If you buy an army using your Wealth, do you need to buy Rank too?

[AlexanderHowl]

A TL8 character with Multimillionaire 4 and Independent Income 5 earns around $1 billion a month. If they want to have their own private army outside of the security that they receive for their Standard of Living, they could spend $15,000 per month per mercenary (for Loyalty+0) to $30,000 per month per mercenary (for Loyalty+10). If they want mercenaries who are unusually qualified, they would likely double the price (for 500 CP supernormals) or quadruple the price (for 500 CP superheroes). Additional requirements or specifications could cost even more.

For example, imagine such a billionaire desires a team of superhero mercenaries. A mercenary company of 100 500 CP superheroes would likely cost from $6 million a month (for Loyalty+0) to $12 million a month (for Loyalty+10). If the billionaire wants them to be beautiful women, they might pay an extra 25% premium. If the billionaire wants them to be beautiful women who participate in orgies with him or her, they might have to pay an extra 100% premium.

[GodBeastX]

If someone has the wealth to buy an army, I'd probably (As GM) give them rank necessary to manage it. It seems silly you'd have to buy the rank too with points when you can easily stop paying the army if they don't listen to you.

I feel this is a case of "RP leads to rewards".

I have trouble with rank advantage. I was part of a game where everyone was given points, and the GM allowed rank purchase to take a commander position. Because it costed 25 points, the commander ended up the least likely to be commander considering they had less points to spend on capabilities.

Just one of those funny things about GURPS.

[Kromm]

In professional fighting forces, Rank is more than prettier insignia and a bigger paycheck. It is what makes it possible for the few to manage the many, the very few to manage the few, and the one to manage the very few, which is the only practical way to apply tactics on the battlefield and strategy from the command post; without it, you have a rabble. Though it's true that the quality of the tactics and strategy is governed by skills in GURPS (called Tactics and Strategy, conveniently) – and that the strength of the chain of command is covered by Administration, Leadership, and Savoir-Faire (Military) in peacetime, in wartime, and at dinnertime – ultimately, none of that works if there's no established rank/grade structure.

I would argue that what GURPS calls Military Rank is essential for most of those skills to matter. I would argue further that said Rank – by virtue of being acquired over time, like a skill, and not inborn, like many other advantages – comprises a body of knowledge. (You can have Rank that isn't like that; it's called Courtesy Rank, and it costs a lot less.) That is, it is a skill-like trait that happens to be called an advantage, not unlike Cultural Familiarity, Languages, or for that matter Trained by a Master. It represents not being a good soldier, leader, administrator, logistician, tactician, or strategist, but having spent enough time in a military environment to know "the Army way," so to speak.

You absolutely could buy an army and install yourself as its leader. You could call yourself whatever you like: colonel, general, grand pooba. And as the one paying, you could give orders. You would never need Rank.

But I'd say that without Rank, you're not going to command with respect or efficiency. I'd probably look at the size of the force in question and the Rank of the person needed to command that, and give a penalty of equal size to rolls against Administration, Leadership, Strategy, etc. For instance, if your army is big enough to need Rank 6, you'd be at -6 to Administration rolls to manage it as an organization (because you have no experience with military logistics), -6 to Leadership rolls (because those you're commanding would have little faith in you), and -6 to Strategy rolls (because you have no familiarity with how armies actually work).

TL; DR: Rank is an expensive, leveled form of familiarity. If you don't pay points for it, be prepared to have large penalties to many important skills. If you do pay points for it, the GM has the right to insist that you do so slowly, by taking time to build experience and establish authority. The "200 hours = 1 point" under Learnable Advantages (p. B294) seems about right for this: If you want to be a proper Rank 7 general, your minimum time investment is Rank 7 × 5 points/Rank × 200 hours/point = 7,000 hours, which would require 28,000 hours on the job, or about 9-10 years of work if you just bought an army, skipped military training, and decided to devote your life to becoming a general with no days off (more like 14 years if you worked at it like a day job, leaving time to manage other interests).

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

But the OP's question is, "Does he *need* to purchase Rank?"

Hm. I originally interpreted the OP to mean "do I have to purchase rank to order the army around, or does my Wealth give me the same ability just because I paid for the army?" That interpretation is one that I answered "no, you need Rank".

Your post makes me think of another interpretation -- "Since I'm paying for this army and thus would be expected in general to tell my mercenaries what I want them to do, am I forced also to buy Rank just because I'm paying for the army?" I'd also answer that question "no" (as with some of the later examples in my previous post).

Those traits are independent, and the possible combinations lead to different versions of the character, as has been covered upthread. Wealth + Rank is not the same as just Wealth, which is not the same as just Rank. (And of course if neither is involved, we're not talking about an army in the first place.) So at this point, I'd have to bounce the question back to the OP and ask what the character concept and intent is play would be. There's not a universal answer.

A US President does have Rank, because they are part of the command structure by law, not just in a practical sense. A wise civilian President will stick to broad policy, and listen to his generals, rather than directly muddling about and micromanaged as Hitler often did. That's the difference between Rank and actual skills in Politics, Diplomacy, Leadership, Strategy, and Tactics.

(Much the same is true all the way down the Rank hierarchy -- the general of the army doesn't set up divisional objectives for each battle or position the mortar teams and machine guns for every company. At every level, there's some notion of a broader concern and implementation details left to lower Ranks.)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I have trouble with rank advantage. I was part of a game where everyone was given points, and the GM allowed rank purchase to take a commander position. Because it costed 25 points, the commander ended up the least likely to be commander considering they had less points to spend on capabilities.

Rank isn't awarded for being capable at the "all the other stuff points can buy in GURPS" sense (DX, IQ, Combat Reflexes, Guns skill, etc.); Rank is awarded for being groomed for a place in a chain of command to the satisfaction of those above that position. This is why newly minted lieutenants are very often the subject of derision by veteran troops: They have the formal right to command but little practical capability at it. But if the troops are any good – and if morale is any good – the chain of command will prevail despite that.

So this isn't something funny with GURPS but rather something funny about how military forces work. Rank in itself represents just as much training as Guns, Soldier, Tactics, Leadership, Administration, Strategy, etc. – maybe more so! It just doesn't represent training that hits targets or wins conflicts; it represents training at how armies are put together. If that weren't true, then some MBA with high Administration skill, who was captain of the varsity sports teams and also has high Leadership skill, would be a better commander than someone who got middling grades in officer training. Maybe they would be, with time, but out of the gate, they'd be at a crippling disadvantage commanding a force that has a complex morass of grades, ranks, occupational specialties, special training, etc. and that deploys with literally thousands of pieces of specialized gear. A green lieutenant would have rotten skills, but would have all of that stuff memorized.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Rank in itself represents just as much training as Guns, Soldier, Tactics, Leadership, Administration, Strategy, etc. – maybe more so! It just doesn't represent training that hits targets or wins conflicts; it represents training at how armies are put together.

How should we build characters who receive their command either through purchase or inheritance and who don't have this sort of training?

Edit to add:

If my character has the requisite training (say he's a deposed medieval king), but is not currently in the command structure of an army, then ought I purchase Rank for him to represent the military training that he does have?

[Andrew Hackard]

By giving them Rank with NONE of the associated skills to use it effectively.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

How should we build characters who receive their command either through purchase or inheritance and who don't have this sort of training?

Courtesy Rank. You can have enough to be the Grand Marshal of All the Armies for a measly 8 points, and enough to be a Kentucky colonel with a bought-and-paid-for regiment for just 5-6 points. You will be accorded the perks of that position in any formal situation.

However, given equal skills, you will not be a battlefield match for someone who earned their Rank at 5 points/level by spending a career in any army, entering at Rank 3 after time in officer training, if not at Rank 0 and working their way up from the enlisted ranks. That second person will know what it means to operate at each link in the chain of command, and have thousands of hours of experience with how armies do things.

You'll be able to offset the difference by learning your military skills to higher levels, of course. It's just that "I'm good at armchair strategy and civilian leadership positions" isn't the same as "I've actually spent thousands of hours around troops and on battlefields." This is case where familiarity legitimately costs points, gives penalties bigger than the generic -2, and takes more than eight hours to buy off.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

By giving them Rank with NONE of the associated skills to use it effectively.

Originally Posted by Kromm

Courtesy Rank.

Obviously, listen to Kromm, not me.

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Without the Rank, you're a guy who has hired a mercenary army.

Actually, yes, that is exactly the case here. So I'm voting NO, you aren't required to buy Rank. Rank is legally enforceable- sort of the other side of Duty. And a good mercenary might have a Sense of Duty, but they won't really have an actual Duty. In fact, unless the mercenaries are working for a legitimate government I might argue that a mercenary unit's leaders only have courtesy rank rather than real rank, since their orders are probably not legally enforceable. If a mercenary private soldier deserts and they capture him and execute him for it, well, that's murder, not military justice. Working for a government does get the mercenaries some legal coverage from that government. For instance, in 1600s Europe or other settings where mercenaries do have an official status. Or like the mercenary actions in Sierra Leone, where mercenaries working for the government were arguably under legal authority of that government while in Sierra Leone. In such settings the mercenary officers usually actually get comissioned by that government, so they have real rank.

But I would treat that personal mercenary army as a gigantic Hireling, including loyalty checks, etc. After all, historically that's how mercenary armies have worked... They are not trustworthy, in general. (Well, in most societies.) Though that does cut both ways.

In hiring a mercenary army you give it an objective or mission, and then let its leaders execute the mission. Yes, you give input as you like, but you should be making Influence rolls with the unit's leaders as you do. YOU aren't the leader so YOU don't get Rank. Though, yes, I absolutely could see this all getting hazy. I guess that's part of the reason that mercenaries are sort of a shadowy entity in our society.

EDIT-- HMM, DR. I now see that Word of Kromm seems to agree with me? So I feel vindicated? :)