BMDev5: Personnel
How to gain followers and influence people (in a wargame)
Because BMD is a wargame-infused TTRPG as a core design concept, one of its most important elements is the management of personnel. Players will create their canonical1 Troop Leader character, but the other characters are doing the heavy lifting with respect to military might and raw power.
Here, we’ll outline what to expect when seeking fighting-men to serve in our band of alien hunters. This involves two steps: a brief look at character scores (used universally across the whole system) and Mustering—the specific act of gathering volunteers, converts, and loyal followers to the Crusade against the alien Enemy.
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Character Scores
When making a Troop Leader, it is possible for players to have unusual character scores and traits. But for everyone else, there is a fixed standard array of scores that apply to each race (i.e. Terrans, Dhross, Yazimfa etc.). Troop Leaders are those who are a bit outside the norm—they may have notable strengths and weaknesses compared to the masses.
The Defining Scores
In the current design, the defining scores are Strength, Agility, Toughness, Presence, Intellect, and Grit—the now-infamous SATPIG system. There are other scores—like Hit Points, Accuracy, and Speed—but they are somewhat derivative and more easily modified; they do not act as defining characteristics.
Strength, Agility, and Intellect are conventional but take a sometimes unconventional role in BMD. For example, Intellect comes into play when determining initiative; this represents the planning ability and foresight of a sharp commander. Agility is used to swiftly navigate terrain and cover; Strength is very important for testing physical fitness such as march exhaustion and so on.
Toughness is similar to the conventional Constitution, marking a resistance to injury or illness and the ability to stave off death. Grit is mental toughness—the ability to wrangle the fight-or-flight instinct and to stay in control of one’s faculties. Grit is very important to characters wielding psionic powers, and is the essential score for Morale.
Presence is an ineffable quality that we feel when something significant happens or someone important enters the room. It can be considered a combination of force of personality, aura of purpose, and eminent leadership.
How Scores Inform Players
The game systems are built around the D10; a 10 result is always a success, and a 1 is always a failure. Most rolls involve multiple dice, trying to achieve as many successes as possible.
If we always need a result of 10 for success, then adding 8 means we only need to roll 2 or better (2+). If we add 9, we will still fail if we roll less than 2 because the raw die roll of 1 is always a failure. Character scores vary between 0 (strikingly inadequate) and 8 (unimaginably gifted) for this reason.
Every Terran loyalist that you add to your ranks will have a fixed array of scores:
(Terran)
STR AGI TGH PRS INT GRT
3 3 4 1 3 4 For comparison, let’s see the Dhross grunt (the typical soldier):
(Dhross)
STR AGI TGH PRS INT GRT
5 2 3 2 2 3Dhross are substantially stronger than their Terran counterparts. They are imposing foes, but with some relative weaknesses in these basic scores.
There are certainly other important differences between the races. For example, the Dhross are Size 3 (about the size of a large horse or small pickup truck) whereas Terrans are Size 2. The Dhross also have significantly more Hit Points, often 3 or 4, compared to the Terrans’ 1 or 2 Hit Points. Despite that, we can see that Terrans are better at protecting their HP and have more steadfast morale.
Dice Pools, Ace Pools, and Interaction Checks
Because there is no conventional skill system2 in BMD, there are a select few ways to mechanically mediate almost all questions.
Dice Pools have two attributes: the number of dice (the Power) and the bonus added to each die. A Power 4 dice pool with a +2 bonus—P4 +2—is executed by rolling four D10s and adding +2 to each die result. Any value equal to or greater than 10 is a success, and most of the time we want to roll as many successes as possible.
An Ace Pool is a dice pool where we are required to roll a raw natural 10 to get a success. Thus, a “3 Ace” is executed by rolling three D10s and hoping one or more comes up as 10! A “Grit Ace” will see us roll a number of dice equal to a character’s Grit score and hope for 10s.
Interaction Checks and Traits
Lastly, there is a highly generic “Interaction Check” which is defined as P2 +bonus where the bonus is contextual to what’s being attempted. If a soldier wants to cross the street on foot, he obviously succeeds—just as he obviously fails if he wants to jump over a 10-story building. But in other cases where success and failure are both feasible outcomes, it is reasonable to test P2 +Strength. One or more successes on the check will confirm his action succeeded.
In extraordinary cases where success is possible but arguably implausible, it is reasonable to require 2 successes rather than 1—this correctly dramatically shifts the odds towards failure.
If a soldier without any technical training wanted to hack into a security console from outside an outpost, he would fail without needing to roll anything because the action he is attempting clearly requires immersion in a body of understanding which he lacks. On the other hand, if he has the Qualified Tech trait (quoting from the rulebook):
Qualified Tech: This figure can attempt to interact (
P2 +INT) with complex Terran technology or simple alien technology. Examples: simple manipulations of lights, ventilation systems, alarm systems, camera controllers, and elevators. Each additional assisting figure with Qualified Tech contributes 1 reroll.
In this case, he could roll P2 +INT as normal—or P2 +INT looking for double successes if he is trying to hack alien tech. No one in BMD is capable of doing everything; bringing the right man for the job is a key part of mastering the game.
We can (mostly) always go out and hire someone with the right skills. This will be exceedingly expensive, and it’s more efficient in many ways to gather skilled men who are loyal not only to our cause but to us specifically.
That brings us to our next point.
Mustering: Gaining Followers
In the current (early) iteration of the rulebook, the beginning chapters are as follows:
Basic Elements of Play
Creating a New Campaign
Creating a Troop Leader
Psionics
Personnel
The management and acquisition of personnel is, in truth, an essential part of character creation. One of the very first things a new Troop Leader (TL) must do is Muster at the Sol Crusaders fleet (where all new characters begin play).
We could have chosen to design Mustering as a universal system, where each of the classes has some minor different inputs and bonuses. But this would be completely at odds with the flavor, utility, and in-game function of the classes! Most of the Personnel chapter is outlining how the different classes experience Mustering differently.
Because this is such an important part of the game (and essential to class identity), we will take a detailed look at the Mustering process.
The Mustering Pool
The one thing everyone will interact with in the same way is the Mustering Pool. Simply put, it is a number of dice that is increased or decreased by certain factors. In order, these are:
Infamy Rank + Presence
Population size modifier
Stability modifier
Infamy + Presence
The first and most impactful factors are a character’s Infamy Rank and Presence score. A TL’s Infamy is essentially their character level. An Infamy Rank 2 character with Presence 4 will start with a Mustering Pool of 2+4 = 6 dice.
Population Size
Then we look at the locale—where is the Mustering happening? First we check the population size. Anywhere with “Medium” population adds +0 dice, but steps away from “Medium” add and subtract dice per step. A locale with “Very High” population will add +2 dice (because Medium → High → Very High is two steps).
Stability (Population Morale)
Then we look at that population’s morale. This is quite different from Morale that is checked during a battle; it’s the disposition of the population towards their living standard, security, and benefits as a denizen. If the pop morale is high, we gain dice.
But what if the population is under alien rule? The logic is simply reversed. A high-morale population under Terran rule gives +1 die, but under alien rule they give -1 die! If the population under alien rule is happy, they are less likely to join your cause—simple!
This population morale is encoded in the game as the Stability of the ruling faction. Stability has steps [Low, Neutral, High] with “High” representing the population holding rulers in high regard. Moving any steps downward from Low Stability triggers a state of Open Rebellion.
Special Circumstances
Unusual cases are handled by some catch-all rules. First, if Mustering at a fleet, the Population Size modifier is treated as -3 and Stability modifier as +0.
What about places where humans exist mostly as Hyperplex slaves or as a small indentured workforce? For example, we talked about the Population Size, but that’s implicitly the size of a Terran population! If the population is all Dhross, we certainly aren’t expecting many recruits. In places like these where humans are an extreme minority of actual denizens, the Mustering Pool never has more than a single die.
Then, regardless what the bonuses and penalties are, any TL choosing to Muster always has at least 1 die in the Mustering Pool—so long as a non-zero Terran population arguably inhabits the place.
As a note, the Mustering action takes a full 24 hours, including all the planning and waiting and lead-following etc. In the current design, Mustering (by the same character) cannot be repeated in the same locale two days in a row—but this gap between Mustering attempts is being re-examined in testing.
The Impact of Class
After determining how big our Mustering Pool is, we roll that number of dice and consult the Mustering table:
For example, if our Mustering Pool is 5 dice, we roll each of those dice and consult the table for a set of categories. Let’s say we rolled [4, 5, 7, 8, 9]. We will get wildly different results from different classes:
Warthane:
Volunteer × 2
[Location]
Convert
Loyalist
Hierophant:
[Location]
Convert × 2
Loyalist × 2
Armacogitar:
None × 2
[Location]
Convert
Loyalist
But what do these category results mean?
Recruitment
After rolling the Mustering Pool, we end up with a set of categories telling us what to do next.
None is simple: we get no recruits!
A Volunteer is someone willing to join the cause of the Sol Crusaders but who is unable to fight—accountants, technicians, administrators, businessmen etc. These recruits are sent to the Volunteer Pool, a Sol Crusaders faction resource. The Volunteer Pool can be used by the faction to staff facilities and run logistics operations.
A Convert is a recruit that is ready and willing to fight—but our TL thinks they are either unready or are a bad fit for our own forces. They can serve, but they may need training first—or they might fit better with someone else. These men go into the Convert Pool, another Sol Crusaders faction resource related to the deployment of manpower.
A Loyalist is our prime recruit—one who is capable of fighting and, more importantly, capable of serving directly as part of our own forces. These are the recruits most TLs will want.
[Location] is a wildcard category—it’s really a stand-in for one of the other categories. Whatever category the locale is most likely to have will take the place of this wildcard—and we will choose randomly if it isn’t clear.
The Recruitment Roll
After assembling the Mustering Pool, we roll and get a set of recruitment categories from the Mustering table. For each rolled recruitment category, we roll on our class Recruitment table. Mustering Pool → Recruitment categories → actual Recruits.
Each class has their own Recruitment table. Let’s examine the Hierophant’s table as an example.
This table reveals, in principle, almost everything we need to know about gaining more followers.
First, our TL will gain XP from the Mustering process—important because we are blowing a minimum of 24 hours on this activity! Hierophants get substantially more XP (and more recruits) for the same die rolls, relative to the other classes.
When we actually hit the Loyalist category and gain Troops, each one will roll for a trait on the Traits table. The Hierophant’s troops roll on the standard table, which has a lot of blank (trait-less) results. But if we roll in the top of the Loyalist category, some troops can roll on the Specialist Table which has no blanks.
Next, we only directly gain soldiers if we hit the Loyalist category. There are two points mitigating this. Increasing the Volunteer Pool and the Convert Pool does not immediately help our character or his fighting force, but we are contributing directly to the larger war effort by making more faction resources available in the long-term. Then there are the Special Contacts, which may be—situationally—even more desirable than fighting men.
Special Contact: The Agitator
Consider the Agitator Special Contact. To summarize, the Agitator can have three possible effects.
In an enemy-ruled locale, the Agitator can implement a riot or other large social disruption. This disruption will lower the Stability by one step (moving them into or closer to Open Rebellion) while also lowering the Security Level by one step. These effects will persist for 7 days or until the Agitator is caught or killed. Now that is a good contact to have!
In a friendly or neutral locale, the Agitator is someone who knows all the right people and allows the Hierophant to Muster again—in the same 24-hour period during which the original Mustering attempt was taking place. Whew!
Then there is always the option to subordinate the Agitator and his followers directly to the Sol Crusaders, gaining +100 Volunteer Pool and additional XP. Special Contacts are really powerful in the right circumstances.
Comparison: The Armacogitar
Even though it might seem like we have a great overview of how Mustering works, it is difficult to appreciate just how different the experience is when we are using a different class—unless we resort to a direct comparison.
Where the Hierophant can gain up to 7 troops in one die, the Armacogitar is much more limited in his selection—and let’s not forget that the Hierophant gets a Loyalist result on [8, 9, 10] compared to the Armacogitar’s [9, 10]. The things that distinguish the Armacogitar are his Special Contacts and Psionic Troops—other classes will only get a psion at an average rate of 1 out of 100 recruits!
The Armacogitar gets a smaller portion of XP for hitting the Volunteer and Convert categories, but his Special Contacts are nevertheless highly valuable. Let’s look at the Spy contact (quoting from the rulebook):
The spy knows the site (generated randomly on the nearest enemy locale) of an enemy officer with a special encryption key. The site should be generated following the (global) Security Level.
If you recover that encryption key, the spy grants
[D10 × 10]Local Intel for the enemy locale,[D10]Operations Intel, and[D10 ÷ 10]Weapons Intel.Thereafter, the spy will produce
[D10]Local Intel every week unless and until caught.
This benefit affords the Armacogitar control over extensive gameplay possibilities. First, a site is created—a site with an officer present, guaranteeing a certain variety and degree of spoils. If the Armacogitar successfully recovers the key (which could involve a battle or a heist or so on) from this officer, he gets a potentially massive bounty of Intel. Then, this spy persists as a constant thorn in the enemy’s side until he’s found out.
When the Armacogitar stops getting Intel, it signals a great deal about activities that are happening in that locale—and potentially could give him an opportunity to rescue or otherwise save the spy.
Style + Substance
Since Mustering is a necessity for a wargame-infused TTRPG experience, I have spent considerable design efforts to make it something far from the typical “nail a sign on the public board” experience where a few dice are rolled and we see how many bandits mercenaries we’ve hired. Mustering is woven deep into the DNA of the war which is the core of BMD’s design—and it is connected by innovative pathways to systems that would be unrelated in other games.
Work on the rulebook continues at pace, and my highest priority is to get all the major systems down so that testing drafts can make their rounds. I am very excited that the game will soon exist as a whole object; I cannot wait for it to take on a life of its own once the pieces are assembled.
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The Canonical character is outlined in Classifying Characters in TTRPGs.
Subtle problems with common skill systems are examined at length in The Drawbacks of Conventional Skill Systems.