Highlights from Last Session
HK OPS – NEW MODERNS RPG BEING DEVELOPED FOR COMMUNITY
A few images from the development of HK Ops – a new modern warfare RPG is being developed for players in the Sitrep and OTT community. Players can take the role of high-end operators with a formal military or government service … or with a privately-run contractor company … or even survivors in a post-apocalyptic setting.
I’ve also added a link to a YouTube / Twitch live recording of our first playtest. There’s a lot of discussion and character work at the beginning, about two hours in the test game (just one player – @elessar2590) actually gets underway. Just testing out the system’s bones, identifying a few “wobbly” parts that are addressed in a tweak of the rules and character sheets.
Influences include the old White Wolf Storyteller systems (1st Edition) from the early 1990s, Millennium’s End, and Renegade Legion, as well as others.
Revised character sheet. Thanks to Elessar2590, Rasmus, and Grimwolfuk for some of the ideas and feedback that helped improve the base template.
Some of the base charts. As you can see, everything is very rounded off in "categories," we're not trying to make a game where you measure every foot of rope and the grain weight of your bullets. STORYTELLING and NARRATIVE is the focus here, along with realistic consequences and outcomes to tactical military events. If you're shot, you're shot. No healing scrolls, resurrection spells, or health packs in this game.
A very fast map I grabbed off Google Images for the playtest. The operator playing pieces (those move at will in the original playing file) were also found online, but the enemy insurgents I drew myself. As we progress, and depending on player interest, I will be steadily drawing more and more of my own pieces, perhaps custom ones for player characters! 
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This will be interesting.
Shouldn’t “Saavy” spell “Savvy” ?
GDW Twilight 2k and Mercs … those were 2 I had in mind.
Nice little game and I did a bit of WW Storyteller back in the day so it was not hard to pick up
Awesome, @rasmus! Glad you liked it! Yes, the rules are still in flux. But the details under review / revisions are getting smaller and smaller, very fast. We’re down to a few corner cases on RIFLE vs. SNIPER skills, the implementation of some kind of “leveling system” (not like D&D, but I want to create some kind of milestone element so player feel like they are making progress). And of course, the GAMEMASTER (i.e., me) has to get faster at this new system. But we’re getting there!
@oriskany It seem like the Advanced skills that can cause an issue – I am looking at Battlefield Instincts as well – The leveling system have the frame work in Tier 3, Tier 2 and Tier 1
As for speed it will get there – GMing is a skill that get rusty, but flex it a few times and it get right back – I did 3 games for the 1st time in a decade using the Infinity rules as a break in our D&D group and for a system that I were not overly familiar with, by the 3rd session I was more or less on top of it
Thanks, @rasmus – I don’t think the Advanced Skills will cause an issue … I just have to be firm in NOT allowing characters to do things covered by them if they DON’T have the skill. The usual “well, if you have another skill in the same school, so you can roll at +1 difficulty, etc.” CANNOT APPLY toward the special skill.
I should also note that the SNIPER checks were you making in our mini-firefight Sunday … yes, a normal rifleman COULD have made those. Your skills were being UNDER utilized in that case, you were only 50-75 yards from the target. Hell, in my time I could hit a torso-sized target standing still … at 500 meters …. 8 our of 10 times. And while I was rated “expert,” I was certainly no sniper. That was without a scope or bipod, or even a sniper rifle … standard M16A2.
So your “special skill” in that sniper shot was very easy. I mean you did 14 levels of damage with your first shot, and you’re a BEGINNING character. To start taking shots at half a mile, against moving targets, who know you’re there and are taking cover … while under enemy mortar fire … and NOT hit the hostage they’re hiding behind … THAT’s the sniper special skill. A 3-rated Rifleman would NOT be able to do that with a normal assault rifle
@oriskany I think it is just the players need to think in the advanced skills as well – and on the Tactical side I seem to have been the only one that did go full monty on Advanced skills. Aside from Fredrik only Jackson have a point in one of them with Melee (silent)
One option could be to only allow as many Autohits from the equipment as there is skills in that – same for the SAW, Bipod, Scope and Laser sight only adding a dice if there is no skill
Possible. If I had to guess, I think some players wanted to spend more points in more skills to at least get a grounding in more skills.
I’ll just change “Rifle” to “Assault Rifle.” I will not let this thing get too complicated.
I’ll be removing the auto hits from everything except bipod, and this is more for the automatic fire rule for MGs (allowing more stable sprays of fire via split dice pools – literally the point of bipods). Or we can say Scopes still offer an automatic hit as well, but only ONE AUTOMATIC HIT can ever be given for a shot. This way a scope without a bipod could also give one auto hit … or a bipod could also give an auto hit, but bipod PLUS scope would not give TWO auto hits …
@oriskany I like the limit on autohit to 1 and maybe only for the bipod, and maybe change anything else to be an added to the dice pool, and not allowing it to excess the amount of dots in the skill.
I doubt anyone but an odd fellow like me would look at a bolt action rifle
Jim the setup for the first adventure was very fun and for my first time playing an online version of a tabletop game it was very fulfilling. I was worried that it would not have the same feel as the traditional tabletop game, but I was wrong. The group dynamics and the storytelling was spot on. Rasmus, Jenn, Dennis, and Ash were all a pleasure to play with. I’m sorry I missed the second half of the first adventure, but hopefully as we develop the game further, and have more one shot games it will make schedule conflicts have a minimal effect.
Looking forward to developing Ajax into an elite Merc and making the team a successful unit.