I am planning to start an Age campaign for my local gaming group. I have had issues before with the wrong players getting the control of the group through various means. I think with Age and the ability to use the Chain of Command from a military setup I can avoid that.

Is Duty the right mechanic for that? I recall it being a group thing, not an individual thing. I remember reading it has something to do with Rank; but for the life of me I cannot remember HOW Rank and Duty relate to each other.

I was hoping to be able to get a small group with a relatively flat Chain of Command: CO, XO, everyone else. How would you go about setting that up, and/or maintaining it while running the game?

Kevynn

If I recall, your contribution rank (as determined by how many times your party's combined duty has reach 100 and reset) does not specifically dictate your rank within the Rebellion. Although it's explained that you could certainly use Duty for that purpose.

It's just as easy to look at your group's contribution rank as a way to determine how valuable you are to the Alliance (and how much pull you have), and how notorious you are with the Empire.

Yeah duty represents the organizations trust, faith, and respect in the players. While this can translate to rank, it doesn't have to.

If it helps, remember that in a military organization promotion isnt about achievements. Its about need and availability. If the rebel base you are operating from doesn't need any more majors, its not gonna promote anyone no matter how good they are.

Furthermore, rank and chain of command are not synonymous. You need both to make it work. If your players are colonels in alliance specialmissions command, and they are assigned to a ship, or supply station, or starfighter base, or a repulsor tank squad, they don't become the new commander just because they are the highest ranking. Those bases fall under different command, have their own commanders, and their own set of orders. If your players have a good duty rate they might be able to get more support, but they can't just order the base commander around.

Your original post says that the wrong person got to be in charge of the group. Can you expand on this so we can better help? Was it a PC that was in control or was it an NPC?

@Satchmo72: I can expand, but it was more anecdotal. I messed up in that situation. We were just starting, first time in, and I bit off more than I could chew. We had like 8 characters, no consistent backstory, and I just threw them all together somehow... (Let's hear it for slavery and carbonite freezing...) I dropped them into a seriously damaged ILH-KK Citadel-Class light freighter. The pirates who were transporting them as slaves to a slave colony were waylaid by OTHER pirates who threw asteroids (yay tractor beams) into the hyperspace lanes... well, one of these other pirates got REALLY lucky and took out the primary bridge of the ILH-KK with an asteroid, this also took out the entire crew. Eventually they got the situation under control, and limped to the nearest planet. Once they arrived, the Protocol Droid decided he would be the captain of the vessel, and rolled his social-fu skills to make this happen. I did not stomp on it, as I should have. Sometimes these situations can work out fine, others, not so much. This particular player had a play style that did not mesh well with leadership of the group we had. Some players are just better at LEADING in general, than others. Just because a character is the party leader type (leadership and command skills, etc), does not mean that character's player should be the one making the in game decisions. This situation was tolerable for a while; however, over time it because a situation of the Droid running the ship through fiat, rather than any sort of coordination. I am trying to avoid this in future, by defining which player the table things best suited to leading the group (yes, the players will be involved, this situation left a REALLY bad taste in their mouths), will then build a character that will have the command rank for the stories.

This topic was to help me find a way to represent Rank mechanically. Though it appears it is not a good fit to try to do this. Duty sorta kinda reflects this, but it is a group thing in reality, not necessarily an individual skill. I think I will just define which characters will be CO and XO and Sgt, and then let the dice determine where the others fall.

Kevynn

Thanks for the extra info. I have been involved in a similar situation. My personality at the table is often strong and hard to go against. In previous gaming groups I played with other people who were as strong willed as I am and we had lots of fun with it. I am currently in a group with smaller egos and in the beginning there were some clashes.

The solution you want is not an in game solution. Your best bet at a full resolution is talk respectfully about it at the table. Maybe even give the person who played the droid leader a heads up about what is happening so he/she does not feel blind sided. Be clear but kind in letting him know how his decisions are making others feel. Then work together as a group towards an out of game solution.

In my situation it was not and is not easy for me to back down my personality and from time to time I need to be reminded of it.

I play the PC CO of my AoR group, and the way we worked it is a) narrative backstory, and b) when we all got our starting Duty, almost everyone else spent theirs on extra gear or xp, while I maintained mine to show that I had a better relationship with the Alliance and was therefore in-charge.

Also, our GM keeps track of both individual and group contribution. He keeps a running total of the individual Duties, somewhat ignoring the wipe when the group gets to 100, so he has a numeric means of showing how important each PC is in the Alliance.

I feel like the only reliable ways to manage this kind of thing is through out-of-character communication between the players.

If the players are not inclined to work together or to follow some kind of command structure, then IMO no amount of in-game mechanisms are going to be effective. If you have an obnoxious player, they're not going to 'follow orders' just because another player's character 'outranks' theirs.

I'd talk to your players and make sure they're interested in having a command structure in their RPG and that there's a good fit of personalities to take appropriate roles within it.

In an AOR game I played in, I developed a character who was a Commander because with the personalities we had in the original game, it seemed to make sense and I felt I'd be able to take something of a 'leadership' role. (It being understood that in Star Wars there's not the need for a very strict command structure).

After one session a new player joined, who had a much more aggressive personality, and the dynamic just didn't work anymore. No amount of 'pulling rank' within the game would have affected that, in my opinion. It has more to do with communication and chemistry between the players.

Oh, Out of Character talking is absolutely the BEST way to handle the situation. I am more trying to head the situation off at the pass as it were. The entire group has talked about the situation, and everyone knows exactly what happened (said player has since moved, so there is that benefit as well; though he did make character changes that helped quite a bit in game).

The group has talked and agreed to have a defined CO, XO set up, and even had conversations around who wanted to play that type of character, so we were not railroading someone into a role they did not want to play.

Kevynn