"Followers" Helping in Dow, Fight! and R&C

[Wrathbone]

One of the best things about BW is that you can keep groups very abstract with affiliations and such w/o having to spend a lot of time on them. But what do you do when their leader is in a conflict? How do GMs determine how many of them, or how many helping dice, to award in a contest? After all, a noble court may have 10 members or 100. Everybody important will have their own little group of followers.

1) For example, in DoW, say a noble is having a Duel of Wits with a mighty vassal in his court. How do you determine how many advantage dice or helpers they receive? Surely they'd each have partisans who would jump in to defend their lord's argument.
2) In a Fight!, say you're raiding the neighboring lord's lands. How do you decide on the size of the defending force? Again, he might have a company of men or a small army.
3) Same thing in Range and Cover-you're being ambushed by a gang of bandits. Are there 12? 50? How do GMs decide this?
4) Should GMs just estimate the number of dice a party of PCs could muster and then decide if he wants an easy, moderate,or hard challenge, and base the number off of this?
5) Or do rules in the Adventure Burner apply here like Too Many Cooks and Slowest and Loudest?

Hope this isn't too many questions. It seems the easiest way would be to grant the side with more partisans 1 or 2 advantage dice, but I'd be interested in hearing how others handle this. Thanks!

[gooderguy]

1) i try to keep it equal to the players on the enemies side. often, if the NPC is a major antagonist, they'll have relationships to help them. it sucks to have PCs gang-up on your big baddie and lose. that being said, as is often the case with enmity clause, the NPC already has a big advantage in the DoW. this really has to be determined on a case by case basis. often the 'too many cooks' rule in the AdBu is key. call out the leader of the PCs, don't let the others speak, etc.
2) depends on how you want to challenge the PCs and how they are going about the raid. if they are being all gorilla, a small core of patrolmen is often enough. if they are mounting an army, meet them with similar resistance, or perhaps give the neighbor the advantage of better troops, with a mage to back them up, etc.
3) remember, your job as GM is to challenge the PCs. usually, if it's mass combat, a series of linked tests to a final Command/Tactics roll is enough. for the group of bandits, keep it close to the NPCs numbers. for example, we had an adventuring party of 4 PCs (two of which were powerful mages) taken out by a well-placed Orc Black Hunter with 3 Sun-blotters. still the toughest enemies we've yet faced. we just couldn't get our spells off. parties of 12 usually can't help each other and will crush any group of PCs. keep the numbers fairly even in BW for both RnC and Fight and you should be good.
4) with help dice, this is a pretty good way to handle things for a moderate challenge. hedging your dice up or down often even by 1 or 2 often really changes things.
5) follow Too Many Cooks and Slowest and Loudest. they always apply

[Wrathbone]

Thanks for the replies, Gooderguy. So it seems like with DoW you're staying closer to a one-on-one than with the other mechanics, and you just pick number of opponents in Fight! and R&C to keep it challenging within the fiction.

[gooderguy]

with the DoW, it depends on how important it is to you not to get your PCs butt whooped by an overload of helping dice from the other PCs. if it's just a circled NPC, then don't worry about it too much, because the extra dice from the enmity clause helps a lot. if it's a major antagonist, get their son, brother, mentor, etc. in their to help out will really challenge the PCs.

[Odie]

1) How many people can pipe up and add cogent and coherent points to a single volley? In my experience, it's difficult enough to get 4 PCs to add believable helping dice to a single Point; it's not long before they start presenting things that don't reinforce the original scripted Point. And is a Duke going to tolerate some knight speaking out of turn, even to defend his lord, or will that just damage His Lordship's image in front of the court? There are limits in the fiction, I feel, that should be weighing in here.
2) I wouldn't Fight! with more participants than twice the number of PCs. At that point I'd just break out Bloody Versus or a series of linked tests. I wouldn't ever want to track a Fight! with 50 participants in it.
3) Decide by how many there should be? I dunno, this depends entirely on the fiction. If the Black Wasp Clan of thieves is known to headquarter in this forest, it's not unreasonable that a dozen or more bandits are present (with more elsewhere); if it's a rag-tag, starving group of wretches, six to eight might seem reasonable as their entire force. Fiction first. Don't worry about "balance."
4) I would never do that. Fiction first, always and forever, is my creed. I'd figure out how many there should be based on what's established in the fiction and what I need to challenge Beliefs, and go from there. I'd also recommend against just saying "OK, there are 12 bandits, so this guy gets 11 helping dice from his mates." Not only is that a bad option mechanically, but it's bland and boring in the fiction.


It seems the easiest way would be to grant the side with more partisans 1 or 2 advantage dice, but I'd be interested in hearing how others handle this. Thanks!

Yeah, I'd say for very basic stuff – not for Fight!, R&C, or DoW – just award an advantage die to the side with more participants, two dice if they greatly outnumber the opposition.

-B

[noclue]

1) I would give a single advantage dice to the side with the most, or best quality NPC help. So, a lot of heavily armed men at arms? That's going to be strong mojo for any intimidation roll, but less helpful than a group of diplomats for a Persuasion roll. Compare the two sides and give an advantage die to one side or the other. The exact number of NPC helpers is just fluff.
2) Number of defenders depends upon what feels right to me. Again, advantage die (maybe 2) goes to the side with the best help, regardless of how much best it actually is. We usually roll randomly after a fight to see which of our NPC dudes got killed and/or massacred in the bloodbath.
3) Same answer.
4) Too many cooks and slowest and loudest apply for PCs, all these vassals and soldiers are irrelevant color.

I guess I'd do what Odie says, except I would do it in DoW, Fight! and R&C as well. Just give an advantage die as appropriate for the role. Role a die of fate afterwards to determine casualties among significant NPCs as necessary (make shit up about the insignificant NPC casualties) and rock on.

[Odie]

You know, you're right, James. I'd add advantage dice for numbers for Duel of Wits, and just color it in the fiction as one of those vassals speaking up in support of his lord. I don't think I'd do it in Range & Cover unless I was explicitly scripting both the PCs and their opponents as "units", maybe like in the Skirmish rules in the Adventure Burner. Otherwise I feel bona fide Helping dice are appropriate, subject to what I said about in-fiction limits in 1). I still wouldn't do it in a Fight!. If I use Fight!, it's for up-close-and-personal type stuff, where numbers count. Adding general advantage dice instead of helping dice for numbers is outside of the scope of Fight! how we use it.

-B

[Wrathbone]

Cool, thanks for the replies, this is very helpful.