Off Screen NPCs Purely Detrimental?

[Raven Crowking]

All of those good turns should be possible as well, every NPC isn't out to get the PCs or an easy victim. But tying adventures to exsisting relationships with a PC is a good idea. If each PC only has 2 adventures caused by friendly NPC victimization/betrayal the stereaotypicla 4 player party is gogin to have 8 of those adventures over a 18 month long campaign. They shoudl also get gifts, safe hosues, soucrces for replacement PCs. (An easy way to explain a replacemnrt character is a relative of an NPc the players have helped before, i'm amazed how seldom I see this however. )

Exactly so. Players are sold on what they get out of the relationship, so that when the BBEG finally does kidnap Sis, the players can easily see what is going to be lost. Two hooks with that PC could easily be (1) Sis asks a favour and (2) Sis is eventually exploited as the PC's weak spot.

OTOH, using a character pool, Sis might also be a PC, and the "Sis asks a favour" could be an in-game event controlled by the player, whereas "Sis is exploited" could be part of an adventure that goes horribly wrong.

RC

 

[ruleslawyer]

I agree with RC here. One has to keep PC-NPC relationships beneficial in the main or else PCs will change their identities, hide out in the wild, and never interact with anyone on a friendly basis. (I actually ran a campaign like this for a while out of design, and while it was interesting, it was very, very tense.)

As to NPCs being incompetent or constantly being endangered by the villains: I think there are a couple of things going on here. One is that DMs can be turned off by the prospect of the PCs being easily able to lean on NPC support to accomplish their goals. I run a game similar to PCat's (all the PCs are residents of a particular neighborhood in a large city), with the added complications that (1) the city in question (Waterdeep) has a *lot* of friendly resources and (2) one of the PCs is a noble, and thus well-connected (he had to pay a character creation cost for that). I know that as DM, I had to take a deep breath and relax when I saw my PCs using their impressive Diplomacy skills and record of heroic deeds to gain the support of dozens of friendly NPCs including City Watch officers, watchwizards, merchant guilds, et cetera. But it's added richness to the campaign in the long run, and set me up with nigh-infinite story hooks, few of which need to involve putting friendly NPCs in peril (though one or two kidnappings might not be out of the question...).

 

[haakon1]

This is an issue of bad DM'ing vs. good DM'ing.

Agreed.

As for whether that effects the fact that most players don't bother developing a family and friends for the PC, I think it doesn't. I think the main reasons players don't bother with that stuff (and say they are an orphan or far from home instead) are:
1) It's a trope. Conan, etc.
2) It's not relevant to the character. Nobody cares who Han Solo's mom is.
3) It's too much work.
4) They haven't gotten to know the character until they've played him a while.

In my campaigns, NPC's matter, but they are usually not friends and family. More often, they are patrons, suppliers, trainers (the words: "you killed my master, prepare to die" have yet to be uttered), and comrades. NPC's are neither useless, nor constantly in danger, nor secretly evil, the vast majority of the time.

The PC's can and have honestly become friends with their favorite innkeeper and the guy who runs the only magic shop in the city . . . and no villain has plans to mess with either, because the city is well-defended, by competent folks.

 

[haakon1]

It is the same reason that every person who seems to be related to Jack Bauer ends up in dire peril at some point during the day.

As a DM, I pledge to never have an NPC who's as clueless and useless as Jack's daughter . . . a giant centipede pet would be less helpless.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Agreed.

As for whether that effects the fact that most players don't bother developing a family and friends for the PC, I think it doesn't. I think the main reasons players don't bother with that stuff (and say they are an orphan or far from home instead) are:
1) It's a trope. Conan, etc.
2) It's not relevant to the character. Nobody cares who Han Solo's mom is.
3) It's too much work.
4) They haven't gotten to know the character until they've played him a while.

In my campaigns, NPC's matter, but they are usually not friends and family. More often, they are patrons, suppliers, trainers (the words: "you killed my master, prepare to die" have yet to be uttered), and comrades. NPC's are neither useless, nor constantly in danger, nor secretly evil, the vast majority of the time.

The PC's can and have honestly become friends with their favorite innkeeper and the guy who runs the only magic shop in the city . . . and no villain has plans to mess with either, because the city is well-defended, by competent folks.

This should be required reading for every DM. Many fantasy heroes never mention their parents because they're irrelevant.