So im gonna have to GM a game of shadowrun and the players wanted to play in a military setting.Question is how can i have them deal with artillery missiles and airpower without it ripping them to shreds?
trenches and shelters
>>64210799>shadowrun10 bucks says at least one in your player group is some kind of lgbt
Long story short, if air power rocks up they probably die. If artillery gets a bead on them, they get to hide in a hole and pray that they don't die (they probably will die). If the opposition brings reinforcements up to stop them, they probably get shot at by something with a fuckoff huge gun and die. There are only a few ways around this. The first is to make the campaign about something other than frontline fighting. You could run a game about some chucklefucks in the rear fighting partisans and getting into shenanigans that probably involve hookwinking superiors and more than a little crime. You could even let them get involved on the frontlines...but they won't be heroes, their only objective would be to survive. Kinda like a shadowrun themed Sven Hassel novel.The second is to have the PCs hide amongst all the NPCs in a large taskforce or something like that, but this isn't going to let the PCs shine if they are driving around with 20 other tanks, truckloads of infantry, fire support etc. Don't recommend.The third is to have them be sneeky breeki specops types. Like IRL specops types that aren't being used for sandbox nation building or being fed into the grinder for monke, if they want to get shit done and live to tell the tale then they will need to infiltrate whatever area their objective is in, get shit done extremely quickly as soon as they are detected, and then get the fuck out of dodge before an enemy quick reaction force or fire support shows up to tear them a new asshole. Which ironically would play similarly to traditional shadow runs, except that the runners get milspec armor and the cops get autocannons.The fourth approach is to just not give the enemy artillery missiles and air support. Have the PCs be mercenaries or something, not soldiers in a high intensity war. This could be a good globe hopping campaign, with the PCs fighting pirates in the Caribbean one month, and shooting ghoul raiders in Africa the next.
>>64210799> stealth> counter-battery - enemy arty gets spotted and hit by your artillery> air-defense net - S-300, Patriot, AWACS, patrolling F-22s and SU-35s> point-defense systems - CIWS> jamming so they don't get glide-bombed> magical reconnaissance / drone teams that find small mortar positions before they hit you> go in at night, under cover, for short immediate strikes and get into the enemy's trench by the time there is fire on itThat's the problem with Cyberpunk - it's already way behind modern tech.>>64210927This guy is pretty wrong, all of the above work to some degree if you have local superiority.
>>64210799>Question is how can i have them deal with artillery missiles and airpower without it ripping them to shreds?I'd use those systems to limit what they can do, not actually get fired upon and somehow survive.This pretty much rules out frontline combat though.E.g. "Do not X or you will surely die"
>>64211138> This pretty much rules out frontline combat though.No it doesn't. You aren't getting GRAD or MSTAs on your fireteam when they are busy eating ATACMs while spotted by MQ-9s.You aren't eating Hellfires from Predators when there is a MIG-31M hanging out feeding it supersonic missiles.You aren't getting hit by FPVs and agros when they are being jammed. You aren't behind hit by mortars and fiber-optic FPVs when they are being hit by mortars, FPVs, and DRGs.If you set the game (or the irl battlefield) right, all of these things can be minimized. Of course they aren't for grunts holding some random line. But I assume OP is playing super secret squirrel SOF that gets endless support.
>>64211113You don't get any of that shit unless you are with hundreds of other people operating as a unit, and yeah a large force will get those things as support so the PCs won't get squashed like bugs, but at that point the PCs are merely cogs in the machine and their personal heroics basically don't matter at that scale i.e. option 2. That doesn't exactly play well unless you make the core focus of the campaign something other than warfighting, because the warfighting will play like shit when it is just the PCs and 30 other guys shooting at buildings that may or may not have people in them, or the PCs running around a trench playing the game of "uh, I shoot the guy around the corner" every round. Because that is what war is when you are a cog in the machine of war - a lot of boredom, the occasional moment of sheer terror, and a considerable chance of dying because of factors completely out of your control. Even spec ops types don't get that kind of support unless it is counter-insurgency bullshit and not a real war. Every SF action I have ever heard or read about in a high intensity war, from WW2 to USA vs Sadam's Iraq to Vietnam to the Russia-Ukraine war, involves infiltration, lighting raids, and fleeing through the countryside to avoid getting fucking annihilated by the people who you just pissed off by blowing up something valuable. You can't rely on tons of support in a real war as SF, because if that kind of support can be spared for a few boots then why the fuck are the SFs needed in the first place? Which pushes SF type play towards being infiltration centric, unless you make the game about counter-insurgency where that kind of support can be spared for every shmuck who goes around kicking doors i.e. not a war so much as glorified police bullshit amongst a hostile population. Which is a valid campaign in its own way, but it isn't going to have a traditional military vibe to it.
>>64211340>are merely cogs in the machineCogs work with other cogs. > Even spec ops types don't get that kind of support unless it is counter-insurgency bullshit and not a real war.Wrong. 3 spec ops guys got the entire fucking airforce and army aviation to support them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham). Delta literally gets a ranger battalion to cover their objective when they go in with two squads.> why the fuck are the SFs needed in the first placeTo take out key objectives or do recon.Regardless, if whatever you just wrote was supposed to come together into some cohesive narrative, it definitely didn't and I have no idea what you just said.
>>64210799Hacker and Riggers. You can figure out the rest yourself, I'm sure.
>>64210799>Question is how can i have them deal with artillery missiles and airpower without it ripping them to shreds?Have a rule that if they dont hide in a hole or spread out they die very hard. Also see >>64201213 for some extra info.
Give them higher Tech stuff like The magnetic or gravitic force fields.Have the cyber/adept carry heavier weapons/expensive rocket launchers
>>64211379>battle of khashamSo...sandbox bullshit? A fight where both supporting great powers got together behind the scenes and effectively disowned the attacker, letting them be stomped into the dust by the full fucking might of the US airforce?This sounds like proxy bullshit, not a real war. I don't think that the PCs want to play a game where they stand around in a training camp for a month training durkas, then get scared shitless as dozens of tanks roll towards them which they literally do not have the ordinance to fight off (the US troops at Khasham ran out of AT ammo IIRC), and then get effortlessly saved by NPCs who get to have all the real fun playing the gunship mission in MW1 IRL. This is the sort of fight that can only happen when nobody who has actual toys wants to get into a real fight, and the people willing to stand up to the big players don't have the gear to win i.e. it isn't a real war.>cogs work with other cogsYep, and a glorified office worker with guns job where some of your fellow drones get randomly blown up for reasons largely beyond your control makes for a shitty campaign focus.>sf for key objectives or reconSF Recon is the exact sort of situation where SFs should not be getting into standup fights. If you find the enemy, then you quietly observe, and if the enemy finds you then you run the fuck away before they squish you like a bug. Especially in a near future context where rapid fire support from nearby assets is easy and recon with boots is only needed for things deep behind the line of contact."Key objectives" sounds like something that should have a missile or some artillery fired at it, both of which can exceed the destructive potential of a handful of guys, no matter how well trained they are. If those aren't available for whatever reason, then a handful of SFs aren't going to have that support available to them either, are they?
>>642115191. I will buy your sandbox argument vs my example2. The point is that you can hand-waive why your PCs aren't getting battered non-stop until they die as supporting elements doing their job3. Right, I won't argue here either. The only SOF DA stuff 75th and GRU are doing are supply / firebase / drone unit ambushes in 2 minutes or less if they have ridiculously overhwhelming odds. Otherwise they just call it in.That's OP's problem though - they set up a scenario where DA is needed and it's needed now. Nuclear facility stabilization, take out this arty piece now because muh S400/Patriot is about to get cooked, etc, etc.
>>64211163Well, you don't have all that as a small squad. Tough luck.
>>64211604You don't have the facilities producing your ammo as a small squad either. That's the whole point, the DM can set it up so it's clear that it's being handled on the outside.Maybe have one FPV drone slip through and explain that "The EM and drone-site hunters aren't doing their job".Maybe have the team drive through a netted road and explain that "someone did their job" setting up secure transport to the FOB, etc.I think the question is how the DM / OP can do a small-squad DA campaign without them immediately getting barraged the moment they come out of cover. That's feasible and has happened in Ukraine. And yes, Ukraine is mostly a peer conflict, though asymmetric.
You couls have them kill the forward observers/drone and have some futuristic manpads to deal with CAS that can see them
>>64210799wouldnt gurps be better for this
>>64214330Shadowrun already has a lot of justifications for that type of game built into the setting. With Gurps you kind of have to do all the worldbuilding yourself.
>>64214360you could just set it in a historical war, pretty sure there's like iraq war sourcebooks, definitely vietnam and ww2 ones
>>64214409>>64214360Also you could just run it in the shadowrun setting but use gurps rules which is apparently a common thing since apparently shadowrun rules suck?
>>64210799Shadowrunners are suited to undercover operations behind the lines, not marching across no-man's land being hit by arty
>>64210799The most important thing to understand about running TTRPG game about 'war' is to understand that a squad of 4 can never win anything. Second most important thing to understand is that at certain point of being on the battlefield, the death rate becomes 99,9% as Perils Of War stack on top of them. NPCs can undertake massed charges on command of a GM not too concerned with their survival, while PCs always contend with both Objective A: Survive and Objective B: Win the game.If you're still concerned with airpower and artillery, and despite common sense still wish to proceed, it goes like this.- If the enemy has airpower and artillery, why don't your players? Either deny the enemy this ability, or make their own side powerful enough to distract them from the party.- Why're they fighting in some trench nowhere nonsense instead of megacities? That's where all the political, business and manufacturing class reside. It's the point of the game - 4-man spy unit can alter the political/business/manufacturing landscape by undertaking a run. It's usually very hard to drop artillery on your own office building, and the terrain provides plenty of cover such as deep building rooms or underground tunnels.- If artillery/air is so effective with no counters, why not run the game about those characters, instead of running the game about mooks they shoot at?- If artillery/air has counters in your setting, why can't PCs use them?
>>64214411It depends on what edition you're using. 5th and I have heard 6th have the same problem 3.X d&d had, which is the Caster has a spell or can summon a thing that let's him do your job better than you can. But find me a single group that plays Rules As Written, I'll wait.
>>64214360>With Gurps you kind of have to do all the worldbuilding yourself.As you honestly should in any role-playing game. Getting ideas from the rule books makes sense, but the whole point of role-playing is to be creative. It also gets boring when the players know the exact stats of all the bad guys in the "monster manual", all the weapons in the tech book, etc. Use the game setting for ideas but I don't think there's good reason to stick to it like gospel. Get ideas from games, movies, books, etc, too. But put it together yourself.
>>64214945Player familiarity is a weakness and a strength. It means the players will already have an idea of how their characters will act and react to the game world. As for them knowing the stats of everything, a non power gaming fucktard will be able to keep what he knows seperate from what his character knows. For anyone that can't do that, that falls to the GM to police.
>>64214973IMHO players should be familiar with the rules of the game, and they should also be somewhat familiar with the stats of common gear and common opponents. Like you said, that provides a basic idea of how their characters will interact with the game world. However, a lot of things should be a surprise. Players should encounter monsters, mechs, and tech which aren't in the manuals.> a non power gaming fucktard will be able to keep what he knows seperate from what his character knows.Absolutely. But it's a lot more fun for the players when they're honestly in the dark about just how powerful this new opponent is, rather than knowing in the back of their mind that their Level X whatever has no problem dealing with the thing from page 112 of the rule book.
>>64214433>- If artillery/air is so effective with no counters, why not run the game about those characters, instead of running the game about mooks they shoot at?That's easy, games about artillerymen would be boring as fuck and games about aircraft pilots require a completely new system.
>>64215077Shadowrun natively supports vehicle operator class. Put them all into one vehicle and have other characters be gunners or crew of AC130 or a DAP UH-60 stand in.It'll be same shit but at least they'll be able to contend with other vehicles, and you can have your epic infantry game when they inevitably crash the thing and have to walk home.
One way that I've run war-type games in the past in other systems has been to do this:Each player plays multiple characters. They have one main character with a few grunts under their command. I usually would pre-generate stat sheets for the grunts in advance, giving them randomly generated funny names, stats & gear as appropriate. They'd all have some random skill or trait, sometimes useful sometimes just for flavor.The unwritten rule is that arty and whatnot is not going to hit the main character unless they do something retarded, however that does not extend to the grunts. Those underlings are fully subject to being taken out by arty and bombs. However, as they would get XP & better gear over time, it behooves the players to try and keep them alive rather than treating them like expendables.
>>64210799>you don'texplicitly the stats in most shadowrun book for the heavy military equipment that they'd run into on the frontline means you'll have to chrome and juice them so hard that the game will kind of go to shit anyways. if your players are frontline soldiers you're going to meatgrinder them, which if they like making character sheets or if you want to use it for some darwinian character creation is fine.>slightly better optiondo black ops shit. your players probably want to play something closer to CoD rather than dronetrenchsimulator, go to ebay or other bays for some of the older modern/blackops CoD games and play through the singleplayer campaigns, rip the ideas from there. usually the way it's handled is that things are at a smaller scale, behind enemy lines in some way, or in third party countries where your group is operating illegally. this'll even let you slot in a lot more traditional shadowrun mission styles while retaining the military setting. this way there's justification for why there's not some tank or jet or artillery ready to slap the shit out of your players when they make progress, and makes the moments where there is heavier fire support available for either side a lot more intense.
