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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kobold Boots" data-source="post: 7314687" data-attributes="member: 92239">General ideas around NPC's First - The one-liner NPC won't generally stand up to most players who go out of their way to interact with NPCs.  This is just my experience.  If you've got players who explore the world, they're doing it because their default preferred play-style is sandbox.Next - If you don't have those types of players they generally won't look to be interacting with folks outside of the game path.  There's obviously a middle ground that will adore the one-liner guys but I've not had a group that's ever been middle ground.I used to struggle with winging a game session around random NPC interactions, but I've stolen a few things from the LARP playbook to make my games better.1. The box of random plot 2. Allowing players at the table to play NPCs from time to time.  Box of Random Plot - Write down 20 random plots and put em in a card box or in a file on your laptop etc.  They can be mundane or interesting.. whatever.  The key here is that you either want it to be simple stuff they can do near immediately to get a minor reward, or something so big that they can't handle it now but get back to it later.  Add to the plot card a male and female name so it's useable based on what you told the player the person was and a general attitude or emotion so you can guide the interaction off the cuff.  Players running NPCs - I've always had at least one player at the table that's been likely to run off with the story.  In many cases I've had up to half of the table like that, simply because at one point the majority of my players were also larpers and the performances at the table would run away with our game time.  If your players are down with it and you can advise them that time spent on one player or subgroup of them will eventually come around to the rest.. keep your players active by having them drive the story.First option is just good planning.  Second option won't work with every group but if you find yourself with the right group of folks, the stories really take off.Of course, serious social contracts up front so people know what the hell is going on.KB</blockquote>

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