Thoughts on Chain of Command in RPGs

 

There are RPGs with a Chain of Command: Star Trek Adventures, Godlike, Twilight 2000, Alien RPG (Colonial Marines), War Stories, Achtung! Cthulhu, Fall of Delta Green, YKRPG: The Wars. And even systems that were designed for non-military settings and characters, but someone decided to write a scenario set in WW1, WW2, etc. I've played in a number of Call of Cthulhu games where PCs are soldiers on a battlefield.

If everyone buys into the scenario and mission, then there's generally never a problem.

But I've experienced and heard nightmare stories:

1. One Player declares that he must play the highest ranking PC because when he played in a game before, their leader messed everything up. Well, the joke was on us, because this guy had no clue as to what he was doing and almost got us all killed until he died from his own incompetence, then someone else took over and the rest of us survived.
2. The highest ranking PC ordered everyone to hunker down and stay in place for the whole scenario because it was the safest thing to do. Even the GM told the Players that the "adventure" was out there. I believe they spent more than half the game doing nothing.
3. PC leader turtles and sends other PCs out to die or even picks on one PC to always do all the dangerous things.
4. PC ignores a direct order by another PC.

So, what can you do?

In Star Trek Adventures, Command Talents (p.136, core book) give other PCs extra dice if they follow your advice or orders.

In Alien RPG, Pull Rank (p.76 core book). It's an opposed roll to make someone follow your orders.

In Yellow King RPG, Leadership (p.19, The Wars). Spend a Push to inspire someone to work at the best of their ability.

In Achthug! Cthulhu, Tactics Talents (p.94-95, Player's Guide). Bonuses to other PCs.

In Godlike, Command (p.48, core book). This is a superpower akin to mind control.

Most offer only carrots and very few sticks to follow orders. 

Do you throw someone in the brig or court martial them? But what if you're out in the field? Do you take away their weapons and arrest them? Do you execute a PC in the field? All of these options are horrible. Unless you just don't like the other Player (note that I say Player not PC because all these actions will take the PC out of the game and thus the Player).

So, the best solution I've found is at Session 0 explain the following and get buy-in from all the Players: A NPC is in charge. The Players can vote for their course of action and the most votes is what the NPC commander orders the PCs to do. Then you have majority rules and buy-in from all the Players. This also makes the command seem like a snap decision even though the Players may have spent a long time discussing what to do before their vote.

This also models Star Trek when the captain turns off the viewscreen and discusses options with his officers on the bridge.