I rattled off this list of seven broad categories of traits you could assign to NPCs that would help your players mistake them for humans. So all you have to do is give your game constructs a couple of qualities that human brains associate with humanity and the stupid brains will do the rest. Fortunately, the stupid human brain actually wants to mistake everything in the world for human beings. And the key, I said, was learning how to trick the flawed brains at your table into thinking that imaginary game constructs they can’t even see are actually human beings just like them. The only thing you can do is fill your world with NPCs that people might like – or hate – and hope they latch on to one or two. I told you that you can’t make players like – or hate – NPCs. In this series’ last article, I talked about building relatable NPCs. And I’m going to try desperately to do it without offending their delicate player sensibilities by suggesting they might be bad at anything because they are a completely normal, average humans.īut today, I just get to tell you why you suck at role-playing and how to work around that. Especially because their favorite games are telling them to make characters and role-play wrong. Because they suck at role-playing and need to learn how to make characters better. The second part of this article – coming in the next day or so to make up for my unplanned health-related absence over the last two weeks – is an article you can let your players read that offers the same kind of advice I’m about to give to you. Thanks, Angry, for helping me by making me feel like s$&%.” If I tried to explain to a player how the way they learned to make PCs is wrong and it doesn’t take into account how the human brain actually kind of sucks at role-playing, I’d just get a fight.īut that’s exactly what I’m going to do. You’ll just say, “I never thought about it like that, but yeah, this is probably just another way my brain sucks. As a longtime fan of mine, you’re going to take all that s$%& in stride. Specifically, it’s about how to minimize the work you have to do when making and portraying relatable NPCs because you can’t hold enough in your head to do it properly and you suck at role-playing. Why do I bring that up in this especially long, Long, Rambling Introduction™? Well, today’s topic dujour of the day is creating and portraying relatable NPCs. ![]() I’m good at multitasking and you’re just being a selfish a$&hole because you have to be the center of attention.” I know. They think, “yeah, maybe the AVERAGE person is like that or maybe MOST people are like that, but not ME. So, when you’re dividing your time between my game and your Instagram feed, you make decisions and respond more slowly, you speak in shorter sentences and use more closed language, and you forget more s$&% that I then have to repeat. And there is a scientifically documented switching lag and also a lingering sluggishness after each switch. You’re just switching your focus between two different tasks. Try telling them that what they are saying is wrong because their brain doesn’t work like that and they can’t see it because their brain won’t let them. And you can design better, more satisfying, and more engaging games for all the flawed brains you’re trying desperately to entertain. ![]() To be fair, I do that because, once you understand how your brain actually works instead of how you wish it did, you can lean into your ACTUAL strengths and minimize your ACTUAL weaknesses. Your brain is just as crappy, irrational, emotional, and biased as everyone else’s. And if you try to claim that you’re special – that you’re above average – I remind you that the statistical likelihood is that you aren’t. And worst of all, I constantly remind you that the human brain is an imperfect, irrational lump of goo that doesn’t work as well you wish it did. I ain’t afraid to tell you when you’re wrong and when you suck. I’m constantly breaking you down so I can try to rebuild you as a passable GM. I’m not a nice, friendly, mollycoddling kindergarten teacher who makes you feel special no matter what. Especially when you’re dealing with someone like me. The players and the rest of the damned gaming community make you feel like you have to.Īnd it ain’t easy to get better as a GM. ![]() Meanwhile, as a GM, you’re reading this godawful s$&% on my site every week because you WANT to get better at running games. There’s not a single aspect of RPGs I haven’t seem some GM try to remove from the game because it’s ‘ruining the game’ for his players. And most GMs will bend over backward to remove anything from the game that makes it remotely ‘hard’ or ‘tedious’ or ‘not fun’ for you. You know what’s great about being a player? You don’t have to be good at anything.
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