How involved are your NPCs?

[SuperJebba]

Hey, guys. I've been reading through the campaign in preparation to run it for my group. I have notice that numerous NPCs seem to tag along with the group for long periods of time. How have others who have run the campaign handled this? Do you have them participate in combat? Do they earn XP and level up? Do they just stand by? I like the potential dynamic of all the extra NPCs, but it seems like kind of a daunting task to keep track of them all.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Double edged sword. I love the NPCs so far in the campaign.

The NPCs offer tremendous story depth, and a mechanic to deliver information and options without too much story pushing. I have settled in to avoiding them being involved in combat. In addition, you do not need to follow the path exactly as it is written - I have ditched them early in places and created plausible ways they can be reinserted.

 

[Morrus]

Your best plan is to gauge your players. Or, better, let them decide.

In my game I gave them a choice - they could use NPCs as companion NPCs, but if they became bloodied they'd earn a full share of the XP. Most of the time the players chose to assume the NPCs were off doing something on the side, and if things got desperate they'd use them. To be fair, my group has just four players and no striker, so they're very underpowered.

It's totally a DM-Player decision. We can't decide that for you in the adventures, because we don't know you and your players (and also we market this as an Ap for experienced DMs, as opposed to, say, Scales of War, which holds your hand all the way). Some groups will like the involvement, others will not. So you, as the DM, have the scope to make those decisions - they can be anything from fully-fledged participants to off-screen sources of information. Some groups might like to have the players control them, others might prefer they not be there.

Just don't do what I did - alienate an NPC with an offhand comment which the players remember a year later. I never did manage to get the players interested in the disappearance of Etiniffi the Bard because I made Tiljann laugh once when one of them fell prone en route to Seaquen. Any time she mentioned him, they just said "Oh, we don't care!"

 

[OnlineDM]

My game is in the third adventure now. The party had Torrent from the beginning, of course. I had them pick up Crystin at the end of the first adventure, but I had the Inquisitor kill off Haddin (I just didn't feel like making him stick around). They added Tiljann at the end of the second adventure, and I had Crystin immediately wander off as soon as they arrived in Seaquen. They added Katrina in the swamp. Tiljann will probably be departing next session, leaving just Katrina old faithful Torrent. The gaggle of NPCs became a bit of a running joke at one point.

As for how I've handled them, I have a party of five PCs and Torrent sometimes jumps in if they're short-handed. The players seemed to want to have her involved, so I'd say she fought in about a third of the battles early on - less so lately, though. Now the NPCs mostly fade into the background during fights.

With the party finally in a settlement (Seaquen) and off the road, I can actually have the NPCs NOT tag along on a given adventure - they could be off doing their own thing. That works better for me, but I don't think the players really care one way or the other.

 

[Ragnar_Deerslayer]

My party is almost to Seaquen.

I've had Torrent active in combat from the beginning (taking her share of XP and levelling up), but tried to minimize her decision-making so the party wouldn't be deprotagonized.

Haddin always retreated to safety and put a dominated Crystin between himself and danger. (It seemed in character.) Once Crystin freed herself from domination and Haddin was disposed of, I had her frozen with combat paralysis during fights.

Tiljann didn't really join the party until the end of Adventure 2, and since then, I've had her stay out of combat with Crystin.

I'm planning to have Torrent, Crystin, and Tiljann go their separate ways after the party gets to Seaquen, but Katrina will stick close to them (at least for that adventure) and take an active part in fights.

Ragnar

 

[Zinovia]

Given that there were five NPCs that could wind up tagging along with the party before they reached Seaquen, I decided to cut a few before they outnumbered the PCs. My group started with five players and now has six. We didn't need the extra combat support. Nor are 1st level characters so fragile in 4E that they need an NPC cleric to keep them alive.

Torrent was cut entirely. The group had a meeting with the daughter of the Doge of Seaquen. There they learned of the Ragesian army and a potential deal being made with the Inquisitors to keep the city safe in exchange for giving them a list of all the mages. One of the characters worked for the councilman Erdan, and knew of information smuggled out of Ragesia that they had to retrieve. Another of the PC's had attended school at the Lyceum, with Lee Sidoneth as his mentor. I made Lee a water genasi, to go with the hydromancer role, and the PC was a genasi swordmage. It all worked nicely.

Crystin and Haddin were rescued by the party, and tagged along with them for quite awhile. Haddin helped in combat only when he felt his life was endangered. Since Crystin was described in the 3.5 version as being essentially worthless in combat, I assumed she was untrained as a mage and had her stay out of the way. I was surprised to see her given combat stats in the 4E version. Haddin mind-controlled a barmaid in a town they were passing through, and wound up getting himself killed for it.

Tiljann never came with them at all. She was in the fire forest, and did stuff there, but they left her there, with the wooden sword, to pick up the pieces in the Seela village. There was no reason for her to leave with the group when her own people needed her.

Katrina was rescued and accompanied the party to Seaquen, where she insinuated herself into Simeon's staff. There she has a front row view of everything going on. She doesn't travel with the party. If she did, I would stat her up as a companion character.

Balan was a diplomat, and had no combat stats. I saw no reason to make him an effective combattant, and so he stayed out of the way in fights. The group managed to keep him alive the whole time, despite an assassination attempt.

I plan to eliminate other NPCs that I consider to be unnecessary in future modules, such as Three Weeping Ravens. You can probably tell that I dislike having extraneous NPCs around, unless the group is small enough to need the extra combat support. Mine has six players already, so more help is unnecessary.

 

[OnlineDM]

[MENTION=57373]Zinovia[/MENTION]: What you describe makes a lot of sense, but I have to admit I was shocked at the notion of no Torrent! My party really likes her, even though she generally stays out of combat now. It works, though, the way you've described.

 

[Fox Lee]

I dig NPCs because I'm all about character interaction, but I didn't want any combat-capable characters upstaging the PCs by virtue of bad rolls or better niche powers. So, I made a new mechanic for "cohort" characters. Basically, certain NPCs are "recruitable" if the group can gain their favour, and they'll follow you around and provide a couple of services (mostly rituals or vendor services, depending on the character) as long as you take care of them. I'm also letting the group pick one at a time to have "active" who can give them a minor buff useful for combat and/or skill challenges. Torrent, for example, will give them a bit of fire resistance.

I guess they're kind of like items with personality

This provides its own problems, of course, since the PCs basically develop a convoy. I can deal with that, though, and I'm sure they'll enjoy acquiring a ship/fortress/whatever to house them all in.

 

[Zinovia]

[MENTION=57373]Zinovia[/MENTION]: What you describe makes a lot of sense, but I have to admit I was shocked at the notion of no Torrent! My party really likes her, even though she generally stays out of combat now. It works, though, the way you've described.

I think my group would have resented her. She is a DM PC. She was higher level ( in 3.5 at least), has more connections, more knowledge, more influence, and more plot hooks relating to adventure 3. No thank you.

The reasons to have a DM-run character travel with the group long-term are to fill out needed combat roles, and to help provide direction if they get stuck. It is fine to hire a guide, or escort a prince, or bring along an NPC to aid in a specific task. That association should be of limited duration by its very nature.

The thought of bringing an entire caravan full of followers is laughable with my particular group of players. They use Phantom Steed a lot, and wind up outpacing normal horses. They also like sneaking. For other groups, it would be fun to do it that way. I could suggest it and see how they react. I'm guessing they would say no, but if I could accurately predict what my group was going to do, I would have a much easier time as GM.

I am still considering having Katrina accompany them on one adventure, mainly to give them some interaction with her, and the chance to influence her future course of action. Right now they see her as the politically savvy social-climber trying to make herself useful to Headmaster Simeon. They haven't spent much time talking to her. She would be statted as a companion character.

 

[jeffh]

Arise, o deceased thread!

Thought it might be worth posting my approach to this. I had lineup changes leave me with two ex-PCs at one point, and it was during the fire forest so they really had little chance to leave for most of that adventure, so I got REALLY fed up with DMPCs at one point, despite the first entry below.

TORRENT - Did most of the initial infodump, then died in mid-sentence to the very first Ragesian bomb to hit Gate Pass. Pretty much for Zinovia's reasons. Remaining info and supplies they needed from her were found in her conveniently unharmed backpack.

HADDIN - Persuaded to tag along by flattering him (well, and by an Inquisitor literally showing up at his front door - Haddin was egotistical enough to think it was him they were after, in fact I think some of the party thought this too). Later, overplayed his hand by teaming up with Kazyk and openly turning on the party. Died as a result; this was the expected and hoped-for result, didn't have to fudge the dice at all to arrange it.

KRYSTIN - Was actually more initially interested in going along than Haddin, but backed down as soon as he objected and so was openly pleased when he changed his mind (Haddin didn't like that, nor any sign of her having a mind of her own). Sat out the fight where Haddin turned; that left her in a horrible place psychologically, as she comes to fully understand what this man she depended on was doing to her. (Ryan says he was meant to be abusing her sexually, even he wasn't he was still controlling her - Haddin was a horrible person and that can't be an easy thing to realize about your father, especially for someone like Krystin.) Became suicidally depressed, and talking her down and keeping her that way has become a minor sub-plot. Dramatically she's a lot more interesting with Haddin dead than alive. Future unknown even to me at this point, but distinctly on the mend, thanks in no small part to (just the way the dice fell) kicking ass during the rescue of...

KATRINA - The group LOVES her. Doesn't trust her an inch, and rightly not at this point, but they seem to be thoroughly enjoying her. Will definitely be around on and off for the foreseeable future. Or (once she's more sincerely on their side) I might have some villain I really want them to hate kill her off. You never know.

TILJAN - is actually a PC! I brought in a guest co-DM, a friend of most of my players who sometimes runs short-term World of Darkness games that have gotten much praise, to handle some of the NPCs in the second adventure. So she knew the second adventure well enough to be correcting me on some of the backstory, but nothing about the rest of the story or the world - which was fine, that's exactly the position the character is in. All concerned ended up enjoying her contributions so much that she asked to stay with the group permanently, and we rebuilt Tiljan for her to continue using (though she also has a druid she'd like to bring in should Tiljan leave or die).

And looking ahead a bit...

THREE WEEPING RAVENS - Also a PC. Or rather, will be replaced by one. Those two departed PCs I mentioned above were associated with the Monastery of the Two Winds; the plan is for one of them to come back, ideally played by his original player, and take the part in the story that 3WR does in the path as written.