Help with GMing urban adventure
 

Dear friends,

Although I am relative new in the T2K game mechanics I am really enthousiastic about the game (You can literally role-play everything)

However, I have encountered some problems with my new project :
I am trying to GM an urban adventure. The PCs start themselves not in the woods south of Kalisz but instead within the city. No vehicle, no equipment, no map... Plus they have to run behind friendly lines since they have to carry a wounded team member (NPC).

Although I have read an archive thread (Urban encounter ideas) and the "Armies of the night" module as well as Ch#29 "Buildings : optional rules for urban locales", I still have some questions

1) Are there any house rules for running "Urban adventures" or MOUT?
2) Time scale : 1 turn = 4 hours is suitable for urban action ?
3) Traveling distance : 20 km per 4 hours is suitable for cities ?
4) Encounter ranges : how should be modified ?
5) How should we treat line of sight ?
6) Does movement rate shuch as walking, trotting, running, crawling have an effect on encounters ?

I would very much appreciate your thoughts, advice and input

Thank you in advance

I like the thought of urban encounters in Twilight. First, some comments on your questions, and secondly i'll dig out some of my urban house rules/thoughts which i will post up for you.

1. ... urban house rules to follow

2. 4 hours is OK for urban. That would be 2 or 3 encounters per day. Unless you wanted to class a particlar city/suburb as particularly hostile, then you could switch to 1 or 2 hour encounters.

3. 20km per 4 hours might be ok for cities as a speed, thats 5km per hour. So an hours walk would likely get you halfway or more through a village/city. When you think about it the pavement is hard, no mud etc to slow you down, so i'd think you could make good time. You might be slower if theres rubble or your taking care not to be ambushed though.

4. see the houserules re ranges. I think there'd be extremes though. For example i could see some cases where looking down a highway or from a 3 or 4 story building you could see some 2,000m. Most times, down in the streets, encounter ranges would be closer than normal. Even rounding a corner and literally bumping into someone.

5. LOS ... mmm. No different in cities. You might be able to see someone 2,000m away but you wouldnt be able to determine many characteristics until they got closer. Peeking around corners or over walls, from under rubble, LOS could be limited, almost like being buttoned up in a tank/APC.

6. Movement rate could have an effect. Crawling makes you harder to see, but also limits your own field of view (LOS ... see above point #5). Running is good for making time but i'd also rule it limited your periphial view - your only looking at whats in front of you generally when your running.

Let me dig out some houserules i had put together specifically for MOUT. A combination of my own thoughts and stealing others from this forum.

Word document attached with urban ideas etc. As stated, not all my own work, but i'm not able to credit the people I've stolen ideas from - theres been too many.

Some of my favourite ideas are around bulk and carrying loads in a city, how hot it can be and how constitution takes a battering.

Thank you for the prompt and detailed response.

I will study thoroughly and play test them to see how they are working.

However, I still have a question regarding my specific adventure in Kalisz.
According to google-maps Kalisz city covers an area of 70 Km2 so roughly the maximum edge ot edge distance for my party to cover is 11 Km. Applying the regular house rules my party will get-out Kalisz in 2 hours. My intention is to have them wondering in Kalisz for 1-2 days (being lost, more frequent encounters as with Soviet and Polish patrol groups, ambushes by Soviet/Polish desertes, mini-tasks by city evacuees, finding useful equipment, food and ammo, findind a deserted vehicle, e.t.c.). Any ideas on how to slow things down ?

Secondly, as most of the time my party will be walking up and down roads or rumble are there specific rules for limiting peripheral vision ?

Thanks again for your input

Thank you for the rules. I am oblidged.

In my specific plot, my party members have to carry a wounded friendly NPC behind firendly lines (not knowing that there are no holding friendly lines in the near vicinity). Any ideas how to engage carrying heavy load in the rules?

Furthermore, I do agree that constitution and holding up together should play a major factor in MOUT.

Thank you again, the house rules that you provided are not only helpful but also inspiring to be more creative when we plot an adventure in T2K

Has anybody organized or played a T2K adventure like Mogadishu/Blackhawk down or Battle Los Angeles ?

I would very much appreciate his/her experience...

Thank you in advance

Funny that I thought Blackhawk Down as I read through this. :) The movie really shows how tough it is to make head way against determined opposition.

There is a very under-rated movie titled Stalingrad that anyone contemplating the rigors of urban combat in a blasted ruined city should see. Do yourself a favor.

I ran Armies of the Night four times. Not one party even got close to the gold. Just traveling a one kilometer could take days of scouting the route, dodging enemies, getting ambushed, doing first aid, finding clean water, losing and finding gear, getting lost, going underground, going rooftop to rooftop, rafting through the subway **shudders**, helping innocents, etc. Mix and match for best effect, like getting ambushed while being lost, it really puts the PC's in a pickle.

I highlighted first aid and helping innocents because those are huge time killers that could turn a two hour walk into a 2-3 day nightmare. It does not just have to be innocents as well, it could be an injured officer, that offers the party a semi-current map of the area if they help get him somewhere safe.

There doesn't really need to be a separate and specific set of rules for urban gaming - the basic rules do fine if properly applied.
Carrying a person can be done in several ways - firemans carry over the shoulders, or on a stretcher being two examples. In the former option, the encumbrance rules are sufficient - the carrier can handle up to their Load stat without penalty, up to twice Load and only move at a jog (at most), and up to three times their Load for short distances (a hundred metres or so at a time). Both of the latter two load levels count as hard work and fatigue sets in very quickly reducing the characters physical ability to do, well, anything really.

Moving through bombed out areas could involve an Agility, Climbing or Acrobatics skill check (may vary depending on rule version in use). Visibility is a GM judgement call, but you could use the encounter ranges for forests quite effectively.

Much of what you need to do is common sense really - buildings and rubble will impede vehicle travel almost completely while slowing pedestrians to about half normal move (as they weave in and out of doors and windows) if they're not out in and using the streets. Cover and concealment will be everywhere which can be used by both sides in an engagement to very good effect.

As for large scale movement, a foot patrol speed in light forest is about 5kph (the 20km per period of the rules). Marching speed on road with full gear is rarely as fast as 10kph (and you don't want to be doing that for more than a couple of hours). In jungle/close terrain, speed drops through the floor and can be as little as a few hundred metres in an hour. Unstable rubble is likely to have a similar restriction on movement AND as is mentioned in Ruins of Warsaw, possibly result in a very nasty accident.

As for your intention for the party to stay in Kalisz for several days, I just can't see that happening if they really want to get out. We're not talking a major metropolis here and unless they're hiding from roaming Soviet and Polish patrols, they'll be able to pick a direction and get out fairly quickly. Getting lost would be nearly impossible unless forced to move under cover of a moonless and cloud covered night sky (even then it would be a bit of an effort if even one character has any navigation skill to speak of). There's any number of ways to slow a group down (a wounded member who needs to be carried for example), getting lost isn't one of them, although encountering rubble/enemy/gas attack/fire/artillery bombardment could force a rethink of their intended path.

I'll just repeat this, it's kind of up to you to "confine" them to the city.

If you want to keep the party trapped for a longish period, consider what happened to Urquhart at Arnhem (Sean Connery in A Bridge Too Far); an enemy patrol camps right beside them, without even knowing thay are there. That keeps them in one spot, but if you want to just slow them down badly, put lots of small units camped nearby- every km of travel will have to be scouted first, the group will have to stop and listen a lot, and someone is going to have to be rearguard, and make sure there is no trace of their passing- everything from shell casings to footprints can betray them.
Under those circumstances, anything more than about 500m per hour is very good progress...

There is a river flowing through Kalisz. This makes bridge both tactical and strategic objectives for all sides. The bridges are either destroyed, held by a force, or under attack.

Rubble and civilian choked streets slow movement.

Sniper engagements pin them down.

Artillery / Counter Artillery duels make being in the open suicidal.

The surface streets are choked with panicked civilians, and Support Troop units.

Civilian putting up road blocks to keep Soldiers out of their neighbor hood.

Air Strikes by surviving Fighter Bombers.

Medical units (any side) and Chaplains units ministering to Civilians causing a massive uncontrolled group.

Non Governmentals being their usual goat fuck like Red Cross, Docteurs san Frontiers, Red Crescent, Feed the Children, various Ministries.

Thanks for that KC. Good stuff.

Heh... I volunteered with Docteurs san Frontiers.

Excellent, you'll have first-hand knowledge then. Do they indeed f*ck goats?

Hmmmm....

Won't do Targan, just won't do! The Politically Correct Police will be watching!

Now I have to clean my monitor of coffee. :D

Looking this over again, I'd say 4 hours is ok for urban if stationary. On the move though I think it would be better to drop down the time frame quite a bit... unless the city is absolutely deserted anyways. Just IMO.

That would keep a party slowed down quite a bit if too if that's what the goal of the OP is.

Don't know about that. All I did was build some pumps for drinking water and drove around people who were giving free vaccines to children.

Thanks to all for the input.

You all gave a whole bunch of new ideas to study and implement.

As far as the the rate of encounters when on the move I am working on a hybrid mechanics where time as space predict the rate of encounters e.g. 1 encounter check per hour, 1 encounter check when they decide to enter a new street, 1 encounter check when they enter a building (depending on damage contition, possibilty of inhabitance, e.t.c.). But I have not conclude on the details. I still have to play-test it. I will give it a try (due to heavy "regular work load" to present it in a few days for you to review and criticize.

Finally, does anybody has any idea regarding the water issue in an urban environment

Thanks again

I'd bump up the chance of waterborne disease a lot on the tables listed in the book due to the prevalence of chemicals and human waste (more so if its a populated city). Cholera especially.

Don't specify a set period between each encounter, just run them whenever the situation feels right. Can still randomly roll each one up, but as long as they're not standing on each others toes and interferring with each other, it's all good (unless you WANT a three way encounter).

+1 to that. A few other thoughts:

- If you figure out who is in the city and where they are, you can have encounters every time the PCs move into their area (don't even need to roll).

- Cities compress people into a smaller space than normal (including in T2K). If two groups are living 200m apart from each other, an encounter with one (e.g., a firefight) can be detected by the other. Then you need to think about what their reaction will be to that.