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Dealing with NPCs Should Be Expensive and Irritating (forlornencystment.blogspot.com)

submitted 6 days ago by copacetic@discuss.tchncs.de to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

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[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 15 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I have had players get confused when NPCs don't want to drop everything and help them. Like, the NPC is just living life. They're not going to risk their safety and livelihood because you asked nicely a few minutes after meeting them.

One player had her mind blown when she learned NPCs can lie. She'd sort of pissed off this one faction with mild misbehavior. She gets pissy with one guy and demands he tell her where the macguffin is. He lies. She says okay, goes to that place. Gets in some trouble, and has no macguffin. She's looking at me like "where is it?". After several increasingly overt hints I just tell her "maybe he lied to you, because you broke into his house, pissed off his friends, and demanded he help you. Maybe he just lied to you".

"But... He said the thing is here"

[–] nickdrawthing@dice.camp 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

@jjjalljs I read a fun story years ago about some PCs out hunting for bandits in the woods. They come across some rough looking NPC fellows camping, thumbing their axes and looking suspicious. The players are like "hey, have you seen bandits around?" to which the NPCs reply "...uh, yeah, why don't we show you where they are?" Then the whole party was shocked when the (OBVIOUSLY bandit) NPCs pushed them off a cliff.
They argued that if the NPCs had been bandits they would just attack on sight.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 10 points 6 days ago

They argued that if the NPCs had been bandits they would just attack on sight.

Video game mindset is real.

I remember one of the first games I tried to run, when I was a young teenager. I described how there was a big rat in the first room of the ruins. The player was like "it's just there? Looking at me? Ok i shoo it away and check the doors..."

I was like, oh. Right. Duh. Normal people don't just kill every creature they see.

[–] pteryx@dice.camp 5 points 6 days ago

Sounds like you might need to explain that NPCs in TTRPGs aren't like NPCs in video games. They're not ambulatory signboards, but non-player *characters*, emphasis on character.