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  | Ones and Zeros |
| An irregularly updated journal of my Fair and Balanced thoughts, reactions, opinions, biases, outrages, strategies, victories, and commentary. Whatever it is, it's much too subtle to be considered a parody... |
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June 24, 2002
| Gaming |
This is my response to Ginger's Wish Writing Exercise
WISH 1 asks us:
Describe three NPCs (not major villains) that you really liked and what they added to the game. The NPCs can be from any game you've been in as a player or GM, and any system or genre.
I'll start out with the embarrassing admission that I am horrible with names. I have to have lists and I have to review my notes before games.
Paladin AD&DThe thing I liked about him was that he kept growing out of the GM's control. He was the minor son and future heir of a castle where we needed to get the magic sword to let us enter the ruined keep of his grandfather. Young and idealistic, the lad said 'yes' when we asked him to join us. He had some knightly training and it was, after all, his magic sword. We trained him, and faced dangers with him, and taught him the difference between an adventurer and someone who's had some knightly training.
It was a major turning point when we were close to being beaten by the undead and, at our urging, he stepped forward with the magic sword of his grandfather, called upon ancestral gods, and attacked the baddies. He saved our bacon, which was nice. But most interetingly, he bacame a paladin, as his grandfather was before him.
What I liked was watching this bit of life, totally unrelated to the goals and quests of our campaign, play itself out. We watched a life-changing experience. It was amongst the best stories of the campaign, even if neither we nor the GM had intended for it to be anything but a minor detail. We send him off with treasure we found to get Paladin training. (Why, yes, the GM was influenced by Elizabeth Moon, why do you ask?)
"Romeo" and "Juliet" TravellerThis was a pair of NPCs that I never got a chance to introduce because my Traveller campaign fell apart first. [I made some mistakes, mostly in who I let in and how I set player expectations.] Romeo was a former squaddie who had worked for one of the PCs in his previous military career. The PC was hard-boiled and, by design, something of an asshole. His men worshipped him. Juliet was the little sister of a very aristocratic PC. The two of them fall in love and run off to fight in a Spanish Civil War equivalent and eventually join the anti-Imperial republican terrorists, the Ine Givar.
Oh, the hooks I lost when that campaign imploded. The rescues, calls for help, rumors, trouble, breakups, reunions, parental ultimata and strife. I didn't have a timeline, since it had to mesh with PC actions, but there was an entire relationship I'd planned out to happen across the campaign.
I really loved my little plans I had and what I was going to use them for in showing the universe and letting the players find the space they wanted to be exploring in it.
Lady Vesper from our own House of Cards is the mother-in-law of our only married PC. This is another 'what is the world like' NPCs? She came about because we needed an outraged parent to beard the royals on a wayward daughterm and the player surprised us by marrying her. We had to develop the mother-in-law, give her background (which we've hinted but not revealed), and made her be the kind of person we thought would be the mother of her daughter. She's much more than we originally considered.
She also gives me a very positive feel for our very visual method of casting NPCs and putting them on the web page. That she is played by Agnes Moorehead gives her a certain personality that she didn't have when she was 'Solace's Outraged Parent'. How did she get to be who she is? We know and it helps us make her real.
I'm really waiting for the two grandmothers to meet. Yes, I am...
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| .:Posted by Michael on June 24, 2002 12:56 AM:.
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What, you think House of Cards is a little low on circuses recently? Short on catfights?
Should we sell tickets?
| .:Posted by Solange
( total) on June 25, 2002 9:31 AM:. |
Trying to remember some of the Guppy and Andy NPC's before I finally post my answer to this one.
I'm out in Shadow. I like it out in Shadow....
The nice thing about the Romeo and Juliet pair is that you can hook them into most campaigns, across a wide variety of milieux - they can be built into PCs' backgrounds so many clever ways.
We seem to have a common theme developing across the Hegemony here: NPCs are at their best when they're most complete. Especially when their own goals and interests are orthogonal to the plot.
| .:Posted by Jovian
( total) on June 26, 2002 12:52 PM:. |
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