Alright, so, Friday night I ran my usual session for my six-pack of college freshmen newbie players, and things went massively off the rails. So massively so that I had to think of a legitimate reason that I couldn't just kill half the party for being too stupid to live. And that got me thinking on newbie players and basic tactical training/thinking.
Backing up: Here's the precipitating incident: I had half of the PCs and most of the allied PCs in custody elsewhere, having been captured at the end of last session. The warden, the photomancer and the NPC hydromancer have just returned from Edinburgh via L-Space and are in the 4th subbasement of the local university's main library. I ask them to roll Lore for magical awareness, and the wizard get's a +7. I tell him that he's detecting a malevolent presence that's extremely unhappy with him; the trio moves towards the elevators as the creepy background music I'm playing builds to a crescendo; the numbers roll down, the elevator dings, the music hits the high point, the door opens...
It's a janitor. :) He starts walking out of the elevator, pushing his cleaning cart; they can hear the bass beat from his headphones.
Relieved laughter, but the wizard isn't satisfied; he rolls a perception check with a +5 result, to see if he notices anything about the janitor as he walks by, and asks for a self-compel on one of aspects. I sigh. So much for my foreshadowing. The janitor isn't breathing.
The warden panics, lightning bolts the suspected zombie, and fries its' MP3 player. Almost instantly, a drumbeat starts playing over the building speakers as the zombie twitches on the ground, and the trio bolts for the stairs--and the doors refuse to open. They end up having to blow down the doors in question, and again on ground level.
They run to their car in a nearby parking lot... which refuses to start.
And here's the major tactical blunder. The wizard's player asks me where the nearest, highest point is. Since we're playing on the campus in question, I mutely point towards the library that they had just exited out of. The wizard casts levitating spells on the three of them and they head for the roof. "Now what?" "Um... is there an open window around?" To make a long story short, the wizard lead them back inside the library's upper floors, inside the enclosed, close, unlit environment of a office wing on a weekend--or, in other words, a battlefield perfect for ambushes by Dresdenverse zombies, and where evocation might bring the roof down on their heads.
I ended up rationalizing that their opponent couldn't get enough forces into place fast enough, and, as this side-tracking had gone on long enough, so I paid them two fate points each, told them to take two consequences each and that they had managed to escape without debilitating injuries (or, was implied, they could refuse the fate points and see how much deeper a hole they could dig for themselves).
As for what's going on behind the scenes I "borrowed" a setting place from the New World of Darkness book Mysterious Places, modified it for Dresden (which wasn't that hard) and dropped it in; short version, the campus has/is a young, malevolent and possibly Outsider-ish genius loci; last semester, the janitors went on strike; the loci simply replaced them with the medical anatomy corpses that had just been delivered (which is still an ongoing mystery). It has complete control over anything associated with the university--speakers, doors, locks, engines... you get the idea. Luckily for the PCs, it doesn't have Intellectus yet.
So, after the session was over, I had a little talk with the players about tactics; all of them are college freshmen, and the most experienced ones have had all of their tactical experience happen on a grid with 30 ft movement rates. I told them very straight that I do not want to start killing PCs, but I will if they act stupid. After the little talk and when I got home, I sent out the following attached to the "here's what happened this week; clarifications/links/details/stuff to discuss" email:
Now, advice time. Specifically, tactics.
First, state the obvious. Usually, this will feel redundant, but it helps to remind you of where you are and sometimes of things you've overlooked.
Second, assess your assets. Weapons, gear, allies, information, etc. Your environment is always an asset if you're creative enough. As a subset of that, pick your battlefields carefully, and choose ones that maximize your advantages and minimize your disadvantages. Try not to let your enemy pick the battlefield, because he'll be doing the same thing.
Third, determine your goal. What are you trying to accomplish? Keep this in mind; too many battle plans, in real life as well as gaming, are embroidered to the point of obscuring the original goal. Remember that someone actually stated, in a matter of fact tone, "It has become necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."
Fourth; no plan survives contact with the enemy; keep your goal in mind, and keep that goal and your plan open to revision--and scrapping, if necessary. Don't keep on revising a plan past the point where it is no longer useful.
Fifth: the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. The more details and complications you throw into your plan, the more likely it is to fail; that doesn't mean complicated plans can't work, but in a battle between complicated plans, the least complicated plan usually wins, all other things being equal. Thinking laterally, however, can often be a simple, winning tactic.
Sixth: the Indy Ploy--making it up as you go along--only works if you have a solid grasp of 1-3.
Seventh, the hardest part: Know thine enemy. Know what he can do, what he can't do. Know his numbers, their disposition, their command structure, their goals, their plans. And take what you can and try to figure out the rest--and then, figure out how to disrupt it.
So, first, asking what people think of my little primer. Second, anything to add to it? And third: of my PCs, two of the characters themselves should know better tactics from their backstories; one is retired SAS, and the other was the apprentice of Morgan's best friend and occasionally trained with Morgan himself. Can they compel those high concepts of theirs to ask the GM for tactical advice?
Thanks in advance.