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Post by Axe Mental on Nov 3, 2004 21:12:37 GMT -5
We used to play with a min. of about 5 players back in the hey day, but now I'm down to 2 usually. Typically I make the short fall up in NPCs, but I'm starting to think this isn't such a good idea. Usually results in players playing statistical games figuring the odds of being hit vs. the NPC being hit. You loose the whole fear factor thing. Anyone else think it's a good idea to toss the rec. number of players for player characters only (with only 1 or no NPCs)? This might mean the group is deficiant in some way, but it might be worth it to keep the players involved.
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Falconer
Enchanter
Knight Bachelor
AD&D, Middle-earth, Star Trek TOS
Posts: 330
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Post by Falconer on Nov 3, 2004 21:27:56 GMT -5
One of my groups has 3 players, and they have 4 hirelings. The players control the hirelings as far as marching order and combat actions and rolls. The hirelings all have names and good characterizations, so that the players feel bad when they die (which one of them just recently has). This makes for a sufficient group. Regards.
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Post by Axe Mental on Nov 4, 2004 7:05:15 GMT -5
I always control every aspect of NPCs as DM, giving them much personality. I just play with bastards.
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Casey
Evoker
"I do not care to listen; obloquy injures my self esteem and I am skeptical of praise."
Posts: 15
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Post by Casey on Nov 4, 2004 14:58:17 GMT -5
If the TEXT' alignments and personalities deem that they see others' lives as expendable objects, I don't see anything wrong.
I also don't see how henchmen with average (or even below average) judgement would continue in the service of the characters if it became clear that they're employers had such attitudes.
All that said, our small group commonly has each player playing two characters. Since most of the goup doesn't get into role playing with olivier-like intensity, having two characters doesn't present any real dramatic/theatrical problems. Casey
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Nov 4, 2004 15:33:25 GMT -5
When I first started playing D&D I only had one other friend who played, so one person would DM and play 2 or 3 characters and the other would also play 2 or 3 characters (we switched off who was DM pretty evenly). Later, when it got so we had 2-3 regular players the DM (me, 90% of the time) no longer ran a PC and the players had 1 or 2 characters each. Once we got so that we had 4+ regular players they were only allowed 1 character apiece (they could have more than one character in the campaign, bu they were only allowed to run them 1 at a time in actual play). The idea was that we'd always have 5-6 characters, regardless of number of players, because that seemed to be the expected norm -- providing the best mix of classes and races, and the number that most of the modules seemed to expect.
Nowadays my ideal would be what is presented in the old books, the way they played in Lake Geneva -- the "main event" would consist of anywhere from 4-12+ players gathered around the table, but in-between those sessions there would also be more intimate gatherings of the DM and 1 or 2 players (possibly running multiple characters, henchmen, etc.). Of course I wouldn't have anywhere near the time to DM such an arrangement, but it's nice to dream about.
If I found myself running a campaign for only 1 or 2 or 3 players I would be very loath to go back to the old practice of 2+ PCs per player because I've found that stunts character identification and development too much -- at best one character develops and the other becomes little more than an extension/sidekick (which would be fine if the 2nd character was a henchman of the 1st, but not if they're supposedly co-equal PCs), and more often neither of them develops as anything more than game-pieces/numbers on a page, which defeats one of the main points of the game -- if you're not going to identify with or develop your characters, you might as well just play a computer-game. More likely I'd fill out the group with NPCs (hirelings, henchmen, dubious 'associates') and/or scale back some of the encounters, but not too much -- if a group of players goes into the dungeon underpowered when NPC help was available, and/or doesn't have the good sense to run away when overmatched, they deserve everything they get.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Nov 4, 2004 15:49:09 GMT -5
One more point from the original post that I failed to address -- characters run by the DM should never be run "as PCs" (i.e. co-equal with the characters being run by actual characters). They should never be primary decision-makers, or steal the limelight and marginalize the importance of the players' characters. Most of them should be hirelings and henchmen -- clearly inferior and subservient with no initiative of their own, depending entirely on the players for orders and instruction -- and those who aren't loyal servants/employees but are rather allied or associate NPCs should always have hidden motivations and agendas of their own that may not be compatible with those of the players, and should only join with the party on an ad-hoc single mission/expedition basis, never as regular/full members of the party (look at the various NPC adventurers in T1: The Village of Hommlet for how such characters should work). The "DM PC" -- a fully developed regular long-term party-member who just happens to be run by the DM rather than one of the players -- is always a bad idea, because it shifts the focus away from the players and turns them too much into observers of the action rather than participants in it.
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Post by Scott on Nov 4, 2004 18:10:09 GMT -5
I prefer groups of 4 or fewer players. Two PCs, each with a henchman or two, and maybe one NPC party member is the party I have the most fun DMing, especially at higher levels. The standard, larger groups are a lot of fun, but for character and campaign development, the smaller groups work better. Scott
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Nov 4, 2004 18:45:35 GMT -5
I prefer groups of 4 or fewer players. Two PCs, each with a henchman or two, and maybe one NPC party member is the party I have the most fun DMing, especially at higher levels. The standard, larger groups are a lot of fun, but for character and campaign development, the smaller groups work better. Scott Yup, despite the conventional wisdom and the example of tournaments, the stories of the Greyhawk campaign seem to show that this was the primary arrangement there -- the big weekend parties of 12+ players were fun and hectic and everybody had a good time, but most of the 'serious' play (and pretty much all of the memorable/legendary stories which are still repeated today) occurred with much smaller groups, 1 or 2 players + appropriate henchmen/hireling NPCs. Gary was the only player for 'Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure,' Rob was the only player for most of Robilar's exploits (slide to China, freeing the Nine, sacking the TOEE, etc.), do you know how many players there were on the Expedition to the Black Reservoir -- was it Ernie alone or with a companion or two? That's why I said above that I think a mix would be ideal (like what Gary had) -- a large group of essentially casual players who are willing to gather once every week or two for a large expedition which is beer & pretzels fun and probably plays as much like a wargame as an rpg; but in addition to that a 'hard core' of 3 or 4 players who are eager to go on 'extracurricular' expeditions alone (with henchmen/NPCs) or in smaller groups. The most dedicated players would play most often, the less dedicated only when the mood struck them and neither type of player would be at the mercy of the other (though eventually the most active players would probably have to start developing 2nd and 3rd characters as their primary characters got too powerful and outpaced 'the group' by too far).
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Post by Scott on Nov 4, 2004 20:50:38 GMT -5
Last night I DMed for just one player, my nephew. His fighter Milrick (from the touch attack thread) went exploring the Greyhawk Dungeons. With him were his henchmen Ringo, a thief, and Orem, a cleric of Saint Cuthbert. Also, the NPC magic-user Abner, of party A fame. Milrick is currently level 6, with decent hit points. He’s made it to 8th level twice, but because of level draining undead, he’s had some setbacks. After some uneventful exploration, and some minor encounters, the party entered a room. On a shelf the discovered a small gold statue. Ringo looked for traps but didn’t find any. Milrick asked Ringo to pick the statue up. The thief responded that if he picked it up, he was going to keep it. Milrick wasn’t happy with that arrangement, so he decided to pick it up himself. There was a trap. When he picked the statue up, he was hit by a small dart. He rolled a saving throw for poison, but failed by one. I explained to him that he was starting to get light headed. In a panic, he had Orem cast slow poison. They immediately fled the dungeons and rode back to Greyhawk to have a higher level cleric cast neutralize poison (at the cost of 1,000 gp). He still doesn’t know that it was a very weak poison that would have only done 10 HPs of damage. Scott
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Post by Axe Mental on Nov 4, 2004 21:33:34 GMT -5
I think there are some huge disadvantages to running large games (with alot of players) mostly the fact that no one can really talk, thus can't get into chacracter and the imagination never gets started. Typically, when I have sat for such games its a rush by the DM to kill them off to a managble size (4 to 5 seem to work the best). Foster wrote: "One more point from the original post that I failed to address -- characters run by the DM should never be run "as PCs" (i.e. co-equal with the characters being run by actual characters). They should never be primary decision-makers"
Well, we always take turn DMing, and thus we play our PC as DM (so they don't fall behind going up levels), but we do play it as subserviant to the main group. After all the DM knows whats coming to some degree.
Oh, by the way, when we play a game the DM rarely reads ahead (these days). The surprise of not knowing whats behind the door allows the DM to be a player a bit, because there ideas and actions could be wrong (just like everyone elses).
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