There have been several games recently when the issue of whether an NPC (non-player character) or PC (player character) have different values in the game. Obviously, PCs are those characters played by the gamers at the table. NPCs are those characters that the DM plays, but are essential to the story line and inhabit the world just like the PCs. The interaction between the PCs and NPCs is what pulls a story forward.
I think that much of how you feel about NPCs vs PCs depends on how you see the game and the world. I my mind, the gaming world is just that, a world. It is filled with people. My character, Zarnian in Dark Sun, for example, just sees people. Hamdi killed her lover. Denning is one of her best friends. Barok is like a brother. Two of these are NPCs, one is not. It does not matter.
But, I find that some players, especially those coming from a Dungeons and Dragons background, see player characters as being better and superior to non player characters. Somehow, no matter what other player characters do, it is ok, because they are, after all, player characters. My friend told me in the past she gamed with a guy who had his characters just start killing simple farmers in a bar because he was bored. That was the only time she played in that game.
Another thing that some players do is treat NPCs like tools to be used and discarded. One player had a history where he had been raised with another character (a NPC) their whole lives, but he said “I would let him be killed in a second if it meant me getting away”.
I game because it allows me to easily submerge into another world. That world is populated with many other people. In fact, it is filled with a world’s worth of people. Five or so of those are my fellow gamers, but the rest are technically NPCs. However, I don’t see any differences between any of them. Some of good, some are bad, some I kill and some I protect with my life. Trying to see a difference between them drives me insane.
But that is just my experience. What is your gaming experience? Do you see NPCs and PCs as fundamentally different or do you see them the same? If you see them as different do you see other parts of your world as being artificial? Does it feel like you’re in the Matrix? If you see them all as the same how does that affect your view of your gaming world?
The green! My eyes! The goggles do nothing!
ReplyDeleteBut to seriously comment, I am of the school that NPCS and PCS are fundamentally different. There are qualifications, sure, but once you peel away all layers of the orange you are still left with two very different sources: reaction and action.
ReplyDeleteCats and Tigers are part of the same family and if you follow high enough up their individual genetic ladders you will find a mutual single string. However, gaming is not biology and, to some degree, not even nature.
NPCS are created to serve a purpose and to live out their lives usually following one focus unless a force acts upon them. The farmers the PC-butcher was murdering would have continued being farmers their entire lives had the PC not attacked them. The PC, on the other hand, acted out of a completely personal and independent impulse that likely had nothing to do with his career and therein lies the difference. An NPC will often (not always, but I'll get to that) perform their given task for eternity unless an outside force creates influence. "Given task" is the key phrase because NPCs almost universally act due to outside influences. Whether constructed by a PC or the GM, NPCs do what they do because they have been told to do them.
PCs act almost entirely out of personal and self-centered reasons. Arguably, this is why they became adventurers in the first place. PCs act because they *choose* to act, not because they were told to. Yes, PCs do receive orders from NPCs and do often perform those obligations in the form of quests - but they can just as often refuse them. A PC, as you have so accurately put it, can suddenly choose to murder dozens of farmers completely out of his own compulsion. NPCs can not.
I repeat, NPCs *can not* because they are not truly human in many ways. You - the creator - can say, "NPC-X does this", but you have compelled NPC-X to do so. You are the outside force. NPC-X might have very complicated goals, actions, and interests but these goals, actions, and interests are being thrust upon them by either a complicated algorithm or another person - often the GM. That masterful villain you hope to bring down so he'll stop murdering the townspeople? That's the GM. The beautiful lover you are trying to seduce? That's the GM. The kid who just stole all your things and is now running to the nearest pawn shop? Yes, that is also the GM, and they're likely enjoying it.
This is a cold and unfeeling method, to be sure, but I'm not arguing the human aspect or good roleplaying, I'm arguing life versus machine. Computers, cars, and household appliances are all wonderful things who seem - and possibly do, at times - to have a mind of their own. They don't. They are constructs created by us to hopefully perform the task we set before them. I name my cars and miss them when they are gone. I have named all my computers and my phone. These are sentimental actions which enhance my interaction with them and perhaps, hopefully, on a very metaphysical level, gift them some of my soul. But before me, or some other generous giver, they had none. Created, they are machine - not human - just like NPCs.
Actually, NPCs and PCs are both characters that are compelled to act because their creators told them too. NPCs are compelled because of the GM, PCs are compelled because of the players. They simply have different compellors. An NPC is not the GM nor is a PC the player. In fact, as we've seen in our Warhammer games, players can have different characters within the same game (even the same game session, though we haven't taken it that far in this campaign...yet).
ReplyDeleteI will concede the fact that NPCs and PCs are both compelled to act because their creators told them to but I will challenge that a PC is not the player. Perfect separation of creator and created I have yet to observe. Even though players have played different characters within the same game, those new characters still shared most (if not all) of the personality quirks the player has. This is the reason I continue to view Player Characters as extensions of the Player and Non-Player Characters as extensions of the environment.
ReplyDeleteActually, several RPGs point out in their books that PCs are not players and vice versa. It's pretty clear you are not your PC. If you were, you'd be institutionalized for multiple personality disorder by now and hospitalized for multiple stab wounds! If you want to make the point that they are extensions, that's a fairly different conclusion and I won't dispute that. Regardless, your original argument is based on NPCs being compelled and the PCs not. We've already seen that's not the case, which leaves the other part of your argument.
ReplyDeleteI definitely won't disagree with you that PCs and NPCs are fundamentally different, but I'm guessing for I'm saying they are not the same entirely different reasons and in different manners. However, I would warn anyone in my games to not make the mistake of thinking NPCs are solely reactive. Making NPCs active is a requirement to making any recurring NPC feel alive. Also, any PC who does not react to the other PCs, NPCs, or environment is doomed, and a fairly lifeless character, anyway.
Woops, I found a typo in my post. It should read, "but I'm guessing I'm saying they are not the same for entirely different reasons..."
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I should just clarify how I think they're different. Player characters are controlled by the player. Non-player characters are controlled by the GM. Heh heh. Ok, ok. This matters in so far as the game is there for the players and GM and no one else. Since the players are heavily invested in their PCs and the players are there to have fun and engage in a great story, the game naturally should revolve around the PCs. Games can revolve around NPCs, but all the ones I've played in like that, to put it bluntly, suck. PCs also are generally participating in the game more frequently than an NPC, although that's not always the case. Sometimes PCs bite it and they bite it fast. Really, though, what it comes down to is that the PCs are the primary method through which the players interact with the world and therefor have fun. NPCs are not. They serve the fun of the game in an entirely different way, but thinking that they are simply machines because they're controlled by the GM and not a player requires a solid argument to back that point up and can be refuted by simply finding a GM who doesn't run them that way.
Excellent point and a more solid argument would be rendered invalid by such an example, but how else would a GM - or anyone - run an NPC?
ReplyDeleteThe way I do it is to consider what the NPCs goals are, what their character is like, and what they are willing to do to achieve them. If it's a major NPC, that stuff is done pre-game and the PCs can, but don't always, change how that NPC will go about accomplishing their goals. Hopefully the NPC will create situations to which the PCs will have to react and vice versa. Sometimes it doesn't play out that way and sometimes those plots come to fruition way down the road.
ReplyDeleteIf it's not a major NPC, I make that stuff up on the fly, which is how Slimfast was created. If it looks like they'll stick around, I'll give them tentative goals. Those goals evolve as the game evolves.
If it's an NPC that's only there for a moment, but the PCs will interact with it, I think of what that NPCs attitude is at that moment and not much else beyond that. That's why you sometimes encounter brief NPCs in my games that might come in the guise of an irked soldier that just lost at cards...again, or a jovial barkeep, or a Bretonian noble who is "interested" in a certain PC, and sometimes those NPCs turn into regulars. A moment's thought to the NPC makes them come alive and sometimes spawns some great adventures.
Anyway, the more you do that, the faster you get at it until creating lifelike NPCs becomes quite natural. The more lifelike you make your NPCs, the more lifelike the PCs become as they react to a more immersive world.
Of course, some NPCs are just there to be killed or robbed, lol.