On May 20, 12:00 am, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-s...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> Magister <magis...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
> > One of the disappointing aspects of my GMing is handling non-combat
> > interaction with a number of NPCs simultaneously. [combat goes okay]
> > If I just dive in and try to do everything, I end up overwhelmed;
> > usually most of the NPCs disappear into the woodwork.
>
> What is it you're thinking of? What "everything" is it you try to do?
> I can think of many possible answers, but I don't know what it is
> you're referring to in particular.
Try to play all of the NPCs fully, or fairly--as believable decision
makers. The difficulty is not so much presenting their decisions,
but in making decisions for all of the NPCs, factoring in feedback
from each other, without shorting most of them badly.
> > Excuses for not having this sort of thing in adventures eventually
> > wear thin; I'd like to do it, and acceptably, when it's called for.
>
> What types of situation would you like to see that you're not getting
> now?
The main example would be to bring a number of NPCs together
with the PCs to play out some multiway negotiation. For example,
the PCs have rescued an NPC who is the closest relative of the
dying king and therefore the rightful heir, but other claimants (more
respectable, or better connected) are also making their bids. The
PCs might be caught up in an assembly of lords, with the objective
of winning the most sup****t for their candidate for the throne.
Even in this example, the interaction with NPCs may be relatively
sequential, but all of the other NPCs are going to react rapidly
when they find out about one interaction between an NPC and
the PCs. And the PCs will probably want to find out about those
reactions rapidly as well, so they can plan their future actions.
One meeting with an NPC followed by downtime while I figure
out what happens in response is probably too slow to make
this playable.
> > How can I improve? Here are some of the unsatisfactory things
> > I have tried, to avoid or handle such situations:
> > 1) avoid two NPCs in the same place -- the game world may be
> > sparsely populated with significant NPCs.
>
> I tend to go by this one. The focus should always be on the characters
> of the *players*, and the various GM characters are there primarily to
> make things happen around the PCs.
>
> That's not to say the NPCs should not be vibrant, independent,
> well-imagined characters. It just means that those characters are not
> the *point* of the story -- the PCs are.
>
> One primary real-world reason for this is: your players want to be
> directly involved in what's happening. If the scene features a lot of
> NPCs talking to each other, it's boring for the players -- they came
> to interact, not watch the GM's characters perform.
>
> Another reason is that the GM (or, for those fortunate enough, GM plus
> helpers who play some NPCs) is ****traying many different characters
> anyway. Unless you have the skills of a professional bard from
> pre-literature history, you likely don't have the skills necessary to
> keep all those characters distinct in the minds of the players. It's
> hard enough for the players to imagine the situation when there are
> *no* NPCs present, let alone several talking to each other all from
> the one mouth at the table.
Yes, that's an additional difficulty; narrating multiple NPCs ends up
mostly in third person form since it's hard to keep clear who said
what if it's me speaking for all of them.
> > 4) preplanning scenes with many NPCs -- but the PCs can throw this
> > off by butting in with something unexpected.
>
> If the players aren't going to be involved in the interaction, why
> play it out? Summarise the salient points, and only play out any
> interactions with the PCs.
It might be summarized; the point is that the NPC decisions are
already made with a lot of thought in advance. Maybe the PCs
only hear about the results through gossip, re****ts from somebody
who observed it, scrying, or some other means.
> > 5) canned NPC responses -- the NPCs follow a few preplanned
> > types of responses, with default responses (usually brush-offs)
> > if none of them fit.
>
> I use a variant of this. Rather than a canned response or a brush-off,
> I always try to figure out what every NPC would rather be doing right
> now. The interaction will then go on only as long as the players are
> having fun, and the NPC would reasonably stick around.
>
> When the players clearly have had enough of interacting with the NPC,
> that's my cue for the NPC to make their excuses and get on with their
> day.
But what if there are two or more NPCs in the same place?
Then they have to consider each other's actions as well as what the
PCs are doing. That's I think the essence of what is troubling me.
> > For longer term actions, I track PC and NPC actions on a grid;
> > every day/week/game session the PCs spend doing stuff, all of
> > the active NPCs choose some activity, and I mark milestones for
> > the NPCs (completing something that is likely to affect the PCs,
> > usually) so that I don't forget about the NPCs who are out of
> > sight.
>
> If the NPC doesn't have to respond immediately during the play
> session, then one thing that can work is to enlist someone who doesn't
> come to the session, and may not even be known to any of the players,
> to play the part of an NPC by deciding their actions as you describe
> above. This has the significant benefits of sharing the workload, and
> getting some pretty interesting ideas for NPC actions that you would
> likely not have thought up yourself.
That might be feasible, and offers some significant advantages:
appropriate decisions by definition, no disruption of the game
sessions,
less work for me.
> Recognise the strengths and weaknesses of the medium. A table-top RPG
> is strong on player interaction, and weak on synaesthetic passive
> multimedia. You don't have access to the months-long writing and
> editing processes, nor the cut-and-dried story and dialogue, nor the
> plethora of highly-trained actors and wardrobe and makeup, nor the
> synchronous visual and audial effects, of TV or movies. All of these
> indicate you should not focus on things that involve many secondary
> characters together in the foreground at once.
>
> What you do have access to is your prepared notes, a few props, and
> the collective imagination of your group of players, acting the roles
> of the main protagonists. Use the fact that everyone is present and
> encouraged to use their imagination to manipulate the outcome of the
> scenes involving their characters. Don't kill it off by having complex
> character interactions played out in the foreground that don't
> directly focus on the PCs.
I am aiming at things where the NPCs are primarily reactive: reacting
to the PCs active role, and reacting to each other's reactions.
Slowing
down the pace of reactions so that there's time between sessions to
ponder responses and get input from other people may be enough,
and as much as I can expect. But it may also slow the sessions
down too much.
While it would be impressive to jump from NPC to NPC all acting
in character, it probably would just make the players lose track of
what's happening and lose the initiative. Unless, I guess, the
point _was_ for things to spin out of their control and end with a
result they really didn't want: "The Council is then in agreement?
These brave adventurers WILL undertake the suicide mission!
You have our gratitude!" and the PCs saying "Um, what just
happened?" I'd be happier if that was the natural outcome of the
roleplaying rather than something I planned to have happen, but
there isn't likely to be another good outcome, either, from the
game point of view, so maybe I shouldn't go there if this isn't
going to be the result.
Thanks for your comments and ideas.
--
Magister
|
