I’d like to see npc’s do their thing, makes the world seem more alive. It also makes it easier for you if you wanna set certain things in motion, though I would try to make it so that the npc forces don’t really ‘upstage’ the players chars. What I mean, if eg. There is a boss monster several player expeditions haven’t been able to kill, then some npc’s shouldn’t take care of it off screen, though they could do things like observe it to try and find a weakness or inform us when the thing has moved away. Other example, an npc scouting party might find a new previously undiscovered route, but they can only give vague info on what lies beyond it (maybe rolling to see how much info they can give) so it’s still up to the players to go and scout it out in depth.
Maybe the players not going on missions can help decide to some extend on what tasks the npc peeps will focus? Aka do we want them to mostly gather intell on a new type of enemy, search for resource X, stay at base because we expect an assault soon, etc. Things like that will depend on how much strategy elements you wanna have, or if you wanna keep the npc aspect close to you for easier handling.
(Unrelated to previous, just kinda came up when writing previous)
I think that expeditions should get to decide themselves what objectives to pursue, and you could provide incentives if you’d like to steer them in a certain direction (eg Y money for whatever team takes down the boss monster that appeared in the sewer. High level teams could then try to do that as a sort of side objective, while lower level teams might make that the focus of their expedition).
And perhaps make it so certain objectives are only active for a limited amount of time, so that it is almost impossible to always get everything done, so the players will have to prioritize, and decide whether trying to get one more objective is worth the risk after an already taxing expedition. Alternatively, have mission objectives be given by some npc leaders, but then try to make sure there’s enough variety to choose from.
I’d also like it personally if doing certain things has a measurable effect on the gameworld beyond just some text/flavor (eg take out a hive, and the chance and difficulty of random encounters in that area goes down).
One thing I think could be interesting is having some sort of hp system, because chunky salsa is easy but has the problem that most attacks are often either useless, crippling or killing. However, having hitpoints (or stamina or something) makes it possible for even a high level party to get ‘whittled down’ by lower level enemies over time. This will create more incentives to establish forward bases, as well as make parties face the difficult decision of when to quit and head back (instead of just going on till enough members have perished or it’s a TPK). Of course, chunky salsa can still be in effect (roll bad enough and your head gets chopped off no matter your remaining hitpoints) but it could help to represent the small cuts and bruises and fatigue that decrease a character’s capability to fight, without the lowest unit of that being a lost arm.
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Topic: ORO: ANOTHER QUESTION (Read 116962 times)