Does Your Group Abuse NPCs?

[Numion]

If the businessman doesn't want to talk to them, too bad. They'll jump into his cart or tackle his horse if he tries to leave.

That's funny! Quite often in movies the heroes do stuff like that, and get away with it. Or at least have the audiences sympathies. I can't even recall how many times I've seen the main character in a movie to just barge into some bigshots office even though his secretary claims he's in a meeting. Then the hero proceeds to slam dunk the bigshots honor in front of the board of directors or whatever.

In movies it's ok - cops do get called sometimes, but it's still okay from the audiences point of view.

However, in RPGs it usually irritates the DM (not talking about you, my torsoless friend). It used to irritate me, at least somewhat. PCs are smitten down for their insolence - the watch arrives in 10 rounds flat, or something else. In KoDT this would be like the "El Ravager bows down to no man!" at kings reception (it ended with Ravager trying to pawn off the kings regalia after a huge bloodpath, resulting from the characters refusal to bow to the king, as was customary).

Has anyone noticed a similar trend? Nowadays I'm even hoping for something like this to happen when I DM, just for the excitement.

 

[Numion]

My characters do not know that they have a character sheet and the other people don’t so I play with that ideal in mind. To me its part of role-playing.

So, when one of the adventurers die, and a new member is recruited .. how do you know to pick the person who's being played by your regular player, and not accidentally recruit an NPC in his place, and give the PC the 'finger'?

Hehee .. just kidding

 

[ThirdWizard]

I never had any of that happen.

When I started, keeping NPCs in good graces was always important in my homebrew. I had affilitations and groups and all sorts of political intrigue from day one of DMing my own game.

Then I moved to Planescape. One great thing about Sigil is/was that if the PCs try stuff like that, there's always someone around the corner bigger than they are, and besides making friends was often more important than personal power.

So, to me, that's just weird crazy.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Recently, yes.

We had a changeling PC in the group who was hiding among our ship's crew - we'd never actually met him. So when we got to the adventure site, the captain sent him along in case we needed help - you know, carrying stuff or anything.

So we relentlessly treated him like a henchman until he 'fessed up to being a spy. You know, things like "here, you carry the dead druid" or "treasure share? for a henchman?" He got the message after two games.

Still hasn't admitted to being a changeling, though.

 

[Evilhalfling]

only when playing TMNT
when you are a 5' tall ninja Rhino* humans are pretty expendable. Many, many games ended in shootouts with the law.

In D&D - no, not as far as I remember early NPCs were treated as scenery but not abused.


* actual team characters 3 mutant ninja rhinos. size 6 (small human) Good times

 

[frankthedm]

Fate smiles upon the PCs because they are heroes, thus they are destined to have encounters that are usually meaningful, but not often inescapably deadly. Players who do crap like this that find that Encounter levels stop being balanced since by their very actions they have shown they desire more encounters to be inescapably deadly. Their demise often follows as the tables are turned.

 

[Hjorimir]

As the DM I've thrown a PC into a dungeon and tossed away the key. Hey, if you want verisimilitude you have to stick with it. Resisting arrest and insulting the Judge (calling him corrupt) during your trial is not how to get off of the hook.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I'm with Frank on this.

The whole "Balanced Encounter Guarantee" is reserved for heros or at least those playing within genre. If you leave the harbor of the genre expect to feel the fury of the open sea.

 

[frankthedm]

The whole "Balanced Encounter Guarantee" is reserved for heros or at least those playing within genre. If you leave the harbor of the genre expect to feel the fury of the open sea.

QftT

 

[gizmo33]

I'm with you guys in spirit on this. It's hard to be patient, though, and wait for things to take their course. And in some cases, it's probably not realistic that a 20th level PC, in a lawless area, would take on too much trouble by abusing some low-level locals. It might be best to just come clean to the players and say "hey, I'm not interested in running G4: Against the Villagers". Other than that, I think Franks advice is great - the gloves should definitely come off at some point - I think most players are too paranoid to want to be hated by both good and evil people.