Should Ally Group be Randomly Generated?

[nik1979]

I find the ally group advantage to be a very difficult temptation to overcome. Why hamstring one's self by getting less than the optimal number, since optimizing is all part of the fun of the game anyway.

I'm curious what would be the arguments against or for making it random.

I'm interested to know your thoughts. Thanks,

[Purple Haze]

I'd do it as a range.

It would start as the middle and slowly increase. If any were killed/crippled it would drop but not below the lower bound.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by nik1979

making it random.

Making what random? The size of the group? The traits of individual members? Something else? In any event, I'd be reluctant to make something related to character generation the product of a random roll when it could be handled by the GM's judgement.

[munin]

It's perfectly fine to make the number of allies who show up random. Being able to summon 10 elementals or 3d elementals should cost the same.

I don't see how that addresses your issue though, so maybe I'm not understanding you. Do you mean random within the range? (×6 means you get 6-10 allies?). That would be fine too, but I wouldn't require it to make the cost fair.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

In any event, I'd be reluctant to make something related to character generation the product of a random roll when it could be handled by the GM's judgement.

Seconded. With an Ally Group, I think the player should provide the broad strokes ("I'm in tight with the Knights of DuQuesne Street gang!") but the specifics are up to the GM.

[Kromm]

The point with ranges is that the GM determines how many Allies show up, which is no less than the minimum but no more than the maximum. How the GM does this is left to the GM's imagnation: dice roll (or cards drawn from a deck, counting how many people are outside the door of the gaming room . . . whatever), story, negotiation, etc. The player does not get to specify that his PC can always call up the maximum number, any more than he gets to design the Allies' character sheets. If the player always wants 10 or 20 or 50 Allies, then he can pay 10×, 20×, or 50× times the price of one Ally to have specific individuals, but he cannot claim the 6×, 8×, or 10× for a group. The raison d'être for the group discount is that group strength is only predictable to within upper and lower bounds.

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by Kromm

The point with ranges is that the GM determines how many Allies show up, which is no less than the minimum but no more than the maximum. How the GM does this is left to the GM's imagnation: dice roll (or cards drawn from a deck, counting how many people are outside the door of the gaming room . . . whatever), story, negotiation, etc. The player does not get to specify that his PC can always call up the maximum number, any more than he gets to design the Allies' character sheets. If the player always wants 10 or 20 or 50 Allies, then he can pay 10×, 20×, or 50× times the price of one Ally to have specific individuals, but he cannot claim the 6×, 8×, or 10× for a group. The raison d'être for the group discount is that group strength is only predictable to within upper and lower bounds.

Or buy one extra level and specify that only the minimum show up.

[nik1979]

What can be random?

For starters the number and quality.
Example starting with 6-10 (=randbetween(6,10)).

The character, in a given powerlevel and context, I guess a GM can have some sort of random character generator. what comes to mind is Harn or Banestorm that draws on Harn demographics. depending on the context, a character can roll an ally as part of household, a staff, or armed retainers.

since frequency of appearance is random why not tackle how to handle it if it were not to dependent on dice. what's not random could be the kind of relationship and awareness of influencing factors to that relationship (the allys own goals, relationships, obligations and duties to others and themselves). To put the points in greater context, someone with greater reason to stick around alot will be worth more points. I'd rather think in terms of relationships than frequency of appearance, its easier to weave a reason or rationale with a relationship than making up a reason to adjudicate the roll of the frequency rating.

in relationships of allies to PC, would you price it based on NET motivation to stick around minus personal duties obligations and conflicts (like the retainers family) or just the gross motivation to stick around and chuck the conflicting interests out of the equation.

• No. of allies (random or fixed)
• Quality of Allies (random generated through some char generator with some fixed variables or pregenerated)
• Frequency of Appearance (relationship vs frequency of appearance score)

I guess another aspect of allies are that they are other characters and the initial point buy assumes a good relationship. bad treatment and situation can change things from their initial conditions. An ally can slide to become indifferent NPC or be an enemy.

Since the results mainly depend on the PC's actions, is the GM responsible for making up a new ally if an ally is lost? Is it like signiture gear or like that disadvantage example in the basic set?

[Figleaf23]

I would just note that some concepts will inherently specify the size of the group.

The size of a fire-team ally group is set by the organizational particulars of a soldier character's army. The size of a group of famous musketeers was set by author Dumas.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by nik1979

What can be random?

I would say that number is fair game. The rules do give a range, and a discount for having a range rather than a fixed number of specific Allies, so it would be hard to justify a complaint about having six Allies show up when you expected 10. I would say that point value isn't fair game, though . . . competence level is the most fundamental property of Allies, and I believe that the player has every right to demand that those who show up be of predictable ability.

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

The size of a fire-team ally group is set by the organizational particulars of a soldier character's army. The size of a group of famous musketeers was set by author Dumas.

Group pricing is expressly allowed only for nameless, faceless, and fully interchangeable Allies. Your examples are cases where you must create Allies as unique individuals and purchase them on a head-by-head basis; there are clear differences between the roles of men on a fireteam (team leader, rifleman, grenadier, and automatic rifleman), and of course the Musketeers are utterly distinct characters. Ally Groups (p. B37) is completely unambiguous on this distinction.