Project Nemesis is a fan driven website for games that use the One-Roll Engine (like Nemesis, Wild Talents, Reign and Monsters) or Chaosium's Basic Roleplay System (BRP) (like Call of Cthulhu) and the Delta Green setting.
I'm exploring taking the Company actions and making the decision making
a little more strategically and tactically oriented. In such an event,
when things happen and how they're paired with other things can be
pretty important.
Now, I don't want to take an rpg and turn it into a war game, but I do
like the idea of taking Reign's rather limp structure in regards to
companies and using it to emphasize the tactical, resources, and use as
scene framing.
Companies can, in theory, act up to six times with a quality before it has degraded to zero. So here was what I was idly musing about to add more structure, resources and a little more framing.
Break a month up into 6 phases, each one around five days or so, but it's somewhat open and can veer into the more abstract. Now what I would do is create a Company character sheet with big boxes
for each of the Qualities. Players create pools and as they take
actions, they remove dice as those qualities have been degraded, so
they see the pools shrinking.
In each phase, players can choose Company actions, or choose no
actions at all. Each set of actions in a phase work concurrent to the
others... so if the same quality is used twice, its pool must be split
between the actions.
If Initiative is needed to be determined between conflicts, if players
are involved or hope to influence the roll, then half of each of the
competing pools is rolled, players provide their input and modifiers
are added and the rest of the pool is rolled and conflict is resolved.
If no PCs are involved, then roll the whole pool and determine the
initiative when the conflict is resolved.
Improve the Culture and Raise Standing are always resolved in the 6th phase.
So, for example, a Knights Templar Company (Might 3, Territory 1, Influence 2, Treasure 3, Sovereignty 4) might:
Phase 1
Espionage: Find out what the Thearch is going to do Phase 2
Counter Espionage: Use the Knights-Inquisitor to hunt down the Thearch's agents
Attack: Raid, to knock down the Thearch's Treasury to hurt his Espionage efforts Phase 3
Possibly Defend or do Counter Espionage if necessary Phase 4
As Phase 3 Phase 5
As phase 3 Phase 6
Rise in Stature: use the ineptitude of the Thearch to increase their credibility and gain more power in the Church.
Now you can see how Phase 2 depends on two elements coming together and
hopefully happening before the Thearch pulls off his espionage.
The question that this answers is: Are the Templars aware? Yes, if
their Espionage in Phase 1 is successful, by the time the Counter
Espionage in Phase 2 goes off. Now the question for me here is this:
Could a successful Raid in Phase 2 affect an action as it is happening?