Shawn Tomkin question for you on allied NPCs and narrative.
Shawn Tomkin question for you on allied NPCs and narrative.
I’m currently running a scenario with two PCs,mercenaries who have been compelled to join a secnd non-allied mercenary company (the PCs successfully lied about their alignment after a disastrous battle -they were on the losing side - and found themselves alone. Success came at a cost and the 2nd mercenary company suggested strongly that the PCs join their company for a mop-up operation).
The PCs quickly find themselves confronted with a third mercenary band, the remains of another rogue company allied with the PCs former employer, which is looting part of the baggage train. Clearly, the PCs have a choice now of who to side with and I determined they would remain in their cover and attack the third mercenary band along with their new, faux allies, in an effort to simply get away from the aftermath ASAP.
My question comes with how to best manage the NPC groupings as well as the PCs using a more narrative approach. In some systems, I would just stat out the NPCs and play the battle out using initiative, to-Hit, and damage rolls. However, in this instance, where Action is more focused on the PCs to drive resolution, I’m attempting to resolve the larger combat without simply hand-waving.
Any advice on how you (and/or others) resolve this in you solo games. Clearly, I could just gloss on the larger battle as (I think) it would be apparent which side wins, and simply dial-in to the PC Action - who do you attack, what do you attempt, etc. - but was trying to potentially find a way to maintain some suspense/drama on the outcomes of the overall fight.
I guess the thrust of my question is, how do you resolve in-game situations when the PCs aren’t solely responsible for driving the overall narrative?
Thoughts?
I’m currently running a scenario with two PCs,mercenaries who have been compelled to join a secnd non-allied mercenary company (the PCs successfully lied about their alignment after a disastrous battle -they were on the losing side - and found themselves alone. Success came at a cost and the 2nd mercenary company suggested strongly that the PCs join their company for a mop-up operation).
The PCs quickly find themselves confronted with a third mercenary band, the remains of another rogue company allied with the PCs former employer, which is looting part of the baggage train. Clearly, the PCs have a choice now of who to side with and I determined they would remain in their cover and attack the third mercenary band along with their new, faux allies, in an effort to simply get away from the aftermath ASAP.
My question comes with how to best manage the NPC groupings as well as the PCs using a more narrative approach. In some systems, I would just stat out the NPCs and play the battle out using initiative, to-Hit, and damage rolls. However, in this instance, where Action is more focused on the PCs to drive resolution, I’m attempting to resolve the larger combat without simply hand-waving.
Any advice on how you (and/or others) resolve this in you solo games. Clearly, I could just gloss on the larger battle as (I think) it would be apparent which side wins, and simply dial-in to the PC Action - who do you attack, what do you attempt, etc. - but was trying to potentially find a way to maintain some suspense/drama on the outcomes of the overall fight.
I guess the thrust of my question is, how do you resolve in-game situations when the PCs aren’t solely responsible for driving the overall narrative?
Thoughts?
Sounds like a Battle to me. Though that doesn't necessarily take into account the strengths of the opposing sides. You could I suppose offer a +1 to the side with advantage (ie a -1 to your roll if you are the disadvantaged party)
ReplyDeleteThat would let you find out what happens to the whole shebang right there and then in one roll.
Justin Gordon thanks for the reply and, yes, I did playtest it out as a proxy Battle Move, statting-up the allied mercenary force and using attributes to resolve.
ReplyDeleteWill admit that it felt a little awkward and my mind starting going down the emulation path of wanting to find out how much damage each force had taken, etc., which is where I pulled up and thought I’d ask since I was beginning to go down a rabbit-hole that I thought could be more easily (and, narratively) resolved.
That break also triggered the thought that resolution in the ruleset should primarily be driven by PC action, which led me to contemplate possibly resolving through an overall gloss on the (small b) battle, and simply focus on what actions the 2 PCs take and let the larger combat resolve itself offstage.
How I might handle it....
ReplyDeleteOption #1 - Quick and Dirty
Decide on a loose ranking of the opposing forces, using the Ask the Oracle yes/no table. Are they evenly matched? Call it 50/50. Does one have the advantage? They are 'likely' to win the fight.
Play out the PC actions using moves as normal (either battle or more granular as you like). What are their objectives?
How do they contribute? Meanwhile, envision/narrate the actions of their NPC allies as appropriate, but keep it fairly loose and chaotic (as it should be if the PC's are in the thick of it).
After the Battle move or at an appropriate turning point, check on the status of the overall fight. Did the PC's fare well and contribute? Shift the yes/no rank in the favor of their allies (i.e. from 'likely' to 'almost certain'). If things went badly for the PC's, shift the advantage against their allies.
Then, Ask the Oracle an appropriate question "Did we defeat the mercenary band?" using your yes/no rank, and narrate the result.
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Option #2 - A Bit More Detail
Set up an NPC battle progress track with 5 boxes. If you feel that your NPC allies have some advantage to start (i.e. advantage in numbers, better positioning, etc.) mark a box or two.
Then, play out PC actions via individual objectives. Whenever they achieve something in the fight (or dramatically fail to achieve something), check on the status of the overall battle using the Yes/No table.
The question is: "Do we make progress in the fight?" If the PC's were forced to a stalemate in their own actions, call it 50/50. If they had success, call it 'likely'. If they achieved great success against a difficult objective, call it 'almost certain'. On the other hand, if they failed, shift the odds in the other direction. Then, Ask the Oracle, and mark progress if the answer is "yes". If the answer is "no", erase a box.
If you fill 5 boxes, the battle is over, and your foes are defeated. If you hit 0 boxes, your allies are defeated, or routed, etc.
(Note: the 5 box thing is just to avoid too much of a 10-box slog. If you want to retain consistency with other progress tracks, just mark 2 boxes whenever you resolve in either direction).
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For either approach, the overall goal is to keep the focus on your PC's, and let them contribute greatly to the outcome (for better or worse).
Shawn Tomkin awesome. Really appreciate the insight.
ReplyDeleteGoing to run it both ways to give me a baseline. Will report back.
For a small company (< 10 ppl), I would group the opposing force as a Formidable or Extreme bunch, and then have the allied group act as a single ally (maybe with extra health and/or So it would be PC + PC + Allied group VS Formidable opponent. This way, PC actions still matter, there's a level of suspense (it's not just one roll), and they can actively assist their allies with some Secure An Advantage action (cheer up + heart, strategy + wit, decoy + shadow, tank + iron, trick + edge). FYI, this is not something I've done, but some theorycrafting about how it could be handled :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, Etienne Lefebvre ... that's a great point. If the numbers are smaller, I would definitely just treat them as a pack as normal, and perhaps reduce the rank by one step based on the support of your allies. If you are running multiple PC's solo, abstracting the allied force as another PC is probably viable, though I'd be more inclined to just roll those folks into narration.
ReplyDeleteFor a big battle (small b, not the move -- damn these move names!) of tens, hundreds, etc. of combatants, I would either handwave it or try something like I outlined above for a bit of mechanical crunch.
Etienne Lefebvre and Shawn Tomkin the opposing forces are essentially small units, as follows: PC1, PC2 + 11 mercenaries, squaring off against 5 opposed mercenaries (but, these are hardened individuals, led by an experienced and treacherous knight).
ReplyDeleteI’ll also run them as packs and see what that gets me. I don’t want to get too far down in the weeds on the tactical side of things because, in the whole scheme of things, this is really just a throwaway fight that really serves as a narrative device to introduce an important NPC.
Yeah. Bjorsa Brimrsson. Progress tracks are pretty hackable for all sorts of things, but when in doubt keep it simple. Based on those unit sizes, I would probably just handle it rules-as-written.
ReplyDeleteGive the leader knight a formidable challenge track, and group his allies as a pack. 5 Would be a small pack. Let's call them dangerous to start as individuals, and formidable as a pack. But, we'll knock them back down a rank based on the help from the PC's allies, so they are dangerous. I might even be tempted to knock them down two ranks since your group easily outnumbers their own, making them merely troublesome. Narratively, the leader would become the focus, with the pack being a bit of an obstacle.
If the PC's are focused on the leader, you can even just leave the other fighting as hand-waved background.
Shawn Tomkin fighting as hand-waved was my original thought process but where I got sidetracked (the aforementioned rabbit-hole) was wanting to track numbers of allies vs. numbers of enemies - like you would in an HP-based system. That was folly.
ReplyDeleteWhat I should have done, and you prompted, is to use the Oracle, asking simple resolution questions, e.g. were there allies killed? Was the knight killed? Wounded? Escaped, etc.
I knew I was making things too difficult and, once you posted, I recognized where I was getting off-track. Also, I should've backed-up and thought through the purpose of the encounter. There was no real need to get granular simply based on that (from my earlier post).
I dig this though - really makes me think through and understand the design of encounters. Long gone are the days of d6 giant rats from the Wandering Monster table!
Bjorsa Brimrsson "Long gone are the days of d6 giant rats from the Wandering Monster table!" and good riddance I say! Following this with interest as a new genre approaches my playtest table and this will be handy information!
ReplyDelete