This will be a feature of a future GURPS MODULE PRIME and will include additional data for Klingons. Your notes and suggestions are welcome.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - 01:01 am: Edit

SVC: I was thinking just recently of working up some "Deck plans" for the Kral vehicles. I have some good sources to exploit and Nick said he might help when he's finnished with other thing ahead in line.

Interested?

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - 02:46 am: Edit

Perhaps some details on Dagger Teams. Or perhaps cover a Klingon civilian organization and provide a template for it. I believe that concept has been proposed for Federation civilians, but seeing how it works with Klingons could be interesting.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - 03:08 am: Edit

Loren: the Kral floorplans sound good to me. Ditto floorplans for the equivalent Fed model and a generic export model.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - 10:33 am: Edit

LK: Go ahead.

FDW: I cannot imagine anything about prime/dagger teams we haven't said already.

FDW: I like the idea of a template for a Klingon manufacturing corporation. Can you write it up, or do you want to make it a toss-up assignment open to anyone? (Hint: i don't feel inspired to do it myself.)

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 03:05 am: Edit

SVC: I am flattered by the offer, but I don't feel confident in my ability to write such a piece. If I come up with something, though, I'll let you know.

By Donovan A Willett (Ravenhull) on Sunday, February 01, 2004 - 10:36 pm: Edit

SVC, here is a question that might be answered in a Klingon update. Were any Federation or Kzinti planets occupied long enough during the General War that they might have recruited some subject race personel from them? Or would that have been a occupied for a few generations before even considering type thing?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, February 02, 2004 - 12:05 am: Edit

There are always renegades, and opportunists. Some Fed planets were occupied for nearly ten years and during the first two or three it really looked like the Klingons were going to win. So, yeah....

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 02, 2004 - 01:31 am: Edit

That's quite the chunck of history in two lines!

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, February 02, 2004 - 02:49 am: Edit

Don't forget that the Klingons may also have "recruited" some of Stuplich's people (see GK page 137).

In fact, I'd bet on it!

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 02:38 am: Edit

In GURPS Klingons, it states that naval personnel have rank in the Fleet and also the Marines. How would this be represented mechanically. Does a Klingon officer split Seniority between the two services? Does he pay for rank in two organizations? Or just his highest? Would he get a discount of any sort?

Also, what sort of reaction bonuses do the various medals provide?

By Robert Gilson (Bobcat) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 07:46 am: Edit

If its like the American Military then you just pay once for the rank cost. Officers of other services and countries are treated the same. Basically whatever his rate is in Fleet would be the same if he was loaned out to the marines.

By Mark Norman (Mnorman) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 08:21 am: Edit

Robert: We are not here talking about officers loaned from one service to another, but about the fact that Klingons hold seperate (and often very different ranks in different services).

By Ken Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 10:02 am: Edit

This is my suggestion for Klingon officers:
Buy rank for the Highest level. Then because rank is like a reputation, minus 1 point for every 2(or 3 or 4) levels below that rank the ranks in the other sevices are. This is to show the reduced ammount of people that will recognize the higher rank.

By Robert Herneson (Rherneson) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 10:16 am: Edit

Mark, Robert, as he explained it, is correct. You do not have to be 'loaned' for rank to carry across branches. A navel captain is accorded the same courtasy as a marine major when on a marine post.

Robert, the complication is that the Klingon system is different, as Mark was explaining. For example, in the Brotherhood Dinner story, it is noted that Kumerian is an Admiral but also holds the rank of Major in the ground marines.

Ken, I'm not seeing the need for the modifier. They are two seperate services, for rank purposes, two seperate ranks should be bought. I'll let Gary advise folks from here about the GPD introduced stuff and how it converts or should be bought.

RH

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 10:41 am: Edit

Not sure how the game rules would do it, but in reality, most naval officers ignore their marine commissions. Kumerian was promoted to Major during a period of his career when he was in disfavor and couldn't get a command job in the Navy. He pulled an end run and used his old Marine commission. He had a 2nd Lt commission and was given a bump to 1st Lieutenant because of his age and experience. [While "many admirals are also marine 2nd lieutenants", one might assume that an Admiral who, for whatever reason, actually served in the marines would get a free promotion bump to reflect his accumulated skills and abilities.) Kumerian made it to captain (quickly) on the basis of command ability (due to the fact he already had some "staff skills" from the navy) and his promotion to Major came as the result of a particularly brilliant victory.

So one might assume that your "other" rank trails along 4 ranks behind your "primary" rank for free but that if you actually want a better deal you have to take time (seniority points) off from your primary job and apply them to your secondary job.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 12:51 pm: Edit

I haven't given this topic any thought at all, but what about using Courtesy Rank to represent the inactive Marine commission?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 06:40 pm: Edit

I would give a naval officer a free 2Lt marine commission, if they want a higher marine rank they should pay for it (possibly at a reduced cost as long as it is below their naval rank)

for those who don't know what we are talking about the klingons give each officer that graduates from the acadamy a 2Lt commission in both the navy and the marines. experiance, time in grade, and promotions are completely seperate, there's no carry-over from one to the other. carrear naval officers who spend no significant time with the marines may be naval admirals, but marine 2Lt, while a Marine Major is probably a naval 2Lt. there are rare cases where an officer ends up serving noticable time in both services. Kumerian was effectivly beached by the navy for a while and during this time he chose to continue to serve as a marine instead of staying home so ended up with Major.

this is an advantage in that he can choose to wear his marine uniform instead of his naval uniform at formal events and gets treated as a major instead of an admiral (less formality, easier to mix with the folks doing the work rather then the policy setters)

on of the captian logs has a fiction piece that describes this.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 11:40 pm: Edit

The problem is that Rank, any flavor including Courtesy Rank, costs character points. That makes it impossible to give to them free.

Whatever the point cost of whatever we finally agree on, there should be a compensatory disad that goes with it, reducing the cost for the package to zero.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 01:37 am: Edit

I would think that Courtesy Rank would be something included with your main service rank. This would not be separate from you paid rank but a bennifit. The cost is that it is several ranks lower than the main service rank. Of course, you could add to that by paying character points but every rank should, for some races, come with a level of courtesy rank.

I just don't see it as something separate but more as a mutual understanding of position. The acknowledgement that you deserve something more than nothing due to experience and your acknowledgement that you don't deserve equal rank in a service you are not really in. It's a balance though one could earn more respect by working at it.

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 03:30 am: Edit

But any Courtesy Rank would be lower than the character's main Rank. Since he already paid points for a higher rank, why should he have to pay more points for a lower rank? And what happens if he switches services, as Kumerian did? Courtesy Rank becomes full Rank and vice versa. Point costs would probably become hopelessly confused after the first couple times the character changes services.

I would propose that a Klingon officer has 2 Seniority pools, one naval and one marine. When a character earns a Seniority point, it goes toward promotion in whatever service the character is active in at the time. So a character that is primarily naval will find all their Seniority and promotions coming from the navy. The officer would pay full points for their highest acheived rank, but still retain the right to wear the uniform and trappings of the lower grade at no point cost.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 04:48 am: Edit

Loren, the marine grade that a naval officer holds is not a courtesy thing that shows respect for their expertise. it's seperate earned rank.

I don't have any problem giving an acadamy graduate an extra 2lt grade for free.

also remember that many skills and advantages default to something based on other skills and advantages.

just modify rank for klingons so that naval rank and marine rank default to each other - 4-5 grades (no lower then 2lt). if a player want to improve it from there they can pay for it.

the more accurate thing would be to give a discount for someone who wanted to buy up from 2lt to a grade ~4 behind where they are in their primary track, but that is a lot harder to do

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 05:30 pm: Edit

is there a practical limit on how many services a Klingon could have ranks in?

Seems like there could be (in addition to the Deep Space Fleet and Marines) officers that served in the security service, as well as police...since there are guards (after all its an empire with an emporer) could one also be an imperial guardsman?

One of the threads suggested that there may also be a type of "paladin" for the klingons, does that mean there could also be "holy warriors" of some type?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 05:36 pm: Edit

There are no "imperial guards".

Paladins are imperial inspectors, not holy warriors.

The only dual commissions are navy-marine academy graduates. Navy and marine "rotc" graduates don't have dual commissions. There are no dual police-military commissions, and the Army doesn't share commissions with anybody.

So yes, there is a limit to how many services a Klingon could have ranks in, that being one unless a naval academy grad, in which case two.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 06:15 pm: Edit

Thinking about it, I'll change my mind and say that there is no need to do anything special re dual-rank, as long as the second grade/rank does not exceed the first. If the Marine grade exceeds the DSF grade, then you have to pay for it -- otherwise, no. In other words, you only pay for the highest grade you possess.

In the real world, this might be different, but the GURPS rules ... differ. Of course, what you do in your own game is up to you!