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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8309007" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, I think it is true that when you start out and build a 'dungeon crawl' with a 'town' home base and the game is 'delving for treasure', then it is quite simple to make puzzle type NPCs which present as problems to overcome. One trait defines them. The 'overlord' is greedy, he wants his palms greased. The 'priest' wants tithes, but he'll also deal back and forth in religious favors and sell you heals. The 'barkeep' just acts like a plot hook factory, he wants to sell beer and accept coin for info. The town guards are just beat cops that don't want trouble. Maybe things go a level deeper so Joe the Market Watchman has the hots for Alice the Apple Seller's daughter. If you can make him look good, he'll forget that he saw Charlie the Thief lifting that magic light stick the other day. So, at that level, you don't need, or even want, a lot of social skills kind of play. You could dice for some things perhaps, but simple cardboard NPCs with one or two easily stated motivations and stock personality don't push things. They can be treated like doors, pit traps, and greedy kobolds basically. Since they aren't the focus of play, it is better not to demand that they require resource expenditure, beyond the customary 'treasure soak'. There was definitely a change that is exemplified by 2e, and you are exactly right that 2e-style 'story play' is incoherent. There are not rules and process and agenda that are spelled out to describe a working model of play. That is exactly what PbtA/FitD/FATE/Cortex/SoC/BW/etc. is mostly about is ways to establish that. IMHO this is why OSR in its basic form is uninteresting, because it doesn't address anything new. The much more fruitful approach would be to remake it using new tools, which I guess you could say Torch Bearer seems to be aimed at (I am pretty ignorant of the details of that game). I guess there are a few other games that have nibbled at it from the other side, too.</blockquote>

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