WOuld it be possible to have the party be a single combat unit for all intents and putposes? I'm thinking here of RTS games where you can build "A squad of riflemen" or "a jeep" and both count as one nit in the game, since you just click and command them, but the riflemen look like four little guys.

To continue the RTS analogy, what if you got to choose between making two marines, two medics and a firebat or making Kerrigan, Queen of Blades? The first one is a complementary group of units that can handle a variety of situations through teamwork, and the second one is a raging solo badass unit.

I think it could work, if the challenges you face are the sort that allow you to handle them with either deployment format. My main concern would be story and character development. If there's any sort of significant dialogue or major character-based plot events, you'll struggle to put a platoon in the conversation.

So how about just having one character, but including "minions" in the design? You can create a cyberninja, who just runs around killing people with his super brain powers and laser sword, or you can choose a squad-commanding unit, and then recruit or summon backup that allows you to achieve your goals. Instead of "eyeball laser" you have a skill for "marksmanship command" which gives a bonus to members of your team using long-range weapons. Managing team morale, speed of movement, care and feeding and equipping them would take the place of finding arcane tomes to study or tapping into the powergrid to repair your exosuit or whatever it is that the solo pwnmobile characters would have to contend with, but when the mayor asks for a favor, there's no doubt which specific character he's talking to.

Quote: Original post by Trapper Zoid
Solo runs are quite common in games like Baldur's Gate. But I'm not sure if that's what you mean.

You have me laughing here. I didn't play much BG, but I did play Icewind Dale to the end. I always assumed you HAD to have a party to start the game. I just NEVER thought about going solo. [grin]

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I think the game becomes very different once you need to control more than one character. With one character you can design the game like a third person action adventure, where it's all about the hero. With multiple characters, it's now a strategy game.

Good point. This extends right down to the game design, of course. Take something as basic as healing. As soon as you introduce potions that heal, any healer in the party becomes less important (even useless, depending on how easy the potions are to get).

Quote: Original post by Kaze
If I had direct control like a tactics or RTS interface I would take a party since it opens up more strategy but if they were AI controlled I would just dump all the points into one character since 95% of the time NPC allies are a liability.

Your point about making the most of combat as either single or multiple individuals is spot on. Would it matter at all if the gameplay was a tradeoff between tactical flexibility and raw power?

I'm thinking of the old Steve Jackson game Ogre, which pitted one super tank against a bunch of weaker armed trucks and jeeps. The idea in that game was that if you were not the Ogre, you spread your forces out to make the most of your environment. If you were, you drew your enemies into traps and concentrated your firepower.

I wonder about creating an enemy that would respond to you via either strategy based on what you were. If you were a party, you could field more firepower from different angles, for instance. If you were a single character, maybe you could move faster (as an abstraction).

So if I create enemies that require attacks from multiple sides or bait & lure tactics where speed works well, would that make for a good trade off in choosing party or single character?

My point is that I don't want either choice to be superior.

Quote: Original post by Wai
One way you could set up the trade off, is that when you have more party members the experience gets divided. This would force the player to make the party members specialized because there aren't many spare xp points to toy around.

This sounds very interesting! As a party you wouldn't level up as fast, but you'd be able to apply N times the amount of firepower in combat.

Quote: Original post by loufoque
I find having multiple characters much more interesting. Instead of having a all-around character, you can have characters which are all specialized, and combine their actions toward victory.

Yes, this is the biggest draw for me. I like the thought of retrying with different mixes, especially imbalanced mixes (like all magic users or thieves).

Quote: Original post by Durakken
Hrmmm the difference in development is that you have more time and ability to add in details for that one specific character in back story and often in costumes as well as stats and such...while with more characters you have less time for back story, character development, other various things that would need to be spread between characters...

Good point. I know that the "nameless hero" thing is often complained about, but my thoughts are that the world's story is far more important than an individual's story. I think any rich personal stories are going to need to come from the NPCs.

Quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
To continue the RTS analogy, what if you got to choose between making two marines, two medics and a firebat or making Kerrigan, Queen of Blades? The first one is a complementary group of units that can handle a variety of situations through teamwork, and the second one is a raging solo badass unit.

Yeah, this is along the lines of what I was thinking. I was even thinking of making it a difference in racial pick or character type, or maybe even some sort of character creation kit where you spend character points to make each character special. I might impose a sort of rule that the points have to be balanced across any characters you create, but even that may not be necessary. What if you want to run around not with Kerrigan, Queen of Blades but the slightly less awesome Jim Raynor and two marines?

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I think it could work, if the challenges you face are the sort that allow you to handle them with either deployment format.

Taking Starcraft to mind, I noticed that they didn't have to work all that hard to give her parity. She had greater HP, stealth and area of effect attacks IIRC, which were abilities spread out among weaker individual units.

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My main concern would be story and character development. If there's any sort of significant dialogue or major character-based plot events, you'll struggle to put a platoon in the conversation.

That may not be a problem. I don't have much love for the PCs I create to be deeply laden with story, probably because they're my creations.

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So how about just having one character, but including "minions" in the design?

This may work as well and may make any story considerations much easier.