Should a DM change an official NPC?

[RobNJ]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Yeah, but...

He expressed his opinion on FR, and I expressed my opinion on home-brewed campaigns. Both opinions are just as valid,

No they are not. He can have tried FR. You can not have tried every home brew. There is no equivilency here. You can definitively state that most home brews you've played you haven't enjoyed. It is impossible for you to say you dislike every home brew, because you haven't played any home brew.

What, is the English language new to you?

 

[Darkness]

Eh. I consider this an ill-considered sentence, Darkness - simply because most gamers don't have a problem with it doesn't mean they all don't.

Head, meet desk.

*WHAM. WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.*



Heh. Did I say anything about "most gamers" or "everyone?"

No. I was talking about "most gamers that I know" - which I made quite clear in my post.

So don't put words into my mouth, okay?

 

[The Serge]

Good god! This has really taken a spin.

I'm at a loss for words with this one. What seemed to be a fairly interesting question turned into a very personal series of jibes! Wow.

Anyway, I'll say that I think that any DM who strictly uses a campaign setting without making adjustments is probably not all that good... especially considering that PCs are going to have some kind of impact on the setting, particuarly as they rise in levels. I don't see how this can be avoided. Furthermore, what does a group playing Forgotten Realms do when there is some major change in structure (a la the Avatar Trilogy) when changes occur. How would someone like greymarch handle this?

I buy most of the FR material simply because I find the "crunchy" parts useful and because I like being able to have conversations about the material. I don't play in it and if I did, I would make adjustments to suit my mode of play. Personally, I prefer more open campaign settings, Planescape being my favorite, because there's an infinite space in which to do things without "official" stuff meddling. Furthermore, I prefer my own setting and other homebrews because they allow for far more ownership without having to worry about external, "official" precendence.

As for attacks on this or any other boards, such behavior is rather tasteless, but considering the heat of discussions/arguments here lately stemming from BoVD, I'm not all that surprised. I'm glad that these and other alternatives exist because they allow (almost require) that the official makes improvements. This boards is hardly anti-WotC by virtue that we are talking about a WotC product the vast majority of the time and people largely support the product if not the personalities and the designers behind the product.

Wow. This is fun!

 

[Bendris Noulg]

And if greymarch is still on this thread (which I doubt) I also don't think anyone is suggesting that you HAVE to change NPCs. All anyone is advocating is that if a particular NPC doesn't work for your campaign (like Orcus in the BoVD which is what started this thread) then it isn't a crime to change him, but that change should come before his/her stats and abilities have been revealed to the characters.

Stats and abilities revealed?

Interesting...

Not to oppose, but I would simply say "these aren't his stats" and let other information come out in game in the form of lore and myth. One of the great things about homebrewing: The more you create, the less excuses for metagaming you need to digest.

 

[IceBear]

Stats and abilities revealed?

Interesting...

Not to oppose, but I would simply say "these aren't his stats" and let other information come out in game in the form of lore and myth. One of the great things about homebrewing: The more you create, the less excuses for metagaming you need to digest.

Hmmmm - I should have been more clear about 'revealing' stats and abilities (that was why I said "revealed to the characters" and not to the players, but that's a subtle difference that's easy to miss ). I didn't mean someone actually seeing the pen and paper stats, but through roleplay. If, for example, a villian that the players fought for many levels that didn't show any spellcasting powers suddenly casts Timestop on the characters, that might affect the suspension of disbelief somewhat and cause the players to accuse the DM of cheating. Again, so no one misunderstands me, I can think of plausible reasons why this COULD occur in a campaign, but it should be kept to a minimum.

IceBear

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Ah... Kewl.

 

[William Ronald]

A plea for reason.

I would like to suggest that we try to avoid personal attacks on people. To me, it is more interesting to discuss ideas.

My ideas on how to use Forgotten Realms materials and on homebrew campaigns differ radically from those of greymarch. (To summarize, I have my own homebrew and I will use any source book that has elements to make it more enjoyable.) However, I believe everyone has the right to an opinion, preferrably a well informed one.

The moderators have warned in the past against personal attacks on people. They tend to take away from the focus of the topic.

Getting back on topic, I think it is up to each DM to try to give a sense of reality to his campaign -- whether homebrew or a published setting. As everyone has individual interpreptations of characters, places, and rules, even someone only using canon material will have a different campaign than someone else using the same materials. Throw in PCs, non-canon NPCs, and anything players or DMs may create, and it is obvious that a person can at most run their version of a published setting.

Also, I would be remiss if I did not mention that some things that were core in 2nd Edition are now in FR products. Some of the creatures in the Monsters of Faerun, and deities in Faiths and Avatars were formerly not included in FR products. However, I feel free to use any creature that I wish from Monsters of Faerun.

 

[IceBear]

Again, I don't see where anyone is REALLY attacking the poster. There was a good discussion going on, but then the original poster got upset because he didn't like the answers and then implied we were idiots and left

Your response is pretty much what everyone else said to him too, but he didn't like that at all.

IceBear

 

[William Ronald]

As for the extra powers bit, it is a good idea to be fairly consistent with NPCs. Although you can throw in a few surprises, such as the NPC getting a device that allows the use of time stop. (Or for that matter, having an invisible ally cast time stop or read a scroll and arrange to teleport the "Big Bad" when the party comes out of time stop. This can have the party wonder if their enemy has unrevealed powers and unnerve them. Of course, if they hear a rumor that their foe is now the ally of a powerful wizard, they may have a good idea where that time stop came from.)

Ice Bear, I do think it is unfortunate that greymarch did not stay and explain why he feels as he does about the issues at hand. It is just that when I read some of the posts, I seemed to detect some unnecessary anger. I have seen people insulted on these boards to the point that moderators have had to shut down threads. I just want to avoid that here as I think this is an interesting topic.

 

[Sinistar]

I wish that Greymarch would come back and tell us HOW he runs an "Official" FR campaign. Is he a member of the LGPA? Is it the Living City campaign and so they need to stay as close to 'canon' as is possible to make the characters compatible with that system? That is a legitimate concern I think if you are going to be taking that seriously. And that group is pretty large. I played in one tournament, would have more but I have not had the chance. I can see the appeal of it. If that is what he is doing, then I can understand the desire to have your DM not change things on you. You don't want to assume that X NPC is this sort of person then go to tournament and find out they are Y sort of person.
I think the problem that Greymarch had was that he did not define his "official" campaign. If he had told us what constitutes a campaign he might have received a better response.
But the basic premise he began with, "only my way is the official way" and the arguments he gave to support it, "only WOTC publishes official canon" really don't tell us anything.
I play FR, and I love the realms. But I think the worst thing to happen to them were the novels. I have yet to read one of them that I did not think was a pile of some extraneous material that should not be mentioned in polite conversation. I ignore the NPCs because my players (and me as a player when someone else runs it) have no business sticking their nose into what the official NPCs might be doing. (and vice-versa)...