29 Jan 2022, 03:11

Good to know. Thanks for the info.
 
Oddball_E8
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Re: War Dogs

Sat 29 Jan 2022, 13:23

Haven't read through this whole thread yet, so excuse me if it's been said already (I'm home with the 'rona, which apparently hits me in the sinuses every time giving massive headaches and concentration issues), but there are a few rules in Mutant Year Zero for dogs and handlers.

Those could be used pretty easily in the game, without too much converting.

For some reason I don't have the .pdf on my main computer, and my laptop is still at work, so I can't look at it now, but IIRC you get the equivalent of specialties for the dog specifically, letting you use the dog in specific ways.
One is for tracking, one is for survival and one is for combat, IIRC.
 
SykesFive
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue 07 Sep 2021, 21:15

Re: War Dogs

Sun 30 Jan 2022, 19:58

I would certainly agree with the proposition that there would continue to be prosperous and beneficial relationships between humans and dogs.

But many of the specific skills of military working dogs (and other specialized working dogs) would probably not have been taught since the war's start, so you'd just have a declining population of trained dogs, handlers, and trainers.

I suspect that during the ramp-up for WWIII and the pre-nuke mobilization, nobody would have thought, "What we're going to need is more working dogs!"

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