Implemented Make SAOY Occupations More RPG Friendly

> There are 17 different occupational colors.

I think we should probably reduce it to something more like ~12 occupational colors, then on the occupation page list the specialties of that occupation with a 'default' generalist specialty that people can be if not a member of a specific specialty within it.

I really like that. Sort of why I mentioned band being able to fall into caretaker!

And it's like the "'Default' Generalist" in an occupation group is "Level 2" if people are just generic soldiers before.

Generic Solider -> Occupation Group Generalist -> Specialist -> Specialist with Extra Skill Qualifiers/Identifiers -> Supervisor/Manager in Specialty Area

In the US Army, for example, "Officer" and "Senior NCO" (First sergeant and sergeant majors) are specialty MOS in a branch, usually the A and Z, respectively. Even though we want to put them in white panels as Rikugun Commander or SEA, or something. Whereas in a purely US Naval or JMSDF reference example, it would only be deck officers (incl captain and 1st officer then on down the bridge watchstander officer line) who would be the equivalent. But it is also I guess a thing where the SAoY is different from them, despite being somewhat based on those things, and is its own animal.

We gotta remember that Wes wants less complicated stuff for his faction, not more:

Wes said:

Recently I have been running into an issue where player characters with exotic, specialized, or uncommon occupations are left without much to do because their role is narrowly defined.

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I recall this sort of basicness being central to the Star Army's identity, and that has been strayed from in recent years. It's been said that the Star Army prefers to use standard starship crews and armor teams rather than relying on overly-specialized forces, which is why SOFT was the end-all for special forces for the longest time: a Plumeria-class and its away team should be capable of tackling any mission thrown at it rather than needing 20 different ultra-specialized units and occupations that get called on for any specific situation. SOFTs themselves were never a new occupation and were just a format for GM use rather than something esoteric to a special task. This, as I recall, came from the same feeling as Wes' request in this thread: to make the Star Army RPG friendly (as well as to maintain its character as a fictional military that borrows from but does not directly copy the real world).

This sort of principle should extend to occupations if anything is going to be changed, I think. No need to add more layers of complexity that complicate both IC and OOC function. There are already tons of IC specialties that have existed since before there were "48 Star Army occupations and counting." It's probably best to just sunset the superfluous ones that don't fit into the Star Army's doctrine or Wes' desires for how the faction operates.

Some units might be good at certain things because of their experience. The Ninth Fleet was for planetary invasion. The 2XF had a lot of fighter operations. Neither needed a bunch of special occupations to make that vision complete.

And so, cutting to what seems to be the point of Wes' initial question: does the Star Army really need 8 different cornflower blue occupations for new players to get drawn into playing? Uchuugun fight from ships. Rikugun garrison planets. Easy. Does the Star Army need grey panels to be more than starship officers? For both of these fields, characters can be assigned to many of the duties that have been added as full-on occupations if a GM needs that for their plot. It was never a problem for the past 20 years. But maybe cutting some of the chaff will help new players find their own cool paths instead of putting them into limited occupational boxes that make it hard for GMs to even start them on their adventure.

Doesn't really matter to me in the end, but if this thread's question is going to be addressed I think it should be by making things less complicated and not more complicated.

I think that, while it might help to trim the fat on some more superfluous occupations, it might also be useful to approach this from a procedure standpoint. A lot of the problems I've observed in the community in relation to this mostly occur with newer players, and I think that to an extent we may be able to have it both ways, as it were, keeping around many of the occupations that players have written over the years but also avoiding the issue of people not knowing what they can or should play in a given plot.

I think a prime example of this is the mecha pilot occupation. While I think that as an occupation its considerations and job on the battlefield are distinct enough to render it a specialization of Pilot, it also ended up being picked by a player in a plot that didn't really have room for that kind of stuff to feature in it. One way we might be able to avoid this is to either: A) Ask new SAoY players to create characters with "basic" occupations (Just pilot, or just infantryman) before specializing them with the help of their GM, or B) ask all players to do this.

This comes from the example of prestige classes, domains, patron gods, etc. in D&D and other similar roleplaying games, where often after a player gets into the swing of things they're able to make a choice to enhance their gameplay experience by picking a subclass that suits the situation or their playstyle. Obviously, I did include the A option because there is a possibility that more experienced players are better able to make judgment calls on when an occupation can fit into a plot, but I think we do have to place some of the onus onto GMs to guide players into what works for their plot.

We probably could reduce the colors down to Star Trek +2 and just figure out what Wes wants from that and sort them. They rest can just be removed and characters given the option to find something else to reclass in or allowed to discharge/retire if they don't.

I think when it comes to "Mecha pilot in a non-mecha plot" type thing, they are still generalists in the pilot. They can fly a shuttle, fly a ship, fly a mecha, whatever is needed from pilots. However, if there is an option, they do mecha stuff first.

The way I see is is Basic Infantry MOS -> Occupation Group Generalist -> Specialist -> Specialist with Extra Skill Qualifiers/Identifier. Very similar to how Yuuki said. I'm strongly against getting rid of any of the current MOS, I think we can just put them into Occupation groups and things will be fine. Because a new player doesn't have to choose a specialty, but can grow into one. Or even grow into a occupation group if they aren't sure.

Mecha Pilot was really going to be a generalist job since the Ryoko used Project Thought to control it. Someone trained it in is capable of a lot more than living out a Gundam fantasy.

I had stopped working on it to think of how that idea might work before someone else finished what I had and submitted it.

At 4 pages in, there have been a lot of neat ideas and thoughts. But I'm particularly interested in learning what occupations Wes specifically believes need to be merged, generalized, or limited to NPC use from his role as the controller of the Star Army's most senior commanders. Maybe that'd be a good starting point to actually formulate something that action can be taken upon whether IC or OOC.

This

I basically want to:

• Reduce specialized units/occupations that take away missions from the player characters
  • By this I mean anything where the PCs would ask "Isn't it [insert occupation]'s job to do this mission, not ours?"
• Reduce units/occupations that no one actually RPs in/as and/or there's no openings for

I don't think we need:

• Fleet Scouts (Merge into infantry and/or Ranger)
• Star Army Giretsu Infantry (Merge into infantry as a qualification/badge)
• Star Army Rikugun Kamirakurai (Merge into pilot or mecha pilot)
• Frontier Guard (This should be unit type not an occupation)
• Senior Enlisted Advisor
• I think merging musician into caretaker is a good idea (space maids can also be space bards)
• Split Star Army Medical into Field Medic (enlisted) and Doctor (officer) and merge pharmacist into doctor as a sub-specialization (along with things like dentistry)
• Instead of making a new Star Army Security MOS, make that a typical job of the Star Army Soldier MOS

1) So are we saying Fleet Scouts are Uchuugun Rangers?
2) What about nurses? In Army LPN are enlisted and RN are officers (as are PA's)

Fleet Scouts, Frontier Guard, and Kamirakurai should perhaps be moved into units rather than occupations, but we should keep them as they are detailed and well thought out. Giretsu being a badge makes sense.

looking over the Star Army Security page, it looks like they haven't ever been approved or submitted as an occupation.

>What about nurses? In Army LPN are enlisted and RN are officers (as are PA's)

Right now, I don't think we make that distinction. LPN and RN would probably be enlisted.

Giretsu Infantry ceased to be a thing in YE 44. But I imagine there were plenty of people who want to go through hell to get the patch IC.

Thank you for the starting point, Wes. That all seems very simple for Yui, Hanako, or Minato or order IC.

Haven’t really looked into any of the occupations you want merged before tonight, but many seem to amount to occupational codes for things Infantry already do. None of them read like occupational careers that a soldier would spend their life focused on. I’d go with (or maybe what Taisho Hokusai would recommend if she worked for Operations ):

• Retire the Fleet Scout occupation because they’re just Uchuugun infantry who serve on scout ships.
• Revert Giretsu to a school whose graduates can optionally be organized into special units within a legion but otherwise are just Rikugun infantry with extra skills.
• Retire kamiwhatsits because it reads like a special unit of mechs and tanks rather than a full occupation.
• Retire Frontier Guards occupation because certain Rikugun Area Armies should be assigned to serve this duty and probably rotate deployments to frontier worlds.

The others in your list seem more straightforward to implement with less options for what to do. Good luck figuring out how to streamline these things!

Soban said:

Fleet Scouts, Frontier Guard, and Kamirakurai should perhaps be moved into units rather than occupations, but we should keep them as they are detailed and well thought out. Giretsu being a badge makes sense.

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This makes sense to me, since the Kamirakurai's whole thing always kind of made sense to me more as a type of unit to call in for particularly brutal stalemates or campaigns. I'd imagine that it's made up primarily of Mecha Pilots and Combat Vehicle Operators (Which, I learned today, already had a "Mecha operator" subtype, who knew?). I'd hope we can keep the spirit of what's already on the page when retooling it though, since I rather enjoyed roleplaying some stuff to do with them.

Just saw the change for this while browsing the wiki and I gotta say, it's really well implemented. The whole Class A and Class B thing will make the Star Army much more new player/RPG friendly without having to get rid of a lot of the super specialized MOS codes for specific Admiralty positions and stuff. Great!

Thank you! I tried to organize it in a way that makes sense for members and is pretty straightforward.

so why are we phasing out systems and safety and not putting into npc territory? i always felt it was kinda the liaison between command and engineering

Yuuki said:

so why are we phasing out systems and safety and not putting into npc territory? i always felt it was kinda the liaison between command and engineering

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It just seems to be redundant with the main starship operator MOS in the RP, especially on ships like the Fuji where you have actual engineer positions on the bridge.

Also, there were zero characters with this occupation listed as their occupation. Nobody plays one.