Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?

[bear_necessities]

@Sparks said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

@bear_necessities said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

This isnt a pearl clutch. I will just never understand why staff feels the need to utilize their NPCs to have "romantic plot" or bring a child into the world or fuck somebody (which again, does that benefit the game or at least a certain group of PCs? Because it sounds like it benefits 2. The PC you are boning and the NPC).

So, let's say you're in a modern setting but where a lot of the conspiracies around secret societies are real. The Illuminati, the Templars, and so on. And there's an NPC, a senator who is a mid-level member of the Illuminati. And he'll do favors for the PCs, pull strings to get them resources, but he always asks things in return. And owing him open-ended favors is... unsettling, because sometimes when he calls them in, the people who are called come back subtly different.

Now, here's your character, who needs a piece of information they know that NPC has. The price, however, will be too high. So your PC decides to seduce the NPC senator. Maybe this is because they think if they succeed, the NPC will feel more inclined to do them a favor without demanding one in return. Maybe this is because they think if the NPC takes them back to a hotel room, they'll be able to take his phone while he's asleep, use his fingerprint to unlock it, and get the information for free.

Either way, this is a situation where the PC seeking romance/sex with the NPC serves the story; the PC can gain something which advances their storyline. If they were trying to get that information for a plot involving multiple people, it advances storyline for multiple PC's!

Or maybe the PC has been pushing something politically which a sinister secret society wants stopped. PC knows they want this, but has refused to be cowed by their demands, to a point that the society has decided to act. The NPC is a master assassin hired by that society, and wants to get close to the PC in order to poison them in private; once poisoned, they can blackmail the PC into doing what they want by withholding the antidote. Try to force them to turn on their allies and serve this society's interests instead. And what better way to get them in private and poison them than to seduce them?

Here's a place where the NPC seeking sex with the PC serves the story.

There honestly are reasons where it can serve story. I'm not saying it always does when people do it, but I think it absolutely can.

Counterpoint: why would you use NPCs in the last situation? This could be easily accomplished and provide a better story for PCs to have the "master assassin" charge a lower level PC assassin to do this in order to prove themselves or move up in assassin society? Now you are providing story for multiple PCs and not making your npc a pivotal part of the story.

[Tinuviel]

@Derp said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

'You're with me, you have to just be with me and only me' is what you would expect from narcissistic creeper stalkers, not everyday RP partners.

Hardly. If I'm putting all of my effort into one scene, and you're not, you're the one that can go fuck themselves.

[krmbm]

@Sparks said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

Either way, this is a situation where the PC seeking romance/sex with the NPC serves the story; the PC can gain something which advances their storyline. If they were trying to get that information for a plot involving multiple people, it advances storyline for multiple PC's!

And now we're back around to the optics: You, as a staffer, just made it appear that a relationship with a staff-run NPC is the way to get story.

If that is the tone you are going for on the game, then great! If it's not... well, you might want to reconsider sex/relationships mini-golf with staff NPCs as the gateway to plot. Like it or not (and this thread kind of illustrates it), your average player sees that, sighs, and bitches to their friends that another staff-favorite just got plot by hitting a hole in one.

[Sunny]

@krmbm said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

And now we're back around to the optics: You, as a staffer, just made it appear that a relationship with a staff-run NPC is the way to get story.

The? No. It shows that it is A way to get story.

[Auspice]

There is a teeny tiny part of me wondering how much plot I've missed out on over the years because I've never flirted with / tried to bang an NPC.

[Sunny]

@Auspice said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

There is a teeny tiny part of me wondering how much plot I've missed out on over the years because I've never flirted with / tried to bang an NPC.

FOMO is one of the biggest drivers for drama/problems/issues on Mushes these days.

[Derp]

@Tinuviel said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

Hardly. If I'm putting all of my effort into one scene, and you're not, you're the one that can go fuck themselves.

And exactly what right do you or anyone else have to dictate how I spent my online time? You don't, as many people on this board have recognized before. You demanding that someone else pay attention to you and only you is exactly the kind of behavior that we call out here, so I'm calling it out.

That's creepy as fuck. So I stand by my statement. If you expect this from people, then go fuck yourself.

[Ghost]

@Auspice said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

There is a teeny tiny part of me wondering how much plot I've missed out on over the years because I've never flirted with / tried to bang an NPC.

I think we are onto something. See, you can't do social rolls against PCs, but social rolls are largely acceptable with NPCs. So if you go with the sex with NPC option, then technically you could make a manipulation+persuasion roll to convince the NPC to have sex with you "the birthday way".

I joke, but it does bring up an interesting line of questioning regarding who controls the NPC and does this bypass typical role play rules?

[Tinuviel]

@Derp And how, exactly, is it creepy to expect people to give you their full attention when you're roleplaying with them?

If you want to play four different games at a time, whatever, but I expect you to pay attention. Otherwise, you're just wasting my time and anyone else's in the scene.

[Ghost]

@Tinuviel I think Derp is saying that it's creepy to demand that the other player staffer focus solely on you, regardless of whether or not they're multitasking.

The demand ("You are doing wrong by paying attention to other players while playing with me") is creepy; not the expectation of focus ("I'm annoyed if your multitasking affects our scene").

[Derp]

@Tinuviel said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

@Derp And how, exactly, is it creepy to expect people to give you their full attention when you're roleplaying with them?

If you want to play four different games at a time, whatever, but I expect you to pay attention. Otherwise, you're just wasting my time and anyone else's in the scene.

You are the determiner of whether the quality of someone's RP is good enough for you to continue or not. You can always make that choice, on your own.

But you don't get to make demands of other people's time. If the RP is up to your standards, that's all that matters. If it's not, find other people. The second you try and impose restrictions on others because you feel that you're entitled to such is the second that you cross a line.

[surreality]

Barring the rarest of corner cases, I can't do multiple scenes at a time. So, uh. Yeah.

If someone I'm playing with is posing two lines every two hours because they're ten times more invested in something they're doing elsewhere, they're sure as shit not showing respect for my time (whether I'm doing other things or not, provided I'm keeping up promptly).

So, if you can keep up with a dozen scenes at once? Go for it! If you can't, know your fucking limits.

[Tinuviel]

@Derp I was at no point making a demand. I said I don't appreciate when people multiscene. There's a very big difference between saying "I don't like a thing" and "nobody should ever do that thing."

99.9999% of people can't multi-scene. Their RP lags, or is shit, or whatever. So I have a blanket preference that people don't do it. If I can't tell, I don't care.

[Auspice]

I sometimes multi-scene. Depends on what the primary scene is. Is it 3+ people? If so, I prob ain't gonna multi. Is it a one-on-one and the other person is taking 20+ minutes to pose?

...sorry chief I'm prob gonna multi-scene or watch Netflix between poses cause otherwise you are risking me wandering afk and forgetting we were RPing in the first place.

[Snackness]

It’s a bit like having a conversation IRL. If I’m trying to tell you something important and I see you’re distracted by other people I’m not gonna demand that you only pay attention to me. But I’m probably also not gonna want to talk to you that much in the future.

[surreality]

@Snackness It is worth mention that if you're aware someone is already doing something with a pile of other people... that might not be time to try to start a conversation with them and expect to have their attention focused on you. (I just ranted about this in the ADD thread, for instance.) I'm not saying you do this or ever have, just... this is the other side of that particular coin.

[Snackness]

@surreality I agree, and I have done that. If I can see that someone I want to scene with is already in several other scenes, I’ll wait and I won’t even be cranky about it.

[scar]

Ares also allows for drastically different pacing when it comes to multi-scening, so the implicit demand or scattering of someone's attention isn't always a relevant factor. People can take much longer to scene throughout the day or several days, and it still appears that they are in multiple scenes.

ETA: If I'm in a slow ass scene with Player A that's taking two days, I'm not going to sit on my hands. I'm going to scene with Player B.

[surreality]

@scar That's similar to 'active scene' vs. 'play by post' style scene -- which is something a lot more manageable than 'multiple active scenes'. I can usually handle, say, a scene in a gdoc and an active scene, since doc scenes are often sloooooooooooooooooooooow with the handful of people I've ever written them with. That sort of thing would never worry me, personally.

[Ghost]

Back to topic.

POINT #1

The ultimate question is: "If staff can have PCs and there are dozens of non-staff PCs to play with, why would anyone focus deep, meaningful RP towards an NPC? Why not get a player to app this NPC as a PC?"

I think the answer ultimately lies in the assumption that if a player creates an NPC and requests staff to RP as the NPC, then the player may have some element of control of how the NPC behaves.

"I created this NPC to be my character's bodyguard and sometimes lover. Can I get staff to run a scene with me involving this character?"

TEN MINUTES LATER

"The NPC I created would never do that!"

In this scenario, you literally get to tell people that they're playing the character wrong, and may be able to leverage not only the IC behavior of the NPC, but also predetermine the outcome.

POINT #2

If you've been in this hobby for a while, you all know the benefits of RPing with staff, staff alts, and in staff scenes. There are benefits, including immediate benefits(xp, equipment...) to role-playing with the person who can literally type in the commands to reward you for the scene or fulfill content requests without the player having to submit a job and wait.

So, I think it's fair to say that when everyone knows the point of these games is to create a PC and mingle with the other PCs, that the real trick to getting quick and preferable responses from staff is to put yourself at the head of the pack by investing one or more staffers in your content. I think this concept goes against the spirit of these games and promotes favoritism under the guise of it being "just an NPC scene", and given the weirdly personal implications of TS that MSB never really talks about, TS with a specific staffer playing sockepuppet of said NPC is shaky territory.

The preferable approach is to role play your own NPCs as puppets who don't affect plot and if the NPC deserves a bigger role, try to find someone to play them.

And once again I'll reiterate that my opinion is that the difference between a STAFF NPC and an NPC should be no difference at all. When a staffer plays, they are off the clock. It's a level of "conflict of interest" that deserves more attention, IMO.