The invisible casualties

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@DATA.SEARCH @PROG40062 @FILEPATH 9707/04//PER.ADB.REV2//EIB @FILEFORM..D.PAD/DOWNLOAD @START FILE: Notes on The Grand Struggle @SUBJECT..The Invisible Casualties The Invisible Casualties

In a civil war like the one raging in current times, there are uncounted numbers of casualties. Mostly, when talking about casualties, one talks about the unrecognizable lumps of charred meat of orbital bombardment or the peaceful corpses of starved families. But there are also a host of casualties that few talks about, that is invisible to the eye.

The hardest part of being a Rebel is without doubt the mental part. The unimaginable atrocities committed by Imperial (and other) forces take their toll on the minds of spectators. By far, the most common reason our agents get caught and/or killed, is that they get careless or phobic.

A simple way of modeling phobias are giving them ratings like normal attributes. For example: fear of heights 1D+2. To be able to confront his fears in a scene, the character must spend as many character points as the number before the die. He still gets the phobia as a penalty to his rolls. (If the object of the phobia is forced upon him, and he has no CP's or does not want to spend them, the character acts with double penalties, and must try to get away from the source of his fears if at all possible.) If a force point is spent, the character can act without penalties for a whole scene. This use is always counted heroic.

Being witness to terrible events like the destruction of Alderaan, Base Delta Zero slagging of a planet's surface, the disastrous Raid on Fara's Belt etc. can affect a man permanently. Many of those actively fighting for the Alliance today are mentally scarred, grim beings, and "voluntary retirement" is a not uncommon euphemism for "retirement because of mental problems". Veteran operatives like fighter pilot "Pepper" Flarestream retire from too many ghosts, and seek forgetfulness in alcohol.

After particularly bad defeats or harrowing, costly victories, a character can elect to take a phobia of something experienced in the adventure (subject to GM approval, of course). A phobia can be as severe as you want, though 2D+ mostly result from repeated horrible experiences. Gaining phobias usually is or leads to good roleplaying, and should be rewarded. A simple guide is giving out 1 extra CP per pip the phobia increased, plus awards for exceptional roleplaying as usual, of course.

But, thankfully, many of the veterans of our Alliance are still with us. Others have taken extended periods of rest and "less heroic duty" at times, and then returned fit for their old occupation. Time is the great healer. Time is what is precious to the Alliance, time to rally more support and supplies, and harass the Empire.

Phobias can be bought off, when the character has faced his fear in some dramatically appropriate way and won the battle with himself. A guide to the cost of this is 2 CP per pip. An alternate way of losing phobias is simply resting or doing something else for extended periods of time. Three months or more of time and 5 CP per pip is suggested for this.

It is also suggested that players can take up to 2D or 3D of phobias when initially creating a character, in exchange for extra skill dice. This should be justified in the character's background. (But be wary of allowing ultra-specialized phobias that are unlikely to come into play, like Vaderphobia or hanging-suspended-over-furry-beast-while-chewing-gum-and-juggling-o-phobia).

Copyright ©1997-2001 Erik Inge Bolsø. Comments? Questions? Praise? Mail me at [email protected]!