Those in my group are welcome to read/post just remember I'm accounting for a possibility, not something that will necessarily come to pass.
Here is my issue in a nutshell:
The PCs have the potential to take a bunch of refugees (let's say 30-50 NPCs for the sake of discussion) on a dangerous and lengthy cross country journey to last for a long campaign arc.
The obsessive-compulsive part of my wants to detail the NPCs (at least to the point of name and one defining characteristic). But the realist in me knows that would be too much to keep track of for a whole campaign arc. I also think such a thing would turn focus away from the PCs and instead focus too much on management of the NPCs (which I want to avoid).
But, I do, however, still want the presence of the NPCs to matter for something (and not just be a "mass of people that blindly and silently follow them session after session, and appear/disappear as often as a wizard's familiar does").
So I was considering that I would track two things 1) The morale of the group of NPCs and 2) The health of the group of NPCs.
For tracking morale, I was thinking either:
[sblock]
a) Set up some sort of continuum, similar to the disease track, where the PCs can use diplomacy/intimidate once per day to move up or down the track (the one check accounts for an overall day's worth of efforts). And failures would result in things like slower speed (the NPCs are too busy squabbling or being annoyed to move fast, etc), and success might mean moving faster or finding more food along the way because they are more participative in the process, etc.
or, b) set up a scale similar to the concordance of artifacts, where I have a starting value and various things/events/triggers that raise or lower concordance. And for different levels there would be different effects (such as slower speed or faster speed or maybe better perception to avoid being surprised, etc).
These ideas are both similar but offer subtle differences in how they play out (option a is a bit more player participative since they'd get to use their skill checks on a daily basis; option b is a bit more reactive to events that happen and might mean a little less bookkeeping)
[/sblock]
For tracking health, I was thinking:
[sblock]
taking some number, treating it as the average endurance check modifier and then making a check based on the type of environment that they traveled through for that day. Any failure divided by 5(?) might represent the number who ended up ding that day from the journey/environment/sickness/poisoned food/etc. (so even a failure might not result in deaths if the failure is less than 5 due to rounding down).
[/sblock]
Anyway, these are all just loose ideas in my head. I'm not trying to worry about details of the mechanics just yet. Just trying to get things I should take in to account/etc.
So I turn to the masses here.
1) How have any of you handled a large number of NPCs traveling with the PCs for a campaign arc?
2) Should I really just give in to my weakness and name each of the NPCs (but perhaps divide them amongst the players so that I don't have to control them?)
3) Something else I should take in to account (aside from morale and health) that I am not even considering here?
4) should I really just avoid this situation like the plague and not let it go in this direction (which I could do too without it being 'mean' though one of the players has hinted that he wants to do this so I'm entertaining the idea)?
5) (for those of you that read it) any comments on the potential framework of the mechanics that i put in spoiler-blocks above?
Thanks in advance.
Here is my issue in a nutshell:
The PCs have the potential to take a bunch of refugees (let's say 30-50 NPCs for the sake of discussion) on a dangerous and lengthy cross country journey to last for a long campaign arc.
The obsessive-compulsive part of my wants to detail the NPCs (at least to the point of name and one defining characteristic). But the realist in me knows that would be too much to keep track of for a whole campaign arc. I also think such a thing would turn focus away from the PCs and instead focus too much on management of the NPCs (which I want to avoid).
But, I do, however, still want the presence of the NPCs to matter for something (and not just be a "mass of people that blindly and silently follow them session after session, and appear/disappear as often as a wizard's familiar does").
So I was considering that I would track two things 1) The morale of the group of NPCs and 2) The health of the group of NPCs.
For tracking morale, I was thinking either:
[sblock]
a) Set up some sort of continuum, similar to the disease track, where the PCs can use diplomacy/intimidate once per day to move up or down the track (the one check accounts for an overall day's worth of efforts). And failures would result in things like slower speed (the NPCs are too busy squabbling or being annoyed to move fast, etc), and success might mean moving faster or finding more food along the way because they are more participative in the process, etc.
or, b) set up a scale similar to the concordance of artifacts, where I have a starting value and various things/events/triggers that raise or lower concordance. And for different levels there would be different effects (such as slower speed or faster speed or maybe better perception to avoid being surprised, etc).
These ideas are both similar but offer subtle differences in how they play out (option a is a bit more player participative since they'd get to use their skill checks on a daily basis; option b is a bit more reactive to events that happen and might mean a little less bookkeeping)
[/sblock]
For tracking health, I was thinking:
[sblock]
taking some number, treating it as the average endurance check modifier and then making a check based on the type of environment that they traveled through for that day. Any failure divided by 5(?) might represent the number who ended up ding that day from the journey/environment/sickness/poisoned food/etc. (so even a failure might not result in deaths if the failure is less than 5 due to rounding down).
[/sblock]
Anyway, these are all just loose ideas in my head. I'm not trying to worry about details of the mechanics just yet. Just trying to get things I should take in to account/etc.
So I turn to the masses here.
1) How have any of you handled a large number of NPCs traveling with the PCs for a campaign arc?
2) Should I really just give in to my weakness and name each of the NPCs (but perhaps divide them amongst the players so that I don't have to control them?)
3) Something else I should take in to account (aside from morale and health) that I am not even considering here?
4) should I really just avoid this situation like the plague and not let it go in this direction (which I could do too without it being 'mean' though one of the players has hinted that he wants to do this so I'm entertaining the idea)?
5) (for those of you that read it) any comments on the potential framework of the mechanics that i put in spoiler-blocks above?
Thanks in advance.
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