Drafting a PC Doctor during the 5FW.. mean, or Realistic...

[BruceEdwinMorrow]

I'll be running a scenario for my players shortly that focues on the 5th Frontier War. One of the characters is a doctor.

I'm giving serious thought to having him drafted in the military as soon as he identifies himself as a doctor to any senior military officer. The player would then be forced to roll a new character immediately.

Is this simply being mean :devil:, or realistic , given the circumstances....

 

[far-trader]

Depends. Does the player like his Doctor character and would they be disappointed in having to put it aside and roll a new character? If yes then it's mean. If no then there's no problem, but you wouldn't be asking then would you?

...I see nothing to stop you from setting up the scenario and drafting the Doctor and letting the player continue playing them through it though.

They can be an embedded medic in the unit and get a quick Basic Training in the minimum military skills and knowledge they need (to satisfy the game - a couple basic weapons skills at level 0, command structure, etc., all on memory implant even or quick intensive download study during the first jump).

If they are in fact a surgeon or gifted, and that's known, and the unit needs the higher skills, they may even be commissioned as an officer upon induction. Unless it's a matter of more boots on the ground or whatever in which case they'll just be a field medic grunt, maybe NCO.

Bottom line, you can't go wrong asking your player their opinion on the issue. Maybe they'd like to try a different character or maybe they'd go for the idea of the Doctor signing up to do their duty in time of war.

 

[fiat_knox]

They could pay the doctor more than he would normally take if he went private. Also, inducements such as the opportunity to use the highest tech medical kit available, possible noble rank, elevation to the position of command of a medical ship etc. etc. At the very least, upon being drafted as a Medic they automatically gain a full Commission to Officer rank - and I don't mean Ensign 1st Class, either.

Honestly. Knowing the sheer gift a competent medic has, no military would ever skimp on the inducements.

 

[rancke]

I'll be running a scenario for my players shortly that focues on the 5th Frontier War. One of the characters is a doctor.

I'm giving serious thought to having him drafted in the military as soon as he identifies himself as a doctor to any senior military officer. The player would then be forced to roll a new character immediately.

Is this simply being mean :devil:, or realistic , given the circumstances....

I'd say mean (As in, "Goodbye, I'm never going to play in any campaign you run" mean), and not necessarily realistic. What makes you think the Imperial military would have a shortage of doctors? In the Imperium, the proportion of military men to the entire population is rather small. I won't swear to it without doing some guesstimates, but I strongly suspect the high-population worlds would be more than able to meet the demand.

Anyway, if you really think doctors would be subject to forced enrollment for the duration, either tell the player not to generate a doctor or warn him about the problem. It's not like it is so unlikely that a doctor might have heard a rumor or two circulating through the medical community. Might even have made the medical journals.


Hans

 

[BruceEdwinMorrow]

I would expect the Imperium to need more doctors in wartime than in peacetime because of uh, wounds, combat, you know, bullets flying. The doctor to sophont ratio during peacetime is probably very different that what is needed during wartime.

Given where Medical skill typically requires advanced education (for CT), I don't think it will be that common.

And I'm not sure how you tell someone not to generate a certain type of character when all their skills are random? :rofl:

 

[far-trader]

...I'm not sure how you tell someone not to generate a certain type of character when all their skills are random? :rofl:

I think we were presuming the character was generated using Supplement 4 - Doctor

In any case, if the case is one of forcing the player to gen another random character how is that going to be any more suitable to the game than the random Doctor they have now?

I can certainly see a chance of what Hans said happening, and my advice stands. Don't railroad and trash the character and force a new one on the player, talk to them and work out how to make the character fit for for the scenario through adding skills or defining the role. There's nothing wrong with having a good medic on a combat team, in fact the rest of the team may be very grateful for it.

 

[BruceEdwinMorrow]

No, just a poor bastard that rolled medical one too many times. He's like a merchant or something and it's a merchant game, so if/when the military drafts him, he goes poof.

Maybe I'll give them a chance to persuade/bribe the military guys not to take him... Always good to throw in some social skill use.

 

[rancke]

I would expect the Imperium to need more doctors in wartime than in peacetime because of uh, wounds, combat, you know, bullets flying. The doctor to sophont ratio during peacetime is probably very different that what is needed during wartime.

Of course, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Imperium would have a shortage of them. It might, for instance, have anticipated the need and have a lot of doctors with reserve commissions.

Given where Medical skill typically requires advanced education (for CT), I don't think it will be that common.

Not at all common. But in absolute terms there will be a lot of them on any high-population world. Say, for example, that you have one major hospital per 100,000 people (I think that's about right) and say that each hospital can spare one doctor from their roster. That would make Rhylanor, Mora, Trin, and Glisten capable of supplying 36,000 doctors. That should tide the military over until reinforcements can arrive (Lintl, located 10 parecs from Trin, can supply another 40,000).

All the same, it's perfectly possible to cook up a scenario that'll leave an out-of-the-way unit short of qualified medical staff in the short term, so I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm saying it's far from a given that it would happen, and it's bad GMming to let it happen.

Well, you did ask for opinions, didn't you?


Hans

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"Through early morning fog I see..."

 

[Gadrin]

No, just a poor bastard that rolled medical one too many times. He's like a merchant or something and it's a merchant game, so if/when the military drafts him, he goes poof.

Maybe I'll give them a chance to persuade/bribe the military guys not to take him... Always good to throw in some social skill use.

Maybe he's a smart enough fellow to recognize that revealing himself as "Hi I'm a doctor, I want to get drafted" will do just that.

Why don't you ask the player to play him on the sly ? Or he can go AWOL after being sent to ________ .

And the others can pick him up from ______ after getting an x-boat transmission from him:

HEY GUYS, I'M STILL INTERESTED IN YOUR GROUP. I'VE ARRANGED A NICE
EXTENDED LEAVE. PICK ME UP ON _________. I'M STAYING AT _________
UNDER THE NAME OF _______ _________.

:rofl:

>

 

[far-trader]

"Through early morning fog I see..."

Yep, that was one of the first examples to come to mind for me too.

 

[samuelvss]

I'm giving serious thought to having him drafted in the military as soon as he identifies himself as a doctor to any senior military officer.
Is this simply being mean :devil:, or realistic , given the circumstances....

I believe this is 1. Unrealistic, 2. Bad GM'ing, and 3. Pointless. (You have identified no point other than "realism;" if there is another, then the last point is inapplicable.)

A large bureaucracy initially approaches such potential potential shortfalls through organizational strategies, like reserves, then contracts, then (in extremis) through programs going to large organizations (such as local governments, corporations, or even large hospitals) to fill their requirements. Just giving all run of the mill senior officers the ability conscript professionals is incompetence far beyond anything demonstrated by the 3I in the FFW. It could certainly happen, but saying that realism demands it is a real stretch.

 

[Madarin Dude]

Just mean. The 3I is so vast that most of the need for doctors etc, should be able to be made up with through volunteers. Some doctor on a tramp freighter would be so far down the list of any potential draftees that it would only be upon the complete collapse of the Imperium that they would try it. There are plenty of doctors on high pop worlds that can be drafted that are not mobile.

It would be more realistic that the players entire ship and crew are drafted into service to move troops and supplies to the front. That would be realistic. (I think a lot of civilian boats and ships were used for Dunkirk.) That might make for an interesting adventure.

 

[aramis]

Mean. And VERY unrealistic.

Generally, conscripted doctors were conscripted simply in the general draft, or were targeted right out of med school.

Since we know the 3I draft is only at 18, those drafted to be doctors would be trained as such by the service. Need doctors? Look at your medical corps' non-docs, and train the apt ones.

Or, as Madarin says, draft the whole ship.

 

[rancke]

Since we know the 3I draft is only at 18, those drafted to be doctors would be trained as such by the service. Need doctors? Look at your medical corps' non-docs, and train the apt ones.

We don't know that the 3rd Imperium has a draft at all. I rather doubt it myself. There's no evidence of it. (Unless you believe that the Imperium would also draft people for service as criminals, the draft in the character generation system is quite obviously a game mechanic, not a simulation of an actual draft).


Hans

 

[Peter Schutze]

>If they are in fact a surgeon or gifted, and that's known, and the unit needs the higher skills, they may even be commissioned as an officer upon induction

A proper doctor (medic-3 or better in CT from memory) would always be a commissioned (non-command) officer. I believe most militaries now rank them as captain initially

I also feel that the only way a doctor or other specialist would get "drafted" was by having their reserve commission reactivated.

You can't force people like that to perform well .... locking them up is just pointless so a random draft for a never-been-involved-with-the-military doctor would only happen in a "total war" situation or short-term emergency like a disaster.

>I'm not sure how you tell someone not to generate a certain type of character when all their skills are random?

if you object to his apparently too-high medical skill that much, ask him to reroll a couple

 

[far-trader]

We don't know that the 3rd Imperium has a draft at all. I rather doubt it myself. There's no evidence of it. (Unless you believe that the Imperium would also draft people for service as criminals, the draft in the character generation system is quite obviously a game mechanic, not a simulation of an actual draft).


Hans

I disagree and think there is evidence.

First, "Other" in CT LBB1 is not Criminals. At least not entirely, certainly not exclusively.

Second, since being drafted in CT LBB1 carries with it the ineligibility of commission during the first term (for services* that have ranks) it sure sounds like a military draft simulation (while also being obviously a game mechanic).

* services, all 6 basic careers are termed services, which certainly implies Imperial Service in the OTU, and even pre-OTU implies that even those in the "Other" career path(s) who may end up with criminal skills and backgrounds do so in a service.

 

[aramis]

Hans: MT establishes that Dulinor introduced the draft in Illellish, and Strephon made it imperium-wide, as a reform. IIRC, it's in survival margin.

 

[veltyen]

No, just a poor bastard that rolled medical one too many times. He's like a merchant or something and it's a merchant game, so if/when the military drafts him, he goes poof.

Maybe I'll give them a chance to persuade/bribe the military guys not to take him... Always good to throw in some social skill use.

If he's just rolled medical one too many times then he should be able to hide the fact that he is in fact a highly skilled surgeon.

They could just argue that they are a mechant fleet first aid officer with a couple of hobbies (those hobbies being implanting cybernetics, genetic research, epidemiology and organ transfer).

Without formal qualifications it might be hard for the military to absolutely distinguish that they are in fact someone to nab.

The awol/deserter angle also has reasonable narrative reasons. Think the doctor out of Serenity.

 

[far-trader]

A proper doctor (medic-3 or better in CT from memory) would always be a commissioned (non-command) officer.

Yes, Med-3 may presume an MD but a guarnteed commission is not really a supported reality given the vagaries of Book 1 career gen. It would be possible to gen a Navy character with Med 3 or higher who never made the commission roll. They would still be a Navy Doctor, and possibly a Surgeon (Dex 8+), despite not having an Officer Rank. Hence my simple possibility statement, not a certainty.

I also feel that the only way a doctor or other specialist would get "drafted" was by having their reserve commission reactivated.

I'd agree, and yes let's not call it being drafted in this case, it would be recommissioning. But the case in this thread is (iiuc) a Merchant who became an MD in that career. As others have noted the best solution then is to have the whole ship and crew inducted into the Merchant Marine for the duration.

I think this works best for subsidized ships (it's right there in the contract) but could be applied to useful free-traders as well. And I typically award bonus payments for the service time. A minimum of two payments a month are knocked off the mortgage by the Imperium, more for more dangerous assignments. It's possible for a ship to come out of a wartime Merchant Marine assignment fully paid off. If they survive. And of course the Imperium can always invoke the needs clause anytime anyway. But it's a good way to get characters a bigger more capable ship free and clear, while still holding the reigns.