Re: Red Stars: campaign
Thanks for the feedback. I will answer questions in the order that they were recieved.
I have plans to explore this, if the world survives the first campaign. I'm hoping to use Arcanus as a colorful backdrop at first. Delving into deeper here and there where the story gets driven. I don't want to jump into world concepts from the start. It wont feel as satisying to figure out secrets. But I do have some underlying answers in mind, so it's not completely BS.
Maybe I came on too strong strong with the Judge Dredd reference. Not so much a dictatorship as an extended jurisdiction. A huge, inter-planatary free market economy has need for a wider more diverse law enforcement. Rather than spend the resources to fund police and military, they mereged the two. Local garrisons control different areas but still have to answer to the government. Over-crowding in jails has led to more corporal, "street" type of penalties. Yeah you can take a guy in for stealing, but he'll get a better lesson if you beat his body around a bit. Quick, effective and little paperwork. The law can go too far and would have to answer for any gross negligence. i.e. maiming or killing-without cause. I'm thinking Lonestar (again from Shadowrun) but scarier.
I hope you guys don't feel too shoe-horned by starting you out as a team. Like I said before if the world survives further adventures will have more flexability.
Hopefully this will work out good. The idea is still forming in my head (one of the reasons I started this thread) I have the large concepts in place but figuring the mechanical impact for those concepts is bugging me. Which brings us to Eosin.
To me this seems right for a battle with tricked out to the gills combatants. Yes, when the military shows up, in full battle rattle, you need some serious stuff to take them down. But like any society the populous dosen't like seeing tanks and power armor walking around the suburbs. Thanks for the actual numbers this helps a lot.
As I said before super skills wont be un-heard of just not hugely prevalent. I have no problems with a highly skilled MA doing some damage against Armor. (or an amped up Mutant Knife fighter. hmm must find picture) I guess the issue I'm trying to figure out is: When it's "game on" i.e. full battle rattle, loddy-doddy everybody, grab your ruck and head out the door time: the battle is heinous, more along what Eosin wrote. But I need to work to make sure the players are not walking around in full battle rattle all the time. So they have some fear of death. Red Stars are more like the CIA types. highly trained but need to do a lot of non-combat people things. But unlike the CIA they can put on the armor when needed, or more likely handle the situation without needing the armor. They only things I can think that would cuase a squad to roll out in full gear would be A: Quelling a rebbelion, B: stopping an invasion or C: invading somewhere else.
I plan to use Resource points for equipment so it will easy for the players to have a bunch of stuff. I'm hoping they will go more subetly for some things. But if they don't well such is the fun of RPG's.
Possilbe future game idea. but not what I had in mind for this one. There may be an episode like this but not the overall theme.
This sounds perfect. Newb question of the day. What does FREd stand for and is it availble on-line somewhere?
Thanks a lot for all the feedback. I'll post some more ideas (internet, vehicles) some time tomorrow. I need some sleep.