Why oh why do they hate my NPCs?

[Waylander the Slayer]

Maybe you should ask them?

 

[Tymophil]

In my opinion, the problem is that they KNOW from the very start which is which. I mean, they should not know which NPC is "cool", which is not. They should be on their toes all of the time.

You need a "fog of war" around your NPCs if you expect you players to treat them in a realistic way. If they can forsee who is important, and who is made on the spot, then it's no wonder that they treat them is an uncool way.

Try to give as much depth to every NPC. This doesn't mean give all of them MUCH depth, but give them the same amount of attention when they interact with PCs. The most important ones will get noticed simply because they interact more often. So those one will get more attention from the players because they meet them often, not because the DM sheds lots of light on them.

Everyone hates those secondary characters in novels or motion pictures that you KNOW FOR SURE will get killed in the next scene. It's boring, and often players respond by trying to interact stupidly with those clichés... You can't really blame them for that.

 

[pawsplay]

In my opinion, the problem is that they KNOW from the very start which is which. I mean, they should not know which NPC is "cool", which is not. They should be on their toes all of the time.

I think this is a useful notion. Once they identify an NPC as the "sympathetic, sagely wizard guy who lead us on a quest," they could easily start taking the guy for granted, knowing that whatever abuse or silliness they heap upon him, you are married to the character's role.

 

[Saeviomagy]

A suggestion: Instead of trying to create an NPC that your PCs love, why don't you take one of the NPCs that your PCs randomly love and then use them to drive story?

 

[Barastrondo]

So my question to the experienced DMs and players is: Why? What makes a NPC likeable? And are your players as unfriendly as mine?

Chemistry, really. You can't really plan chemistry. The best you can do is when you know for certain that there are certain types of characters you believe are cool, and that your players also believe are cool.

For instance, I know that my players can generally appreciate stoicism as a virtue (my wife in particular), and so they're favorably impressed by stoics, particularly stoics who may have to ask the PCs for help even though it goes against their grain. This shows a bit of vulnerability, and in several cases the players have attempted to genuinely befriend such a character rather than exploiting that vulnerability. Because they know the NPC is sparing with his or her trust, that trust becomes a valuable commodity they want to earn.

On the other hand, the "funny guy" thing requires very compatible senses of humor. My most successful comical NPC at the moment is a former bandit turned manservant to one of the PCs. He's basically Eeyore with a pseudo-Italian accent, always making dour pessimistic observations but framing them in the form of "keeping everyone's spirits up." Because a lot of his humor is self-deprecating or comes at his own expense, the players can choose either to comically twist the knife ("Don't worry, Carpa, I assure you that if it goes wrong I will see to it myself that you will be mercifully hanged") or to take his side and engender more comic self-deprecation.

If it were me? I would pretty much run with the random NPCs that the players find fascinating and then pad out their backstories as necessary. You know you have successes here, so run with that. The players may really feel rewarded when they get to pick the NPCs they want to hang out with, and you respond by letting them do so and allowing interesting situations to arise as a result.

In fact, I do do this. The aforementioned bandit/manservant came out of a brawl wherein a surviving minion was very eloquent in his desire to surrender and not be killed. One player developed a serious interest in an NPC military archivist that I simply described as "a big guy covered in scars with death metal hair." Seducing said NPC became a project, and finding out the story behind those scars is her current goal. These are really great successes in my games. In fact, it feels all the better because I didn't plan them out ahead of time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against putting some extra thought into NPCs that I figure the players are going to want to spend some time negotiating with. But the random encounters that become allies, rivals, best friends or lovers -- they give the impression that anyone in the world could turn out to be significant in some way, that everyone has their own story. And that's some neat verisimilitude right there.

 

[TarionzCousin]

However, from the first moment on, the players HATE this NPC.

I think this is the critical point from your post. My best guess is that your players are reading you, the DM, like a book. They can tell within seconds which NPC's are important to you and they enjoy messing with your head.

Lots of good advice in this thread, so far. I would add to it by saying try not to have too much of yourself invested in any NPC. Treat them all as equally as possible and don't hope/expect too much. When your players latch on to an NPC, that's the time to build that NPC up into something more than window dressing.

 

[NewJeffCT]

So it´s like that quite often: I introduce a cool new NPC into the game. Often a funny guy or a really interesting character. Someone with a lot of thought behind, meant to give an exciting twist to the game or just to be the nice one that the player characters can depend on in the future.

However, from the first moment on, the players HATE this NPC. I don´t know why and it really seems random at times, but they don´t get along with the NPC at all. He/she treats them nice, gives them presents or helps them with important information. They take everything without giving thanks, turn around and call him an ass.

On the contrary, the players often love some random NPC that I just make up on the way, invite him/her to dinner and bar mitzvah or even gain a love interest.

So my question to the experienced DMs and players is: Why? What makes a NPC likeable? And are your players as unfriendly as mine?

Cheers,
Rob.

First off, what you think is cool and/or interesting may look completely different from a PC point of view. You think the exotic bounty hunter is cool and can give them some good info, but the PCs want to treat him like Han treated Greedo...

Secondly, you may be trying too hard. You spend time creating what you think is a cool & interesting NPC who can be an important asset to the players... however, the player's radar goes off when they can tell you've made an effort with this NPC, so they naturally think something is fishy.

Thirdly, possibly using metagame knowledge, they can tell that a guy you make up on the spot is unlikely to be directly related to the BBEG, so are possibly more relaxed around On the Spot Joe.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Me, I spend more time on the folks I want my players to hate. My favorites are when the guy goes into the 'we trust him, but we don't like him' category. Another favorite is the 'I don't know why, but she scares the crap out of me' category and the 'I am going to watch him like a mouse watches a cat - he's bad, he is, and I know that he's dangerous' category.

That said, more important than making an NPC likable is making an NPC sympathetic - liking will follow when the PCs interact with the NPC. Knowing what drives the character, and how far they can trust the person.

I have had a party go out of their way to save one of the villains, purely because they could sympathize with him and because he was the devil they knew. (High point - four players bribed him to feed information, accurate information, to a high ranking official... who bribed him for the information. )

On the flip side was a touchy feely sorcerer who scared the crap out of them, even though she smiled and was always so happy to see them. They were right, she was dangerous, not evil, but self centered, amoral, a sensualist, and a trifle depraved. And she liked them. They treated her the way I would treat a poisonous snake. I found a mini for her - the players went 'holy crap, that's her' before I even named who the figure was for:

The Auld Grump

 

[CharlesRyan]

It's a really tough issue, one that probably has a lot of root causes in both you, your players, and the NPCs you create.

There's been some pretty good advice on this thread. I'll just add one more thought: There's an axiom in comics that the less detail an artist puts into a character (especially the character's face), the closer the reader feels to that character. Because the character is something of a blank slate, the reader unconsciously fills in the blanks.

So a character drawn with a very specific look (say, Nick Fury) evokes a specific sense of personality, but remains emotionally distant. A character with a very simplistic look (say, Tin Tin) evokes little specific personality at a glance, but readers bond quickly with him.

How does this translate in an RPG? Paint your NPCs with a very broad brush, at least at first. Keep physical descriptions, details of backstory, and personality quirks to a minimum. (You can keep them in mind, just don't really mention them early on.) Layer these things on as the players become more and more connected with the character.

And best of luck. I know how frustrating it can be when players seem to have kneejerk reactions to NPCs that aren't appropriate to what's happening in the game.

 

[KahnyaGnorc]

There was this rather successful . . . he was kind of a game master . . . who also introduced a character that he thought was great. His . . . you could call them players . . . hated that character. Even the . . . player . . . he got to play that character hated him. Just because you don't think you got a Wesley Crusher on your hands doesn't mean your players' think the same way.