Rules:


Love them, hate 'em or sometimes assigned to assassinate them, NPCs are something you are faced with while roleplaying. Throughout my time GMing and roleplaying I've seen them being used both as a GM inclusive device while other times they've been free to use by anyone. Sometimes it is even a mixture between these two extremes with roleplayers having a limited use of an NPC or it being a case by case situation. I've seen important NPCs that would have so much details and even an inner monologue written in a post that they almost seem like a character instead of an NPC while other times I've seen an NPC with equal importance that go without the inner thoughts and such with far less background information. Although not as controversial or seen in a variety of ways compared to others things concerning roleplaying, it will be a great starting place for us.

As a launching point for discussion here are a few questions to get things rolling:
What is your take on an NPC? How much of an importance should be put on them? How should an NPC be dealt with in the IC and who should be able to control them? GM/roleplayers, what has been your experience with NPCs and what has worked best for you in the roleplays you've been in? How is a good NPC played?

First, I'd like to commend your interest in attempting to create some community involvement. I hope it goes over well. Community is something I feel like this site needs more of, and not just for "the in-crowd". Everyone should feel welcome.

Next, I will say that I have absolutely no inhibitions about reporting inappropriate behavior to administrative staff. Have your opinion, please. Voice it. But do it in a way which is respectful, non-confrontational and productive. I would like to see this conversation serve its intended purpose, not get shut down for peacocking and posturing.

As for the topic, this is one subject I've had lots of experience with over the years. It can be difficult to know how to handle NPCs. The topic is subjective, and can vary from situation to situation. In many cases, it really depends on the style of roleplay management the GM wishes to employ.

In my experience, Non-Player Character is a term which only means that the character is not assigned to a player. It does not necessarily mean that the character is unimportant, or is free for use by the players. I tend to restrict access to NPCs by players, because it is too easy for a player to "win" a conflict if he has full rights to post reactions from his opponent.

NPCs in my roleplays tend to be completely off-limits to players, unless specifically stated. Even then, it is situational. There are minor and major NPCs, but in every case I treat them as separate entities, with their own rights and backgrounds. The conflict of interest is just too great a temptation in my eyes. A player posting a reaction from an NPC he's fighting is (in my opinion) no different from posting a reaction on behalf of another player's character. I see it as just the same.

I also believe in minimizing the involvement of NPCs in a roleplay. Too many of my roleplays ended up fizzling because I had too many NPCs helping the party. Nobody wants to play second fiddle to a character that isn't even a real member of the party. Even less do players want to be "saved" by NPCs. These days I tend to only employ an NPC where necessary or warranted, despite my great love of creating them.

In short, they are a valuable tool, but are easily misused (or overused). It can be difficult to know when to employ them, but if you figure it out, an NPC can make the difference between a successful roleplay and a dead one.

NPCs are really important to a RP, they help make the world feel more real and alive. If it is just a few player characters and some cardboard cutout NPCs then the world doesn't feel as full and the story can get stale. But then having to many can take the focus off of where it should be, the player characters and their story. Because of this I tend to have a mix of NPC's when I GM with differing levels of importance. The really important ones I tend to treat like GM-PCs and they are off limits to players just like any PC would be, I try to keep them limited in number so that I don't get overwhelmed juggling them and that the players don't feel like they are simply witnesses to my puppeteering of the NPCs (something I have experience from the other side, it's no fun). But they are useful tools to moving plot and getting people where they need to be. I find I add these sorts of NPCs gradually, filling in gaps needed in the story.

But then I have other NPCs that the players have limited access too and I communicate this in the OOC as the story progresses. I've even handed control of a few of them over to players who acted as co-GMs a time or two in the infancy of my GMing. I've even offered a few up as sacrifice in posts so that the player in question could shine in their handling of the situation.

Then there are the ones that are a little more cardboard-y. The baker who is around the corner who warrants a name but not much more. I make lists of these so that there is coherency and that if for whatever reason the baker needs to become more important we know a name and some little things about them. Then there are player NPC's, side characters important to the PC. Typically I let the players decide who can touch them/control them. On occasion I've taken these on as plot tools, with the player's permission. In my latest GM attempt (which I had to set aside because of increasing time commitments elsewhere) I encouraged my players to make up NPC family members just so I could make them pick one to kill off in something of a natural disaster in their second post of the RP.

Regardless of how in-depth they are, a good NPC is there to make the world more real, to help advance the story and to give the players chances to shine.

BlessedWrath said
Nobody wants to play second fiddle to a character that isn't even a real member of the party.

This^ I had a GM in my early tabletop career who had a character named Arkady. He was broken in that he did was not made by the rules (though the GM swore he was) and his power level was above and beyond the PC's who were supposedly his level. Each and every encounter we had in that RP ended with Arkady swooping in and solving the problem for us all before anyone really got a chance to do anything. The RP did not last all that long as you can imagine but among my circle of gamers was born the term "Being Arkady'd" I still use it and I live in fear of doing that to someone. My use of NPCs hopefully reflects that fear.

A couple of the RP's I've been in and have GM'd, we've included NPC lists that were relevent to your character. Additionally on the ones I've personally GM'd, I generally create a list of central NPCs such as the city's mayor, chief of police, and any other notable character. As Lillian said, they help to flesh out the world and in regards to the character specific NPCs I've always found that they help give your character a further sense of existing. That nice little 'slice of life' that says 'Hey, this character actually has a life and didn't just pop up for the sake of the RP.'

Sometimes I even write whole posts from the perspective of the NPC, it's fun sometimes to describe your character through someone else's eyes. That said I predominately play Superhuman RPs and thus this all works very well for that particular genre.

In terms of who can actually control an NPC, character specific ones were generally up to the discretion of the creator. The ones I'd create as a GM were situation specific however as to who could control them. As was mentioned above, a villain character could be too easily manipulated for a player to instantly win so generally I would impose limitations to control during combat situations. These limitations generally include making sure that everyone gets a go at the villain character(s). In the case of multiple opponents I always ask that characters react as 'realistic' as possible. In other words depending on abilities and skills ensure they don't take on five opponents at once and leave nothing for anyone else.

As with anything in RPing, there's a lot of onus on both the players and the GM to ensure everything stays in check. That said I definitely believe in the importance of NPCs to flesh out a world and fill it with life. Look a video game, could you image just wandering empty streets with no NPCs around to bring the setting to life? It does make quite a difference in players and the GM take the effort to breathe that little bit extra life into their settings.

I never really put much thought into NPCs; usually I operated under the "name/nameless" rules for NPCs. In general, if any given NPC is referred to by a name, as in "Bob" rather than just "the waiter", then that NPC is at least important enough to give priority (but not necessarily absolute) control to whoever introduced that NPC, or the GM in charge of the RP, whichever is best for the situation. Conversely, if somebody introduces an NPC without giving them a name, then that NPC is probably unimportant enough that everyone involved in the RP can dictate their actions and reactions moderately freely.

That's an interesting way to handle things, Arsenal. I'd never heard that before. I will concede that there are characters unimportant enough that it really doesn't matter what happens to them, or who controls them. Further, content introduced by a player really should be their responsibility and their privilege. If you can get to a point where people are posting responsibly, then it shouldn't be much of a problem to allow limited NPC control...to a point.

I haven't tried that yet. Maybe I should.

@Get the Guild Active Again stuff.

I do applaud the effort here, but there are three things I feel the need to point out.

1) A lot of the drop in activity has been cause people got busy IRL, and/or because of the lack of people.

To clarify, ever since we went from Old Guild to New Guild we lost the majority of our people. A lot of people we knew and were friends with were no longer around.
This caused people to normally be surrounded by fewer friends, which naturally leads to people leaving. So some effort should be also be put on trying to get people to get along and like each other, not simply poke your head in, speaking your own mind and then poof without engaging with others.

-Note: It also doesn't help when some people (they know who they are) do the complete opposite, by addressing/treating some of the most active members in their forum section/community as trouble makers/conflict starts simply due to a personal vendetta. Hostility like that also needs to be addressed, because stuff like that is often what draws people away from communities, not to them.

2) You kind of shot yourself in the foot when you said "but any negativity brought to this thread about it will (not maybe) be reported to the Mods".

Mainly because that wording is broad enough that it could be used to claim that any kind of critique (even in constructive criticism) is going to be reported. It essentially becomes "Hey guys, let's work together to make this community better. But don't you dare try to offer your own ideas/opinions, or you will be reported". And that's an even worse community killer than the Hostility element I addressed above, making people afraid of being banned/reported simply by trying to help/suggest their own ideas.

Now, someone coming in and simply going "This is stupid! Your idea is stupid! Your stupid! Come at me bitch!"?
Yeah, that definitely ain't Fonz cool and should be dealt with if the goal is to make a community that everyone wants to take part in.
(Personal Note: I do personally tend to prefer communities where individuals are allowed to say things exactly how they see it. No censoring or limitations. But I recognize that only works for certain kinds of people. And it's not the approach to take if you're trying to appeal to a board/wide demographic).

+By trying to reduce decision on this (the very topic/discussion meant to try to keep the guild alive) to PM's basically outright destroys community involvement.
You might have caused a boost in 1x1 PM's to you maybe, but if people see this idea and find themselves agreeing but then see they can't do it about organizing/improving that very thing you're suggesting?
Then it basically becomes redundant.

Now, I understand why people might be wary about sharing ideas, constructive criticism etc.
Because the majority of times lately when OT has done it, it has sadly reduced itself to a flame war.
And majority of the times it happened in spam it basically became "Who can we blame as the trouble maker?".
It's not something the Guild community is at the moment good at dealing with. But if you ever want anything to work (especially sitewide) you need multiple people working on it, offering advice, insights, experiences etc.
If you shy away from it simply because people won't agree 100% of the time, or because it's a bit more complex than "Hey guys! Let's do X", you're essentially shying away to what a big part of a community even is.

3) You may want to push for the Mods to make separate topics of contests again.

There have been several contests attempted to be created the past several months such as WOTM (Writer of the Month) to try to give people stuff to do, and help address the very issues you're trying to address. However, they didn't last long because when buried into other topics like OT or Roleplay Discussion most people don't find/notice them. So they would need their own section for said contests to work. This was something that Mahz had apparently promised to make several times, but never has.

So if your goal is to get the community active again, you might want to make one of your orders of business to be getting on the Mods and Admins case to get around to making those. So people can start the contests they want, and use those to help the community launch.

My intent was not to censor any critique, hence why I have not tried to do so with you. It was to squash the second type of negativity which you pointed out. I believe that was also OP's point. A critique is the non-confrontational mention of a flaw or a presentation of a logical counter-argument, which you have provided. I don't see much hostility in that critique, thus I do not term it as the kind of negativity mentioned earlier.

I respectfully submit that you may have misinterpreted the intent of the pledge to report inappropriate behavior.

Magic Magnum said
.3) You may want to push for the Mods to make separate topics of contests again.There have been several contests attempted to be created the past several months such as WOTM (Writer of the Month) to try to give people stuff to do, and help address the very issues you're trying to address. However, they didn't last long because when buried into other topics like OT or Roleplay Discussion most people don't find/notice them. So they would need their own section for said contests to work. This was something that Mahz had apparently promised to make several times, but never has. So if your goal is to get the community active again, you might want to make one of your orders of business to be getting on the Mods and Admins case to get around to making those. So people can start the contests they want, and use those to help the community launch.

Couple of things, Your post was not on topic, at all. Not one single NPC mentioned in your post and the OP requested people stay on topic. She was stating her intent in mentioning increasing activity, but it was not the topic of this thread. Second thing, the mods can't do anything about the site glitches or the creation of new sections, that's Admin only. You've had some confusion before about where the line is.

So if you want to post here again, I'm sure we'd all love to hear your take on NPCs.

Well, the most important NPC of the plot is the antagonist, in my mind, so I always go out of my way to have one or several developed with the appropriate motivations as my means of laying the groundwork of a plot. "Why?" is often used to flesh out the who of that particular NPC. I'm not sure I view them as NPC's so much as secondary characters in a sense.

Speaking of NPC's, I do have an RP setting that I do an RP for, from time to time, where magic-users (it's modern) call their mundane, non-magic using detractors "NPC's." It's a bit of an insertion of nerd humor in there.

I heavily utilize NPCs in my character as well as utilize a hybrid style of them on a number of my open world threads (which is my preference generally).

I actually started utilizing a system of allowing people to create really weak shell bios for what they needed to get done for random NPC level characters to allow them to participate before they completely flesh out their bio (this works great for those on the fence with a character concept). It has worked quite well for my open world threads in creating a wider range of characters, even if I am the only that mostly utilizes that feature.

A lot of my NPCs have actually expansive bios and I'm often post them on threads. As has been mentioned, they just make the world feel much larger and that is often a struggle for a lot of more open world threads.

I agree with you, HeySeuss, but I'm having trouble wording it correctly. I can't quite explain my opinion on what the differences are between a GM running NPCs and a GM running "his" characters. That's a deficiency in my ability to elaborate. If it coalesces into some kind of valid point, I'll be sure to come back and voice that point.

That is a hard nuance to pinpoint. I always have one GM-PC (I want to play in my own games!!) and several NPCs. I think for me the difference is my attachment to them and how I move the plot with them. I try to make my GM-PCs not so central to the plot so they don't/can't run amok over the other players (see my Arkady story for why this is!), the NPCs typically are villains or say the PC's employer and I use them more heavily to move the plot. But then the lines are blurred sometimes.

Lillian Thorne said
But then the lines are blurred sometimes.

Rarely are the lines so crisp and defined that we know when we've crossed them.

After this reply I'll move this to a new topic to discuss here, since apparently replying the majority of the OP is "off topic" and is to be replied to with passive aggressive sarcasm.

BlessedWrath said
My intent was not to censor any critique, hence why I have not tried to do so with you. It was to squash the second type of negativity which you pointed out. I believe that was also OP's point. A critique is the non-confrontational mention of a flaw or a presentation of a logical counter-argument, which you have provided. I don't see much hostility in that critique, thus I do not term it as the kind of negativity mentioned earlier.I respectfully submit that you may have misinterpreted the intent of the pledge to report inappropriate behavior.

It's fairly likely that I mis-intrepreted it.
But I wanted to make sure my point was clear in case I did read it right. Because if I did, then such a movement would do more harm than good.

Lillian Thorne said
I've even handed control of a few of them over to players who acted as co-GMs a time or two in the infancy of my GMing.

I've tried this out for the first time in the roleplay I'm running and so far it has worked wonderfully. It helps take off the load of keeping track of all the NPCs as well as let certain NPCs be played in a different manner.

Lillian Thorne said
Then there are the ones that are a little more cardboard-y. The baker who is around the corner who warrants a name but not much more. I make lists of these so that there is coherency and that if for whatever reason the baker needs to become more important we know a name and some little things about them.

I'll have to keep that in mind. I've done this with more important NPCs but adding to the list with names and short blurbs of who they are a minor NPC is would come in handy granted that I have a ton of NPCs in that roleplay so I'll probably have to find a way to somehow limit it.

Lord Wraith said
Sometimes I even write whole posts from the perspective of the NPC, it's fun sometimes to describe your character through someone else's eyes. That said I predominately play Superhuman RPs and thus this all works very well for that particular genre.

With a decent chunk of the first part of the roleplay focused on uncovering the NPC's past, I have done this (maybe a little too much) so that the roleplayers can learn about what is going on or what is to come. From what I've seen it's been a great way to set the mood of a roleplay or an arc.

Arsenal said
I never really put much thought into NPCs; usually I operated under the "name/nameless" rules for NPCs. In general, if any given NPC is referred to by a name, as in "Bob" rather than just "the waiter", then that NPC is at least important enough to give priority (but not necessarily absolute) control to whoever introduced that NPC, or the GM in charge of the RP, whichever is best for the situation. Conversely, if somebody introduces an NPC without giving them a name, then that NPC is probably unimportant enough that everyone involved in the RP can dictate their actions and reactions moderately freely.

Like BW said, I haven't gone with the idea that a name would distinguish if the NPC could be used by roleplayers or not. I do give limited control of NPCs on a varying degrees based on importance though on a case by case situation. Implementing something more clearer like this might be something I will have to look into.

As for NPCs versus secondary characters , I have been guilty of being between the lines of the two and the lines can be challenging to distinguish at times even harder so when a group of NPCs were the main characters of a previous story and now that I turned that story into a roleplay set years later it has been hard to shove them into a box labeled NPC when there is a lot of history about them.

Firstly (and before I read all these awesome responses) thanks so much for doing this, Kirra.

Now - readity I go:

I used to (many moons ago - or years) GM and play bulk stories. Back when I had the time to devote. At that time, I don't recall worrying overly much about NPCs. There was open discussion on this or that NPC and generally, we went with the name/nameless manner Arsenal stated. If a named NPC was to be used, generally someone said "Go ahead and move the mermaid" or "I'm just tossing Mr. Grand in there, anyone can push him."

At this time, I'm no longer GMing and I've all but relegated myself to the two person RPs (easier to discuss time away and much easier to pick back up the muse when the story had to wait for your house project). So I'll take on the questions from that POV.

Kirra said
What is your take on an NPC? How much of an importance should be put on them? How should an NPC be dealt with in the IC and who should be able to control them? GM/roleplayers, what has been your experience with NPCs and what has worked best for you in the roleplays you've been in? How is a good NPC played?

I LOVE NPCs.. love, love, love them. I love keeping characters out of a vacuum. There is a wonderful way of looking at each one of us where there are bits and pieces of ourselves we are aware of and not aware of, that others are aware of about us and not aware of about us. The intersections between these bits and pieces are where NPCs bring the world and one's characters to life. In a world created by only two people, NPCs become essential. The world is plain and juvenile without them.

As for control, I generally leave that up to whomever I'm writing with. If I write with people who need to control their NPCs, then that's easy enough to allow - provided I can do the same. Now and again, someone will want full open reign on any NPCs and that can be fun as well. Generally, it's a balance. One can almost sense when an NPC is too important to muck with. They "feel" important and until they are offered up on the alter of The Story for all writers to play with, they remain in firm control of their creator.

I suppose I've not changed from when I GMd way back when. It seemed then like whatever my players were comfortable with - with the most sensitive of bars being the one everyone else had to live by. The more open and collaborative writings were always the more rich, but it definitely took a lot of give and take to make things work. People had (and still have) to not be so tied to any one outcome so that the creation could be more mobile. Because when you got's it right, it's purty cool.

As far as how a good NPC is played, I've always lived by the demands of the story. I love that NPCs can be an important character in disguise, the writers just need to find it out over the course of the creation. One of my favorite characters was a woman I set up as a black market transfer only. The minute she hit the page, I realized she had a life of her own - even a story of her own. She superseded the main characters and it was beautiful. But then, she was also just what the story needed and her insertion gave the story the key to a perfect climactic ending, complete with happy rainbows and unicorns and love riding off in the sunset.

Therefore, a great NPC is one who fits the demands of the story. If this is that proverbial baker without a name and the town crier and the man at the job board who has the cybernetic eye or if it is the girl who is named Marybeth and has a long history with Bob and knows just what to say to get him to lob food at her head because the pair of them lived in that Horrible Woman's Orphanage together and they survived beatings by flinging themselves before switches and they've exchanged blood like blood brothers - then so be it. Giving the wrong NPC power frays the story and keeping NPCs bland just stifles the story. It's a nice balance, ain't it? :)

1x1s are definitely a completely different animal. When you have just two people cooperating on a story, it allows for NPCs to be in flux. I had a roleplay which lasted well over two years, with over 50 characters between the two of us. The secret of our success was that either of us could introduce content, and either of us could alter content, but we both had to be okay with the changes. Most times, the person introducing new content was the one who had primary control over it, but that too was flexible.

When you get it right, you really can go the distance. That "give and take" you mention is necessary in any roleplay. I just think it's a little easier to deal with NPCs and how they should be handled when you're in a 1x1, versus a group play.

Ahh... NPCs...

We like having them in RPs. While the Antagonist type HeySeuss described is a tried-and-true formula, we personally prefer others. Mostly because our RPs don't have a single group of PCs vs. a GM-controlled enemy. We very much prefer to set two (or more) factions of PCs up against each other. In our experience, that reduces the plot workload for the GM(s) a little, since the players make conflicts for each other.

Thus, when we make NPCs, we distinguish them in certain ways. Some NPCs are nameless grunts, some are mere names with a short concept attached, and some have a true character sheet. The former tend to be free-for-all to use, whereas the latter tend to be harder for others to use. The way we distinguish the latter from a full PC, is through the length/complexity of the CS. A PC tends to have far more in the CS than an NPC.

Sometimes we'll make an NPC, only to later convert him or her to a full PC if (s)he grows sufficiently. How that growth is determined on a case-by-case basis. No single factor defines it perfectly.

We also tend to have our NPCs be a bit more mortal than PCs. We don't mind killing any character if it'll help the story, but killing an NPC should always be easier than killing a PC. We've several times made the mistake of having too many NPCs that we control in a single RP. Its that experience that taught us the necessity of discarding some after use and to limit creation. NPC-hood is a decent way to test if a character concept is viable before one puts PC-CS effort into it.

Ah, NPCs... In table RPGs, they're the life of the roleplay. Without opposing forces moving in the background countering the movements of the players, without the quest-givers wanting something so much that they're willing to employ the players for it and without the life of beings more than those of the players a world would be so barren. Without those who react to what the players do, without those who pose a threat for the players to deal with and without those who maintain the basic rules of any world, the enjoyment of a roleplay simply wouldn't be there. That goes for any being, the animalistic intelligence of blood-thirsty monsters as well as plain scared civilians fleeing from it. It is always up to the GM to make these as enjoyable as s/he can, for it is eventually they who decide if this is an entertaining world to be in.

In play-by-post, it's an entirely different story.

NPCs feel kind of out-there in such. Most RPs I've been in mostly focuses on player interactions and in those NPCs feel... less like they belong there, in some way. It is like a must for each player to need to adress another in each post so that they get something to react to. I prefer when all NPCs are under the control of a single GM, but that puts so much pressure on the GM in a world where otherwise the games play themselves simply by players continiously posting. In such events, NPCs become breaks which slow the roleplay down and less enjoyment is derived. Another way to do it is to allow players to create their own NPCs and control them, but that becomes a situation where the player plays the NPC much like they're playing a second character, which I discourage. It also becomes an issue where people starts to wonder "How much is OK for me to do?" ... I honestly have no answer to how to handle NPCs in these kinds of matters. They're never as intresting as the player characters, anyway. A strong GM can keep them on leash and conduct a beautiful roleplay waving around his/her NPCs as a masterful symphony, but I've seen far too many wannabe such crack under pressure and see the roleplay go down under.

Play-by-post Roleplays are as most beautiful when they run on their own without much GM-activity. Hence, I really prefer if it is either with only really minor NPC activity controlled by players and allow the GM to simply play a single major NPC at a time, just like s/he was controlling a character of his own. That way, the GM can post mostly major updates to move the story forward when s/he feels like and not be bogged down by having to play numerous minor NPCs at once while s/he simply allows the players to play themselves. Yeah, something like that. ... Though yeah, roleplays controlled by a strong GM capable of handling a world of NPCs are usually the most enjoyable ones, but not all can handle the pressure. That's about that.