Kill Your Pretties (NPCs)

[Mallus]

IMHO, your NPCs should not be 'important' enough to 'love'. The heroes of the story are the PCs. The NPCs should not be important enough for you to feel attached to them.

IMHO.... Wrong!

On a more serious note. Well-played NPC's have added to every campaign I've run and played in. I'd go so far as to say if your NPC's aren't memorable enough so that they run the risk of overshadowing the PC's, then your NPC's aren't quite up to snuff.

And when they do get to that level of importance, by all means, rub them out.

No story benefits from flat, uninteresting, interchangable characters.

PC's are always the POV characters. And they always should have choices in terms of their actions. But that's not quite the same as saying their always the heroes, or the movers and shakers on the scene. In a game where that was always true, the PC's would be cheated out of the fun of rising in station; going from those who had brushes with greatness to greatness themselves.

 

[barsoomcore]

Mallus: good point

It's always a balancing act, isn't it, between having memorable, lovable NPCs and loving them too much.

"NPCs And The DMs Who Love Them" -- we could start a support group!

Or not.

...

As the flames rose
To her Roman nose
And her Walkman started to melt...

 

[Nifft]

PCs, NPCs, heros, BBEGs -- they will all suffer. I am a cruel lord, and I will burn their hopes and dreams to bake my plot.

I don't really care who dies -- a villian into whom I've put a lot of effort, an NPC whose back-story in deep and involved, or a PC whose back story is "I'm an orphan with no friends". The important thing is that the world feels real to the players, and keeps them on edge -- no-one is safe and nothing lasts forever.

-- N

 

[the Jester]

PCs, NPCs, heros, BBEGs -- they will all suffer. I am a cruel lord, and I will burn their hopes and dreams to bake my plot.

I don't really care who dies -- a villian into whom I've put a lot of effort, an NPC whose back-story in deep and involved, or a PC whose back story is "I'm an orphan with no friends". The important thing is that the world feels real to the players, and keeps them on edge -- no-one is safe and nothing lasts forever.

-- N

Well said! I agree 100%!

 

[Dogbrain]

You must always kill your pretties, how else can you show that you love them?

 

[MarauderX]

There are the occassions where one or more PCs will go directly into harms way to say a certain NPC, and to kill the NPC would be to kill the PC, and to kill that PC would mean TPK......if it ever happens, so be it.

On the other hand, one PC was a clever wizard that would foil some of my better laid death traps by memorizing non-attacking spells and applying them to escape. In one case the 'mark' was down, but not dead; so instead of having a cleric heal her back up and everything would be spiffy, she became disease crippled by the effects of the trap - something they had not expected. So now she could accompany the PCs, at an annoying slower rate of speed of course, but couldn't participate in any battles. Rat-Bastardly? Yeah, but then again sometimes you have to do something - it only becomes comical when the same NPC 'mark' survives assassins, 'accidents', snipers, etc. time and again - like the incompetant DM can't kill his own characters!

 

[Nightfall]

funny, i did kill my gods for my current homebrew world...only before the game started

That works too!

Bar,

I don't kill my gods, just the NPCs and the PCs.

Niffty,

You're my new hero!