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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fuindordm" data-source="post: 1253437" data-attributes="member: 5435">I always find that the more interesting the NPC, the less likely they are to survive. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />In an old Fantasy Hero game I developed an alchemist character who was, if not insane, definitely getting there. He wasn't playing a major role in the plot or anything, but he was fun to role-play and I was hoping to use him from time to time to give the party quests in exchange for juicy rewards.Their first quest's reward was to be a potion that increases one of their stats permanently, but I was very careful to play the NPC so that he was clearly unbalanced and promised only that such potions were one possible reward.When the party got back, he gave them a modified prisoner's dilemma, taking them into a room one by one and giving each the choice of white or black stones. If you chose a white stone, you would get a potion for every black stone chosen by the party.  If you chose a black stone, you would get 500 gold for every white stone chosen by the party.Well, they griped and grumbled but submitted to the game.  All of them chose white stones up until the last player, who thought a little more deeply and selflessly and picked black.  The result was that she got a lot of gold and everyone else got a single potion; I also intended for the more selfless players to get favored status with the alchemist in future encounters.The intent of this game was to foster some interaction and bonding experience between the PC's, put a spotlight on their character, etc.The result was that as soon as the party got their potions, one of the PCs drew on the alchemist and killed him with a called shot to the head.   I was shocked and appalled; the alchemist had no combat skills or defenses to speak of.  The action was certainly in character for the PC (a viking type with a temper), and I pulled a death curse out of my ass for that character (the blow wasn't quite hard enough to knock him out instantly). The rest of the party was also rather surprised, but didn't make too much fuss; and I think the event overshadowed any interparty bonding that I was hoping to foster.Lesson learned, however: NPC's should know better than to deal with adventurers without backup.--Ben</blockquote>

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