New Game Idea: Kill Team

[otspiii]

1)  I like the idea of a generic system, but if you do that it might be good to include a quick 'sample' setting to illustrate what you're imagining.

2)  This sounds potentially a lot of fun, hopefully very streamlined.

4)  I guess I have a few questions relating to this:

Are you thinking of using miniatures at all?  If the game is all about tactics, encouraging combat on a grid can be really helpful.  If you want to keep things flowing fast and smooth you may want to spend as much time looking at board games as you do RPGs.

Just how fatal is the game going to be, and do you have any mechanic for getting dead players back in the action with new characters?  Really quick character creation is really important for keeping dead people from having nothing to do for the rest of the game, and makes the pain of losing a character quite a bit less painful.  That said, if when you die on a mission you're just out until the mission ends you can probably afford a bit more complexity to the character creation process.  I figure having a way for dead characters to get back in on the action will be pretty important for keeping the game moving well, though.

How important is having a customized character to you from the start?  I like the idea of starting generic and becoming unique as you progress, but I bet there are ways to have a bit of both.  Maybe you can make a set of level one 'templates' that determine your basic stats, and then just give a small number of points to buy abilities/qualities to determine your style within the template?  As you gain experience you can buy more of these abilities/qualities and make your character your own, but at the start you get two or three of them, just enough to give your character some flavor.

How much non-combat are you going to support with the system?  If you can find a way to make your combat-stats also into your non-combat skill stats that could go a long way to simplifying character creation, where when you try to lift something heavy you just roll Strength+Level or something.  Exceptional skill at something non-combat and things like talking to people and so on can probably be handled by abilities/qualities, with roleplaying being the primary determiner of social things.

I think this could be really fun, but keeping it streamlined and fast-paced is maybe harder than you'd expect.  Good luck!

[Warrior Monk]

I think I will scrap the fluff, at least for now. The fluff is just way too big to fully develop.

After giving the ideas here serious thought I think my game is actually more about tactics than actual combat. Different scenarios will require different tactics. In one scenario speed might be the best choice, in another stealth, in another strong application of serious firepower, etc. Combat itself will have a lot of tactical choices that will give instant benefits either to the character or to his teammates (or both), or will take away enemy advantages. Generally the game is almost always going to have combat. The characters may be able to sneak all the way in, but as soon as they have the target the s*** hits the fan. Every scenario will start in media res, basically right after deployment or insertion. The reason for this is that the characters have to plan on the fly, rather than take half the game session to plan out the whole thing (that's Shadowrun). They have to think quickly and react to the immediate situation. Some missions may allow for more planning than others. There's potential for storyline and/or campaigns if a GM wanted to link together several missions. Every mission will have the following:

1) Insertion: how the characters got there and/or where the characters are in relation to the opfor (opposing forces) and the objective
2) Objective: what the characters are trying to accomplish
3) Opposition: strength, numbers, and location of opposing forces (characters won't be able to see everyone)
4) Extraction: getting to this point ends the mission

Here are some insertions:
1) Air-drop behind enemy lines; enemy is not too far away and is unaware
2) HALO (high altitude, low open) jump into installation; enemy is very close and aware (combat may start in the air)
3) Beach landing from submarine; enemy is far away and completely clueless
4) Helicopter insertion, enemy is far away and unaware
5) Hot-drop helicopter insertion, enemy is close and aware

These aren't the only options, or the only combinations. You could have the characters HALO jump with the enemy far away and aware, far away and unaware, close and unaware, etc. The opfor matters too. Maybe the characters insert close to some sentries or a patrol, but far away from the main force, or maybe they insert right into a hornet's nest.

The opfor should always be either stronger and better equipped than the kill team, or should out outnumber the kill team.

Here are some mission objectives:
Sabotage - the object is to destroy a target building, vehicle, installation, etc.
Assassination - the object is to kill a specific individual
Hit & Run - what the object is (place a homing device in the middle of an opfor base, access battle plans, poison water supply, etc) the characters must get in and get out as quick as possible
Recon - the object is to observe and record as much information about the opfor as possible
Ambush - the characters lie in wait to attack an opfor convoy or armored column
Surprise Attack - the object is to cause as much damage to a particular section of the opfor defenses and leave before reinforcements arrive

I got inspired by your post and made this mission generator, check out:

Logistics

Insertion
1) Far from enemy, enemy unaware
2) Close to enemy, enemy unaware
3) Far from enemy, enemy aware
4) Close to enemy, enemy aware
5) Enemy in movement to your position
6) Enemy in movement away from your position

Equipment
1) Insufficient equipment and ammo, get your own on the road
2) Minimal standard equipment, count your rounds and make them count
3) Standard full equipment
4) Specific additional equipment relevant for the mission
5) Heavy Equipment and additional gadgets
6) Last generation equipment and reinforcements available

Extraction
1) Team will have to get out of the zone by their own
2) Extraction in safe zone far from target in 1d6 hours
3) Extraction in unsafe zone far from target in 1d6 hours
4) Extraction in safe zone close to target as soon as is called in
5) Extraction on the target as soon as is called in
6) Reinforcements will arrive in 1d6 x 10 min. Hold the perimeter.

Intelligence

Objective
1) Sabotage to instalation or enemy vehicle
2) Assassination of an specific individual
3) Hit and Run
4) Recon
5) Ambush
6) Infiltration to obtain specific information.


Opposition numbers
1) Isolated unit
2) One squad
3) One platoon
4) One company
5) One Brigade
6) One division


Opposition strength
1) Insufficient equipment and ammo
2) Light opposition, maybe grenades and a machine-gun nest
3) anti-tank equipment and support vehicles
4) tanks and artillery support
5) aereal support, tanks, artillery and reinforcements coming
6) all of the above and the last advances in warfare


You just have to roll 1d6 for each aspect of the mission, some stuff you tell the players, some not. You can even tell them everything and then roll another d6 in secret to see what goes wrong, like this: (translating rolls into narration) Your team gets to me airdropped three clicks from unaware target with full equipment and optic camo to make a hit and run on an enemy factory. Intel says opposition is gonna be light from 3:00 to 6:00 for some blah blah reason. The team has to get out on their own, traveling 7 hours by night to the northwest and then forrowing a river to the nearest campbase. Then you roll for what goes wrong. If you roll one, that's insertion; so you roll another d6 to see how bad is it. A 5 may mean squad is shot down on route, so they have to get to the target on their own and beg they make it before 5:00.

You can roll the 'what goes wrong?' dice more than once and even do it along the session or for each part. Just cuz, you know, everything can go wrong
I didn't specify much on the tables on purpose, since I think this can either work for a WWII setting, modern combat or even space opera warfare. Hope this helps or give you some ideas to play with.

[Creatures of Destiny]

Yes, but why an RPG?

I've been thinking about that a lot. I like RPGs. I like character progression, advancement, and development. But I also like Shadowrun. Shadowrun is the closest thing to the game I'm designing (at least that I'm familiar with). In Shadowrun I can create a character concept and almost perfectly create him. My concept does what he's supposed to be able to do in the first session. Yeah, sure, there's character development. But really I never need to do much (or anything) to my character once I've designed him. So I guess that's why RPGs: in-depth character creation with lots of options that allow players to create a concept exactly how it's supposed to be. There really doesn't need to be any advancement, although I'm currently working on ideas for advancement.

But then I'm thinking about character turnover. Part of my inspiration for Kill Team is Paranoia, which has high turnover (so much, in fact, that you automatically get 6 lives). What point is there to spend all this time and energy creating the perfect character when he dies halfway through the first mission? Dang, that sucks. I also want character creation to be quick and easy so you can start playing right away. That kind of counters the idea of an in-depth character creation with lots of options. 

I guess I'm kinda stuck. Any suggestions?

How about "Training Missions" which are actually a part of character generation? Since the kill team are pretty elite, they could even die in basic training, or simply flunk, quit or be deemed unsuitable - it's as much an initiation/test as training.

Anyway I really like you "Player Points" idea so (probably because I used a similar concept in one of my games)  so lets say in Training Missions you can use  them to add abilities.

At the start of a training mission all players start with a pretty generic list - basically this is the first impression the character makes (brains, brawn, grace). So literally the player just says, I'll start with a big strong guy. All of the characters have been presumably chosen for some reason (perhaps Dirty Dozen style).

Okay so my Big Strong Guy is pretty limited, but during the training mission, AT ANY TIME during the training mission I can spend a Player Point to reveal something about my character: "An Exo-Harvester! Can anyone here operate one of these things?" I spend a  Player Point, "Sure, My dad had me running these things since I was a kid." So now my character has both a handy mission ability/skill (expert exo-rig operation) and a bit of background. By the end of the mission I should have both a loose concept and a bunch of skills.

The training mission might also have opportunites to win Player Points, which unlike in real missions can be used to reveal an ability instantly. Also players could "foreshadow" abilities they don't have enough points to buy, so for example a character could use a point to "Notch" psychic abilites ("I always got these strange headaches then found myself somewhere else"). Later in actual missions the player might have enough points to actually give the character useful Psychic abilites "on the fly" - but only if they're "Notched" in training or between  missions. What I mean is, a character with Notched "teleportation" can actually teleport in the VERY SAME ROUND they gain a player point to pay for the ability, while a character without cannot gain a new ability until after the mission (during downtime).

Players could either choose reveals or roll them randomly (perhaps random rolls enable the possibility of better abilites at a lower cost but are of course random.

So the "Training Mission" basically involes the characters getting to know each others' abilities and the PLAYER making those abilites up. You should be able to create a Shadowrun level of detail with a longer training mission, or simpler characters with shorter training missions.

[Aapov]

I promise I'm reading all these posts, I just haven't had a lot of time to reply. So, real quick:

Love the Mission Generator idea. I was thinking of doing something like that, but I haven't had a chance to spend much mental energy on it yet. What you have looks good, I think I might modify it a bit, but it's definitely awesome.

The "Training Mission" idea is brilliant, I don't why why I didn't think of it since both Oblivion and Fallout 3 use a similar concept, but i guess that's why I posted here in the first place. Anyway, mad props, that is definitely an idea I will use.

Again, thank you guys for taking time to make comments and suggestions, I truly appreciate it. As soon as I have more time I'll incorporate these ideas and start posting a more thorough concept. Anyway, thanks again and keep the ideas coming. I'm always anxious to hear your ideas.