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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 5668544" data-attributes="member: 54707">Very, very often.   Monsters in my setting and unique and uncommon.  The parties may encounter a monster once every three or four adventures.  Monsters are extremely rare, are extremely dangerous and unique (so unless  rumors exist, which may or may not be accurate, no one has any real idea of how  to fight or kill them).  The parties (we have more than one playing Team -  but one main team) also encounter normal people, as well as government  officials, the military, etc. every day at their base (of operations) or in the  cities where they operate.  On missions and adventures though the NPC is the  main source of interaction with others, and is the main instrument of  interactive role play and of moving the story along.  NPCs are fundamental in our campaigns, and that  includes NPCs who are allies (such as in the military or Church), NPCs who have  their own agenda (politicians or bureaucrats, or maybe other adventurers, or  those who have interests that temporarily overlap those of the parties), NPCs  who are enemies or opponents (such as the Dragoons or maybe Goths or Persians or  Huns), and NPCs who want to use the party or parties for their own  purposes.  Many NPCs do not fight the party directly, but  fight their interests, through maneuver or political or other influence. Some  NPCs support the party or parties (defending on which party). Some NPCs hire  others (such as pirates or Goths or Bulgarians) to oppose or fight the party.  Some attempt to trick, deceive and ambush the party. But some outright fight and  attack the player party or parties.  And a few, like the Dragoons, even attempt to use  monsters against the party, when they can.  NPCs could be considered everyone in the world  except the parties, although that's not really how I classify an NPC. I divide  the world, as a DM, into the following basic categories:  Ordinary or Common People -  people you encounter in everyday life, but often only once  Associates - people who never  adventure with the parties but whom they often interact with as friends or  allies  Important Officials - I keep  lists of these people by name and profession and position and consider them  NPCs. Some of these will have character sheets if they need to go on missions  with the Team (party) as allies, or for other reasons.  Comrades/Contracted/Hired - NPCs  with their own character sheets who are sometimes hired by the party for  contract work, or are assigned to the party, such as Byzantine spies, military  teams, or foreign ambassadors  Important Opponents and Enemies -  if high enough level or important enough then all of these NPCs have character  sheets of their own, and well developed networks of contacts  Monsters - since most every  monster is a unique and usually powerful and dangerous creature each monster has  its own "Monster Character sheet" and if intelligent at all, is played like an  NPC, not as an animal. Although some monsters are primitive and have no higher  intelligence, they have character sheets because they each have unique abilities  or capabilities. So in a way I guess they could be considered NPCs as  well.  There are so many NPCs and Monsters of the "well  developed type" because so few important NPCs or Monsters got to be where they  are without being very, very good at survival. So if possible they don't fight to  fight, or fight to the death. They often fight to kill others, but aren't real  enthused about fighting to their own deaths.  How I run and operate NPCs though all depends on  how you actually define NPC. Does one mean NPC as in non-player character, a  character that is never played in combat or in opposition to the party, or  does one mean NPC as in a character never played by the players, but only by the  DM? I tend to use the latter definition.By the way, this is basically how I classify  general categories of people in real life too. Except for the Monster category.  There are no trolls or goblins of course, but there are criminals and evil men  often take the place in my mind of "monsters" so I use that general category as  well.    But for real life I also have  Networks and Partners and  Family and Friends/Comrades  as separate categories.</blockquote>

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