Viktor wrote:How would you let the player (who might not be a 'check the pool every mission' fiend like me..) know that the Sneak Squad is needed for the mission??
I can't see why a player that was going through a campaign - especially the first time -
wouldn't check the Recruit Pool after every mission. You may have some decent troops at your disposal, but how are you to know that you aren't missing out? I guess I'm getting older and more grumpy, because I'm getting into that "give the player enough rope to hang himself with" school of thought. You drive a Jag, Viktor, but does that mean that you don't check out the new models?
Viktor wrote:- Have the briefing officier hint that stealth NPC are needed/available IF the player has not already selected/developed sneaky NPCs?
Aside from the fact that determing if the player has developed such a squad is a scripting nightmare I think simply having the mission briefing tell the player that they're going to have to do X then Y should suffice. For instance, you could have a techno-archive that is besieged by some unsavory types and the players have to punch their way in, then steal something from the grateful occupants. I'm sure you've seen enough 007 flicks to come up w/some verbiage that would describe what needs to happen. (Speech is a pain in the arse to put together, but you can have
so much fun with it...]
Viktor wrote:- From a comment by bunker personnel?
I have a guy that does things like this. If the player wants to simply go on what the mission briefing says he can, but there's always more info available through another source.
Viktor wrote:If you get any of the Sneak Squad killed, there should be a major drop in rank as they are specialised troops and hard to replace.
You actually can't affect the gain/loss of Rank w/triggers. All you can do is affect Reputation, which can indirectly affect Rank, although this seems to be a case where you can only affect it negatively.
Stealthy troops hard-to-find? *hehe* Not in my campaign, Viktor! I'm a big fan of stealth and I give you the troops to do it with. There are only a couple of "thief" types. (What I call "B+E Specialists" [Breaking and Entering], though.]
Viktor wrote:Achieving extra objectives should result in beacoup brownie points and improved weapons/troops...
I agree. One thing the core campaign didn't really do enough of was let your actions affect the course of the campaign. Take the EMP prototype for instance, you
had to get it. You couldn't complete the mission w/o getting it. I think it would have been far better had they included campaign variables that affected what armor you could get.
My solution is to include things like a "bonus" or "secret" mission that you aren't assigned unless you find something in one of the missions. It's hard to get to, requires non-combat skills, but if you do manage it you are treated to one of the hardest levels (relative to the level of the PCs) in the campaign,
and you are offered to opportunity to recover data and equipment, the former changes what items are available through the QM.
Another thing I'm doing is not making it automatic that certain recruits are added to the pool. For instance, in the Quincy mission, if you saved the Ghouls, you were a hero and the Ghouls joined the BoS. If you didn't save them, you were scolded, and the Ghouls joined the BoS. I've set up situations where if you save people, they're happy and join you. On the other hand, if you fuck up, they don't join and in some cases you'll start encountering hostile random encounters because of it.
While FoT isn't a RPG, I still think that a player should influence the course of the game to the maximum extent that is realistically feasable.
Cheers,
OTB
