[TSOY] multiple NPC's in Bringing down the pain.

[KingstonC]

ok, so I ran "rat moon rising" last weekend, and the game climaxed with an all out battle between the PC's who were escoring the wounded troups out of the city with the help of a group of friendly ratkin and the other group of hostile ratkin. The conflict had multiple NPC's on both sides of the conflict.

I used the gestalt model of bringing down the pain to model this conflict.

During bringing down the pain I found my self rolling for many, many NPC's on all sides of the conflict with similar ratings. I also found that although one group out numbered the other group by a substantial number of people, the two sides were equally mached mechanically. This made the fight much longer than was fun for anybody.

Questions
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1) How can I cut down on the numbers of rolls I make in situations like this, to speed up things?

2) How do I model the power of numerical advantage in BDTP?

3) When using the gestalt method of BDTP, the character with the greatest advantage rolls first, and passes their advantage along to the character with the weakest advantage, who ultimatly decides the success level of the conflit. Correct?

3A) If 3 is correct, shouldn't weak players just sit out of a large group BDTP, if there is no advantage to sheer numbers?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

See http://random.average-bear.com/TSOY/BringingDownThePain.

[Vaxalon]

3) When using the gestalt method of BDTP, the character with the greatest advantage rolls first, and passes their advantage along to the character with the weakest advantage, who ultimatly decides the success level of the conflit. Correct?

3A) If 3 is correct, shouldn't weak players just sit out of a large group BDTP, if there is no advantage to sheer numbers?

This seems to me, to be true; the way the rules are written, if you have one character in a conflict who has a +9 on the relevant ability, and fifteen others with +2's, the +2's should sit out, because if the +9 guy gets an average roll (16) he's going to do better than the +2 guy getting a 12 (14).  The little guys just get in the way.

When the difference is smaller (Say, a +5 with some +3's) that's not so much the case.  The +5 acting alone will probably get a total of 12; the +3's getting bonus dice are more likely to beat that.

No matter HOW many bonus dice are flying around, though, anyone with lower than +2 probably SHOULD bow out.  They'll just get in the way.

[KingstonC]

Thanks!

Just to recap, regarding multiple nameless NPC's:

1) With multiple nameless NPC's with similar scores, just pass 1 bonus die to the weakest nameless NPC for every nameless NPC in the conflict.


Regarding numerical advantage:
To model numerical advantage in Gestalt BDTP, give one penalty die to the side with numerical disadvantage for each extra person the side with the numerical advantage has in combat. This is a extention of the defending against multiple attackers rule in non gestalt BDTP.

Those penalty die go to who? The weakest person? The strongest person?
Is there a cap to the amount of numerical advantage dice you get?

[Vaxalon]

There are times when fighting isn't an option.  I'm thinking of the scene in FOTR where the Fellowship is surrounded by goblins... they include in their number some of the most skilled warriors of the age, backed up by a minor demigod... but they're pretty sure it's the end for them at that point.  No matter how many goblins they kill, more will come, until they are all dead.

[aplath]

Depending on the scale of the conflict, perhaps a diferente model might help.

In my current TSOY game one of the characters commands a small military unit (around 100 men). In the course of the campaign, we plan to have several conflicts where these soldiers will have to fight against other troops.

The way we intend to handle these conflicts is to use the troops as weapons and roll the "troop commander" ability of the PC against similar ability of the opposing troops commander.

Diferences in numbers and equipment between the opposing troops will be mapped to bonus/penalty dice.

Diferences in defensive position (like one group defending a fort or fighting from higher ground) will most likely me mapped to armor.

However, we didn't have the opportunity to test this yet since we only ran a single session. And perhaps this is a bit larger scale than what you faced in your game.

Andreas