[WW] Rank and Officers [Long]

[LoopyJason@aol.com]

Hello everyone!  I thought it would help our discussion of the issues surrounding rank and so on if I fleshed out an example from our playtesting.  This is a detailed version of what Shane mentioned in Part 8 of the playtest notes on the website. (I play LT Prillaman.)

While running from a company of SS, a Panther and a couple Pumas (Our orders from HQ for our 6 chars: go see what's going on around this house, and clear it of Germans.) our guys stumbled onto what we found out to be a door to Hell, once a Nazi super-trooper machine gunned our scout on top of the altar.  We killed the Nazi, but then a demon and a buncha quasits came out.  Fortunately they didn't mess with us, and instead laid waste the the Germans upstairs.  [fast forward] We left, and did some research and priest-talking, and got the key to close the door.  So, we headed back to the sub-sub-basement under the Whateley-style house where the door to Hell was.  It stood in a small room that was down a hallway from a much larger crypt-like room.
We set up in the large room keeping our fire lanes trained down the hallway.  Unfortunately the big demon we knew was around wouldn't come out into our ambush.
And here's where our "discussion" started.
We figured that the demon wasn't going to come back out of hell until the key was near, then it would grab it and take it back to hell so the door could never be closed.
Shane came up with a "Shane Plan" tm.  (Shane is well known for devising wildly improbably plans, not telling anyone any of the pieces, and somehow making it work.  Well, sometimes it works, and sometimes it's a spectacular failure. :p )  His plan involved him taking the key down the hall alone, and then luring the demon back down the hall into our ambush.  The LT didn't like that plan, since it seemed that unless the one guy got lucky, he'd get dragged to hell (Another typical component of Shane Plans.) along with the key.  And, since nobody had any other real options, I as the LT thought we should all go to the little room, and machine gun the demon as he came out.  O'Bannon and McMullen, our BAR gunner, (Man, the Irish must have had a burr up their butt that day!) didn't like that plan at all.  So, when the LT ordered everyone down the hall (including himself), O'Bannon refused, followed by McMullen.  I ordered O'Bannon to leave, then, and go back to HQ, and he refused that!
 order, too.
Given the situation, the LT decided just to head down to the room with Private Vitale, and the unkillable Corporal Ernie Lindstrom, our medic. (I didn't have a tough sergeant to shoot O'Bannon for me.)
So, Ernie started to put the key in one of the fixtures to shut the door, and the big demon reached through the door and tried to drag Ernie into hell.  (This is where we found out that it's pretty darn hard to shoot a demon with an AC of 26.) I threw one of our holy hand grenades into the doorway, and hurt the demon a bit.  Then the quick thinking Ernie threw the key down the hall.  The demon charged out after the key, and I cleverly dropped my last holy hand grenade at my feet. (Man, my D20 just loves the 1!) We survived the blast in the room, took some friendly fire from McMullen as he tried to machine gun the demon, and fortunately O'Bannon managed to get to the key first, and tossed the key to McMullen.  (A little Demon in the middle, anyone?)
The demon chased McMullen, played by Zeke, around the room, who tossed the key back to Shane, then managed to convince the demon to bite his hand, which held a live holy hand grenade.  Shane then heaved the key back to Ernie, who started to close the door as the heavily wounded Demon charged back down the hall at us.  Luckily, the Demon only had 1 hit point left, and went down as the LT hit it with a cross.
Ernie finished shutting the door, ran and treated the dying McMullen, and then we blew up the house with German satchel charges.
So, when we got back to HQ, I busted Corporal McMullen back to PFC, but put in a good word for him for a medal.  He got the Distinguished Service Cross (Narrowly missing the CMOH!) and also got promoted back to Corporal.  I busted O'Bannon back to Private, but then he rolled a 20 on his promotion role which currently means a battlefield promotion to 2nd LT.  I could have brought either up on a court-martial, with execution as an option, but didn't really think their first transgression merited that response.  It was a demon from Hell, after all, and that's bound to affect morale.  If it happens again, though, Firing Squad, here we come!

How would your group handle that disagreement, and does this make sense?  Basically, the Officer in charge can apply modifiers to the group's medal and promotion rolls, but doesn't absolutely control their fate.  This also requires the DM to play the part of HQ, and interpret everyone's reports appropriately.  All in all, I think this fits the spirit of D20 fairly well.  What do you think?  And, thanks for reading this big honkin' report.

Jason.