Troupestyle RPG and player's go All-in

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Troupestyle is a lot of fun, but I see some increasing problems, with the number of available characters in the hands of players in RPGs. Ars Magica, in this regard, is VERY different to other RPGs (like "that other RPG").

My three player's each have a magus, two play also a companion and then they have a turb of about 10-15, well skilled (and detailed) grogs. They are living in a spring to early summer covenant and the mages are only max. 15 years post gauntlet. This is a rather low-powered campaign compared to the scope of ars magica, I know, but already it's been an issue for me.

IMS my player's have the tendency to send so many of their characters on their missions, that it's sometimes hard for me to find the right challenge-level for the story.

One problem is that, if I go too low with the power-level of the story, in combats the grogs seem to do all the dirty work and the mages are more bystanders, and if I go to high, the likelihood of serious consequences for failure (up to a devastating TPK), seems to spiral out of control easily.

I think Ars Magica shines with the core-party of: one mage + shield grog + 1 companion + 1 fighting grog in action (on-stage play).

For me, as the SG, I can easily increase the opposition the character's will have to face, but when I do, it get's even harder to guestimate the right powerlevel of the story, so for me that's seems the wrong way to go.

So, what do you do, if your player's like to react to even harmless events, with "let's take all our mages + shieldgrogs + full equipment and kick ass." - all the time?

What can you do, besides the gentlemens-agreement, to make the players just send less guys in?
Any suggestions, what helps to make the player's send smaller "skirmishing" parties instead?
Have you guys also stumbled over that set of problems?

Thanks, for any advise in advance.

2

If the troupe sends three magi and a dozen soldiers, combat is very rarely going to be the challenge. Most enemies will flee, and when a creature is desperately defending turf or a faerie is destined to be slain, let the combats be trivial.

A dozen men is very rarely going to reduce the social and political challenges. The large turb is also not helping with mystery and puzzle solving, which is limited by the players' creativity. That's where you find the interesting challenges.

A group of a dozen fighting men will very rarely fight an even battle. The risk is too great for both parties to be worth it. They will boast and call a standoff unless the matter is really important. This holds for man and beast alike.

And for the exceptional stories where they do fight an even battle, let them lose it. Arrange a narrow escape. Capture them and charge a ransom. There is plenty of story scope.

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3

The typical way to prevent this is, to have several issues (resarch, diplomacy, admin and guard duties), that need to be taken care of by the covenant. Sending e. g. all the grogs in implies, that there are no defenses left against e.g. a brigand raiding party. Sending all the magi might expose the covenant to diplomatic problems, if an important magus comes visiting.

4

This is where adventure xp versus seasonal xp comes in. It sounds like your players have no countervailing considerations. Grogs should die, their families should need taking care of in their absence. Rivals take the mages' absence as an opportunity to wreak havoc at home. A large presence is noticed by mundanes and becomes an issue at Tribunal. What are the PCs' motivations? Ensure that the situation aligns with one but is opposed to the other motiviations. TL;DR: divide and conquer.

5

Indeed it is so. Thank goodness. :wink:

So... 15-20 warm bodies total.

It's always hard. They only way (that I've found) to estimate the challenge level of a campaign, is practice. But then, I honestly think that putting that %&#"¤3 CR-system into 'That Other Game' was a mistake and a disservice to the entire hobby. I may be alone in that view.

Yes? What's the problem?
Please understand that combat is not the focus of Ars Magica, so expecting it to be the central element of excitement in a given story. We're trying to move beyond that. :slight_smile:

So... they leave their home covenant undefended?

In a lot of the stories we run, bringing in a ton of soldiers would complicate stories, rather than solving them. Politics is fun like that.

6

If you show up with a small army of armed, and more importantly armored men, you are sending a message to everyone you meet: "we came here expecting and/or wanting to fight." This will understandably make most people nervous, especially those who usually try to claim a monopoly on violence. Sure you might say that it is only for deterrence, but I would not accept that explanation, and IMO most people wouldnt either. Bringing an army to a negotiation is the equivalent of bringing a gun into a meeting room and having it pointed at your rival.
It sends a message that either you expected the other party to ambush you or you are planning to ambush them.

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7

I would consider average difficulty level going to be for the adventures, barring the use of magic. 9? 12? 15? Perhaps give them some IC info on the difficulty, so they can adjust as needed?

8

In my current group we are 5 players. My aim is for 1 to 2 magi jo join any given adventure, any more and it's a special case - an adventure specifically for magi.
We also have a convention, that there must never ever be only 1 players playing a grog. Grog to grog play is usually fantastic. And we never have a problem with it, because almost all players take a grog along as well. There are always lots of situations where the magus gives his minions ordfers, and lets then carry them out while he avoids it. It could be climbing into a disgusting hole, or just munda esocial interaction which many magi either hate or suck at.
So we get lost of situations where parts of the story is grog only, or companion and grogs.

Usually things work quite well for just the non-magi. Often we have grogs like the Chairmaker and the Clothier solve the challenges. Or the two sneaky grogs are given a purse of silver by the magus, and decide to hit a tavern. We play in Rhine Trubunal, so plenty og large cities with taverns! They have a good time, spread the money around and bang! - inforation is gathered...or rather stumbled upon.

I play with @Tellus, and as he says -. combat doesn't really play a large role.

Any time an adventure is manned by a dozen armed and armoured soldiers...it had better be a dragon on the loose. If it involves normal, mundane interaction, this is bound to cause trouble.

If the SG thinks the challenge of the adventure is circumvented by the covenant sending out too many characters...well there are several solutions:

  • Is the covenant now unguarded? Haha, new challenges. If the troupe never had the habit of having simultaneous events, now is the time. Don't be too hard, that's no fun. There are many other options than having a dragon burn the covenant down.
  • Does the easy fix create new challenges? I try to make my challenges about making choices and having the consequences linger. Does the solution spawn new problems, does it change the balance in the environment? It should.

If the SG is worried about TPK...don't be. Grogs die occoasionaly, and so they should. It adds to the saga. Or they may be maimed, and return home to a training or advisory position. There is no shame in admitting defeat, and going home to train and build better tools to solve the issue. In fact, that is one of the things I like a lot about ArM, that time goes on and you grow.
In the face of defeat, you should turn and run. If there is something prohibiting that - Story Flaws, Personality Traits, etc - then the SG should play ball anyway. Don't kill, there is much more potential in serious injury, capture, curses etc. The consequences of giving up should not be too dire, that is the most important balancing element the SG should consider.

As for the role of combat...yes it can be epic, but should have a story-based reason. And persoanblly I prefer is there are some special situaitons or environments to make the combat more than just attack and defence rolls. Situations where other abilities and other types of non-combat magic can play a part. Situations that require Concentration rolls to magi, so casting a spell each round isn't a sure thing, or which further the use of fast-cast defences.
Example from an older saga: One magus was searching a swamp for a stork to bond with as familiar. The party encountered a creature like the Boglin from GotF, an underwater beast with many tentacles. The magus cast Bridge of Wood in order to connect the two sides of dry land, and most of the grogs tried to cross it. Naturally the Boglin attcked those grogs with tentacles, and got ahold of both grogs and the railing of the bridge. Now followed a race aginst time as the bridge was dislodged, and started to float, rotate and was pulled towards the Boglin's maw. All the while other tentacles were breaking the bridge, making it unsafe for the grogs caught on it, trying to shoot arrows at the Boglin or free their tentacle-grabbed comrades.

Action does not need to be combat, it can be a chase after a quarry or by a dangerous predator. Or a race against time, in a difficult enviromnent, against rivals you can't or shouldn't kill.

9

Speaking of difficult environments, I had great fun running a party through The Cursed Woods (from Mythic Locations). Bringing a large party is likely to lead to many graves though.

10

Oh yeah. I had a grog die. Hoist by my own petard (or is is "with"?)!
Plenty of "difficult environment" there, to cull a too-large party.

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11

You may well already be doing this (and Tjenner touched on it earlier), but in case you're not: make sure you're enforcing the opportunity cost of adventuring:

  • You can have adventure xp or you can have xp from reading a book
  • You can spend the rest of the season consolidating what you learned from the adventure to get the xp from it, or you can do labwork
  • If you're away for more than 10 days, you start getting penalties to your lab totals.

How effective this is is going to depend on how much the PC's value mechanical advancement verses other considerations, and also how the xp you're handing out from adventures compares to the source qualities available elsewhere, but it may help at least a bit.

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12

There are a lot of good suggestions here, but Salutor has my favorite points: Negative lab total, alternate study total. While as magi get more powerful, they can find ways to make this less of a problem. The real question is why the magi are going whole-hog on every adventure?

What do the magi get out of going on an adventure:

  • Players have fun with an adventure (hopefully)
  • 5 to 10 xp from the entire season.
  • Possible reputations for fixing problems
  • Vis or resources

What the players lose for adventuring:

  • Can't read that Q8 to Q15 book
  • Can't get that 5+die roll vis xp (and still lose the vis in the lab)
  • Lose 10+ points of lab total or the entire lab season if they take the xp

Another point: If a dozen grogs and every magi and companion are all going on an adventure, who's roleplaying them? Normally, the grogs are roleplayed by the players who don't send magi...

13

First of all: Thank you all very much for all your replies! Your helpful and perceptive answers are what makes this forum special to me. I'll try to summarize all your ideas about how to avoid that your players go all-in.

Part one: Type of challenges/stories:

  1. Political Problems

A dozen men is very rarely going to reduce the social and political challenges. // In a lot of the stories we run, bringing in a ton of soldiers would complicate stories, rather than solving them. Politics is fun like that. // If you show up with a small army of armed, and more importantly armored men, you are sending a message to everyone you meet: "we came here expecting and/or wanting to fight."

  1. Mystery and puzzle solving, covert operations
  • The large turb is also not helping with mystery and puzzle solving, which is limited by the players' creativity.
  • a large group of people will more likely be noticed than a few guys
  1. Focus not on fights, but on consequences
  • let them lose it. Arrange a narrow escape. Capture them and charge a ransom.
  • Grogs die occoasionaly, and so they should. It adds to the saga. Or they may be maimed, and return home to a training or advisory position. There is no shame in admitting defeat, and going home to train and build better tools to solve the issue.
  • Don't kill, there is much more potential in serious injury, capture, curses etc. The consequences of giving up should not be too dire, that is the most important balancing element the SG should consider.
  1. Split the party (troupe/turb) or face consequences
  • several issues (resarch, diplomacy, admin and guard duties) at once.
  • simultaneous events, now is the time.
  • covenant has no defenses left against e.g. a brigand raiding party.
  • diplomatic problems, if an important magus comes visiting
  • Rivals take the mages' absence as an opportunity to wreak havoc at home.
  • A large presence is noticed by mundanes and becomes an issue at Tribunal.
  1. Hard choices
  • Grogs should die, their families should need taking care of in their absence.
  • Ensure that the situation aligns with one but is opposed to the other motiviations.
  • I try to make my challenges about making choices and having the consequences linger. Does the solution spawn new problems, does it change the balance in the environment?
  • make fights important.. // special situations or environments to make the combat more than just attack and defence rolls. Situations where other abilities and other types of non-combat magic can play a part. Situations that require Concentration rolls to magi, so casting a spell each round isn't a sure thing, or which further the use of fast-cast defences.
  • Action does not need to be combat, it can be a chase after a quarry or by a dangerous predator. Or a race against time, in a difficult enviromnent, against rivals you can't or shouldn't kill.

Part two: Adventure vs. season activity, cost of adventuring

  • You can have adventure xp or you can have xp from reading a book
  • You can spend the rest of the season consolidating what you learned from the adventure to get the xp from it, or you can do labwork
  • If you're away for more than 10 days, you start getting penalties to your lab totals.

Part three: Motivation for adventure?

  • Design adventures around particular story flaws of a player(s), to attract just a few (not all)

That's it. It was fun to ask the "hive mind of this forum" for assisstance, and I think it is a useful list of possible adventure hooks..

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14

Most of what I think about the issue has been said, one small addition:a dozen well-outfitted man-at-arms is, AFAIK, comparable to what most minor nobles can field if they are called to arms. Many of them would be quick to treat a group like that showing up unannounced (even just traveling through) in their domain as a threat. And reasonably too: a dozen good fighters could well plunder the countryside and cause some serious damage before opposition could be assembled.

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15

As most people already said, this should be circumvented easily by factoring in all the problems aside from the one they decided to solve this way. If anything it makes them predictable and once their ennemies will have exploited this weakness one or two time they will think twice before committing all their forces in one place at one time. I played mainly in the Normandy and Provencal tribunals and in either of them it would be easy to discourage such behavior all the while insisting on the flavor of those tribunals.

Provencal: the Albigensian crusade being ongoing, such a group of armed man take a high risk of meeting a crusaders party with each sortie and with gifted people among the group it would not be a stretch for the knights to take them as heretical Cathare by default (in any case kill them, god will recognize his own).

Normandy: In a tribunal where the raiding of mundane ressources is legal by the peripheral code, the consequences of leaving ones covenant lightly defended should became quickly and painfully apparent.

These are just exemples, but I think the is a way to show the weakness of their favored response wherever you are playing.