Greetings!

In your campaigns, do you use specialized military skills?

In my own Thandor campaign, I just can't get away from having some simulation of specialized military skills. I know there is a great popularity with simple systems, OD&D, and or not using skills at all. I also enjoy simplicity, as it has tremendous advantages in speed, and fast gameplay, character creation, character design an upgrades, and so on. This also of course effects developing and writing up NPC's too. So, yeah, I get it. I'm also aware of the nagging problem that any increase in simulation detail--also opens the gate to additional subsystems, increased specialization mechanics, and then, yeah, before you know it, the cloud of extra complexity begins to move into the campaign. That increase in complexity--to whatever degree--I think is a constant concern or any goo DM. Just the right balance should be pursued, in my opinion.

For example, I have such specialized Military Skills as Small-Unit Tactics, Grand Strategy, Drill Instructor, Quartermaster, Recruiter, as well as specialized Tactical Specialties of Infantry Tactics, Cavalry Tactics, Archer Tactics, and Skirmisher Tactics. Then, there are specialized skills such as Amphibious Warfare, Naval Warfare, Urban Warfare, Forest Warfare, Steppe Warfare, Highland Warfare, Mountain Warfare, Desert Warfare, Hill Warfare, Marsh Warfare, Jungle Warfare, and Subterranean Warfare. Then, I also have Wasteland Warfare--which isn't historically-based, but something I came up with and developed to embrace some of the specialized knowledge-sets that warriors accustomed to living and fighting amidst Chaos Wastes, blasted, mutated wastelands with psychedelic woodlands, weird plants, and crazy environments going on.

All of that--or any of it--is a challenge in satisfaction to just say, "Well, any generic Fighter just knows all of this". Something, from somewhere in me, just screams, SCREAMS! NO! That's Not How It Fucking Works! *Laughing* I'm kidding, but only a little.

What do you think, friends?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Well, friend SHARK, in a sense a mediaeval fighter has a lot fewer skills he needs to operate effectively: no amphibious warfare, logistics, or [terrain type] warfare. They know melee (probably half a dozen to a dozen systems), shooting bows and crossbows (and perhaps some slinging if the background is right), marching, riding, formations and we're done. Only with the advent of the tercio logistics started playing a role bigger than the need for food, water, firewood and fodder for horses (which was traditionally handled by specialised personnel anyway).

So comparing your experience in the USMC to the experience of a soldier in the Hundred Years' War, for example, is a bit excessive. If you are doing Napoleonic and up, however, you could probably make a good case for the need for specialisation: probably starting with splitting "fighters" into infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marine templates and further and further specialties as we reach WWII, Cold War, and beyond.

Quote from: Wtrmute on March 11, 2023, 10:18:56 PM
Well, friend SHARK, in a sense a mediaeval fighter has a lot fewer skills he needs to operate effectively: no amphibious warfare, logistics, or [terrain type] warfare. They know melee (probably half a dozen to a dozen systems), shooting bows and crossbows (and perhaps some slinging if the background is right), marching, riding, formations and we're done. Only with the advent of the tercio logistics started playing a role bigger than the need for food, water, firewood and fodder for horses (which was traditionally handled by specialised personnel anyway).

So comparing your experience in the USMC to the experience of a soldier in the Hundred Years' War, for example, is a bit excessive. If you are doing Napoleonic and up, however, you could probably make a good case for the need for specialisation: probably starting with splitting "fighters" into infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marine templates and further and further specialties as we reach WWII, Cold War, and beyond.

Greetings!

Well, well. Excellent, Wtrmute! You make a very nice argument! Just goes to show, *Different Arguments* can reach different people, differently. I usually get just..."Their just Fighters, man. That's good enough." Which of course, drives me crazy! *Laughing* I have to remember that soldiers in the Hundred Years' War weren't as specialized, and also, before specialized, Tercio Logistics.

It's also, I admit, a challenge to overlook the constant training and systems and terms and all that stuff drilled into me in my years in the USMC. Even after so many years, it is still running through my head like it was yesterday. *Laughing*

However, it does come to my mind that warriors such as the Norse Vikings, they certainly seemed to have *Amphibious Warfare* down pretty good! Then, I also think of the Ushkuyniks of Russia, with the Principality of Novgorod. The Ushkuyniks were masters of amphibious warfare and raiding up and down the various far-flung river systems of Russia, launching lightning-fast strikes everywhere along the waterline and river coasts, striking towns, fortresses, carrying off huge loads of plunder, animals, and slaves.

Good stuff Wtrmute! You've got me chewing on that!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Specialization is more a product of the modern world I think, but there's still plenty of room to work specialization in for the game's sake. I personally think it works fine with specializations split by class - Rangers are your deep reconnaissance and guerilla fighters, berserkers are your shock troops, warriors fill in the rest. You could pretty easily start splitting them out into more useful specialties in something like B/X with minimal effort. I don't see any harm in splitting up archery, pike, heavy/light inftantry, that sort of thing if you find it useful.

I play a lot of Delta Green and specializations are a big feature. The big drawback of these specializations is that it's rare for any specific specialization to be useful in a given situation. If somebody specializes in something like underwater demolitions or mine sweeping, it's just not going to come up very often. Part of this is about the way an RPG like DG structures itself vs. how a modern military would structure itself. In the military, you send specialists out on assignments where they get to use their specialized skills. If you're playing in a sandbox, it's unlikely that players are merely receiving their orders to go sweep for mines over and over again, since it undermines the purpose of granting players agency within the sandbox. If you're in the sandbox and still retain your agency, you're in an operating environment that is often way too dynamic for a specialist to thrive. Railroads can force specializations to come up and be useful, but I don't like that. I generally discourage my players from sinking too much effort into niche specializations in DG for these reasons. You're dealing with creatures beyond your ken - you're just going to have to improvise with whatever hand you're dealt on the operation.

I don't object to specialized skills, especially ones that will get used in the game more than 1 or 2 contrived situations.  However, I do think that such skills work better when they cross application boundaries, instead of being ever more narrow bits in some kind of specialization chain.

For example, I have 12 "Terrain skills" in my system.  Sure, they give a boost when setting up an ambush in that terrain or trying to avoid one. They also give a bonus to foraging, navigation, identifying flora and fauna, or anything else of that nature where the GM adjudicates that it will apply.  And this is in a game that tracks enough resource consumption that getting lost and running out of food are definite possibilities.  You could say that the Terrains are more wilderness scout things than military things, but they have a military application.

Greetings!

Indeed, I have gotten some considerable utility from having various barbarian tribes over here in the mountains having Mountain Warfare, while these barbarians over here living in the Steppes have Steppe Warfare. When the player characters start commanding armies and having numerous large-scale battles dealing with thousands of troops, having such shorthands have been good for determining various factors during such battles. In a similar fashion, lets say the Player Characters aren't really having any set-piece battles per se, but instead are involved in a year-long campaign of hit-and-run fights and raids with highly mobile, barbarian troops that enjoy local support, and know the terrain, geography, and environment much better. The Player Characters have had technically superior troops, better trained, more heavily armoured and fully-equipped. And yet, in such an environment, any kind of clear-cut victory is very difficult to achieve. Not impossible, but definitely requiring far more time, effort, and resources than the Player Characters initially expected--or certainly preferred. *Laughing*

For quite some time--numerous game sessions--I had some Players entirely wrapped up in adventures involving investigating strange landmarks, small, rural dungeons, mystical ruins, while also fighting barbarian warbands of several hundred to a few thousand warriors. Meanwhile, punctuating all that with sweeping through local villages, attempts at gaining local support and allies; learning to take advantage of political factions within the local barbarian tribes, and also dealing with personality issues within their own units, training problems, logistical problems, and political mud-pits involved with higher officers and glory-hound nobles.

Always operating in a hostile, foreign land against elusive, fast-moving enemies that were always on the move, and who refused to stay put in one location and fight the kind of battle that the Player Characters wanted to fight. It caused the Players to often have extra drinking and smoking sessions. *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on March 11, 2023, 11:30:17 PM
However, it does come to my mind that warriors such as the Norse Vikings, they certainly seemed to have *Amphibious Warfare* down pretty good! Then, I also think of the Ushkuyniks of Russia, with the Principality of Novgorod. The Ushkuyniks were masters of amphibious warfare and raiding up and down the various far-flung river systems of Russia, launching lightning-fast strikes everywhere along the waterline and river coasts, striking towns, fortresses, carrying off huge loads of plunder, animals, and slaves.

The point is well taken about the Vikings and Ushkuyniks as amphibious raiders, but even then the Viking "amphibious warfare" consisted in two skills: knowing how to man a drakkar ship and how to place said drakkar over the crew's heads to do portage crossing from one river to the other. It's not like Vikings ever did Normandy-style beach raids under fire; they would generally land their boats a league away from their raiding target and march the rest of the way. In a sense, you could call it cultural knowledge, perhaps on the level of AD&D secondary skills.

That being said, there is nothing that prevents reimagining rangers as Special Forces/Scouts and Cavaliers as elite Heavy Cavalry troops, leaving the plain Fighters stuck with infantry (both heavy and light) duty.

I too get annoyed with the simplicity of combat/military skills in RPG for having done my national service.

I personally also find the specializations very interesting and have suffered fx. in Legend of The Fiver Rings samurai-themed RPG, when my sapper/saboteur-trained character was forced to to fight as line infantry, needless to say, my character died due to lack of proper infantry skills, which is reasonable in my books.

As already said before, even if the need for level of specialization back in the day was lesser, it was present in more advanced cultures. Rome for example had siege/combat engineers, which was a speciality of it´s own where you just could not throw just anyone and expect results. I guess it boils down to what level of technology is available, higher the technology, the more specialized people you will need.

One thing comes to mind from this, the Kóryos system of which kind has been prevalent in many cultures before middle ages. This was where young, unmarried guys were driven out from the community for a period of time and they had to fend for themselves. This basically taught survival, skills in larceny and guerilla tactics by raiding other cultures nearby. This leads to certain kind of speciality skills when fighting cultures which have not had the same system in place.

For more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B3ryos

As an aside, the kind of settings that I normally use aren't advanced enough to have a great deal of specialization.  It goes against the dynamic of the setting and the kind of characters that inhabit it to encourage a lot of specialization, and my rules and rulings tend to discourage it.  Not that it wouldn't be useful if you could get it, but hyper-specialization implies that you had the time to develop that while someone else in your society was picking up the slack in other specializations.

Quote from: Angry Goblin on March 13, 2023, 11:56:29 AM
I too get annoyed with the simplicity of combat/military skills in RPG for having done my national service.

I personally also find the specializations very interesting and have suffered fx. in Legend of The Fiver Rings samurai-themed RPG, when my sapper/saboteur-trained character was forced to to fight as line infantry, needless to say, my character died due to lack of proper infantry skills, which is reasonable in my books.

As already said before, even if the need for level of specialization back in the day was lesser, it was present in more advanced cultures. Rome for example had siege/combat engineers, which was a speciality of it´s own where you just could not throw just anyone and expect results. I guess it boils down to what level of technology is available, higher the technology, the more specialized people you will need.

One thing comes to mind from this, the Kóryos system of which kind has been prevalent in many cultures before middle ages. This was where young, unmarried guys were driven out from the community for a period of time and they had to fend for themselves. This basically taught survival, skills in larceny and guerilla tactics by raiding other cultures nearby. This leads to certain kind of speciality skills when fighting cultures which have not had the same system in place.

For more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B3ryos

Greetings!

Oh yeah! The *Koryos* warbands were definitely awesome! Koryos warbands all running around, laying waste to neighboring lands! It practically writes adventures all by itself! I remember first reading about Koryos, and my head was spinning with ideas and inspiration!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

If you're trying to get really historical, remember that many states, especially the larger empires like Rome and China, used "specialists" from around their empire to fit niche roles.  So the Chinese, for example, would hire or enroll steppe nomads in their armies to fight other steppe nomads.  In the jungle terrain of the southwest, they would employ local indigenous peoples as scouts, use them as skirmishers, etc.  They used people from the southeast coast for naval and amphibious operations.  So if you're wanting to diversify your fighters, each might be given a suite of skills stemming from their background, which many games already do for variants of the barbarian class. 

Incidentally, in the Hackmaster 4e Combatant's Guide to Slaughtering Foes there is a soldier character class that has a ton of miscellaneous skills such as "Establish Ambush Zone," "Entrenchment Construction," etc. which increase with level as one climbs through the ranks.  The book is a bit pricey on the re-sale market, but worth checking out if you come across a copy.

Quote from: SHARK on March 13, 2023, 08:06:47 PM

Quote from: Angry Goblin on March 13, 2023, 11:56:29 AM
I too get annoyed with the simplicity of combat/military skills in RPG for having done my national service.

I personally also find the specializations very interesting and have suffered fx. in Legend of The Fiver Rings samurai-themed RPG, when my sapper/saboteur-trained character was forced to to fight as line infantry, needless to say, my character died due to lack of proper infantry skills, which is reasonable in my books.

As already said before, even if the need for level of specialization back in the day was lesser, it was present in more advanced cultures. Rome for example had siege/combat engineers, which was a speciality of it´s own where you just could not throw just anyone and expect results. I guess it boils down to what level of technology is available, higher the technology, the more specialized people you will need.

One thing comes to mind from this, the Kóryos system of which kind has been prevalent in many cultures before middle ages. This was where young, unmarried guys were driven out from the community for a period of time and they had to fend for themselves. This basically taught survival, skills in larceny and guerilla tactics by raiding other cultures nearby. This leads to certain kind of speciality skills when fighting cultures which have not had the same system in place.

For more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B3ryos

Greetings!

Oh yeah! The *Koryos* warbands were definitely awesome! Koryos warbands all running around, laying waste to neighboring lands! It practically writes adventures all by itself! I remember first reading about Koryos, and my head was spinning with ideas and inspiration!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Indeed, a ton of adventures can be fit to that framework alone!

Quote from: Persimmon on March 14, 2023, 10:15:46 AM
If you're trying to get really historical, remember that many states, especially the larger empires like Rome and China, used "specialists" from around their empire to fit niche roles.  So the Chinese, for example, would hire or enroll steppe nomads in their armies to fight other steppe nomads.  In the jungle terrain of the southwest, they would employ local indigenous peoples as scouts, use them as skirmishers, etc.  They used people from the southeast coast for naval and amphibious operations.  So if you're wanting to diversify your fighters, each might be given a suite of skills stemming from their background, which many games already do for variants of the barbarian class. 

Incidentally, in the Hackmaster 4e Combatant's Guide to Slaughtering Foes there is a soldier character class that has a ton of miscellaneous skills such as "Establish Ambush Zone," "Entrenchment Construction," etc. which increase with level as one climbs through the ranks.  The book is a bit pricey on the re-sale market, but worth checking out if you come across a copy.

So true, I guess cavalry is one of the most common of the speciality units for nomad cultures tend to have a lot of men capable of riding.

Quote from: Persimmon on March 14, 2023, 10:15:46 AM
If you're trying to get really historical, remember that many states, especially the larger empires like Rome and China, used "specialists" from around their empire to fit niche roles.  So the Chinese, for example, would hire or enroll steppe nomads in their armies to fight other steppe nomads.  In the jungle terrain of the southwest, they would employ local indigenous peoples as scouts, use them as skirmishers, etc.  They used people from the southeast coast for naval and amphibious operations.  So if you're wanting to diversify your fighters, each might be given a suite of skills stemming from their background, which many games already do for variants of the barbarian class. 

Incidentally, in the Hackmaster 4e Combatant's Guide to Slaughtering Foes there is a soldier character class that has a ton of miscellaneous skills such as "Establish Ambush Zone," "Entrenchment Construction," etc. which increase with level as one climbs through the ranks.  The book is a bit pricey on the re-sale market, but worth checking out if you come across a copy.

Greetings!

Nice, Persimmon!

I always have a kind of internal debate with myself between the merits of simplicity nd the merits of Specialization and Complexity. Or detail, however one wants to think about it.

I remember back in the day of AD&D, when there were no skills, and no real specialization, people used to SCREAM that AD&D was retardedly simple, because all characters were boring and homogenous, certainly after you made up a few characters. Fighters for example, beyond a given level, were all essentially the same, only differentiating by the goodies on their Christmas Tree. Simple, and fast, yes. But also kinda boring and homogenous, too.

I always think about all the little details, skills, and knowledge that distinguishes a Greek Phalangist, A Spartan warrior, a Companion under Alexander the Great, a warrior of the Persian Immortals, a Germanic Tribesman, a Barbarian Celt, a Goth warrior, a Mongolian warrior, a Byzantine Cataphract, a Roman Legionnaire, An Indian Warrior of the Gupta Empire or the Kushan Empire, or a Chinese Warrior of the Tang Empire, or the glorious Song Empire.

I'm lighting up my pipe tobacco, and pouring myself some fresh French Roast coffee. So awesome!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK