Allies and Endings
Okay; so I brought up the idea a couple of weeks ago of our hero as an administrator, forced into command decisions with underlings. So how do you make it happen?
Here are a few things to think about -- random thoughts, as it were:
The Heroes
The heroes (a.k.a. the PCs) should probably be greatly effective on their own; if they are weaker than the folks they're sending out, or if they're greatly incompetent, then why is our "camera" (the gaming table) focussed on them?
Now, this doesn't mean the heroes can't be less effective than the allies, at least in some areas. Batman, for example, is incredibly powerful at what he does, but some of his allies have abilities that eclipse his, such as Oracle's computational mojo. But for the most part, while these allies may do some things better than the heroes, the individual allies can't do all things better than them.
In many campaigns centered around administration, the goal is for the heroes to use their allies to get the larger situation under control enough that they can deal with the central problem personally.
The Timing
The whole point of an administration-based campaign is that the heroes can't possibly take care of all situations by themselves, even if they are the most skilled people to do so . . . nor can one group of allies handle everything. The police department may have a highly trained special-operations team, but the team can't take care of every jaywalker or shoplifter in the city.
Ally-based campaigns should . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: November 7, 2008
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