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Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6889230" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>It's the difference between situations which occur naturally within the world, and situations which are contrived against the PCs because they are PCs. </p><p></p><p>By and large, with caveats for certain specific games and genres, the PCs aren't important <em>within</em> the game world. There's no real in-game difference between a PC wizard and an NPC wizard, for example. That being the case, it's contrived if the PC wizard is constantly on the receiving end of personally-compelling situations for no good reason. It's just bad GMing. It's meta-gaming, by treating this one character different than another character, merely because it's a PC. (If someone is kidnapping the mother of <em>every</em> wizard, then that's a different story.)</p><p></p><p>In common parlance, the "path of least resistance" would be "grabbing the plot hook". The rough opposite of that is "taking initiative as a player". </p><p></p><p>As a player, there's no point in doing anything clever, if bypassing one obstacle means you are faced with another obstacle that you wouldn't have faced if you hadn't been clever in the first place.</p><p></p><p>Intent is important. If the world is set up in a certain way, such that interesting situations are naturally likely to happen due to how things are interconnected, then that's one thing. Worlds <em>should</em> be built in order to encourage interesting situations. It's only when the GM starts targeting that stuff at PCs where you've crossed the line. Anything that happens to a PC <em>because</em> it's a PC is meaningless.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 6889230, member: 6775031"] It's the difference between situations which occur naturally within the world, and situations which are contrived against the PCs because they are PCs. By and large, with caveats for certain specific games and genres, the PCs aren't important [I]within[/I] the game world. There's no real in-game difference between a PC wizard and an NPC wizard, for example. That being the case, it's contrived if the PC wizard is constantly on the receiving end of personally-compelling situations for no good reason. It's just bad GMing. It's meta-gaming, by treating this one character different than another character, merely because it's a PC. (If someone is kidnapping the mother of [I]every[/I] wizard, then that's a different story.) In common parlance, the "path of least resistance" would be "grabbing the plot hook". The rough opposite of that is "taking initiative as a player". As a player, there's no point in doing anything clever, if bypassing one obstacle means you are faced with another obstacle that you wouldn't have faced if you hadn't been clever in the first place. Intent is important. If the world is set up in a certain way, such that interesting situations are naturally likely to happen due to how things are interconnected, then that's one thing. Worlds [I]should[/I] be built in order to encourage interesting situations. It's only when the GM starts targeting that stuff at PCs where you've crossed the line. Anything that happens to a PC [I]because[/I] it's a PC is meaningless. [/QUOTE]
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Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?
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