The perfect team.
 

Was working on character development and I went back to my D&D days and thought about what type of characters would make up the perfect team. I basically thought that one of each of the following would make a well rounded team.

1) Medic or medical training.
2) Mechanical Training - Usually paired with driving skill
3) Heavy Weapons/Support Weapons person.
4) JOAT - Jack of All trades - the scrounger/sweet talker
5) The Leader.

Of course everyone would be also trained to fight.

In your opinion what else would you need in a team?

I think the movies sometimes answer this question well. Take the series Firefly (and the accompanying film Serenity). Their team worked really well - Leader (good in combat, war veteran NCO type), XO (excellent in combat and good tactical ability), Pilot (okay he is pretty specialised but incredibly good at his specialty), Hard-Core Hitter (hand to hand and ranged combat expert and REALLY loves fightin' and shootin'), Mechanic (sadly useless at anything else except bonking but extremely sexy which I think is important), Medic (actually an absolutely first rate trauma surgeon), Clergyman (skilled at negotiation and always has something nice to say during funerals) and finally Government Modified Psychic Assassin Chick (the title says it all).

Well if go by TV the general categories are
The brains, the looks, the brawn and the wild card (plus sometimes the useless chick).

The Firefly model was almost present in Farscape as well, you just have mix up some of the skills a bit.

In my opinion this it the most important category of all!

:P

My groups generally make a point of including the following mix --

Leader / Tactical Coordinator
Medic / Intelligence Specialist
Sniper / Demolitions Expert
Vehicle Operator / Mechanic
Scrounger / Jack-of-All-Trades

They tend to not include a dedicated Heavy Weapons specialist...usually the Scrounger and the Medic man the heavy weapons.

A lot depends on the tone of the campaign and number of players. For example, four players on a rebuilding campaign may look a bit like the primary team from Stargate SG-1 -- two combat/leader types, a scientist and a social specialist.

My Stargate SG1 RPG groups normally had 6 to 8 people on a team since we usually had that many players! But sometimes we'd double up on the team position specialities... each team was one of the following types; Troubleshooting(basicly what SG1 did on the show), Exploration, Combat Operations (dedicated heavy hitters with Weisel armament carriers for support), Covert Operations (force recon types combined with sniper-scouts who work as observers), Diplomatic Operations (NPCs), Search and Rescue (NPCs), Secrity Operations (NPCs), Research Operations (NPCs), Scientific Operations (NPCs) and Archeological Operations (NPCs)

Detachment OiC
Executive 2iC
Intelligence/Communications Specialist
Heavy Weapons Specialist
Weapons Specialist
Linguistics/Cultural Specialist
Medical Specialist
Mission Specialist

LOL. Great show. Nice analysis, Targan.

While not part of the team per se your forgot Inara (courtesan). She added an odd mix of skills including negotiation and the ability to open doors, both with her contacts and her beauty and charm. For anyone who has not seen the show Firefly (or the followup movie Serenity) I highly recommend it. I am a big fan even have the opening song as my ring tone.

Beyonce, Rihannon, Shakira, Megan Fox and maybe Angeline.... NOW thats a perfect team!!

For a typical T2K campaign, this is a pretty versatile group.

Engineer/demo specialist
Mechanic/driver (if vehicles are part of the campaign)
Medic/rifleman
Sniper/FO*
LMG'er or SAW gunner
Scrounger/grenadier
AT gunner/rifleman
Pointman/sneaky pete (silenced weapon)

*If the group has a mortar or other indirect fire HW

a man after my own heart... :D

If you are talking Farscape mmmmmmmmmmmm, sorry ya gotta love Ayrn she was totaly BADA$$!!!! And hot ta boot ;) And she wasn't bad as Valla in Stargate either!

The useless chick thing was a quote from a tv show where they were talking about the A-Team and such. WHere the role of the woman was pretty much to get caught and need rescuing. Ayrn and River both rocked.

Funny you should post this topic, I was rolling up the NPCs for my Ruins Campaign.


But for a party I would suggest the following:

A leader, rank is not required. Think Kelly from Kellys Heroes, or Reese from Hell is For Heroes or Sgt Stryker from Sands of Iwo Jima. All former leaders who fell from Grace to a much lower spot of leadership, but when the chips were down, they were natural leaders who took charge or the men followed because they knew their stuff!

A weapons specialist! This can be a machinegunner who is an old salt who I like to pair with a green recruit so he can keep an eye on and break in. <Stole this theme from Fields of Fire.> Or a mortarman, I made a character for a Korea game and the character had a 60mm mortar with a small baseplate who fired the weapon trigger fire, think of it kinda like a very large 203. Also, there is the character who is just very good with a grenade launcher. A guy who humps a 203 or a 79 or a HK69 and he just can't miss, and with that skill, he gets the party out of a jam all the time.

MAYBE one "SPECIAL" type I am not fond of SF/Green Berets, I usualy toss in a Salty soldier who was either with a Ranger unit, or had been a ranger or at least through the school. He is the scout and the super ninja who has per the game the "stealth" or "recon" or even "Observation" skills.

A Sniper, not in all of my campaigns. But this could be a good ol boy who knows how to shoot who has a bolt action rifle or other good rifle and he knows how to use it. This guy in many campaigns is also the groups ace in the hole, taking out other snipers or machinegunners or other badies who have the party pinned down. <Think the sniper from Saving Private Ryan.>

Old Salty Sgt, think the Sgt from Stripes, "I'm gettin to old for this..." Or the old Sgt who is the Cols Aid Konrad from "Battle of the Bulge" he is old, he has seen action alot, maybe to much and isn't afraid to speak his mind, he is also tired.

The Rebel who is just GOOD at his job and that has made him freinds, think of the character "Stiener" from "Cross of Iron." A hero who is favored among the top leadership so he can get away with alot more otherwise, he is also good and pulls off the impossible which further endears him with the high command. However it is that rebellous streak coupled with the vast knowledge and experience so he does things his way which is contrary to the immediate comand.

A regular Rifleman, he is expereinced, but nothing special. He stands the watches, provides cover when needed but pauses when its time to go over the top first.

Green Kid, a conscript or even a support type now thrown to the wolves in a combat unit. Scared, without experience and still learning, the question is, will he survive?

Loner, a burnt out trooper, he used to be good, he used to be eager, he once upon a time truly beleived in the cause. Now he is a zombie who is just going through the motions living day to day or even hour to hour. He no longer feels, he no longer has freinds they all have been died. He is distant and no one knows much about him.

Drinker, a former leader who saw to many of his men die. He crawled into a bottle. He can act when he needs to but preffers to hide in the bottle when he can. And often you do not know if he is drunk.

Medic; This is usualy a talented type who cares about the folk in their team. They are usualy everyones freind and they hardly ever engage in action.

Radio; not always in my groups. Usualy someone from a rear unit who was placed in this position. Often if the group has a vehicle I do away with this post all together, or if there is an FO or someone similiar.

FO; A former mortarman, FAC, or FO or similiar. They know how to operate the radio, they also know something about the ordinance in their field, be it artillery or aircraft bombs or mortars etc. An example, a FAC is also the groups Pilot, an FO is also their mortar or artillery expert.

Mechanic, he is the secondary driver. He drives the truck or support vehicle of the group but not the combat vehicle. He is a master of the wrench.

Driver, this guy is just plain NUTS!!!! He is a maniac behind the wheel and will drive places where a mountain goat wouldn't go. He is meticulous about his vehicle. He knows his way around a wrench, but he is not the expert that their mechanic is.

Armored Vehicle Driver/Crewman; this guy is often the groups heavy weapons and com expert since they will have had those skills in their vehicle and are now the partys expert.

Scrounger; A good rifleman, he is also at times the defacto scout of the unit. He can find what the party needs through various means. And he follows the old saying of "sharp eyes and light fingers."

I can also sometimes toss in other personality traits like the hero, or the coward, or the guy trying to be a hero. The old salt who is just burnt out, the eager youth who talks so tough but has yet to be in a fight, alcoholism, drug abuse, sadism and so many other aspect. I also will often merge the above making complex characters who have multiple traits. Howabout a semi suicidal engineer who is now doing EOD?

Anyhow those are some of the things.

But a vanilla group:

Leader, current or former officer or senior Sgt who is skilled in navigation FO and a all around good fighter.

A machinegunner who can keep the baddies pinned down.

The medic who saves everyone

Scrounger/Rifleman, he keeps the party supplies.

Driver, he can get people out of trouble as fast as they got into it, and he can turn a wrench when needed too.

Scout; this is the person who is always on point, they do the patrols and can find the trail or where the enemy is. This is the person who keeps you out of trouble, and they are a demon in a fight.

Those are the basic types every campaign needs. All other types are a plus.

Oh no, how could I forget Inara! For shame. That girl desperately needs my phone number.

I loved the end of the fight scenes in Mr Universe's facility where River is standing with a sword in one hand and an axe in the other (both dripping with gore) and you can see she is absolutely ready to take on about a dozen Alliance marines who all have rifles trained on her at point blank range. I reckon she would have had a slim chance of actually taking them all out.

Anybody seen the film Equilibrium? Awesome Gun-Fu style in that.

I tend to view it in terms of two different groupings, in-combat and out- roles.

In-combat: Leader, fire-support (GL and/or SAW), maneuver (scout and assault guys), medic. If you have vehicles, then drivers & gunners, obviously. If you have contact with the outside world, then you need radio operators.

Out-of-combat: scout, "face" or negotiator, leader. Again, with vehicles: driver and mechanic. Radio operator, if possible.

You can mix characters, from Column A and Column B. A third column might be who's carrying what gear?

FWIW, when I was in college I found in the library a RAND study on LRRP teams in Vietnam. One of the findings was that 6 was an optimum number of men on a patrol. More than that was too many for the leader to keep track of, and many more were more likely to get caught. Fewer tended to run into problems of fatigue, both from carrying too much stuff and pulling sentry duty too often.

Well actually the actually positions that I think if you looking for a group, in many cases the group would have to be cross trained in couple specialization as you are trying to note out here.

I would tend to look at how Special Operation units try to set up their basic A-Team or look at a base team for SAS. For the SAS the four-man team would have one medic, one weapon, one signal, and one engineer specialists in the team. US Special Forces 6 man team would have intel and language specialist.

Now many of these would be cross trained as mechanics, drivers, and many more specilizations.

In the field and in the garrison, there would be one who would be leader. There would be a point man, and they would have various weapons positions in their organization. I tend to think as basic fire team in which there is a Leader/Rifleman, Grenadier/Rifleman, and Automatic Rifleman/Machine gunner for a three man team. If the team in 4 or 5 men, add Rifleman, Assistant gunners, or point man if desired. If the team is 6 or larger, you can make 2 teams as desired.

Just some thoughts.