Out of Character Discussion

[natehale1971]

This thread is for use in Out-Of-Character discussions...

The 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) is nicknamed the Red Diamond, the Red Devils, or die Roten Teufel.

[Slappy]

Nate,
Seemed like checking in here was a better idea than the main forum. Great job setting all of this up. I am quite impressed with the level of prep for the campaign.
You'd asked what sort of character I'd be interested in playing. I'm quite flexible depending on where the narrative and the other players come down, but it looks like you're leaning toward us filling out the Officer / NCO ranks for the company. That's fine with me, just means a lot of NPCs flying around. Here is the outline of a character I developed for another project that never got off the ground. More behind ths, just the highlights here. I can easily cook up stats for v.1-v2.2 but would need to get up to speed if you're planning on d20 or 2013. Let me know what you think.

1st LT, S-2 Heather Cox
Background - Upper middle class private school background in the mid-atlantic. Attended university (soccer scholarship) and graduate school as a slavic lit major. Background / educational skills include soccer, equestrian, eastern european languages, history and literature as well as research, writing and persuasion. Enlisted after graduation in 1996 to take advantage of a loan repayment program as she found jobs in her field few and her student loans cripling. She was hoping for a desk job in DC but found that thinks changed rapidly as the US entered the war in the fall. After basic infantry school, intelligence training and OCS, she shipped to Europe in the summer of 97. After a brief stint in SACEUR staff, she was transferred to the 5th ID in the fall, at that time on rest and refit in southern Germany after the Summer campaign.
Military History - Initial work was more traditional Division staff - studying and translating signal intercepts, putting pins in maps, etc. As the war dragged on and EMP made the electronic side of intel less possible, assignments moved Lt Cox closer to the front. After 98 she has been working a combination of local outreach (hearts and minds), prisoner interrogation and front line recon. She was in demand around the batallion catonment as a translator and problem solver. As such she has also picked up limited farming and construction knowledge. Still by no means a combat specialist, she has seen and acquited herself fairly well in several firefights and ambushes her work took her to. She is handy with a rifle and pistol and decent in hand to hand, but she has only basic heavy weapons skills. She was attached to D Company on their recent mission to provide real time estimates to Division on whether their path was a viable breakout route.
Outlook - While she is becoming a better soldier, she is still ambivalent about what that means. Poland and being this deep in the shit seems like a long way to go to pay off student loans. She has been increasingly crossing lines she would never have thought of in interrogations and it is making her more and more uncomfortable. She is increasingly disillusioned about the idea of the war or that there is still one to be fought. Life in the catonment seemed better than this. Now the farms they worked to build are shot, and the workers likely were as well as the russians moved in. She is interested in survival first, making some sort of positive contribution to the world second and in striking a blow against the global communist threat as a distant third. She hasn't been speaking up a lot about this yet, but may attempt to discourage more heroic interpretations of the group's mission.

[natehale1971]

She really looks good to me... What does she look like? Do you have a general idea what she looks like, or her own personal goals.

Also the battalion Cantonment is in East Geramny, and the majority of the battalion's support staff, walking wounded and the civilians who live in the shanty town on the outskirts of the cantonment are still there tending the crops, maintaining the battalion's distilleries to store up reserves of their methanol fuel that can be sent to the front for their vehicles...

Do you have an idea for what system you woudl like to use? i'm actually thinking of going with a free-form system, where the 'system' used to create the characters would be primarily to allow people to know just what their characters can and can't do, and just how good they are at it!


Personal Information:
Real Name: <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>
Rank/Title: d
Other Aliases: d
Occupation: d
Affiliations: d
Legal Status: Citizen of <country name> with <A / No> Criminal Record (currently wanted for questioning by local/state/federal/international legal authorities, currently a minor, past criminal record was pardoned).
Place of Birth: city, state, country
Martial Status: single, engaged, married, separated, divorced, widowed, widower
Known Relatives: <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (husband, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (wife, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (fiancée, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (son, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (daughter, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (father, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (mother, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (sister, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (brother, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (maternal grandfather, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (maternal grandmother, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (paternal grandfather, age); <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname>, profession (paternal grandmother, age).
Extent of Education: d
Religion: d (non-practicing/semi-practicing/practicing)


Background Information/Origin:

d


Service Record & Advanced Education:

0000-0000: d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000).
0000-0000: d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000).
0000-0000: d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000).
0000-0000: d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000).
0000-0000: d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000).
0000-0000: d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000). d (0000).


Medals, Ribbons, Decorations, Awards & Qualification Badges:

Left Breast: d
Right Breast: d
Qualification Badges: d

Physical Information:
Ethnic Group: d
Gender: d
Sexual Orientation: heterosexual/bisexual/homosexual
Age: 00 (day-month-year)
Height: 0' 00" (00x-00-00)
Weight: 000lbs.
Hair Colour: d
Eye Colour: d
Physical Appearance: <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname> is an <unattractive/average/attractive> looking <00>yr old <ethnic group> <gender> in excellent physical condition for a <sex> age, height and build who engages in <level> regular exercise on a <frequency> basis.
Distinguishing Physical Characteristics: <A brief description of any distinguishing physical characteristics such as unique hairstyle, eyeglasses, body piercings, tattoos, birthmarks, or grooming habits>
Normal Attire: <first name> <middle name> '<nickname>' <surname> normally wears <>
Quote(s): "."
"."

[Slappy]

On the character:
She's about 5'6", light brown shoulder length hair, pretty much permanently in a pony tail and green eyes. A bit stocky from most people's perspective, but not uncommon for a female soldier and former athlete. Wearing a pretty standard US woodland camo uniform, M-4 carbine as primary weapon. I'll work on a more detailed writeup along your lines when I have a little more time.

On the system:

As I said, I know the historical T2k rulesets fairly well (1.0 and 2.0 at least). I think from a marketing perspecitve they might be more attractive to perspective players as they tend to be well known in general.

1.0 does fine for character generation with some tweaking (300 background points is too much for military personnel and not nearly enough for drafted civilians). The combat system is reasonable although some hate the 3 rounds per 'shot' rule and the lack of automatic fire.

2.0, in my opinion yields characters who are far too unskilled unless old. Careers give few skills per term and one secondary skill point every four years is pretty skimpy. It leaves characters with only a 20% chance of success at routine tasks a lot of the time. You could always handle that with additional points.
The other big issue with 2.0 is damage. It is laughably small compared to character hit capacities, making them nearly impossible to injure. I also think that a d10 system just doesn't have enough granularity to really capture the real world.

My suggestion would be to just pick one and go with it. You can handle character realism through adjustments of points either way and make up with mechanical shortcomings that appear through house rules. If necessary one can just convert over later if required (i.e. for 1.0 to 2.0 divide all attributes by 2 and all skills by 10).

[Slappy]

Oh, and I was assuming the catonment was up north of Kalisz based on the jumping off points listed in the campaign handout. Don't have my map, but those initial towns are something like 100km north of Kalisz and pretty far east of the old DDR. I always assumed winter '99 quarters there rather than in Germany.

[natehale1971]

I didn't realize that was where their cantonments where located, especially since the 2nd Marine Division was needed for naval amphibious landings along the polish coastline. But it does give me an idea... I have been trying to figure out where all of the XI US Corps cantonments where located, along with the German Thrid Army and the British Army that was suppose to be providing support had spent their winter in cantonment... that way i can figure out where the US 5th ID(M) cantonments would be located...