Rules:Special Operations
Members of the Compass Guard may participate in special adventures designed especially for them, called Special Operations. In addition to the normal combat difficulty/reward scaling, SpecOps carry a second rating called Mission Stripes. Some branches of the Compass Guard, especially combat divisions, reward promotions in large part because of accumulated Mission Stripes. In others, having Mission Stripes can still be beneficial, but there may not be a fixed amount of mission stripes necessary to be promoted. See your character's branch's rank page for details. The Stripe rating of a SpecOps is determined by its tactical difficulty, as opposed to combat difficulty.
Special Operations may only be run by the Compass Guard moderator and storytellers authorized by that person, to ensure that the Stripe system is used correctly.
Only members of the Compass Guard may participate in SpecOps, unless the person running the SpecOp allows it. For obvious reasons, non-military characters allowed in do not earn Mission Stripes. The SpecOps runner may also further limit the SpecOps to specific branches, or divisions, depending on the circumstance of the operation. It should make sense for all involved characters to participate.
Special Operations should not be considered training exercises. Mission Stripes are rewarded for actual duty performance, where real consequences can occur for failure. SpecOps should be treated as Declared Villain events -- a significant failure from the participants may result in character death. Unlike ordinary adventures, it is permissible for a SpecOps to not have combat elements, but this must be balanced with increased difficulty for the non-combat elements. Also unlike normal adventures, many times SpecOps will be entered with some foreknowledge of the situation, allowing participants to carefully address the situation instead of running in blindly. That said, not all information will be revealed from the outset, and it will be up to participants to adapt to unknowns.
A SpecOp runner can hold several SpecOps chained together over time, connected by story, for the same group of characters. Completing the chain gives the entire team a stripe bonus of 1 stripe for each SpecOps successfully completed. Bonuses are only merited if the chain is longer than 4 SpecOps. Failing a SpecOps may not fail the chain, but should make later SpecOps in the chain more difficult.
Examples of Stripe Rating
- One Stripe
- Any number of characters may participate
- Basic combat
- Simple dilemmas
- Two Stripes
- Minimum two characters involved
- Combat in a collateral-sensitive situation
- Hostage situation
- Average dilemmas
- Any common situation where circumstances cause greater difficulty if not addressed correctly
- Combat requiring simple coordination between teammates
- Three Stripes
- Minimum three characters involved
- Combat against intelligent opponents
- Combat against martially superior opponents
- Difficult dilemmas
- Situations where victory may be impossible unless participants take advantage of a hidden resource or environmental factor
- Time-sensitive tasks
- Any operation where working as a team is important
- Four Stripes
- Minimum four characters involved
- Combat against intelligent and martially superior opponents
- Extremely difficult crises
- Foes may leverage environment or hidden resources if characters are not careful
- Situations requiring a versatile set of skills
- Failure likely without coherent teamwork
- Five Stripes
- Minimum four characters involved
- Spectacularly difficult missions that are as difficult to dream up as they are to complete successfully
- Death or full-term incap very likely, especially for failure
- Wish I could give you more specific examples, but these are truly staggeringly difficult situations
- Team preplanning and coherency essential, all member should be the very best at what they do
- Concepts should be run by CG moderator before a storyteller can run one of these
