A framework for creating Imperial Officers

[abookfulblockhead 164]

First off, I doubt my players read this forum, but if you are a member of Lantern Outpost, or enjoy the soap opera "Can't Help Falleen In Love" go away! This thread is classified!

With that out of the way, I've been working on formalizing the creation of Imperial Officers. I felt the last big nemesis the PCs faced off against didn't really do much out of the ordinary. She was an effective antagonist, and her arrival generally signaled to the PCs that it was time to go, but in creating a successor, I don't want them to just feel life more of the same. I've also outsourced the ISB to a friend of mine. I wanted his choice for a successor to feel meaningful, and have a real impact on how future sessions played out.

I'd appreciate any feedback, and suggestions on how to extend these rules to higher ranks, or even different branches of the Imperial war machine (Currently, these rules are rather focused on the ISB).

At the moment, these rules just apply to the lowest tier of Big Boss Officers, whom I term "Captains".

A Captain has:

A capital ship (or ships): Either a versatile Silhouette 6 ship, like the Nebulon-B, or three to four ships of Silhouette 5, such as CR90 Corvettes, or Arquitens-class Light Cruisers.

Troop Transports and Fighters (optional): As a baseline, I assume that a ships complement consists solely of basic TIE/ln Fighters. If the ship has a hangar bay, I also assume it can stock enough troop transports (Usually Sentinel-class landers, though other configurations are possible) to deploy the ship's full troop complement.

Troops: Again, I stock these according to the vehicle profiles, with the general rule that 75% are basic minions (Imperial army troopers, Navy Troopers, COMPFORCE, etc), and 25% are stormtroopers. For every 8 minions, there is a rival-level squad-leader (Stormtrooper Sergeant, Imperial Army Officer, etc).

This is the baseline setup for any "Captain." However, each Captain should have their own unique Flair. Each Captain is given unique custom rules as follows:

 

Focus: This isn't so much a rule, as a broad strokes statement of what this officer is good at, and their particular priorities in the field. For example, "Riot Suppression", "Traffic Analysis", "Black Ops". This provides guidelines for the other unique elements

Unique Move or Rule: Here, I use "Move" in the style of Dungeon World - a narrative response the officer has to certain circumstances. For example, one officer might have, "The Wire" - After each mission, the Captain may choose to monitor a known Rebel contact, giving the ISB director greater knowledge of the Rebels' network, or deploy a SWAT Team to capture that contact and interrogate them. Other Captains might have a more direct influence on the rules - for example, "Urban Combat Training" - The Captain's forces gain 2 boost dice to any combat checks when operating within a city or space station.

Unique Asset: The Captain gains specific equipment or forces tailored to their focus. A Captain focused on countering Rebel Starfighter Raids may have his TIE Fighters upgraded to Interceptors. A Captain focused on "Riot Suppression" might provide their troops with shock prods and powerful stun guns (giving a convenient narrative reason to hit the Wookiee in the strain threshold).

A Lieutenant: This is a Nemesis character, who handles a particular part of the Officer's forces. This might be the leader of the Starfighter squadron, a personal enforcer, or even just a cunning slicer or analyst. I also draw on the various lieutenants as potential candidates for promotion, should a Captain need to be replaced.

 

To give a full example, if I were to rework the Captain my players just dealt with, she might look like this:

 

Name: Captain Shanri Lataea

Ship: Grey Maiden (Nebulon-B Frigate)

Troops/Transports/Fighters: Standard complement

Focus: Slicing and Traffic Analysis.

Unique Rule: Once per session, once Rebel activity is exposed, Lataea may make a computers check to crack the team's commlinks. Despair may be spent at any time to allow her to reattempt this check.

Unique Asset: Storm Commando squad. A 5-man team of elite stormtroopers, specialized for black ops missions. (My PCs hate these guys.)

Lieutenant: Judro Gyll, leader of the Storm Commando squad. On promotion, Gyll would gain the Focus: Black Ops. His custom move might involve abduction or assassination of key targets.

 

So, that's my general framework. As a said, feedback, ways of extrapolating these rules up the chain of command, or applying them to other branches of the Imperial military, even just suggestions for particular special moves or assets, it's all appreciated.

 

[Imperial Stormtrooper 831]

I have a question, are you just using captain as a placeholder essentially? From what I know an imperial officer with the rank of captain could have up to an imperial-class star destroyer and a small fleet under their command.

I may have an idea that helps you with other branches, I made a senior member of the stormtrooper corp, to assist an imperial admiral. I gave him a upgraded weapon (a concussion rifle), and made him part of a specialized branch of the corp, a hazard trooper, and gave him the hazard trooper armor and a slight change in stats to reflect this.

I think this could be generalized, pick a weapon, a specialty corp which would give new armor and a slight change to stats. Then have support of regular stormtroopers and a few specialty troops mixed in, possibly the same ones as the senior member.

[abookfulblockhead 164]

7 hours ago, Imperial Stormtrooper said:

I have a question, are you just using captain as a placeholder essentially? From what I know an imperial officer with the rank of captain could have up to an imperial-class star destroyer and a small fleet under their command.

I may have an idea that helps you with other branches, I made a senior member of the stormtrooper corp, to assist an imperial admiral. I gave him a upgraded weapon (a concussion rifle), and made him part of a specialized branch of the corp, a hazard trooper, and gave him the hazard trooper armor and a slight change in stats to reflect this.

I think this could be generalized, pick a weapon, a specialty corp which would give new armor and a slight change to stats. Then have support of regular stormtroopers and a few specialty troops mixed in, possibly the same ones as the senior member.

Yes, "Captain" may not necessarily reflect the character's actual rank. I'm using it as a "game term", to reflect a particular set of mechanics.

Given the particular order of battle I use, most officers with an ISD will probably have a dozen or more smaller capital ships under their command. I'd probably use something like "Admiral" as my game term for a character with such a vast array of resources.

As for your trooper idea, I think the character you described would fall under the category of a Lieutenant - an enforcer for the admiral in your example.

The problem I've had is more focused on how moght I adapt this if I want to build, say, a Captain for a planet's army. He may not have a Capital ship, in that case. So what would I use as a baseline unit for allotting him resources? A template for a military base? Some particular unit of military force (Batallion, Platoon, Division, etc)?

Though you bring up an excelent point - that Star Wars has given us numerous examples of specialty corps, any of which make an excellent source of inspiration for unique assets that a Captain could call upon.

[Imperial Stormtrooper 831]

A company might work for a planetary captain, according to the Imperial Handbook its about 144 troops plus supporting vehicles, if you wanted to go bigger then it would be a Battalion about 576 troops plus vehicles according to the same book.