Objectives & Recognition

Take some cues from the online role-playing game (RPG) community. In most RPG games, players are rewarded for successfully completing tasks. As they achieve goals, they are recognized with ranks & given more complex/difficult tasks to achieve. Some clubs have systems in place to confer "ranks" on members, usually based on participation. I suggest that successful completion of assigned missions might be a better incentive.

For any scenario, every ship should have a mission defined for it. Missions could be assigned arbitrarily - drawn out of a hat, for example. Missions should be tailored for the ship, navy, & captain's level. For example, a mission for a rookie Axis cruiser captain should be different than that for an Allied battleship captain who has fought for several years. Successful completion of a mission would earn the captain a "star", etc.; collect enough "stars" & you get promoted to a higher level, where the missions are more critical & difficult to achieve. Perhaps missions could extend across multiple battle days? Once a mission has been completed, the captain would draw another one. At the end of the day, instead of everybody just packing up & leaving, there should be a brief ceremony, recognizing those who have passed milestones such as missions completed, promotions earned, etc.

Hierarchy of Objectives

Each ship in the game should have its own mission, with the captain's specific objectives defined. Likewise, the team should have a higher-level objective that each mission is designed to support. When a team achieves its objective, it wins the campaign. As in real life, national objectives could also be defined. To use WWII as an example, while the Allies had the defeat of the Axis as their "collective" goal, each individual country had its own interests in mind, that were sometimes at odds with one another & led to conflicts within the alliances. Scenarios could be developed that give each country's navy certain objectives that may or may not support the goals of its ally. This can introduce a variey of interesting elements into the game, as alliances are strengthened & weakened just like in real wars.

Everybody should have something more to look forward to from a battle than just damaged ships to repair. Complex scenario design means more work for a club, but it's work that should pay off in the form of greater participation & more fun for everybody.

JM

 

My club has something similar to this in effect. We issue "awards" to the skippers based on performance, mission objectives, etc. Here's the list of the awards that my club uses:

Service Ribbon: - Awarded for each year that you campaign with the club.
Campaign Ribbon: - Awarded for each “Campaign” that fight in.
Navy Commendation Medal: - Awarded to commanders who help institute process to make the navy better or improve upon existing items/designs.
Bronze Star: - Awarded to persons whom engage in combat against numerically superior enemy forces.
Silver Star: - Awarded to persons who engage in combat against superior forces and emerge victorious.
Navy Cross: - Awarded to commanders who achieve unbelievable actions against overwhelming odds. (weather they survive or not, as long as they completed thier mission)
Medal of Honor: - Awarded to commanders who achieve unbelievable actions against overwhelming odds and survive.

basically it emereged from a sense of "oh damn! That was awesome....too bad you died."

each of these awards has been converted into a small cloth flag that is flown from the rigging of the ship. It also adds a nice touch of detail to the models.

 

I'm all in favor of awards, & you've got some good ones there. Basically, my premise is that you should define awards so as to reward those behaviors that you want to encourage. For example, do you want captains to hide on the fringes, afraid to get their ship damaged, or do you want them to get in the middle of the battle & mix it up, at risk of taking damage or getting sunk? If it's the latter, then I suggest giving out awards for the most damage taken, most times sunk, most times sunk in a single day, most time on the water, etc. & make them a badge of honor! Create a culture where people want to put their ships into harm's way. After all, we all like to see ships shot all to hell & sunk, & the guys who take the most damage really are producing the most fun for everybody! They should be rewarded for it!

JM

 

Or design scenarios that encourage people to be more aggressive. I wonder if you could not have a battle in which each captain has a specific target he has to sink. He could only fir on his assigned target. Now he also would realize that someone is gunning for him. So maneuver would be your only defense. Your firepower should be enough to either damage a ship or sink it. There would be no 5. everyone would sail until someone sank their objective. If everyone is out of bb's then it would be in for a reload and out again.

 

Excellent ideas one and all.

 

The WWCC has an extensive system of awards that it uses, with ranks and annual titles. Here's how it works:

Ranks: For every battle you participate in, you get a certain number of combat points. If your team wins, you get more points than if your team loses. Longer battles earn more points. You can also get service points for helping out the club. Anything from setting up the pond to cannon safety testing to speed checks to organizing the Maker Faire battle can earn you service points. And lastly, you can earn G/M points by participating in gunnery/maneuvering events. You guess how long it'll take for you to sail through a navigational course, and shoot at targets along the way. Whoever's closest to their guessed time gets the most points for the maneuvering part, and whoever hits the most targets gets the most points for the gunnery part. These three different types of points add up over the years, and as you accumulate enough of each, you can advance in rank according to a chart in the WWCC rulebook. An active, successful skipper can advance about a rank per year for the lower ranks, two years for the upper ranks.

Then there's the yearly awards. The first four of these awards are best skipper over 20K tons, best skipper under 20K tons, best detailed ship, and best convoy skipper. Skippers vote for these at the end of each battle day. Whichever ship stood out as the most detailed at that particular battle day, or whichever ship over 20K tons did particularly well, wins the award for that day. Whoever wins the most of a particular award throughout the year wins that award for the year. Because the votes take place at each battle, winning one of the annual awards requires regular attendance as well as consistently excellent performance on the pond.

Then there are the awards determined by the ranking points. First Place Overall goes to whoever earned the most total points for the year. Combatant of the Year goes to whoever got the most combat points, Helmsman of the Year goes to whoever got the most G/M points, and Meritorious Service goes to whoever got the most service points. And lastly, Rookie of the Year goes to whichever first-year skipper earned the most total points.

Last are the awards determined by end-of-the-year voting. The Naval Engineering Award goes to whoever did the most astonishing feat of naval engineering or construction. This award has ranged from putting an air compressor and reloading torpedoes in a destroyer to advancing the art of wooden ship construction to inventing a computer fire control system. Then you have the Captain's Choice award and the Most Feared Captain award. There's a subtle but important difference between these two awards. Captain's Choice goes to whoever you MOST WANT ON YOUR TEAM. Most Feared Captain goes to whoever you LEAST WANT ON THE OTHER TEAM. Captain's Choice usually doesn't go to the most destructive skipper on the pond, it goes to the person who chases off that marauding destroyer, escorts the convoy, and coordinates his actions with those of his teammates.

We almost added a rubber chicken award for most amusing/embarrassing moment of the year, but decided against it. We'd have too many competitors, what with ships sinking themselves (multiple times) without enemy action, ships hitting their skippers instead of their targets, drag races, and a tug-of-war between a cruiser and a transport (the transport won), in just this year alone.

 

Hmmmm.....thats an interesting approach Kotori. Our club handles rank and awards quite differently. As far as our club is concerned Rank and Awards are two totally seperate things. You can have multiple awards and not advance in rank, or you can advance in rank but have earned no awards. We too have a promotion-by-point based system, but it's based on the amount and tupe of combat you see directly. Each of our members starts as a Midshipman while they build thier ships. Once they have a serviceable, certified fighting ship they bump up to Ensign, then from there on out it's all directly based on points earned in combat. (or Cargo runs for Cargo Skippers). The other twist with our group is that your rank puts limitations on your ship building based on displacement. Lower ranks have to build smaller displacements. Simpler ships. Let them learn the basics on a smaller ship before moving up to Battleships and Super Battleships, etc. It might sound discouraging to some, Im sure, but so far this method has worked very well for us.

 

Where can I find your rules on rank and limiting construction? It seems a bit odd to me that you would limit construction based on rank. However, you say you haven't had any problems with it.

 

I agree with you Gascan. I'd personally have issues if my club told me "you can build what we tell you" but if it works for them, more power to 'em.

 

Jm I know what you are getting at. Please no D&D role playing.

 

ROFL!!!!!!

 

The thing with predreads is that they are all so slow they all have the same speed. So there is no real advantage to building a Regina Elena or a Danton. They are still 28 sec ships in fast gun or 22 knotters in big gun or Battlestations. I guess I will go and work on that King Edward. Turns good and has a VERY pointy nose.

Of course if you want a Ben Hur prize we need RC Quinceremes. Mechanical rowers! Steer them like tanks!

 

What scale do we start building?