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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8636787" data-attributes="member: 42582">As I'm sure you know I'm a big fan of Paul Czege on keeping NPC motivations unfixed and flexible for just the reasons that you posit.But I think in setting-heavy "story now" some NPC motivations can be treated as fixed, and therefore serve as a social analogue of (say) terrain. I'm thinking especially of eg Sauron in a LotR/MERP game, or Orcus in a 4e game. Where the relationship with a NPC is itself the focus of play, though - say Frodo's relationship with Galadriel, or Gollum/Smeagol - then I think the Czege approach becomes important even in setting-heavy play.I'm not really setting out to disagree with you (though I have in a small way). What I want to convey, in this post and my previous few about the setting/"story now" relationship, is that very blanket statements like "setting is bad for story now" or "setting is no obstacle to story now" are not helpful. It's like saying that dice mechanics, or metagame mechanics, must help or must hinder "story now" RPGing. That is, it's far too blunt as a generalisation.Story now imposes certain demands - no "the plot", openness of resolution, no manipulation of mechanics or fiction by the GM to blunt conseqences etc - and these then feed through into setting in all sorts of ways. For instance, the point about NPCs seems to me mostly about "openness of resolution", which is why I say it applies to NPCs where the relationship with them is the focus of play, but not necessarily to Sauron or Orcus. Unless one is playing a game where the redemption of the villain is at issue, in which case building an answer into the setting would be fatal for "story now" play.</blockquote>

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