You guys have it so easy! You just pick one color and stick with it. I have to keep about a hundred npcs using consistent colors. I may give up on that soon, and switch to a system where the FIRST npc is always the same color no matter who it is, the SECOND is always the same, and so forth. That could get a bit confusing if the same two npcs were in two consecutive posts and they both spoke, but in the opposite order. hmmmmmmm......
Well... it would make sure they followed the adventure you had planned
*shakes his fist at all those players of mine who ignore all those hooks I leave for them and instead decide a barfight is more of a good time than adventuring*
No, I actually enjoy them, but as the PC's are supposed to be a cut above an average person, (especially in 4e) they can trounce any NPC they encounter (except for a few rare higher level ones).
Also, they always pick the fights, for no other reason than to beat up common folks, despite their Good alignment and then chalk it up to Roleplaying....
Then the one who always starts the fights complains about the lack of XP, despite my repeated discussions with him that beating up an NPC is not enough of a challenge to really earn XP.... It is fun and we laugh a lot as I try to make the encounters interesting, but it can be frustrating that they ignore the adventure you spent hours on, which is why I mostly only use premade adventures (I'm running KoTS currently, which they started a fight there shortly after arriving in town, but do to their excellent diplomacy checks they managed to avoid getting tossed into the slammer )