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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Run-N.P.C.: Making NPCs That Don't Suck
 
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Old Kentucky Shark
May 25, 2012

If you think you're gonna get sympathy from the shark, well then, you won't.

grassy gnoll posted:

The problem is that playing entirely fair and transparent and still winning is hard. Is there a secret to this kind of success, or are my GMs just really good at cheating just enough to create fair-but-diabolical boss encounters or evil plans or what have you?
Planning for failure outcomes helps a lot. You need to ask yourself before any conflict what the success and failure outcomes are most likely to be. If you are about planning a fight, and, as a GM, you think that having the bad guy lose would be less interesting than having them succeed, then you are planning the wrong kind of fight, and you need to reassess your goals and set up a different kind of conflict. The Xanatos "even when I lose, I win" gambit is both cheesy and hard to pull off, but it's easier to rig things where even the PC's successes push them into more trouble with larger stakes conflicts. After that, it's easy to play fair.

One of the meanest things I ever did was have a villain invite the PC to a dinner party at his parents' house. That is a conflict scenario with no successful outcomes.

* # ¿ Apr 16, 2014 02:41
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# ¿ May 10, 2024 06:14
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Run-N.P.C.: Making NPCs That Don't Suck