The necessity of actively using NPCs to support the actions of your campaign’s heroes depends on how numerous and powerful the heroes are. Exciting adventures in this campaign setting can be played with just two player-character heroes working together as a field team (a pair of operatives). However, sometimes two heroes just are not enough to complete a challenging, complicated mission. In these instances, the Gamemaster could have one of the three NPC specialists accompany them on the mission. The players could be given a choice—Colonel Aleksov might say, "Your field team will be augmented by one additional specialist. Whose skills do you think you will need the most?" Colonel Aleksov could also simply assign a particular NPC to the team rather than asking the heroes to choose. There are three pre-made NPCs whose skills could make up for any deficiency in the skills chosen by your campaign’s heroes. Lieutenant Arianova is a computer hacker and a pilot, but she also can serve as a field medic; Captain Smith (who can never be destroyed because Dr. Miller can always repair him) is a very strong combatant who also has knowledge of international law programmed into his processor; Major Deveneaux is a well-rounded soldier who can serve as both a saboteur and a strike-team commander. How these NPC officer who respond to working with your campaign’s heroes is up to you as the Gamemaster—Nene Arianova might happily work under orders from the heroes, but Robert Deveneaux might resent taking orders from underlings and want to take charge.
There are nearly one hundred personnel serving in Task Force Saber, so the Gamemaster may want to flesh out even more NPCs. If your campaign has four heroes who are assigned to a strike team consisting of ten soldiers, you may decide to design six NPCs to complete the team—or simply keep the six as vague background figures.
Download the 3 main TFS NPCs (MS-Word95
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