The proper role of supporting NPCs?

[Fenes]

Ah, there is the rub.

Allowing the PCs to know of the NPCs abilities is 'rubbing their nose in it'? If there is a great mage, lord protector knight of the realm, warrior king, mighty high priest, etc. the PCs are going to hear about it...people talk. Taverns are full of stories NOT just those about the current batch of PCs.

IMO the problem is a subtle adversarial relationship between the DM and a competition between the PCs and signifigant setting NPCs. if this exists it is a problem at the table that extends beyond some official NPC guidelines or whatnot.

As I posted before - tavern talk is expected. Hearing how the great warrior defeated the ogre king is not rubbing their noses in, especially if the party's own deeds are hyped in tavern songs as well, and a dozen orcs becomes an orc horde's vanguard. How strong is an ogre king? Who knows? How many ogres were there anyway? A few dozens, or hundreds? Bards tend to exagerate the enemy's strength in their ballads anyway, so they cannot be relied upon.

Rubbing their noses in is showing the NPC's power off in a way to show the level. Have the PCs observe it battling foes, casting high level spells, or defeating a foe the PCs know, that's rubbing their noses in.

In short, anytime the DM presents an NPC in a way that the players can't help but guessing its level is rubbing their noses in.

 

[Wyrmshadows]

As I posted before - tavern talk is expected. Hearing how the great warrior defeated the ogre king is not rubbing their noses in, especially if the party's own deeds are hyped in tavern songs as well, and a dozen orcs becomes an orc horde's vanguard. How strong is an ogre king? Who knows? How many ogres were there anyway? A few dozens, or hundreds? Bards tend to exagerate the enemy's strength in their ballads anyway, so they cannot be relied upon.

Of course bards exaggerate, it makes for a better story. This doesn't mean that they have to exaggerate for the sake of the PCs. Never as a DM have I encountered, "Oh no, we just entered Cormyr and suddenly I feel my heroism drained away for the good King Azoun is greater than us. For shame cruel DM for it is we who are the greatest of Cormyr's living heroes at 8th level."

Nope, never happened.

Sometimes a DM can have the tales be exaggerations, other times the tales are more true than false and the needs of the story and the setting should decide it.

Rubbing their noses in is showing the NPC's power off in a way to show the level. Have the PCs observe it battling foes, casting high level spells, or defeating a foe the PCs know, that's rubbing their noses in.

In short, anytime the DM presents an NPC in a way that the players can't help but guessing its level is rubbing their noses in.

Again, context, context, context.

Claiming this as a universal truth is nonsense. There are times when a mighty wizard has to open up a gate to wherever in front of the PCs so they can enter the outer planes. Maybe the PCs witness the summoning of a Balor demon by an aligned NPC because it serves the plot. So are you actually saying that using a high level spell in front of the players is 'rubbing their nose in it'? As DM I have to do this off camera?

What if the PCs are in an army, their leader is King Arthur and its the Battle of Mount Badon where the Britons battled the Saxons and the PCs see Arthur scything through saxons as an initial cutscene before they engage their own enemies? I suppose the PCs are going to feel bad because they aren't peers to King Arthur?

Here's how I see it. If a player has a problem with either above example they can freely leave my game table. I make sure my players have fun, but my job as DM is not to massage their fragile egos nerfing the entire setting in the process. Anyonre who can't handle the fact that their low to middling level heroes aren't the baddest of the bad and that very likely they are unlikely ever to literally be the [booming voice] MOST POWERFUL CHARACTERS IN THE WORLD [/booming voice] can walk or attempt to run theor own game.

As long as you exist there will be those who are your lessers, your peers and your betters.



Wyrmshadows

 

[Wyrmshadows]

My setting is like this. Now, it's designed for 3e play in the 1-10 level range, so the biggest baddest threats are around CR 10 tops, but with half standard XP it's as much a long-term-play setting as the typical 3e setting designed for levels 1-20. It's a Points of Light setting and it's up to the PCs to keep their own PoL from winking out; if they fail, it goes.

I have no investment in preserving the setting in stasis; it's consistent, but not stable. The PCs are The Heroes; sans PCs it certainly will wink out.

That is one way to do it. Something like the way Eberron attempted to limit the number of high level NPCs. I don't know how that worked out for Eberron however. You set it up that way, run it that way and that's cool. The only argument I have is when someone would claim to espouse the one true way to run a setting in regards to NPCs.

Bottom up personal homebrews work well in the manner you describe because they are tailored to the current game. Top down homebrews or published settings attempting to cater to all eventual levels of play therefore require a different method of working.


Wyrmshadows

 

[Wyrmshadows]

No they weren't. FRCS 3e said that FR was about the villains. Having said that, we were only given a bit of background info about villains and stat blocks, nothing more.

I think there was a book called Lords of Darkness that expanded the bad guys a bit.

In the novels, the villains were rarely as powerful as the megaheroes* and were virtually never as competent. Even if they had brains, charisma and raw power their minions would be dunces who couldn't stop stabbing each other.

Agreed. I recall the Return of the Archwizards trilogy where an army of folk, led by the Chosen, were slaughtering beholders and Illythids left and right. It was very, very over the top.

FR initially suffered under TSRs bizarre ethics rules for writers that demanded the good guys not only won, but that the bad guys could no way benefit from acts of evil. I remember how incompetant Zhentil Keep and Red Wizards were. You wonder how on earth they ever achieved anything at all.

*Mystra had at least nine Chosen, and at least half were active over most of the life of the setting, and these were more powerful than any non-demonic/divine foe I can name. Opposing deities, like Bane, were lucky to get even one. Even Mask (who was amazing when it came to evil deities, actually having five at one time, depending on how you interpret the awesome Erevis Cale novels) had some non-villainous "Chosen".

So, to make an overly wordy post shorter, I don't think it was possible to "save" FR just by having powerful villains. Those villains were already there, and they couldn't effectively combat the heroes.

Maybe you are right. As a DM I didn't like that the good guys were so much more powerful but I always chalked it up to the bad guys having the numbers and the god guys having the better individual talent. However, I admit this only goes so far before stretching credibility to the breaking point.

The gods were too damn directly involved anyway. It was looking more and more like Greek Myth all the time. If everyone is special and touched by the gods....then no one is.

Well, sure. All I have to do is sleep with a deity, get an uber-powerful template and break the rules left and right afterwards. I don't think this is reasonable. Doing great and heroic things doesn't make you into a Mary Sue Chosen.

A player can live up to a powerful hero, but not to that setting's megaheroes.

Fair enough.

I made my player's PCs into Chosen for a cataclysmic campaign I ran on FR over about a 4yr period. I added all kinds of coolness to them so they were the equal of some of the other Chosen. They loved it. However, to be fair, DMs shouldn't be asked to do that kind of thing as a matter of course in order to not have the PCs outshined again and again.

FR needed a good cleaning up, I have to agree with that. I don't like the newest RSA, the Spellplague, because it brought with it too many retcons. However, to see some of the Chosen removed is IMO ultimately a good thing. 4e is so different from 3e that I don't know that WoTC had much choice. A RSE is better than hundreds of retcons.

IMO FR is pretty much dead. What exists now is branded with the FR IP but feels nothing like the old setting. I own the 4e FRCS even though I don't run 4e and have to say that if one were to swap out some recognizable names and cange the map, one wouldn't even notice that setting was supposed to be FR.


Wyrmshadows

 

[billd91]

As I posted before - tavern talk is expected. Hearing how the great warrior defeated the ogre king is not rubbing their noses in, especially if the party's own deeds are hyped in tavern songs as well, and a dozen orcs becomes an orc horde's vanguard. How strong is an ogre king? Who knows? How many ogres were there anyway? A few dozens, or hundreds? Bards tend to exagerate the enemy's strength in their ballads anyway, so they cannot be relied upon.

Rubbing their noses in is showing the NPC's power off in a way to show the level. Have the PCs observe it battling foes, casting high level spells, or defeating a foe the PCs know, that's rubbing their noses in.

In short, anytime the DM presents an NPC in a way that the players can't help but guessing its level is rubbing their noses in.

I really don't understand this. How is demonstrating that the NPCs are more powerful rubbing their noses in it?

Doing the Dance of Victory on the game table after achieving a TPK. That's rubbing their noses in it.

 

[Wyrmshadows]

I really don't understand this. How is demonstrating that the NPCs are more powerful rubbing their noses in it?

This kind of thinking is of a paradigm I saw very frequently when both myself and my players were teens.

There were the players for whom playing the game was its own reward. Just the opportunity to play an interesting character in an immersive setting is reward enough. These types of players didn't try to 'win' the game, loved RPing over combat even though they enjoy combat, and really got into the story and setting. They were immersion role players...God bless their little hearts I am grateful that all of my long term players are in this group.

Then we have the players who RP to win. They must have the best builds (didn't call it that in the old days), the coolest character at the table, want to be Conan in Lord of the Rings and compete with other players. This type is also subtly or not so subtly adversarial with the DM believing that the game is really player against the DM. Because of this there is a resentment against poweful NPCs that exist in the setting. Even if the NPC is never used to make their character look bad, they always seem to hate them. They are the ones who want to kill known NPCs in your game and attempt to do so for the flimsiest reasons, "He looked at me wrong...roll initiative."

The latter is most common in teens who are living out their power fantasies via role playing and are offended if they aren't the most standout character in any setting.

*Note I am not defending Mary Sue DMs. I know they exist and they are as screwy as the whiney player who needs to be top dog in the setting/campaign. In fact they are the same person its just that one is behind the screen and the other is not.


Wyrmshadows

 

[GSHamster]

It really depends if magical transportation is easily available or not.

For example, take Lord of the Rings. Yes, Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel are bad-ass. But they have to leave their bases and travel to the correct location. And that means that while they are travelling, they can't be travelling to another location. If Gandalf is helping defend Gondor, he can't help Frodo sneak into Mordor.

This is very different from a world where Teleport is available. For example, even though he's high-level, Drizzt is not usually a problem for DMs. For him to intervene might cost him several months if the conflict is not nearby. Travelling time is a real concern for him, in a way that it is not for the more magic-oriented NPCs of the Realms.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Wyrmshadows' 5 Rules for Running NPCs

1. They should not be the focus of the campaign though they do exist in the world and serve the function of adding to the credibility of the PCs environment.

2. They can be more powerful than the PCs but there must be reasons they cannot be directly involved in the PCs exploits so players don't bridle under a blow to suspension of disbelief.

3. They live or die based on the DM's needs in regards to the story.

4. They can help the PCs when either asked or when their involvement is necessary for the plot. They can provide resources, contacts, succor, etc.

5. They exist to make the world seem real and dynamic and to enrich the game not to upstage the PCs or provide deus ex machina for bad storytelling on the part of the DM.

That's a great summation there Wyrmshadows. One that the old writers of FR could have done with reading. ;-) And for that matter any GM keen to improve.

I think we have all had bad experiences with the GM who loves to rub the players' noses in the greatness of their uber-NPCs. Some of us just haven't been lucky enough to encounter better GMs.

To all those who seem to have had some really bad experiences with Mary-Sues: Show your GM Wyrmshadows 5 Rules. Maybe it'll help.

cheers all.

 

[Fenes]

It's not about winning, it's about mattering. I have suffered through games where the DMs ran big battles, rolling for their NPC heroes and for the enemies, and half the party literally was not allowed to even take part in the battle, but forced to watch it through a scrying mirror. I have played in a game where the DM rolled for 7 tricked out NPCs in a fight against dozens of orcs, commenting each strike and damage. PCs didn't really matter there at all. Not that the fight mattered anyway - it was just a vehicle to show off 7 NPCs.

As an immersion roleplayer, my fun is non-existent if there is no plausible reason why my PC's action would matter and is basically busy work. If the DM is showing off his pet NPC, and in a manner that everyone of us knows that the NPC has access to this and that spells, and we have the important task to "take out the second leader to the left", and we know that the NPC could just wipe the enemy's left wing off the earth with a spell from the staff he carries, then what fun is there to be had? Immersion's nuked, and combat doesn't matter, so why bother?

Now, if the NPC isn't shown off in all it's statted glory, and just narrated as "fights the center while you go for the left wing, if you kill their leader your wing might start envelopping the enemy", that's another story.

Fighting alongside King Arthur sounds good and fun - but I don't need to hear all the mechanical details, all the "and this is a really powerful NPC, I used this and that power, so you know he's really that more powerful than you, and could kill all the foes, but yes, we still need you, really, promise".

Just tell me he cleaves through enemies. Could be minions, could be solos, I don't know, and so my immersion is not ruined by the knowledge that the foes we fight do not present any danger because the NPC could handle the entire army by itself according to the rules.

Feel free to tell me someone is more powerful, but save the stats. I do not need, I do not want to know how powerful an NPC is. I especially do not want to know what an NPC can do. It hurts immersion if I start thinking how easily said NPC could solve this or that.

Don't bother forcing your NPC's build into my face. I am not interested at all in knowing how many hit points King Conan has, how much damage he does with power attack, how much damage he can shrug off and what his AC is. Tell me it's a warrior so impressive my characters knees might shake a bit, known and famous throughout the land. That way, I can assume that whatever threat we end up dealing with, political or social or combat, actually was a threat, and not something Conan could have dealt with if he had skipped his meeting with the baker's guild this evening.

In short, don't rub my nose into the fact that all my character manages to do is saving a bit of time for the NPC so he can do something else. Allow me the illusion of mattering a bit more.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Do you really play it like that? Whenever your players finish an adventure, you overshadow it with "and while you were dealing with the goblin threat to Noonecarestown, UberPaladin held back the hordes of hellgate and ArchWizardBob defeated the invasion from NecroCountry. Good job, folks, you did as well as the other three groups of heroes-in-training active in your area"?

This is not, in fact, how I play it all. Sure, they will likely hear of the deeds of powerful NPCs - but normally long after the fact, as a sense of general history. The PCs will be too busy with their own problems close at hand to worry what a powerful NPC does a long way off.

Wouldn't it be simpler to not place the spotlight on such threats until the players can deal with it? That is, if you want to have the focus on the player characters' deeds.

Of course. Where have I suggested otherwise?

Saying that high-level NPCs exist in a setting is not the same as saying that they have to appear in an adventure and take over the player characters' job. Which is what I was trying to explain with my blog posts.