In talking about adapting UGS for military games – which includes both Starship Commandos and A Team of Losers – I mentioned the need for resource management. Another part of resource management that is very important but which I did not mention is ammunition.

In my games so far, there has never been any question of equipment or ammunition – it is always assumed the character has what the character needs or what the player wants the character to have. That doesn’t work for military games. Planning and preparation are important aspects, and part of that is having the proper equipment, so it’s important that players need to make choices, and those choices can lead to negative consequences.

Ammunition is key in this. You do not want to be a soldier who has run out of ammo. Now, in most teams, a teammate will give you a magazine, but that’s a drain on a teammate’s resources, and that might put that teammate at risk. This is one reason trained military don’t spray and pray. Automatic fire suppresses the enemy by making them seek cover, but you pick your shots and make them count.

As Hicks says, short, controlled bursts.

Adapting UGS to a military game is more than just a matter of  resource management. The threat of injury is a constant for a soldier in a hostile environment. A military game requires a way for players to be hurt and possibly killed. Now, I am not a fan of killing off characters. Characters are a player’s main tool for agency in the game, and removing that character – even if it means the player can drop in a new character – gives the message that the player’s agency is subordinate to the GM’s, and that is not how I want my games to work.

Further, players are invested in games through their characters. If the players cycle through characters, their investment in the game is weakened. Unless you are playing a light-hearted, beer and pretzels game, you want your players invested, because that makes them take in-game threats seriously, creating tension and excitement.

Given all this, the threat of character death still needs to be there. I cheat in SC and AToL, as right now, PCs can one-shot kill NPCs, but NPCs cannot do the same to PCs. That’s a cheat, and if I can figure out a clean and simple way to expand the rule to PCs, I will. Right now, I think the threat of real damage and possible death will be enough.

These are some of the additions I’ve made to UGS to create a military version, both futuristic and modern.

You can find the earlier article here.

You can find UGS here.

I’ve discussed the design philosophy behind UGS, but Starship Commandos and A Team of Losers derive from UGS rather than being UGS straight up. There are different needs for both of these games, though their needs are similar enough that I have developed them almost in tandem.

Both Starship Commandos and A Team of Losers are military games – in SC you are playing marines of the 121 MARSOC (Marines Special Operations Capable) in the year 2164 while in AToL, you are playing operators of an unnamed special operations force deployed to Central Asia – and military games have their own specific needs that UGS rules as written does not cover.

Military games by their very nature pretty much require resource management to be an important facet. Let me be clear, I am talking about military games rather than action games with a military setting. I’m talking Black Hawk Down vs. . . . wait, I can’t think of a good counter-example. Huh.

Anyway, if you talk to most soldiers who have been outside the wire, on patrol or in combat missions, weight and kit are the two mission parameters that seem to dominate their thoughts. In Black Hawk Down there is a great scene as the Rangers are preparing for their mission where Grimes, a desk monkey heading out into the Mog for the first time, is dissuaded from taking the equipment he actually needs – the rear trauma plate for his body armour and his night vision device – because they’re too heavy. Later, we see a Ranger shot in the back, where his trauma plate might have saved his life. Then the Rangers and Delta Force are forced to overnight in strong points, when NVDs would have been really helpful.

Therefore I need to include equipment and common load-outs for SC and AToL. Along with simple lists, this stuff needs to be explained. What is a Lensatic Compass? What is the difference between a first aid kit and a medical trauma kit? What do I care if I have the gun that weighs 12 kg rather than the one that weighs 2.5?

And once you have equipment, you need to provide limits – a key part of resource management. I’m doing this through weight. The weight and encumbrance rules are pretty simple, but they add a level of complexity I generally like to avoid. Still, to me, resource management is one of the keys for a military game.

There is yet more, but this post is already going long. Stick around if you want to meet a Starship Commandos character.

You can find the discussion of designing UGS here.

You can find the UGS rules here.