Military Parties

By Seiito, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

My impression from AoR is that players will be engaged with handling their own minions if they choose to roleplay appropriately.

Naturally, there's always room for the standard party format of a small group of PCs, but what I'm wondering is how having several groups of NPCs under PCs functions in gameplay. My imagination lends itself at this point to having one player who is a scout in charge of a squad of scouts, the heavy gun PC sticking with a different squad and following behind, the pilots providing air support - several PCs split apart and surrounded by minions all trying to accomplish the same mission.

If one finds that one developes a favorite NPC (think Barney from Half-Life) will it be possible to promote him as time goes on? Would losing NPCs significantly affect one's standing within the ATRR or the Empire?

My group had, at several points, one to two squads of minions "attached" to the party. The commanding PC simply used the minion group as a second character. Worked just fine, with the caveat that the range band movement rules really really bite when one is getting all tactical about things.

If one finds that one developes a favorite NPC (think Barney from Half-Life) will it be possible to promote him as time goes on? Would losing NPCs significantly affect one's standing within the ATRR or the Empire?

For now it's up to your GM, but there's nothing that says no. If Minion Wedge survives the first campaign it only makes sense for Rival Wedge to show up again in the next one, and Nemesis or PC Wedge in the 3rd. There's no hard system for that, but there really doesn't have to be either. When it's time for a favorite Minion to become a Rival the GM just uses the Minon as a base and resets the stats to reflect his new status... By all rights Return of the Jedi's Battle of Endor can be played as a set of parallel encounters. Kyle plays Han and Lando, Jim plays Leia and Akbar, and Suzie plays Chewie and Wedge and occasionally cuts to Luke... Han, Leia, Chewie and Luke being PCs, and Lando, Akbar, and Wedge being Nemesis "NPCs" or just PCs

As for losing NPCs... that sounds like it might involve your Duty mechanic....

Edited by Ghostofman

Running "banks" of cannons as minion groups is an idea I've seen floating around here several times. What's described here is really just an extension or mirror of that. I'm not sure how I want to implement it into my game just yet but I know it's something that needs to go in there for the types of encounters I'd like to present.

Also go look up the final Beta Update, there's a series of single actions to control a battery of ships weapons. It's possible there's more of that, though it's just as likely they are saying that for a career book.

The upcoming GM screen is said to include mass combat rules, which I'm assuming will include rules for integrating PCs as the leaders of minion squads. Stay tuned.

Those new optional rules are sounding pretty great. Can't wait to do my first big time old school James Bond movie finale commando raid with players leading the assault. :ph34r:

GM Screen ad says

Squads and Squadrons Optional Rules


The Age of Rebellion Game Master’s Kit contains optional rules for running military squads and squadrons during the course of your adventures throughout the galaxy. Players will be able to fight as part of a squad or squadron, which provide assistance during both personal and vehicle combat.

In many campaigns, PCs fight alongside other Rebel soldiers against the evil Galactic Empire. The squad and squadron rules allow GMs and players to organize minion groups under the leadership of PCs or rival and nemesis NPCs. Squads are groups of infantry on the ground, while squadrons are groups of vehicles, particularly starfighters and airspeeders. Organizing minion groups in this way can empower PCs and story-critical NPCs and scale up combat as a whole without adding initiative slots or sacrificing the cinematic pace of combat.

I intend on using a method I have used in the past.

I will make a unit of pre-gen NPC’s and the PC’s will fill the command/specialist slots. The non-PC’s will be handled troupe-play style by the players and myself.

I don’t have the book of course, so I can’t really nail anything down until I see what they will be defining as unit structure and so on. But since AoR is supposed to be about the war, they should have some kind of organizational information on how Imperial, Rebellion and Other military/Para-military units are structured.

Edited by SSand