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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6105311" data-attributes="member: 6681948">When have those faceless Redshirts been important to success in resolving a challenge?  They’re background scenery.  Celebrim made this point quite a bit earlier in the thread.  If the NPC’s are faceless redshirts, they get introduced without fuss or fanfare, but they get killed off in the same way, and aren’t really integral to success.  If they are integral to success, they are more important, they get establishing scenes and they have “he/she is cool” moments.  Of course, it’s hard to tell which ones are PC’s and which are NPC’s on screen.  Much easier for the redshirts. What happens to Redshirts?  The Grell picks them off one by one in a leadup (too late for that now) or casually incapacitates/kills them to establish/reinforce itself as a badass villain.  More important NPC’s actually fight back effectively and enhance the team’s success against the grell. Emphasis added – this has been alluded to innumerable times, and asked point blank at least once or twice, and we have no reply from Hussar on this specific issue, which seems inconsistent with his assertion that he is focused on everyone having fun at the table.  I suspect the GM’s miscalculation was the belief the players would have some investment in vetting mercenaries they were about to trust with their lives in combat.  Hussar wanted the setting to provide disposable combat aides who appear as needed (for the appropriate cash investment), possess the skills and gear desired, fight for the PC’s and then disappear when dismissed.  The GM presumably felt such NPC’s had lives of their own, and came with their own motivations and goals, so the PC’s would want the opportunity to assess their compatibility with the PCs’ agenda. One further question to be asked – what is the other players’ view on hiring these guys in the first place?  Maybe the matter was one the other players didn’t want to pursue at all (WE want revenge on the Grell – we don’t want to send hirelings in to do the work.  We want to feel that WE won!), but they acquiesced on the proviso that they’re “your hirelings – your problem”.  I previously suggested the possibility they were fully engaged, and that’s what kept the interviews going for 90 minutes, but that seems not to be the case. I think the underlying requirement here is trust that everyone is acting in good faith.  Hussar’s repeated assertions the GM will pick the worst possible results to better screw over the PC’s clearly indicates that trust isn’t present, and this will cloud any effort at communications. I’ve never really understood that attitude on either side of the screen.  If the GM wants to screw over the players, it’s pretty easy.  There wouldn’t be a group of survivors making their way back to civilization to hire mercenaries, there would be a pile of bones picked clean by one or more grells powerful enough to overwhelm the entire party.  A friend once put it something like “There’s no challenge killing off all the PC’s.  The challenge is making the players believe the PC’s are in real danger of being killed off, so there’s a feeling of triumph for the players when the PC’s emerge victorious”</blockquote>

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