So I'm in an AoR game and the issue of money has come up again. Specifically, your "salary" for being a member of the Rebellion armed forces - which for most operatives, would be encouraged to be largely put back into the Rebellion by purchasing gear to help you fulfill your duty better.

I haven't found any guidelines in the AoR book itself on the matter (please correct me if I've missed it). So at our suggestion, the GM decided to go with EotE's Dangerous Covenants guide for mercenary pay, payouts being on a mission-by-mission basis to allow for renewal of resources and upgrading. Seems to be the easiest source to draw from.

IMO this should have been in the AoR book too. Or at least a suggestion for salary. Lots of cool stuff in the books, can't assume the Rebellion will just give you weapons and pay for mods, etc, but it's also not as if you're doing jobs for disposable income (unlike Edge). So basic "salary" info would have been nice.

No, I don't care if the Rebels largely don't directly pay people per the EU, or pay with a company scrip type deal, or generally just provide 3 hots and a cot and gear or whatever - when there's gear in books and that gear has a price listing, there should be some suggestion of how the PCs should be getting money toward that gear, especially if they're part of what is effectively a full-on functioning government (albeit an unrecognized one). Otherwise you're constantly going to run up against PCs asking their superiors (in the form of the GM) to hand them things--gear, vehicles, mods--effectively for free. I think this works sometimes, but you set up the possibility for disagreements about "official allocation of funds" that wouldn't come up on a salary model.

Anyway, complaints aside, I'm wondering how other AoR GMs have dealt with the issue of the mechanism for Rebel players having disposable income.

My GM has pretty much ignored it.

We know we are getting paid but our profesional gear is part of our rank and mission status that we roleplay or roll for requsitions with the expensive stuff as mission rewards.

It's all a bit of give and take ingame.

There's a pretty lengthy thread here discussing it with some good ideas.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/136088-wages-of-rebellion/

In any military, asides from 3 hots and a cot, all the gear that a trooper is expected to need is supplied to them. If there is something that you feel that you need and you don't already have you're expected to file a requisition with whomever is functioning as the unit quartermaster. Doesn't mean that you'll get it. And even if you have the personal funds to buy something on your own that isn't supplied doesn't mean that you'd be allowed to have it. All depends on what the item is, and what the unit (and unit commander's) policy is towards possession and use of non-standard gear.

The thing to keep in mind about AoR is that unlike D&D, or even EotE, it's about the missions, not the toys. Many players may want free attachments & mods. There shouldn't be a problem handing them out, but (IMO) there should be limits on what is given. Just giving away something like Superior to anyone who wants it not only quickly unbalances things, but it's also unrealistic. So, perhaps 1000 credits x Contribution Rank worth of mods per adventure/mission for the entire party, in addition to whatever amount in contingency gear (maybe another 1-2k x CR). Whatever numbers feel right to you.

In any military, asides from 3 hots and a cot, all the gear that a trooper is expected to need is supplied to them.

This isn't even remotely true. Ask a US soldier how many sets of ACUs and boots get supplied to him and ask him how many he's had to pay for. Hell, if he's got any rank insignia at all, ask him how much those cost.

This isn't even remotely true. Ask a US soldier how many sets of ACUs and boots get supplied to him and ask him how many he's had to pay for. Hell, if he's got any rank insignia at all, ask him how much those cost.

Things must have changed quite a bit. When I was in the US Army (mid-80s) that's how it was. I didn't have to pay for any of my uniforms, insignia, or other bits of kit. The only thing that came out of my pocket was haircuts, shoe polish, and personal toiletries. All stuff that would be considered trivial in Star Wars.

It's all kinda moot as we're talking about a rebellion that may or may not have the resources and logistics needed to act as a formal standing army. Yeah some sources tend to treat the Rebellion as if it were a non-empire with all the same resources or close to it, but the reality is it's an alliance of rebelling factions. Some may have a full logistics setup ensuring that all it's members have what they need most of the time. Others might just be a loose group of teens with daddy issues and a obsession with auto-fire weapons.

Kshatriya's rebel group might easily be a faction that just plain doesn't have that acquisition and supply base needed to function as a formal military. So paying them and having them go out and buy their own gear might be the only way to do it.

This isn't really as weird as it sounds. In the real world when something like a disaster occurs it's actually easier and faster to supply a region with financial aid as opposed to actual materiel. Money moves fast, and easy, and it allows the recipient to tap the most ready local source of any needed supplies.

So Kshatriya's rebel group could work on the same principle. A larger benefactor capable of funding them (Mon Cala, Alderaan, Chandrila, Naboo, whoever) sends the groups leadership SOME materiel, and SOME hard currency, with the plan being they use the gear they get, but buy/borrow/steal what they need that isn't supplied. So the local leaders decided the best way to do it (I'm thinking a serious guerrilla operation) is to dole out what gear they can along with an allowance, and just tell the individual cells to buy any off the shelf gear they can to supplement the supplied items.

The thing about the Rebellion is that they do have a partial standing army and fleet, and then also basically "proxy" cells out in the sectors. To give some context, we're a Supply & Procurement team under Special Operations - we're part of the central military unified command structure.

I think the real thing here is - on a functional OOC level, paying us regularly to buy and upgrade our own personal set of gear is less of a headache/hassle and less likely to start an argument than the GM being arbiter over what is "reasonable" for the Rebellion to issue us.

Now that I think of it, we did recruit a Hutt into the Rebellion, he could be our direct benefactor/source of pay if that sort of thing needs to be figured out.

There's a pretty lengthy thread here discussing it with some good ideas.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/136088-wages-of-rebellion/

The only thing I didn't like this is how long it takes Contribution Rank to increase, the result feels way too low.

So it sounds like you're not in bad shape narratively, and I can totally understand the GM headache reduction angle.

If it were me I'd do it something like this:

Figure out what the players need for the mission. This is issued.

Figure out what the players could get to make the mission a little smoother but is not required. This is allowance pt A.

Figure out what the players want personally, but don't specifically need in any mission you have on the campaign outline. A percentage of this is allowance part B.

To generate a feeling of distance from "mercenary" campaigns, the players get their entire purse up front after the briefing, but before leaving for the mission, and have a chance to buy gear "in town."

If the players blow their cash on a single flamethrower when they should have bought night vision devices for everyone, that's on them, but at least you as the GM can be sure they have demo charges and climbing gear.

An easy way to do it might be to adopt the requisition system from Deathwatch. Just translate "requisition points" directly into credit values and issue the group 1,000 RP at the start of every mission. You can increase this number as the group gains more clout within the Alliance. Then they use the RP to buy whatever gear they can get from the quartermaster, with the expectation that all gear will be returned in not-broken condition after the mission is over.

However, your troops should still get paid. First, ascertain who they're actually employed by -- if they work directly for SpecForce, that's who signs their paychecks. If they're a privateer crew or a cell that works through a handler, their money comes through that one contact. Have a base payment per player of 100 or 500 or 1,000 credits, however much you're comfortable giving them. They get that with every completed mission.

But that's just up front. Let them know that, as soldiers of the Alliance, they're also entitled to back-pay they receive at given intervals. This should be a much more and based on their contribution rank, either as a group or individually. Maybe throw a little extra in there based on rank, if you're tracking that. Portions of their back-pay is traditionally given out every three months, four months, six months, usually whenever they're scheduled to get leave. The full amount is given to them at the end of their tour. If they go AWOL, they get nothing of what's left. If they die, a pro-rated amount is sent to their next of kin.

That may all be a little complicated, but that's how I think it should work.

This isn't even remotely true. Ask a US soldier how many sets of ACUs and boots get supplied to him and ask him how many he's had to pay for. Hell, if he's got any rank insignia at all, ask him how much those cost.

Things must have changed quite a bit. When I was in the US Army (mid-80s) that's how it was. I didn't have to pay for any of my uniforms, insignia, or other bits of kit. The only thing that came out of my pocket was haircuts, shoe polish, and personal toiletries. All stuff that would be considered trivial in Star Wars.

In a way yes things have changed, but it is over who has responsibility over the Maintenance/Upkeep of the Uniforms.

After your initial issue, it is the Service Member's to maintain/update their Uniforms. Of course your initial issue should last fore most of not all of your initial contract. (First 4 years)

For that purpose they have an annual Uniform Allowance. It replaces the need for Commands to keep Uniforms on hand to exchange for those that are no longer serviceable.

There are times when new items will be issued, but to otherwise get anything new issued would need to be under special request.

There are also organizations with names like "Adopt a Sniper" who have the goals of sending much needed specialty gear to snipers who don't quite receive the funding or supplies from the Army to acquire the high tech gizmos needed to do their job at peak performance.

Paying soldiers has always been a thing. IIRC: Washington crossed the Delaware in late December because the contracts the soldiers signed ran through the end of the year. He wanted to get as much out of those soldiers as he could because they couldn't really afford to keep paying them and extend the contracts, so he put in one last battle before the year ended.

This is an issue my group ran into as well when we were playing as Rebel agents. I do wish that there were some guidelines for paying the soldiers. Not everyone is a true believer who works for room and board. Soldiers got to get paid so they can keep paying off their mortgages back home, save up for expenses after the war, or pick up some local girls for drinks while on R&R. If we play another AoR game, I'll use information in this tread to help come up with some payment standards.