Very Rough Plans

[Learned Hand]

I've been very vague so far when it comes to describing the session. I'm going to pretend I did that deliberately in order to introduce this thread.

I imagined the 3 of you (plus any other PCs) going to the island on your own. There are 3 factions on the island, and I imagined that you would engineer a conflict between them, and mop up the survivors. The challenges would be (a) persuading everybody to fight, and (b) ensuring the fight turns out how you want.

However, this is just one option It could be that you arrive with your forces, and we just play it as a good old-fashioned, mass combat (though with more to it than one big battle).

If you let me know what sorts of things you would like to do, and challenges you would like to face (any other options would be cool) I shall endeavour to provide them.

[Blackrat]

Well, I'll need to change my character concept if she's not going to be the commander of an existing force - which is fine, but I'll need some notice obviously.

Basically I was assuming we didn't know anything more than you'd already told us, and therefore we weren't going to decide a strategy until the session. Hence, I designed a character to fit into that - she's been shipped off with a decent-sized army and instructions to kill, but little real info about the situation. She hopes that she and her companions will have all the necessary skills / resources between them for whatever challenges they may face - but those challenges are essentially unknown.

That was the impression I got from your summary, anyway. This would mean the real challenges are creating a balanced party, dealing with stuff we haven't prepared for, making up for our weaknesses, etc. Which sounds fun to me.

Overall, I don't really mind whether we do that or plan a full-on approach to the problem beforehand. If we do the latter, though, I'll probably scrap my current character and make one that fits better with our plan.

[bravesirrobin]

blackrat said:

Well, I'll need to change my character concept if she's not going to be the commander of an existing force - which is fine, but I'll need some notice obviously.

Basically I was assuming we didn't know anything more than you'd already told us, and therefore we weren't going to decide a strategy until the session. Hence, I designed a character to fit into that - she's been shipped off with a decent-sized army and instructions to kill, but little real info about the situation. She hopes that she and her companions will have all the necessary skills / resources between them for whatever challenges they may face - but those challenges are essentially unknown.

That was the impression I got from your summary, anyway. This would mean the real challenges are creating a balanced party, dealing with stuff we haven't prepared for, making up for our weaknesses, etc. Which sounds fun to me.

Overall, I don't really mind whether we do that or plan a full-on approach to the problem beforehand. If we do the latter, though, I'll probably scrap my current character and make one that fits better with our plan.

Errrrrmmmmm, likewise. Though it'll more be a question of shifting dots than shifting concept. It sounded from your initial description that we'd be sent as a taskforce. If we're going in Solo, naturally things will change.

[oneiros]

Strange - for some reason I thought small group of PCs rather than big army, myself.

I do like the idea, however, that we're part of a large group which engages the forces on the island but then we have to break off to accomplish something critical. That way, the marshally-types get to set things in action and direct operations but with a non-mass combat bit operating in concert.

What do folk think?

[Blackrat]

S'what I was thinking, yeah.

[Learned Hand]

That works.

There is actually a command background in the DB book. There is also an arsenal background to represent their equipment, and you can take allies for exalted commanders of those armies.

[Learned Hand]

Indeed, having reviewed the rules I'd suggest that the only forces that will be with you will be the ones you spend your background dots on. It might be that you three, as the chosen leaders of the campaign, feel that its aims will be best acheived by a well-equipped crack commando squad going in (i.e. yourselves with artifacts). It may be that you feel that you need more support.

Remember, that although you will have some troops at your disposal, the legion is a secret, so you're unlikely to have hundreds and hundreds.

[oneiros]

Hmmm, more to ponder

Have you had any more thoughts as to char creation rules yet?

[Learned Hand]

I'll try to finalise them for Sunday

[Blackrat]

admin said:

Indeed, having reviewed the rules I'd suggest that the only forces that will be with you will be the ones you spend your background dots on. It might be that you three, as the chosen leaders of the campaign, feel that its aims will be best acheived by a well-equipped crack commando squad going in (i.e. yourselves with artifacts). It may be that you feel that you need more support.

Remember, that although you will have some troops at your disposal, the legion is a secret, so you're unlikely to have hundreds and hundreds.

That is exactly what I'd assumed. Already our minds are becoming one...

[bravesirrobin]

If we're going commando I might resurrect an old fire-aspect character. She was always designed as a bit of a comando.

I still think the best way to do things is to design a trio of commando characters and maybe put some background points into having a back-up force.

LH - would just allies do? Would the allies then have the command background or do we need it? If there are a trio of commanders do we need to pay for all 3 each, or just one each?

I assume this means we've dispensed with the idea of dual characters?

[Blackrat]

bravesirrobin said:

If we're going commando I might resurrect an old fire-aspect character. She was always designed as a bit of a comando.

Remember I know who that is, so I'm well aware that you mean "she always enjoyed going commando" ;D

Also, I reckon backup forces make sense. Sure we're powerful DBs, but still, I reckon given the order "kill 3000 Yozi-worshippers", we'd be preparing for something that we couldn't handle by ourselves.

As for sharing the background - surely each of us just commands whatever forces we pay for? So if you don't pay, you don't command, unless someone who has paid splits up their army and lends you a bit.

[bravesirrobin]

The problem is, as I see it, if we're going to have Mass Combat you want a character designed for it, cos otherwise mass combat sucks. If we're not going to have mass combat then i'd like to know ahead of time - because war is like the one ability that doesn't have nay function in other situations.

LH has said mass combat is an option, but aviodable. I think it's a big enough consideration to decide ahead of time whether we want to build it into our plans or avoid it. But let me know if I'm getting too meta-gamey.

[oneiros]

No, I agree with that. I don't want to build a solo fighter if most of the time is going to be spent directing troops.

Looking at it, the Command (1 dot) background gives a squad of 25 who follow you. This feels like the sort of precision taskforce that you could leave doing one thing (maybe under the command of an Ally - 1 dot enough?) whilst you either directed them or did something else. If we all took Command 1, we'd have 75 people which sounds about right and not too cumbersome if we needed to leave them and go solo.

Not really knowing War and how mass combat works though, I might have this somewhat skewed in thinking.

[Learned Hand]

bravesirrobin said:

LH - would just allies do? Would the allies then have the command background or do we need it? If there are a trio of commanders do we need to pay for all 3 each, or just one each?

No. Allies with the command background make sense in a campaign because they would lend you their forces in return for favours, hence balance. In the one-off you wouldn't be able to return the favours, so it would be a bit skewed.

blackrat said:

As for sharing the background - surely each of us just commands whatever forces we pay for? So if you don't pay, you don't command, unless someone who has paid splits up their army and lends you a bit.

Bear in mind that the right character could create a force for themselves on the island by messing with mortals. But if somebody has 100 troops and wants to give 50 to a friend that would be fine.

oneiros said:

No, I agree with that. I don't want to build a solo fighter if most of the time is going to be spent directing troops.

Looking at it, the Command (1 dot) background gives a squad of 25 who follow you. This feels like the sort of precision taskforce that you could leave doing one thing (maybe under the command of an Ally - 1 dot enough?) whilst you either directed them or did something else. If we all took Command 1, we'd have 75 people which sounds about right and not too cumbersome if we needed to leave them and go solo.

I agree too. That distribution of dots would work well. If you want to leave your troops alone *and* you want them to have a hope in hell of surviving alone against an opponent's force then you'll need to put dots into ally. The better the ally:command ratio, the better they'll function without you.