Tactics skill

[copeab]

I was reminded of this in another thread and decided to split it off here.

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

I think the lack of any kind of tactics skill is flaw in the T2K rules. I don't know if it was simply an oversight or a design decision to use the player's skill. The problem with this is that while it's possible to roleplay a character with worse tactical ability than yourself, the reverse isn't really possible without something to roll against.

So, how do you handle things when the character should be a skilled tactician (say, a special ops major with 20 years of service) but the player is tactically incompetent

[Raellus]

Interesting question.

I really don't like a tactics skill because it seems to dictate how a player problem solves. It might work when a less competent player needs to address a tactical issue, but it doesn't work very well the other way around.

I think screening players might be the best solution to the problem of player-PC competence. If you have a person with little to no military knowledge/experience who wants to play a combat officer, then a rethink is in order. Recommend he/she play an enlisted person (or draftee, even), or non-combat officer thrust by circumstance into commanding a combat unit. Or dictate- whatever creates a better fit for the type of campaign you are playing.

I think that player maturity and RP'ing ability also have a large role to play in this. A mature player knows better than to create a PC that is not going to be a good fit, or that he/she can't play well due to a lack of conceptual background. A mature player can also turn an in-game tactical mistake into a good RP'ing opportunity.

[HorseSoldier]

So, how do you handle things when the character should be a skilled tactician (say, a special ops major with 20 years of service) but the player is tactically incompetent

That sounds about right for a lot of majors I knew in SF . . .

The issue never really came up in games I ran, where things rarely or never got past squad level or sort actions where my players could pretty well grasp the concepts. Every once in a while I might pass a note here or there to a player whose character should know this or that factoid (tactical or technical) that the player wasn't read in on, but that was usually enough to cover the occasional gaps between real and notional knowledge.

If players were going to be in a situation where they were providing the leadership to larger elements, and firefights were going to be a mix of abstract rolls and direct participation in the gunfighting, I'd probably add in a Tactics skill (and probably just assign it arbitrarily based on background and maybe any flair or failings the player had demonstrated to that point with his character).

[Adm.Lee]

When I had groups that had little or no wargaming experience, I stuck in an NPC NCO to offer advice like, "Take cover!"

I wouldn't really know what to do with a Tactics skill in terms of game mechanics. Some games use that to roll for an initiative bonus, but that might not work so well in T2k.

[Legbreaker]

A tactics skill might be used when the player makes a bonehead decision. The GM rolls against the skill, and if it's a success, informs the player of the likely outcome of their planned action. It might also be useful during the planning stages of an engagement - a successful roll means the GM gives the player some additional insight into the enemy's likely reactions to ideas put forward.

A catastrophic failure on the other hand results in the GM giving misinformation, so it's a skill not to be used lightly - all rolls of course would have to be made by the GM in secret.

[Raellus]

A tactics skill might be used when the player makes a bonehead decision. The GM rolls against the skill, and if it's a success, informs the player of the likely outcome of their planned action. It might also be useful during the planning stages of an engagement - a successful roll means the GM gives the player some additional insight into the enemy's likely reactions to ideas put forward.

That sounds like a reasonable application of a tactics skill.

[Legbreaker]

Tactics skill would probably come under Education in V2.x
It would probably be taught as an NCO skill, and available to officers in combat arms.
It may also be available as a secondary skill (wargaming, roleplaying, paintball, etc).

[Tegyrius]

In writing Reflex, I didn't assume that the majority of players were going to be well-versed in tactics, which is why I chose to include a Tactics skill. My feeling at the time was that the system needed to model all reasonable aspects of a successful PC group's skill set rather than assuming player knowledge of certain key items. Some of my recommended tasks for the skill are setting (and detecting) ambushes, analyzing a battle as it unfolds, and determining an enemy commander's likely intentions from intelligence and biographical data. In the absence of a Profession cascade skill, I also used it as the wildcard skill for combat troop tasks - calling for and adjusting fire, communication with simple hand signals, and the like. I did toss in a sidebar for the "know the right thing to do" application, too:

GM Hint: Team Orders
Given the often vast discrepancies between the capabilities of players and their PCs, your group may wind up with a team leader whose player has absolutely no sense of small unit infantry tactics. Unless you"re using the Reflex System as an instructional tool in a military academy, we strongly suggest that you cut such a player a fair amount of slack. Before the character issues a team order, allow the player to solicit advice from more experienced players as to which orders to give to minimize PCs' chances of dying poorly. If no one has any good ideas, a Tactics (EDU, TN +1) skill check is appropriate for determining how well the character understands the situation. While a firefight is no place for democracy, the characters in it may have years of experience that allow them to make split-second decisions. Most players have no such live-fire experience, regardless of how much time they"ve spent in front of their PlayStations.

- C.

[Panther Al]

I tend to use the 'crusty old vet' routine when it comes to groups that don't have much in the way of military know how in order to keep them from making too many bad mistakes. Not a free ride, but if they miss the obvious my npc will point it out.. "Pardon me sir, but don't you recall that the best way to deal with an ambush is to assault it" or, "Sir, standing on top of the pc while yakking on the radio is a bad idea..."

[pmulcahy11b]

Another thing a Tactics skill might give to the friendly side is a slight initiative/CUF advantage.

[kota1342000]

I added several skills to my 2.0 games, and tactics was one of them. Ive run a lot of players who had no military experience, or people in the military without combat arms experience for that matter (cooks, armorers, supply, S1 shop). A tactics skill really comes in handy when players are either at a loss for what to do ("Help....this character would know what to do but I dont"), or is about to make a serious mistake (me looking over my glasses at a player and telling them to roll tactics before they proceed with running across the open area covered by the pair of 12.7s). Thats why I was happy to see a tactics skill in Reflex.

[Slappy]

I also like a Tactics skill and have added it to several systems. It has a risk of overruling player decisions or being a crutch for poor player decisions, but you can roleplay around that. Plenty of systems have a persuade skill, but that shouldn't prevent a player with a silly line of persuasion from looking like an ass. I've found it best to try to slip the results of the roll into the game where possible rather than give outright advice.

For example "that sounds like a fine idea, but as you walk over to the other fire team to give an example you realize that this could look disturbingly like when your platoon tore to shreds that soviet patrol that stumbled into your lines up north in '97. Of course this time you'd be playing the role of the patrol and getting cut to shreds. Now, if instead they had put their point man and flankers out farther and kept them quieter, things might have gone differently..."

[B.T.]

Just an idea, thought about it for a while ...

I would not like to have a new skill "Tactics" in my T2K-rules (Ver 2.2).

As Leg said, "Tactics" should come under education. I'm not quite shure, how to handle this in detail, but I can imagine to base the skill-level on the terms spent in active military duty (Okay, count terms as criminal, member of some police force, gouvernment agent, etc. as "active military duty"!). Maybe there should be some kind of factor. Something like

asset: Edu + n x 2 (Where n equals the terms spent in combat units!)

I'd like to call this "military experience". The GM could give further informations, not only on tactics, but knowledge on foreign uniforms, typical tactics used by the enemy, or maybe some military phrases (short commands) in some foreign languages, allied or enemy.

If I should use this skill, I'd roll the dice secretly for the PCs and give them further info or hints.

Not quite shure about it, but it might work and help avoiding some of the "usual" traps, players like to set up for themselves.

Hm ...

[Legbreaker]

I can see where you're going and why you tied to to military experience, but don't forget there's a hell of a lot of soldiers who never serve in a combat unit. It's highly likely that those soldiers would have little working knowledge of tactics.

Tactics in my experience (Australian Infantry) is taught to NCOs and Officers during promotion and refresher courses. To be promoted from Private through Lance Corporal to Corporal for example, the soldier must complete Subject1 (Drill, giving lessons, etc) and Subject2 (field work on section level including tactics). Everyone does Sub1 to be promoted, but Sub2 is job specific and could be simply advanced electrical skills for an electrical engineer.

While an infantry/armour/other combat type Private can pick up knowledge without the courses, it's not specifically taught to them on more than a small unit scale. A non-combat soldier has no exposure besides wargaming/rpgs in their spare time.

[Targan]

I don't use a Tactics skill in Gunmaster-T2K but I'm not entirely opposed to the concept, especially if you had player(s) who displayed little or no tactical acumen. Were I to use it I would do so in a manner similar to that described by Legbreaker, and allow the player to make the skill check or I would make a hidden skill check on their behalf depending on the situation (in general I prefer not to make hidden skill checks for PCs but sometimes it is necessary so as not to forewarn the player that something dangerous is about to happen). In the case of a successful check I would give the player a series of options and let them figure out the one that would work best. The better the level of skill check success, the more I would make the right tactic obvious (maybe by throwing in one or two really dumb options that only a moron would choose) or perhaps as has been suggested in other posts by providing more information or insights.

There are some great ideas in this thread's posts. I like Panther Al and Adm.Lee's approaches, I had a couple of very experienced NCO NPCs in my last campaign that provided advice to the senior officers PCs. You just have to use good judgement as a GM and not spoon-feed the players.