Gauging Interest in a Firestorm campaign

[burning_phoneix]

The crash, which some still insist on calling a recession, devastated the world. At the time, we didn't know how far reaching the effects would be, in that way we were naive. Many saw the signs, the banks that failed, the ever rising debt amongst the world powers, the increasing gulf between the have and have nots. Stop gap measures slowed the effects, diluting them from public knowledge and blinding us to the dangers they heralded. But as more people drifted out of jobs into the realm of hopelessness, more drastic measures had to be undertaken, to ensure that the governments themselves would not fail. In 2012, the US government, after an emergency session, declared their debt obligations null and void, effectively destroying 13 trillion dollars worth of wealth in a single action. As with most measures of a rushed nature, this one had repercussions. The elimination of the US debt sent tidal waves through the international markets, and within hours other nations had frozen their assets to ensure stability for a short period of time. America's allies unilaterally cancelled their own debts to the superpower, while other nations such as China and Russia took the more aggressive stance and raided US institutions with a coordinated cyber attack that plundered untold billions from the electronic vaults of companies. Only the ever-looming spectre of nuclear holocaust prevented an open engagement. Thus the world had been reset, with nations free of debt, but with global trade shattered.

The US action ensured that governmental budgets would need to be overhauled, as lending amongst varied countries had ground to a standstill. One of the first sectors to go on the chopping block was defence, with many nations looking for ways to reduce expenditures in this expensive yet necessary market. After a thorough analysis, the Argentine government came to the conclusion that the maintenance of a full time fighting force was excessive, and that it would make more sense to contract out a wartime fighting force in the event it was needed, and maintain a smaller armed force for peacetime operations. The Argentinians disbanded large sections of their Army, Navy, and Air Force, resulting in a glut of highly skilled warriors, many of which formed private military contracting corporations. When the benefits of the Argentinian system became apparent, other nations began following suit, even the superpowers reduced their peacetime forces and placed large quantities of armaments in storage. The new market for PMCs grew and spread like wildfire, bringing with it the rise of capital insurance brokers, and new arms trade organizations.

While running a PMC focused primarily on land operations is relatively straightforward, the far more costly Aerospace and Naval sections required a shift in the traditional business model. Many companies do not own their own equipment, rather they have leased it from giant organizations such as ILFC and Triton. These organizations for their part, simply acquire aircraft and vessels, whereas the PMCs supply the trained personnel. While at first seeming one-sided, your average third gen fighter is only worth around two and half million dollars, while a first rate fighter pilot can represent over four million dollars in training and development. The market for aircraft also changed drastically, with older models becoming financially viable again, for work in low impact operations in third world areas. While traditional defence companies continued to operate and produce modern aircraft, they reduced their output while 'Boneyard Dogs' began purchasing discarded equipment from government stockpiles, to refit and repair for duty. Some designs became highly sought after, such as the F-4 Phantom, or the MiG-21, for their rugged dependability and inherent strengths of their basic design.

The repercussions from these fundamental changes in world power projection are still being felt, but low intensity operations have been on the rise, with small nations willing to spend fractions of their budget to employ mercenary groups for strikes on their neighbours. Likewise, most nations have retention contracts, ensuring their protection in times of war, and guaranteeing that mercenary groups will be available to them should they ever be attacked. The amount of contracts and negotiations occurring today in 2015 is staggering, and market indicators are highly classified for their military intelligence value. A nation purchasing contracts en masse is usually the first sign of an impeding attack so intelligence agencies work frantically to find out what PMC is working where and for whom. This fragile balance is tenuous at best. With this many warriors for hire, and with the reduced national cost of warfare, the world sleeps uneasily knowing that the smallest spark in this mountain of kindling could ignite into a Global Firestorm

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What is Firestorm?

Firestorm is a homebrew mercenary jet combat game set in the year 2015. All hell's broken loose and everybody wants some merc jet jockeys.

You are those jockeys.

Is it free?

Being homebrew and in a beta stage, Firestorm is free and I'll provide the rules in a PDF file.

Is it hard to play? Do I need to know anything about jet combat?

Not really, the entire ruleset is basically 10 pages long and is very simplified. Knowing about actual jet tactics will help you since the game is based on reality (so no Ace Combat style 100 missile carrying jets!) but is unnecessary.

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So basically, I'm gauging if there's any such interest in me running this game. I need at least 4 guys and a maximum of 12 divided into two groups of six. Only 4 people can go into a mission per group (so we would have two missions at the same time with 4 planes each AT MAX).

Post here if you're interested.

[Excellen Browning]

Definitely interested.

[Snowy_One]

Possibly interested. Depends on rules and such.

[burning_phoneix]

I guess people have the right to see the rules before they play so... Here you go!

Firestorm Rules v.0.0.4

http://www.mediafire.com/?bfze657m5w7bvml

The rules are in beta (I didn't write them BTW) so ask me anything if it looks unclear. It doesn't cover character creation for example but has about 95% of the rules in it.

Edited July 27, 2011 by burning_phoneix

[eclipse]

Depends on when this starts. I'm gonna have my hands full for the next couple of weeks, at least.

[burning_phoneix]

You should be okay then. At this pace we're not going to start for at least a couple weeks since we need to set up groups and roll characters. :)

[Snowy_One]

That guide doesn't really deal with creating characters, and I would suspect that that is very important to making any lasting RP.

[burning_phoneix]

Well, right now I'm just worried about getting enough players but if you really want to know how to make a character, here's the rules:

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Roll a pool of Ten d10 dice and convert your rolls to the following:

Roll of 1 = 3

Rolls of 2 and 3 = 4

Rolls of 4,5,6 and 7 = 5

Rolls of 8 and 9 = 6

Rolls of 10 = 7

Once converted, you can assign these numbers to the following stats:

Airmanship - Most importantly this is used to land. Poor Airmanship means that landing in combat or, more importantly, while damaged is much more dangerous. It is also used for things like staying conscious while bleeding profusely and restarting critical systems in the middle of a fight so you don't fly into a mountain at mach 2.

Air Combat Manoeuvring (ACM) - This skill is used for doing combat maneuvers. Hard turns, loops, getting out of stalls, zoom climbs. All that good stuff. A higher ACM means that all of those actions are easier to do and, if you fail, decreases the amount of altitude you lose in the process. Some aircraft provide bonuses or penalties to ACM based on how maneuverable they are.

Anti Air Infrared - How good you are at using IR systems. You roll this to lock onto enemy fighters, and the aim is to roll under your score. If the aircraft is equipped with an IRST system (Infrared Search and Tracking) this score also moderates that.

Anti Air Semi Active Radar/ Active Radar- Like AtA IR, but for semi-active radar guided and active radar guided missiles. Identifying something with your radar also uses this skill.

AtA guns/rockets - Unlike the other two AtA skills this one is used for attacks (attacking with missiles and guided AtG weapons uses the missile's stats). So this skill is only used in the firing phase, allowing you to do something else in the action phase.

Air to Ground Guided - Locking on with guided (by any means) AtG munitions is covered with this. It acts the same way as the AtA guided skills, but doesn't have any spotting attached to it.

AtG Unguided - Used for dropping bombs on stuff. Like AtA guns/rockets this is purely a shooting action as a lock isn't required, and the more bombs you drop the better chance you have of hitting.

AtG Guns/Rockets - Like AtA Guns/Rockets, but they hit the ground quicker if you miss.

Identification- Useful for visually identifying aircraft. Usually get more info out of this than with any other method and is able to discern markings as well as aircraft type. Quite useful in restricted ROE situations.

Electronic Counter Measures - Used for shaking and avoiding locks. The utility of that should be obvious.

(EDIT)AFTER THAT:

I forgot one thing! You must *tag* two skills to become "advanced" skills. Becoming advanced allows you one reroll in that skill per turn.

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EXAMPLE!

Let's say I rolled:

10d10

3 + 8 + 4 + 8 + 10 + 3 + 8 + 6 + 6 + 5

So now I convert this to stat numbers:

3=4

8=6

4=5

8=6

10=7

3=4

8=6

6=5

6=5

5=5

Now I have a pool I can distribute stats to. Let's say I want to make a really good precision bomber pilot.

Airmanship: 6

ACM: 5

AtA IR: 5

AtA SAR/AR: 4

AtA Guns/Rockets: 4

AtG Unguided: 6

AtG Guided: 7

AtG Guns/Rockets: 5

ECM: 6

ID: 5

As you can see, I put my highest score (7) on the AtG Guided skill so I can hit ground targets with things like Laser Guided bombs and Anti-radiation missiles (for taking out Surface to Air Missile sites). I also put a relatively high score on Unguided munitions (6) because dumb iron bombs are cheap and do a lot of damage, you just can't always afford advanced munitions. I put a 6 on Airmanship and a 5 on ACM because as a bomber pilot of something like say... an A-10 Warthog, I'm rarely going to be called on to pull of advanced manuevers that require ACM but airmanship is useful for ANY pilot.

I also placed a 6 on ECM so ground based missile systems and any enemies trying to lock me up will have trouble. Since I'm not going to be participating in air combat, my AtA SAR and gun/rockets skills are low but ATA IR is useful because bombers usually carry a few heat seeking missiles for protection.

Edited July 29, 2011 by burning_phoneix

[Snowy_One]

Okay. So for example (EXAMPLE CHARACTER! NOT REAL!), I just rolled 10d10 myself. My results were 10, 8, 1, 9, 5, 7, 6, 8, 9, 8. Converted into values that is, respectively, 7, 6, 3, 6, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6. Now I am going to assign these values to what you described.

Airmanship - 5

Air Combat Manoeuvring (ACM) - 7

Anti Air Infrared - 5

Anti Air Semi Active Radar/ Active Radar- 5

AtA guns/rockets - 6

AtG Unguided - 3

AtG Guns/Rockets - 6

Identification- 6

This would mean my fighter pilot/plane is one that is a highly maneuverable fighter pilot who focuses on guns and rockets and stays away from bombing runs due to poor skill at using unguided AtG systems, right? They are an above-average pilot though in all other respects except for average markings in airmanship, infrared, and radar-focused weapons. Basically, a defense-focused air-to-air dogfighter. Right?

[burning_phoneix]

You got the conversion right (though you forgot the ECM and AtG Guided skills )

You're spot on. Though I would interpret your skills as an old school guns knife fighter fighter who hates all these "modern" missile systems.

If you want to be defence focused, you can specialize in AtA SAR/AR and identify enemies through long range radar and hit them from super long range.

OH YEAH! I forgot one thing! You must *tag* two skills to become "advanced" skills. Becoming advanced allows you one reroll in that skill per turn.

For example, if you take "Advanced AtA IR" skill in your above example and you try to lock on with a heat seeking sidewinder. You must roll under your skill (so 5 or under) with a D10 dice. You roll a 7 but since you're advanced with AtA IR you get to reroll and get a 4 and therefore successfully lock on!

[burning_phoneix]

Unless we get another player soon, I'm going to have to either cancel this or allow an NPC pilot (though I guess with three players you have more money to spend on planes and upgrades)

Edited August 2, 2011 by burning_phoneix

[burning_phoneix]

One last hopeful bump. If the three people who expressed interest are okay with flying in a three-man flight then we'll continue. Otherwise, I'll just cancel this if we don't get a fourth musketeer.

Edited August 5, 2011 by burning_phoneix

[Excellen Browning]

Just to get this straight, it's a turnbased game and not an actual flight sim?

[burning_phoneix]

Yes. This is a turn based Pen and Paper RPG.

[burning_phoneix]

Welp, I guess no one is interested in doing this.

For those that signed up and still want to play, PM me and I'll direct you to a forum where this game is active.