Advice on running a mercenary campaign/running unit combat

[Eradan]

Hi all, I am fairly new to running traveller as a system and have a fairly large group of players involved in a mercenary campaign. I am running the starter adventure, Trial by Fire, and have thus far been enjoying it, but it has been difficult to get my party engaged in the back end of running the company and it is hard for them and me to wrap our heads around all the ins and outs of the combat system.

The fights have thus far seemed to mostly consist of me asking them for a few policy decisions, spending a couple minutes tallying modifiers, and then just one roll and then we do it all over again. I'm not sure if I am just running it poorly or if the system is just that clunky and hard to use. I would really appreciate any input/tips and tricks from those of you who have run mercenary games before.

 

[Tforbes]

The mercenary rules are widely considered to be... not the best thing Mongoose has ever put out.

Personally, I would suggest you and your group decide what you want out of the game narratively and whether it could be run with the standard Traveller rules on on the individual level with the large scale matters of company management being abstracted.

 

[collins355]

Hi all, I am fairly new to running traveller as a system and have a fairly large group of players involved in a mercenary campaign. I am running the starter adventure, Trial by Fire, and have thus far been enjoying it, but it has been difficult to get my party engaged in the back end of running the company and it is hard for them and me to wrap our heads around all the ins and outs of the combat system.

The fights have thus far seemed to mostly consist of me asking them for a few policy decisions, spending a couple minutes tallying modifiers, and then just one roll and then we do it all over again. I'm not sure if I am just running it poorly or if the system is just that clunky and hard to use. I would really appreciate any input/tips and tricks from those of you who have run mercenary games before.

As has already been said by Tforbes, the Mercenary box set is not Mongoose's finest hour. The system is clunky and poorly constructed. War by spreadsheet just isn't very interesting for most people, even at the best of times.

One option would be to get hold of the MGT first edition Mercenary book which, although controversial in parts, is at least a bit more useful for running a mercenary outfit, and a bit easier on the grey matter.

 

[MonsterX]

I'd use the Merc combat tables only if you MUST know the outcome, but don't think it would be fun to run it using one of the other combat system options.

I've not run a mercenary campaign but I played in one for a little while, and I am running a campaign where the players have a small security unit at their disposal (the DNR). In the campaign I played in the referee did use the mercenary combat rules once, and they kinda worked but it was really a letdown in terms of excitement level. It's like you build up the actual dramatic climax and then the action all occurs off-screen.

From my referee experience, at up to about three squads, you can run a decent combat with Mongoose rules for a firefight, but it does take a lot of prep to get the combat ready, (which will make you lean towards railroading the players away from peaceful solutions once you've put in the work). For the merc campaign, if they are running a small unit, that's fine. For a bigger unit, you might try to create occasions for the players to run crucial small firefights while the big fight occurs off-screen (maybe with modifiers from the smaller fight outcome).

My players seem to like roleplaying more than fighting for the most part, but also get into looking for clever ways to get advantages over the enemy, and for that you really need to get into the nitty gritty of what's the layout, where are the enemy located, what is in the environment , which the mass combat tables do not do.

I give them each direct control of a fireteam as well as their own player, even those who aren't present. Those who are in the SecTeam get the ones they normally are bosses of, but those who aren't just get some random team. I only take control of player-side NPCs if they aren't integrated into the PC's command structure, and decide to do something the PCs might not want them to.

Most of the game can probably be smaller scale interactions, though, as the players meet with people and try to influence them or get information, lead patrols through the jungle, finding supplies, getting that tank fixed, etc. These provide opportunities for social and technical skills, but also the occasional violent interpersonal interaction.

I think what the Mongoose Mercenary misses, though, is that the attraction of a mercenary campaign IS precisely the big combats, and for that you might look at Striker, which is designed for company sized engagements.