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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sol.Dragonheart" data-source="post: 4027323" data-attributes="member: 54316">I've noticed a trend that off screen NPCs are, in one way or another, virtually always detrimental to the party and I was wondering why that is.  To elaborate, it seems that every time a PC has a friend, a family member, or develops a connection with an NPC introduced during the campaign arc, they become a liability to the party.  At one point or another, it always seems this NPC that is cared for becomes endangered, hurt, or even killed due to the machinations of the PCs foes, and the worst part is, it seems like aside from 24/7 watch by the party themselves, they can never stop it.That brings me to my next point, why is it that NPC allies of the party are virtually always 90-100% ineffective in any actions you task them to?  Ask a trusted friend in the guard to watch over a young child you recently placed in an orphanage after rescuing her from an orc camp, and odds are you when you come back to the area, something happened to the child, and your good friend was drunk on duty/busy with other affairs/purely incompetent, and he's shocked that you ever thought he could be relied on in the first place.Even when off screen NPCs are not a pure liability, how often are they actually of real and honest benefit to the party?  For once I would like to see a PC with a contact in the Thieves Guild or a father that's a leading nobleman in the city, get the benefits he should logically get from having such connections.  It's as if all DMs decide that allowing PCs benefits for having real and honest connections with the NPCs of the world would be giving them something for free, and thereby refuse to ever do it, only using the NPCs to hurt, challenge, or cause some detriment to the PC.  I think PCs should be rewarded for allowing and encouraging close connections with the NPCs that exist in the world, aside from their current enemies list.Unfortunately, it seems few others agree, which is probably why 90-95% of characters created never list good, caring relations with friends or family, only creating a back history for plot hooks and further challenges, or simply going with the orphan/estranged route, since god knows they'll never get anything of actual tangible benefit from their relationships in the world.</blockquote>

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