The importance of rank

[copeab]

"You know what the chain of command is It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here"
-- Jayne Con, Firefly, "The Train Job"

So, how important is rank to you in your campaigns

[dragoon500ly]

Now that depends entirely on the players, some can cooperate to acheive goals, and some are such utter buttheads that the GM is left with little choice to but work with the more responsible player during character generation in order to insure that the game doesn't dissolve into he said/he said arguements...and all too many times it still does.

For me, the chief advantage of face-to-face gaming is that I can see the people playing and gauge in advance..PBEM on the other hand...you can find some "winners" out there and no, that is not meant in a nice way!

[Mohoender]

in order to insure that the game doesn't dissolve into he said/he said arguements...

That never happens and when it does, the game quickly ends in "you have been killed and vaporized". Too bad if the players had listen to what I was saying they would have realized that a full battalion of T-90 was rolling over their position. Don't tell me that T-90 make a lot of noise, in such case I become a "did he say anything person".

[Targan]

In my last campaign rank seemed to be important (I didn't enforce it that way, it just seemed that the players followed rank structure with their characters) but in other campaigns rank hasn't mattered so much. So I chose "depends on the campaign". I ran a really succesful one-off once where the characters were part of a long range patrol of French Foreign Legionnares on the Iran-Iraq border and the chain of command was rigidly adhered to in that game. I guess more often than not rank does matter in my campaigns.

[TiggerCCW UK]

My players are more normally fantasy gamers, so they've very little interest in, or need for, a rigid command structure. One of the guys tried playing as a hard line officer, but sadly made a number of poor decisions - players fault, not the characters The rest of the party obeyed him when they felt it was safe to, and lets just say no one rushed to save him after he was badly wounded. If truth be told one of the other party members finished him off, but never told the others

[dragoon500ly]

That never happens and when it does, the game quickly ends in "you have been killed and vaporized". Too bad if the players had listen to what I was saying they would have realized that a full battalion of T-90 was rolling over their position. Don't tell me that T-90 make a lot of noise, in such case I become a "did he say anything person".

Subtle....

I always perfer the 30-minute prep fire by the 122mm howitzer battalion...and if they still don't get the message...drop the BM-21 barrage right ontop of their final position, the mix of HE, WP and Nerve Agent tends to get the point across.

[HorseSoldier]

The old original version of the Vietnam-era game Recon had the idea of having indirect fire arrive onto a grid where you just roll percentile dice to determine where the round comes in. I've used that idea in several other games, T2K included, to get people moving -- kind of like, come to think about it, how I've used grenade and artillery sims thrown against exterior walls to get guys moving in real world MOUT and urban movement training.

[Adm.Lee]

I remember in my first campaign, things were tweaked by the other players that the most experienced wargamers opted for officer, the rest did not. I think most of my subsequent campaigns had similar behind-the-scenes maneuvers.

Most of the people I play RPGs with have laid-back standards towards group leadership, with almost no one wanting to take command (typical gamer nerds). If it's D&D, no one wants to be King, if it's a starship or pirate game, someone has to be drafted to be captain. The two experienced wargamers mentioned above They went on to have military careers, and so aren't here to play leaders for me anymore.

[Raellus]

It really depends on...

A. The style of campaign
B. The players

I've played in games where rank was important and the chain of command adhered to pretty strictly and I've played/GM'ed games with a loose team-was oriented decision making protocal.

The former style of game only works with mature, skilled RP'ers. Try it with a less competent group and things usually dissolve into rank pulling and pissing contests. The latter is a lot easier to manage, but it can slow things down (in PbEMs and PbPs, especially) if you don't have a player willing to step in and make a command decision. Also, firefights can end badly for the players if everyone decides to go off and do his/her own thing.

So, before starting a game, you need to know what kind of campaign it's going to be and what skill and maturity levels your GM/players have.

[boogiedowndonovan]

I marked "Rank what's Rank". I'm a very liberul GM when it comes to things like rank. When I'm running a game, I want everyone to participate and have fun.

I also tell players who have characters with higher ranks that they are expected to take some type of leadership role with the caveat that this is not the real world military, so don't be surprised if someone disagrees.

Having said that, it doesn't always work, like Rae and Adm. Lee have said. Some players are up to the challenge of taking a leadership role and some just want a high rank so they can look "cool".

I recall a short lived PBEM where a high school kid generated a USMC Force Recon Lt. Colonel, the rest of the players (some of my guys from my own PBEM, due to time constraints I wasn't playing) were NCO or enlisted ranks. The game quickly bogged down because the guy playing the Lt. Colonel was one of those "strong silent types".

[mikeo80]

In the T2K games I played, my character tended to be a low rank person. I think PFC was the best I ever had. Being that I had no military experience, I would follow the orders of the guy with the experience.

I did notice that the guys that in RL were military or ex-military, tended to have E-4 to E-7 rank in the game. They tended to be more free lance about the "chain of command" but as a newly arrived draftee, who survived boot camp somehow, there was a definite pecking order.

Now if the Dumb Bunny, (read me or my character) came up with a suggestion that had merit, then the guys would at least listen.

Just my two cents!

Mike

[Raellus]

To elaborate on my earlier post (my lunch break ended), I myself am an amateur military historian but I've never served in the military so my knowledge of certain current military procedureshas some holes in it. A friend asked me to play the unit commander in a T2K PbP and I was somewhat reluctant due to the above. I solved the problem by creating a PC who is an ex-USAF pilot, grounded by a lack of aircraft/parts/fuel, and placed into an army combat command due to attrition. He knows his limitations and confers often with his senior NCOs, sometimes deferring to their experience.

In another PbP, we actually had an NCO PC choke out a ranking officer because he felt that the officer was consistently risking the other PC's lives by making some bad calls. The other members of the unit felt much the same way and supported the act.

A PC played by Law once pistol-whipped my officer PC because of a disagreement over what to do with a Russian prisoner.

This kind of thing can sometimes add to a game, but a lot of times it can do more harm than good.

So, based on my own experiences, games in which rank is not so important probably have a better chance of surviving longer.

[pmulcahy11b]

I put Other, because in most games I played in or GMed the leader was the player with the most experience.

[Adm.Lee]

I should have mentioned the convention game I played last year. The group made a conscious decision to make someone who professed no military knowledge or experience as the LT and convoy commander. The guys with experience (none of them former officers) took the higher-ranking NCOs or infantry-MOS characters. The wheels came off pretty quickly.

I was a Sp4 driver for the Topkick in the lead truck, and he spent nearly as much time yelling at me as he did shooting the enemy. He wanted the HMMWV to stand still in the kill zone, and I wanted to get out of it. (That's 'cause HE wasn't the one getting hit!) The Lt. didn't command much (IMO), and most of the convoy sat outside the kill sack and watched.

So, we mostly obeyed the chain of command, after showing a healthy disrespect for it.

[pmulcahy11b]

I put Other, because in most games I played in or GMed the leader was the player with the most experience.

Another thing I remember was that combat arms players, when available, tended to dominate. When playing with military players, they also tended to gravitate towards their actual MOS.