One of the burdens of being a Game Master is maintaining the
juggling act of: Running the game; Maintaining the flow of the
action/adventure/plot/story-flow and readjusting the flow due to players
always coming up with out-of-left-field actions/ideas; Playing the part
of every single NPC, from the major antagonists and supporting
characters, to the random one-note-joke "spear carrier" extra who is
just there to make a Warren Ellis-styled joke about a Farmer who brags
about fucking pigs. There is so much effort in running a game that I
find that I have to scale back on things for the sake of speed and
efficiency.
To deal with the game system, I
try to use simple, rules-lite game engines. For example, I find it
easier to broaden skills into the category of what a character archetype
(Soldier, Thief, Barbarian, Technician, Cowboy, etc.) could do then to
compile a long-ass list of skill areas (Melee Weapons, Rifles, Survival,
Pick-Pockets, Fashion, Mechanics, Electronics, etc., etc.), each with
their own set of sub-rules. This is the approach Barbarians of Lemuria
did with Heroic Careers. If you want to intimidate someone, you can use
Barbarian or Torturer. If you want to hide-in-plan-sight within an urban
area, you can use Beggar, Thief or Slave. Its all open-ended, and
subject to GM's approval. Also, the use of quick-and-simple combat
mechanic, that gives you a good amount of options, without dropping a
D20-styled grapple rules on you in the middle of the action, goes a long
way into resolving the mechanics quickly so we can focus more on
role-playing the action.
Dealing with the
herculean task of maintaining the flow of the game without holding the
players by their noses into a railroad adventure is a whole topic into itself, and not the topic I want to focus on right now.
To
deal with having to play each an every NPC the players would run
across, I use SPCs, or Semi-Player Characters. I first did this with
intelligent magic items and magical familiars. Instead of acting the
part of the magic item or critter, I would have one of the players do
that for me, and not the player who is handing the item/critter, but another player as to get
more social interaction between them, and without the innate bias that
could occur with, let say: A morally questionable Fighter character
wielding an intelligent Holy Avenger sword. Outside of intelligent magic
items and magical familiars (or high-tech equipment/drones with AI), I
can use this for minor NPCs during non-critical social encounters. To do
this, I ether slip players index cards with normal NPC notes on them
(name, job, personality, motivation, quirks, etc.), or I can allow players, within reason, to write their own SPC notes, then allowing them to "go ham" with it.
2 comments:
Interesting! I'm bookmarking this...I definitely want to try working some version of it into a game...
Iteresting approach to managing NPCs in tabletop games! Using Semi-Player Characters seems like a smart way to distribute the workload and add depth to the game world. Plus, it fosters player engagement and creativity. Would love to try this out in my next campaign!
bmg
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