I have hard time with understanding what is suppoused to happen after asking “What resources or benefits might we find at a specific location ahead?” Commander’s Intel Question.
Should it “generate” additional resources on this mission (like supply carts, alchemists and so on) or… what? Because at the beginnig I understood that additional resource should be available for a price, but after a while I realised that players may always generate extra resources for every mission. Is that intended or did we misunderstood how this question should work?
I think it’s intended to give to the players a better view of what the location can offer in terms of ressources. The information should be better and richer that what is on page 120 fo each location, but not completely detailed.
For example, for Barrack Mines, on page 120 is indicated “Good place for Black Shot supplies.” That’s the info the Commader already has. With this question, you could answer: it’s also a good place to get an Alchemist and Laborers" (from the Special rules) and “Oh, a Chosen from ancient times is entombed here. The site can probably provide some kind of benediction”.
Don’t go into details of the special missions, because there is a higher level intel question for this.
To answer your question more specifically, I don’t think it is direclty related to what Officers or Scouts could find or acquire during missions (the only link is that Channels and Scrounge cannot provide things totally contrary to the fiction).
Thanks for the reply @A_B, but honestly, I still don’t get it.
For example there’s a mission generated for Long Road location, about getting some intel behind the enemy lines. Players asks the question - and I have absolutely no idea what should I answer. I could go with “you may find abandoned carts with usefeul resources, like religious supplies or maybe even black shot (brought from Barrak Mines from the north)” however if no mission with resource reward will be generated, so no way to actually gather them, the question is just miss opurtunity (and resources, actually) with no real advantage for the players. They can always use quatermaster action to get these asset without asking the question. It’s no difference at all from mechanical point of view. Apart of additional lore description. But it’s not much in such boardgaming rpg when every resource is more valuable then gold
Still on this thought, I have additional question. Somehow related, I think
This one is from mission generator: “Investigate an area for a resource, group, or person. You might have heard of undead moving into the area, or want to make sure the Legion isn’t passing by an infested wood. You might look for resources.”
What author had in mind writing the bolded part? For what resources can characters look for? If mission doesn’t rewards with any kind of resources (it’s Intel for example) how come players can find any resource? Maybe they find info on resource location, but if none next mission will generate asset reward, how come they ever find this resource? I guess, maybe, this part refers to asset reward if available. But I’m not sure.
I’m completely lost here and I have no idea how to proceed. It seems to be extremely vauge and unclear what to do.
I’m just another GM and player so take what I say with a grain of salt.
It’s my own take on it.
If you generate Intel as a reward for a mission, it should (generally) not be intel about resources like black shot or horses, etc. It should be intelligence about the enemy, mostly the undead. Each point of Intel should correspond to a little bit that the PCs could realistically learn about the Broken, its plans, its forces etc during the mission.
The Intel questions of the Commander like the one you cited (“What resources or benefits might we find at a specific location ahead?”) would mostly be used to help the Commander decide which way to advance, when he has the choice, and if the Marshal and especially the Quarter-Master express some specific needs. Also it could help the QM decide to spend a Campaign action or a Supply to ACQUIRE an asset NOW; instead of waiting for the next location, because they know it will be unavailable or harder to acquire (asset rating, special rules…); or the opposite.
It’s true that the Legion won’t always be able to get what it wants, where and when it wants it, if the mission generation does not go their way. That’s part of the uncertainties of war…You can use the spymaster AUGMENT action to help in this regard, or you can spend Intel to get a special mission, or even choose your special mission with the spymaster RESEARCH action.
For your next question: don’t forget that all missions don’t need to be randomly generated. Sometimes, you can create one, according to the story so far or what the legion Roles have been pushing for. See page 325: “STORY-BASED MISSIONS Not all missions need to be randomly generated. Sometimes the players will push heavily to do another mission. Sometimes, the story will call for a specific mission to be available to the Legion, despite what the random charts suggest. In these cases, you can generate the mission that feels appropriate
for your Legion.
You should be rolling most of your missions randomly, but when the story calls for it, you may elect to replace one of these missions with one of your own choice. You should consider the rewards and penalties carefully.”
So to go back to your question, if the Legion really wants to do a mission to get, for example, a siege weapon, you and your players should justify it in the fiction, and you can create a specific mission just for this. As a GM, I would not let it come out of the blue, but for example the players could ask Intel questions not on the list, or refer to something that happened in a previous mission, and so on. And of course, the type of asset/resource must more or less correspond to the fiction of the location.
To add one more thing to the list that A_B provided, I think it’s totally within bounds to offer extra rewards on a mission for extra risk, whether in the midst of things or when the Commander asks questions. “There might be some extra supply to be found if you spend an extra day in the town and scour what the undead left behind…” or “If you smash the undead camp to pieces, we won’t increase Pressure at the beginning of this campaign phase…”
I haven’t actually gone that route myself, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot to add weight to the Commander’s questions and make sure that the mechanics of the game are accurately reflecting the fiction. If the players go above and beyond, they should be rewarded.
