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Champion
 
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problem is with linears, where its obvious whom the NPC's are, and they dont tend to be well breifed for certain characters, for example: how many peasants have people met, named bob or fred?
____________________________________As the old robot saying goes "does not compute"
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and Minimeister
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Xollob (6/8/2006)
problem is with linears, where its obvious whom the NPC's are, and they dont tend to be well breifed for certain characters, for example: how many peasants have people met, named bob or fred?I suppose you could arrange a meeting in a church sort of thing and then have someone try and arrange their "party" by picking the various people there. Apparently DUTT has the highest standards of NPC briefings in the world, so I conclude we should ask them for their tricks.
There is only overconfidence and terror.
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Champion
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| The problem with linears is easily solved by just briefing your NPCs a little better. I've been on some linears with some fantastic NPCs who were indistinguishable from players up until the prearranged time for them to shiv us in the back and steal the loot. Heck, even then they were pretty indistinguishable from some players  I think the rest of the problem is due to erroneous PC expectations of NPC behaviour. As Marios said, some pro-active characters can be mistaken for NPCs as they play with the sort of conviction and motivation that one expects from an NPC. I had a character once who delighted in spreading the latest gossip from camp to camp, and who consequently was always being mistaken for the sort of plot NPC who delivers the news. Some IC behaviours are more common to NPCs than PCs. Blur that line, with proactive players and cautious NPCs, and there ceases to be an easy way to tell them apart.
Internet Redcap: Don't make me put the hat on
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Heroic Knight
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| Gaming is about wanting to derive a benefit for your character from information you've inferred as a player. As MP points out, making the player not care/not derive a benefit from doing so is a better approach than trying to make such inference difficult (and thus be trapped in the tiresome locksmith/lock-picker cycle). We've received good feedback from players/crew on our approach to the NPC magnet problem. We start the game normally with a number of NPCs either in the caravan or entering along with players who are late. A sub-set of regulars will know each other but won't be able to determine who's a new player and who's crew for about half the event if at all (we encourage migration between playing & crewing). New players we've discovered find it particularly hard, and will often give half their player vote awards to someone who was actually crew. It's not perfect of course. If about 3 or 4 of us are playing a role then magnet kicks in, but to counter that I try to play either Use or Complete Use and give chunky parts to newcomers or masked regulars. The format of the game also helps of course, and this is an area where you have to use what you've got. For us it's easy as the caravan is largely PvP thus players are normally as/more interested in nailing that deal for Jahanese dye with a fellow merchant than they are to talk to some local scruff with tall tales of shadowy forms in the woods (said scruff might get chucked a penny and told to bugger off or be incentivised by merchant's bodyguard). Anyway, my tupence worth.
Nyctophobia
www.nyctophobia.org.uk
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Wag
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| Linears do of course have the problem of there being a distinct monster crew who are obvious. They also, however, have less need for 'secret NPCs' unless, as stated, the intention is to steal the loot. Also, these NPCs are less likely to be long term - more than likely to be a single adventure duration. Though a few times I have played the emplyer of the players as an NPC who went on the linear with them. His main job was to get in the way, complain about bad service, make useful 'suggestions' and generally get on their nerves.  Good briefing is invaluable and the way you brief is also important. Giving all the NPCs a detailed brief about what THEY know IC rather than the entire plot, for example. And also giving the briefs in advance of the actual event - by e-mail, or phone, for example, or even in person if you live close enough. That way, you prevent the 'all the crew wander off for a crew brief before the start of the event' dead giveaway
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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coffmeister (6/8/2006)
Xollob (6/8/2006)
problem is with linears, where its obvious whom the NPC's are, and they dont tend to be well breifed for certain characters, for example: how many peasants have people met, named bob or fred?I suppose you could arrange a meeting in a church sort of thing and then have someone try and arrange their "party" by picking the various people there. Apparently DUTT has the highest standards of NPC briefings in the world, so I conclude we should ask them for their tricks.
Not sure what context you mean. Putting plants on adventures is easy (you don't even need to tell them until you're almost ready to go - by the way, you're in contact with a guy who has offered you three times the pay if this mission doesn't go off and five times if no one else makes it back) - is that an NPC or a PC with a bit of extra knowledge? I think to be an NPC would mean the refs writing some background for you (if you can get their background in advance, it's easier to write the adventure around the backgrounds).
"Monster" roles tend to be automatically set as most people describe NPC roles. As much as possible, your brief is only circumstantial ("Your master has commanded you to bring you a living specimen. Your master is a follower of Vivamort and gives you corpses to eat.") so you can generate your own motives/mindset.
Once you've given a monster/NPC a full brief on everything they should know, I'm not sure what else you can give them other than autonomy. Ideally, briefs shouldn't tell you what you think or how you feel, just what happened/what you think happened. After that, the only way I can imagine raising standards is by spellchecking and using nicer paper.
As for tricks, that easy. Come the end of the event, we simply kill and feast on the weakest player. It is ma'at.
Marios
P.S. My knowledge of DUTT practice is, however, increasingly out of date. For all I know, they may store parts in tupperware and make a sacrifice once every two/three events.
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Heroic Knight
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I'm not sure quite how relevant this is, but I sometimes play in a small system which is strongly based around community and social interaction, and in which all of the crew members have a regular NPC who is a detailed, three-dimensional member of the community with their own secrets, personality and agenda. After the first game I was talking to the one of the refs about what I enjoyed, and mentioned how good it was that the NPCs were almost indistinguishable from the PCs. I was really quite surprised when he told me that one of the other players had actually complained about this, claiming that it made it impossible to tell who was a "real" player, and who was just a plot NPC.
No spoken or written word can ever be a substitute for one's own practical experience. No-one too can convince another who does not wish to believe what he is told - only the doubter loses by his incredulity - T.C. Lethbridge
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Prodigal
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I was really quite surprised when he told me that one of the other players had actually complained about this, claiming that it made it impossible to tell who was a "real" player, and who was just a plot NPC. *sigh* Some people.
_____________________________________________________ It is not a competition. It is a web forum.
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