[TSOY] Troops

[aplath]

Hello all,

I was discussing TSOY with a friend and we came up with an interpretation of the rules that we think is cool but we'd like to have a second opinion on it. So here it goes:

He wants to make a PC who has a small milicia under his command (something around 100 men, his character is a rogue general with some loyal troops to him). The way he intends to implement this is to have an ability like "Troop Commander" and a few others regarding specific expertise (like "Laying sieges" or "Guerrilla Tactics") that would be used to boost the "Troop Commander" rolls.

He intends to use "Troop Commander" to solve conflicts like "Seizing control of the bridge", "Breaking into the castle" or even to non-combat related things like "Helping the farmers to build a barn" or "Putting out the fire at the village's market".

When it comes to Bring Down The Pain, he intends to roll against the commander of the opposing forces and use his troops as a Weapon. Troops as a Weapon would have diferent bonus depending on the situation (like +1 in open battlefield, +2 in urban warfare, something like that).

Also he intends to use things like walled cities as "armor" in such conflicts. So, if he has to defend a city in a siege, the city walls would be his armor. The same with castles or any other interesting defensive position.

Is this a valid way to deal with the system? It seems cool to me and would allow dealing with large scale conflicts as easily as small scale ones. At the same time, it feels like the troops wouldn't be cumbersome to manage, at least system wise. And story-wise they would open lots of interesting opportunities.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Potential problems?

Andreas

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Man, that is totally cool. I really like this.

I do have a question, though. How do you plan to deal with the eventual situation where a character confronts him physically and he says, "I send my men to swarm him."

Way I see it, you have two ways to go here:

a) No contest. The confronter gets smacked around. It's not very... hmm... satisfying to me.
b) The super-heroic option. Use the troops like a weapon, as you mentioned. One man can take them all on, by nature of their definition. I like this, but I know it probably would irk a lot of people.

[aplath]

I do have a question, though. How do you plan to deal with the eventual situation where a character confronts him physically and he says, "I send my men to swarm him."

That might be a problem. But I have a feeling that such situation would be rare.

b) The super-heroic option. Use the troops like a weapon, as you mentioned. One man can take them all on, by nature of their definition. I like this, but I know it probably would irk a lot of people.

This would be my choice. However, I think it doesn't need to be super-heroic since defeating the troops doesn't necessarily mean killing them all.

The way I see, he could win the conflict by talking himself out of it for instance. Or putting himself out of the troops reach.

I guess that's the beauty of TSOY: it's a system where one can use fast-talking against a battle-axe and actually win.

Andreas

[timfire]

What about using the troops as a +2 or +3 weapons where...

Weapons and armor with a +2 rating work in situations with a specific type of people, environment, or other restrictions...

Weapons and armor with a +3 rating work in rare situations or against particular persons.

In other words, the player could only use his troops in... umm, troop like situations, not personal issues? Know what I mean? You would probably just need to decide ahead of time what types of situations the player can use his troops in.

[Keith Senkowski]

Tim that makes total sense.  I can use my troops as appropriate to their role as say militia men garrisoned at town X.  However, should I venture into a realm that excedes my authority, or execedes their willingness to take orders from me, like being ordered to massacre the people of their own village, they are no good.

Keith

[aplath]

In other words, the player could only use his troops in... umm, troop like situations, not personal issues? Know what I mean? You would probably just need to decide ahead of time what types of situations the player can use his troops in.

We did define specific situations for applying higher (+2 or +3) bonus. For instance, they were +3 when fighting against troops of the Evil Usurper to restore the Rightful King back to the throne.

However, using the troops in character situations isn't bad (unless abused, but then everything is bad when abused).

We played last night a scene where the Rogue General (these are actual character names, by the way) had a heated argument in front of his troops with Cool Mercenary with an Attitude (another PC).

The argument entered in "Bring Down the Pain" mode and the Cool Mercenary player rolled an Intimidation ability he has and described how his character put his hand on the sword hilt in order to threaten the General (and actually use his sword's bonus to damage in case the intimidation attack succeeded).

The Rogue General player used the troops as a weapon in that roll and, when he won, he described how "all his soldiers drew their swords when Cool Mercenary took his hand to his own sword. The Mercenary then looked around and left the sword in the scabbard and took an easier tone in the argument."

I think that was a pretty cool way of using the troops as a weapon against a single individual.

Andreas

[aplath]

b) The super-heroic option. Use the troops like a weapon, as you mentioned. One man can take them all on, by nature of their definition. I like this, but I know it probably would irk a lot of people.

This would be my choice. However, I think it doesn't need to be super-heroic since defeating the troops doesn't necessarily mean killing them all.

It occured to me during the game yesterday that the idea of the conflict wouldn't be defeating the troops since in this case they are simply the weapon.

The intent is to defeat the General who is using them as a weapon.

In this case the character swarmed by the troops might, depending on circunstances, be beaten almost to death and still win the conflict by delivering a blow to General's reputation (since only a coward would do something like ordering his troops to swarm on a single individual).

Andreas

[Clay]

Just wanted to drop a note saying that I'm really liking this discussion.  This is a fantastic way to handle the militia leaders.  I may have a similar situation in an upcoming game, and I thoroughly intend to use this weapon for one or more of my players should the opportunity arise.

[James_Nostack]

A nice side effect of treating troops as "weapons" is that in any conflict, you'd use the commander's Battle ability (or whatever else is appropriate) to solve it.  This puts the spotlight on the PC (or Big Bad) where it belongs.

One thing to remember is that the Secret of Shattering takes away weapon bonuses... and the text does not distinguish between weapon-weapons, like a sword, and other kinds of metaphorical weapons.  Just something to keep in mind...

[RPL]

I would like to make a sugestion to that, how about Secret of Shattering working in conflicts between armies for instance a commander using his army (weapon) to imobilize the other commander army (weapon bonus), this could be translated in some sort of flanking or other sort of special military manouver that would stop the other army on its tracks.
In a more heroic fashion, man against army, it could still work like some sort of manouver that would allow the character put himself in such a position that the army couldn't take advantage of its numbers, for example moving around the army and putting the commander between him and his man.

[RPL]

Sorry, i'll post this in a new thread.