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Old 01-21-2018, 11:55 PM   #1
WaterAndWindSpirit
 
Join Date: Oct 2014
Default Child soldier template

Okay, let me get the oratory precautions out of the way right off the bat: child soldiers are a pretty dark part of human history and are a terrible thing that shouldn't exist. A Secretary General of the UN once said that "their existence is [the UN's] greatest failure", and he was absolutely right.

But then again, some game worlds are pretty dark. After The End settings for instance are less likely to pull their punches than Fantasy or Space Opera settings (Dark Fantasy settings do exist, as do Dark Space Opera (The Grim Darkness of Warhammer 40k anyone?), but they're not the default settings in their respective genres. The typical ATE setting is pretty dark by default), and even then, some fantasy settings won't pull their punches either.

So, what would be a good template for an After The End child soldier and a Dark Fantasy Child soldier, both as NPC templates and as backstory for PC adventurers?

Thanks!
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Old 01-22-2018, 01:06 AM   #2
Tomsdad
 
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Default Re: Child soldier template

I think the real issue here is the culture around their creation and use. Historically some children went to war and in some instances were treated reasonably well by the standards of the time, others of course less so. There's also a distinction in age, for much of history teenage-hood wasn't really a thing in terms of our modern day understanding and in some ways 13 -15 year old was culturally pretty indistinguishable from an adult. For want of a better term "warrior cultures" would have likely be raising some children to fight as part of being raised to take an adult role. Of course for some cultures it's going to depend on your individual social standing, the child of the chief is going to possibly have a different experience of this than the son of a thrall.

The reality is a lot of younger modern child soldiers today are really just sex slaves and pack carriers strung out on drugs and psychological and physical abuse that actually get limited combat use more being used for less "glamorous" work (not the "lord of the flies" berserker front line troops they sometimes get made out to be*).

Ultimately some graduate and become the indoctrinated soldiers their controllers hope them to be, but many don't. The thing is in this context vulnerable children are actually pretty common resource to be exploited in this way. In fact you can often create it yourself, a classic is to roll into a village and take over, and get the children to kill their own parents as a first start of their new lives.

So yeah not very cheerful, basic child stats with lots of cultural and psychological dis-ads not many advantages!

However in an ATE context that last point about common exploitable resources might be reversed. if population is low or scarce children are a rare and valuable resource. So even if you are going to have them as soldiers you going to be looking for future leaders akin to C18th / C19th midshipmen, not disposable fodder.

Ultimately there's range of real life examples to take from here, all could work in dark fantasy and ATE

*although I'm guessing some exceptions exist!
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Old 01-22-2018, 04:29 AM   #3
tanksoldier
 
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Default Re: Child soldier template

It depends on exactly what a "child soldier" is.

Plenty of teenagers, and even pre-teens, have gone to war legitimately.

During the Age of Sail Midshipmen often went to sea around 12 years old. VMI cadets fought in the Civil War at 15. William Black was the youngest recorded wounded Soldier of the Civil War, a drummer boy of 12. Boys typically became squires at 14 and often were on the battlefield as pages younger than that. The Roman legions enlisted recruits as young as 16 at times. For a large portion of human history a teenager was plenty old enough for combat service and one being on the battlefield wasn't unusual or notable.

Even in the modern US military it is possible to have a fully trained Soldier who is not yet 18. Enlistment with parental permission at 17 and training that takes less than a year often results in a 17 year old trained Soldier. Policy prohibits overseas deployment until age 18 but when you're fighting a word wide insurgency where are the front lines?

A "child soldier" who is simply serving in the military as a routine thing would have the same template ans anyone else of their training and experience, with attributes and corresponding skill levels adjusted for age.

However what you MAY be referring to is the modern day impressed or coerced child soldiers often found in third would countries, particularly those in Africa tho they occur other times and places as well. Iran used then in the Iran-Iraq War and the Viet Cong and NVA did as well. These are a very different thing.

Often such "soldiers" are used as labor and pack animals, unarmed and seeing little if any combat. That's usually how the NVA used them. These would have little if any training or skills but often were fed and treated reasonably well... much as you would care for a pack mule, but cared for none the less.

The VC often used them as insurgents, with explosive vests or grenades in soda cans... much how children are sometimes used as bombs by jihadists today.

In Africa and during the Iran-Iraq War they are lightly armed and used as bullet sponges and mine clearance devices for more valuable troops behind them. They are armed, given minimal training and a magazine or two so the enemy has to waste time shooting them, but not enough training or equipment to make them a real threat to their own side... and then herded in the direction of the enemy. Often threats against family members, often who have already been killed or put in field whore houses, are used to keep them in line as well. Such a "soldier" might survive long enough to gain a point in Guns, Soldier and Brawling (fighting with the others for food scraps) but that would be the rare exception. Most die in battle or from illness or abuse long before that. Other than that they would have whatever attributes or skills an 8-12 year old boy would have in that culture but reduced for starvation, disease and untreated injuries.

In an ATE campaign I would expect that what's seen as "fighting age" would come down considerably. There's no real physiological or psychological reason a child can't begin training as a soldier at 12 or even 10, Spartans began at 7, and assuming modern firearms physical strength plays much less of a part than it would have in ancient Greece.

If there is no social structure then children will fight as young as they have to. If a society is pulling itself up out of the ashes and USED to the idea of children fighting and dying young you may see combat training as part of the formal education system. Starting at say 10 years old there's no reason basic academics and combat skills could't be taught together. 4 years of Boy Scout/ Young Pioneer skills combined with marksmanship and leadership/ followership skills capped off by 2 more years of actual military service from 14-16 would result in a fairly capable Soldier... who could then enter society in some other role and serve as a reserve, or continue active military service.

Quote:
if population is low or scarce children are a rare and valuable resource
Not for long. Children can produce children. With no social constraints or medical intervention a generation is born about every 10 years. A girl is very likely a mother at 10, a mother of 9 by 19 and a grandmother at 20. The population becomes VERY young VERY fast.

Last edited by tanksoldier; 01-22-2018 at 05:32 AM.
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Old 01-22-2018, 06:05 AM   #4
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Default Re: Child soldier template

Quote:
Originally Posted by tanksoldier View Post
Not for long. Children can produce children. With no social constraints or medical intervention a generation is born about every 10 years. A girl is very likely a mother at 10, a mother of 9 by 19 and a grandmother at 20. The population becomes VERY young VERY fast.
Nope. Puberty has only recently got so early, and young teens are not very fertile either. With poor nutrition, as your scenario implies, puberty will go back up to 14-16 or even later, and those girls who do fall pregnant younger than 16 will have an even higher mortality rate in childbirth than their older peers.

Also, when left to their own devices humans seem to have children 18-24 months or so apart, as breast feeding acts as a contraceptive.

There's a reason that 'a generation' very seldom means less than 'about 20 years'.
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Old 01-22-2018, 06:24 AM   #5
ericthered
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Default Re: Child soldier template

statistic wise, It depends on where you've pegged all of the other NPC's, but I would start with ST and IQ at 9, DX at 10, HT at 11, and a handful of skills. The exact skills will depend on the situation and background.

Guns might have a single point. But maybe not.
Unarmed combat probably has a few points: these kids lived a tough life.
A point or dabbler in the profession they've been helping their parents with: Farming is common, but mining or merchant helps as well.
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Old 01-22-2018, 06:24 AM   #6
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Child soldier template

The vast majority of girls are incapable of getting pregnant before the age of 12, even in the developed world, and the majority of those girls usually end up having massive problems because their hips have not spread enough to allow for safe reproduction. Without modern medicine, either the baby and/or the girl will die in childbirth (history notes the exceptions because the exceptions were notable). In pre-modern cultures, marriage might have occurred early, but successful childbirth tended to occur when the girl was 16 or older.

Young populations occur when you have low maternal mortality combined with low child mortality. Before the 1800s, a quarter of children died before the age of 6, a significant number of women died in childbirth, and half of people died before they could reproduce, which is why it took so long to reach a population of one billion. It is only the modern age that allowed a significant minority of women to have more than six children and allowed the vast majority of them to reach reproductive age.

Last edited by AlexanderHowl; 01-22-2018 at 06:36 AM.
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Old 01-22-2018, 07:13 AM   #7
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: Child soldier template

Actually the VC would have put auxilieries on minelaying detail. They get way to many passes for being "anti-imperialist" and in fact were guilty of incredible nastiness that most people don't know of. But they did have quite a bit of common sense from the strategic point of view and had some idea how to be thrifty with human material; a real soldier would have been of about the age of a typical soldier give or take allowance for lack of interest in precisely calculating age in a fit person. A child soldier-a real child, not a precocious teenager-that actually showed talent might be likely to end up as a terrorist; it made for great psychological warfare. What the OP seems to be talking about is the type serving what amounts to glorified bandit gangs, who have quite a bit less professionalism not something on the level of the Viet-cong.


Millitias are also a common place to find child soldiers. When a country is running out of young men of traditional age it will turn to these. A Volksgrenadier or Werewolf(though Werewolves properly qualify as terrorists as they did not have uniforms or a proper chain of command) is an example. On the other side would be a Polish Boy Scout carrying messages during the Warsaw Revolt.
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Old 01-22-2018, 09:46 AM   #8
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Default Re: Child soldier template

Hell, the 12SS were fighting very effectively with about 65% (IIRC) of their manpower under 18 and 16 being entirely normal. They were by no means a second rate outfit as any of the allied troops that faced them could testify. However, I also recall accounts of inexperienced panzer crews exposing their sides and rear unnecessarily whilst manoeuvring so there may be some leverage there.

Realistically, we probably just need some kind of lense to apply to the standard templates in the cases where a child soldier is less experienced or less physically developed...
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Old 01-23-2018, 12:19 AM   #9
Tomsdad
 
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Default Re: Child soldier template

Quote:
Originally Posted by tanksoldier View Post
I....

Not for long. Children can produce children. With no social constraints or medical intervention a generation is born about every 10 years. A girl is very likely a mother at 10, a mother of 9 by 19 and a grandmother at 20. The population becomes VERY young VERY fast.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
Nope. Puberty has only recently got so early, and young teens are not very fertile either. With poor nutrition, as your scenario implies, puberty will go back up to 14-16 or even later, and those girls who do fall pregnant younger than 16 will have an even higher mortality rate in childbirth than their older peers.

Also, when left to their own devices humans seem to have children 18-24 months or so apart, as breast feeding acts as a contraceptive.

There's a reason that 'a generation' very seldom means less than 'about 20 years'.
Yep exactly.
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Old 01-23-2018, 08:34 AM   #10
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Child soldier template

But someone who is 15 years old is an adolescent, not a child. While they might legally be considered a minor by modern standards, they were adults by the standards of many cultures. A child soldier should probably be 14- years old, meaning that they will have reduced ST, DX, and IQ, as well as lacking any depth of skill.

One of the reasons why child soldiers are effective is because they are weapons of terror in modern warfare. It is terrifying for modern people to witness children killing people. In addition, modern enemy forces are reluctant to kill child soldiers because only sociopaths and psychopaths are eager to kill children. When they are forced to kill child soldiers, modern enemy soldiers are traumatized by the experience for decades, meaning that the child soldier effectively permanently disables a modern enemy soldier when he or she dies even if the child soldier never killed anyone.
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