 How do you role play military people?, HOW DO ROLE PLAY!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?! |
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 Oct 13 2006, 06:01 AM
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#26
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Immortal Elf  Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670  |
your whats? oh, you mean your morale-oriented cognitive artifacts? |
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Oct 13 2006, 06:03 AM
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#27
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,008 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Yeah, those.
~J, futilely campaigning for the preservation of expressiveness in English |
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Oct 13 2006, 06:07 AM
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#28
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
well... expressiveness is nice, and all, but there's not much use for it in the military. that's part of what i'm trying to describe, i guess--the fact that there is a single standard term for "place that people go pee-pee and poo-poo" makes it easier for lots of people to 'fit in', in the military. expressiveness is for individuals.
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Oct 13 2006, 06:14 AM
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#29
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,008 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Yeah, I grudgingly accept that, I just wish they'd invented a new word instead of misappropriating a specific one and making it general.
~J |
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Oct 13 2006, 06:19 AM
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#30
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
haha, well, i'm sure someone just forgot to bring that up at the Army Lingo Planning Conference.
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Oct 13 2006, 10:44 AM
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#31
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Great, I'm a Dragon... Group: Retired Admins Posts: 6,699 Joined: 8-October 03 From: North Germany Member No.: 5,698 |
You ended where for doing what? :? |
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Oct 13 2006, 11:06 AM
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#32
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 219 Joined: 26-April 02 From: Emerald City, Oz Member No.: 2,648 |
Most militaries utilise a small range of weapons. Commonality of parts and ammo being far more important as far as supply is concerned. Another easy roleplaying tip is to pick one pistol, one rifle, one s.a.w., etc as the weapons your character favours. They are the signature weapons of his previous military service, and an easy cue for other interested characters, npcs, yadda. |
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Oct 13 2006, 11:43 AM
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#33
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
He (or rather, his entire unit) ended up doing KP (there are several duties that are often received as forms of punishment in the military -- unpleasant jobs need to be done, and someone's got to do them, so why not people that need a little correction -- like meal clean-up, latrine duty, etc), because some members of his unit were "sharing bunks" with female soldiers. You know. "Sharing bunks." You see, sometimes, when a girl and a boy love each other very much, they want to be close to one another. So close that a part of the boy goes inside part of the girl, and... |
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Oct 13 2006, 02:49 PM
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#34
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Great, I'm a Dragon... Group: Retired Admins Posts: 6,699 Joined: 8-October 03 From: North Germany Member No.: 5,698 |
Thank you, Critias. For explaining english (military) slang to a german - and for making me laugh loud.
:D |
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Oct 13 2006, 03:53 PM
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#35
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
Is it true that the military makes up a large segment of the RPG'er population?
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Oct 13 2006, 04:03 PM
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#36
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
Depends on the specific RPG, but I'd say that is a fairly true statement. |
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Oct 13 2006, 05:07 PM
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#37
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
Not likely any more than any other group, except by coincidence. I mean, if you're really wanting to know who's gonna steal the biggest slice of pie were you to chart out "the RPG'er population," look no further than a college campus. The simple fact is most gamers are males from, say, 15-35 years old. Oh, hey. Males, from 15-35 years old? Doesn't that sort of overlap with the military's demographics pretty heavily? That aside? I can tell you we had an origami guy in my barracks turn sheets of notebook paper into little cubes, that we then numbered 1-6 and put to work. I ran a "3d6 instead of d20" D&D game for the better part of a month, replacing my PHB and DMG with that squishy grey computer inside my skull. So, uhh, there's about four military gamers, right there, that I crafted myself. |
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Oct 13 2006, 05:15 PM
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#38
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
yeah, i wouldn't necessarily claim that military guys make up a huge slice of the RPG market... but i will say that it's pretty easy to find an RPG group, in the military. for one, it's not hard to get bored, in the military, so at the very least, you stand a better chance of suckering in some newbie players.
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Oct 13 2006, 06:18 PM
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#39
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ghostrider Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,196 Joined: 16-May 04 Member No.: 6,333 |
I would say that within the military, there's a significant population that plays RPGs as when compared to other population groups, but I'm not sure what kind of overall market share they represent. As to playing a military person, you'd be surprised how much of it is slang, jargon, acronyms, etc. There's also, as a general rule (of course there are exceptions), military folks tend to have a little bit more confidence in their day to day dealings with people. Maybe not a private, who's used to being yelled at all the time, but once a person has been in for a while, you sort of develop the ability to talk to just about anyone without too much trouble, for example. In some specialties, you can run into a lot of "I'm a badass" complexes (not always undeserved), such as Combat Arms guys, spec-for (deservedly, although the ones I've dealt with have been really laid back and super cool), etc. It's just...a different attitude somehow. Hard to really quantify. Confidence, no hesitation to jump on a problem and try to fix it, willingness to learn new stuff. Let me give another perspective actually. I'll tell you what qualities I liked in my soldiers as an NCO (Intel field, so it might be a bit different from other folks' lists). To me, a good soldier has a willingness (if not a determination) to learn, confidence in his or her abilities and the ability to admit when those abilities are lacking, honesty (especially when it's going to hurt them in some way), and wants to get the job done. All of that comes across in a (good) soldier's attitude and dealings with other people. That's my .02 anyway. edit: Something mfb was talking about (that I had missed) made me think. He's talking about how the military discourages individualism, and that's certainly true to an extent. It ties in to ability to take orders, because if you don't act immediately and obey an order, it could mean people dying. But, I'll caveat, that's different in different parts of the military. In the intel field, for example (more strategic than tactical, here), a willingness to speak up is actually a good thing. There's too much at stake in certain jobs to "just blindly follow orders", because sometimes a supervisor isn't seeing something, or hasn't thought of something. A good supervisor in a strategic location understands this, and is willing to hear what his subordinates have to say. Now, the supervisor still has the final say, and the soldiers are expected to abide by that, but it's much more acceptable to have open dialog in that field than say, infantry. Again, just my experience here. |
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Oct 13 2006, 06:39 PM
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#40
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,333 Joined: 19-August 06 From: Austin Member No.: 9,168 |
My experiences are all second hand, but they mirror what eidolon said.
My father was an army mechanic. His time there seems to revolve mostly around fixing stuff, and doing what he was told, and then getting in to trouble while not assigned to a task. My boss was a cavalry scout (I think) - basically army intel. His time seems to have revolved around learning to use a ton of different pieces of equipment, doing bizarre things with codes, and talking to his superiors. And getting in to trouble while not assigned to a task. My boss, when he runs in to another person in the military, will immediately change his speech slightly, and begin to drop any number of acroynms and phrases that he never uses. |
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Oct 13 2006, 07:39 PM
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#41
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Old Man Jones Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,415 Joined: 26-February 02 From: New York Member No.: 1,699 |
I think he was referring to the fact that while many non-military refer to rifles and pistols as "guns", most military folks more properly use "guns" to refer to artillery and other large bore cannons. -karma |
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Oct 13 2006, 07:48 PM
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#42
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Target Group: Members Posts: 77 Joined: 30-June 06 Member No.: 8,813 |
Lots of good information in this thread for the OP.
I was active duty U.S. Army for 6 years. There is a general military culture that gets adhered to, but there are many....MANY...subdivisions of that general culture. Many rivalries within a specific service and between services themselves. Keep in mind, that just because a person was in the military doesn't mean they were a combat soldier. The Army is divided pretty much by job and how that job interfaces with the big picture on the battlefield. You have your Combat Arms type jobs, ya know Infantry, Armor, Artilery.....the folk who actually do the fighting. Then you have the Combat Support type jobs.....your Engineer, Aviation and Medical units. Then you have your Service Support type jobs......your Supply, your Cooks, your Administration type stuff. Then you have your Special Forces. For every fighting man on the battlefield there is about 5 or more other soldiers behind the scenes keeping that guy on his feet, keeping him fed, keeping him healthy, keeping him equiped, keeping him trained. There is a seperation between enlisted personnel and commissioned officers that is difficult sometimes to understand for non-military folks. Many people don't even understand that there is a separation between them to begin with...they are all just 'Military people'. The best example I could tell a non-military person to watch is from the "Band of Brothers" HBO series. It give you a good idea for how the responsibilities are set up, who does the work, who cracks the whip, and who asks for the whip to be cracked. "Never put yourself in a position where you can take away from these men." So much to tell about my time in the service and just not enough time to tell it in. Some immediate things come to mind though. "Mission First, Soldiers Always" - The creedo of the U.S. Army Sergeant Acronyms.....everything has an acronym. SAW, KP, MRE, TOC, OP, STX, etc. etc. It never ends. Nonmenclatures......every item has a alpha numeric name. "Hurry up and wait." "Man I love how much this sucks! I wish it sucked even more than it does right now!" Military life, particularly in Combat Arms, is a much less dramatic version of how its portrayed in "Band of Brothers"......for those interested in a mildly realistic portrayal should definitely watch it. Also....."Gunner Palace" is a extremely realistic portrayal of modern day army units, how soldiers interact with each other, and the things they are having to deal with on a daily basis when deployed to a hostile area. Ultimately, its hard to communicate how it really is for those people that don't really have an appropriate frame of reference. If yer in Law Enforcement or another similar profession where your life is quite literally in the hands of the guys yer sittin' next to.....they you have a pretty solid frame of reference for how military people are. Its kinda like the "Matrix" though. "No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself." Until you've served, you just won't really know what its like. |
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Oct 13 2006, 07:58 PM
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#43
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,150 Joined: 19-December 05 From: Rhein-Ruhr Megaplex Member No.: 8,081 |
In Germany, we still have conscription. Theoretically, that means that most males have been in military service. There is the option to do alternative service, 'Zivildienst', community service, when someone isn't comfortable with the idea of military service. At the time I was drafted, 2 of my friends already had choosen the zivildienst, 2 others were going to the military, one had a bad knee and was therefore ineligible, and one other had volunteered for the THW, Technisches Hilfswerk, which would translate as Federal Agency for technical Relief. One of those who were going to the military reconsidered after he got word he was going to be a sniper, and choose Zivildienst instead. (to be on topic, I played RPGs with all of them. Alltough the remaining military guy quit...) [edit: shame on me, I forget the friend who was blind on one eye after an accident, and therefore also ineligible] At my current gaming group, three are girls, three (myself included) were military and one was a third son (they don't get drafted). I could tell more, if anybody is interested :P. On a side note: except for the guy with the bad knee, everyone was or is a student at the university, which makes them the prevalent group in my eyes :D. |
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Oct 13 2006, 08:19 PM
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#44
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,333 Joined: 19-August 06 From: Austin Member No.: 9,168 |
Third sons in particular, or is it just that you can only have 2 sons drafted?
"We'll take 1, 2, 4, and 5. Oh no, we don't like 3rds...." |
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Oct 13 2006, 08:30 PM
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#45
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ghostrider Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,196 Joined: 16-May 04 Member No.: 6,333 |
It sounds, and I might be wrong, like a policy similar to the old "can't send the last living son to war" policy. It's so a whole family can't be wiped out.
Of course, the U.S. Army has since done away with that... |
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Oct 15 2006, 11:14 AM
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#46
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,144 Joined: 22-September 04 Member No.: 6,690 |
Did a policy like that ever exist in the first place?
*edit* Apprently yes there is/was. Only Son page on Snopes. |
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Oct 15 2006, 11:52 AM
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#47
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
I guess for as long as the US government is pretending that going off to fight a war isn't going to result in casualties, that sort of policy would be a bit undermining of PR. I don't know much about the US military, though I did meet someone on a greyhound bus once who was going through boot camp. What I remember most about him (aside from being willing to follow any hair-brained suggestion I made like "I bet you can't fit in the luggage rack" :D ) was the inordinate amount of pride he took in being dumped on. He was boasting about being made to clean out the latrines by hand, I remember that, but I think there was quite a litany of abuse and domination. The impression I walked away with was that they'd got him so conditioned that he thought his ability to put up with being abused said something so great about him that he was virtually begging for reinforcement of his role. Now I'm not saying this is absolute, but I recall an interesting step-by-step comparison of entering a cult and entering the army, from isolating from friends and family, redenderring powerless, humiliation, introducing a strong reward-punishment structure and enforcing identification with the organisation above the individual. I would guess one distinction in role-playing heavily militarised characters would be that they have this... I'm going to invite the flames and use the word... "damage" to their self-identity and a conditioned loyalty to their army and / or country. |
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Oct 15 2006, 11:59 AM
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#48
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Target Group: Members Posts: 4 Joined: 15-October 06 Member No.: 9,626 |
Okay, my experience comes from two summers of working for the military as a manual laborer, and having a lifetime of a Lieutenant dad.
The military, at the core, is all about removal of individuality. One of the reasons that drill officers yell at you like goddamned apes is because they want to break you down, and then paste a proper military grunt personality over yours. Most 'grunts' respond by behaving like god-damned ten year olds at best, and drunk ten year olds at worst. I've seen monkeys who are more disciplined than the average private who's not being yelled at by a superior. Though it is, as said, very much a game as well. Your asshole superior yells you deaf because he's supposed to do so. I experienced this in a slightly indirect way, when I was treated like goddamned horseshit by all officers, since they equalled people around my age within military grounds with privates. When I got one of them suspended from work for threatening me (i AM a civilian, they lack the right to do so with me. but for some reason, they have that right with privates), they started treating me like a person. I learned, fast, that in the military there are only three ways to get something done. Go to someone more superior than your superior. Yell loudly enough at someone under you. Or do it yourself. Yeah, not too flattering a view of the military. But whatever. This also comes from what my father, who used to work as a drill instructor for a while, has told me. Basically, to roleplay military people: Just use some lingo and squad tactics in combat. That ought to do it. If not, yell at people smaller than you until your lungs feel sore, salute anyone higher than you and act like a monkey when you're around people of your own rank. |
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Oct 15 2006, 12:27 PM
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#49
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 295 Joined: 10-July 05 Member No.: 7,492 |
Theoretically, most civvies are higher ranked than most military. The officers yelling at and threating you were, effectivly, yelling at and threatening their boss.
I have a friend who was in the air force for 2 years (programming in oklahoma, no less), and the civillians were to be treated as high ranking officers at all times. Of course, it probably helped that the civillian programmers were much better than most of the military ones. One thing the military did do, though, was to make things 'fair' for the programmers. They had a day shift and a night shift. Each shift was divided into 2 groups. Every 60 days, one set of groups was swapped between day and night. Every 60 days, the day shift was swapped with the night shift. These swaps were staggered, so that every 30 days your schedule did a 180, or your worked with a different group of people, or both. If you've done group programming, you know that this is the absolute worst way to generate code. But it's fair, right? Even if nobody wanted to change shifts, it's fair. I promise. |
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Oct 15 2006, 01:04 PM
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#50
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
guys like that are conditioned before they ever get into the military. basic training is not a life-changing, traumatic experience, though it may make you aware of a few things you weren't before (mostly revolving around how far you can actually push yourself, as opposed to how far you think you can push yourself)--and not everybody gets even that. you get out of the military exactly what you put in. |
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