Service and Service Arm.
The first line contains the organization and service arm of the character, followed by the character’s sustantative rank and name. The organizations are CIRC, CENT, and SPHERE or IND (independent).
Each organization has a marine corps and a navy. The mercenary services used to have an army organization, but as they started taking far future contracts, they discovered that their armies were constantly being delivered to the battlefield by the space navy. So the marines were chosen to be the sole ground force organization to reduce duplication of administration.
Each marine corps and navy has its own air corps because the mercenary services have found they need tactical air power more than they need strategic air power.
Name.
I have some fun giving names to my mercs. Sometimes I'll assign the name of a real-life or a historical person on the assumption that in a different worldline they'd have ended up as a merc.
Sometimes I'll look on the production credits of the games I'm playing or movies I've seen, and use the first name of one person and the last name of another person to make up a completely new name.
Sometimes I pick interesting names out of a telephone book.
Sometimes I use the name of a character from a science fiction novel that impressed me.
Sometimes I'll use the name of a character from a game I've played on the assumption that they been recruited.
And some times an interesting name comes to me right out of the blue. I like those names the best.
Rank.
Now, let me explain how I use rank. In the real armies of the English speaking world, there is "substantive" rank and "brevet" rank. This distinction takes into account that fact that standing armies in peace time are much smaller than armies in war time. A substantive rank is the actual career rank of an officer or NCO. It is the rank that their pension is based on when they retire.
Brevet rank is a temporary rank that arises out of the needs of battle in a war. "Battlefield promotions" are usually brevet ranks. Once a war is over, an army will usually demobilize back to its peace time size and a culling process will take place in which decisions are made as to which brevet ranks will be converted to substantive ranks and which won't. At the start of WW I, George S. Patton was a Lt. During the war he was promoted to captain, then major, then Lt. Col, and then full Colonel. When the war ended, he reverted back to the substantive rank of captain.
I was once told about an enlisted man in WW II who managed to get promoted all the way to full colonel by the end of the war. He came home very gung-ho for the army as a career choice. But he made the mistake of staying in after the war. He reverted back to the substantive rank of master sergeant. (And boy was he bitter about that for the rest of his time in the army!)
In the Space Time Mercenary Services, there is substantive rank, brevet rank, and "client" rank. Client rank is the temporary rank a mercenary assumes in order to fit into a client's table of organization. It may or may not become substantive after a contract is completed.
Some clients treat their contracts with the Services as state secrets, so service mercenaries in their hire will don their uniforms and ranks, and sometimes even under go neuro-nanonic and genetic enhancement to look and speak like the client. Other clients do not (or cannot) treat their contracts with the services as state secrets, so the mercs will wear the uniforms and ranks of their organizations openly.
Because of their common origin, all the services have the same rank designations, which are:
Marine Corps:
Field Marshall of Marines (six stars)
Field Marshall (five stars)
Colonel General (four stars)
Lieutenant General (three stars)
Major General (two stars)
Brigadier General (one star)
Colonel (four pips)
Lieutenant Colonel (four pips, one of which has a hole in it)
Major (three pips)
Captain (two pips)
Lieutenant (one pip)
2nd Lieutenant. (pip with a hole in it)
Navy:
Admiral of the Navy (six stars)
Admiral of the Fleets (five stars)
Fleet Admiral (four stars)
Vice Admiral (three stars)
Rear Admiral (two stars)
Commodore (one star)
Captain (four pips)
Commander (three pips)
Lieutenant Commander (three pips, one of which has a hole in it)
Lieutenant (two pips)
Lieutenant Junior Grade (one pip)
Ensign (one pip with a hole in it)
Description.
I usually don't put down a description because I usually remember what a character looks like, and sometimes I hold off until a characters career gives me a clue to what he looks like.
Relation.
If a character I particularly liked gets killed in action, or the character has a last name I particularly liked and he got killed too soon, I will sometimes create another character with the same last name as a son or brother of that deceased character. This tends to add some revenge plots to the character, which can be interesting.
Win/loss.
This used to be exactly that - the count of the number of battles won versus the number of battle lost.
But as I started to make little clerical errors in updating this piece of information, it started to become less accurate. So I changed its meaning to be the number of good mentions a character got versus the number of bad mentions a character got. It became an indicator of reputation.
And to the extent I continue to make clerical errors in updating, it reflects real life in that in real life reputations can be over-rated or under-rated.
A good mention is when a character gets a medal, is promoted, or praised in some way. A bad mention is when a character takes blame for something, is demoted, or reassigned to oblivion. In real life, soldiers don't always get the medals (or punishments) they deserve.
Assets.
Because I sometimes play economic games like Rail Road Tycoon, or Capitalism, I allow my characters to have assets that they can accumulate and use to run companies in economic games. The Services will sometimes loan money to their mercs to receive it back with interest, and thereby pay for the operations of its Ephermis machine. (This is also a good way for ranking flag officers to feather their retirement nests).
So on this asset line, I list any money or valuables a merc has accumulated.
The money is denoted with the $ sign, but it is not US money. The original dollar sign was the letter "U" superimposed over the letter "S." Overtime it became "$." In the Space Time Mercenary Services, "$" still denotes “US,” but it means "Universal Salt." It represents the average price of a unit of salt throughout the Space Time Continuum (excluding those ephermi in which mass fabrication is possible at low cost). This is in homage to the soldiers of the ancient Roman Empire who were literally paid in salt. (The origin of our word "salary," and the expression "worth his salt.")
How do the mercs accumulate money? Sometimes it’s directly awarded by a client. Some games actually state that a commander was awarded an amount of money or even property. All the services have had naval officers who had been privateers or even pirates in such ephermi as "Cutthroats" and "Pirates!"
But most times merc commanders receive money in the form of "droits" allowed on captured booty or enemy equipment after a battle. The concept comes from the British navy which had the concept of "droits of admiralty," where abandoned naval assets could under certain circumstances become the property of the Lord High Admiral.
This is actually a selling point that the services use with potential clients. By giving mercenary officers a vested interest in seizing the assets and weapons of an enemy, that enemy is not only weakened without further bloodshed, but abandoned weapons are collected and disposed of. This goes a long ways towards establishing the peace afterwards. One reason the American Old West was so "wild" was that the American Civil War had caused a large supply of cheap hand guns to come into circulation.
In games terms, I usually use some percentage of a game's score (if one is given) as the droit amount awarded to the commander. So that's one way in which a characters accumulated assets to indicate how successful he's been.
Decorations.
"Hey I notice you guys sure have alot of brass around here today. I ran into a guy who had scrambled eggs on his hat, fruit salad on his shirt, and hash marks on his sleeve. He wasn't an officer, though. Just a sloppy eater."
Bob Hope, on one of his USO tours.
Now we come to the "fruit salad" that goes on the dress uniform. Again, because of their common origin, the services all have the same designations for their decorations.
And the decorations have a generic quality to them because they have to be translatable into client equivalents in those ephermi in which the client's uniforms must be worn. Hence "a warcross" is awarded and not "the warcross." The decorations listed lower down tend to commonly be awarded to the lower ranks. The decorations listed near the top tend to be awarded to the higher ranks.
Going from the bottom to the top, the decorations are:
Mission medal. A mission medal is awarded for completing the objectives of a mission, whether combat is involved or not. It is the basic unit of performance in the services. And because a merc can get it without necessarily being in combat, it is a cause for much cynicism in the ranks and debate in the middle ranks. As these mission medals are collected and worn on the uniform, they tend to make even average soldiers look above average. They unduly impress potential clients during parade ground reviews. But that is exactly why the medal has always been supported by the higher rankers who run the services. As long as any Service issues this medal, any other Service will be placed at an advertizing disadvantage.
Before going further, I should mention that decorations that have a "cluster" listed next to them are ribbons won above a breast pocket. A cluster is a little pip that’s puts on top of the ribbon that signifies another awarding of the same medal.
A maximum of three clusters can be placed on a given ribbon before the ribbon can be repeated. So a merc who has a mission medal with three clusters on it has successfully completed four missions. If he subsequently completes another mission, he will be awarded another mission medal ribbon. Hence, a proliferation of ribbons.
A decoration that does not have "cluster" next to it is a badge. The number represents a subsequent awarding of the same decoration, but with a raising of its "degree" (like the degree system in Freemasonry).
Purple Heart. The purple heart is the medal no merc wants to get. A merc gets it for being wounded in action. And here I'll describe my casualty system.
Before a game begins, I'll note how it can be possible for the characters to become killed or wounded in action.
In some games, it’s obvious how the character can be represented in the game. There is a unit that specifically represents the player in the game. In Jagged Alliance 2, for example, there is a character you can build who is supposed to represent you in the game. In Supreme Commander, there is a unit that represents the player and the player loses if that unit is destroyed.
Other times it is something only you can decide, like deciding that a specific unit-producing factory is where your HQ is.
What ever it is that I've chosen to represent my character in the game, I note whether the item receives damage or is destroyed. Sometimes it is obvious. In Jagged Alliance 2, a distinction is made between being wounded and being killed. If my character is wounded in the game, he's wounded in my files. If he dies in the game, he's dead in my files. It’s likewise, in Supreme Commander. If the Supreme Commander unit receives damage but is not destroyed, then the character has been wounded. But if the Supreme Commander unit has been destroyed, the character has died.
Other times it is less than obvious what has happened to the character. So I do a sort of "saving roll" on the character.
I will roll two dice. If I get two ones ("snake eyes"), the character has been killed in action. If I get an odd number, I'll know the character escaped being hit at all. If I get an even number, I'll know the character has been hit and role again to see how badly he's been hit. If I get snakes eyes from that, he'll been killed in action.otherwise, the closest the number rolled gets to 2 (snake eyes), the more wounded he is.
A 3 is 90% wounds. A 4 is 80% wounds, etc.) I've found that this system has the best balance for allowing my characters to face some risk, but without my constantly having to make new characters.
Wounded characters are presumed to have been placed in the regeneration tanks and returned to active duty for another game. If they are not too wounded, they will returned to the game I was playing.
I will discuss the disposition of dead characters later.
Rescue Medal: The rescue medal introduces another mechanism in my style of playing games. One other consequence of losing a battle is not only getting killed or wounded in action, but also getting captured by the enemy.
If it looks to me like my character or his subordinates are going to end up captured by a victorious enemy, I will do a saving roll on that. I will ask "Was he captured?" and then I roll two six-sided dice. If I get an even number, the answer is yes and he's been captured. If I get an odd number, the answer no, he's managed to escape.
A character can end up wounded in action and captured. If the wounds are severe, the capture is considered automatic. I maintain for each organization a POW-camp file in which I place characters from the other two sides who have been captured by that side.
There are two ways for POWs to be repatriated back to their original organizations.
One way is by a prisoner exchange. If two sides are experiencing a shortage of officers, they may wish to hold a prisoner exchange and exchange officers they hold who are of equivalent rank.
The other way is by rescue. Very often a game scenario will involve a "prison break" or other rescue mission. When the character I'm playing has succeeded in such a mission, I will allow him to have rescued one of his fellow organization members held by an enemy side.
I roll a ten-sided die to pick the rescued character out from those others in the POW-camp folder, and release that character for use as a possible subordinate for my rescuing character. I then award the character a Rescue Medal. This adds a nice dimension of interaction to my characters.
The rationale for allowing rescues is that if there were such a thing as Space Time Mercenaries Services, the logical thing for them to do with prisoners from a rival service would be to distribute them through out the ephermi in which they have contracts with clients who already have POW camps. That would cause rescue efforts to be a matter of pure chance.
A War Cross (or Navy Cross) is awarded for high performance while being exposed to actual combat.
A medal of valor is awarded for taking on a higher level of risk than is the norm while performing a mission.
A medal of victory is awarded specifically to the commander of a mission and only if he obtains a victory.
A medal of honor is never called "THE medal of honor," and this is so not only because it is meant to be generic, but also because the concept of the award is different from most non-mercenary armies.
Mercenaries never do anything "above and beyond the call of duty," because that would be a contradiction in terms. Rather, a medal of honor is awarded to a mercenary who makes his organization look good.
It’s even possible to get it without encountering combat. This is when a merc does something flashy, like rescuing Princess Pretty from the evil clutches of Duke Puke. The medal can be awarded for things that get an organization a lot good press.
Winners of this medal tend to be put on company tours and junkets for the purpose of recruitment or advertizing campaigns. And this causes no amount of cynicism in the ranks. But that said, it has been awarded for some extraordinary performances.
A Battle Star is usually given to a commanding flag officer (general, commodore or admiral) who wins an extraordinary victory. The recipient of the award is considered to be a Battle Master.
An Order of Strategy is usually awarded to a commander who has shown a consistent talent for strategic thinking. It is not only a decoration, but also a society of all the holders of the decoration.
The society meets annually in solemn ceremony, and at dinners in which views and insights are exchanged. The highest degreed member of the society is called the Master of the Order and sits on its ruling council and represents the council to the commander in chief of the organization.
An Order of Tactics is awarded for consistent tactical prowess and innovation. It is another society like the Order of Strategy.
When an officer is awarded both the Order of Strategy and the Order of Tactics, he is inducted into a yet more rarified society, the Order of Strategy and Tactics.
There are other medals which I have recently added to add some variation. They duplicate the existing medal somewhat and I have no set policy for them.
Now we come to the most feared decoration of all. All conversation in a room ceases when a holder of this decoration comes into it. No one wants to be awarded it. The commanders in Chief of the Services have more often then not been holders of it.
It is the Order of Death's Head. It is awarded to the mercenary who has been forced to use strategic weapons of mass destruction in the course of his duties. Marine officers are awarded it for launching strategic nuclear missiles. Admirals of deep space fleets are awarded it for using planet killers on enemy worlds. The mercenary awarded this decoration is marked for life.
Special Decorations.
These are decorations awarded by clients, and they have the specific flavor of the client they come from. One, for example is the "Son of the Security of the State," issued by Feudal Japan after its contact with the Space Time Mercenary Services.
The services allow any special decoration that does not bring disgrace to the uniform. Hence, shrunken heads, dried out fingers, and rings of severed ears and scalps are not allowed to be worn on the uniform, even if barbarian clients award them.
Titles.
These are titles that may be awarded by clients in the course of duty. Hence some mercs are "Col. Sir so-and-so," "Admiral So-and-so, the Duke of this", and "General So-and-so, the Earl of that."
Why do the services allow titles? Because they have found that in contracts with low-technology clients, the commoners distrust leaders who are not a noble of some sort. The services find that the holders of these titles tend to take on airs of “gentry” that commoners automatically respond to in positive ways. Titles are for the good of the Services.
Actions.
Now we come the bread and butter of a characters life. What has he done? And where did he do it? And what did he get for doing it? This is the section where the various ephermi a mercenary has participated in are listed and described, and where the "after action reports" are listed.
[]Ephermis/Worldline/date/region/conflict/CodeName: xxxxxxx
Those are the coordinates given the Ephermis machine that initiates the ephermis the character will participate in.
Here are some examples taken from my files:
[]Ephermis/Worldline/Earth/Vietam/1950-1975/Codename:BattlefieldVietNam
[]Ephermis/Worldline/40,000AD/Empire of Man/Kronus/CodeName: DarkCrusade
[] Ephermis/Worldline/Earth/2002AD/CodeName: CapitalismII
Following this is a set up report like the following
"MechWarrior Capt. Horace Zinfeld is called to duty again. Victor Davion liked CIRC's handling of Kentares IV and recommended CIRC to Katrina Steiner, as Davion and Steiner are currently allied. Steiner has a delicate mission, and because of later events on Kentares IV, Steiner is on the outs with CENT. Carver V is in a bad way. Davion has interests there. So does Steiner, and so does House Liao. And there is an independence movement trying to break free. And a bunch of pirates are in the middle of it all. It is a mess. So Capt. Zinfeld is being placed at the disposal of House Davion’s Colonel David Renard, ranking military commander on Carver V. Zinfeld is being given money and mech pilots to build up his own merc force to be called Zinfeld’s Zingers. CIRC expects the Zingers will be used to zing the pirates, but doesn’t rule out the possibility that the real reason for them is to give Renard cover if he wants to undertake operations that he can disown after the fact. But the politics is neither here nor there. CIRC wants Zinfeld to bring in money, and new high quality recruits."
The length of the ephermis introduction depended on how much I feel like writing at the time. And this is generally true of all the characters files I have.
B1, B2, B3, are the battles that occur in the ephermis. Most games are divided into a series of campaign scenarios or skirmish battles. Following the battle title will be a short description that sets forth the characters involved and the objectives. For example:
"B1: Airport Take back.
Pirates have apparently seized an airport on Carver V. Zinfeld is authorized to assemble an initial lance of two Bushwackers and a Razorback recon mech. He has only greenies to work with just yet. They need blooding."
Following the battle description is the result. Victory or defeat. Specific results. Rewards or punishments.
Simple example:
"R1: Victory! The green lance did well, taking out the pirates conventional and mech patrols. They salvaged one urban mech. Zinfeld is awarded a mission medal."
More involved example:
"R18: Campaign-ending victory! Col. Adelbert “Gratus” Mara’s REPORT: “It was touch and go for awhile. We had to the find three ICBM’s in time to prevent a triangulation and launch. We forgot about trying to defend the base and just ran with what we had - some mechs and some infantry. I gave command of the roving force to Maj. Eli Summers, while I stayed with the base to defend it as best I could and while continuing to send out reinforcements to Summers. That turned out to be enough, because the enemy did not press the base. The enemy was too busy trying to keep Maj. Summers from destroying his ICBM’s. Maj. Summers did a thorough-going job of that, vigorously searching and destroying them as he went. Finally, we were down to the last one, which was on a defended island. Maj. Summers thought of having his mechs transported in by air. An air-landing invasion, like Crete in 1942. It worked, but not without mechs dying. Fortunately, Maj. Summer’s mech was not hit this time. Then came the job of finding the NOD pyramid, which was next to a temple of NOD. With the NOD power grid already taken out, this concentration was without real defenses. Maj. Summers put infantry across a bridge, and two APCs of engineers behind them. The engineers captured every structure there, including the NOD pyramid. There was a personal duel between leader Kane and Maj. Summers over Umagon, Kane’s prisoner. Summers took out Kane with his own WarHammer combat knife. Makes a old WarHammer like me proud! Umagon is repatriated to her people, and last I heard she had accepted a intel commission from SPHERE. All’s well that doesn’t necessarily end all well. I need a vacation. END-REPORT."
Now, most times my "after action reports" are not very involved. In those cases, they're just meant to be the bare bones of a plot that I can put my imagination into later on.
One of the things I hope for with these character files is that I may eventually have the makings of some nice military science-fiction novels. Raymond E. Feist of the acclaimed "Riftwar" fantasy series apparently built his worlds, and got a number of his plots, from fantasy role playing games he played with his friends. That's what I'd like to do with my character files, but I'm a complete unknown and will likely remain the crank game blogger I am.
So to summarize, my format for reporting on the progress of a game is fairly simple:
[]Ephermis/Worldline/date/region/conflict/CodeName: xxxxxxx
B1: location, operation.
R1: [result & reports, rewards & punishments]
B2:
R2:
etc.
But sometimes a game does not lend itself to this form. Jagged Alliance 2, for example, is not broken down into a specific set of individual battles. And there are a number of non-battle events that go on that move the plot of the game So the format I used for Jagged Alliance 2 was:
[]Ephermis/Worldline/date/region/conflict/CodeName: xxxxxxx
R1:
R2:
R3:
etc.
Each R marker gave the day and time stamp of the game's clock.
So those are the details of my character files. Next time: My world folders.
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