CIA Special Activities Division PMO Skill Set

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

How on God's Green Earth do vanilla SEALs come out with more points than Delta/CAG guys?

They do have a bunch more things that they have to do well: swimming, SCUBA, boating, etc. I don't know how much of the difference that would account for, and I don't have detailed knowledge of US Special Ops forces, but that could be part of it. Also, basic attribute costs are different in 3e, which might be distorting things.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by DISCLAIMER

I want to be clear about the fact that I am not, nor have I ever served in, any special operations unit. Having been stationed at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft. Polk, I DID get an opportunity to interact with US Army Rangers and US Army Special Forces personnel. My understanding of these warriors and their capabilities comes from a combination of those interactions and the extensive non-fiction reading I have done on Special Operations.

-TheOneRonin

Originally Posted by johndallman

They do have a bunch more things that they have to do well: swimming, SCUBA, boating, etc...

I disagree. The CAG/ACE guys have a much more broad skillset than vanilla SEALs (note: I'm excluding DEVGRU).

CIA Core Collector tradecraft skills, as well as Executive Protection and other such skills are part of every CAG/ACE Operator's toolbox. Vanilla SEALs don't get that.

Plus, most of your CAG/ACE operators come from US Army SF or Ranger units. They walk into the program as NCOs with 5+ years of active duty experience, almost exclusively in combat arms roles.

On the other hand, a Navy recruit can easily get BUD/S in his contract. That means he does Navy Basic Training, A-School, BUD/S, and then another 18+ months of training with his unit. So your fresh SEALs are 20 - 21 years old, with training but zero experience, and often lacking the maturity of their Army counterparts...at least until they have some experience under their belt.

You also have to acknowledge the depth of training with a unit like CAG/ACE. The 3 operational squadrons alone burn through roughly the same amount of ammunition each year as the entire USMC. That's a lot of shooting...WAY more than vanilla SEALs (but similar to DEVGRU).

Also, basic attribute costs are different in 3e, which might be distorting things.

Upon further examination, it looks like both SEALs and CAG/ACE templates are based on 200-point builds (3rd Ed), but the CAG template leaves more room for optional picks, while the SEAL template uses up all 200 points.

I'm still not sure I agree 100% with that assessment, but at least it makes more sense than the way I was originally thinking about it.

[Kromm]

Special-ops units and highly trained field elements of intelligence services are remarkably capable. Nobody would doubt that! However, it's important to bear in mind that the "official word" about such a unit – its mission statement, the decree that authorizes its creation, what former members are allowed to talk about, etc. – always portrays a best-case scenario. If the world hears about a bunch of armed men who arrive and depart in the dark, accomplishing a mission that requires skills A, B, and C, and technical means X, Y, and Z, are you going to say (1) that teams have individual specialists in A, B, and C, and that there are some teams with X, others with Y, and a few with Z, or (2) that every man-jack can do A, B, and C, and that every team has X, Y, and Z on-deck 24/7? Since nobody can prove you wrong thanks to the inevitable secrecy surrounding such people and their operations, you're going to say (2) every time, because that conceals actual capabilities and intimidates would-be enemies of the state.

This kind of best-case-scenario skill set is propaganda, however. It isn't good for a single, realistic template. I have a lot of experience with template creation, and I would say that a template that offers a choice of packages that collectively give the whole team the officially claimed capabilities is a more realistic approach. Rather than create a 500-point template which consists of a 250-point core with 250 points of special skills, create a 200-point template with a range of six to eight 50-point skill sets, and require the players to pick one or two of those sets per character. If every PC will be a member of such a team, insist that they collectively cover the entire range . . . and perhaps even restrict some selections to just one person per team.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Kromm

If every PC will be a member of such a team, insist that they collectively cover the entire range . . . and perhaps even restrict some selections to just one person per team.

This is utterly reasonable within the setting: the organisations running high-end special ops teams have a good idea what sets of skills they need to have, and usually plenty of volunteers. Picking the ones who have, or are inclined to learn, the skills that are needed is simply sensible management.

In my weekly gaming group, the players' desire to create an effective team is an important factor in character design when we start a new campaign. It often ends up with one or two people who have an idea they're keen on going for those characters and the rest building round them.

[ClayDowling]

Kromm's statements also mesh well with what has been publicly acknowledged by the CIA. Tony Mendez talked a good bit about the training for operatives, since he helped to develop a considerable amount of it.

They acquire their skill sets over the years, in a form of continuing education, as their missions require it. They also have highly specialized people for certain tasks, who are brought in on specific missions when needed. So there are people who, during the cold war, could slip into the bowels of the Kremlin. But it's not like just any CIA agent could do it. And there are agents who can take a group of diplomats and smuggle them out of a police state disguised as a film crew, but that doesn't describe most CIA employees.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by ClayDowling

Kromm's statements also mesh well with what has been publicly acknowledged by the CIA. Tony Mendez talked a good bit about the training for operatives, since he helped to develop a considerable amount of it.

I think we are talking about two different things. Tony Mendez was an espionage artist for the CIA's Technical Services Division. He went to college, and was picked up by the CIA because of his talent with drawing.

Just about every SAD PMO comes from a US Military Special Operations background, and most come from Tier 1 SMUs like CAG/ACE, DEVGRU, 24th STS, and ISA.

Yes, these people are trained as CIA Core Collectors (read: spies), but they are SO much more than that. Tony Mendez, at his peak, was probably worth about a 1/4th the number of Build Points a recently graduated SAD PMO has.

<snip> But it's not like just any CIA agent could do it.

Again, PMOs are NOT "just any CIA agent".

Please read:

CIA Special Activities Division

[ClayDowling]

I'm not comparing them to Tony Mendez. But because of practical realities, there will be a similar build up of skills over time, rather than somebody just arriving on the scene as a fully fledged super hero. I would expect that people will be as super-heroic as they need to be, but not much more.

The CIA want ads for these people are available on their website. A specops template should make a good starting point based on what I saw. For PCs, I would build up points through play.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Special-ops units and highly trained field elements of intelligence services are remarkably capable. Nobody would doubt that! However, it's important to bear in mind that the "official word" about such a unit – its mission statement, the decree that authorizes its creation, what former members are allowed to talk about, etc. – always portrays a best-case scenario. If the world hears about a bunch of armed men who arrive and depart in the dark, accomplishing a mission that requires skills A, B, and C, and technical means X, Y, and Z, are you going to say (1) that teams have individual specialists in A, B, and C, and that there are some teams with X, others with Y, and a few with Z, or (2) that every man-jack can do A, B, and C, and that every team has X, Y, and Z on-deck 24/7? Since nobody can prove you wrong thanks to the inevitable secrecy surrounding such people and their operations, you're going to say (2) every time, because that conceals actual capabilities and intimidates would-be enemies of the state.

I don't doubt that one one bit. And I am a proponent of having specializations divided up amongst team members. To me, that is a core conceit of any team-based story telling game.

But I also believe that, in Special Operations units, you will always have a core set of capabilities in every operator. In an ODA, for example, your Weapons Sgts will probably be able to shoot better than the rest of the team, but the rest of the team had damned well better be able to shoot better than most of the regular Army combat arms units. And while your ODA Medical Sgts can run circles around most paramedics, the rest of the team had damned well better be trained up at least to the Combat Lifesaver level.

One of things I'm trying to accomplish is to define that core set of skills that every SAD SOG operator will have, regardless of specialty. Then I can work on building the specialization packages that the rest of the team can pick from to round out their characters.

This kind of best-case-scenario skill set is propaganda, however. It isn't good for a single, realistic template. I have a lot of experience with template creation, and I would say that a template that offers a choice of packages that collectively give the whole team the officially claimed capabilities is a more realistic approach. Rather than create a 500-point template which consists of a 250-point core with 250 points of special skills, create a 200-point template with a range of six to eight 50-point skill sets, and require the players to pick one or two of those sets per character. If every PC will be a member of such a team, insist that they collectively cover the entire range . . . and perhaps even restrict some selections to just one person per team.

Sorry if I left that out, but that's really my intent in a nutshell. I was inspired by your Secret Agent campaign and the method you used for character creation.

I'm trying to do something similar.

But my first step is pinning down the core skillsets that everyone will have. That means being able to shoot, move, and communicate. That also means a hand-full of other things. And that's what I came to the forums for...to tap the collective expertise of the GURPS Gurus on what the core skills in this template will look like.

[jason taylor]

Does the team have a core purpose? Does it specialize in eliminations or extractions or what not?

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Does the team have a core purpose? Does it specialize in eliminations or extractions or what not?

From Wikipedia:

As the action arm of the NCS, SAD/SOG conducts direct action missions such as raids, ambushes, sabotage, targeted killings and unconventional warfare (e.g., training and leading guerrilla and military units of other countries in combat). SAD/SOG also conducts special reconnaissance, that can be either military or intelligence driven, but is carried out by Paramilitary Officers (also called Paramilitary Operatives) when in "non-permissive environments". Paramilitary Operations Officers are also fully trained case officers (i.e. "spies") and as such conduct clandestine human intelligence (HUMINT) operations throughout the world.