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<blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 5207540" data-attributes="member: 23240">First and most important: the NPCs don't have to be enemies. They may be allies, may be rivals (aiming for the same resources as the party does, but without direct aggression), they may just want something from the PCs or have something that the PCs want. There's a lot of kinds of interaction that aren't combat. Even if you plan to have the NPC eventually defeated, don't present him as a villain the first time he meets the party.Second: The NPCs may be ambivalent - that's how I love to have them. They have goals and personality traits that my players may identify with, but also has ones that conflict with PCs. It leads to many narratively powerful situations. You may have the party temporarily ally with someone who's goals and methods they don't accept, because the one common goal is more important at the moment. You may have a PC fight and kill someone who they like and respect, because he can't agree on something that person wants to do and the NPC won't have it another way. You may have two conflicted NPCs, with your players being able to understand and at least partially agree with both, but having to take sides.The last point: sometimes it is fine for the NPC to win. I had several such situations in my games, most of them unplanned. If an NPC is attacked by the party, beats them and then lets them go, it establishes her as a honorable person and puts PCs in debt. It's hard to kill someone who let you live. Once, such situation led to the party and the NPC becoming allies, at least for some time. Another time, an NPC beat a PC in a duel; at the end of the session he was defeated by the same hero and left alive, as he left the PC before.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="steenan, post: 5207540, member: 23240"] First and most important: the NPCs don't have to be enemies. They may be allies, may be rivals (aiming for the same resources as the party does, but without direct aggression), they may just want something from the PCs or have something that the PCs want. There's a lot of kinds of interaction that aren't combat. Even if you plan to have the NPC eventually defeated, don't present him as a villain the first time he meets the party. Second: The NPCs may be ambivalent - that's how I love to have them. They have goals and personality traits that my players may identify with, but also has ones that conflict with PCs. It leads to many narratively powerful situations. You may have the party temporarily ally with someone who's goals and methods they don't accept, because the one common goal is more important at the moment. You may have a PC fight and kill someone who they like and respect, because he can't agree on something that person wants to do and the NPC won't have it another way. You may have two conflicted NPCs, with your players being able to understand and at least partially agree with both, but having to take sides. The last point: sometimes it is fine for the NPC to win. I had several such situations in my games, most of them unplanned. If an NPC is attacked by the party, beats them and then lets them go, it establishes her as a honorable person and puts PCs in debt. It's hard to kill someone who let you live. Once, such situation led to the party and the NPC becoming allies, at least for some time. Another time, an NPC beat a PC in a duel; at the end of the session he was defeated by the same hero and left alive, as he left the PC before. [/QUOTE]

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