NPC Roster

[Wretched]

So i don't get out to all the games I used to, and I am typically a WoD player, but I do hear about things outside my normal WoD circle, and it sparked an Idea, possibly something someone somewhere has done before, but mebbe not, but I am interested in trying new things.

Anyhow, as i was swimming this morning (1am, just a bit stoned, it's a lifestyle) I was thinking about how to make the world we are building in Miami a little more accessible to players and Storytellers. The idea is to have a Roster of NPC's that are prominent non-player figures in the area, perhaps Lex Luthor types, Antagonist organization movers and shakers etc. that speople could check out for plots and the like, and leave notes for the next persons to pick it up, perhaps with thier own secret motivations and plans.

Does this sound appealing?

[surreality]

@Wretched Yep. I'm fully behind things like this being made available as good ST resources.

It gives people a good sense of continuity, and staff can keep things set up in such a way as to ensure there are antagonists suitable for characters of every experience level on tap for people to grab that are properly scaled to the needs of the game at any given time.

[Tempest]

It's an interesting idea and one I know I've heard discussed numerous times, even if not ever done.

The concern is usually consistency in how the characters are played. Even with notes or bullet point personalities or w/e you give them, there is always going to be a lot of variance in how they're played.

Certain players will interpret certain descriptors differently, players will emphasize specific traits over ones that other players emphasized, some players will be too 'nice' if they're running something for their friends, and because of all that sometimes there will be significant differences in how those characters interact with pcs in different plots/etc.

How do you combat that? Staff has to read all the logs? Idk!

ETA: you can already kind of see this in comic games, when different people run plots with the same villain/etc

[A. Meowley]

@Tempest said in NPC Roster:

It's an interesting idea and one I know I've heard discussed numerous times, even if not ever done.
...
Certain players will interpret certain descriptors differently, players will emphasize specific traits over ones that other players emphasized, some players will be too 'nice' if they're running something for their friends, and because of all that sometimes there will be significant differences in how those characters interact with pcs in different plots/etc.

I'm of the school that it's better to try and experiment with something like this, rather than avoid it due to the fears of inconsistency. It likely will be semi-inconsistent; but people are inconsistent, so why worry? Besides, like you said: something like this works in comic games already, with their NPCs. May as well give it a shot in WoD.

I also like background NPCs to be featured across various plots, and to be used at will by various players. There have been some good NPCs / Goblin Market folk who I've seen pop up again and again in Changeling plots, and I really like it. Feels like a well loved archetype making a cameo.

ETA: one of the things which always got me in WoD was not knowing the population of certain spheres. Surely our PCs aren't the only fae/vampire/mage/psychics/people in town! Having background NPCs who reoccur in public scenes (and private, hell: all scenes) really adds to be believability and 'fullness' of a setting. More NPCs, please!

One of the places that did this wonderfully was Cat-22 on Fate's Harvest: there was a whole range of collective member NPCs who would react in various ways to the crazy faerie bullshit over time, and it really makes things ultra immersive.

[ZombieGenesis]

We do this on the private WoD game I run/play on. Most players create a number of NPCs related to their PC that other players can check out or take on permanently. We think it works out wonderfully. It's added a ton of RP to the things we do.

[Wretched]

@A-Meowley That is generally where i am coming from. They already can be fairly inconsistent between staffers, Ive had more than one player not be entirely happy that NPC's treated them differently between staffers.
As an asside, please stop TSing players with NPC's, it never turns out well.
As long as we make an effort to take notes, link logs and perhaps keeps a running summary of achievements, failure and goals, It's doable.

One of the things I have been guilty of in the past is putting too many hoops/roadblocks in front of players running PRP's (I am notoriously picky about some theme elements and dont give up control easily). Instead, i am now looking for ways to help players feel empowered to run things, to affect the environment, to invest in the game and setting and stories.

One thing I have heard people say to me is that would run plots but they are intimidated or exhausted by the process, so they dont. So i figure, lets experiment and change that.

[Wretched]

@ZombieGenesis That sounds amazing, would you mind if we potentially borrowed that idea? That sounds kind of cool, like a player could post some NPC's on thier wiki with a little backstory that friends and ST's could potentially run.

Looking for someone to play my Fetch on Occasion, this is who he is now.

Way back in the early 00's late 90's my friends and I would... and i cant believe i'm saying this publicly, basically go and do a 4 person larp down town while shopping and getting food, where we just randomly switch ST's, doing nonsense overpowered Sabatt shenanigans. Was a lotta fun.

[Tinuviel]

@Tempest said in NPC Roster:

Staff has to read all the logs? Idk!

I would say that instead of reading logs, there should be a list of NPC reports stored somewhere. Staff that use the NPC (or player storytellers too, depending on where you want the plot-generation focus to be) write a brief little report of the scene they just had with the important tidbits included.

"Had scene with Fabian Valentine regarding political appointments, Fabian was a dick to NPC-Prince." etc etc.

[ZombieGenesis]

@Wretched I'm pretty sure I stole it from somewhere else so go for it. It really did help with RP quite a bit. We ended up with whole families getting played. It was quite fun.

[Seraphim73]

I don't even want this sort of NPC Roster limited to antagonist NPCs -- I'd like to see a list of NPCs from across the city who come up in multiple scenes.

If your character's a cop, is there a certain desk-jockey cop who always hassles them when they're in the bullpen? List them on the NPC Roster so others can incorporate them into their RP too.

Foul-mouthed Uber driver who always manages to shave 20% off any drive time? Put them up there. Someone else might want to listen to profanity while driving very fast.

Waitress at the local diner who your character asks about her kids whenever they're ordering? Someone else might want to check in too.

I love shared NPCs, because they make the world feel like a cohesive whole rather than a variety of different realities that sometimes intersect.

[Wretched]

@Seraphim73 I am down with this. maybe even leave it open for players to add NPC's that reoccur in their RP. I know back on FC, the Abernathy Family had a reoccurring housekeeper that no one would fuck with that had a Santeria shrine in the shed.

Okay now how to implement it properly.

[Seraphim73]

I don't know about properly, but we implemented it way back on The Fifth World to some degree. There's an NPC tab on the Dramatis Personae page (http://thefifthworld.wikidot.com/characters) that lists NPCs who have come up in various RPs. Players could absolutely add to it.

We tried another method on The 8th Sea (what is it with us and The # <Noun>?), where we built out full character pages for some of the more important NPCs (at the top of each tab at http://the8thsea.wikidot.com/characters) -- we did this because there were fewer characters overall, only a thousand or so NPCs instead of millions. We absolutely would have allowed players to add entries, but should have encouraged it more directly.

[deadculture]

It's important to highlight the scope of RP you want the NPCs to do, if people are to rent them out. And also that the scene has to be documented by logs as a rule. Otherwise the next person renting that NPC out can be surprised by Wolfblood babydaddy showing up with their infant daughter or something crazy like selling half of NPC's shares in PentexCorp.

So, while I am in support of the idea, just make sure it has a framework of rules around it to prevent abuse.

[surreality]

^ That. Have a list of checkboxes or something for y/n on 'can you kill this character off in a scene' (would recommend a few 'stock hug, stock police officer, stock <whatever>' nameless examples listed and statted as well to just fill out disposable numbers around named names if they're needed) and similar.

[faraday]

I like documenting NPCs. We had a minimal NPC roster on BSGU and at least one of the NPCs got so popular that somebody made them up as a roster PC and they got played and it was awesome.

I tried a more in-depth one on BSP years before with a system that had notes and backstory and everything but honestly it barely got used. I think the more ornamentation there is on a system - the more 'work' it is - the less people are inclined to use it.

[Wretched]

@surreality @deadculture These are all a lot of great ideas.

[Wretched]

So last night I expanded on this a bit, and so far a few people have mentioned positive things, and i am looking for more feedback.

So there will be Families on Miami, no surprise, and we were also building an NPC family, intended to be deeply imbedded in local politics with hooks all over the place in most spheres.

The Idea is this: What if we handed that entire family, to Player ST's. Like take a huge set piece, that can affect the game, spheres and institutions of the game, that are all connected to a larger thing, and just hand it to the player base to run plots with. Differing and even clashing ideas from ST's can be family infighting. With a little structure built into it, but minimal staff interfearance.

It'd be a bit of a trust exercise back and forth, but one of the bigger things I hear about on games in the past is feeling like you cant affect anything in the game. This could ne just one way to do it, Sucess from the 'Evil Family' would grow thier influence, failure means they are driven back a bit.

I feel like I'm finding the shape of a cool idea... I just need to make sure it's not just old food in my teeth.

[Coin]

@Wretched said in NPC Roster:

So last night I expanded on this a bit, and so far a few people have mentioned positive things, and i am looking for more feedback.

So there will be Families on Miami, no surprise, and we were also building an NPC family, intended to be deeply imbedded in local politics with hooks all over the place in most spheres.

The Idea is this: What if we handed that entire family, to Player ST's. Like take a huge set piece, that can affect the game, spheres and institutions of the game, that are all connected to a larger thing, and just hand it to the player base to run plots with. Differing and even clashing ideas from ST's can be family infighting. With a little structure built into it, but minimal staff interfearance.

It'd be a bit of a trust exercise back and forth, but one of the bigger things I hear about on games in the past is feeling like you cant affect anything in the game. This could ne just one way to do it, Sucess from the 'Evil Family' would grow thier influence, failure means they are driven back a bit.

I feel like I'm finding the shape of a cool idea... I just need to make sure it's not just old food in my teeth.

Anything that foments RP is good. You really will need a system for "Affecting the world" though. Like, a point based, 'x number of successes on y number of [theme] actions to achieve [goal]'. Or something.

[Tinuviel]

@Wretched said in NPC Roster:

The Idea is this: What if we handed that entire family, to Player ST's. Like take a huge set piece, that can affect the game, spheres and institutions of the game, that are all connected to a larger thing, and just hand it to the player base to run plots with. Differing and even clashing ideas from ST's can be family infighting. With a little structure built into it, but minimal staff interfearance.

I would argue that perhaps the family overlord (matriarch, patriarch, whatever) should be left in staff-only hands, if the intention is for the family to have a major impact on the metaplot. So staff still retains some executive control, but can be hands-off with the rest of the family as needed.

[Ghost]

Thinking about what I think about this...

I don't think it's a bad idea, but I think you need to try to shoot holes in the idea, see where it could break, and adjust.

A few things come to mind:

1. The prerogative of most players is to succeed at anything and everything. I think this idea could break if someone used the family as a way to legitimize handing friends successes if they used the family for biased means. That make sense? Probably want some kind of accounting system to make sure some ST isnt using the family to pump up their friends/faction. I.e. "The family chose to lend their resources to help buy my friends character an arsenal of assault rifles"

2. You'll wanna probably set some constraints in place RP-wise, like set guidelines of what the family will or won't do so that at least theres a better chance of one ST using the family in a similar way that others do.

One thing I think that would be neat for Miami would be to take maybe a Gotham approach. What if you used said NPC family or elements to give players what most games haven't: Influence usage on a grand scale.

Cops, Politics, the Clergy, Crime Families, etc with an NPC element that will not only be up for grabs but pass instructions down to people affected who owns them?

Like if the Changelings get their fingers into some crime family it'll alter the landscape of the setting?