Some advice from an old-school AD&D second edition player from the 80s.
I found that giving players a secondary objective helped. Keep everyone involved.
For an important NPC or useful rather, I would hand a chosen person a note with that NPC information and objectives on it and when the moment came, I merely had to look at that person they would catch on and take over.
This worked well for intelligent, complicated monsters as well, allowing the player to choose for the monster and choose for themselves simultaneously .
This was also a great chance for role-playing as a player controlling a monster and their own character at the same time will face complicated choices that affect not only themselves, but the whole party .
One practical thing I like to do is put a three to five word blurb summarizing the NPC right next to their name: Amille Sarsis, Thrill-Seeking Burglar or Ketah Merkton, Religious Laborer. The blurb distills and triggers the prep, almost like a mnemonic. I can fall back on the rest of the template if I get lost. The blurb also provides a handy test for the NPC's design. If the blurb's not memorable, the NPC probably isn't either.
I begin by noting the difference between NPC descriptions used in private and those published for others. I'm referring to the latter.
I'm closest to Dwiz on this one. What I often find lacking in published NPC descriptions is instrumentality, their purpose as game objects. NPCs that aren’t sources of conflict are arguably not NPCs at all. If their function isn’t to produce drama (conflict), they’re more like vectors of information. Instead of narrating a bit of information after a Lore check, you put it in the mouth of a person-shaped object in the world after a Persuasion check. (That’s bad GMing, but you get the idea.)
NPCs whose purpose in the game is conflict or drama need to be defined negatively and in relation to the PCs. Don't tell me what the NPC doesn't want, tell me why the NPC won't help the PCs. Don't make me infer it from what they don't want. Just state it plainly: " NPC doesn't want to help the PCs because NPC fears retaliation by the Dark Lord's lieutenant."
Describing NPCs in terms of conflict will make them come alive and help them generate drama during play. "Conflict-oriented NPC description" should be the way to go. Not "What does this NPC not want?" but "What actions or ideals does this NPC find objectionable?"
I have this list that I go to when designing or improvising NPCs.
1. She doesn’t want to get involved.
2. He doesn’t like your kind, for example, strangers, elves, adventurers, or meddling kids.
3. She doesn’t believe she can help.
4. He thinks the players will only make things worse. They should leave well enough alone.
5. She wants something: a bribe, an errand done, or to be convinced that she stands to gain if the players succeed.
6. He has been paid to keep silent or to stay out.
7. The players have insulted or offended her.
8. He thinks the players efforts are dangerous because they don’t understand what’s really going on. He might know something the players don’t or he may simply know less than he thinks.
9. The players have unwittingly caused her to suffer a loss.
10. She feels that helping the players will betray her duties or obligations.
11. He needs more information to support the players case before he can act.
12. She knows or suspects that she or the players are watched.
13. Someone he loves or respects told him not to help.
14. She is secretly involved with the other side.
15. The situation benefits her, for example, by raising the value of her trade goods, or by hurting competitors or rivals.
16. She fears the players might claim a treasure or reward that she expects to get.
17. He is allied with rivals or competitors to the party.
18. She’s been threatened.
19. The safety of someone she loves is threatened.
20. Someone he loves is involved with the other side.
21. He’s not involved but might be implicated, perhaps for doing things that once seemed innocent.
22. He’s being blackmailed for a misdeed unrelated to the players’ concerns.
> I begin by noting the difference between NPC descriptions used in private and those published for others. I'm referring to the latter.
Yeah, by default that's also what I'm talking about. Private notes/adventures/writeups can be much more sparse because you're just trying to jog your own memory.
> What I often find lacking in published NPC descriptions is instrumentality, their purpose as game objects. NPCs that aren’t sources of conflict are arguably not NPCs at all. If their function isn’t to produce drama (conflict), they’re more like vectors of information. Instead of narrating a bit of information [...], you put it in the mouth of a person-shaped object in the world [...].
My only caveat here is that the you can have allies. The Duke might lend out some of his guards to take care of a troll on his lands, or the prisoner might help the party fight against their captors. The abstraction here is that information is just one sort of asset and a NPC can provide sorts (brawn, spells, lockpicking, material goods, etc).
To your point though, I think you would not be far off in imagining such NPCs as, effectively, items to help accomplish the same thing (more combat power, spell slots, better lock pics, the material goods they could give you). Instrumentally, they're a person-shaped vehicle for an asset.
> NPCs whose purpose in the game is conflict or drama need to be defined negatively and in relation to the PCs. Don't tell me what the NPC doesn't want, tell me why the NPC won't help the PCs. Don't make me infer it from what they don't want. Just state it plainly: " NPC doesn't want to help the PCs because NPC fears retaliation by the Dark Lord's lieutenant."
I think this is a good idea! A line from the mothership advice I like a lot (and it's echoed in Dungeon World's Parley) is "Negotiation requires leverage. Leverage can be anything from blackmail to solving a problem for the other party. The more leverage the players have, the better deal they can get."
So "fears retaliation by the Dark Lord's lieutenant" becomes an extremely easy source of leverage. If they fear the PCs more, or no longer fear the lieutenant, or the PCs have something they want more than their fear, they're in.
That said! I do appreciate having motives/goals for NPCs, because I need to know what happens if the PCs ignore them, and motives/goals help answer that very directly.
Broadly, with NPCs or factions, I need to know a few things:
* How to represent them at the table?
* What does their negotiation with the players look like?
* What happens if the players ignore them?
The negotiation part of some NPCs is really simple. They'll just blab their information to the players for free. Merchants will just sell their stuff for money. It gets more complicated when either their asset or their price isn't material or coin, and then we get into what you're talking about with conflicts.
All of that said, do you have an example of a before/after of a NPC from a module that you reworked into being conflict oriented?
> My only caveat here is that the you can have allies. The Duke might lend out some of his guards to take care of a troll on his lands, or the prisoner might help the party fight against their captors. The abstraction here is that information is just one sort of asset and a NPC can provide sorts (brawn, spells, lockpicking, material goods, etc).
>To your point though, I think you would not be far off in imagining such NPCs as, effectively, items to help accomplish the same thing (more combat power, spell slots, better lock pics, the material goods they could give you). Instrumentally, they're a person-shaped vehicle for an asset.
Definitely. My approach is always oriented around whether the *scenario designer* seems to have a game purpose in mind for the NPC and whether they're making that transparent to the GM. I know you're aware of The Alexandrian's Node frameworks and I note that an NPC is a Node in that framework the same way a Location or an Object might be.
If access to particular assets are available at a particular Node and that Node is an NPC, then I prefer an NPC description that makes the purpose and structure clear. This could mean that friendly NPCs have different templates than hostile ones. Different templates could help harried GMs at the table who glance at the scenario notes and infer right way from the *form* of the notes what the NPC's vibe will be.
As for allies, yes, PCs and scenarios definitely need them, but potential allies like a Duke might still need to be convinced to help! At first, they will probably have a reason why they don't want to help the PCs.
>I think this is a good idea! A line from the mothership advice I like a lot (and it's echoed in Dungeon World's Parley) is "Negotiation requires leverage. Leverage can be anything from blackmail to solving a problem for the other party. The more leverage the players have, the better deal they can get."
I prefer words like "leverage" and "objection" because they force designers to put things in adversarial terms: "Why won't this guy help the PCs?", "How can the PCs force this guy to help them?", these are all questions that lead to social conflict. That's the key thing, I suppose. If the NPC's intended for conflict, present them in language that makes it easier for GMs to set up conflict.
> So "fears retaliation by the Dark Lord's lieutenant" becomes an extremely easy source of leverage. If they fear the PCs more, or no longer fear the lieutenant, or the PCs have something they want more than their fear, they're in.
Right. Ideally, the NPC description would include an example or two of leverage that would work. Maybe the NPC can't be made to fear the PCs more than the Dark Lord, but the PCs can put religious pressure on the NPC to act as their god would expect. You're right about loot or coin as a way of overcoming an NPC's reluctance. If the objection can be overcome financially, it's not really an objection in the sense needed.
> Broadly, with NPCs or factions, I need to know a few things:
What's tricky about NPCs and the idea of standardizing descriptions of them is that they serve different functions at different scales, necessitating different sorts of information at each. What we might call an "Obstacle NPC" just needs your "smalltalk" stuff and an objection, perhaps. If the NPC's eventually handled with a single skill check, that's probably an Obstacle NPC. But what about a more Node-like NPC, what Justin Alexander would call a Proactive Node? Now we need more of the stuff you're talking about: goals, motivations, maybe resources. I still think those things should often be framed in terms of conflict, but the word count's creeping up. Finally, we get to villains or scenario-scale NPCs. They're more like Fronts and should perhaps be presented that way.
Some advice from an old-school AD&D second edition player from the 80s.
I found that giving players a secondary objective helped. Keep everyone involved.
For an important NPC or useful rather, I would hand a chosen person a note with that NPC information and objectives on it and when the moment came, I merely had to look at that person they would catch on and take over.
This worked well for intelligent, complicated monsters as well, allowing the player to choose for the monster and choose for themselves simultaneously .
This was also a great chance for role-playing as a player controlling a monster and their own character at the same time will face complicated choices that affect not only themselves, but the whole party .
One practical thing I like to do is put a three to five word blurb summarizing the NPC right next to their name: Amille Sarsis, Thrill-Seeking Burglar or Ketah Merkton, Religious Laborer. The blurb distills and triggers the prep, almost like a mnemonic. I can fall back on the rest of the template if I get lost. The blurb also provides a handy test for the NPC's design. If the blurb's not memorable, the NPC probably isn't either.
I begin by noting the difference between NPC descriptions used in private and those published for others. I'm referring to the latter.
I'm closest to Dwiz on this one. What I often find lacking in published NPC descriptions is instrumentality, their purpose as game objects. NPCs that aren’t sources of conflict are arguably not NPCs at all. If their function isn’t to produce drama (conflict), they’re more like vectors of information. Instead of narrating a bit of information after a Lore check, you put it in the mouth of a person-shaped object in the world after a Persuasion check. (That’s bad GMing, but you get the idea.)
NPCs whose purpose in the game is conflict or drama need to be defined negatively and in relation to the PCs. Don't tell me what the NPC doesn't want, tell me why the NPC won't help the PCs. Don't make me infer it from what they don't want. Just state it plainly: " NPC doesn't want to help the PCs because NPC fears retaliation by the Dark Lord's lieutenant."
Describing NPCs in terms of conflict will make them come alive and help them generate drama during play. "Conflict-oriented NPC description" should be the way to go. Not "What does this NPC not want?" but "What actions or ideals does this NPC find objectionable?"
I have this list that I go to when designing or improvising NPCs.
1. She doesn’t want to get involved.
2. He doesn’t like your kind, for example, strangers, elves, adventurers, or meddling kids.
3. She doesn’t believe she can help.
4. He thinks the players will only make things worse. They should leave well enough alone.
5. She wants something: a bribe, an errand done, or to be convinced that she stands to gain if the players succeed.
6. He has been paid to keep silent or to stay out.
7. The players have insulted or offended her.
8. He thinks the players efforts are dangerous because they don’t understand what’s really going on. He might know something the players don’t or he may simply know less than he thinks.
9. The players have unwittingly caused her to suffer a loss.
10. She feels that helping the players will betray her duties or obligations.
11. He needs more information to support the players case before he can act.
12. She knows or suspects that she or the players are watched.
13. Someone he loves or respects told him not to help.
14. She is secretly involved with the other side.
15. The situation benefits her, for example, by raising the value of her trade goods, or by hurting competitors or rivals.
16. She fears the players might claim a treasure or reward that she expects to get.
17. He is allied with rivals or competitors to the party.
18. She’s been threatened.
19. The safety of someone she loves is threatened.
20. Someone he loves is involved with the other side.
21. He’s not involved but might be implicated, perhaps for doing things that once seemed innocent.
22. He’s being blackmailed for a misdeed unrelated to the players’ concerns.
> I begin by noting the difference between NPC descriptions used in private and those published for others. I'm referring to the latter.
Yeah, by default that's also what I'm talking about. Private notes/adventures/writeups can be much more sparse because you're just trying to jog your own memory.
> What I often find lacking in published NPC descriptions is instrumentality, their purpose as game objects. NPCs that aren’t sources of conflict are arguably not NPCs at all. If their function isn’t to produce drama (conflict), they’re more like vectors of information. Instead of narrating a bit of information [...], you put it in the mouth of a person-shaped object in the world [...].
My only caveat here is that the you can have allies. The Duke might lend out some of his guards to take care of a troll on his lands, or the prisoner might help the party fight against their captors. The abstraction here is that information is just one sort of asset and a NPC can provide sorts (brawn, spells, lockpicking, material goods, etc).
To your point though, I think you would not be far off in imagining such NPCs as, effectively, items to help accomplish the same thing (more combat power, spell slots, better lock pics, the material goods they could give you). Instrumentally, they're a person-shaped vehicle for an asset.
> NPCs whose purpose in the game is conflict or drama need to be defined negatively and in relation to the PCs. Don't tell me what the NPC doesn't want, tell me why the NPC won't help the PCs. Don't make me infer it from what they don't want. Just state it plainly: " NPC doesn't want to help the PCs because NPC fears retaliation by the Dark Lord's lieutenant."
I think this is a good idea! A line from the mothership advice I like a lot (and it's echoed in Dungeon World's Parley) is "Negotiation requires leverage. Leverage can be anything from blackmail to solving a problem for the other party. The more leverage the players have, the better deal they can get."
So "fears retaliation by the Dark Lord's lieutenant" becomes an extremely easy source of leverage. If they fear the PCs more, or no longer fear the lieutenant, or the PCs have something they want more than their fear, they're in.
That said! I do appreciate having motives/goals for NPCs, because I need to know what happens if the PCs ignore them, and motives/goals help answer that very directly.
Broadly, with NPCs or factions, I need to know a few things:
* How to represent them at the table?
* What does their negotiation with the players look like?
* What happens if the players ignore them?
The negotiation part of some NPCs is really simple. They'll just blab their information to the players for free. Merchants will just sell their stuff for money. It gets more complicated when either their asset or their price isn't material or coin, and then we get into what you're talking about with conflicts.
All of that said, do you have an example of a before/after of a NPC from a module that you reworked into being conflict oriented?
> My only caveat here is that the you can have allies. The Duke might lend out some of his guards to take care of a troll on his lands, or the prisoner might help the party fight against their captors. The abstraction here is that information is just one sort of asset and a NPC can provide sorts (brawn, spells, lockpicking, material goods, etc).
>To your point though, I think you would not be far off in imagining such NPCs as, effectively, items to help accomplish the same thing (more combat power, spell slots, better lock pics, the material goods they could give you). Instrumentally, they're a person-shaped vehicle for an asset.
Definitely. My approach is always oriented around whether the *scenario designer* seems to have a game purpose in mind for the NPC and whether they're making that transparent to the GM. I know you're aware of The Alexandrian's Node frameworks and I note that an NPC is a Node in that framework the same way a Location or an Object might be.
If access to particular assets are available at a particular Node and that Node is an NPC, then I prefer an NPC description that makes the purpose and structure clear. This could mean that friendly NPCs have different templates than hostile ones. Different templates could help harried GMs at the table who glance at the scenario notes and infer right way from the *form* of the notes what the NPC's vibe will be.
As for allies, yes, PCs and scenarios definitely need them, but potential allies like a Duke might still need to be convinced to help! At first, they will probably have a reason why they don't want to help the PCs.
>I think this is a good idea! A line from the mothership advice I like a lot (and it's echoed in Dungeon World's Parley) is "Negotiation requires leverage. Leverage can be anything from blackmail to solving a problem for the other party. The more leverage the players have, the better deal they can get."
I prefer words like "leverage" and "objection" because they force designers to put things in adversarial terms: "Why won't this guy help the PCs?", "How can the PCs force this guy to help them?", these are all questions that lead to social conflict. That's the key thing, I suppose. If the NPC's intended for conflict, present them in language that makes it easier for GMs to set up conflict.
> So "fears retaliation by the Dark Lord's lieutenant" becomes an extremely easy source of leverage. If they fear the PCs more, or no longer fear the lieutenant, or the PCs have something they want more than their fear, they're in.
Right. Ideally, the NPC description would include an example or two of leverage that would work. Maybe the NPC can't be made to fear the PCs more than the Dark Lord, but the PCs can put religious pressure on the NPC to act as their god would expect. You're right about loot or coin as a way of overcoming an NPC's reluctance. If the objection can be overcome financially, it's not really an objection in the sense needed.
> Broadly, with NPCs or factions, I need to know a few things:
What's tricky about NPCs and the idea of standardizing descriptions of them is that they serve different functions at different scales, necessitating different sorts of information at each. What we might call an "Obstacle NPC" just needs your "smalltalk" stuff and an objection, perhaps. If the NPC's eventually handled with a single skill check, that's probably an Obstacle NPC. But what about a more Node-like NPC, what Justin Alexander would call a Proactive Node? Now we need more of the stuff you're talking about: goals, motivations, maybe resources. I still think those things should often be framed in terms of conflict, but the word count's creeping up. Finally, we get to villains or scenario-scale NPCs. They're more like Fronts and should perhaps be presented that way.
That's great analysis; totally on the same page. Different sorts are NPCs serve different purposes and should be presented (and ran) differently