alt.wish.71
Ginger and Michael take a well-deserved rest this week, but in the spirit of community, I present:
For Players: Do you rely on the NPC as presented, or are you usually looking "between the lines" to figure the elements that are hold-backs? Do you care that the NPCs might have as many conflicted qualities as the PCs? Should a game really revolve around the PCs in every respect, including a certain 'artificial' quality to the secondary cast? Or are you happier if the NPCs are 'sticky'?
Players really seem to like investing back story and extra bits in the creation of Characters they are going to run. While there are plenty of folks who can just "start a PC and find the voice"—there are as many who want the whole canvas sketched in, even if no one ever finds out about the story invested.
[This is not to be confused with PCs and NPCs who have a 'long-held secret' that comes out at the first family dinner in the game. That's certainly cliche 'showboating'.]
It seems that I've always favored a GM or author who 'holds back' a larger amount of a Character. Even if I'm not playing in a campaign—I expect I won't learn everything I need/want to know about the NPCs.
I like that—respect it—and am not one of these 'modern readers' who expects the narrative to clear up all the loose ends and justifications for what is going on. Life is messy and confusing—so I expect my fiction and gaming to simulate that.
Which isn't at all about story being opaque or tale flat because I never understand the characters or plot or because the author just doesn't get his meaning across to me.
Another aspect of this is portrayal. Players will make interpretations of important NPCs. Some sort of chemistry happens and it isn't easily predicted. If your GM is doing a consistent portrayal—the Players will each reach a slightly different conclusion about those NPCs. Sometimes those OOC (out-of-character) coversations about NPCs in the game reveal more about the PCs than the NPCs.
This is good stuff. If I knew how to make it happen all the time—I think I'd be making more Sticky NPCs and better games.
I never, ever give out everything about my NPCs. No fun there! I give public knowledge. As a PC gets to know an NPC better, they may pick up other things as time progresses. I hint at things, rumors, that may or may not be true. I leave it to the PCs to decide if they want to find out the truth.
Sometimes they're just interesting NPCs that add color and texture to the tapestry of the story. Sometimes they're plot important. Quite often they're just spur of the moment people I throw into a scene and I make them up as I go. (Don't tell the players. For some reason they really like those NPCs).
Posted November 4, 2003 1:04 AMAnd then I didn't answer the Player section. :|
I love well written and protrayed NPCs. Some of my GMs are very creative with those and I know at least one of them makes them up on the spot and many of them remain in the story, becoming attached to whatever character they interact with first.
Yes, I like them 'sticky'. I want them to feel as real to me as my own character, as the world we're playing in.
As a player, I often come complete with my own NPCs. Like Portia staff in "Successors". (http://www.angelfire.com/ab2/portia/glynwillow.html) I don't play them, the GM does. But I gave him enough of their story and how I envisioned them relating to Portia that he could run them and he's done a marvelous job. In Alan Wake's "Taste of Duplicity", I gave him Shadow Atlantis, the Emperor, the Heir and the Fourth Tier mages of the four Elemental Crystals and a very brief summery of them. He's had a blast playing them for me and he's added to them and their stories as we've played.
I don't mean to imply that I only enjoy the NPCs I had a hand in designing. I've played with some extraordinary NPCs in many games. Dana Bayer's are fabulous and Jenna Sinclair's are powerfully portrayed. They make the games so much more fun, more interesting, more real for me when the GM has taken time to develop them or is capable of pulling a NPC out of his hat.
Posted November 4, 2003 1:17 AM