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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Should NPCs Have to Follow the Same Rules as PCs?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6569414" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Even to the extent it doesn't matter whether it makes sense, the fact that such situations can occur in the first place suggest that you aren't gaining as much efficiency in creating NPCs as you might at first think. And in the second place, suggest that the rules system is consciously or unconsciously encouraging the GM to think that such situations shouldn't occur. </p><p></p><p>In my current campaign, 2 of the 3 party henchmen both began as foes in combat before truces were declared and differences resolved, and in prior campaigns replacement PC's or secondary PC's were generally converted from important NPCs. In a system where NPC's didn't share structure with PC's, you could potentially have the same character have 3 stat blocks that each impacted the game in a different way - the NPC as foe (with enhanced capabilities to challenge groups of PCs), the NPC as ally (with greatly reduced capabilities so as to not throw off game balance), and the NPC as PC (with a completely new set of abilities). And quite often, the game would play as such that the observer could tell the NPC's abilities and behavior changed according to their metagame/narrative situation - even if they couldn't observe the metacontent (the stat blocks). This in my opinion is far from ideal and would be incredibly jarring, and would take me completely out of the setting. My strong anticipation is that a system that went to that extent to define imagined entities according to their metagame role, would strongly encourage the shared imaginative space to be primarily thought of and manipulated and function as a game until it diminished that shared imaginative space down to a board with pieces on it that was conceptually little different than Monopoly. </p><p></p><p>And lest you think this is merely my bias and being a grumpy old grognard grousing about new fangled things, a few years back I had some brand new to RPG players who were so excited by gaming that they started "cheating on me" and secretly took up a second campaign with a second DM in order to get their fix. And this went on for a few months, before they came back and gave me EXACTLY that report regarding how things played out in a different system with a different DM completely without me having prejudiced them in any way regarding the other system (which we hadn't even hitherto discussed).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6569414, member: 4937"] Even to the extent it doesn't matter whether it makes sense, the fact that such situations can occur in the first place suggest that you aren't gaining as much efficiency in creating NPCs as you might at first think. And in the second place, suggest that the rules system is consciously or unconsciously encouraging the GM to think that such situations shouldn't occur. In my current campaign, 2 of the 3 party henchmen both began as foes in combat before truces were declared and differences resolved, and in prior campaigns replacement PC's or secondary PC's were generally converted from important NPCs. In a system where NPC's didn't share structure with PC's, you could potentially have the same character have 3 stat blocks that each impacted the game in a different way - the NPC as foe (with enhanced capabilities to challenge groups of PCs), the NPC as ally (with greatly reduced capabilities so as to not throw off game balance), and the NPC as PC (with a completely new set of abilities). And quite often, the game would play as such that the observer could tell the NPC's abilities and behavior changed according to their metagame/narrative situation - even if they couldn't observe the metacontent (the stat blocks). This in my opinion is far from ideal and would be incredibly jarring, and would take me completely out of the setting. My strong anticipation is that a system that went to that extent to define imagined entities according to their metagame role, would strongly encourage the shared imaginative space to be primarily thought of and manipulated and function as a game until it diminished that shared imaginative space down to a board with pieces on it that was conceptually little different than Monopoly. And lest you think this is merely my bias and being a grumpy old grognard grousing about new fangled things, a few years back I had some brand new to RPG players who were so excited by gaming that they started "cheating on me" and secretly took up a second campaign with a second DM in order to get their fix. And this went on for a few months, before they came back and gave me EXACTLY that report regarding how things played out in a different system with a different DM completely without me having prejudiced them in any way regarding the other system (which we hadn't even hitherto discussed). [/QUOTE]
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