@BESW wot? where?

@BESW you missed a golden opportunity to respond unhelpfully but wittily with 'never', but thanks. :)

@BESW I know the boundaries of the medieval era are fuzzy, but that's missing it by quite a few years. :P

20th Century Druid at least draws on the "druid" thing.

@BESW ships said druid cross-country via FedEx, on accident of course

@BESW that being said...sometimes I've wanted to stick my chars across the interview table from the PHB. :P

@Shalvenay Huh?

@Miniman the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert.

@Shalvenay Ah. Tip for you: In an RPG context, I think most people are going to see PHB as Player's Handbook unless you explicitly specify otherwise :P

@Miniman aaah. :P

@BESW oh no

@trogdor Do you have an updated version of Dr Light online that I could look at?

d20

You are lucky, you won't get the old Megaman Dr Light joke this time. (What? What do you mean by "A save roll for avoiding the joke already is a joke"?)

Good morning!

[wave]

Morning

Topic of the day: How many NPCs is enough NPCs when preparing a campaign?

n-1 where n = to much NPS when preparing a campaign

type of campaign?

Depends on what a person needs.

Note that sometimes enough and too many is not mutually exclusive

@Ahriman ... A guy calling himself Sorites just called, he was looking for you :P

In my Fate games, four NPCs is usually the maximum I need to prep ahead of time for a given adventure.

(It's exactly how many I prepped for the current adventure: a villain, her trusted general, their nameless minions, and a friendly local.)

@BESW Am I correct in assumption that the PCs interact with more than 4 NPCs in their adventures?

For an upcoming hunter game I'm looking into the various splats to get an idea about who's where and what they are doing, as well as seeing whether they are linked or not.

@eimyr Yup! But those four are the only ones I prepare ahead of time.

Don't know if that can be seen as NPCs

@Ahriman Hunter: The Vigil, Hunter: The Reckoning?

Reckoning

kudos

stating is done on the fly

[scribbles notes for Hunter: The Taxidermying]

Though Vigil was the only nWoD one that I actually considered all-around better than the cWoD...

@BESW [Hunter: The Rednecking]

the main advantage in nWod is taht interaction was foreseen and taken up in teh design

cWod is a nightmare on that front

no concept of supernatural tolerance and every splats refers to mortals and ignores the others

@BESW Common Hunter traits: Meths and Legends, stalking prey and crushes, Everyone Is Your Cousin, Yourself Included.

@Ahriman because cWoD was never intended for crossovers

@eimyr true

e.g. Hunters from VtM is not Hunters from HtR etc.

also a shame, since the troupe is resistant to nWoD

I'm reeeaaaly tempted to play a redneck hunter now, that has a taxidermy vampire in the attic.

probably going to sell them on Reckoning, tehn drop the nWoD rules on them

will be hilarious if they find a mage and go after him

ditch the crud, go with 20th Anniversary

@Ahriman Do not talk to me of nWoD mages. I know it's wrath and ruin. I have faced the Great Mages of the Atlantis! [Reveals severe burns on his face] I warned your grandfather of what his greed would summon... but he would not listen. You are just like him.

Mage the Awakening is the Jar Jar of the World of Darkness.

@eimyr Secretly a dark lord of all?

Nah, it's the hikikomori racist with a eugenics plan I'm quoting.

For the current cthulhu game it's more of an: where are the PCs going & what do I need NPC wise to cover that. Started with the central town & the local power structure and then threw weird stuff at them until they found something interesting. And now another town ahs been fleshed out (power structure & factions struggling for control) while another town got burned down

I find myself overpreparing NPCs and factions.

Often I want to have two-three competing factions with two-three significant members and some people outside as well... you see where it's going.

yes...

but do yous tat them out or is it more of a name, faction & driving goal/ambition thing?

@BESW The thing is I don't like establishing a clear opposition, the Big Bad a clear antagonist in my games.

Then design four or five Main Players.

I sort-of stat them. I note what they are supposed to be able to do and then decide on the spot. I don't run dungeon crawls so stats are less important.

@BESW And what of the people they command?

Are you familiar with Fate's Faces & Places design?

Yeah.

I used it a couple of times but it was not enough most of the times.

For a scenario without designated narrative roles for NPCs, Faces & Places is pretty great.

Whenever my players go to see someone who is relevant to the plot I need to quickly establish their behaviour, totems, motivation, opinions on everyone else and that takes away at least 5 minutes each time.

Explain narrative role please.

I'm not sure if we understand it the same way.

Designated villain, for example.

Someone who could be an ally or an opponent or something else, depending on what happens; you know who they are, but you don't know their role in the story yet.

I see, so we got it clear.

I prefer to design NPCs as devices and let their narrative role be a reflection of that.

However, I don't like Faces and Places very much. I like how it establishes common knowledge, but I find it difficult to justify the constraint.

Or maybe I misunderstood it.

@anaphory how's your map?

Alive and thriving.

Glad to hear that.

Ooooh, Trick: If you ever want to use Google Draw for something like this with a background that is not supposed to move: Add a huge transparent rectangle on top of that background.

That way, whoever grabs something wrong and moves it accidentally will not shift the carefully-crafted background, but the huge invisible rectangle.

Cute.

nice hack

@BESW yeah the doc for him was updated

Greener asked me earlier in the week to work on it

@BESW docs.google.com/document/d/…

this should be it

anyway, now I need some sleep

@BESW Absolutely essential boardgame making kit.

Unfortunately, it also incentivises to create a "perfect" prototype, which then is an obstacle when you need to convince yourself to change it

Happy thanksgiving all

→ 2 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

@trogdor Thanks. For his Omega aspect, how about I'm sure my work is needed?

Also, @trogdor, would you rather that I build your temporary sheet in Umdaarian or Atomic Robo?

@BESW I think this is fine yeah

@BESW I think I prefer Atomic Robo generally. That being said, I think for a character I didn't make myself Umdaar might be better

plus she still is an Umdaar character

so Umdaar it is

That makes my life a little easier. I was going to have to make custom modes.

no problem

I feel like there are definitely at least 3 good reasons that the sheet should be Umdaarian