Hey #dnd#ttrpg folks! I'm running my Kingmaker campaign with some of the optional companions. However, I don't necessarily want to let them have every single person they meet follow them. RPing all of those NPCs is a lot of work. How do you handle games like this where the players can have a lot of NPCs "in their party?"
@pandora_parrot I use oracles and templates to do the heavy lifting. So templates are like I give them a Motive, Goal, Attitude, and Style. Oracles are like either I ask yes/no, and/but answerable questions or assign labels like say Cooperation and Restraint [low = opposite/not at all, high = very much]. I like it so much I even wrote a set of Motif Engines [Story, Character, World] using that approach. :P But basically, off-load the heft of running them and have some surprise/random fun.