Playing a strategist character

[Plane]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

Martial Arts (p.60) provides an optional rule where the side that wins a contest of Tactics skill before a battle can either gain a number of rerolls

I liked the reroll ones although I think they could be fleshed out a bit in terms of duration and refreshing the rerolls pool every so often by spending time generating a fresh roll, with modifiers based on Time Spent on some basic investment.

[Tinman]

Check out pyramid 3-61 p.9, the Tactician power-up for Knights.
It gives real bonuses to having tactics, strategy & leadership.
The best way to make a "master strategist" for roll play, IMO.

[rkbrown419]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

I've always questioned "person in a five person group who mainly gives suggestions" as a viable archetype. Like, shouldn't they fight in some fashion? Similarly the "theme music guy" version of a bard, who stands around strumming a lute during a pitched battle like some kind of fool.

The bard version is at least based on real world musical signals used to convey orders in larger battles. When you're dealing with a skirmish a group the size of a typical adventuring party finds itself in a bard is only helpful if he's got some kind of magical backup. A strategic PC is probably most useful planning a fight with successful planning skill rolls give the party bonuses for the first few turns. After that... Well, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Is a cliche for a reason.

[tshiggins]

The problem with moving other player-characters around, or forcing them to obey the commands of the strategist, is that it robs agency from the other players at the table.
That's no bueno.

When I create a campaign, I declare a number of house rules during character creation.
One of those is that I roll against the PCs' skills in "Tactics" or "Strategy"; the players do not.

On a successful roll against "Tactics," I tell the player(s) what the opponents will likely try to do in a combat.

On a successful roll against "Strategy," I tell them what the opponents' overall military goals are, and how they'll likely deploy their assets.

The greater the margin of success, the greater the quantity and quality of the information the player(s) get.

If the secret roll fails, I lie to them.

The point is, the players then decide how to use the information gleaned.
They make the calls; I don't, and no player dictates anybody else's actions.

Amusingly, I have a good friend who has one of the best military history and military science libraries I've seen in private hands. He's collected and read that stuff since high school; during his time in the U.S. Army, they put him through non-com leadership school; and he's a combat veteran.

When he plays in one of my campaigns, the combat-effectiveness of the group significantly increases.
I'm not even kidding.

And because he seems unable to not use his knowledge and experience, I always make him create a character with a reason to have "Strategy" and "Tactics," and I always make him put the skills on his character's sheet. :)

[pawsplay]

In my opinion, "don't know" should always be a more likely outcome than "wrong answer."

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

In my opinion, "don't know" should always be a more likely outcome than "wrong answer."

If it's a miss by one or two, or a make by one or two, then the information usually starts, "You're not really sure, but maybe...."

[tbone]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

In my opinion, "don't know" should always be a more likely outcome than "wrong answer."

Definitely. For example, DF/DFRPG suggest a Strategy roll to ascertain an enemy's plans, with "GM lies" as the outcome of any failure, but that seems buggy to me. It means a character with Strategy-9 – not an impressive level, but far better than a default Strategy-4! – should never attempt that use of the skill, as it'll likely only make the PCs' position worse.

That's no fun. Turn a normal failure into "You don't know", I say. (That'll still leave the player to sweat over whether the GM reporting "The enemy wants to lure you into the passage" is a Strategy success or a crit-fail lie.)

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by tbone

Definitely. For example, DF/DFRPG suggest a Strategy roll to ascertain an enemy's plans, with "GM lies" as the outcome of any failure, but that seems buggy to me. It means a character with Strategy-9 – not an impressive level, but far better than a default Strategy-4! – should never attempt that use of the skill, as it'll likely only make the PCs' position worse.

Strategy 4 is actually more useful, because you can be fairly sure you can rule out one possibility (Joe thinks they'll be flanking from the East, so we know that isn't happening) while Strategy 9 is basically "flip a coin"

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Strategy 4 is actually more useful, because you can be fairly sure you can rule out one possibility (Joe thinks they'll be flanking from the East, so we know that isn't happening) while Strategy 9 is basically "flip a coin"

Basically "Inverse Cramer" but applied to Strategy rather than Market Analysis? Honestly, it would be a fun thing to do in a silly campaign (have several characters who have the Incompetence Quirk - or even an Anti-Talent - in various "predictive" skills, then follow the opposite of their results), but yeah, something like this invites weird choices. Heck, even with the "wrong information only on a critfail" version, having skill 3 or 4 means you'll typically get "you don't know" while the times you get an answer, the answer will be dead wrong (critfail) more often than not.

[tshiggins]

I don't have adversarial relationships with my players, and I don't permit munchkin rules-lawyers to play.

We trust one another and play because we enjoy the storytelling, and the purpose of the house rules is to enhance that.