But first, an anecdote.
I was aVST for Vampire the Requiem. Still am. The player who portrayed our Prince was on tour in the Middle East, and as a result wrote up a plotkit explaining where he had been and making it relevant to the New York venue. When I tell you how magnificent this plotkit was, let me tell you, I keep a copy of it and use it as a template for MY plotkits. The detail that went into this, with the characters, their motivations, their goals, their quirks, and their relationships with each other. It was beautiful.
Now, it was my luck that I would be running the particular game that this plot would be introduced. Sure, I thought, not a major problem. It was to be a light game, Easter and Passover weekend. Shouldn't be a problem. My VST had contacted players to portray these characters, but he didn't give them the info about them to prep.
And that's when everything went downhill.
One of the players was very intense in his performances, too intense. He was physically touching other players in a manner the player in question wasn't comfortable with. He had gotten too far into it without realizing what the goal was. The court was actually amenable to his demands, but his pushing behavior was shooting him in the foot with a shotgun. The other player, oof. The other player had the directions, read the information sheet and had a copy in case he was confused. He ignored all of it and instead decided to use the abilities on the sheet, and failed. Badly.
By the end of the game, the players and their PCs were equally ready to kill these characters, and killed them they did. Hard. All of that plot the Prince's player put in was shot and killed because bad management and bad roleplaying. My first hour was not my finest hour.
Since then, I've experienced different opinions about NPCs and different ways they are done. From the idyllic synergy of Changeling the Lost, to the shambling hordes of Zombies in Dystopia Rising to the trebuchet I use to launch them at the Mage game, there are numerous ways to prepare them and numerous ways to play them.
So here it is, my guide to portraying NPCs. I'm going to be doing this as both a player and a Storyteller because you need both to pull this off. The NPC is the Storyteller's character in this scenario, and you need one to get the other done.
This is the most important point, and I can't stress it enough. If you're playing an NPC, know who the fuck you are playing. These characters have abilities, skills, stats and most importantly they have lives of their own. Know them.
I mentioned in a previous post doing one game of Changeling as Hamilton, New York City's King of the Day Court. Before I went in, Chris, the man who founded New York's game and most of the NPCs in there, sat me down and gave me the man's history, motivations, relationships and hang ups. I knew his tendency to act as front man for his partnership with the King of the Night Court, and that he was a guidance counselor and PE teacher during the day. I knew he was dominated by the Vice of Sloth and needed people to come to him and do their own thing.I knew he had hero worshiped Erised, the Spring Sovereign. I knew these things, and therefore was easier to understand how to play with him..
I've also gone in with just the sheet of a character and no real information. A character who has history in Requiem's Clan Mekhet. I had a player with history with the character flip some bit of information that I didn't know, so I had to improvise something and quickly. A snide comment to dismiss them.
Roleplaying characters should not be so dismissive, especially not NPCs, who are suppose to act as hooks. You can evade, you can be elusive, but you should not dismiss an NPC unless there is a damned good RP reason why.
In my case, there was a reason, my NPC was a Lancea Sanctum member and the other was a high powered, and particularly antagonistic member of the Circle of the Crone. They don't get along ANYWAY, so history really did play out.
I should note that most of this is in regards to Named NPCs, which is the standard operating procedure for White Wolf Games. In games like Dystopia Rising, where there are hundreds of players across acres of land, being a named character sometimes doesn't have a lot of weight unless there are months of play involved. However, the point still emerges. Know as much about these characters as you can. Know how their Nationality works, what they can do, know what their goals are, as well as background stuff.
I went out as an Outer Guardsman, just a member of an NPC group sent to warn the players about a massive breach of Zombies. Having never really played the game much, I asked for a general rundown of what the Outer Guard was, and what my character could do.
Ask questions, please. If an ST is giving you this character, they should have at the least enough information to play this role accurately.
Another point, if you're playing an NPC, you have to actually want to play an NPC. I've seen too many plots die quickly and abruptly because they just didn't like the characters they were playing. With the above story of the Requiem players fucking up a plot, I did one plot which had gotten so obnoxiously convoluted that I frankly didn't care that I was in it. The ST at the time gave me the plot, but little information. He told me less than nothing about why. So I had no real way of even faking it like an actor and just run with it. I played the character, and that night saw the end and death of the NPC and plot.
One of the reasons why I think Cam/MES has kind of lost it's grip on NPCs is that, frankly, people just want to play their characters. And also that there seems to be a general lack of giving a fuck about the venue as a whole. Most just want their character's XP, their Prestige to make better. In short, there really isn't a sense of civic duty to the club, and performing an NPC is a sign of civic duty to the venue and the club. Dystopia Rising, on the other hand, it's part of Civic Duty. In game, when players go off on their mandatory NPC shifts (unless they buy out of it) their PCs are considered to go on, I shit you not "Civic Duty" which is seen as something important and sacrosanct. The culture actually rewards going off and playing other characters for four hours.
Another point to note, your job as an NPC is not to win, but to Challenge. That's not to say an NPC can never kill, but the idea is not to use the NPC to do just that. Give you a for instance, in Mage, one player's PC had opted to be an NPC so he could become an Antagonist. He got his hands on some plot-level wooj that could (and did) fuck up the venue. He also had access to a lot of things that could have killed three players. At one point the player said "Here is how I would play this, but since this is an NPC, here's how I'd like to evade this." And with that, he took the character and sacrificed himself. The NPC was about to win, it shouldn't.
Finally, there is one thing that all NPC players should do. Debrief. You need to sit down and talk to the Storyteller and explain what the situation was like and what those characters did. In the end, they are responsible for those character. They need to know because continuity is a thing.
So those are the four main points of NPCing. Know as much of your NPC as possible, Care about playing an NPC, Drive your NPC Responsibly, and Debrief your ST. Those are the things that are essentially. There are definitely others, but this is what I'd say is key. A lot of this comes down on the Storytellers as much as the players. If they aren't doing their job right, then there is nothing a player can do other than act their ass off and hope for the best.
For STs reading this, if you're taking the time to make an NPC, do it right. Yes, you can throw a few nameless mooks into the world, but if you actually want to give the players something to follow, they've got to give a damn about what they're chasing.
Otherwise, you just let them play with themselves.
Later
Now, it was my luck that I would be running the particular game that this plot would be introduced. Sure, I thought, not a major problem. It was to be a light game, Easter and Passover weekend. Shouldn't be a problem. My VST had contacted players to portray these characters, but he didn't give them the info about them to prep.
And that's when everything went downhill.
One of the players was very intense in his performances, too intense. He was physically touching other players in a manner the player in question wasn't comfortable with. He had gotten too far into it without realizing what the goal was. The court was actually amenable to his demands, but his pushing behavior was shooting him in the foot with a shotgun. The other player, oof. The other player had the directions, read the information sheet and had a copy in case he was confused. He ignored all of it and instead decided to use the abilities on the sheet, and failed. Badly.
By the end of the game, the players and their PCs were equally ready to kill these characters, and killed them they did. Hard. All of that plot the Prince's player put in was shot and killed because bad management and bad roleplaying. My first hour was not my finest hour.
Since then, I've experienced different opinions about NPCs and different ways they are done. From the idyllic synergy of Changeling the Lost, to the shambling hordes of Zombies in Dystopia Rising to the trebuchet I use to launch them at the Mage game, there are numerous ways to prepare them and numerous ways to play them.
So here it is, my guide to portraying NPCs. I'm going to be doing this as both a player and a Storyteller because you need both to pull this off. The NPC is the Storyteller's character in this scenario, and you need one to get the other done.
This is the most important point, and I can't stress it enough. If you're playing an NPC, know who the fuck you are playing. These characters have abilities, skills, stats and most importantly they have lives of their own. Know them.
I mentioned in a previous post doing one game of Changeling as Hamilton, New York City's King of the Day Court. Before I went in, Chris, the man who founded New York's game and most of the NPCs in there, sat me down and gave me the man's history, motivations, relationships and hang ups. I knew his tendency to act as front man for his partnership with the King of the Night Court, and that he was a guidance counselor and PE teacher during the day. I knew he was dominated by the Vice of Sloth and needed people to come to him and do their own thing.I knew he had hero worshiped Erised, the Spring Sovereign. I knew these things, and therefore was easier to understand how to play with him..
I've also gone in with just the sheet of a character and no real information. A character who has history in Requiem's Clan Mekhet. I had a player with history with the character flip some bit of information that I didn't know, so I had to improvise something and quickly. A snide comment to dismiss them.
Roleplaying characters should not be so dismissive, especially not NPCs, who are suppose to act as hooks. You can evade, you can be elusive, but you should not dismiss an NPC unless there is a damned good RP reason why.
In my case, there was a reason, my NPC was a Lancea Sanctum member and the other was a high powered, and particularly antagonistic member of the Circle of the Crone. They don't get along ANYWAY, so history really did play out.
I should note that most of this is in regards to Named NPCs, which is the standard operating procedure for White Wolf Games. In games like Dystopia Rising, where there are hundreds of players across acres of land, being a named character sometimes doesn't have a lot of weight unless there are months of play involved. However, the point still emerges. Know as much about these characters as you can. Know how their Nationality works, what they can do, know what their goals are, as well as background stuff.
I went out as an Outer Guardsman, just a member of an NPC group sent to warn the players about a massive breach of Zombies. Having never really played the game much, I asked for a general rundown of what the Outer Guard was, and what my character could do.
Ask questions, please. If an ST is giving you this character, they should have at the least enough information to play this role accurately.
Another point, if you're playing an NPC, you have to actually want to play an NPC. I've seen too many plots die quickly and abruptly because they just didn't like the characters they were playing. With the above story of the Requiem players fucking up a plot, I did one plot which had gotten so obnoxiously convoluted that I frankly didn't care that I was in it. The ST at the time gave me the plot, but little information. He told me less than nothing about why. So I had no real way of even faking it like an actor and just run with it. I played the character, and that night saw the end and death of the NPC and plot.
One of the reasons why I think Cam/MES has kind of lost it's grip on NPCs is that, frankly, people just want to play their characters. And also that there seems to be a general lack of giving a fuck about the venue as a whole. Most just want their character's XP, their Prestige to make better. In short, there really isn't a sense of civic duty to the club, and performing an NPC is a sign of civic duty to the venue and the club. Dystopia Rising, on the other hand, it's part of Civic Duty. In game, when players go off on their mandatory NPC shifts (unless they buy out of it) their PCs are considered to go on, I shit you not "Civic Duty" which is seen as something important and sacrosanct. The culture actually rewards going off and playing other characters for four hours.
Another point to note, your job as an NPC is not to win, but to Challenge. That's not to say an NPC can never kill, but the idea is not to use the NPC to do just that. Give you a for instance, in Mage, one player's PC had opted to be an NPC so he could become an Antagonist. He got his hands on some plot-level wooj that could (and did) fuck up the venue. He also had access to a lot of things that could have killed three players. At one point the player said "Here is how I would play this, but since this is an NPC, here's how I'd like to evade this." And with that, he took the character and sacrificed himself. The NPC was about to win, it shouldn't.
Finally, there is one thing that all NPC players should do. Debrief. You need to sit down and talk to the Storyteller and explain what the situation was like and what those characters did. In the end, they are responsible for those character. They need to know because continuity is a thing.
So those are the four main points of NPCing. Know as much of your NPC as possible, Care about playing an NPC, Drive your NPC Responsibly, and Debrief your ST. Those are the things that are essentially. There are definitely others, but this is what I'd say is key. A lot of this comes down on the Storytellers as much as the players. If they aren't doing their job right, then there is nothing a player can do other than act their ass off and hope for the best.
For STs reading this, if you're taking the time to make an NPC, do it right. Yes, you can throw a few nameless mooks into the world, but if you actually want to give the players something to follow, they've got to give a damn about what they're chasing.
Otherwise, you just let them play with themselves.
Later
Hmm... It's definitely an interesting, detailed run down on good points for NPCs. I think, personally, it's a bit more geared towards the MES/what the MES should be doing. But then, I actually think Dystopia is getting NPCs right a bit more of the time so less instruction is needed. But still, and the most vital point to remember, NPCs are there to make the characters heroes. Or anti-heroes, as it were. But they should make the characters shine, and that's always needs to be reminded to NPC players.
ReplyDeleteIt is geared more towards MES, but that's because 1) MES needs it and 2) I haven't done DR enough to properly judge, also they have to take into account hundreds of players and usually keep Named NPCs to the Storyteller pool, which is significantly larger than the MES pool
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