How Do You Feel About NPC Party Members (A Poll)

[Jared Rascher]

What Do I Know About Opinions? NPC Party Members Answers

Finally managed to take the time to collect and summarize the answers from this poll. Thanks to everyone that participated, and let me know what you think either here or on the blog.

 

[GrahamWills]

So you're saying that you've never been in a game where there was inter-character drama but the players kept in managable because they wanted to keep adventuring together? Wow, that's some dry and bland groups.

Uhh .. no, not saying that at all. I think you might be confusing characters and players here. Sorry if this seems a bit pedantic or basic, but here goes:

What I said was "no-one -- GM or player -- gets to run a character that the players would prefer not to have around". This is a statement about players -- I made that very clear -- if the players prefer not to have a character in the group, it doesn't happen.

What you said was "there was inter-character drama but the players kept in managable" and you are making a statement about characters not wanting other characters in the group.

I assume you just read hastily, but honestly, this is a very basic distinction that must be understood in any discussion of role-playing games, and substituting one for the other doesn't help the discussion. So, just too be clear:

Inter-character drama is a good thing. It is common in every campaign I am involved in. My current pathfinder character hates my wife's character and wishes they were not in the party. Myself (the player) and my wife (the other player) do not hate either character and neither of us (the players) want the other character not to be in the party.

I'm actually a big fan of the DramaSystem system where the characters are massively adversarial and are typically driven to passionately hate one another. The last time I played, one character forced me to drink poison, crippling my character for life, and I tried to get her killed, but settled for exile. As the name suggest, DramaSystem is designed too feature inter-character drama. But when we draw up characters we are careful to make sure that the characters will be fun for all the other players to enjoy.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Depends who it is. I play with friends. If we DM and have a dm pealing for the ride we sort of forget them since we have real work to do. However, we feel free to use them later if a friend DMs.

I have never not ever seen someone get confused about the responsibility of the DM. We used to both play and dm when our group was only 2-3 strong.

but it’s about maturity. If I was to DM and have a dm pc I defer to party decision making and usually don’t push for items they want unless we roll to decide. Should it be my turn to play that changes and I am a full pc.

much less of that now since our group has grown so not needed.

all of that said, without perfect conditions of playing with good pals this would be ripe for problems...huge problems.

I will do this without objection with friends. Otherwise I would be exceedingly cautious and skeptical.

 

[Lanefan]

What I said was "no-one -- GM or player -- gets to run a character that the players would prefer not to have around". This is a statement about players -- I made that very clear -- if the players prefer not to have a character in the group, it doesn't happen.

How many players does it take to veto a character? If it's just one, you've got a problem: a player could keep vetoing characters until the party lineup was exactly what that player wanted. Add another player doing the same thing but with different tastes/preferences and bang goes that game.

If it takes more than one player to veto a character, where do you draw the line?

Also, how do you handle (or would you even allow?) characters with major things about them that are hidden from the other players/PCs, e.g. a character who is one class (say, Druid/Fighter multi) masquerading as another class (say, Ranger); or one who is running as one class (say, Fighter) while hiding a second (say, Thief)? I've done both of these combos as player - the "Ranger" had them fooled for the whole time he was with the party (just one adventure, sadly).

Further question: can a character be player-vetoed after it's already been in the party for a while? If yes, that sounds like another recipe for disaster.

What you said was "there was inter-character drama but the players kept in managable" and you are making a statement about characters not wanting other characters in the group.

I assume you just read hastily, but honestly, this is a very basic distinction that must be understood in any discussion of role-playing games, and substituting one for the other doesn't help the discussion. So, just too be clear:

Inter-character drama is a good thing. It is common in every campaign I am involved in. My current pathfinder character hates my wife's character and wishes they were not in the party. Myself (the player) and my wife (the other player) do not hate either character and neither of us (the players) want the other character not to be in the party.

That's great! You've kept your characters' feelings separated from your own - excellent.

My worry with the player-veto system is that it just turns the whole thing into something of a meta-popularity contest. Far better IMO to just sort it out in-character and base things only on whether the characters want a character around. Otherwise I could see this fairly quickly becoming an example of players telling other players what to play and-or how to play it.

I'm actually a big fan of the DramaSystem system where the characters are massively adversarial and are typically driven to passionately hate one another. The last time I played, one character forced me to drink poison, crippling my character for life, and I tried to get her killed, but settled for exile. As the name suggest, DramaSystem is designed too feature inter-character drama. But when we draw up characters we are careful to make sure that the characters will be fun for all the other players to enjoy.

That sounds like a cool system.

Making characters fun for others to enjoy, however, can come down to guesswork even in groups that know each other well (says he, speaking from experience). Sometimes a character seems fine on paper and even in play but for some reason the other players just don't like it (even if their characters do like it). I don't think that's reason enough for the character to get the boot on the meta-level.

Conversely, even if the players love a particular character, if the characters don't like it then it very much could get the boot.

 

[Blue]

Uhh .. no, not saying that at all. I think you might be confusing characters and players here. Sorry if this seems a bit pedantic or basic, but here goes:

What I said was "no-one -- GM or player -- gets to run a character that the players would prefer not to have around". This is a statement about players -- I made that very clear -- if the players prefer not to have a character in the group, it doesn't happen.

What you said was "there was inter-character drama but the players kept in managable" and you are making a statement about characters not wanting other characters in the group.

I assume you just read hastily, but honestly, this is a very basic distinction that must be understood in any discussion of role-playing games, and substituting one for the other doesn't help the discussion. So, just too be clear:

Inter-character drama is a good thing. It is common in every campaign I am involved in. My current pathfinder character hates my wife's character and wishes they were not in the party. Myself (the player) and my wife (the other player) do not hate either character and neither of us (the players) want the other character not to be in the party.

I'm actually a big fan of the DramaSystem system where the characters are massively adversarial and are typically driven to passionately hate one another. The last time I played, one character forced me to drink poison, crippling my character for life, and I tried to get her killed, but settled for exile. As the name suggest, DramaSystem is designed too feature inter-character drama. But when we draw up characters we are careful to make sure that the characters will be fun for all the other players to enjoy.

I'm not sure if you noticed what of your previous comment I had quoted and was responding to. It was the part where you were talking about PCs - characters. The gist of what I quoted and relied to was "In my games, no-one -- GM or player -- gets to run a character that the players would prefer not to have around. Our goal is to have fun, and not force people to accept an annoying PC."
(Bolding mine.)

What I quoted of you, and what I was talking about as well, was about characters.

What you are saying now is out of sync with what you said earlier that I quoted. I agree with what you are saying here. We often have inter-party drama, and as players we check with other players before putting them into play.

 

[pemerton]

In my games, no-one -- GM or player -- gets to run a character that the players would prefer not to have around. Our goal is to have fun, and not force people to accept an annoying PC.

So you're saying that you've never been in a game where there was inter-character drama but the players kept in managable because they wanted to keep adventuring together?

Uhh .. no, not saying that at all. I think you might be confusing characters and players here. Sorry if this seems a bit pedantic or basic, but here goes:

What I said was "no-one -- GM or player -- gets to run a character that the players would prefer not to have around". This is a statement about players -- I made that very clear -- if the players prefer not to have a character in the group, it doesn't happen.

I'm not sure if you noticed what of your previous comment I had quoted and was responding to. It was the part where you were talking about PCs - characters. The gist of what I quoted and relied to was "In my games, no-one -- GM or player -- gets to run a character that the players would prefer not to have around. Our goal is to have fun, and not force people to accept an annoying PC."
(Bolding mine.)

What I quoted of you, and what I was talking about as well, was about characters.

What you are saying now is out of sync with what you said earlier that I quoted. I agree with what you are saying here. We often have inter-party drama, and as players we check with other players before putting them into play.

GrahamWills is quit consistent across the two posts I've quoted: players don't get to play characters that other players don't like or find annoying.

This doesn't imply or even suggest that there is no inter-character drama. And it was not a remark about PCs. It was a remark about what players are allowed to do - namely, they're not allowed to play PCs that other players don't like or find annoying.

 

[Thondor]

I've nothing against NPCs having input to discussions etc. either as player or DM. That said, the trick as DM is to allow your party NPCs to make mistakes and come up with wrong or dumb suggestions roughly as often as the PCs do, to prevent the players/PCs from always looking to the NPC for the right answer or best idea.

This is critical I think.
For new players, exposing them to NPCs that have a clear personality that makes their advice suspect is important. Such as:
blood-thirsty/reckless, cowardly/cautious, glory-hound, obsequious/servile or indifferent.

Once they sort out that NPCs give bad advice sometimes, going a little more balanced is viable.


I also generally agree that NPCs following the same rules as PCs is a better option. It has more immersion and verisimilitude.

 

[GrahamWills]

How many players does it take to veto a character? If it's just one, you've got a problem: a player could keep vetoing characters until the party lineup was exactly what that player wanted. Add another player doing the same thing but with different tastes/preferences and bang goes that game.

If it takes more than one player to veto a character, where do you draw the line?

Also, how do you handle (or would you even allow?) characters with major things about them that are hidden from the other players/PCs ...

Further question: can a character be player-vetoed after it's already been in the party for a while? If yes, that sounds like another recipe for disaster.

...

My worry with the player-veto system is that it just turns the whole thing into something of a meta-popularity contest ...

Making characters fun for others to enjoy, however, can come down to guesswork even in groups that know each other well (says he, speaking from experience). Sometimes a character seems fine on paper and even in play but for some reason the other players just don't like it (even if their characters do like it). I don't think that's reason enough for the character to get the boot on the meta-level.

A somewhat tangential note here: Politically, I think that for small groups (maybe up to about 12 people) anarchy is the best organization; things are decided by consensus and hard rules should be very rare. If one person is against something, it does depend on how strong their feelings are, but there's no rule. This does have the "popularity problem" but I am fundamentally an optimist and think that, for small groups, people will generally be aware enough to counter this tendency. Yes, it may not work always, but for me, it works better than any other structure. Once past a handful of people, anarchies become harder as they depend on trust and respect, and for groups of size 100, say, you simply cannot know people well enough.

So for gaming, we don't have a gaming contract. We don't have lines we draw. We get together, we talk things out and we come to a resolution. The scenarios you mention -- a player continuously vetoing; as player hiding an aspect of their character that they know will make the game unfunny for others; a player vetoing another after playing a bit -- yes, these would be serious problems. But less procedural problems, than people problems. My thought would not be "what rules can we introduce to fix this?" but rather "why is Chris acting like this and how can we fix the situation so they re OK and so is everyone else".

I realize this might not be terrible helpful and feel very loose, but as the points you bring up indicate, it's hard to come up with solid rules. So we run with no rules, no hierarchy, just an expectation that people will follow Bill and Ted's dictum

 

[Lanefan]

A somewhat tangential note here: Politically, I think that for small groups (maybe up to about 12 people) anarchy is the best organization; things are decided by consensus and hard rules should be very rare. If one person is against something, it does depend on how strong their feelings are, but there's no rule. This does have the "popularity problem" but I am fundamentally an optimist and think that, for small groups, people will generally be aware enough to counter this tendency.

Thing is, I play with some pretty stubborn people who aren't always willing to compromise.

So for gaming, we don't have a gaming contract. We don't have lines we draw. We get together, we talk things out and we come to a resolution. The scenarios you mention -- a player continuously vetoing; as player hiding an aspect of their character that they know will make the game unfunny for others; a player vetoing another after playing a bit -- yes, these would be serious problems. But less procedural problems, than people problems. My thought would not be "what rules can we introduce to fix this?" but rather "why is Chris acting like this and how can we fix the situation so they re OK and so is everyone else".

In our crew, if we had a single-veto system it's be a nightmare; as one or two players in particular often prefer the party all be heroic quasi-Paladinic types while other players often want to be anti-heroes or tricksters and decidedly un-Paladinic.

Hidden character aspects can be a blast, depending what you're hiding and why.

I realize this might not be terrible helpful and feel very loose, but as the points you bring up indicate, it's hard to come up with solid rules. So we run with no rules, no hierarchy, just an expectation that people will follow Bill and Ted's dictum

Bill and Ted? (if that's a movie reference it's lost on me as I've never seen it)

 

[GrahamWills]

Thing is, I play with some pretty stubborn people who aren't always willing to compromise.

...

Bill and Ted? (if that's a movie reference it's lost on me as I've never seen it)

"Be Excellent to One Another" is the reference quote. Although I'm a Christian, I prefer it to the golden rule "do to others as you would have them due to you" as it asks you to go beyond equality. But yes, I'm lucky enough to play with people who are willing to compromise for the fun of all. Not sure what I'd do if that were not the case.