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So with games like The Last of Us, State of Decay, and XCOM coming down that pipe that focus on creating tension scarcity and resource management I've been working on a way to play on that kind of mentality in a pf game and make it fun and entertaining and was wondering if anyone had played with that concept on their own time and what have they found to be successful to creating that kind of game?
One of the things I'm looking into is rewarding players less with gold and level appropriate weapons & armor and instead dropping more intangible rewards or helping hands a la things like fame, followers, and survival supplies. an example of this would be that say the party is traveling and runs across a caravan under attack by goblins. If they decide to help these travelers and risk their own resources to accomplish the task, they are rewarded as usual with some gp and what they manage to scavenge from the goblins but the larger reward comes from the travelers who offer to help the players in payment for saving them. The travelers may ask for some help repairing their caravan and some arms but they basically become followers who will help haul loot, protect their camps, and even supply back up in various missions in whatever capacities they might be able to supply. This act of kindness also rewards them with prestige which they can spend to get supplies, titles, and access to greater forms of influence and wealth within the greater world.
Now my problem becomes how do you balance adding npc's to the mix in terms of treating them as treasure, especially if they may or may not stay around indefinitely?
Two books to look at to help with this:
1. NPC Codex (Pathfinder)
2. Heroes of Horror (D&D 3.5)
The Gamemasters guide has a whole laundry list of NPC's in the back (something like 50 pages worth?) with 'boons' listed for each. I don't recall the exact system, but it was pretty much what you're talking about, favors as treasure. There were plenty of NPC's to work with, and it seemed like it would be pretty easy to extrapolate from.
This sounds like a lot of fun but is also a very difficult question. First off you are really asking about two things: resources as rewards and helpers/npc's as rewards.
1. Resources: This is pretty easy because resources have value. Food=money; weapons=money;transport=money. Even information and prestige are pretty easy to equate with money because you "buy/earn" helpful things with that info/prestige. If I help a noble attacked in an alley and then can use his name to get into a secret society, I have saved the cost of entry, etc. Especially at low to mid levels this works great but it is more time consuming for you as a GM to keep track of it all rather than just handing 500 gp to everyone.
2. NPC's as reward. This is a lot more tricky. If NPC interaction is in the form of boons or presitige or influence then see above. If we are talking about actual NPC's that adventure with or physically aid the party things can get out of hand fast. One reason for this is economy of action. Each PC is only supposed to have so many actions per round. This is why many GM's don't care for the Leadership feat. If I the fighter have 3 npc warriors helping me out then even at 1st -5th level I effectively have 4 attacks or 4 actions. I could attack while my buddy flanks while my other buddy pours healing potions down my throat, etc.
That being said, having a bunch of followers is very old school and can be a lot of fun. I would recommend, however, doing so within the constraints of the Leadership feat. Up until that time make sure you as the GM tightly control the NPC's so that the economy of actions built into Pathfinder isn't railroaded in the wrong direction.
As to pricing, I don't think you can equate the value of a hierling in gp/day with PC wealth per level. So a straight forward the Gamemasters Guide says a warior ears 1 gp a day doesn't mean its the same as 365 gp worth of treasure for that year. You are going to need to "feel" it.
For instance a +1 weapon is worth 2000 some odd gp. That weapon improves your odds in combat by 5% on every attack. Pretty good.
IF you are level a 1 through 5 fighter you get 1 attack. If you have a warrior npc helper you now have a second attack that is likely almost as good as yours. That warrior and his attack effectively gives you much more than +5% to hit. Two chances vs. +5% on one chance.
Does this mean a 1st lvl warrior is worth more than 2000gp when it comes to treasure and Wealth by level. Maybe? But a sword can't be killed and can later be upgraded or sold. An npc can be killed or turned against you, etc. I think you see where I am going.
The best answer maybe to try it out and see how things work. Make adjustments on the fly. If things seem out of balance modify. I think it will work, but it may be a lot of work...for you unless you are the kind of GM who thrives on runing games on the fly.
edit: hard to spell at midnight
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This sounds like a lot of fun but is also a very difficult question. First off you are really asking about two things: resources as rewards and helpers/npc's as rewards.
1. Resources: This is pretty easy because resources have value. Food=money; weapons=money;transport=money. Even information and prestige are pretty easy to equate with money because you "buy/earn" helpful things with that info/prestige. If I help a noble attacked in an alley and then can use his name to get into a secret society, I have saved the cost of entry, etc. Especially at low to mid levels this works great but it is more time consuming for you as a GM to keep track of it all rather than just handing 500 gp to everyone.
2. NPC's as reward. This is a lot more tricky. If NPC interaction is in the form of boons or presitige or influence then see above. If we are talking about actual NPC's that adventure with or physically aid the party things can get out of hand fast. One reason for this is economy of action. Each PC is only supposed to have so many actions per round. This is why many GM's don't care for the Leadership feat. If I the fighter have 3 npc warriors helping me out then even at 1st -5th level I effectively have 4 attacks or 4 actions. I could attack while my buddy flanks while my other buddy pours healing potions down my throat, etc.
That being said, having a bunch of followers is very old school and can be a lot of fun. I would recommend, however, doing so within the constraints of the Leadership feat. Up until that time make sure you as the GM tightly control the NPC's so that the economy of actions built into Pathfinder isn't railroaded in the wrong direction.
Yeah I felt like it could be really cool but that it would need a lot of thought to keep it balanced. Some of the things I was thinking on using were difficulty, mortality, xp, resources, and class options.
First off I liked it since it allows me as a gm to throw more challenging encounters their way and have them supplement their slightly lower powered gear with volume of actions and what not. The other thing this allows in my mind is to make certain encounters both more terrifying, manageable, and memorable. Like take a dragon for instance. For me the most iconic dragon hunt is one where you get to see a few powerful adventurers and a crap load of retainers work together chucking harpoons and shooting it in order to bring it to ground where players can face it head on. Now with more characters on the field this image is much more viable and allows the players to take on a dragon as such that would be well outside their ECL and have a decent chance of winning. On top of this if you go low power loot and more characters/retainers you have the chance to actually emphasize some of the defensive abilities on creatures like dragons that may not get much use (DR/magic I'm looking at you). This also allows the players to be at risk in other ways since they have a chance to lose npc's that they have grown attached to either through leveling and equipping or through rp who could die in the assault.
Mortality would also play a big part in balance since these resources can well, die. I always loved the idea of resources that can easily be wisked away due to poor planning or horrible situation as well as keep that worry of mortality in the minds of players that I always feel slips away as players increase in levels. Having players worry about losing these other npc's that they worked so hard to equip and level and have to make those kinds of tough decisions reminds me a lot of the risk reward set ups you see in games like XCOM which I think is really exciting. Top this off with character rp and their interactions therein you could really get players debating on who to bring with them on dangerous missions. At it's worst I see it as something like soldier management in XCOM and at it's best as something much closer that and jade regent, skull & shackles, and kingmaker with npc's becoming important npc's with motives and goals that play important parts in the greater narrative.
Besides that I think I would also like to have them have to split xp amongst those they bring along meaning the more they bring the less xp they themselves receive. Also with less interesting loot and a higher chance of redundant common items showing up the players will have to start spending resources to equip most NPC's to make sure they are prepped for their encounters. Think something like XCOM where players are saving those weapons and items they don't need anymore and sharing them amongst their NPC's to keep them safe.
Finally I think you would have to limit what kind of classes these NPC's would be. I think most of them would have to have NPC class levels and maybe implement a 1/3 PC level system when it comes to picking up characters with PC classes. In other words you couldn't have a NPC with PC levels more then 1/3rd your level. This way you keep from having a bunch of character class NPC's from floating around and keep that worry of investment vs. risk amongst players.
The other big worry would be having a million characters on the map but with the worry of losing all your NPC's in a bad move, split xp, and just arming all of them that shouldn't be a large problem. That being said I think it can also be limited by putting hard caps on how many a player can bring with them if necessary or the use of the troop subtype from Rasputin must die when they want to bring along a lot of of characters but everyone wants to keep the action fast.
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As to pricing, I don't think you can equate the value of a hierling in gp/day with PC wealth per level. So a straight forward the Gamemasters Guide says a warior ears 1 gp a day doesn't mean its the same as 365 gp worth of treasure for that year. You are going to need to "feel" it.
For instance a +1 weapon is worth 2000 some odd gp. That weapon improves your odds in combat by 5% on every attack. Pretty good.
IF you are level a 1 through 5 fighter you get 1 attack. If you have a warrior npc helper you now have a second attack that is likely almost as good as yours. That warrior and his attack effectively gives you much more than +5% to hit. Two chances vs. +5% on one chance.
Does this mean a 1st lvl warrior is worth more than 2000gp when it comes to treasure and Wealth by level. Maybe? But a sword can't be killed and can later be upgraded or sold. An npc can be killed or turned against you, etc. I think you see where I am going.
The best answer maybe to try it out and see how things work. Make adjustments on the fly. If things seem out of balance modify. I think it will work, but it may be a lot of work...for you unless you are the kind of GM who thrives on runing games on the fly.
edit: hard to spell at midnight
With you on the midnight thing homes, it's like 4 over here and I worry that my last post looks like the ramblings of a madman.
Anyways with you on the balance and playtest thing I've just gotta find the right group of players for it. I feel like you need a small group with no more then 4 players otherwise it will get out of hand quickly. The other thing is I think harder encounters, NPC's with predominately NPC levels, xp sharing, and having players equip them will help keep them in check since they might get 2 extra attacks but they've also gotta patch the guy up when he gets shot.