Soo...

New campaign taking place in the Greater Javin region immediately following the Battle of Hoth. The PCs are a rebel group starting a resistance in the region, eventually building it up to a sector army and hopefully liberating the Greater Javin from the Empire.

To this end, I've come up with some basic resources they will need to acquire:

1. Credits. Yeah, this is pretty obvious and straightforward. The "gold standard," if you will, for the rest of the resources.
2. Supplies: Abstraction of gear, uniforms, food, weapons, etc. (basically a way of retroactively determining what "stuff" was acquired, rather than being specific up front). Used to outfit new troops (AKA "purchase") and as general upkeep. Also used commonly in trading or goodwill missions.
3. Intel: Abstraction of how much information you've picked up (basically a way of retroactively determining what you've been researching). Used for making contacts, uncovering opportunities to raid or disrupt Imperial operations, and to lower risks on some missions. Earned passively through contacts, purchased, or earned as a mission reward.
4. Fuel: Upkeep for ships, and "spent" by any movement or prolonged engagements.
5. Raw materials: What you use to build/repair ships or bases. Early on, most commonly going to be used as a source of income via selling and trading. It'll be only later that they'll have the infrastructure to build ships.
6. Blaster gas: Upkeep for armies, can be spent along with fuel on "exercises" to increase operational effectiveness as well as in battles.

So basically, what I'm looking for here is advice on balancing amounts (rewards/costs) or suggestions on use.

My objective is to keep this system as simple as possible, but I think that narrowing it down to those 6 resources is as far as I can get. You might say "just handwave it, that's simplest" but our group wants this. We think it's a good way of abstractly managing the logistics of running a large-scale operation. It's also a good driver of mission objectives.

I'll make a couple more posts detailing my current ideas for uses/acquisition and one for consumption/credit cost.

Consumption and cost:

Supplies will probably be scaled as the campaign grows larger. Right now, the smallest "unit" is a fire team. So maybe 1 supply is enough to keep a single fire team (4 men) going for a month. At 10 credits per week per soldier brings that to 40*6=240 per unit. That's just food, at a very cheap level. So... bump that up to 333 (1k/3)? Then to "build" an item using supplies, it costs supplies rounded to the amount. So if you want to build something for 500, that's 2 units. If you want to build something for 700, that's 2 units. For small things like stimpacks or extra reloads, you build 1 unit/cost, rounded=number of items (so 12 stims in one supply).
333 credits per unit, 1 Encumbrance, Risk: Low, mission rewards: PC=24 (8k value), NPC=3d8.

Intel:
Expenditures: 10 to Make Contact, 5 to Negate Risk, 20 to Uncover Opportunity.
500 credits per unit, - Encumbrance, Risk: Moderate, mission rewards: PC=20 (10k value), NPC=2d8.

Fuel, I think 1 month of upkeep ("X") for sil 3-4 ships is 1 unit of Fuel (reduced, of course, if they are inactive). Then maybe +1 for every 2 points (or should it be 1?) of silhouette after that (rounded up). So sil 5-6 is 2, sil 7-8 is 3. Probably with some increases (like X*Y) for whenever that ship goes on a particular mission and is active rather than just the passive upkeep.
500 credits per unit, 8 Encumbrance, Risk: Moderate, mission rewards: PC=16 (8k value), NPC=2d8.

Raw Materials, I think 250 credits per unit makes sense, using 1 unit to effect 1 HT of repairs. Not sure about costs for ship/base building.
250 credits per unit, 6 Encumbrance, Risk: Low, mission rewards: PC=32 (8k value), NPC=4d8.

Blaster Gas, I think quite similar. 1 unit of blaster gas is a sil 3-4 ship for 1 engagement or exercise (+1 per sil past 4 [sil-4]), maybe 1 unit for a platoon.
1,000 credits per unit, 8 Encumbrance, Risk: Moderate, mission rewards: PC=8 (8k value), NPC=1d8.

Uses and acquisitions:

Credits:
Uses: Purchasing goods, bribing, etc.
Acquisition: Sale of goods, theft, donations, "sources of funding" (providing income).

Supplies:
Uses: Keeping the organization running, goodwill missions, trade.
Acquisition: Trade, supply raids, materiel donations, smuggling, "producers" (providing income).

Intel:
Uses: Knowledge of enemy, potential ally, and neutral party movement and actions. Locating contacts, uncovering opportunities, reducing risks in some operations, etc.
Acquisition: Purchase, espionage, "assets" (providing income).

Fuel:
Uses: Keeps your ships and facilities running.
Acquisition: Purchase, supply raids, "refineries" (providing income).

Raw Materials:
Uses: Ship/facility repair/building, trade.
Acquisition: Purchase, supply raids, "mines" (providing income).

Blaster Gas:
Uses: Shooting the bad guys.
Acquisition: Smuggling, supply raids, and "refineries"/" Morodin-fertilized Aleudrupe berries " (providing income).

This is not something that _I_ would ever want to do. It's like the old RPG joke: "It's so nice to, after 10 hours in the office, get home and relax with running a fictitious business in an RPG"

Personally, I would invent a secret Sector Command Rebel cell and let them worry about counting bolts and keeping the milk from going bad, and let the PCs run around on actual adventures. You want to run an espionage scenario? Well, have Sector Command supply two names of informants and the description of an associated ship, and let the PCs run off to find them. Need new ships? Give the PC cell 20k credits and ask them to come back with AT LEAST 3 freighters, no questions asked. Stuff like that.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but I would much rather have the players tackle bad guys and dodge patrols, than running the businesses side of things *shrug*

...aaaand I haven't been any help at all! 😜

Just now, angelman2 said:

Well, have Sector Command supply two names of informants and the description of an associated ship, and let the PCs run off to find them. Need new ships? Give the PC cell 20k credits and ask them to come back with AT LEAST 3 freighters, no questions asked. Stuff like that.

In this case, the PCs want to be Sector Command. They're building from the ground up, so early on a lot of it will be tracking down informants, purchasing ships, etc.

The way I'm planning to work it is that they can send allies out to accomplish those missions (with randomized rewards and risks [captured, injured, ambushed, aborted, etc.], or they can choose to do the mission themselves, ignoring the randomization and typically having a more consistent result.

The campaign will morph as the scale changes, but right now they are the only ones they have, so they'll be doing everything by themselves. Even when they are starting to gain more allies, they'll still need to be out in the field because they'll be limited in how many opportunities they can follow up on.

As the campaign gets more and more large scale, some things will become much more abstracted, lowering the amount of accounting and shifting the focus of what the characters have to do.

Transportation is also a vital resource. From the mundane of how to get the food donated by sympathizers on random planet #1 to the troops on random planet #2, to the tactical of how much/many combat whatevers can I deliver to planet X quickly.

Personally I wouldn't break out Blaster Gas into its own item, I'd fold it into Supplies and Fuel. Unless in your game it is a rare item and getting it is usually difficult.

From your second post, regarding Intel...yes I think that one is difficult. As it seems this is all being done from scratch, I'd think the players would have to at least start with some missions to establish contacts or a rebel cell on a planet. Even after that there is the whole difficulty of getting the information from point A to point B, timely, and double agents etc. You might use the Contact Networks idea from Endless Vigil, and then have each Network make a skill check periodically against a difficulty established by the requested info and the activity level of the opposition, location, etc., with successes generating Intel Points against a chart you would have to create.

I feel you also have to think through how to work in goods. What I mean by that is that you can have a cost of food per person per day kind of thing, but how do you work in when the rebels hijack a freighter with 10,000 tons of frozen Nerf steaks? Getting donations "in kind" from sympathizers is, I'd think, more likely than getting credits.

I'll post again if I think of anything else.

Your campaign idea sounds great. I look forward to hearing how it goes.

2 hours ago, RickInVA said:

Transportation is also a vital resource. From the mundane of how to get the food donated by sympathizers on random planet #1 to the troops on random planet #2, to the tactical of how much/many combat whatevers can I deliver to planet X quickly.

In this case we're largely handling it by what ships the rebels have available to them. At the moment, it's just the PCs with a single ship.

Good thought, though. I'll have to make sure I keep transport in mind for "income." I wouldn't break it into a resource, as keeping track of individual ships is already in the cards.

2 hours ago, RickInVA said:

Personally I wouldn't break out Blaster Gas into its own item, I'd fold it into Supplies and Fuel. Unless in your game it is a rare item and getting it is usually difficult.

I've thought about that, and it's a good though, but there are a few reasons why I decided to keep it broken off:
1. Varonat. The Morodin-fertilized Aleudrupe berries are a hilarious plot point, and I intend to take full advantage.
2. It's going to be much harder to acquire army-levels of the stuff, and the Empire is likely to notice. It adds a significant threat to the situation, as it's a valuable resource and smuggling it is dangerous. (I have "risk" levels associated with each resource, "low," "moderate," and "high." Blaster Gas is the only "high" risk item)
3. I had considered just ignoring it, but I decided the top two are just too enticing.

2 hours ago, RickInVA said:

From your second post, regarding Intel...yes I think that one is difficult. As it seems this is all being done from scratch, I'd think the players would have to at least start with some missions to establish contacts or a rebel cell on a planet. Even after that there is the whole difficulty of getting the information from point A to point B, timely, and double agents etc. You might use the Contact Networks idea from Endless Vigil, and then have each Network make a skill check periodically against a difficulty established by the requested info and the activity level of the opposition, location, etc., with successes generating Intel Points against a chart you would have to create.

That makes sense. I don't have Endless Vigil, so I don't know how Contact Networks work though.
I had intended on just rolling d10, X+1d10, or just having a flat rate of income to make accounting for income more simple, but having a skill level for the contact is a good idea, I'll have to look into it further.
Yes, it's my intention that the PCs would be doing footwork at first. As for transferring information, aside from transmitters I've got some good dead-drop or meeting points. The double-agent risks are ones I think are cool, and already have a system in place for (aside from GM fiat). About every month, I'm going to present the PCs with a number of missions to choose from. Each has a reward and some risks and typically originates from their contacts. They can either perform the mission themselves, or assign it to some of their subordinates (typically a named Rival+ NPC and a fire team of soldiers as escort, with Intel or Credits assigned to reduce one of the risks). If the NPCs do it, I roll on the risks and assign the ones that trigger. For Captured and Ambushed (the latter especially), the PCs may have to figure out what happened, and if anyone sold them out (from the crew to the contact).

2 hours ago, RickInVA said:

I feel you also have to think through how to work in goods. What I mean by that is that you can have a cost of food per person per day kind of thing, but how do you work in when the rebels hijack a freighter with 10,000 tons of frozen Nerf steaks? Getting donations "in kind" from sympathizers is, I'd think, more likely than getting credits.

I'd just call that a narrative of a set number of supplies. Also yikes. That's a lot of beef.
Usually, I'd just say "you get X many supplies from so-and-so" and they'd then retroactively determine what resources those were (or not, as some would just go to upkeep).
In a situation where they get 10,000 tons of frozen nerf steaks, I may add something like: "You've received a shipment of 10,000 tons of frozen nerf steaks, which is not useful to you as-is. However, you can sell this and turn a tidy profit." I'd abstract it into "X-many useless supplies" and they'd try to sell it.
The donations in kind is more what I'm expecting, getting Aleudrupe berries (blaster gas) from Varonat, textiles (uniforms) from Polmanar, food from Delphon, minerals from Burnin Konn, etc. This is then abstracted into "supplies" or another resource for simplicity's sake.
Credits are going to be fairly hard to acquire, and are most often, I think, going to be acquired through the sale of other resources. However, gaining support from a wealthy person (be that celebrity or mogul [think about how much they funnel into politics in real life!]) or company might result in a cash flow, in addition to any miscellaneous fundraising they do.

And, of course, trading X-many supplies for Y-many of another resource, or a goodwill mission (costing supplies) that results in some recruitment and maybe income (delivering medical goods [supplies] to a city on Nothoiin, for example).

3 hours ago, RickInVA said:

I'll post again if I think of anything else.

Thank you! You've been very helpful.

Hey P-47

Sounds like a fun game. I think that the procurement officers are going to be key here in that they have the purse strings. So my first question would be how is this command funded? Are they operating completely on their own to the point where they are raising their own credits? If so how are they doing that?

If they receive funding from another command how does it get to them and how have you been determining how much they get?

Just now, Archlyte said:

Hey P-47

Sounds like a fun game. I think that the procurement officers are going to be key here in that they have the purse strings. So my first question would be how is this command funded? Are they operating completely on their own to the point where they are raising their own credits? If so how are they doing that?

If they receive funding from another command how does it get to them and how have you been determining how much they get?

We're just starting, so at this point they are entirely on their own. Currently, they have no sources of funding. My intention is that they'll convince local governments and factions to help fund and supply them (not always through credits), providing an income in addition to mission rewards. Until they get that far, they'll be taking from the Empire or raising grassroots support from friendly populations, which will be chunks and installments rather than income. They're about to head to Ione where they hope to do some recruiting and make allies among the disaffected populace. Hopefully they'll make an Intel contact, providing an income of that resource.

Eventually, they may be able to make contact with and secure a revenue stream from the Alliance proper, but that'll be a while away. Currently we're talking about seven people and a G9-Rigger (traded down from a Sentinel, because that's conspicuous).

If/when the Alliance is funding them, I'll assign a monthly income proportionate to the current state of the game. That'll largely come in through smuggling or money laundering, and I just intend to handwave it except on rare occasions.

On 11/1/2020 at 8:25 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That makes sense. I don't have Endless Vigil, so I don't know how Contact Networks work though.

Essentially the Contact Network has a Characteristic (Scope) and a Skill (Expertise), on the 1-5 scale. Scope is based on how many from a handful (1) to a vast network across sectors (5). Expertise is as it sounds from amateurs (1) to the top experts in their field (5). When the "owner" of the Contact Network wants something from them, like "Where can I find lightsaber crystals?" the GM assigns a difficulty and makes a skill roll. I think the idea fits in well with the idea of Rebel Cells that can be for various purposes (Intel, Sabotage, Theft, etc.) and occupy various locations (City, countryside, whole planet, etc.).

Just now, RickInVA said:

Essentially the Contact Network has a Characteristic (Scope) and a Skill (Expertise), on the 1-5 scale. Scope is based on how many from a handful (1) to a vast network across sectors (5). Expertise is as it sounds from amateurs (1) to the top experts in their field (5). When the "owner" of the Contact Network wants something from them, like "Where can I find lightsaber crystals?" the GM assigns a difficulty and makes a skill roll. I think the idea fits in well with the idea of Rebel Cells that can be for various purposes (Intel, Sabotage, Theft, etc.) and occupy various locations (City, countryside, whole planet, etc.).

Thanks, that sounds just about perfect! So quite similar to the Mass Combat rules in that regard.

Okay, I'm definitely going to be using the Contact Network rules, so thanks @RickInVA !

Here are some more ideas I had, any feedback and constructive criticism is welcome. Expose my flaws!
I wrote much of this stream of consciousness, so I put that in the spoiler text and just left the important stuff on top. The stuff in the spoiler text shows my thought process and my reasoning behind decisions.

Supplies, as the most commonly transported item, will clearly need an Encumbrance value. Given what that price is able to build, I think 1 Encumbrance per supply makes sense. Really 1.5 would be closer, but 2 is too high.

I've been thinking a lot about intel, and I've decided that I need to knuckle down and just assign a value to a base thing and then proceed from there.
I need a basic credit cost for a single unit of Intel and a basic cost for the expenditures.
So, here are some examples of expenditures: negate risks (5), uncover opportunities (20), make contacts (10), reconnaissance.
And some ways to gain it: mission rewards (2d8 [non-PC] or 20 [PC]), contact networks (Easy check, 1d4+Success), purchase (500 per unit).

Raw Materials are 6 Encumbrance
Fuel and Blaster Gas are 8 Encumbrance per unit (stored in canisters)
Supplies are 1 Encumbrance

As @RickInVA discussed, transport is pretty important here. Adding Encumbrance costs is pretty important to that, as they now have to think carefully about what ships to assign where since they need to make sure it can hold a max roll. This extends to PC missions, as they need to make sure they have sufficient cargo space. If their G9 is half full, it won't be able to hold 16 units of Fuel. Most of the time, it won't be an issue though. Most ships have pretty large Encumbrance capacities.

I'm going to go ahead and edit the earlier posts with the new information.

Hmm...

With 20 Intel as a mission reward for PCs undertaking an Intel collection mission, that's a value of 10k (Intel can't usually sold, but it can be bought pretty easily).

However, for the others, should I stick to no more than the NPCs could get, so a value of 8k? 24 Supplies, 16 Fuel, 8 Blaster Gas, etc.

5 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Hmm...

With 20 Intel as a mission reward for PCs undertaking an Intel collection mission, that's a value of 10k (Intel can't usually sold, but it can be bought pretty easily).

However, for the others, should I stick to no more than the NPCs could get, so a value of 8k? 24 Supplies, 16 Fuel, 8 Blaster Gas, etc.

Hard and impactful decisions for sure. Seems to me that things need to be able to move forward with some regularity, but also need the PCs intervention reasonably frequently. Personally I'd always want the PCs to be able to be more successful than the NPCs, by like 2-1. But that's a ceiling, not a base. I feel that makes where the PCs choose to insert themselves a meaningful decision with repercussions.

I would also recommend to think out ahead of time what will trigger Local, Sector, and Imperial response. Too much success in a short time might be a good thing initially, but if it prompts a massive retaliation, maybe not so much. Caution is a good word for Rebels!

1 minute ago, RickInVA said:

Hard and impactful decisions for sure. Seems to me that things need to be able to move forward with some regularity, but also need the PCs intervention reasonably frequently. Personally I'd always want the PCs to be able to be more successful than the NPCs, by like 2-1. But that's a ceiling, not a base. I feel that makes where the PCs choose to insert themselves a meaningful decision with repercussions.

In that case, I think setting it to the NPC max works well since their average will be roughly half that. Actually, 2d8 is 9, so at 16 that's not quite twice, so maybe bump it up to 10k. With 3*1d8 that's 3-24, so 13-14, which is just below half of 30. Hmm...

Yeah, I think I'll bump it down to an 8k value. They'll generally come out just below twice the NPC haul. I'm going to keep Intel at the 10k value though, since Intel can't generally be sold and 20 is a nice round number that is also conveniently identical to the cost for uncovering an opportunity.

6 minutes ago, RickInVA said:

I would also recommend to think out ahead of time what will trigger Local, Sector, and Imperial response. Too much success in a short time might be a good thing initially, but if it prompts a massive retaliation, maybe not so much. Caution is a good word for Rebels!

That's a good suggestion. I think I'll have to play a lot of that by ear, adjusting it session-to-session. Most of what they do in the short term is going to be fairly minor, but a crackdown is not off the table if they make too large a nuisance of themselves.

Pushing Supplies up to 2 Encumbrance, and now I'm thinking I should have a subgroup called "Field Resources" that weighs a bit more. This would be stuff like sandbags, shovels, generators, other materials for fortifications or FOBs. Currently placing that at 6.

The basic idea there is that 1 Supply=1 Field Resource, but Field Resources tend to be bigger and bulkier and so you can't carry as many with you. This means that several sandbags doesn't "weigh" the same as 12 stimpacks.

Thinking about how to use this, I'm picturing that you're digging a trench, so you call up a vehicle with 8 Field Resources and use 2 to build the trench, then another truck delivers 3 Field Resources to the FOB so that the command staff can set up a comms array.

This would be a subset of Supplies at a 1:1 ratio, but not recorded separately unless in a circumstance where they need to specify. They'll have to judge how much space they want to commit to construction materials vs. medical supplies or munitions.

Oh, and I fully intend for them to have an entire sector army at some point and be able to go toe-to-toe with the Empire.

Thoughts?