W&G one shot. Need help

[Frostglaive]

I'm planning out a simple one-shot for my friends for W&G. And I'm trying to figure out what all I should add to it.

 

The story is: there's a small mining town that rebels took over. The players, who are all Guardsmen, are being sent in a strike team to take it back. Kill the leader, grab any intel, and retake the town. Outcome of this one-shot will determine certain consequences for a future campaign.

 

Basically just to get people used to the game system, give me practice as a GM, and see if people like this in my group.

 

What I need help is, idk what all to add in PRIOR to the party getting to the town for the assault. I have 1 ambush planned, and a chance for potential info prior to their arrival. Maybe an enemy patrol. But idk if that's not enough or too much. I expect the main assault to take a while, unless the players pull off some awesome shenanigans. But idk what else I'll need. Just a couple encounters? A bunch? Idk

 

Any suggestions?

[Steel Company]

Okay, this sounds like a precision strike operation... right in the shell house of Tempestus Scions (Strom Troopers). I'd say think about this like running a rogue (Assassin/Theif) centric D&D / Pathfinder game, light on combat, heavy on stealth and infiltration.

 

Patrols they could reasonably face should be single or paird, maybe with a K-9 unit. Have locked doors, alarms and other forms of security to be circumvented.

 

Long story short is:

 

Being loud = party messing up

 

 

Offing the leader of these rebels and leaving them in the open with no trace of who did it, is extremely demoralizing to non fanatical forces, it makes them feel vulnerable.

[Lord Marshal]

If they've never played the system before then a low-threat patrol is fine. You can escalate from there. The last thing you want is for their first combat encounter to drag because there's too many threats they need to burn through before they're comfortable doing more than 'I, uhhh... shoot the guy, I guess'.

[Mazer Rackham]

I think you've got a nice few touches of advice here, but it would also help to know about your group - are they veteran RPG'ers, what kind of things do they do in game, do they prefer working triggers or brain cells or do they prefer a light touch with plenty of laughs?  If you already know that, you've got half of it in the bag.

 

Your scenario sounds good, simple and flexible and that's a good step forward.  Don't be afraid to wing it with the system - as long as the entertainment keeps coming it doesn't matter if you get a couple of rules wrong, just keep it consistent.  You can fix it all next time before the session starts.

 

MR.

[Frostglaive]

So first off, thank you guys for the advice/suggestions. I do greatly appreciate it. To answer your first question(?) though, Mazer, I have absolutely no idea about my group yet. None of us have played W&G, at least not more than once (buddy and I did a one-shot with a friend as a new GM. It was good in the fact that we gained a better grasp of the rules. But it was obvious we were new to it so it got kinda awkward at points). I have a good feeling a good chunk of us are brand new to RPG's in general, me being completely new to GM'ing. That's why I'm doing this one-shot first before I even start on the campaign I'm planning. So we can all better understand the rules, I can figure out how to properly GM (figure out my style and whatnot), and see what my friends like for this.

 

So right now, the mission should go like this (sorry if I ramble btw. I'm more writing this all down for myself as well as to get your opinions):

Either Tier 1 or Tier 2 campaign (more than likely 2 now so they can play as Scions). All players, unless we get a good amount, will go as Guard or Scions. May allow a couple different archetypes as well if we get a big enough group for this. Goal is to conduct a raid in a small mining town, kill a rebel leader and his entourage, gather intel, and get out. Or retake the town in its entirety if able. The party, along with some NPC Guard or Scions, will IDEALLY either drive to their target via Chimera or fly in via Valkyrie if they want to.

 

If they go via Chimera, I'll put in like 2 or 3 encounters. Patrol or 2 that they can ignore (or fight, but if they do they run the risk of sounding the alarm for the town), and one outpost for them to possibly find some intel to get into the town easier without alerting the rebels. If they go via Valkyrie, it'll be 1 ambush, maybe 1 patrol, and still the outpost. 

 

They get to the town, they can either go in quietly to just try and take out the leader/get the intel. Or they can treat it as a recon mission, scout the area, then call in reinforcements to assault the entire town. Turn everything into a massive fight.

 

And I got a couple plans for if they decide to derail things. Say for instance they either return to base instead of finishing their mission, or they decide to go AWOL (I reserve the right to throw all the nastiness and horrible things I can at them if they decide to go AWOL!)

 

The mission's outcome will determine certain elements of the rebels' standing in the main campaign I'm building. 

 

Sorry again if I was rambling. This was more so I could actually visualize what I want to try and do, and get some opinions as well. The one-shot will be very linear, but I have a few ideas I can do to make things more flexible if the party does something different than anticipated.

[Steel Company]

Thar all sounds good, if they want to go in quite, a HALO(High Altitude Low Open) jump would be ideal, something Scions would be trained in. They'd likely aim to land a kilometer or so away, perfect chance for them to sneak up and get the jump on a patrol.

[Mazer Rackham]

Rambling is good - clears the brainways!

 

I agree with Steel and Lord Marshal - the first encounter, whatever it is should be nice and light and over quickly, to make the players feel like Bad Boyz and give them a bash at the rules.  Being a new group and new GM is a great opportunity!  You get to discover everyone's little quirks... :)

 

You have some good solid foundation in your mission and your prep.

 

I would echo Steel here - have the lads/ladies jump in via grav-chute drop, it's a one-way ticket and gives them less chance they will escape your plot - as a new GM and players, IMHO a fixed plot - one shot - is better for you all to start, however, don't worry about your players if they do go AWOL, but it looks like you're prepared for that!

 

Feel free to ramble to us as much as you want - but most importantly you must tell us how it goes! 

 

MR.