Ally advantage. Am I reading this right!?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

You could invite another player to the game, give him a copy of your character sheet, and clone your character without spending any points. Allies are expensive compared to just having more friends at the table.

That's the core logic behind the pricing. And underlining that Allies are controlled by the GM, as others have mentioned, is an effort to keep Allies about as free-willed as the PCs of other players.

In Actual Play™, I find this works relatively well as long as the total number of PCs plus PC-strength Allies (of everyone) doesn't exceed the number of players the GM would be comfortable having at the table. For instance, I can manage 8-10 players relatively well, so back when I had a campaign with six PCs, I had no problem with one player having four Allies (6 + 4 = 10).

The rules allow and provide point costs for for hordes of Allies not because it's a good idea to go to such extremes, but because there are occasionally PCs who character concept calls for them to have a private army that answers to them, personally. In that case, it's entirely within the GM's rights to insist that the base point value be modest and/or that frequency of appearance be low, perhaps a mere 6 or less.

For instance, if a PC is the captain of a 100-strong mercenary force, the GM might okay that but insist that the mercenaries be at only 50% of their leader's point value (there should be some reason why the PC is the leader and not just another grunt), and that the appearance roll be 6 or less (unless mercenaries are being paid to fight a battle right now, they tend to find other things to do): Allies (100 mercenaries; 50% of point total; 6 or less) [12] is probably reasonable. And since the GM plays these NPCs, it's entirely reasonable for the GM to insist that they stand guard, intimidate foes, and do grunt physical tasks, but stop short of actually showing up to fight unless they're paid.

[Kromm]

As a follow-up: If you want actual clones of yourself that you control in every respect, that's Duplication, which costs 35 points per duplicate – more, if you want them to show up with gear and not affect you when they die.

[Boge]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Also worth keeping in mind that the GM approves all character designs for each and every game. It's not a matter of designing something by the book, then insisting that they accept your character in the game "because it's legal". If the concept doesn't fit the intended type of fiction the group is going to create, then off it goes.

Beautifully said. I always tend to overlook this, although I do support the GM always has final say in EVERYTHING in a Gurps campaign.

That said, it seems like a crazy concept which would be difficult for a GM to handle. I'd personally never do it myself. I'm more of a lone wolf kind of guy.

Originally Posted by Kromm

In Actual Play™, I find this works relatively well as long as the total number of PCs plus PC-strength Allies (of everyone) doesn't exceed the number of players the GM would be comfortable having at the table.

In our next campaign, I believe two of our 4 players are going to have allies, but they're sounding like animals, so it shouldn't be too bad. What does worry me though is that we've played this campaign before with 3 players, and our group often had about 3 other NPCs. It was just too much. 4 is good. More just slugs things down in my opinion. That's as a player. It's gotta suck being a GM and dealing with 10 players!!

Funny story, the biggest group I played with was probably 8 players. It was an Old West. There were so many players around it was terrible. I also had the worst diarrhea of my life and had to keep running off. Luckily that night, one of the other players got a critical hit on my head as I peeked around a corner to try to spot where he was. I was glad to be out of that situation for multiple reasons. Bathroom, here I come!!!

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Boge

That said, it seems like a crazy concept which would be difficult for a GM to handle. I'd personally never do it myself. I'm more of a lone wolf kind of guy.

I tend to favor campaigns with 4-6 players; my current GURPS campaign has 5. One of them has one Ally, a bodyguard/manservant; another has three, a ship's pilot, a navigator, and a marine. I haven't had any problem with this.

In the first place, as has been discussed, I built all of these characters.

In the second place, they are subject to frequency of appearance rolls. Rather than rolling the dice (as of course I have a right to do!), I play them as present about that often, and give them an active role or a voice when it seems to fit.

In the third place, I treat them much of the time in functional terms. The navigator rolls for Navigation (Sea) when the ship has to choose a course; the pilot rolls for Shiphandling when it sails on a course, to see if they run into trouble on one of his watches; the bodyguard becomes visible when the purser is threatened by someone, and so on. There is some characterization also—in particular, the pilot is in love with the ship's captain and always offers to accompany her when she hits the taverns in a port—but I don't see the Allies as having as much camera time coming to them as the PCs, who are the stars of the show.

In the fourth place—and this is the "gripping hand," for me—I don't have a problem with Allies being present as characters, because I normally give voices to other characters that the PCs encounter. In their home port, for example, there have been speaking parts for the wealthy man who helped fund their voyage, for the purser's mother, for the ship's girl, for the sailor who acted as the assistant ship's cook—and I think for a couple of more minor characters who aren't likely to keep showing up. Doing this for Allies is no more of a challenge than doing it for other NPCs. I see it as the GM's job to provide NPCs with personalities, or at least recognizable mannerisms, and Allies, Contacts, Dependents, Enemies, and Patrons should all be included in this.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Boge

It's gotta suck being a GM and dealing with 10 players [...] the biggest group I played with was probably 8 players.

It comes down to personal preference and, more important, experience. In 1979, I started gaming in grade school. Owing to the rules of our lunchroom, if we wanted to play D&D, we had to invite all the kids who were interested in the game (a variation on "You can chew gum in class if you have enough to share with everybody!"). Consequently, we had a revolving cast of players: always at least eight or nine, often more than a dozen. That's the environment in which I learned to GM.

In 1986, I was involved with a fantasy campaign where I was the co-GM with my best friend, and we had 13 players. That's 15 people in all. It's true that the load per GM was only 6.5 players, but in reality it was often "12 players with one GM while the other GM steps aside with the player whose PC wandered off," or "one GM handles 13 players while the other GM manages all the NPCs needed for that many PCs."

Like lifting weights or balancing stock portfolios, GMing is an activity where you start small and ramp up. If you run games for a steadily increasing number of players, and keep running games for lots of players, you get stronger. You learn all the tricks for quickly dealing with player requests, conveying information efficiently, and triaging player demands based on player personality type. If you use the same game system a lot, it gets burned into your skull and you rarely need to consult books.

Even so, there are limits!

If I allowed someone to have 100 hangers-on, you can bet that those NPCs would be faceless and rarely have speaking roles. I'd strictly enforce the rule that the multipliers that yield smaller point costs per Ally apply only to "identical and interchangeable allies."

You can rest assured that I'd be a stickler about "will disagree with you from time to time," "may refuse to cooperate," and "may even cause problems for you," as it destroys willing suspension of disbelief to imagine that 100 people would always be of one mind and on best behavior. The more they are of one mind, the more likely they'll cause trouble, and vice versa: Fanatical cultists might agree to any crazy plan, but they'll also cause endless headaches, because they're fanatics; well-drilled soldiers might never step out of line, but they'll constantly be spitting and polishing and standing on ceremony, and they'll refuse to be party to atrocities, however "deserved."

Most important, you can be certain that I'd allow those Allies to engage in combat under only two circumstances:

1. Actual individuals on a tactical combat map in proportion to the Allies' frequency of appearance, which I'd insist be 6 or less for any group that stands to show up on a battle map. That corresponds to 9.3% (p. B171) – so of the 100, nine or 10 would be available to carry spears at any given time. And when these spear-carriers show up, I'd have the opposition be smart enough to bring fodder of their own.
   
   
2. A unit of 10 GURPS Mass Combat elements that can be used only when fighting force vs. force actions under that rules system. For whatever reason – contract, honor, law, logistics, pay, tradition – they would not show up to fight the PC's personal few-on-few battles. In the case where the whole unit shows up, enemies would also have entire forces.

These wouldn't be exclusive; I'd have no problem with 9-10 spear-carriers helping out in the dungeon and then 100 mercenaries fighting for the PC when the heroes return home and find the town besieged by the orc army.

In corner cases, I'd give the player an option: Either accept 9.3% or roll the dice, all-or-nothing. If the dice came up 6 or less and there was no army to fight, there would be 100 people available for tasks that call for 100 pairs of strong arms, but not for individual assignments, never mind swarming around a battle map. Good uses would be building bridges, conducting ceremonial magic, searching the countryside for something or someone, or – for dungeon delvers – dragging rations to the dungeon, guarding the camp while the heroes raid the dungeon, and then hauling treasure back afterward.

This level of GM oversight is absolutely essential for large groups of Allies. If the GM isn't interested in doing to the work, it's better simply to forbid such Allies. That's right in the rules: "The GM may [...] even prohibit groups larger than a certain size."

[whswhs]

Oh, I like the idea of having 100 Allies who will show up to contribute their energy to ceremonial magic. They could even be fairly low-point-value aside from that commitment; a 25-point character can still spend the requisite time thinking supportive thoughts while you cast a large-area protective spell or whatever.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Oh, I like the idea of having 100 Allies who will show up to contribute their energy to ceremonial magic.

Magic undergrads. Roll isn't so much to see if they show up as to see if they show up drunk.

[Daigoro]

Scene at a tavern:

"Where are the dice? We gotta roll 'em!"
"Why?"
"Barry wants us. Gotta roll to see if we show up."
"I got 'em! What are we rolling under?"
"Gotta be less than 6!"
One hundred pair of eyes strain to see the pips on the polished white cubes as they roll across the tavern floor.
"What is it? Are we going?"
"It's a.... 5?"
"Nah, one of them's cocked. Could be a 7. We gotta roll again."
"Just that one, or all of them?"
"Ah, bugger it. Just tell him we rolled 7, and let's get 'nother round of ales."

[VariousRen]

I play a druid who has an ally groups of giant anaconda's (10 of them), two more reliable giant anaconda's, and a single super-giant anaconda. They are critical because there's only on other PC in the game who plays a swashbuckler and without them we would be outnumbered and surrounded in almost every fight. Ally let us bring extra bodies with us for things like combat (where gurps rewards outnumbering and flanking) but they can sink into the background when the two of us want to do roleplaying stuff.

[RyanW]

Using the Ally Group rule means your allies are effectively interchangeable, so no specialists among them.

Also: "The GM may require an Unusual Background (p. 96) if you wish to have hordes of Allies, or even prohibit groups larger than a certain size – although he might permit an army or other large group as a Patron." So this one specifically calls out GM review above and beyond that applied to any trait.