Advice on how to inject a new player character into current campaign.

[hive_angel]

I am looking for some advice.

Current campaign has 1 PC and three NPCs working as an auxillary support lance working to form a new company as they tend to work alone a lot.

They are a part of FWL military unit so they adhere to common laws and policies and so forth and they working on removing a pirate infestation from a groupd of mining words and have also stumbled upon a corrupt govenment working outside the lines of common law.

New player has a character and an assigned mech a Thug THG-10E. The player lance does have a commad company near the area but they don't possess a Thug in their inventory.

I am trying to figure out how to go about adding the new player so it blends well with the story and into the FWL military unit.

So a few questions I guess.

Would a FWL or house unit for that matter work with say a merc on the side to accomplish greater tasks in said mercs interests were the same.
Would a FWL or house unit give a battle commisiion and join a good mechwarrior pilot if they needed them. If so would the person stay or eventuall by policy be sent back through training nonsense.

Any thoughts are much appreciated.

[StuartYee]

Some ideas:

*Whoops! Actually the command company did have a Thug in their inventory
*Thug was just recently salvaged from anti-piracy operations
*New PC was transferred from off-planet. Either because the PCs pulled strings, or the command company was able to pull strings and felt having an extra double PPC assault mech was worth cashing in a few favors
*FWL bureaucratic mistake in the Players' favor. They have a new lancemate with an assault mech and don't know how or why. They don't much care either.

Hope any of those ideas fit!

[Acolyte]

New Character just got royally screwed by either the pirates or the corrupt bureaucracy, needs a new unit. Brings the Thug with (maybe family owned).

The corrupt government is getting rid of a problem by transferring him out - to the player's unit.

The new character was a spy for the FWL within the pirate unit - and he's just been outed. Needs a rescue, but will join the player's unit via transfer request.

   - Shane

[StuartYee]

..
The new character was a spy for the FWL within the pirate unit - and he's just been outed. Needs a rescue, but will join the player's unit via transfer request.

   - Shane

Best one so far

[Drop Bear]

Troop rotation, some one in the unit got a promotion for which there is no open billet in the unit, the promoted guy gets transferred out the Thug pilot gets rotated in and the whole unit gets reshuffled, wile your at it you can change up the NPC's a bit to bring in new story elements.

[MAD-4A]

In a regular unit, individual personnel transfers would not be uncommon. One mech transferred out and another transferred in. So replacing one of the existing NPCs with the player is not out of the ordinary. I like the Idea of the salvaged unit though I ca't see a Thug as a likely pirate mech (nor a "family" mech unless it was a downgraded leftover from the SL era needing restored), perhaps a salvage from another incident with no pilot and the new PC was selected to take it over and transferred to this "active combat" unit. the replaced NPC could have some background as well leading to them needing transferred out. Another Idea would be for your next secession to me a mech battle with the existing unit (the new player getting to use some pirate NPCs). try to trash one of the NPC mech which then is lost or needs transferred to a rear area for extensive repairs and its decided by higher ups that the unit needs some heavyer support so they replace the lost mech with a reinforcement that recently arrived (the PC & Thug).

[guardiandashi]

well this was a pretty common event in mw1-2 event tables, having new people arrive.
it could be as simple as "higher" wants to build up the unit, or they got confused, and are replacing someone who hasn't rotated out yet (or higher thinks they got killed/injured, when they didn't) or similar.

if the reinforcements continue the unit could be upgraded to a demi company or similar.

[Archangel]

If the player unit is a FWLM unit, why not simply have the new player be a new transfer into the unit or be a warrior who is coming off medical leave.

Alternatively, the new player could be a SAFE agent who was assigned to investigate the government corruption.

[Kodiak06]

How large do you want your game to be?

Thug pilot is transferred in as a lance leader with 3 other NPCs.  New lance added to the unit.
As GM you could assign him a different mech.
The discovered agent idea is very cool.

[MAD-4A]

...or be a warrior who is coming off medical leave.

fair warning - I'm gonna steal this one. O0

[MAD-4A]

Alternatively, the new player could be a SAFE agent who was assigned to investigate the government corruption.

If it's a well rounded character then yes, if it's a "break glass in-case of mech combat" Min/Max character - you know, one that's like 2/2 pilot but can't climb down the ladder by himself cause he has NO skill in anything other than mech combat skills - then he wouldn't be an "agent" so medical leave (broke his collar bone trying to climb down from the mech by himself). When I was running a campaign we had a guy build a character like that. It was decided that he could keep the character if he wanted too but since most of the missions were cloak-&-dagger stuff then he would be left with the reserve/extraction team while the rest of the PCs ran the mission (don't need him finding the only tin can in the compound to kick while trying to sneak past a guard untrained). He chose to scratch the character and make a new one.

[Sir Chaos]

How about he´s either a son/nephew/second-cousin-several-times-removed or a retainer of some wealthy and moderately powerful noble whose business interests have been hurt by the pirates, and who pulled the appropriate string to get the character added to the anti-piracy effort? Or maybe the un-favorite son of such a noble, who absconded with the family mech to end the pirate menacy and finally make his father proud of him?

[MAD-4A]

... Or maybe the un-favorite son of such a noble, who absconded with the family mech to end the pirate menacy and finally make his father proud of him?

or put a wrench in the pirate operation he found out his father was secretly financing! >:D (lil brat!  >:()