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So I have to admit, despite being a proud Canadian I have an absolute fascination with the United States Army Special Forces – the so called “Green Berets.” While all special operations forces emphasize both extreme physical conditioning and mental agility, to me the intellectual capacity and cultural communication components have always stood out as unique to Special Forces. Given the varied mission set of these elite soldiers, and that their motto, “De oppresso liber” fits perfectly with a romantic Age of Rebellion campaign. I propose to you all the Rebel SpecForce Advisors campaign concept. The PCs are a team of SpecForce operatives sent deep into Imperial territory with a mission to train and lead counter-Imperial guerrillas in unconventional warfare. Please note this campaign concept is not designed to mirror a Special Forces Operational Detachment-A, or A-Team, but to be loosely inspired by one.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Due to being deployed alone, players retain a great level of autonomy
- Still a military game, allowing GMs a lot of options for control of the campaign through orders, etc.
- Based on the long term nature of the mission, players have a lot of opportunities for downtime activities
- Also based on this long term nature, there are many good excuses available for why a character may miss a session
Cons:
- Based on the long term nature of the mission, there may be a number of time skips required, your mileage may vary on whether this is good or bad
- Sticking to the standard format of this game could easily get boring (we’re helping another very similar militia for the next 16 sessions?!)
The How
Operations
Rebel SpecForce advisors conduct a variety of mission types to enable Alliance military success. The most notable is the train and advise mission where SpecForce advisors assist local Rebel-affiliated groups with training, mentoring, and coordination with regular Alliance military. SpecForce advisors are also highly capable in generic special operations forces tasks such as direct action, the short duration high precision strikes and raids, special reconnaissance, and covert intelligence gathering activities deep behind enemy lines. In order to achieve these missions, SpecForce advisors are experts at the enabling operation of infiltration.
The Setup
The players are all members of the same SpecForce Advisor team. Characters should be experienced and highly trained Alliance soldiers of at least Knight-level experience (150 XP). Similar to my Rebellion in a Box campaign concept you should select or work with your players to pick the planet or region they will be assigned to. For the campaign concept to work, it should be an area brutally oppressed by the Empire. A fledgling resistance has formed, but cannot hope to gain any traction without assistance from the Alliance.
The first stage of the operation is infiltration. How will the players get themselves and their equipment through Imperial security and onto the target world? If you are looking for a good in media res start you may want to fast forward a bit here, but actually I highly recommend you let this play out. In my experience, many players enjoy planning. This can be a good thing as long as it doesn’t bog down a game. Perhaps you could have a session zero to introduce characters and plan the infiltration.
Once on world, the team must make contact with the local resistance. This could be an adventure unto itself, trying to locate a small group that is on the run from an Imperial crackdown. Once contact has been made, you could throw the players a curve ball. Maybe the resistance is insulted by the Alliance sending a team to “tell them what to do.” Maybe there is the opposite problem, the resistance sees the team as their saviors and expects them to do everything. There’s a lot of opportunity to spice things up here, so take some time to think of how the resistance will react to their arrival.
Suggested Roles
As with before I will make some suggestions on player roles, but first a note on military games and rank. There are a lot of good resources to tackle this topic, both in the Age of Rebellion core rulebook and as addressed on the Order 66 podcast. While special operations forces do tend to retain a chain of command, the nature of their ongoing small unit operations means that leadership and decision making is much more collaborative. When every member of the team is an expert in their field it would be a grievous waste not to take advantage of that expertise. I suggest that one player fill the role of commander and another bump their rank up once to serve as the second-in-command, but remember that the leadership role those two characters fill is collaborative when there is time and decisive when there is not. They say obedience can be demanded, but loyalty can only be earned.
SpecForce Team Leader
- overall commander of the team, operational planner
- Captain (army) rank
- Suggested Build: Tactician + Strategist
SpecForce Weapons Sergeant
- weapons specialist, expert in training methods
- could have multiples in one team
- Sergeant rank
- Suggested Build: Commando and/or Heavy and/or Marksman + Instructor
SpecForce Intelligence Sergeant
- intelligence and analysis capability
- Sergeant rank
- Suggested Build: Analyst + Recruit
SpecForce Technical Sergeant
- technical support including comms back to HQ
- Sergeant rank
- Suggested Build: Mechanic and/or slicer + Recruit
SpecForce Psychological Operations Sergeant
- propaganda warfare expert, master of persuasion
- Sergeant rank
- Suggested Build: Propagandist + Recruit
Starting Kit
The team should be equipped at the start of their mission with a generous amount of equipment given their place in the Alliance hierarchy. Further, I recommend providing the following “for free” (no credits or rolling required) as a standard loadout
Each Operator:
- Blaster Carbine or Blaster Rifle
- Blaster Pistol
- 2 x Grenade (GM’s discretion)
- Vibroknife
- Headset Commlink
The Team:
- Long-range commlink
- Medpac
- Wilderness survival kit
- Field Manuals as appropriate
Inspiration
There are a multitude of resources available for inspiration due to the pretty widespread cultural presence of US Army Special Forces, the “Green Berets” in a variety of media. Here’s some useful links to get you started:
Conclusion
I’m excited to one day run a campaign based on this concept. I’ve toyed with the concept at a few convention games in the past, but where I think it would really shine is a long running home campaign. Let me know what you think in the comments. If you like this concept, I would love to flesh it out in future articles by providing mission briefs, adventure seeds, and other materials you guys ask for.
Christopher Hunt
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