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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6094665" data-attributes="member: 85870">I've been interested following the Pemertonian / Perkins threads recently, because I think one of the key elements of "scene framing" is, in fact, determining appropriate NPC actions, reactions, and attitudes. What happened with the party prior, what the party is doing right now, and the result of PC actions should affect what any given NPC would conceivably do in the future.And it's interesting, because this isn't often discussed at length in GM-ing guides, at the least the ones I'm familiar with. The core rules for my "actively used" systems at the moment (Pathfinder, Fantasy Craft, and Savage Worlds) really only have cursory mentions of setting up NPC motivations. The Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide goes a little further, encouraging players to write down or create basic maps of NPC motivations, but in a lot of cases this comes up as setting up the plot, rather than actually getting inside the NPC's psychology. And I think GMs could find value in doing even basic "psyche mapping" to build more interesting NPCs and interactions. Having done acting in both college and semi-professionally, and having taken a number of acting classes, I was regularly told to consider motivation and tacticswhen analyzing character interactions. This generally required going through the script scene-by-scene and creating potential ways that the character was pursuing their goals. For example, a major villain's goal is to take over the world, or defeat a rival king, or release the "evil spirits" upon the world, but that doesn't explain his or her motivation. One of the things I've generally found praiseworthy of Paizo's Adventure Paths (regardless of other strengths and weaknesses) is that the main NPCs all have very clearly-defined motivations for their actions. Sometimes those motivations feel appropriately complex and nuanced, and sometimes they feel somewhat superficial, but in either case, as a GM, you're given clear insight into the why an NPC is pursuing a particular course of action.  This is also a potential shortcut when players do something unexpected. If you understand your NPCs' basic "response mechanisms," coming up with a good "encounter" on the fly becomes easier, while also maintaining consistency in story and narrative. Anyway, if there's one thing I've found particularly helpful in building good campaigns and encounters, it's using Perkins' concept of "NPCs and a world you care about" to directly influence "scene framing."</blockquote>

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