Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered
Realistically, fights result in injuries and injuries result in lots of down time. I don't think the problem is actually about single-player games, its about play style and genre.
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I'm not as certain.
No matter what your genre or style, the rules make it difficult for one person to defeat, say, five . . . but trivial for an adventuring party of 10 to beat the same five. In warfare, there's a very strong correspondence between odds ratios and casualties. This is why – all other things being equal (troop quality, leadership, terrain, etc.) –
GURPS Mass Combat gives my 5:1 odds for the NPC enemies about 2.5× the casualties for the PCs and 0.25× the casualties for the NPCs as it gives my 2:1 for the PCs.
This is borne out in tactical combat, too. Five NPC foes, however lousy, can outflank a single PC and stab them in the back – and once a lone fighter goes down, there are no threats remaining to prevent a curb-stomping to make sure they stay down (it's difficult to explain why people who need 5:1 odds to feel sure of their attack
wouldn't do that). Plus there's the effect of the weight of numbers on lucky critical successes which can render being worth lots of points with high defenses irrelevant. And
then there's the fact that a PC with allies has infinitely better odds of having a pal with thick armor who can "tank," someone to watch their back, a healer, or all three.
My feeling is that unless you interpret "play style" as "never getting in fights" – which isn't likely to work in, say, a Conan game – numbers have a heavy impact on PC injury. Yes, one could run a game where there are no physical conflicts, or where enemies are always shot from ambush or poisoned, but that's not compatible with very many play styles at all. It certainly limits the player who doesn't want to play a talker or an assassin, but a straight-up warrior. As for genre, I think the number of popular
gaming genres that support "no fights," "no warriors," or "everybody's an assassin" is pretty tiny.
So all told, I'm still convinced that single-player campaigns benefit from adding a team of NPCs to surround foes, protect the PC's back, tank hits, and heal the hero. If you have one of each (flanker, rearguard, tank, and healer), then in the case where an NPC foe takes a shot at the hero and their pals, you've already diluted the odds of a serious hit by a factor of five! The unlucky NPC can then rest and heal without slowing down the hero, who still has three other friends to dilute hits.