Yeah, we had fun.

Confession: Zemenar and his mountain-path tactic are lifted straight from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles.

...and his tendency to scream threats while being ignominiously defeated isn't far off either.

So, I was under the impression that NPC aspects were to be closely guarded and divulged only as play dictates?

Or is that more of a Core thing and less of a FAE thing?

Eh, I firmly believe it depends on the NPC.

If the aspect is already pretty darn obvious, sharing it with the players is going to facilitate play.

If revealing the aspect would drain narrative tension, then don't.

Fair enough.

Remember, the PCs still don't know them.

In my experience, the more meta knowledge the players have, the more everyone can work together to tell interesting stories.

So you wouldn't allow a character to invoke an aspect they hadn't discovered yet?

Right.

That works.

But as a player, you can take advantage of it to set things up in amusing ways (Zemenar's chronic backstabbing, for example, is rife with potential).

I guess if the game is more investigative in nature, it would make sense to be stingier with letting the players know what the aspects are, but for our purposes, transparency makes a better story.

Exactly.

Or if Zemenar weren't an obvious villain.

In DFRPG, the GM is expected to let the players design the major NPCs collaboratively.

@Problematic ...yes.

Poor guy.

@Cat All he wanted to do was help you across the gap!

He was like a magical subway attendant, and you pushed him off a cliff!

@Problematic Do you think Zemenar has specific plans for Wil?

@BESW I'm trying to decide how involved he was in the hazing

It seems a little petty for the head of the order, but maybe wizards are petty as a rule.

Certainly, he wouldn't have stayed out of it because it was petty. Beneath him, not befitting the dignity of his station, maybe the kind of thing he'd send a representative to do for him. But not because it's petty.

Fair enough.

He may have instigated it, but he would have tried to make it seem otherwise; he's Schemingly Evil, remember.

And if he's not visibly involved, that lets him double-cross whoever did it for him: if things go wrong, he's got a fall guy.

It seems like he would be effusively apologetic to Wil's face, but not plan to ever actually provide assistance.

Sounds about right. Unless the assistance came with strings attached...

Which all favors do, in the Enchanted Forest. [hint hint]

Hmm.

Wil isn't exactly useful to him in any direct way (lacking competence), but maybe he's looking for another scapegoat for some scheme

Perhaps it was Zemenar who sent Wil into the forest after his staff in the first place.

With some agenda in mind

I see Wil as being pretty malleable, at least as first

I like it.

Duhn-duhn-DUHN.

Okay, my Internet is flaking out and I have to go teach a class.

Ta!

Have fun.

What type of class?

Today, Word 2010 level 3, to a bunch of insurance-company employees.

Huh.

Fun?

@BESW He's a wizard. He's got featherfall. Otherwise, he shouldn't have been so trusting of a 16 year old street urchin. Her sense of morals isn't quite "fully developed" yet.

I picture her as a young Osha.