[Enigma65]

Originally Posted by SeaQueen

You know... but I don't think detailed briefings are at all necessary. I also am not a big fan of worrying too much about a plot. The players should make their own plot. In my mind, you only need a plot in so far as it creates a reason for the player(s) to be there, and an order of battle. Missions where it's like... "jump through hoop A, then turn a somersault, followed by a triple back spring...." tend to bore me. In a wargame where I am the captain, I want to make the decisions about what to do next.

I don't know. I'm an analyst, not an operator, and one of the things we turn triple backsprings to avoid is modeling different possible political outcomes and their likelyhoods. I like well defined pieces of engineering. Modeling the political calculations of world leaders is absolutely futile. How often do you find yourself looking at world leaders and thinking, "What the hell was he thinking?"

While in reality, the way the political winds are blowing sometimes has a great deal to do with military decisions (war of all kinds is, after all, politics) when making scenarios, I think of it more as a background. It helps me decide what the players are trying to accomplish, why they're there, what kinds of forces are involved, whether they're shooting or not, but I don't know if it'd be a good idea to go into the whole "now the war is on, now the war is off" kind of thing. When I think about that, it's actually kind of boring.

Now.. here's what I think might be a fun way to play it.

It's a period of heightened tension, where you're not at war, but the different forces involved are acting aggressively (you'd need to figure out very carefully what "aggressively" means.) The US ROE is peacetime and the players know that. Now, create a random trigger so that there's some uncertainty in the ROE for the opposing side. That makes the intentions of the other side a little bit of a mystery. You don't really know if the war is on or not, so somehow you have to figure it out. I think there'd be a certain amount of realism to this one because as a general rule, democracies in general do not wage aggressive war. They usually let the other side shoot first, and THEN get aggressive. In this sense, democracies tend to wage defensive wars.

You should also make the goals work so that if you make a mistake, and engage when the other side is peacetime, you get nothing. I'd also make it so that there's only a small probability of the opposing forces being at wartime. That way, trigger happy people get penalized most of the time.

That's ALL the plot you need. Your goal is to get a supertanker across a finish line unharmed. That's enough complications right there. The only other thing you'd need to make it realistic is an intelligently put together opposing force. I can't tell you what that might be.

The probability of things turning hot or not has less to do with politics, though, and more to do with how often do you think people are willing to play it and without any shooting, without making it so simple as a coin flip.

Well said SeaQueen. The biggest hold-up in my mission creating the plot and radio text issues where one gives background to the player.