The Kobold Korps

So lately my party has had several sessions where multiple people have had to miss it. As a result, we've kind of had to have a few people phase in and out of the background to our main quest, which generally becomes pretty distracting and messes with the flow of the story. Lately, we've been thinking of ways to avoid this by having a few inconsequential "B" plots where people could have a few premade characters and can jump in and out at will.

Open to new suggestions to keep things fresh, my favorite idea so far is:

The Kobold Korps

>small team of meme-y highly expendable Kobold mercenaries
>instead of worrying about actual plotlines, sessions all begin and end with them thrown into an arbitrary warzone with minimal fanfare
>kobold's are given missions considered too stupid or dangerous for even standard infantry
>more often than not it's just a straight suicide mission
>kobolds are so expenible that they can be killed, replaced, not be in the session, or be swapped around with little break in gameplay
>gives the DM a chance to get all their dickish tendencies and raging bloodlust out instead of taking it out on our main characters
>rock falls while trying to infiltrate a cave, kills kobold
>rolls crit fail while trying to prime an explosive, blows up kobold
>accidently wake up guard dog, dog devours kobold
>can either just keep making new kobolds mid session to reinforce the Korps, or just keep going until everyone dies
>no one takes it seriously and are more willing to take stupid risks that they wouldn't take in standard sessions
>could even be used as a method of getting players comfortable with DMing by rotating out the DM for these sessions

So what sort of stuff do you think you could get away with in this? Is this something you'd be willing to try?

>would absolutely play this
Probably doesn't hurt that I am designing a board game based around kobolds, but I digress.

I had similar problems with a particular player, OP. Since it was always the same guy, I ended up running a B-Team, consisting of characters that the main party recruited into their guild, to accomplish the tasks for which they didn't have the time.

They ended up playing these recruited characters...but not the ones they created. They had to play one hired (made) by another player. We would run this side campaign whenever the one guy couldn't make it, and because their quests were concurrent, it was awesome to see how the actions of one group changed circumstances for the other group.

During the climactic battle against the BBEG (pic related), they ended up assaulting his island from multiple fronts (along with some NPC allies and other NPCs from their guild, amongst others) dividing his attention so that they could sneak in a strike team (the A-Team, so to speak) undetected.

Shit was cash money.

I came to this thread expecting to call you a stupid fag, but this seems like a legit great idea.

The Kobold Korps sounds awesome.

I may steal your idea for the group I'm in for actiony one-shot games

>that pic

If it becomes a consistent issue instead of an offshoot then it'd probably be a really fun idea to have a "B" team that eventually meets up with the A team.

I think it'd be hilarious to have a group that's completely ignorant to the actions of Group A, but indirectly follows in their footsteps and has to deal with the consequences or vice versa.

IE, having an incompetent but well meaning company of knights errant that heard about something group A did that seems irredeemable and hopes to track them down even though from Group As point of view it was all a big misunderstanding but their unshaking moral code prevents them from ever acknowledging that they are in the wrong even once it becomes hilariously obvious that their intervention just makes things worse.

>pic for koboldposting

aw hell yeah dude. Like I said, its perfect for a one-off since more often than not literally all the characters have died in hilariously gratuitous ways.

On the off chance one lives, then you've got yourself a well-loved NPC that can show up at some point in your main campaign.

I like it. But maybe combine it with
The party sends their Kobold Korpsman to do missions they don't have time for/sound too easy. The Kobolds are weaker but you don't change the level of the quests. This forces players to both roleplay well and also be crafty like kobolds. May always end in a tpk but that's half the fun.
You can also add some resource management in it, sorta like xcom. If you give the Kobold team good equipment it increases chances of success, but you might lose some good equipment or stronger Kobolds. You level up Kobolds through cash (training) or some other resource (maybe the get a certain number of levels to give Kobold Korpsman after main quests)

>party becomes so rich and powerful that they can just outsource some of their adventures
>hires a small band of Kobol mercenaries
>up to party members to pay, outfit, and train mercenaries

I love it. Sounds like a fun way to tie all of this with the main campaign in case enough people really enjoy Kobold Korps but want more of a payoff for their party.

You could even call it KoboldCOM. Or Kobold Kommander.

It's like Only War with more humor.

Exactly. And you can roughly steal all the ideas from xcom:
-Buy a training room and fresh recruits start at a higher level
-Buying a blacksmith shop of certain level increases all starting gear
That sort of stuff. Only issue is their STR penalty tends to shoehorn their class options but you can homebrew their stats how you like