Brainstorming a Simple 'Send Underlings on Missions' System

By Bluesparks, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

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I've always been a sucker for systems in video games like Assassin's Creed or Dragon Age: Inquisition that involve sending characters on missions, and I wanted to bring that into our group's game now that the story supports it. My AoR party has reached a situation where they've started to accrue some NPCs under themselves and are going to be fairly autonomous within the Rebellion. They're going to be able to collect allied NPCs, and I'd like to come up with a somewhat simple system I can use to determine the chance of success of their allies on their missions, and I'd love any thoughts or feedback anyone has. Here are my initial ideas:



Building the Dice Pool


The party will have a handful of 'named' NPCs that can be sent on missions, as well as a pool of 'squads,' representing a handful of troops or a piece of equipment such as a landspeeder, walker, starfighter, et cetera. With the pool being limited, the party has to decide how to best allocate their forces.



On any given mission, the party selects a leader NPC, plus the number of support troops they'd like to send with. The NPC, plus each squad or equivalent of soldiers adds a 'characteristic' to the check. The skill of the leader NPC is reflected in how many ranks of "Leadership" this pool of dice gets. These dice are then combined like a skill check - higher number being the number of dice, lower number being the upgrades. Boost dice are added situationally, as well as for improved equipment as the party secures more and better pistols, rifles, armor, et cetera.



The difficulty would be determined by what the party is doing and how many enemies they're going to be facing. Setbacks and Upgrades can be situational, as well as representing entrenched Imperial positions or competent Imperial leadership, and the difficulty would be made known to the party while they're allocating resources. (I might provide a strategist NPC to help handwave this so that the party doesn't have to rely on Knowledge (Warfare) or Streetwise checks, but I don't want to add a whole recon system.)



Example:


Two planets over, a group of laborers have started protesting their Imperial taskmasters. They've called for support in case the Imperials start a fight. The party elects to send Hoan "Rickety" Cardell, an ally of Leadership 1, along with two squads of troopers. Rickety plus two squads equals 3. Rickety is Leadership 1 and comes from a background of leading laborers against the Empire, so he'll gain a boost die. The positive dice pool would now be 1Y, 2G, 1B.



The Empire has a large number of troops present, so this is a Hard mission. There's no significant leadership, so no upgrades. However, the Empire is itching for a fight, so there's a Setback. The total dice pool would then be 1Y, 2G, 1B, 2P, 1Blk.



NPCs get 5 exp per mission. 2 Advantage or a Triumph can be spent to get them another 5 exp. This can only be gained once per mission. Additional ranks of leadership cost 5x the rank being purchased.



Advantages could be spent on morale, giving a boost to that NPC if he has another mission next session, as well as experience as noted above. It could also find supplies or weapons potentially worth credits for the party. Triumphs or 3 Advantages could mean a bonus squad or squad's worth of materiel is captured or acquired.



For each setback, a squad/squad's worth of materiel is wounded or damaged and left out of the pool next session. A despair can be used to destroy/kill a squad, removing it permanently from the pool, or wound an NPC for one session. Two despairs can capture or perhaps kill an NPC, at the GM's discretion.



Closing thoughts


I started by looking at mass combat rules for ideas, and I know I've eclipsed them a bit in terms of complexity, but these are rolls I can make when the party's not present, as they won't know how well the mission went until the NPC checks in, likely at the beginning of the next session.



I'd love to hear any thoughts, suggestions, constructive criticism on this! Thanks for reading!


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Looks pretty cool!

Edited by SHADOWGUARD CHAMPION
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It looks interesting. I have a new campaign beginning where I could see my players being able to do something like this. So, I may get a chance to try it out.

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It looks interesting. I have a new campaign beginning where I could see my players being able to do something like this. So, I may get a chance to try it out.

Awesome! Let me know. My players may begin the basics next week. So far my biggest struggle has been figuring out how the party can use their own Leadership, Knowledge, Streetwise, etc, to help the NPCs without making anything too complex.

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Maybe have the party make a "send-off" check, where they roll an applicable skill, and success upgrades the NPCs check or reduces its difficulty or something. Example: "Look, I'm sending this team out to Ord Mantell to meet a potential supplier of power coils. We really need these, but they have to meet our specifications." Then you could have that player roll a Streetwise, for general information of the supplier, or perhaps a Mechanics, for the specification limitations, or a Negotiation, or anything else that can reasonably make sense. Apply benefits/drawback, and send the crew off to make their mission later.

Posted at

Maybe have the party make a "send-off" check, where they roll an applicable skill, and success upgrades the NPCs check or reduces its difficulty or something. Example: "Look, I'm sending this team out to Ord Mantell to meet a potential supplier of power coils. We really need these, but they have to meet our specifications." Then you could have that player roll a Streetwise, for general information of the supplier, or perhaps a Mechanics, for the specification limitations, or a Negotiation, or anything else that can reasonably make sense. Apply benefits/drawback, and send the crew off to make their mission later.

I like this suggestion a lot. Makes the actual PCs feel like they can impact the missions! I'll pass this along to Bluesparks, since he's my husband!

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Maybe have the party make a "send-off" check, where they roll an applicable skill, and success upgrades the NPCs check or reduces its difficulty or something. Example: "Look, I'm sending this team out to Ord Mantell to meet a potential supplier of power coils. We really need these, but they have to meet our specifications." Then you could have that player roll a Streetwise, for general information of the supplier, or perhaps a Mechanics, for the specification limitations, or a Negotiation, or anything else that can reasonably make sense. Apply benefits/drawback, and send the crew off to make their mission later.

Knowledge-Warfare could come in to play for military missions as the PC creates a tactical plan for the NPCs to use. Leadership for a morale boosting speech to send them off?

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This is a great idea. Having a simple way of commanding NPCs on missions could be very useful. Let us know how it goes.

Edited by tank0625
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I might suggest that each NPC have a Duty. This isn't used like PC Duty, but it can apply a bonus/setback depending on how the NPC's Duty interacts with the goals of the mission. For example, sending someone with Space Superiority as their Duty on a Support mission might give a Setback or two as this guy's natural inclination is to engage the enemy rather than "just" flying escort.

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Iv written something like this, but more in line to SWTOR missions, it was originally in portuguese, so excuse me i messed up on the translation.

It was written a while ago, before Age of Rebellion came out, so it probably can be improved (and will be, in time).

This is a simple system to send minion groups in small missions, with a certain risk but a return in credit for the danger and time spent. Each mission may take a few days, weeks, or months, depending on their rank and difficulty. Most inexperienced groups will take longer performing the most difficult missions, but the actual time spent is up to the GM.
Every mission has an initial cost of 20% of the Reward value in credits, as indicated in the "Cost" column.
Each mission has a XP reward for the mission leader, but the rest of the minions do not get XP, they are generic NPCs with just one rank in the skill required for the mission. The GM and players are free to actually create their sheets and name them if they wish so, but their purpose initially are to be unimportant npcs.
The leader is a named NPC, with ranks in Leadership, with a career and a single specialization, she receives XP normally from the quests, used to increase her skills and purchase talents (which may or may not help in the missions). All checks are made by the leader of the mission, with a boost (Blue Dice) on the roll for each minion aiding the leader on his mission.
Every mission assumes that three people will be sent, the leader and two minions.
For more difficult missions, more people can be sent (provided they are available) increasing the cost by 10% per person (just add the "Cost" value to the Total for every extra person).
Example: A mission rank 1 costs 100 credits to send three people, 200 credits to send four, 300 credits to send five, and so on.
But a leader is limited by his ranks in Leadership as to how many extra minions he can command (2 ranks = max 4 people).
The GM may also increase the difficulty of the mission in three ways:
1) Using a Destiny Point, upgrading the given difficult of the mission, but be careful as this can result in the death of a team member by accident.
- Players can not use Destiny Points to downgrade the difficult because they are not present in the mission to interfere with the result.
2) Increasing the value in Credits by 50% to upgrade the difficult, increasing the risks but also the reward, because the mission was not what it appeared to be.
- This increase is balanced if you compare a rank 5 mission (difficulty 5, 8000 credits), to a rank 6 mission (difficulty 5, 1 upgrade, 16000 credits).
3) Adding a setback to the difficulty of the mission, but rewarding with 1 additional point of XP, representing unexpected complications during the mission.
- Be careful not to add too many setbacks and make the mission actually impossible for the team (unless you're feeling bloodthirsty and your players have way too many credits and you want them to spend a little).
The cost to recruit minions will depend exclusively on the GM and the current level of the campaign (character's XP), ranging from 100 to 10,000 credits easily, but figure out a good start and go from there.
The cost to recruit a new leader can also vary, but the ideal is to always have at least one leader (promoting unnamed minions if necessary), and sends him on Recruitment Missions.
The Recruitment Missions are generic missions which requires three Leadership checks to be successful, and without a reward credits (but the mission leader receives XP as normal). Their objective is to find a new leader NPC for your crew, be it a rescue, a negotiation, an active recruitment, it is up to you.
The newly recruited NPC leader, however, will receive an initial XP equal to the task multiplied by mission's rank (rank mission 1 = 1 XP, rank 2 = 4 XP ... rank 5 = 25 XP, etc).
The idea is to send minions on missions once per session, or at the end of each arc of the campaign (when they make big travels, they go from one system to another across the galaxy, they spend some downtime repairing their ship, etc), and this also represents a downtime between sessions where players command a team of soldiers.
Players can send as many teams as they command on missions, making the checks independently for each team on the field.
The missions are three basic skill checks, using the skill ranks and ability scores of the leader NPC, the minions will add extra boost on the checks, and if any talent would actually help on this check, you can apply them. For the mission to be successful, they have to pass all three checks.
Advantages and Threads from the first check will add extra boost or setback dies on the second check, and those on the second check will add dies on the third check. Keep track of all despair or triumphs, as those will be calculated regardless of the mission's result.
If a despair is rolled, remove the minion from the following checks until the end of the mission (the minion died before the next task).
Considering the risks of higher difficult missions, allow your players to set the dificult of the mission they want to take. Or roll a bunch of missions (3 or 5 using a d10) and present those to them.
Example: Okay guys, there are three missions available from the Rebel Command on your holoterminal, the first is a Negotiation Mission rank 3, the second is a Rescue Mission rank 6, and the third is an Exploration mission rank 1.

This is the Mission Rank table:

rank Credits Cost Difficulty XP
rank 1 500 - 100 1P 1
rank 2 1000 - 200 2P 2
rank 3 2000 - 400 3P 3
rank 4 4000 - 800 4P 4
rank 5 8000 - 1600 5P 5
rank 6 16000 - 3200 4P / 1R 7
rank 7 32000 - 6400 3P / 2R 9
rank 8 64000 - 12800 2P / 3R 11
rank 9 128000 - 25600 1P / 4R 13
rank 10 256000 - 51200 5R 15

Mission Results:

Failure = no payment, the mission was a failure and the team goes back without receiving credits or XP.
Success = normal payment, the mission was successful and the team comes back with the listed amount of credits and the leader receives XP for the mission.
Advantages = +1 xp to the leader or + 10% extra credits on the payment.
Threats = -1 to the leader or -10% credits on the payment.
Triumph = a new resource is obtained, or an item of value up to 50% of the mission credits, or +5 xp to the leader.
Despair = a person died in the mission, or leader does not receive XP. If everyone dies, the leader also died (need at least 3 despairs on a team of 3 people).

Types of missions (roll 1d10 if you want to randomize):

1 - Espionage (doubled cost for payment of contacts):
- Three Social checks depending on the type of espionage:
1) Charm or Athletics;
2) Deception or Stealth;
3) Negotiation or skulduggery.
2 - Combat (requires weapons and ammunition):
- Three weapons Combat checks:
1) Brawl or Melee;
2) Ranged (Light);
3) Ranged (Heavy).
3 - Battle (requires starfighters):
- Three Fighting in space checks:
1) Piloting (planetary) or Piloting (space);
2) Gunnery;
3) Astrogation.
4 - Resource Collecting (requires a freighter):
- Three exploration checks:
1) Survival;
2) Resilience;
3) Medicine.
5 - Information:
- Three checks to collect information in the field:
1) Streetwise or Underworld;
2) Coercion;
3) Computers.
6 - Research:
- Three checks to research information:
1) Lore;
2) Knowledge (Core Worlds), Knowledge (Outer Rim) or Knowledge (Underworld);
3) Education.
7 - Diplomacy:
- Three Social checks to obtain resources and allies:
1) Cool;
2) Charm;
3) Negotiation.
8 - Trading:
- Three Social checks to buy a specific item (weapons, armor, ships, ammunition, etc.):
1) Streetwise;
2) Perception;
3) Negotiation.
9 - Rescue (requires ships with extra seats or places for passengers):
- Three checks to search and pilot in space to find the survivors:
1) Astrogation;
2) Piloting (space);
3) Vigilance.
10 - Exploration (doubled cost for the time spent)
- Three exploration and pilot checks in space to find new trade routes, lost systems and resources:
1) Astrogation;
2) Piloting (space);
3) Mechanics.

Edited by shadowkras
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So, has anyone tried this? I would love to hear some suggestions or critics.

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bump

Anyone tried one of these systems?

I´ll try to mix those two together....

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What about using the Mass Combat system instead? It should be possible to adapt that fairly easy to non-combat missions, or missions that include more than just combat.

The mass combat system rules are pretty simple and easy to follow, and give you a pretty quick resolution to the situation.

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That's what I was going to say as well. The Mass Combat system is actually pretty well tuned to summarizing in a roll, or a few rolls, the actions of groups beyond the players (that the players may or may not be in direct command of).

You could easily take the underlings in question and rate them out in capability and size, determine the mission and opposing forces, and make a roll or three and get mission results.