How Can We Make Military Role More Appealing?

[Gentleboy]

I think the title is self-explanatory!

In my two years of playing, I know that the military in the South (and the newly opened north) has issues with taking in recruits who play regularly. If anything I have seen at most 4 consistent soldiers in Allanak since my playing.

The real question is, retention. How can we get players to want to play military roles long-term?

[Narf]

I think the automated raiders would make a good first building block to making certain that  the military clans actually have military functions. Start making regular threats to both cities that are automated and will provide some benefit, or avert some cost if taken care of (ideally a mixture of both).

[Aruven]

Living the military clan role as more than a battlefield.

In Allanak specifically, the AoD was always funnest when it felt like they (we at the time) were dirty police.

Bribes? It's a thing. It builds RP and involvement, and gets you out doing things some people might not be able to do because you're coded with crime immunity. (Not an endorsement to brutally abuse crimcode)

In a perfect world with roleplay, most common PCs shouldn't be getting anywhere near a templar or noble, or waying them even. They should be going through organizations like the AoD to try and have their voices heard on the way up. This is a top to bottom problem though, and less players imo has led to some serious shifting of this standard.

I'm going to add a little note on this last bit: If the rank and file of the AoD doesn't know how to play their role, it is hard to have this structure in place. It's a reason i've advocated over the years that new players DO NOT go into the military clans immediately.

So we've got criminal enterprise, social gate keeping, and then the bread and butter: Combat. Yes, training is a must because when the shit goes down, the military is who people freak out and seek out in the city. There should be IC ramifications if a particular military unit shows up and can't handle a situation. This mean investing in knowing the other clan members and their uses, bonding, training.

I'm sure there's some insightful responses incoming, this is just my angle on it--I've always found the military roles great, and I love to see them in the game. Sometimes staff can help with war scenarios, but that's just a huge bonus.

[Athapaxis]

One thing that makes Luir's military fun is that there are roads to keep clear.  Is that a thing with North/South military - keeping the roads near the city safe for travel?

[Jihelu]

I spoke with GentleBoy on Discord about this and mentioned I'd post my thoughs here.

This is less 'what makes the role more appealing' and has to do with meta commentary on the state of the Allanaki army.

My problem with armageddon military is both cities have active, military states
With economies that don't profit from active military states

The amount of people in the military in Allanak is fucking A LOT. The logistics of this is almost impossible as there's no one to really trade with.
The known is tiny and we get trade from basically two places
1: Food from Redstorm but even then we have to suppliment it with ranching +  active farming
2: Luirs, but luirs has no way of sustaining a cities economy
Allanak's massive army only works if there is an active expansion campaign going on, a la rome or something. Or if the farms are a lot bigger than I'm led to believe and they employ a lot more slave labor.
I also question how the voluntary military is even so plentiful when they don't get paid, as I feel that people wouldn't want to do it even for food and board. I find it silly Allanak doesn't have required military service but maintains such a large standing military
In this ted talk, I'll talk about how: They should move the 'military' to a guard force and the actual military should be an entirely separate thing because we have a military state with no active war and it's lame as hell

Keep in mind: I could just be wrong about a lot of numbers, but I've always got the impression that the military was a massive organization (Probably due to soldiers and half giant death squads at every corner)

Of course my little quasi idea, that doesn't solve the issue much, of 'make them into a guard force' is really just for lore/making me feel better. Voluntary guard force made up of primarily citizens (Police your people with your people, good for morale), paid a light stipend, given minimum equipment.

I find the 'soldiers can't actually enforce the law/make judgement' thing kinda...weird. I get it. Templar's are omnipotent gods or whatever, but the fact both city states have to wait for a guy in silk to come running down to jail to deal with someone is silly. You can still have Templar's required for crimes that matter (High treason, nobility, etc) but I see no reason why an elf mugger who gets arrested would need a Templar to come say hi for punishment to be rendered (And it's to my understanding that sometimes soldiers just do it anyway, or even just do 'street justice' and don't bother a Templar with it)

As for the literal 'how to make the military more appealing' aspects.

For starters....what do you think of when you think of 'Military role'? Most people probably think of warfare. Actively fighting an enemy force, killing uniformed bad guys. Maybe you've been through the actual military and imagine more logistical work (Building fortifications), or you even think of the real fun military work: Sitting on your ass waiting for orders or doing mind numbing work.

I feel like Armageddon military does none of these.

We've got a military force that's 'totally the police' who can't 'totally be the police' because reasons who gets used as a guard force 90% of the time until the local Templar wants to go magic fight the local defiler, then we load up some soldier npcs and go wipe the clan.

Assuming we don't give me everything I want, and so rightly deserve (this is humor), automating raiders and npc raiders helps tremendously. You now have a bad guy to go deal with. Now you have something to go do instead of telling recruit Amos 'we are going to go on another ride around for the fifth time this month lets hope staff notices and animates a gith for us'.

What Aruven said is important, the AoD are funnest when they are the dirty police, but I feel like the undermines the role of 'military'. You can have corrupt and dirty military, that's fine, but shouldn't they be acting as something other than cops?

[Gentleboy]

I changed my main question with the post. Instead of focusing on leadership. We should speak on what brings players in and keeps them in.

[Armaddict]

I feel like this all falls under the common banner of 'Things to do'.

People go to different clans because of different preferences in what their 'things to do' are.  You don't generally join the AoD to be a barsitter; it isn't that it isn't a social-capable role, it's that those social roles tend to be more geared towards people who profit from it.

The 'things to do' for military clans must, and always must, be accentuated in what they sound like; these are action roles.  Not as in an action movie, but as in your character will be -proactively- working on things.  Which means there  have to be things to -proactively- work on.  When crime is all under the surface, behind stealth code, away from all risk...it's hard to proactively fight crime unless you're doing what you could do in another role for far more benefit, so they'll probably just play that role.

That's kind of a rambly way of saying it.  True Armaddict fashion.

[Brytta Léofa]

Am I remembering correctly that all AoD ranks above "recruit" are life-sworn?
Does anybody avoid joining the militia for that reason?

I can imagine joining the Arm for a 3-5 year term instead of the Byn, if honorable discharge is possible.

[Veselka]

Am I remembering correctly that all AoD ranks above "recruit" are life-sworn?
Does anybody avoid joining the militia for that reason?

I can imagine joining the Arm for a 3-5 year term instead of the Byn, if honorable discharge is possible.

Part of what I always liked about the Legions (Northern Militia) is that Privates sign on for Tours of Duty (4 IC Years, so 6 months) as opposed to their entire life. So they can try out a military role for a while. If they like it they can stay, if some other opportunity comes up they can go for that, and they can also ask for early discharge.

Way more flexible.

I'd like to see that extend from Privates to Corporal, and even to Sergeants. And provide the option for 'Lifeoath/Lifesworn'. With that life oath should come increased benefits, increased latitudes, and better equipment/treatment, military quarters/office, and so on. Non-lifesworn are kept at arm's length, whereas life-sworn are brought in close.

[Dan]

I'd like to apologize in advance for not reading other replies, because I wanted to go into this response with a clean slate of thought. I will go back and read what everyone else has said once I post, sorry if I repeat what others have said.

The military is a 90%/10% organization. You live your day-to-day life in that 90% space of training, eating, having a personal life. It's boring, it is mundanity and where the foundations for brother and sisterhood are laid. In the 90% you kill time in ways that won't get you killed.

The 10% is when you need to put your skills to the test, your life is on the line. The effectiveness of your leaders is tested and you're pumped so full of adrenaline they the rest of your life begins to lack color. These moments build upon (or test) the foundations of unit cohesiveness, where bonds are (or should be formed strongest) amongst soldiers. Eventually, these moments are what you long for, think about (use the remember command) and get addicted to. Some take risks to get back a sliver of the 10% times of their lives, others do their best to not have to remember them (drugs and alcohol). It's the rush of life and when you feel the most alive, because you're on the brink of death.

Understand the above first, that the bulk of a soldiers life is dull and finding ways to fill those spaces of normality can be done in several ways. I personally am not a huge fan of the 'showering the troops with booze', it's done often and I can only RP getting drunk in a barracks so many times. Gambling, a slight step above boozing it. On the job training- this is awesome. Take the recruits out into the city and shake some people down, test their bonds with their non-military friends, and increase odds for interaction. Win the soldiers over, fully, to the organization. There should be an 'us' vs. 'them' mentality in a lot of ways, underscored by the greater defense of the whole population when an extrinsic threat pops up.  A bigger sibling will beat up on the smaller one until the kid gets bullied, then the bigger sibling steps in and whoops some ass.

List of ideas on how to fill the 90% below, as I feel the 10% (their true purpose for existing) gets filled by the leader PCs decently enough.

Drinking together/gambling/banter rp

Patrolling together in groups

Shaking people down

Harassing people for fun (draw a line, don't cause your whole city to become unfun)

Investigating threats/people/situations

Explore (underutilized opportunity) - find possible criminal hideouts (don't mean the rinth)

No-notice tests and exercises - (contact recruit and report a threat somewhere, test response time and see how prepared they are when they arrive)

Show people how much fun you're having and people will want to join.

Include outsiders where appropriate/get them to do jobs for the organization not appropriate for soldiers (grabbing needed items/information collection)

Hazing rituals/rights of passage - "We've all gone and spent a night in there." other soldiers spend all night subduing and tossing in rats at them.

Post RPTs and try to establish a weekly (RL) meeting. Open ranks inspection, check their bags for readiness, or to just get a meeting of the minds and see who has disappeared without excuses for too long (dead).

Monthly field exercises that last a couple days. The unit goes out to spot x, y, z and fortifies it. Patrolling from the satellite location. Pick a save room cave, existing fort, etc. May need staff support.

Tests of strength or knowledge for perks/inter-unit competitions.

Stage 'types' of tactics on dangerous beasts or raider camps. Hit and run tactics with ranged weapons, cavalry charges, capture not kill, etc.

Soldier of the month tests of knowledge or skill with a traveling trophy or cool piece of equipment they display for winning.

Identify clear roles. Medic. Field cook. Tent bearer. Standard bearer. Communications. Scout. Torch thrower. Knowledge retainer (what we engaged, what time of day, field and weather conditions, injuries to who and where.) for after action reports.

Exercise the above roles and give feedback on how well/poorly they were done.

I could go on but I think that should get my point across.  Turn people from 'Private Dingus' into Private Dingus, three-scarred for valor, standard bearer for the Jaded Blades unit, etc. Or, 'Recruit Snuffy' into Recruit Snuffy, tent-packer and worst field cook in the history of the unit, official punching bag and butt of all jokes.


Edit to add a thought: Give the leaders and soldiers clear cut goals and actual deadlines.

"Unit coffers are getting low for supplies and our budget is tighter this year. Go out and collect two large before the end of the year  in fines or I will find someone who can."

"I am tired of your soldiers lacking cohesion. You have until the end of the year to show me they can effectively do x, y or z."

"Our ranks are thin. You have two months to find a suitable recruit that shows promise."

"Talk with your unit and compose two different strategies for how we will assault an enemy at location x. Present the plans to me in three weeks time. I expect details on armament, logistics and time frames."

"We don't have enough reports coming in from Red Storm/Luir's Outpost/city. I need you to find me a reliable source of information, or I'm going to send YOU under disguise."

[Riev]

I remember back when Houses had Hunters (yes I know they have them again), one of the things I really liked about the idea of playing a Salarri was that you could sign on for the contract lengths. Sure, if you wanted to have an Officer's position you needed to be life-sworn to the House, but you could also sign contracts for various lengths of time.

This way, not only were you sort of guaranteed to be able to get out if the clan gets defunct, but there were other privileges as well. Sign on for more than 3 years, and when you leave you basically get some sort of "House Salarr seal of approval" that you were a good employee etc.

Sign on for 7 years and get massive discounts on ordering through the House, blah blah.

Contracts and "House support" are hard because of no literacy, Allanaki dislike of tattoos, and Leadership Churn not knowing who you are. However, I feel that especially in military roles, there could be a couple perks to work towards. I know the AoD has pins, Tuluki bards used to have charmstrings, etc.

But I think @Dan has the best course of action, which is to just schedule stuff happening (or be impromptu). Even in a military clan, not everything is spar and AFK in the barracks. Winner of Quiz-Night gets a brand new not-stained aba. Best story told by a Runner gets a new pair or shit-shoveling boots so they don't ruin their main ones. blah blah blah. Doing Stuff (tm) is great.

[Jihelu]

The contract idea is a good one.

I think we put too much value to 'life swearing' as a whole. We live in an age of little information. People can't write shit down. What fear is there if the Corporal decides he's tired of the army one day and retires to become a mercenary guard for a noble estate? This idea that we can't trust people to do an important position if they aren't basically a(n) individual who can't freely choose his employer or his life path slave is a little silly.

[The Gruffalo]

The contract idea is a good one.

I think we put too much value to 'life swearing' as a whole. We live in an age of little information. People can't write shit down. What fear is there if the Corporal decides he's tired of the army one day and retires to become a mercenary guard for a noble estate?

This was brought up with staff and is/was being debated. There are some changes coming though it's still being hashed out a bit.

[Jihelu]

Well, I hope it gets changed. I really don't think many, if any, roles need some kind of life swearing. The only roles I can think of that would require life swearing are roles I know of from noble houses that I probably can't talk about in too much detail, but basically: You were a commoner in charge of a LOT of the day to day running of the noble house and probably never left the estate.

The only roles I could see being similar to that in the military are roles that work heavily with templarate and are probably out of the 'glass ceiling' reach of the players, at that point you're probably some kind of inquisitor character anyway.

[Is Friday]

The Templar being structured as the "decision maker" for a unit has long stifled a lot of pro-active behavior from military officers IG. This has many times resulted in a "you don't do anything before approval" from a Templar to an officer. I think the structure was changed to mitigate this very issue when the AoD was repurposed to Steel Talons - but it persisted for some time.

If Templars want to be micro-managers of the military then it's not good for the clan, overall. When officers are allowed more freedom to build a culture and go about their business... that usually leads to a fun environment. That's been my experience, anyway.

[triste]

+1 to the previous post, I don't enjoy seeing a sarge become a pet to Lord Templar Brandon to the extent that the sergeant's troops never see the sarge (or any action besides what Brandon dictates).

My two cents is that the opposite is also bad: many military leaders seem to die hunting/patrolling some random dangerous shit when they should [in my opinion] focus on coordinating larger campaigns with other leaders and players. Concurrent to planning said campaigns or RPTs, they can focus on routine patrols and training their unit for said campaigns. The idea Narf had for automated mobs can make the routine patrols more fun as a nice extra tweak to address this problem.

[lostinspace]

Remove that one spell that keeps killing them.

[Patuk]

Remove that one spell that keeps killing them.

/thread

[Jihelu]

I laughed

[Tuannon]

Given the game has done fine without the Academy, professional slavers, mage shields and whatever else the House militaries offer. I think sticking to the Byn and the respective Citystate armies has been a good change. They don't bring enough variety into the game without requiring a massive increase in playerbase to run adequately.

I think the idea that the junior officer makes most of the day to day decisions is strong, so a Sergeant is the first point of reference for a Legion unit for example, a templar might take over command for a little while to facilitate dealing with a specific threat or use the unit to push a personal objective. Conversely a unit scout may come across signs of an ashlayer and require templar overwatch on what to do next, so dialogue would probably best work up and down here.

But the Sergeant is the one who is reliably in charge day to day.

As for team escort, spam train.. aka the Byn. I think they're mostly fine as they are, probably best with the bulk of them based in Luirs or some midpoint between the two Citystates so they're available to escort question rich people at a day or two's notice. If the Byn had independent holdings in the Pah or the desert somewhere, they'd probably have to run patrols to keep the roads relatively clear so people could come to them for jobs too. The Byn compounds in Nak and Morin's or wherever would have to remain for new boot polishing pending relocation to the central camp, however.

Problem is, this is mostly useless without more players to provide contracts and a 'core' Byn identify strong enough to be a factor.

[Armaddict]

Yikes, you think it's done fine without those other groups?

[Derain]

So I've had a REALLY fun Sergeant in the AoD, we cooked rinthers on grills in the Gaj for information, shook people down and were allowed to crack skulls by the Templar at the time and we patrolled a lot.. We had a very very good group of invested players who I loved playing with, we all ended up dieing in the arena but it was FUN.

Fast forward to Steel Talons version 1, we had the original rolecall there was 2 corporals and a Sergeant who only logged on to bitch and complain and log back off.. Corporals killed him, and nobody seemed to give a fuck. From what could be seen IC both Corporals were working with the local Templar at the time but for some unknown reason he favored a certain private a crazy amount.
It was to the point of these corporals who had killed a crimson wind squad, a Mul and had a crazy amount of acheivement yet this particular Templar was up their ass. Even when a complaint was filed the NPC Templar over the unit never backed him off and I personally deserted and force stored my PC because the Templar/Private who was apparently untouchable wasn't allowed to be dealt with by the corporals.

Hindsight- a random crime immune aide position was even created to save the Templars little buddy and keep them nice and safe. This whole thing is the reason I don't know if I'll ever play in the AoD again which is sad because it is hands down my favorite clan when there is good templar support. Shout out to Malikith for being the Templar who was hands off enough and let us have fun well played templar who let the experience in the clan be fun.

[Is Friday]

Hindsight- a random crime immune aide position was even created to save the Templars little buddy and keep them nice and safe. This whole thing is the reason I don't know if I'll ever play in the AoD again which is sad because it is hands down my favorite clan when there is good templar support.

Hi Derain - I played that Private. Special positions within the unit and/or aide positions for higher ranking Templars have been around for a long time. I remember back when Samos had a "special" person in the unit that only answered to him and that was back in... 2008? 2010? Something like that.

[Jihelu]

I hate Friday as much as the next person (Fucker stored one me after joining the Atrium lmao [I kid I'm sure you had shit to do {I'm not kidding I want my money back ((It's fine I robbed the place shortly after))}]) but I'd probably have just murdered his character if I was that upset TBH. Give em the no words bash in the alley.

[Derain]

It was feasible for the PC I was playing or the backstory the original group was given which everyone also seemed to forget. But yes a Templar can single handedly ruin an entire unit or rolecall with a snap of their fingers.