A DM's best friend - a Guiding NPC

[Jack7]

That's not a bad idea and I encourage something similar with both the party and individual characters, networks of contacts. I am a definite proponent of strong and varied networks of contacts in both real life and gaming situations.

I don't limit it per se (in a gaming sense, anymore than I limit it in real life other than by time dedicated to the effort), and most of the useful contacts people have are as a result of previous in-game reactions. But your idea of "background, relative, earlier life, and childhood contacts" seems a very interesting and useful one.

I'm gonna incorporate that as a idea into my setting. I think I'll somehow associate it with previous status, charisma, and maybe intelligence and wisdom.

I've recently started a facebook page (at the urging of others) and as a result re-encountered several people who I went to high school and college with who desired to "friend me" or whatever it is called. Some have even asked my help with various things.

So I think that as long as a character has some method or means of maintaining or re-establishing "background contacts" then that would be a very useful role play and gaming device. Good idea.

 

[Hussar]

That's an interesting point Jack7. How do you keep in contact with ... eerrr... contacts in a fantasy setting. By and large, mail isn't going to work because it's too slow. By the time you get a response (in many campaigns anyway), the problem is already three levels ago. I suppose you could use magic, but, that just jacks up the magic level in the setting and I'm not sure if I want to go that way.

Possibly we could simply slow down the campaign to allow for this sort of thing.

 

[Nifft]

Pony Mail too slow?
- Ring Gate Express! (strict weight limits enforced)
- Hand a bag of mail to a wizard who is about to Teleport somewhere.
- Spell or Rituals like Message for that feeling of Telegram.
- Find a Warlock who can cast Ambassador Imp, or multiclass and start your own spy network message delivery service!

Cheers, -- N

 

[Jack7]

The Call House

That's an interesting point Jack7. How do you keep in contact with ... eerrr... contacts in a fantasy setting. By and large, mail isn't going to work because it's too slow. By the time you get a response (in many campaigns anyway), the problem is already three levels ago. I suppose you could use magic, but, that just jacks up the magic level in the setting and I'm not sure if I want to go that way.

Possibly we could simply slow down the campaign to allow for this sort of thing.

I kinda like some of Nifft's suggestions. I've always liked the homunculus and thought that a great means of communications in a fantasy setting.

And to be serious about it I can see that communications would be an urgent matter in any world where magic really existed, because of some of the points you cite, along with others.

I can see a lot of clandestine means of communications developing as a sort of sub-branch of magic, and conversely methods of interfering with communications being developed through magic.

As for more mundane means of communications one thing I could picture developing would be "communications establishments." Places where communications are stored along with information and could be visited in any large enough population center. they would be like mini-libraries combined with posting offices, but the user would go to them rather than those places being exclusively information and communication distribution centers. (Though they could also be distribution centers.)

Everyone would know basically where these centers are, and the sender would pay to leave a message there, the more secure the message, the higher the price for storage, and the receiver would then go pick up the message when they could get to it, and they would pay a retrieval fee. The place would profit from both ends of the deal. And everyone would basically know where the information centers were, though they wouldn't be called that of course. Another fee and you can use their research library and records hall. It would just basically be the reverse of our mail and communications system. Instead of the mail coming to you, you go to the mail.

It would centralize information and still make it widely (or privately) available and the time elements of delivery of information could proceed as the sender and receiver can best work it. Of course it would probably be more secure and safer than a mail system, assuming the house was pretty safe.

It could be called something like a Call House or a Posting Hall. Or maybe a Call Hall or a Posting House.

I could also see places like that attracting spies, sages, librarians and researchers, guides and scouts, and merchants, travelers, men looking for work, prostitutes, and undercover men, and such "houses" developing attached boarding houses and inns and general meeting and social halls.

I can also see competitive halls developing in large cities in such settings. It would be an alternative to the hit or miss rumor mill of the typical fantasy tavern or mead hall or beer house.

Information would be a valuable commodity in such a place and competition for it, including the accuracy of it, would be at a premium.

 

[Nifft]

For a Scry-using society, public information could be disseminated even more easily: just designate one or two people "Scryboys", let them wear special amulets that automatically allow anyone to scry them, and for 12 hours a day, they do nothing but exist near signs with the latest "headlines" writ large enough to read through a crystal ball.

"Cor, it's the safest job in the world, guv. I've always got someone lookin' out for me, if you know what I mean."

There would be several hundred standard sign-offs (variants of the town crier's "ALL'S WELL"). Scryboys in the employ of a larger organization (like a kingdom) could use some sub-set of these as a code for "all is NOT well"; in towns like that, not changing the "ALL'S WELL" sign every day would also be an indication that things were not well.

Cheers, -- N

 

[howandwhy99]

That's what I can think up for now. What do you do with your guide type NPC's? Do you use them? What shouldn't a DM do with them?

I don't use NPCs as guides as I think it defeats the purpose of roleplaying. That said, if the players hire NPCs for certain tasks (usually non-role related), that can be an appropriate solution. XP awards are shared, but I half for NPC shares as they are unreliable. Treasure is shared too, at least the NPCs expect to receive something appropriate unless they're a Hireling (have a previous agreement about payment).

For non-traditional RPGs where storytelling is the objective I would avoid using NPCs to lead PCs down a predetermined plot line. Also, if the NPCs could not be ditched, I would consider a "DM" in this type of game to be domineering over his fellow players.

In regards to information known by the NPCs, I actually track the relevant stuff just like any other resource. Dispersal is up to how the players interact with them during the game and the NPCs' predetermined characterizations.

EDIT: in response to Jack99's typing of tracked info, I never use type 1. That is part of the challenge for the players IMO. They can choose to help each other out or not depending upon what each learns. Character knowledge prior to start is essentially their background. ...and just like any PC knowledge that could potentially be inaccurate too.

 

[Jack99]

I think it's important to divide information into two categories.
1) Information that helps the players understand the world.
2) Information that helps the players solve a quest/adventure/problem.

Type I information, I give to the players: You guys know that.. blah blah blah, or via a NPC, who without being asked, starts educating the characters.
Type II information is only available if sought out actively.

Now, 1 often becomes 2 at some point, and therefore, it's very important, nay crucial (IMO) that you as DM control the flow of information, making sure that you do not find yourself in a position where you have to choose between slowing down the pace of the adventure and handing out Type II info as you hand out Type I info.

By controlling the flow of information, I mean that you have to look ahead. I use a rule of thumb that says that my players should get information about 1 RL month (around 4-5 sessions) before they actually need it. That way, I have found that they never feel that I am spoon-feeding them info.

edit: This does in no way mean that I give them all the info that they need, I am talking about information that their characters, based on level, class, place of birth, place of living etc should have, without having to make some knowledge check. Just as every Parisian knows where Sacre-Coeur is, so should every citizen of Drahar know where the tomb of King L'Kart is in the city, since he/she/it probably has attended once the yearly city-wide celebration of the city's founder.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Pony Mail too slow?
- Ring Gate Express! (strict weight limits enforced)
- Hand a bag of mail to a wizard who is about to Teleport somewhere.
- Spell or Rituals like Message for that feeling of Telegram.
- Find a Warlock who can cast Ambassador Imp, or multiclass and start your own spy network message delivery service!

Cheers, -- N

News Papers - Trade Rags & Houses - Guild Listings - Magic Mirrors - Banks - Information Brokers - Magic Telephone - Angels & Demons or other animals (those that fly come to mind)

 

[Nifft]

I think it's important to divide information into two categories.
1) Information that helps the players understand the world.
2) Information that helps the players solve a quest/adventure/problem.

Nicely put. The way I think of those things is:
1) The ante and payout; and
2) The odds of winning.

1 is public information. 2 is rather less available.

Cheers, -- N