Power in Numbers

 Action Economy is a weird thing. If you're not familiar with the idea, Action Economy refers to how many actions players get in a given Turn or Round or Cycle or w/e. The topic often comes up because More Actions is universally better which can make balance a bit challenging. For the sake of clarity from now on a "Turn" refers to any Player's "You get to go" moment, and a "Cycle" refers to the full cycle of "Your allies go and your enemies go". Let's take some examples to see how different games deal with Action Economy:

• In Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition™ each player can (on their turn) take 1 Movement, 1 Action (like an Attack or an extra movement), 1 Bonus Action (defined by class), 1 Reaction (like an Attack of Opportunity [[*1]]) and "Free Actions" (like dropping an item). Who takes turns in what order is generally defined by Initiative. In this way in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition™, a party of 5 might be able to lodge 5-10 Attacks (including bonus abilities and extra attacks) when fielded against a single dragon who may only get 1 or 2. Hence why the game is often maligned for having an "Action Economy problem" which is why generally GMs want to field multiple adversaries to keep things challenging or modify things to give single adversaries more actions [[*2].
• In Cyberpunk 2020 on your turn you can technically take as many Actions as you'd like, you just suffer worse and worse penalties the more Actions you take. In this way a Solo (true to their name) can be a one-man powerhouse who can smoke 4 goons in a single Turn by pushing their luck harder and harder. That said the only downside to "Failure" is you waste some bullets and your turn ends, so it's not terribly punishing and generally a good idea to attempt as much as possible. The general GM advice here is to have goons outnumber your team to compensate. Turn order is again defined by an initiative roll.
• In my own game Mobile Engagement Chassis: Steel Hearts I wanted their to be a greater focus on 5 v 1 Boss Fights. Each "Player Phase" the entire team gets a set amount of Actions defined by the Boss' Action Allowance ((AA - ex: 6 AA) that Players can take in any order. Each Player gets 2 Actions before everyone's actions refresh.  In this way with 6 AA and 5 Players, 3 Players could act twice (and those 3 players would be out of actions next Allied Phase) or everyone could act once before one Player acts twice. During the Enemy Phase all enemies get to take a minimum of 2 Actions (ex: Move, Attack, Heal, etx) and Bosses often get additional Actions. This way no matter how large or small your group, the encounter is relatively "balanced" in terms of how much DMG you can do in a round.

But you know what? Today is one of those rare days where I'm going up to bat for the Pinkerton users and defend what might seem like an otherwise broken Action Economy... Kind of. You see Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition™ is just that, the 5th Edition of a much older game. And any fans of said older games (and especially the OSR scene that its faded memories spawned) will tell you the game was like this for a reason. And I'm here to do the same! Because yes, that Action Economy grossly favors larger Player parties. And that's exactly the point.

Power in Numbers

In simplest terms, most D&D (and D&D-like) Action Economies favor Power in Numbers. More dudes = More actions = More DMG = Easier time.

As I'm working on WILD and reading more great posts about Hirelings, it made me want to discuss a bit of the Action Economy in WILD and why it's like that. In WILD you roll to determine Initiative for the Round (Cycle) and then every unit gets a single action. This action might be to shoot, or move, or use an item, or stabilize a dying ally, but you only get one. This means in a given (traditional) gunfight there are two major factors that play into who will win: Who shoots first and who has more units. And that's exactly the point.

Yes there's ways to make your character an absolute killing machine via advancement (which locks you out of other useful abilities), but there will always be benefits to having more guys and thus more actions, bullets, storage, etc. This isn't Red Dead Redemption where you're mowing down whole towns on your own. This is a ruthless frontier where gunfights are messy and death lurks behind every corner. PCs will die if they're outgunned, unless they're incredibly smart, incredibly fast or incredibly lucky. Enter the Hirelings.

Hirelings allow Players to "invest" in the Power of Numbers. And gaining a Hireling who's loyal? That's a game changer (as is losing them). You Balance the Player party by allowing (and possibly limiting) their ability to functionally buy more actions in the form of a little Hireling. By forming their own posse. Just like the good ol' days.

How do you Balance Encounters?

With an Action Economy like this? You don't. Much like Morrowind's content stays consistent to create a believably deadly world, so should you. All content has a set difficulty, Players need to learn when to quit (and have ample options to run), and most of all bring help to get the edge when they need it.

Dark Souls allows you to adjust the challenge by Summoning help. So too should a campaign like this emphasize that difficulty is subjective to how large your team is. If you've played Monster Hunter you know this feeling as well. It's the spirit of true cooperation where you have to ask for the help of another Player.

5 Players may be just enough to rob a bank, but what about if you only have 2? Well it's time to either pick another target, pull in some Hirelings or ask your friends for help. Want to delve into the ancient dungeons beneath the sands? Sure the monsters down there only get 2 actions, but do you really want to chance going it alone? Why not bring 5 or 6 guys to spit out as much lead as possible into a Phage-Jaguar if you bump into one. The payout will be worse for you, but it'll be safer.

An Action Economy that favors bigger parties is the crux of a more Sandboxy West Marches campaign. Cooperation no longer becomes a mandatory formality of meeting at the table. But rather finding and building a party of people you trust becomes incredibly advantageous. True cooperation rather than the coercion of some parties. Smart games lean into this further with classes and perks that offer something unique (Pretty much why classes exist in the first place). Thus drafting your party is no longer about looking around at a table of OCs who have banded together For Reasons, but rather cherry picking your most trusted and skilled allies who could die at any moment.

It struck me that, despite having wandered away from many D&D-isms initially for hating that combat system, my design in WILD hems very closely to that very same combat ethos. Because it was never built for heroic action fantasy or even tactical combat. It was built for sniveling lvl 1s who had to cling together in the dungeons until they could field a proper army. When playing D&D combat things felt exceedingly messy. Characters miss wasting actions, melee can't be easily disengaged from, being outnumbered by goblins could cause a TPK. And that's exactly the point.

Power in numbers makes for a poor power fantasy but feels essential to a deadly open sandbox.

[[*1 - So after many years of playing Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition™, I only learned today that RAW you can only make a single attack of opportunity between your last turn and your next turn. Which completely redefines that game's combat. My community has been playing it wrong for so long T^T ]] 

[[*2 - Something something, D&D 4e tried to work on Action Economy with stuff like Minions and Cleaving, but it was still addressing the issue of "More players = more turns = more damage" and answering with "Here's how you even the playing field on the monsters' side" ]]