Author Topic: A little unsure of how to rank an enemy  (Read 2027 times)

grimlock1

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A little unsure of how to rank an enemy
« on: 22 September 2014, 07:09:47 »
I'm putting together my first character, a CO for a merc battalion, well really its more like a battalion level corporate security force.  The game will be starting just after Tukayid and the Comstar Schism. Part of the fluff is a company called Techno Spheroid Research Inc.  They are a think tank/engineering firm who goes around setting up infrastructure.  Power, communications, mass transit, freight transit, water, agriculture, urban planning, all of it.  They come in and take your "livable" patch of the universe and turn it into something pretty dang nice.  They also have extensive ties to NAIS, its Lyran counterparts, and building ties to the corresponding institutes in the other realms. 

The problem with all this good work is that ROM, and later WoB don't appreciate it when people are going around telling people that communications networks aren't magic.   So as my GM was helping me build this fellow, we gave him WoB as an enemy, but the question was how to rate them.  The thing is, yeah, he and his company are on WoB's list but they are fairly low on said list. 

How would I represent "low priority target for major terrorist organization"?
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mikecj

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Re: A little unsure of how to rank an enemy
« Reply #1 on: 22 September 2014, 07:54:34 »
You could start with "monkey warfare" (see Comstar Sourcebook).  Materials slow downs, minor accidents, bad publicity and escalate as it suits your story line.
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grimlock1

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Re: A little unsure of how to rank an enemy
« Reply #2 on: 22 September 2014, 08:32:24 »
You could start with "monkey warfare" (see Comstar Sourcebook).  Materials slow downs, minor accidents, bad publicity and escalate as it suits your story line.
Oh... that's ever so slightly evil.  I like it.
I'm rarely right... Except when I am.  ---  Idle question.  What is the BV2 of dread?
Apollo's Law- if it needs Clan tech to make it useable, It doesn't deserve those resources in the first place.
Sure it isn't the most practical 'mech ever designed, but it's a hundred ton axe-murderer. If loving that is wrong I don't wanna be right.

Mohammed As`Zaman Bey

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Re: A little unsure of how to rank an enemy
« Reply #3 on: 22 September 2014, 22:14:49 »
  In the campaign I'm running, an inventor character was bankrolled by a ROM front company that bought all patent and production rights and the invention "disappeared" to later reappear in use by Blakist units.
  Other players have had their factories infiltrated, sabotaged, funds embezzled, stock stolen, even their entire staffs taken over by ROM moles while they remained clueless because they were too busy going on combat mission and letting their companies run on autopilot.

grimlock1

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Re: A little unsure of how to rank an enemy
« Reply #4 on: 24 September 2014, 08:07:24 »
I'm not the GM, but I'll keep an eye out for that kind of jackanapery.

The GM already has two enemies lined up, the WoB thing is something I suggested.  I'm also expecting trouble later on with the Clans.  Scientists and technicians from couple Clans have reached out to my character's parent company, setting up technology transfers.  A rather unClanlike behaviour, that....  And who is this Balzac fellow?   If any Clan warrior caste get wind of those dealings... "Hulk Smash!!!" comes to mind.

Related question, when did Johanna get put in charge of that sibko full of Aiden clones?  It was some time during "Twilight of the Clans," right?
I'm rarely right... Except when I am.  ---  Idle question.  What is the BV2 of dread?
Apollo's Law- if it needs Clan tech to make it useable, It doesn't deserve those resources in the first place.
Sure it isn't the most practical 'mech ever designed, but it's a hundred ton axe-murderer. If loving that is wrong I don't wanna be right.

Kobura

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Re: A little unsure of how to rank an enemy
« Reply #5 on: 31 October 2014, 09:09:26 »
I treat Contacts and Enemy as if they're the same trait, just +/-

Rate based on three sliders:

Power of the interested party
Jurisdiction with which they can (not necessarily can EASILY) act
How severe their desire is to help or hurt

So, for someone on a forgotten stickynote on an assassin handler's cubicle at the WoB Castle of Doom, it'd be respectively

9-10, prove me wrong, they're almost as mighty as it gets
7-8, they CAN act in a large area, though some places even the WoB finds itself hardpressed for arm strength
1-2, if all they want to do is piddle in your cheerios

I don't use those numbers as harsh statistics to score an enemy, but it gives me a much more defined idea of what a good number would be after.

Another example is a penniless expat you saved the live of who knows a lot of friends:

1, there isn't much they can do
2-3, local messages are cheap but travel isn't
7-8, they'd die for you

Seems on his face he'd be an easy 1, but the strength of his desire to improve your life might make it a 2 or 3pt contact, even if it deserves the note "only within 1-2 jumps of xyz homeworld"

Just a thought!
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Archangel

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Re: A little unsure of how to rank an enemy
« Reply #6 on: 31 October 2014, 20:59:22 »
Related question, when did Johanna get put in charge of that sibko full of Aiden clones?  It was some time during "Twilight of the Clans," right?

In Falcon Rising after she was crippled during the Battle of Daemon Beach on Waldorff.

Blakists could also frame your merc unit for crimes they committed (by having their forces masquerade as your unit) or they could send raiders to harass your unit either hired mercs/bandits or their own forces masquerading as them or another unit that might attack the planet (pretend to raid the planet with your unit's base 'just by chance' being between their LZ and their target).
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