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and Minimeister
 
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Matt Pennington (5/30/2006)
balor (5/29/2006)
Why should NPCs be so restrained? The reasons given are not valid as it is easy for a ref to remove them. I personally prefer to make sure that any and all NPCs are given:
- Stats which are comparable to the players. In some cases they may be more skilled/experienced, others may be less so but generally worked out with some form of system in mind to make sure that they are reasonably comparable to the players.Bah, those are easy mechanical things to fix. It's trivially easy to say "we'll we won't give our NPC mingy stats of doom", but there is a more significant problem. Many players assume that NPCs represent an aspect of the game world, rather than characters that exist within it, they presume that they are embodiments of the expression of the plot from the plot team, rather than independent agents. For instance, you're in your camp planning for the battle next day when a NPC scout comes in to tell you that he's just returned from the front and he's been scouting on the advancing army and seen 1500 soldiers moving in a column towards Dirtville. You don't go out and check this information, because you know that the organisers are not about to phys-rep 1500 soldiers moving in a column towards Dirtville. In fact, you're looking at the phys-rep of that information being provided to you by the plot team. And so naturally you place a rather higher value of trust on what the NPC says than you might otherwise. That is a fairly specious example and I'm well aware that in some games some organisers could sometimes organise a linear to go and scout the army or whatever. The point though is that players often assume that facts provided by NPCs are pieces of plot first and part of the NPC's legitimate character agendas second. They assume that the point is to roleplay with the information not the source. The consequence is that almost everyone places a rediculously high level of trust in the things NPCs say even after they have repeatedly proven themselves to be total liars.*shrug* I'm sure some will disagree with me, but my experience of running LRP games for years is that even players who steadfastly refuse to believe anything another PC says will place rediculous amounts of trust in NPCs. I've had letters of complaint about the "inconsistency of campaign" when players investigate things NPCs have told them and find out it's total and utter hogwash. Even when presented with IC evidence that it's all cock and bull some players will still believe the NPC and simply assume you cocked up OOC. Statting NPCs is one thing, but you also have to be careful about how NPCs present themselves and how they interact with PCs. NPCs that even remotely appear to be "instruments by which plot is delivered to PCs" will be unduly effective at steering the game world towards their agenda in my experience. I think that your points are only true Matt, if you can distinguish PC's from NPC's. However if you can't tell the two apart then you have no reason to believe/disbelieve one more than another. Someone else stated that the goal of NPC's is to be indistinguishable from PC's is this a helpful distinction or are they better suited to being information conduits?
There is only overconfidence and terror.
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Wag
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| If you can distinguish them then, yes, it is a problem. The trick is to make sure that the players have no idea who is who. Difficult to achieve but possible. There have been a number of events (one memorable Shards event in particular) where I have crewed and the players at the end of the event told me that they thought I was playing. I suppose it would help if you split your monster crew into those who play one NPC the entire event and those who switch roles as needed (i.e. play one off NPCs or gribbly monsters). That way the players need never know that Bob is really an NPC simply because 30 minutes ago he was charging at them wearing an Orc mask. I hold Omega as the prime example of a game where crew were mingled with the players incredibly well. A few times I remember spotting someone playing a character who could be a player taking part in a 'grunt monster attack' but the fact that Omega had the policy of recruiting some grunt crew from the playerbase anyway (taking players who were at a loose end for a few hours to dress up differently and play something else for a change - usually a short lived concept) meant that this was somewhat blurred. Are they crew playing an NPC or a player who took a turn as a crew member? Hard to tell for sure and therefore better not to even think about it and treat all characters you meet the same. Omega was relatively large scale which meant that you could not know everyone there and whether they were playing or crewing and that does help. However, even in small scale you can manage to fool the players into thinking someone is a player when really they are an NPC. At the recent Viking game I was not aware that MattP was in fact an NPC at all, depsite a lot of interaction with him. He played exactly the way he would have done if he were a player. At a few events of mine I have taken people who no one has previously known to be crew and sited them within the players as NPCs for the majority of the event - only taking them out to play something else once the game was up (usually after they'd been uncovered as the evil spy and killed). This included one NPC who was deliberately set up to die as part of the plot in a quite horrific way. The players were all led to beleive that she was in fact a PC because it was thought the emotional impact of the death would be so much more potent. It worked. Ultimately, however, it partly comes down to the players. They need to stop thinking in that very metagaming way that there is a difference between players and non players and simply treat all as equal. I am aware that this is the difficult part. I do know that when I am playing I cannot always switch off the part of my brain which is labelled 'event organiser' which keeps prompting me with little notes about what it thinks is happening by thinking about what I would do with that plot as a ref. Makes playing sometimes a nightmare and also often gets me into trouble IC (the Vikings game is another example there. I could have got away with my evil treachery but I thought a) the refs would really love for this to come out in some way so I have to reveal it if only to stir the pot and b) hell, my character is ultimately a nice guy so he has guilt. Lets play on that...  )
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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Wag
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I think that your points are only true Matt, if you can distinguish PC's from NPC's.
Generally, you can, even if you assume that these are NPCs with a completely independent brief.
First off, you might simply know OOC that they are crew (something you're likely to pick up rapidly as the campaign continues without any determined volition).
Secondly, NPCs behave differently because they almost always have different imperatives - their conception of why they are there playing that character will tend to be different (unless you grab people at random and force them into NPC roles then you're going to have a selection process going on). Perhaps more importantly, NPCs tend to share responsibility for the character with a ref - 'failing' IC is not so galling (particularly since NPCs are often designed to fail) which means they tend to be much more resistant than PCs to the paralysing effects of fear.
Thirdly, NPCs tend to spend time with refs/system designers. Anytime when players balk at playing with the system (e.g. loving slavery and God) the NPCs can be sure to have been recalibrated at the source or even tending to overemphasis in frustrated compensation.
Fourthly, refs rarely have enough NPCs to allow them to hang around doing nothing at all/sitting around the campfire not doing much.
Fifthly, NPCs get access to much more IC information than a PC simply through playing multiple roles/being near the refs while they are working stuff out.
Put all these things together and NPCs stick out like a sore thumb.
However if you can't tell the two apart then you have no reason to believe/disbelieve one more than another. Someone else stated that the goal of NPC's is to be indistinguishable from PC's is thisa helpful distinction or are they better suited to being information conduits?
Being indistinguishable isn't a very useful primary goal (why bother hiring them on as NPC crew in the first place?). Obviously, you don't want them to make a point of being an NPC, but you probably don't want to subvert all other goals to hiding the fact either. It's not that NPCs are better suited to being information conduits, merely that you might need one and not want to have to replace it with some hours knocking up a physrep of some memoirs. Unless your system contains only the characters (some sort of frontier/post-apocalyptic system) then they might reasonably want to talk to some of the other people in the system.
Marios
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Wag
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Ultimately, however, it partly comes down to the players. They need to stop thinking in that very metagaming way that there is a difference between players and non players and simply treat all as equal. I am aware that this is the difficult part.
It's a bit like saying, don't let the fact that I told you OOC last night that I'm intending to assassinate you effect your roleplay ...
I think it's a bit more justified with NPCs - it's not so much that you'll act differently with them, but you simply won't be surprised when they are unduly hard to find later. You can quite justifiably prefer to interact with PCs than NPCs (after all, if you can tell the difference then you have grounds for preference).
Marios
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and Minimeister
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balor (5/30/2006)
If you can distinguish them then, yes, it is a problem. The trick is to make sure that the players have no idea who is who. Difficult to achieve but possible. There have been a number of events (one memorable Shards event in particular) where I have crewed and the players at the end of the event told me that they thought I was playing. I suppose it would help if you split your monster crew into those who play one NPC the entire event and those who switch roles as needed (i.e. play one off NPCs or gribbly monsters). That way the players need never know that Bob is really an NPC simply because 30 minutes ago he was charging at them wearing an Orc mask. So what, in your xp as a game organizer, makes the difference between an NPC who sticks out and one who blends in? "Bob" does tend to get spotted as an NPC because he's never around when the fighting starts. (Cowardly PC's are normally there when the fighting starts, but not 30s afterwards). balor (5/30/2006)
<snip>Are they crew playing an NPC or a player who took a turn as a crew member? Hard to tell for sure and therefore better not to even think about it and treat all characters you meet the same. <sniP>This included one NPC who was deliberately set up to die as part of the plot in a quite horrific way. The players were all led to beleive that she was in fact a PC because it was thought the emotional impact of the death would be so much more potent. It worked. Ultimately, however, it partly comes down to the players. They need to stop thinking in that very metagaming way that there is a difference between players and non players and simply treat all as equal. But there is a HUGE difference between players and non-players and that's that NPC's disappear and you can never sort anything out with them. If a PC acted in the same way I wouldn't treat or deal with them because I couldn't depend on them. balor (5/30/2006)
<snip>I could have got away with my evil treachery but I thought a) the refs would really love for this to come out in some way so I have to reveal it if only to stir the pot and b) hell, my character is ultimately a nice guy so he has guilt. Lets play on that... ) Just to play devil's advocate, what do you say is the difference between what you did and someone deciding to "add drama"/"add something "appropriate" to the game" to a situation by not falling down after they've been hit the requisite number of times? You don't _know_ that you wouldn't have been caught, all it takes after all is one slip.  Also you deny the organisers the opportunity to screw with your plot in that case as well. Meh, just saying.
There is only overconfidence and terror.
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Initiate
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As one of the towel-heads towards the tail end of Omega, I found it really pleasing - if somewhat awkward - when people asked who we were camped with so that they could get in touch with us about things. The usual phrase was that we were camped 'half a mile outside of the gathering', occasionally coupled with actually explaining that we were NPCs.
This was more-or-less a direct result, in my mind, of the way Omega ran monsters, telling us, effectively, to act as temporary PCs with our own goals and aims.
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Wag
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Marios (5/30/2006)
Put all these things together and NPCs stick out like a sore thumb.
In many of the games I have played the majority of NPCs stick out so badly, so profoundly, so disturbingly (they disturb my suspensio of disbelief because their reactions are so "unreal") that I try to avoid roleplaying with them where remotely possible. At an individual level it is possible to disguise the fact that a character is an NPC, although it's rarely done for long in my experience. And even worse the reveal can make the deception all the more pained. Some players love those "prearranged death scenes" in which the NPC is the one that evil monster rends limb from limb, but in my experience the entire thing always ends up sour once I realise they were wearing a red jersey all along.
Being indistinguishable isn't a very useful primary goal (why bother hiring them on as NPC crew in the first place?).
In my opinion deceiving the players about who is crew and who is not is of limited value. We placed a lot of emphasis on it in the early years of running Omega, but over time I came to see it as a flawed approach. For a start players tend to rumble your crew when they do things like pay for food with meal tokens or whatever.
More significantly it misses the point of what you are trying to achieve. To me the real apogee of this style is to develop a game where people genuinely do not care if your character is an NPC or a PC because it makes no difference to the way they roleplay with you and no difference to the way you roleplay with them. Once being an NPC has no effect on the roleplaying then it doesn't matter anymore who knows.
I think that's difficult to achieve and I agree with you, that in some ways it limits the uses they can offer as NPCs, (PCs are generally guranteed to be indistinguishable from PCs and cost you less money), but I think it's wrong to suppose they are pointless.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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Wag
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