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I dintmean YOU as in him, but YOU as in the entire PC base.

GM_Chris wrote:

we treat pc different than npcs because we see pc's as people as well, we just see npc's as tools.

I understand why NPC's are treated different.

My question is how can you think of yourself as a good Rp'er and continue to do that.

I will wait for responces befoe I get even more confrentational.

Interesting question... Wait. Is my brain in sync with Chris'? I must be feverish...

My answer: it's an on-going RPing challenge for me with wins and losses (the latter often caused by immersion problems and those usually due to RL stuff). I've been a bad roleplayer for a looong time...

same here, i get kicked back into being casey while playing as trusk all the time. i dont think this is an issue of being a good rp'er because simply how long we stay in character makes us not that bad, and good is a relative term, based on what you consider to be your standards. if your asking if im a perfect rp'er then no, im not, but i think that how i portray trusk with the tusks, slurring my speach, and talking in broken english makes me a pretty good rp'er. and sure, i fall back into out of game talk every once and a while, but who doesnt, find me a man that never EVER breaks character outside of the disney corporation and ill show you a man that has no counter argument.

Oh breaking character doesnt bother me, but the fact that NPC's are treated impersonally, as if they were tools. That bothers me.

Why?

Well it is true that we have mindless creatures, but I hear how people are asking for more dimentions to our NPC's so there are more options to conrentations.

I am here to assure you that more often than not there is, but we are consistantly treated as if we are tools instead of say a PC.

hmm, well consider possibly changing the titles from pc and npc to resident and foreigner.

would you, in a savage world out to kill you, be all buddy buddy with someone you just met and is leaving soon? no, you would make an attempt to further your own survival first. perhaps we could consider the "barry" situation, that character stayed with the pc's when, at least i, assumed he was an npc and paid him no mind. i think that because npcs are designated as purely temporary characters they get less than friendly actions taken towward them. also consider balthos, im pretty sure he is an npc, but i love interacting and working with him, and if the time came where he asked for help as he has helped us before, i would lend help to him, just as i would any other npc, even if it was a simple guard task. this whole thing is a very complex discussion. and as one very wise man said, " there is no black or white, only shades of gray", meaning that this situation could be one way or annother, depending a LOT on the situation.

i guess the point im trying to make is that the less input the npc has with the pc's the less they are going to think of them as a fellow person and the more they are going to think of him as a tool to be used.

Good point, Chris.

I'm not sure why this NPC/PC border problem happens. As someone who HAS NPC'd and PC'd at FH, I have actually had people ask me if the character I was playing was a PC or an NPC, my answer to that (except the first time someone asked me...I was kind of taken aback) is "Why? Does it matter?" I've also seen at least one player who was playing a new PC get gacked less than five minutes into the game, because it was assumed they were NPCing. Also, from the perspective of someone who has written and played NPC characters as well, a lot of NPCs are not soulless paper dolls...they are as real to me as a player's character is to them. Sometimes it hurts to loose an NPC character that we have created, but we accept that it may happen.

It's a slippery slope. If the PCs get rolled/killed, it's not usually much fun. But on the other hand, when you don't follow "In-character actions (Or inaction) equal in-character consequences," you loose the sense of immersion and satisfaction you get from succeeding and things feel "scripted."

Kalphoenix wrote:Good point, Chris.

I'm not sure why this NPC/PC border problem happens. As someone who HAS NPC'd and PC'd at FH, I have actually had people ask me if the character I was playing was a PC or an NPC, my answer to that (except the first time someone asked me...I was kind of taken aback) is "Why? Does it matter?" I've also seen at least one player who was playing a new PC get gacked less than five minutes into the game, because it was assumed they were NPCing. Also, from the perspective of someone who has written and played NPC characters as well, a lot of NPCs are not soulless paper dolls...they are as real to me as a player's character is to them. Sometimes it hurts to loose an NPC character that we have created, but we accept that it may happen.

It's a slippery slope. If the PCs get rolled/killed, it's not usually much fun. But on the other hand, when you don't follow "In-character actions (Or inaction) equal in-character consequences," you loose the sense of immersion and satisfaction you get from succeeding and things feel "scripted."

agree'd. people really should start "potato"ing questions about npc vs pc. or maybe everytime an npc gets asked that question they can say that they are, in fact, pc's, keep all the legit pc's guessing, add a little more burn when the "pc" turns on them only to find out later that it was an npc.

I agree with that.

I have been rethinking of how we NPC. Being in Iowa I have a lot of time to just sit around and monder the great metaphysical questions of what is FH.

Forexample, I am thinking the NPC pool of characters should decrease and be more finite for a year. Build off a core group of characters so that we can blur the lines between PC/NPC

I would almost like to find a way for people to forget who is PC and who is NPC by the way it is played.

Not sure how this should happen yet, but it is a dream. I have several.

Or you could actually mean infinite and increase. Or try to encourage PCs to do more NPCing throughout the weekend. More people alternating NPCing will blur that line quite a bit. I had that experience the 1st event last season. There were quite a few characters who were NPCs that I thought were PCs and vice-versa.

Another good idea with this would be for you guys to make PCs and switch off or something, although I know it would be REALLY hard to do effectively or in a fun way with plots you helped write going on and all.

Also, not every NPC is going to turn on you at some point In that respect, I'd say players are more deadly.

most assuredly if there was more of an initiative for me to npc a few hours or something i would do it, but right now its just more worth it to pc for the whole time. id take a que from sharded, they have a brownie system where you get points for npc time or game contributions that can be spent on neet'o things, like plot draws where some significant effect happens to your character or something, and you could make it so that the more points you spend at once for a plot draw the better the odds of that draw being more permanent and more positive would increase.

Even with an inherent consideration for other PC's as human beings, there is still a level of restraint that Chris is getting at as concerns PVP.

If a PC kills an NPC, there may be consequences - but those consequences are limited and entirely in-game. Killing another PC, however, carries both in-game consequences and additional OOG social consequences.

People may not feel comfortable addressing it in the open, but I've been witness to numerous occasions in which characters did not act because the players knew that the OOG reaction would be negative. Even if the characters have justification to act, the players are usually dissuaded from acting for one of several reasons:

1. They fear that the player will react poorly and create a situation OOG.
2. They fear that the player will hold a grudge and use subsequent characters to make their lives a living hell.
3. They fear that the player will essentially ignore the rules and somehow not die as a result of the encounter.
4. The character/player has sufficient allies in or out of game to negate any benefit gained from killing the character.

I'm not sure how to deal with this, but is being a good roleplayer and staying true to your character the definition of a good player? Or does a good player keep the "It's just a game" mantra in mind and not try to ruin something that someone else is enjoying? What else constitutes a good player? I can remember calling for a higher standard of maturity from the player base concerning the rules and hearing a very realist argument in rebuttal. If that level of realism still applies, than we can't just ignore the above mentioned reasons. Perhaps there's a balance to be found here as well.

Chris, as for the Orcs, you're likely right. Had they been NPC's they most likely would have died. I think Dallid and Gideon still would have warned them, but I'm not sure if Roland would have defended them and I doubt that the town would have backed away from the line they asked Donovan to draw in the sand.

On another issue, having a limited, regular cast of NPC's might create a different sense of community within a game. I ran a tabletop campaign about 10 years ago that was essentially based on this very concept. One of the PC's was given a tiny lordship and the first several sessions were centered in the little village that he was supposed to govern. I had a detailed write-up for every one of the 40 or so inhabitants of the town, and the PC's got to know them personally. (I specifically remember the large lizard-man PC becoming playground equipment for the schoolchildren and the player loving every minute of it.)

When the town was eventually threatened the potential for the loss of any one of these NPC friends caused the players to do things differently than any party I have witnessed before or since. Translating that sort of effect to LARP would take some work, but could prove fruitful.

This has always been an on going issue. One of the ways to have PC's start treating NPC's as living people is to increase the negatives if a PC's goes off and kills them. Most NPC's have families and friends who would be pissed that there loved ones got killed. Now this would not happen for all NPC's, but for some of them.
Another is for the PC's to interact with NPC's more. Create friendships and contacts with them. Give that character a reason to come back and help the PC's. Why would a living being come back to a town who threatned to kill them as soon as they step foot into a town.
It should not matter if a person is NPC or PC. A living being is a living being. Would your character go and kill a random stanger for saying the wrong thing to you? If so, you might want to think of your self as a murder. I think people don't think of NPC characters as people and just as tools. It is a shame becasue the PC's loose out on some great roleplay oppurintites and the ability to create contacts.

I have to agree with Chris and becasue PC's don't want to take the effort or time to treat NPC's as people, the PC's deprive themselves of chances for creating contacts and having some great RPing. How did you think Corbyn gained so much power? He used the NPC contacts he fosterd and created.

I have always wanted to slip an NPC into the PC base. How? Bring on an NPC, put them in PC camp. I know that npc s are short handed, but man would that be a fun experiment.

Well apprently I did something of the sort without trying when I brought in Barry for that half game, travis.

Haha

And in case anyone is still wondering, Barry was a PC character..

As for how PC's treat NPC's.. there are really too many factors to even consider in this.

And as for the type of game we play.. if someone makes a character that seems to just outright kill people for no good reason.. maybe their character does have a good reason.. some Taboo in their culture that forbids some small stupid thing.. or maybe something about their person.. I know a certain Storm Elf that made no light of being touched and had people that would attack if someone did touch her. There are many reasons why someone is the way they are.. and if they kill it only makes them a murderer by our 21st century ideals... Well here's the things folks, FH/WH is not a 21st century city/country.. it is a primal, ugly place where you may well have to kill or be killed.. The idea is to make it a fun place for people to come and enjoy themselves too, since I know that is why i enjoy Gaming.

And it is also my goal this year to try to bring NPC's a new role, a new life at least in some small part.. to make the world a richer and fuller place for the players.. But as Heidi has mentioned no one of us can do it alone.. Each person out there has to go out and help make the world... PC and NPC alike.. PC's need to be more proactive and NPC's need to be less reactive..

In a nutshell at least.

ok my fingers are tired, carry on.

Barry the Barkeep! Even charges the NPC's for eating at his INN!