Ship's NPC crew size and skill level?

[Whill]

[Gamer]

I've rarely had problems with Troupe play, I think that's what they call it.
The issues Garhkle lists to me is a role play issue that the GM is also to blame for not putting an end to.

The players different characters in a privateer campaign for example should have been under different players characters command.

Player one: pc 1 pilot/ship Captain, pc 2 marine
Player two: pc 1 Marine leader, pc 2 gunner or some other enlisted level ship system character
Player three: pc 1 engineer(officer), pc2 marine
Player 4: pc 1 ship Executive Officer pc 2 marine
and so on every player has one ship board character and one off ship character.

If you are worried about players not having enough firpower aka marines or ship gunners and so on you could always suppliment them with simple battledroids.
Each character could 'control' (do the dice rolling for) a droid in combat that way they are 'doing something' and your not doing it all yourself while at the same time they aren't overwhelmed with controlling another 'full' character because it's a simple battle droid and the droid could grow as the player themself gets used to running them if you and they wish it.

[Spartikis]

[Bren]

[garhkal]

[Wisconsin Wookie]

Based on what everyone is saying, it seems that troupe play stands or falls on the group of players that are assembled.  The campaign I am considering is on a pretty big scale, and would definitely be helped by multiple pcs.  I would definitely implement Gamer's suggestion of different roles and characters under somebody else.  For those of you that have done it and found some success, is two the best number?  Is three per player pushing it, even for experienced players?

[Bren]

You are quite correct that troupe play stands or falls on the players.

I don't think there is an always right number. That again depends on what you are playing and of course the players. But two often seems the most that one player can create dialog for in a single scene. When we did troupe play in Runequest we found two was about the max that a player could tactically handle easily, but that system had pretty complicated combat options since every character had skills, could fight, cast battle magics, and often Divine magics as well. When we played Star Trek we ran an entire ship and I think the players ended up with probably 5-6 characters each. But here we used a very simplified system for skills resolution and a very, very simplified combat system. And, much like what you saw on the old show or Next Gen, not all the characters were ever active at the same time. We all started with I think 3 characters - one bridge character (e.g. helm, tactical, CO or XO, communications, and science/sensors), one security officer (for combat and away missions), one support character (Engineering, Medical, additional science). Generally if the scene was on the bridge only one or two characters would be in play for any player (mostly 1). If the scene was engineering or medical generally only 1 character was in play per player. If the scene was combat generally 1-2 characters were in play per player. And on an away mission generally 1-3 characters were in play per player. As we continued playing we created back up and second shift characters and ended up with around 5-6 characters each. A big part of play was selecting the characters for any given scene/location - the selection was typically based on a mix of what skills we thought were needed, tactics, and sometimes what the script called for. We tended to play that much like the shows and metagamed an assumption that there was a script that sometimes called for a particular character to be in a particular scene. That often was resolved by the GM passing a note that said "include character X in the away team" to whichever player was running the officer in charge of selecting the team. In Star Wars we had several different characters, but generally only 1-2 would be in play at the same time. The exception was the players who ran a Corvette. Much like as we had in Star Trek, they started with 3-4 characters each and generally had 2 playing at the same time. In Call of Cthulhu we have lots of characters most of whom are somehow connected to each other. For a big campaign a lot of characters can show up. We have found it gets unwieldy to have more than 2 actively talking or acting at one time. Often the group will split up for much of an scenario with some characters exploring old ruins, basements, etc, some doing research, some checking libraries or newspaper archives. Generally we try to create several independent groups with 1-2 characters per player that take on the various tasks and it is generally only at a big climax that all the characters will gather. Since those scenes sometimes involve combat and spells they can be a bit tricky for the players to run, but since it is only the big finale it seems to work OK.

[dph]

Hi Spartikis

I'm actually running a 'Tramp freighter' campaign with a single crew and I would say simply to choose a ship that suits the number of players you have, give or take a couple of of droids (who are natural 'specialists and don't look bad when their personality is played down)

I think the issue for me would be whether the 'supporting cast' are indeed NPCs or surrogate PCs.

If the NPCs help run the ship without getting in the way or stealing the limelight then I think that could actually be a lot of fun for everybody- Players LOVE interesting NPCs to interact with!
But personally I find trying to throw NPCs in as 'fill-in' PCs (taking part in the adventure equally with the PCs long term) I find it distracting as a GM and 'icky' as a player.

In my case I have a 'crew' of four players. (check out my campaign on Obsidian Portal if you're interested) I spent a lot of time with them trying to create a solid 'crew' with enough skills between them that they could handle most things alone (and they bought in admirably). The only real issue was that I wanted them to have a YT-2400; that model requires 2 pilots which I thought that might be too limiting so I just changed it- problem solved...

They are occasionally accompanied by an NPC for a session or two but I deliberately have them take a back seat and ensure that they are there to drive the story forward, not make decisions about it. I have provided them with plenty of 'options' too, to recruit 'specialists' (like hired guns) for certain missions but they inevitable choose to go it alone. It was cool though when they met an NPC they liked so much they actually offered them work.

Anyways, I think it all depends on what you and your group are most comfortable with but I would say, plan to the number of players you have, unless the NPCs are happy to keep a low profile (until the players invite them into the story!)

Good luck!
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[vanir]

We're playing four characters apeice in our campaign.

We've been doing that since the AD&D days back in '91. New players start out with one character, but all our experienced gamers have no trouble with multiple characters, we also take turns GM'ing, each writing our own extensive module whilst playing through the existing one.

I'm running a transport captain (owns a YT1300), a sabre rake who's a quixotic jedi (has 1D sense and is questing to find Jedi instruction), a coynite mercinary and a mashi horansi commando.


We do have a couple of common ground rules to help make it work.

+ no equipment is transferrable between pc's held by one player. If you need some credits for one character, he *must* ask another player's characters for the loan. His own pc's don't like each other basically.

For all intents and purposes pc's owned by one player are somewhat at odds with each other. This is perfectly rational, players choose multiple characters which are very different every time. So it's plausible that the tough alien doesn't trust the wiry businessman, the reclusive catlike feller or the strange wizard who thinks he's a prince. None of them trust each other very much. They just don't understand how each other thinks.

Complementary characters are always owned by different players. The tough coynite gets along best with a tough kasa horansi owned by another player. By the same token that same kasa horansi also gets along fairly well with the mashi horansi for obvious reasons, though not quite as well as he does the coynite because both those guys are tough as nails warriors that don't suffer fools or frailty much.

So that's the reasoning, but the gaming rule is no swapping equipment between pc's that you own.

+ all roleplay of pc's are determined by actions, using skills/ability rolls, not player whimsy, hollow claims and empty speeches.

If you want to play your freighter captain the same way you play your coynite mercinary it's just not going to happen because I'm going to make you roll your skills to pull it off.
Say you've got the coynite, the freighter captain is elsewhere and you come across a great business opportunity worth plenty of credits to the whole party. Anybody would be interested irrespective of which character, right?
But the thing is, when the coynite tries to ask about the opportunity, I make him roll a business skill check (gets a 2 and needs a 13) and he farts loudly and it stinks, I mean it really stinks. The guy offering the opportunity is disgusted and leaves.
Now I give the player a choice, laugh his head off and shout something like "go on get lost then ya girlyboy if ya can't handle a bit of stink", like the coynite would if he was in character, or he can try to recover and apolegise and I'm going to make him roll again, this time he'll probably spit on the guy's face trying to apolegise. You get where this is going.
You play your pc's in character, individually, or I'll force it and it aint pretty.
My players have actually learned to say things like "gee I wish (so and so) was here" when they find themselves faced with a skills task one character could accomplish, but not another they have which is present.
I don't let them transfer or secure opportunities between characters like a group mind.

Those are the main two.

[garhkal]

So a player could not say play siblings?? Unless they hated one another?
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