redrick
First Post
What if I put it like this: realistically, a dozen people have knowledge about one clue that's necessary for the detective to put together two clues that will eventually lead him to the killer.
GMs don't have time for that. One NPC is going to reveal one clue, another will reveal the other clue, and a third NPC will help the PCs put the two clues together (because you know they're going to need it). Then the chase scene ensues.
If you don't write out lines of dialogue, then your primary NPCs have significant notes that reveal what they know, with whom they interact, and what their routines and inventory look like.
If you don't have lines of dialogue written out, or significant notes on what the NPC knows, then you're just winging it - which can lead to serious inconsistencies, player confusion, and - get ready for it - non-immersive play.
The concept is that there are NPCs who require detail, but most really don't, and shouldn't be expected to.
Ok, I think we have a very different approach to how we prep and run NPCs. I've never written dialog for NPCs — though I do sometimes talk to them in my head the day of a session — and I worry very little about their inventory and routines unless I am running a detailed investigative adventure focused on prying secrets out of NPCs to solve a mystery. My last Cthulhu adventure, for instance, had a half dozen bullet points each for a half dozen NPCs, but that's because everyone was a suspect and everyone had a secret, and I wanted to leave physical and verbal clues that could help the characters (and the players) put everything together. Even then, I am always determining, on the spot, exactly what NPCs know and don't know, and how they are going to respond to PCs.
Instead, I put my energy into being clear in the notes about the facts of the adventure. What happened when and where and who the main actors were. If it's an investigative adventure, I might break this information down into "Clues" that the PCs will need to collect in order to make sense of things, just so that I can be sure that there are ample opportunities for the PCs to collect them, either by seeding them into an adventure ahead of time or by improvising on the fly. Once I know those details, it's not hard to make a judgment call about what the innkeeper does or doesn't know.
That being said, I do think there is benefit in keeping NPCs busy and terse most of the time. While I love NPC interaction, both as a DM and a player, I'll be the first to admit that NPC banter can sometimes dominate our play time, leaving little time for exploration and murder-hoboing. So it would be a good reminder for me to assume that my NPCs usually have something they'd rather be doing than talking to the PCs and make them generally in a hurry to end the interaction.
But, as for who the players actually talk to, anyone is fair game. I don't have to worry about giving my townspeople a pay bump because they delivered a line on-camera. If the players want to canvas the houses near where the murder happened, they're gonna find somebody home and that person is gonna get a name and they will probably have some sort of information. But, ok, they probably shouldn't invite the characters in for tea and tell them their hastily constructed life story. My bad.