Quote from: Bren;813379

• Some players want to stay in the POV of a single character. So running multiple characters may detract from their experience.

• Some players don't want to split the experience points between multiple characters so doing that detracts from their experience.

her reasons I haven't thought of. Do you know what it is your players object to?

I suspect it's mostly the first two you mention. The idea that we're SUPPOSED to focus on only one character at a time and that part of that focus is the mechanical progression of said character... which might be subverted if it's not on stage.
I wonder if it kind of goes along with the general antithesis towards hirelings/henchmen I've encountered.

Quote from: Bren;813379I suppose there are other reasons I haven't thought of.

A potential concern is that some players might not properly separate their several player characters--keeping information, goals and motivations apart. (Less of an issue if the player characters all have a common motivation/allegiance/organization to align their interests.)

Quote from: talysman;813304Don't forget "Stable Style", from early D&D and Tunnels & Trolls: multiple characters per player, sometimes in a single session, no fixed hierarchy; each player decides whether one of their characters is the leader and the other followers, or whether to play them all as equals, sort of like the DCC character funnel. The structure is not enforrced by the GM.

Quote from: One Horse Town;813346I think there's another type of troupe play, which i'll call Horses for Courses.

My preferred style of 'troupe' play, especially if playing an old-school style game.

Quote from: Simlasa;813384I suspect it's mostly the first two you mention. The idea that we're SUPPOSED to focus on only one character at a time and that part of that focus is the mechanical progression of said character... which might be subverted if it's not on stage.
I wonder if it kind of goes along with the general antithesis towards hirelings/henchmen I've encountered.

That would seem consistent with either of those reasons.

Interestingly we first did troupe play in Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, and Star Trek. The first two games don't divide a pool of experience between the party. Experience is based on earned skill checks which is based on what skills the PC succeeds at using in game. For the most part the number of characters in the group is irrelevant to the number of skill checks earned.

In the last game (house ruled FASA Star Trek) we didn't use experience at all. Characters stayed static (except for the rare occassion of some low or mid level character going off and spending time out of game at a new school e.g. command school), so it didn't matter which character did what from an experience standpoint.

That makes me wonder if perhaps your players might find troupe play easier to introduce if experience was not an issue.

Another thing I find that helped, was the willingness of the GM and players to split up the party and have different PCs in different locations. The typical D&D attitude of "don't split up the party" actually eliminates one of the advantages of troupe play: having a character to play in each of the split locations. Note also that split locations mean that the single PC is forced to get nothing (experience or screen time) when play focuses on the other locations. So in that situation if there are 3 locations the player is faced with getting no experience for 2 of the 3 locations and no screen time for 2 of the 3 locations. In that situtation, playing an alternate character may seem more appealing.

Quote from: rawma;813389A potential concern is that some players might not properly separate their several player characters--keeping information, goals and motivations apart. (Less of an issue if the player characters all have a common motivation/allegiance/organization to align their interests.)

Yes that can be a concern. However, if it is the player who is concerned about this (as opposed to the GM or the other players) I would include it under the first point.

Quote from: Bren;813379

• Some players want to stay in the POV of a single character. So running multiple characters may detract from their experience.

Quote from: Bren;813398Another thing I find that helped, was the willingness of the GM and players to split up the party and have different PCs in different locations. The typical D&D attitude of "don't split up the party" actually eliminates one of the advantages of troupe play: having a character to play in each of the split locations.

I know it's not proper troupe play but during a recent DCC funnel I played in... we had 16 zero level PCs and the chimes of 'don't split the party' were still being rung. I tried to convince them to break into smaller parties but they just wouldn't hear of it. It ended up being a bit of a conveyor belt... a bunch of PCs would go forward and the others would hang idle out in the back. As front rank PCs died off the idle PCs would move forward. Seemed to me to kind of miss the point...
 
The DCC games I've run have been with relative non-gamers and much more chaotic... lots of little clumps of PCs.

Quote from: Bren;813398Yes that can be a concern. However, if it is the player who is concerned about this (as opposed to the GM or the other players) I would include it under the first point.

Indeed, I was thinking of it more as a concern of the other players.

Quote from: rawma;813404Indeed, I was thinking of it more as a concern of the other players.

Then yes, that would be a different reason.

Quote from: Bren;813398Another thing I find that helped, was the willingness of the GM and players to split up the party and have different PCs in different locations. The typical D&D attitude of "don't split up the party" actually eliminates one of the advantages of troupe play: having a character to play in each of the split locations. Note also that split locations mean that the single PC is forced to get nothing (experience or screen time) when play focuses on the other locations. So in that situation if there are 3 locations the player is faced with getting no experience for 2 of the 3 locations and no screen time for 2 of the 3 locations. In that situtation, playing an alternate character may seem more appealing.

We play Ars Magica in classic troupe mode (we each have a wizzie, a companion and five frogs), and we usually handle this issue by all taking two or more characters on missions. As a group though, we are fine with splitting the party, and will do so any time things need investigated.

The problems we've found are mostly due to having multiple characters, by the same player, together; it's sometimes tricky to tell who is talking, or to stay in character for two PC's at once.

Me and another player also had subplots going on with our grogs, which felt a bit schizophrenic at times. Embarrassingly, it took us two years before we realised "you know, we could just swap grogs"; it's been a bit odd as we play the characters a bit differently, but it works much better now.

Quote from: Ladybird;813421We play Ars Magica in classic troupe mode (we each have a wizzie, a companion and five frogs), and we usually handle this issue by all taking two or more characters on missions. As a group though, we are fine with splitting the party, and will do so any time things need investigated.

Yeah, my players are fine. We frequently end up with 2-4 locations among 4 PCs. And by frequently I mean it is at least as common to having all the PCs in one location.

QuoteThe problems we've found are mostly due to having multiple characters, by the same player, together; it's sometimes tricky to tell who is talking, or to stay in character for two PC's at once.

That can be tricky. We tend to create characters that are intentionally different personality wise which helps. I'm also fortunate in that one of my players creates characters who are so clear and distinct that it is obvious when they spoke. But sometimes we would get a confused, "Who said that?"

QuoteMe and another player also had subplots going on with our grogs, which felt a bit schizophrenic at times. Embarrassingly, it took us two years before we realised "you know, we could just swap grogs"; it's been a bit odd as we play the characters a bit differently, but it works much better now.

I'm not sure I followed that. (I assume a grog is a minor PC or retainer NPC that is run by one of the players.) It such a situation we would just have the GM of the moment run their own grogs. We also had minor NPCs e.g. Brutus and Cletus the NPC redshirts who were pretty two dimensional but were used to round out the party. Anyone might run those guys.

Quote from: Bren;813398That makes me wonder if perhaps your players might find troupe play easier to introduce if experience was not an issue.

That may be why my players love troupe play. We don't use XP at all.

QuoteAnother thing I find that helped, was the willingness of the GM and players to split up the party and have different PCs in different locations. The typical D&D attitude of "don't split up the party" actually eliminates one of the advantages of troupe play: having a character to play in each of the split locations. Note also that split locations mean that the single PC is forced to get nothing (experience or screen time) when play focuses on the other locations. So in that situation if there are 3 locations the player is faced with getting no experience for 2 of the 3 locations and no screen time for 2 of the 3 locations. In that situtation, playing an alternate character may seem more appealing.

That is a huge thing for the group. Being willing to split the party as needed plays to one of the great strengths of troupe play. Nobody gets left out.

Quote from: Ladybird;813421Me and another player also had subplots going on with our grogs, which felt a bit schizophrenic at times. Embarrassingly, it took us two years before we realised "you know, we could just swap grogs"; it's been a bit odd as we play the characters a bit differently, but it works much better now.

In classic Ars Magica, aren't the grogs played communally in the first place?

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;813457That may be why my players love troupe play. We don't use XP at all.



That is a huge thing for the group. Being willing to split the party as needed plays to one of the great strengths of troupe play. Nobody gets left out.

Which is interesting. Until this thread, I'd never made the connection between XP split and acceptability of troupe play for some players. So thanks for starting an intersting conversation.

Yeah of the players never want to split the party troupe play is less useful and I'd say less interesting. I like splitting parties for three reasons.

• Plausibility - it makes more sense to me that at least some of the time the party would leave the rude barbarian back at the bar instead of bringing him to the fancy court reception. Sure every know and then the character who is a fish out of water is fun, but realistically it would make more sense to leave the guy who is almost guaranteed to screw up your audience with the king back at the bar. Where she can get in a bar fight.
  
• Focus - splitting the party allows the ability to focus on other characters, even minor characters and to follow subpots that focus on those minor characters.
  
• Flexibility - which might be seen as a combination of plausibility and focus. By having more characters there are more hooks that fit some of the characters. And by splitting the party you don't have to work hard to explain why the odd person out comes along on something the character is uninterested in and is not particularly suited for.
  

One thing we finally realized consciously in my last gaming group is the philosophical difference between a character's XP and a player's XP.

That is, should XP drive from what a character does, or a player?

Character:
The character achieves something, learns something (XP). The character has an incentive to learn and do stuff related to their focus (like older D&D and stuff like different classes getting XP for different things).
If a character dies, there goes their XP... because XP is attached to what the character has done.

Player:
XP is a reward for effort and fun. This encourages more XP for things like 'attending the game and making it enjoyable,' or more diffuse, high level concerns. Like 'we finished the adventure of the Dulcet Keep.'
Also, there is more incentive to attach XP to the player, so that if the character dies, the XP rolls over to the next character.


I don't advocate one focus or another, just reflecting.

Quote from: Bren;813438I'm not sure I followed that. (I assume a grog is a minor PC or retainer NPC that is run by one of the players.) It such a situation we would just have the GM of the moment run their own grogs. We also had minor NPCs e.g. Brutus and Cletus the NPC redshirts who were pretty two dimensional but were used to round out the party. Anyone might run those guys.

There's three types of character in Ars Magica; Wizards are... wizards, Companions are more interesting types of people (Like knights, scholars, craftsmen, etc) and Grogs are the lesser types (Servants, shieldbearers, hunters).

One of my grogs is (was) my wizard's servant. My wizard is a jerk, he's a bit of a spoilt teenager with no empathy, and she's been loyal but openly contemptuous of him for a long time (He's never noticed, because why would he pay that much attention to her?); it was getting tedious to add "...and (Servant) rolls her eyes" after every time he said anything stupid.

Another player had a sideplot going on between her wizard and her shieldgrog (Not going into detail on this, as the details are a secret). The GM would sometimes play these characters for us, but we like playing grogs, and this way we're more engaged as players (Because with more characters, we're more likely to have one of our characters in a scene).

Quote from: flyingmice;813460In classic Ars Magica, aren't the grogs played communally in the first place?

-clash

Huh, apparently so (Having just checked my rulebook, I'd never noticed that line before). Organisationally-wise, we each have a character folder with five grogs, a companion, and a wizard, and the grogs are considered to "belong" to us, but not necessarily our wizards (I think most of us have one personal servant, and the rest of our grogs are chantry employees).

Checking my folder, I've got the shieldgrog from above, a scout, stablehand, cook, and beggar.

I'm not sure how I feel about pooling them as a mechanism, though; I could see an at-table issue (Having to sift through the group pile of grogs every time, rather than each player having a few and knowing their capabilities), and also an issue of keeping them in character. I like the grogs, I like the contrast of doing sessions about them instead of the wizards (And the challenge of solving problems with them), and I like how they feel more grounded and part of the world than the wizards do. I'm not sure I'd get that without a character that was "mine".

There's something magical about RPGs that encourage people to miss rules for years and years.

I think ENWorld had a funny thread of spells with critical bits people kept missing.

In my old group, any time there was some confusion about a spell, the joke became 'read the last line' -- very frequently someone adamant that the spell said X had somehow managed to stop reading the description before some critical last qualifier.
And I'm not talking about rule jerks; people have a genuine ability to form these impenetrable mental blocks at random stuff. (One reason why every writer needs someone else to be an editor)