Editing McMercenaries:Orientation

==Orientation: Welcome to your <strike>last</strike> new career!==

'''The future sucks. Especially for you.'''

A few weeks ago, you got the letter you've been dreading for years: Your student loan got bought out.  You’ve enlisted as mercenary to avoid a life of forced labor in a corporate debtor’s prison. A training video later and you’re on the ground in a war zone with a memo listing you’re objectives and a gun with labels indicating which end to point at the enemy. Don’t worry though. Your employment contract requires your missions to have at least a 20% chance of survival.

The company wants updates on your progress but, for legal reasons, they don’t necessarily want to know exactly what you’re doing all the time. So do what all disgruntled employees do. Goof off, steal stuff, and lie to your boss. Just try not get fired too soon. If you don’t pay the company for your training and weapons, they’re legally entitled to harvest your organs for resale.

Fight uppity natives and other mercenaries for Democracy(tm), Freedom(tm), or whatever. 
Join the McMercenaries. 


''Would you like explosions with that?''

===What's this all about?===
(General intro to the game/setting)

==Game play==
(links to rules pages)

I will be using Fudge for a McMercs game this weekend so here's a few notes for how I'll be doing things.

My wounding rules are prety standard with the mooching of the 'Clipped' result from FATE. 'Clipped' gives a +1 difficulty level to the next rounds actions. I prefer this to 'Scratched' without a game effect as if it doesn't do anything mechanics-wise, why have a mechanic for it? YMMV.

Wound Track:
1-2 Clipped           [ ] [ ] [ ]
3-4 Wounded           [ ]
5-6 Seriously Wounded [ ]
7-8 Incapacitated     [ ]
9+ Near Death         [ ]

Weapon Damages:

-1 Untrained Idiot Hand-to-Hand

0  Small Melee (Knife *in Sporting Goods*, Small Club, Telescoping Baton and Chop-Socky Hand-to-Hand)

+1 Medium Melee (Hatchet *in Sporting Goods*, Shortsword)

+2 Large Melee (Broadsword, Battle Axe, Katana) and Light Pistol (.22LR, .25ACP, .32 ACP. .380 ACP)

+3 Two-Handed Melee (Two-Handed Sword/Axe, Polearms, Katana Two-Handed) and Medium Pistols (9mm Para, .45 ACP, .40 Rem)

+4 Heavy Pistol (.357 Mag, .44 Mag, .454 Casull, .50 AE)

+5 Light Rifle (5.56 NATO, 5.45 x 39 Russian, 7.62 x 39 Russian)

+6 Medium Rifle (7.62 NATO, 7.62 x 54 Russian, .30-06)

+7 Heavy Rifle (.300 WinMag, 7mm Mag, other big game cartridges)

+8 Heavy Machinegun (.50 BMG, 12.7mm Russian)

Attributes:
No set attributes but they get 2 free 'Tell us the best things about yourself'. Are you able to lift 50lbs all day? You might be 'Strong +1' then. Be creative and try to steer from athletic and combat-related ones as there are no ex-cops or ex-soldiers allowed and you're freakin' SLACKERS, people.

Skills:
As the characters are slackers, I will give them 15 skill levels to be slackers with. They pick them and they can't be combat related unless they fit the society and background that the characters grew up in. I live in the US so having some firearm skills might be possible with the correct character background. If you're from the UK and Australia, you're hosed. Deal. If they were a college student then they select the correct skills for their coursework. Be creative and don't sweat the small stuff. A decent 'Video Games' skill is prefectly reasonable.

Gifts:
Each character gets one gift. I would suggest they relate to potential rerolls as they suck at combat and are, well, slackers. They need all the help they can get. Be creative and try to relate them to slacking. Stuff like "Makes great coffee" would allow them to reroll suck-up rolls with the Team Leads. "Video Game Gawd" for rerolling video game checks for bragging rights. 

Faults:
Other than 'Broker n' Hell' and 'Financial Dumbass', pick the one thing you don't like about yourself that you put on your application. No, 'Psycho Rapist' and 'Schizophrenia' aren't good choices.

More later...
Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

==McMercenaries: Who do you want to kill today?==
(descriptions of McMercenary companies)

===Target Tactical===
''Shoot more.  Pay less.''  Target Tactical is the second largest McMerc company in the world, after Wal-Mercs (see below).  While the Wal-Mercs tend to cost less for ops, TT are positioned as an 'upscale' discount mercenary corps.  Their company flak jackets tend to jarringly conflict with the landscape a little less than Wal-Mercs', and they are more tolerant of customizations and variations from the norm.  Don't let that fool you, though, they are just as ruthless and intolerant of screw-offs (which tend to be the wide majority of their employee base) as Wal-Mercs.  Company flak jackets are rust-red, with a khaki-colored helmet covering.  Target Tactical is famous for its policy of giving 5% of its profits to charity; however due to some poor choices, most of the beneficiaries of this policy are NGOPS (see below). You can always tell a rookie TarTac (as Target Tactical McMercs are called) or the one who pissed off the boss most recently.. they are heavily into branding, and one of their group has to wear the Company's logo (alternating rings of red and white, which has led the TarTacs to be called the BullsEye Boys.)<br>
'''AKA''': TarTacs, Bulls-Eye Boys

===Wal-Mercs===
One of the more ahem.. rigorous McMerc companies out there (and boy does that say a lot!) It's said that even higher management eats, sleeps and screws on a schedule (if they had enough toilets, they'd probably <bleep> on schedule too.) Pioneered the JNT (Just in Time) ammunition delivery system that scans every team, and is supposed to deliver their ammo just before they run out. (In practice, they haven't QUITE figured out that the average WalMerc shift is 7 hours, 59 minutes and 15 seconds of boredom, and 45 seconds of screaming terror with fingers clenching on the button marked "Full Auto"). Their standard uniform is a bright blue PsuevLar armor (giving them the nickname "Blueberries" among other McMercs), with a yellow happy smily face on the helmet.<br>
'''AKA''': Blueberries

===K-Batt===
They used to be one of the big names in McMerc companies when the concept exploded, but they've been reduced to a mere shadow of what they once were. They hired General Stewart Marthanan to try to give them a name brand kick, which failed miserably when Marthanan was splattered three months after hiring. K-Batt recently went through a much-needed merger with another McMerc group (Strategic Engagement And Recon Services) to stay in the McMerc game. K-Batt is the last straw.. some of their McMercs have been booted out of better McMerc groups, others that wouldn't qualify for a reputable McMerc group ever.. It's the bottom of the barrell, but they're surviving on a series of high risk/high reward missions, known as Blue Light Specials due to the fact that the K-Batt Ambulances use Blue Lights to signify themselves as non-combatants. They wear green/red camo.<br>
'''AKA''': "Those Poor Bastards", Dinosaurs.

==NGOPS: Hippies... they're everywhere...==

'''NGOPS''' - private, non-profit combat charities, like ''Assassins Without Borders'', ''Meanpeace'' and ''Christian Children's Corps'' - are the bane of every McMercenary's life: Do-gooders on the battlefield, fighting for causes they believe in.  They are better trained than you, better armed than you, and filled with the enthusiasm and zeal doing good works brings.  And because many McMercenary companies have policies of giving some of their revenues to charity, most often they're partially funded by you.

What a bunch of bastards.

Worse, the NGOPS - nigh-universally the kids of rich parents who kept them out of student debt in college - all think that you're all a bunch of corporatist bastards who sold your souls for a paycheck and the latest in cyberware, while their org is running on a shoestring and a prayer and barely has enough money to keep its operatives in bullets.  NGOPS are nigh-universally a way for militant post-college liberals to meet other militant post-college liberals, form short, tempestuous marriages and result in bitter children.

Yet, somehow, their Birkenshock Smart Armor is always shiny, and their Latte always steaming hot.

Utter bastards.

In the heads-up displays of McMercs, NGOPS tend to be labeled as "Civilian: Do Not Shoot" unless their designer autorifles are clearly visible to the sensors.

==Inspirational material==
* [http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=240661 McMercenaries thread in Roleplaying Open]
* [http://anidb.info/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=569 Area 88]
* ''Bill, the Galactic Hero'', by Harry Harrison
* ''Catch-22'' by Joseph Heller
* ''M*A*S*H'' (novel by Richard Hooker, film by Robert Altman, TV series created by Larry Gelbart)
* [http://www.schlockmercenary.com Schlock Mercenary]
* ''Jennifer Government'', by Max Barry