Hi all,

A few weeks ago my character succeeded in "picking up" a 14,000 nuyen cred stick from a situation she was monitoring. The cred stick is certified so the money is there.

What she would like to do is send her team through 2 weeks of pre-training followed by 3-4 weeks of actual (paid) intensive advanced combat training and team building.

The core would be focusing on team training and specialised skills for Shadowrunning.

What would the syllabus/programme be for those 3-4 weeks?

My first thought was, "You can't do that for 14,000." Which was followed by, "Well, maybe you can."

Now, once I got off my RL kick, I gave the questions some serious thought.

Then I figured you would have the following:

1. Physical Training - running, climbing, obstacle course etc.
2. Marches (with surprise attacks of course)
3. Tactical war games - leaders only
4. Mock war games - urban
5. Mock war games - forest
6. Mock war games - urban / wilderness
7. SWAT training - optional
8. Interrogation - optional
9. Defeating Locks - various kinds
10. Investigation - Legwork

It doesn't make any sense to spend expensive time in a course doing PT. They have to be able to do it when they get there or they fall out and get left on the side of the road, but not wasting anyone else's time.

I'd just go with shooting and small unit tactics. Individual first, then pairs and then team, under higher and higher stress. Add in simulated casualties, doors than have to be breached, darkness, thermal smoke, etc. Then, if there is time, chemical environments, advanced breaching, surveillance systems to be hacked etc.

Culminate with a series of force on force using simulated munitions.

I'd actually think that physical training would probably be off the roster of a 3-4 week course, especially if your paying a sizable chunk of change for "combatant" training. Marching would probably also be off the list too because when the fuck do runners ever walk anywhere? If there was serious physical training in that 2-3 week pre-training section I'd imagine it'd be focused on demonstrating practical physical capabilities rather than actual conditioning. Can your team climb over a 10 ft wall? Can they sprint with a combat load for X distance? Can they low crawl efficiently? Can they shut the fuck up long enough to rapidly decide how to accomplish simple physical goals (Move large heavy objects from one point to another without any real gear)? In other words I'm sure that the people (or whatever) who were conducting the training would rather focus on teaching you the technical side of killing people for money than performing the functions of a gym membership. Instructors will expect the team to show up ready to train, not flabby and hung over because they were too lazy to PT on their own. Oh they'll still take your money... you just won't get as much out of it.

-Cross training, that'd be the big thing in my mind. They'd make people switch jobs around. Kick the rigger out of his cocoon, put the sami in the car, put the mage behind an Ares White Knight, everyone learns how to slap a goddamn pressure dressing on squirting bleeding. Knowing each other job builds unit cohesion and increasing survivability by increasing redundancy.

-Focused Threat Training. Classes and pratical labs on defeating magical, mundane, Matrix threats. "Geek the mage!" as a powerpoint presentation.

-Security. Fun training, I think the most effective training would be to turn the tables on the runners. Teach them security from the inside out. The class cumilates in the runners defending a small office from instructor aggressors. I'd imagine magic/cyber/etc would be limited for the runners to force them to rely upon each other and also to see things from the other side and learn to anticipate how their opposition will think and plan.

-Lots of shooting. Seriously, everyone on a team should be able to shoot like a motherfucker. Known Distance, moving, kneeling, prone, live fire shoot houses, etc etc. Run you chubby rigger! RUN!

-Escalation of force. Use what you need to do the job but no more (it's expensive and probably loud). This guy gets a bullet in the head, this guy gets a stun baton to the face, this guys gets freeze foam, and this guy? This guy gets the Ex-Ex panther round... to the knees.

-Biotech Drek. This is a medkit, it fucking talks to you. Listen to what it has to say. This is duct tape, this is super glue... these both work very very well for most problems that will crop up. Tactical medicine by any other name.

I dunno, just some thoughts. I'd imagine runner training would be focused on rounding a team out, they're probably shit hot in their area of expertise but the sami doesn't know how to utilize all his commlinks functions (so he's not effectively passing tactical data and represents a security hole waiting to happen) and the mage never really got a firm handle on using a gun in a stressful situation.

You can get training from Blackwater for substantially less than 14,000. 5 day courses cost around 1,000, in fact. Since you're going for 6 weeks, 8,000 sounds about right.

http://bwtrainingcenter.com/moyock/MYK_LEMIL.html

Anyway, it depends very much on what your characters already know. A training course for guys who've never even seen a real gun before will be different from a training course for professional shooters.

Give me a quick run-down of the characters and what you want to accomplish with them and I'll create a syllabus.

Four characters in total:

Sonya
Expert in all combat related skills
Expert in infiltration skills
Expert in driving
Terrible in social skills

Apex
Expert in some combat related skills
Expert in hacking
Poor beyond these skills

Victor
Expert in mechanics
Expert with drones
Lacks personal firearm training

Sever
Expert in magic
Expert with the sword
Poor in all other aspects that do not involve a spirit possessing his body and running that

All four lack team building skills. All four need cross training without toys.

My question to reiterate is how much bang do you get for 3-4 weeks for 14,000 nuyen for four? How much for 40,000?

Team of 5 including you right? I think 40k sound more realistic for 30 days worth of intensive training. From looking at a couple of sites it sounds like $250 is average per diem rate. I'd imagine that number would go up for what you have in mind and higher still since I'm sure you want these instructors to exercise selective memory.

Hey, I can't win by going first. I just get the ball rolling. Had to do the same thing at the company Christmas Holiday Party ("We don't want to offend. Remember it's a Holiday Party.) No one else would start signing Karaoke except me. One of the only sober people in the room.

-----

That said, I like the ideas presented here better than my own.

Hehe... I just wouldn't want to pay for PT when I could be shooting guns from dawn to dawn.

might find some help here: (haven't had time to peruse them myself. just a quick search)


security contractors

and Doc, you sound alot like that Marcinko guy. (grin)

"Never forget the 7 P's to any operation...Proper Previous Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance." -Richard Marcinko-

Oiy vey, I'm doing it wrong then

I'm far FAR FARRRRRRR away from an "operator" but I have had plenty of chances to talk with them and received elementary training from people who have been over there. Some uh... themes have emerged from those conversations and I'm afraid I'm prone to regurgitate their salient points. I've done just enough training to see how crappy training leads to fantastic operational disasters.

Favorite quote from some pre-deployment training:
"Be polite, be professional, have a plan to kill everyone you meet"

I would break it down something like this:

14,000 training

Instructors: 3, 1 Boss, 2 Assistants. (9000) 5k for the boss, 2k for each Assistant

7 field packs( cant find one in the BBB so I'm gonna call it a survival kit at a rating 4) 2400

1300 rounds regular ammo

what you get :

Cross training: a general concept of each teammates weaknesses and strengths. also an idea of how your teammate will react. and how you can fill in for them if they are incapacitated. for instance, If Sonya goes down and Victors drones need some cover fire to get close enough to drop some smoke, Sever should at least be able to pick up Sonya Ares Alpha and spray some rounds around.

-Biotech Drek. exactly. basic stuff. How to plug a bullet wound. (A tampon and duct tape) sucking chest wound(plastic wrap) just enough to keep your buddy alive.

-Lots of shooting. Like the Doctor ordered. shoot standing,shoot crawling,hell shoot doing cartwheels.

team dynamics: I'm adding this even though it ties in with the cross training section. basically its making sure everyone is on the same plane. Knowing that sonya will roll right when clearing a room without someone yelling "Ill go left you go right". the team approaches the room and just does what the hell they have trained for.

for 40 k you would get this +a lot more depth and all the things Doc mentioned and burn through alot more ammo and a bunch of grenades

and I have no idea how to put that into game terms.

I'd think there would be a great deal of simsense VR and AR training in addition to the real stuff. Using VR allows instructors to pump students through a truly mind boggling array of scenarios and drill fundamentals. I'd imagine they'd break whatever is being taught into aproximately 3 sections over the first 3 weeks. The last week would be reserved for a Runner Hell Week. Little sleep and trying to run an op that's going pear shaped in all the worst ways.

A lot of that VR training would be in that pre-training couple of weeks. Make sure that the runners learn whatever terminology and concepts the instructors prefer. Beyond that it establishes minimal competencies needed to be successful when the real training kicks off.

I'd imagine the first day or so of every week would be "classroom" training, lots of VR and AR and even... god save us, lectures with trideo slides. The next 3-4 days would be sun up to sun up training working on those concepts and the weekend would be reserved for "Field Work" where the runners work a live problem from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon (or later if they suck). If they do well, work as a team, demonstrate that learning has a curve, they get 12+ hours of being left alone time before Monday rolls around and it starts all over again.

Some other things that sprung to mind:
Terrible Things To Do With Everday Items: A course in utilizing your enviroment and easily accessible equipment to succeed. Kind of "Steal This Book" for runners.



The other option is that everyone gets shoved into vats on day one, pumped full of drugs, and training gets written directly onto their brains using a spinoff of BTL technology. It'd certainly speed things up quiet a bit.

Budget team combat training

Required Materials: 1 Grizzled alcoholic homeless elderly specops veteran; 1 grizzled BTL addicted burnout ex-combat mage; 1 out-of-the-way wilderness area of decent size containing several cabins (run down cabins are perfectly alright) and with sufficient space to erect shooting ranges and obstacle courses and some open space where you can drive a vehicle; material to build several obstacle courses, and targets to shoot at.

Optional Materials: Grizzled driver recovering from novacoke addiction; grizzled faded otaku rigger who cuts himself to dull the pain of being separated from the Resonance; orange cones; a heavily sedated Wendigo; tickets to Disneyworld

Required Personal Equipment: Guns, magazines, ammo, personal hygiene products, drones, vehicles, fetishes, and other equipment.

Six Week Training Program Outline

Pre-training (Two Weeks)
Day 1) Orientation - The team arrives at the camp, gets their bearings, meets the grizzled homeless and highly experienced trainers who are being paid in drugs and booze, settle into their cabin (singular, only one cabin will house the team, the others are to be used for MOUT training exercises).
Day 2) Team-building I - 1 day of basic team-building and trust building exercises. This is lighthearted and non-serious. There will be pizza and smores. Highlights include: Nature Hike, Truth or Dare, and that thing where you fall and the other guy catches you.
Day 3-14) Basic Skills Crosstraining - Characters pair off. The partners of each pair take turns teaching their primary skills to the other. After four days, they switch; after another four days they switch again. Note that the magician should be teaching the mundanes basic magical theory, its limitations, and mundane defenses against it.

The real Drek (Four Weeks)
Day 15-16) Advanced Team Building I - The Instructors are set up various obstacle courses that are impossible for a single person to cross alone. They'll have to work as a team to get though. Serious injury is a real possibility. The exact nature of these obstacles depend on the terrain and materials available. This should be physically and mentally strenuous.
Day 17-19 Advanced Firearms I) Training in Pistol, SMG, and Assault Rifle. Those characters with advanced firearms skills can assist he instructor.
Day 20-22) Team Tactical Pistol/Carbine - Tactical combat against against AR-enhanced targets, in the open, in the woods, and in MOUT. These exercises are designed to build teamwork within a combat environment. Pistols SMGs and assault rifles are the only weapons allowed for these exercises. No Combat magic, though support magic is permitted.
Day 23-24) Advanced Firearms II - Shotguns and Rifles
Day 25-26) Team Tactical Free - Like Team Tactical Pistol/Carbine, but no limits on Weapon Selection.
Day 27-29)Basic Anti-magic - This course is designed to help mundanes and magicians alike recognize and defeat magical opposition. It includes non-lethal combat against actual spirits
Day 30-32) Tactical Driving - This course is designed to teach individuals how to drive in a combat situation
Day 33-34) Drone Support - This course is designed to teach people how to best select and deploy drones.
Day 35) Basic Heavy Weapons - This course covers the basics of heavy weapons , grenades, and indirect fire options.
Day 36) Basic First Aid - This course teaches basic first aid techniques that can be used to treat wounds, injuries, and other medical problems in the field.
Day 37-38) Wilderness Survival - The basics of obtaining Food Water and Shelter in the wild.
Day 39) Advanced Team Building II - This day, the group will not be given any food, water, or shelter, and must work together to find these things or starve and remain exopsed to the elements.
Day 40-42) Team Tactical III - These exercises require the team to employ the disciplines from all other courses in order to successfully take down a group of terrorists represented by AR-enhanced targets, drone targets, and spirits. Combat driving will be required.
Day 43) The Graduation Test - A starving Wendigo is released into the camp. If the team is able to take it down before it kills any of them they win tickets to Disneyworld.

For 40k, they get instructors who aren't fucked-up and personal classes to address their deficits during the pre-training period.

your camp makes mind sound like Camp North Star.

I'd rather go to your camp...Except for the wendigo part.

Sounds like something every fixer should be sending their runners to. But how do you translate completion of the course in to character knowledge/skills?

karma for good roleplaying

This isn't just going to be a "Read this list, your characters do this, add 1 point all your firearm skills and open leadership at 1" is it? That'd be a shame.

I'd be inclined to say that you award a couple runs worth of karma but stipulate that they be spent on things learned during training. I'd also cap how much an archetype skill can be raised as a result of training. A runner who is already a world class shooter probably didn't learn much about shooting that he didn't already know. He did however learn about driving, hacking, and magical threats so it'd be appropriate to raise or open those skills.

Or you could reward the fixed skills, but based on the RP of the people doing the cross training for example.
So for example if the rigger role plays his vehicle handling and maintenance section really well - everone else on the team benefits. That would kind of incorporate the team building element into the role play of running such a camp - all depends on how generous the GM'd be with rewards i guess

That's a much better idea I think. Or split the difference and some karma and some fixed rewards for good RP.

The starving Wendigo seems like it not go over well....


Typical cost of group professional training is $200 to $400 per person, plus ammo. Right now ammo can easily be another $200 or more per day. 250 to 750 rounds a day is typical, more if you are playing with automatic weapons. Housing is typically maybe $30-100 per day.

After a bit of discussion and thought. Our four characters (including mine) will be going for a seven day hiking trip into Washington national park with a guide, followed by five days of parachute training. Not as combat intensive, but worthwhile as none of us know anything about nature or about parachuting for that matter.

And... is within budget and gives us important skills.

-Chrysalis

So no grizzled alcoholic vet who will mistake them for Charlie during a flashback and shoot at them with live ammo?

I think with our cash we would end up with a tipsy first lieutenant.

*Sigh* God made first lieutenants the day clowns were no longer funny.

That's why you go for a homeless PTSDed vet with one of those "will work for food" signs.