I'm planning a Ghost variant campaign for the hell of it. I've got most of the equipment specs worked out, but I need suggestions for gameplay. What kind of events would require Ghosts to handle? What kind of challenges or enemies should they face?

Ghost as in disembodied spectre, or as in "Starcraft:Ghost"?

Tir Taingaire(sp?) Ghost spec-forces.

laser Targeting, Extractions, Terrorist activaties " Hostage situations", Recon, counter Intel ops , Counter Shadow runs.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that these people aren't Shadowrunners.

Special forces are often recruited from the rank and file militray.. This means most of these poeple meet certain minimum requirements. (Height, weight, maybe race, criminal record checks, credit checks now a days...) They are also likely to be somewhat demographically similar. A lot of people in the American Army come from rural, poorer families. There is a commonality. (This should likely preempt any Chechynan Ghoul Oataku)

They are also loyal. They believe in the cause. They believe in their nation, and its government. They're not in this for the money. They're also generally willing to die for the cause.

They are really well trained. These guys will have had hundreds of hours of specialized training. A lifetime of physical fitness, and scores of aptitude and psychological screening.

I ran a Dragons campaign, where the PC's were Lofwyr's personal black ops team called the "Dragons", and I reflected these sorts of things in a few ways:

We used the BeCK's system. I allowed them 750 points to start with, with no availibilty ratings applicable. Delta grade wetware was at cost, but all wetware beyond basic installation packages were subject to their commanding officers apporval. (GM)

Everyone had a basic skill set-required skills at required ratings. Everyone not magically active had a required cybernetics package. (It wasn't much actually.) other than personal equipment, and lifstyle stuff no one purchased gear really. Equipment was issued prior to each mission.

Edges and Flaws were really tightly regulated-some just don't fit in a super soldier campaign.

Spell Slingers had a minimum spell compliment-mandatory mana spending!

Anyways thats what we started with.

The game fell apart because too many people couldn't get it through their heads they weren't Shadowrunners. They all wanted to play loners, and anti corporate slots. So I said frag it, and shut the game down.

For "sample" Ghosts check out Corporate Punishment.

That bock features a Ghost unit.

Betaware and APDS standard. Ouchie. And they get represented by that cool picture of the faceless guys with the belt-fed SMG's.

Check out the original Ghost in the Shell or Appleseed comics for ideas about counter-terrorist and spec-ops units and how they're run.

I'd give the group a set yearly 'funding' pool with which they can spend on whatever equipment they please. This money would also be used on wages and paying for bribes, payments incured from operations etc. This will give the players freedom, but they'll feel the pinch if they mis-spend.

I'd also make it very political. For example, a botched operation might mean a cut to financing to the unit, bad reputation in the public or goverment eye, which could lead to cut-backs in equipment and resources. It also wouldn't be right without some internal conspiracy theories, spies and false leads. Personality clashes would be a very serioius matter in a group who's command structure must be very strict, but generally (in GITS and Apple anyhow) they're full of hot-heads out to prove themselves.

Behaving poorly could easily see an agent ejected from the group, or even 'retired'.

I think opposed runs against Shadowrunners might be very interesting. Say a group of Runners has been operating in an area without any subtlety and local law enforcement can't seem to stop them... I could see an elite Spec Ops team being called in to take them out, with a few leads. Or perhaps running a mission concurrently with a Shadow team, playing against them, similar to the mission in the beginning of the main book. Infiltrating smuggler rings and taking them out might be fun, as would assaults on pirate enclaves.

JaronK

Special Forces are professionals, but they're still human. And when you're locked up with the same group of people for a long period, they get on your nerves. Personality conflicts are as common in Special Forces as any other group social structure. HOWEVER, all these conflicts disappear when the job's on. If they're doing a mission, they're all business.

The Abstruse One

I'm going to say that it would seem to me, at least, that these conflicts would be resolved real damn quick. Nothing like knowing your life is in the hands of the guy to your left or right to make you want to be on good terms real quick.

Keep in mind too that these guys are likely to share a lot of similar traits. (At the Ghost level (Which I equate to Delta or SEAL's...), not just rank and file, or even specialized units like Air Born, etc...)So imagine a band of literal brothers, raised in the same "house", by the same "father".

Also it should be noted that one of the challenges of playing such similar characters is that playing one is pretty challenging. You forced to rely solely on personality, and not gimmicks.

As to personality conflicts it depends. In the present day US Special Operations Command there aren't a lot of hot heads and showoffs. But in the early days of Special Forces (before the Green Beret was authorized, I'm talking like the 50's here) there were a lot of wild types. Discipline was lax, soldiers had big egos and an anything goes attitude. That got tightened down in the early '60's a lot, but the strain of Vietnam meant that they let in a lot of guys who had no business wearing the Green Beret.

What's more, a lot of our perception of these guys comes from the regular army soldiers they interacted with. To the regular army, the Special Forces (in Vietnam) appeared to be completely without discipline. They ate local foods, used non-issued (frequently enemy) weapons, hung out with locals (usually forbidden by regulations) and did things their way instead of the army way. Even a tightly disciplined Green Beret team would like totally foreign to a regular army outfit. What's more, the special forces weren't under local command. So you'd have this ten or twelve man outfit who look like a bunch of mountain men eating snakes and junk who wouldn't take the orders of the local Brigadier General running a cavalry regiment. Of course they seem out of control, and some of them probably were.

So I'd say it depends on the unit. It also depends on the mission. There are two major missions (in the military sense) for special forces and they're mutually exclusive. There's insurgent support, where they go into a country and help arm and organize the locals, and there's commando missions, where they go into a country and blow the bejeezus out of it. The insurgent mission calls for cultural sensitivity, maturity, personal responsibility, independence and unbelievable inner strength. The commando mission calls for physical strength (just to survive the swimming/parachuting/hiking to get to the objective), weapons skills, teamwork and ridiculous amounts of aggression and guts. The commando guys are from mars, the insurgent support guys from venus. Most likely, I'd say a Shadowrun game would run toward this commando stuff ("Direct Action" in more technical parlance) rather than the slow, political, insurgent stuff (although that could make great roleplaying for a social group). The commandos can afford to hotshot a little more. They can bust out the heavy weapons and generally cause havoc. After all, if it's behind enemy lines and they're breaking it, it must be good for our side. It all depends on what you want them to do. Check out Tom Clancy's "Shadow Warriors" for a good background.

Jebaz, i was refering to the characters in Shirow's comics being hot-heads (it's the part in the brackets before i made the comment). Chill out.

I agree with you that in real life it'd be a different story, but if you read GITS or Apple you'll find strong personalities at work. Ofcourse, when the 'jobs on' they tend to work together well.

Excpt they're not. Who the fuck in Section 9 qualifies as a hothead? They're eminantly professional, even by real world standards.

Can't say for Appleseed as I've never really touched it.

It's probably good that I don't watch anime. From what I gather I'd have stroked out by now if I did.

But the very idea scares the hell out of me.

BTW, BAM

There used to be more, better, out there.

Used to be...

Anime may get a bad name from the fanboys (and girls), but really, that kind of opinion's pretty ignorant. Anime is just a medium, and like any medium, it has its pure and stunning shit. It also has produced works that are quite simply astounding, but you would never know any of this if you decide that all anime must be categorically bad.

Other rescue missions besides hostages are also common. Don't forget about the USAF's special operators, the Pararescuemen. They're the best combat medics ever and angels on any pilots wings or anyone or any group in need of aid on the ground. And those guys are commonly attached to other SF units, as well as working in units of their own. So there's another mission type.

Also counter-drug, but In the SR world I guess that could also be counter BTL? Whatever.

And for the record, personality is probably the most watched aspect of someone trying to get in Special Forces. Strength can be had by anyone, but what these guys upstairs in their noggins is what makes them better. Wits and teamwork baby.