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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4048766" data-attributes="member: 1054">This is true if it's one player doing it, but if it's part of the group's social contract that "Everyone gets an NPC 'family' of friends, allies, and rivals, and plot threads which are theirs and theirs alone", then I disagree.Trying to get back on-topic, this is very important in low-fantasy, city-based games, because cities are giant hives filled with NPCs. It's not possible to play Rootless Wanderers in a city-focused S&S game; you live somewhere, you buy your meals somewhere, you can't just stab anyone who annoys you and get away with it. You've got to live in the place, and it's going to have social structures bigger than you are, and each individual in your party is going to interact with different parts of it. The richness of a game, over time, is the web of relationships and histories formed, with both friends and enemies. Looking back, we remember favorite NPCs, hated foes we finally got to take down, and strange twists of fate that make allies into enemies and sometimes vice-versa. To use a TV analogy, while any given episode of, say, Buffy is defined by what monster she kicks in the nads, the series as a whole is defined by the changing cast and diverse story arcs. A good game system needs to support both sides of the equation equally.</blockquote>