Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 6129008" data-attributes="member: 386">So basically you have an NPC who does things for the PC.  The PC's job is to please the NPC.  The player's job is to balance their own goals with the goals of the NPC - the player's choices are about doing what the NPC wants vs. what the PC wants, finding a nice balance between the two.I think that's an interesting model.  It seems like the obvious course of play for the player is to pick an NPC with goals similar to their own.  That is, the player figures out what they want to do while playing the game, select an NPC who wants similar things, and make a PC who also wants those things.  Which would mean you're playing an extension of the NPC.  To make things interesting, I think you'd want a random table (or tables) - a weighted table that will provide expected results most of the time, but odd and interesting ones every now and then - that throws a wrench into the NPC - PC relationship.  Something like - at the end of the day, after you've spent your "Divine Favour" points, you tally them up and make a roll on the table to see where your relationship is at now.  The table would be weighted, like a bell curve, so you'd roll 3d6 or something like that; but maybe you have a special die that skews the results now and then, or if you get doubles/triples something happens - to make sure there's always a chance for a rare but interesting result.You could also roll on the table after each favour is called for - though I think another table would be neat.Oh yeah, modifiers for doing other stuff would be good, too.  "Other stuff" meaning rites, saying your prayers, tithing, that kind of thing.Anyway, the point there is to provide the player with a resource that they can manage, and this resource carries some risk/reward.  It's always got some kind of chance to go off the rails to keep it interesting - you can never be completely "safe", but you can put the odds in your favour.  So the player is thinking, "A Flame Strike spell would be nice here, but that will likely blow my relationship out of the water; so do I ask for the Flame Strike and risk the relationship damage or go with Bless and (likely!) keep my relationship okay?"  Which is an interesting choice, I think.You'd want to make sure that the "relationship issues" that crop up are of the adventuring-inducing and awesome-generating kind, instead of the opposite: "Well, sorry I can't go into the Tomb of the Unknown Lich, my guy has to sit on top of a mountain with nothing to eat but the words of my patron for a month and a day and think about what I've done.  See you guys later if I survive."  Something like "If you find stairs leading down, you have to take them" would be good.  Which makes me think that you want insane, "metal", gonzo patrons who do things that make little sense to us mortals.  "Why do I have to turn east if given a choice?"  "Because I am the Lord of the East Wind and you will obey me."  Then you can create consequences that ramp up adventure and make sense in a game-play way instead of anything realistic.</blockquote>

Verification