Hello everyone!

This is our first time playing RPG's and want your advice as to how much information should I give to the PC's, e.g. Do they need to, or have to know that:

1) minion groups get stronger when 2+ minions are in the group?

2) enemies always attack the most menacing PC in combat?

3) rivals do not suffer strain and that they suffer wounds instead?

4) that there is a category for enemies -minions, rivals, nemesis?

5) that they are confronting a rival or a nemesis?

thank you for your expert input,

1) Yes -it's part of the basic rules and them having an idea of how it works can help you if need be.

2) That's sort of common sense. However, do play with appearences. For instance, our Wookiee is always shot at first, despite being the healer, whilst the Zabrak and Chiss are by far the most deadly. Allow enemies to change their assessment of who is most menacing depending on how the battle is going.

3) Again, this is basic rules. The better an understanding of the rules the players have, the less likely you are to get into arguments (unless they learn the rules better than you do.)

4) Yes. Always useful to know. Also you might want to run through the minion mob rules.

5) Rivals/Nemesises should be pretty obvious as they're always going to be on their own rather than in a minion group. I don't think you have to explicitly state whether they're a rival or nemesis though. Could lead to amusing situations when they think a nemesis is just a rival and go in woefully underprepared and overconfident.

There are squad rules for Nemesis NPCs where they can effectively use Minions as “ablative armor”, but those are more advanced rules and you might not want to introduce your players to them yet.

But certainly do keep in mind that Nemesis and Rival NPCs can definitely have Minions around them, and in fact a typical way to run a group of Stormtroopers is that they are a Minion group with a Sargent that is a Rival.

Solo NPCs that are met would be likely to be Rivals or Nemesis level, depending on the circumstances.

But in my book, the PCs themselves were just Rivals right up to the day before they became PCs.

1) minion groups get stronger when 2+ minions are in the group?

Yes. Grouping is a method of making a number of minor NPCs (Minions) act more like a single more powerful one. It's just basic rules needed to play. If they don't know how they work, they wont be able to fight them correctly.

2) enemies always attack the most menacing PC in combat?

Enemies attack the character that makes the most sense for them to attack. Typically this will be the "most menacing" but not always. It will also matter what the quality of enemy is and the goals of the encounter. Not every encounter is going to be a take on team death match and not all enemies know how to target prioritize.

So they need to know that that can happen I suppose....

3) rivals do not suffer strain and that they suffer wounds instead?

Yes, basic mechanics. Otherwise they will get frustrated when something works on one character and not another.

4) that there is a category for enemies -minions, rivals, nemesis?

yes, basic mechanics they gotta know how the game works.

5) that they are confronting a rival or a nemesis?

No, but it'll usually be pretty obvious anyway....

Yes.

2) enemies always attack the most menacing PC in combat?

Just to add to what was said above, this goes to the crux of what it means to play an RPG. It's not a board game, it's a replication of a real world. Probably the most important thing you can do is give your NPCs (non-player characters, aka "enemies") real motives and purposes beyond just being things for the PCs to kill. Maybe some don't like their own commander. Maybe some are under some kind of threat to their family if they fail. Maybe some just want to loot the PCs, while others would really like to switch sides if they see a chance. ETC*ETC Once you do that, the game gets a lot more interesting, and their motives will inform their behaviour.

2) enemies always attack the most menacing PC in combat?

Do they tho? They might go after a Politico (a very non-threatening spec) because they have a big mouth. Does the PC have the Macguffin? Expect incoming fire. They might go after the person with lesser combat skills if they pull out a lightsaber despite being in a combat with a Heavy or Marauder simply because "Holy crap! Jedi! Get 'em!"

5) that they are confronting a rival or a nemesis?

1) minion groups get stronger when 2+ minions are in the group?

3) rivals do not suffer strain and that they suffer wounds instead?

4) that there is a category for enemies -minions, rivals, nemesis?

I would say this depends on your group and how much time they have. Some of my favorite games were pick up games at conventions, where I had no idea how to play that system. Someone hands me a character, tells me what I am good at, and I go from there. People who knew the system would check my sheet and tell me how to roll, everyone looks at my dice and helps tell whether I succeed. But over time, I wanted to learn the system, picked up the book and learned what's what. So I would say, talk to the players and find out if they want every session to be "Here's the rules for this situation, what do you want to do?" or if they want it to be "What do you want to do? OK, roll this."

Not knowing the system can lead to some of the best roleplaying games ever. My favorite was the Vampire system. I got handed a starting Malkavian (insane vampire) with some stealth skills. I decided that my insanity was that I believed I was James Bond. By the end of the session, everyone else believed it too. I had no idea what the difficulties were, I just said "I do this", made rolls, and got lucky.

As for 2 and 5. Not all enemies target the biggest threat. They may be tasked with killing the hacker in the back, or the leader, etc. And as stated, they don't need to know minion vs. rival vs. nemesis. My game is pretty obvious who the minions are, but rival and nemesis the players don't always know the difference.

Do they tho? They might go after a Politico (a very non-threatening spec) because they have a big mouth. Does the PC have the Macguffin? Expect incoming fire. They might go after the person with lesser combat skills if they pull out a lightsaber despite being in a combat with a Heavy or Marauder simply because "Holy crap! Jedi! Get 'em!"

Definitely agree with this. Our Shadow doesn't have a lightsaber and mainly uses Brawl but he tends to get badly beaten up because he runs his mouth off at people who then take offence. Interestingly no one shoots at our Sage, who hides at the back doing Battle Meditation. Now if we were to face a Force-Senstive, they might sense that and decide that the guy who provides extra successes on almost every roll is exactly the biggest threat and go take him out.

In terms of attack -what makes the most narrative sense? For instance everyone shoots the Wookiee first, even if they're the team healer and hate violence (though they may have just snapped and be about to go ripping arms...) before realising the Chiss and the Zabrak are actually the whirlwinds of death and focus on them instead.

Great insights everyone! The majority think it's good that they know except maybe for the rival-nemesis difference, you don't have to chime in and specifically state its status, it's not necesary. The way I was handling how groups of minions or rival with minions reacted to combat is to add all incoming damage during one round, the PC who dealt the most damage was to become the target of the group in the following round.

Desslok described just how I actually choose to attack a group of rivals in an encounter (of a video game). I always target the weakest and climb up from there