Military campaigns - is it fun being told what to do?

[Rob Lang]

Thanks for some wonderful feedback, everyone. I'm feeding on it like a pack of hungry Scotsmen on a battered-and-deep-fried-horse (with Ketchup).

When I say railroading, I mean the point at which my players either revolt or get cynical. It's different for every group. Icar is set up as a series of events on timelines. A series of events lay out a plot. The players never interact with all of the timelines but it gives them the feeling of something larger going on.

[Onix]

Since they seem very resistant to someone giving them a goal, I'd do the following two things.

Start by asking them if they can suspend their normal dislike of having someone tell them what to do. Promise to give the command structure as light a touch as possible but they can't just do anything they want. In return they get to play with high power toys.

If they aren't into that kind of compromise, you could sandbox it by putting them in an out of the way outpost that is the usual destination for roughnecks and miscreants. It's the furthest star from anything going on in the galaxy and they'll be surrounded by like minded individualist. This base hasn't ever had anything happen at it. The command structure is complacent and the men spend most of their time playing cards (or the 200th century equivalent) or crashing military vehicles through bug infested jungles just to have something to do.
Then something important happens. Bots show up, or some other bad guys look to crush the base (pirates?) and set up shop on this backwater. Maybe the players will join the bad guys, maybe you can annoy them just enough to make them band together and work together with the bewildered commander that's never had anything to do but fill out requisitions for more fender paint.

Actually that second one doesn't sound bad at all.

[misterecho]

@Rob.... ಠ_ಠ

[catty_big]