Scale

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Scale
« on: June 14, 2010, 08:02:35 AM »
The fictional stuff to address:

In this setting, there's more organization of people and resources, big machines, big groups, big armies and ships. What happens when the characters face the equivalent of a star destroyer in their little putzy ship?


The easiest place to start, probably, is creating a quick size chart and saying one step up from you is a small gang, two steps up is a large gang, and three or more is effectively untouchable. You can't invade a world with a small gang.

To borrow from the army really quick, the scale might be kind of like this:

Soldier
Squad
Platoon
Battalion
Regiment
Division
etc

But maybe not quite so many, I dunno. But the idea, is, say, that a tank all by itself probably counts as a squad, with good harm and armor. A squad with anti-tank weapons could probably take out a single tank, yeah? A bunch of tanks would count as a platoon, maybe, and then it gets scary for the squad.

So a regiment fighting a battalion would be like a person fighting a small gang. A squad fighting a regiment would be like the squad dying in a bloodbath.


"I don't care what Wilson says." -- some slanderous bastard on the internet

Re: Scale
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2010, 08:35:28 AM »
Like you said, that list might feel a bit too fine-grained, at least to my uninitiated eyes. Maybe something like:
soldier/personal vehicle
squad/small vehicle
platoon/large vehicle
regiment/small base
army/large base
...to not get too technical?

I mentioned Vincent's Stat Strata in the stat thread. Do you think something like that? A missile launcher might then in itself be a personal stratum weapon, because it doesn't need a squad to operate, with missiles doing squad or even platoon stratum damage, depending on target and missile type?

Re: Scale
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2010, 09:57:39 AM »
Simon, yeah, the strata thing came up in an offline discussion, but I'll see how the "gang" thing works first.

I don't think there's anything problematic, at first glance, with a granular size chart. Mouse Guard has 8-9 different sizes and works just fine.
"I don't care what Wilson says." -- some slanderous bastard on the internet

Re: Scale
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2010, 10:47:42 AM »
Cool. A matter of taste, I suppose. :)

looking forward to reading more, as I said earlier!