When you are story guiding a story, how close do you follow the rules for your NPCs?
Do you attempt to make certain they are real in every way, that their powers are completely legit and logical according to RAW, and you force your story into the framework of the books?
Or do you see the rules a a hint or a starting seed and then flow from there attempting to keep within observed RAW, but on occasion fudging a few stats to make the story flow in the direction you need it to go to make it a more successful adventure.
Are you one of those SG or simply looks at books, at the rules, and at your players, and then wings it? Letting creativity and a love for pure story over game aspect of playing take over your style of running a scene even to the point of raising and lowering the stats of your NPC as you play, as well as giving them powers and abilities to which you have little to no mechanics to back up?
I just wanted to see how others run games, how others enjoy playing games as a player, and what the consensus was in regards to following rules.
As a player, I don't like it when NPCs are not consistent with the rules, when they don't obey the rules the PCs must follow. It also upsets my players when NPCs can do things just because they are NPCs. Therefore I try to keep them as "legit" as possible.
But I don't bother coming up with specific characteristics for NPCs when I don't expect them to be involved in combat or some other activity that requires heavy rules management. Thus, sometimes, I have to wing it, because it does'nt always turn out as you expected...
I follow this example as well. All too often I run scenes and have to invent characters on the fly, and so I have to improvise on their stats. However I take notes and then after the session completely round out their character sheet with all the details making them legit by RAW.
However, there are times when I create being that are beyond the kin of the characters of the troupe. When they are confronted by a being that none of them have any lore to describe them or knowledge of their existence, I will often completely fictionalize the rules that govern this being. I will use rules and methods from other game systems so that the players are as completely confounded as their characters should be. I think it lends to the over-all mood of confusion and mystery that I want the scene to be flavored with. However, once the players start figuring out how something works, I quickly after the game session, or even during if they are truly quick-witted, stat up this being with RAW. This then allows and describes, from mu POVV, how the mystery is no longer unfathomable, and is now simply something rare but a thing they can deal with wisely.
I do tend towards alternative gaming system mechanics, such as rolling a dice and having players call out a number or choose odds or evens, this lends some chaos to a scene, but doesn't require ten minutes of book searching of rules and counter-rules and addendum by errata, in which time players have scattered their focus and have started talking about the awesome character from a saga six years ago. (gods know I am one of those people as well... I should keep a stun gun in my pocket that zaps me whenever I start running at the mouth))
The fifth edition is so mature and full-featured that I can find rules and guidelines for pretty much any style of bad guy or NPC I care to introduce. If I want someone with diabolic powers, I know where to find them. Similarly, if I want a hedge wizard, there are many, many types of hedge wizard style character I can introduce and all will be backed by an internally consistent set of rules.
On the odd occasions where I've gone maverick (either much earlier in the edition or for that rare unique character) I have paid lip-service to convention and defined the powers in terms of Virtues/Methods/Powers/Abilities, etc. The players don't get to see that and they are by no means fully-defined, but I find it helps me to at least think the way the rules do in order to get things about right.
With what we have now, the chances of me having to invent something unique are very slim. I would certainly try to keep it within the published rules.
Yep, I think that's the way to go, it seems fair for everyone.
And, even if that's not necesseraly my favorite aspect of the game, one of the great things about the current Ars Magica line, is that you can indeed find a ruleset that will fit any mystical being that you can imagine. There are actually so many of them, that I tend now to use only the simpler ones/the ones I know better, and even like that I always find something that works for all the NPCs I can come up with.
For a major recurring villain or critical NPC, they get the same stat treatment as players for the most part. A senior magus in the covenant may not have every spell explicitly detailed, but I will know his arts and roughly how many levels of spells he knows.
For most other characters, they get a rough-and-ready treatment. I wrote a few lines of code to spit out ability profiles and arts profiles based on age - so if the party find themselves facing off against a Hermetic magus of 110 or an Infernalist with 30 years of experience, I just type in the numbers and my program spits back a few useful numbers that I can then allocate to some appropriate abilities and arts.
Totally. I think if I had to recommend just one, it would be the Magic Entity creation rules in RoP: Magic and later Faerie. I couldn't put a name to who created and refined those rules, but I think that's a superb framework for creating NPCs with arbitrary powers that still operate within a framework. Ritual powers are accommodated, as are spontaneous and flexible powers, and you can apply the results to any of the realms. Brilliant.
In theory this.
Basically NPCs have to follow the same rules as PCs - et vice versa ofcourse.
In reality this, because half the time I don't know what the characters will do and who they'll want to get into contact with.
But when time permits, full character sheet for NPCs please.
I agree with the general idea of having the NPCs be consistent with the rules for PCs. To do otherwise breaks the suspension of disbelief for players.
I tend to have an idea of what I want my NPCs to be able to do, for those that I know will get into a fight, I do their stats and any relevant abilities/spells but for most I just have an idea in my head and background fluff written up. I've been playing long enough that should my players decide to attack an NPC I can usually pull the stats out of my head without too much problem. magic using npcs tend to be harder but can be played by rule of thumb since almost all of what you will create for a full character sheet isn't necessary to use in game and can be ignored.
I tend to have NPC follow the rules for PC IF THEY ARE MUNDANE OR HERMETICS. However, since nobody wants to play one, I (and other SG in our troupe) feel no complaints towards modifying other supernatural creatures or traditions. When it comes to non hermetics they are just weird. We also allow for mixing and matching abilities if that creates a cool (not necessarily more powerful, mind you) character. A daughter of erichto will look really weird to a regular hermetic magus and be able to achieve stuff that a hermetic will have issues achieving while sucking at 95% of stuff that a hermetic can do.
When it comes to Hermetics we follow the rules. A PC created following the same rules and going through the same development paths could be able to achieve that. However, given the ammount of supernatural virtues (hermetic and otherwise) available out there, it is quite easy to create NPCs that can do stuff that the PCs cannot. And viceversa. Specializartion comes at a price after all. A merinita might appear to have Excalibur in his hip, but will have some issues entering a church.
We can also fudge with lab totals, assuming that they might have banked a favor or 2 in help in the lab to achieve great results. That is not breaking the rules, just exploiting them like the PC can. IMS the PCs collaborate to achieve high lab totals in the early stages of the saga (ewhen they are weak) all the time before going for their own weird paths of development. ANd then there they can sometimes pull together to achieve great stuff, so no werirdness in there for NPCs to do the same and create the Item of Awesomeness or the Spell of Doom if they need to.
Oh, no, but I'd point outthat the rules explicityallow Storyguides to retrofit NPCs as ther story evolves.
No, I go futher and just make stuff up, all the time.
Yes, I am. And I'd point out that Ars taught me that. In second edition, the example combat ended too quickly, and so the game itself suggested that the SG hyad a duty to make the combat interesting ,and should therefore do something like givng the dead dragon poisonous blood, so that the players had something extra to deal with after a suprisingly quick win. In black and white in the rules - Ars told SGs to retrofit the stats to fit the playstate.
The one difference in ArM5, is that faeries can now explicitly do this within the gamestate: if you have a lucky win and the faerie is not getting enough vitality from you, it -absolutely- can get a new power.
You later refer to it as being "fair" for everyone, and I think that implies you and your SG have an adversarial relationship. I don't see it that way at all. If I'm holding a dinner party and I've told people what I'm making, and then at the last minute I notice that it's not very good and whip up something else, then I'm not actually cheating at being a host: I'm doing it better. Similarly, if things are more interesting after I change that stats, that's not cheating, that's me making sure my players are having fun.
I don't do simulation, and I think accepting boring combats because that's somehow "by the rules" is madness.
Oh, no, but I'd point outthat the rules explicityallow Storyguides to retrofit NPCs as ther story evolves.
No, I go futher and just make stuff up, all the time.
Yes, I am. And I'd point out that Ars taught me that. In second edition, the example combat ended too quickly, and so the game itself suggested that the SG hyad a duty to make the combat interesting ,and should therefore do something like givng the dead dragon poisonous blood, so that the players had something extra to deal with after a suprisingly quick win. In black and white in the rules - Ars told SGs to retrofit the stats to fit the playstate.
The one difference in ArM5, is that faeries can now explicitly do this within the gamestate: if you have a lucky win and the faerie is not getting enough vitality from you, it -absolutely- can get a new power.
You later refer to it as being "fair" for everyone, and I think that implies you and your SG have an adversarial relationship. I don't see it that way at all. If I'm holding a dinner party and I've told people what I'm making, and then at the last minute I notice that it's not very good and whip up something else, then I'm not actually cheating at being a host: I'm doing it better. Similarly, if things are more interesting after I change that stats, that's not cheating, that's me making sure my players are having fun.
I don't do simulation, and I think accepting boring combats because that's somehow "by the rules" is madness.
I currently have two games going within the same story setting and same characters. We have our main game with roughly six players, and there are times when it can be contentious within our group. Their are personality issues that hold power over how we individually see a common scene. Wherein I am one who thoroughly enjoys improv, getting deep and dark into the angst of a story, and almost physically thirst for intense description of actions, scenes, and moods, we have other players who are light-hearted and simply like a good adventure. Then there is a player who quietly watches most scenes, but always comes up with a insight all of us scene-whores missed while we were tromping across the stage. And then of course we have our rule-monger, who knows every corner, niche, and shadow of Ars Magica. You cannot put anything past this player, which makes surprises or mystery very very difficult for them. So when you do present them with a mystery, they almost take offense that they don't know what you are doing. For them it is a matter of number crunching, they love it and to be honest they are so good at it, that it helps so very much when a storyguide needs a rule or a number matchup to be worked out by them. But wow it gets icy when one person wants to fly through scenes just making up the insanity of the unknown magic realm, and they are expecting a number to roll against.
This said, our group is a perfect mix that excels when we all have our niche to contribute towards. ((now if only we can get attendance up ))
Now during the week one of the players and myself play a flavor game every week. We do entire stories that offer no experience points, no numerical benefit to our character at all. But what we get out of these stories is a intense one on one story that allows us to truly know our character, as well as to know in roleplaying detail, many of the grogs and NPC that come in and out of our main story. Mostly we play background stories, things that already happened so that we know where it will end and nothing gets hairy for other players. I have to say, this game has been the most rewarding experience in my life. When have had laughs that went on for a hour, and we have had scenes that nearly brought on tears, leaving the both of us feeling the heaviness of watching a character make a deal with a demon, to save the person they love, and to do so themselves so that the other person would not tarnish their own self with the temptation.
Most of this second game goes on with a lot of free handed action and descisions, and yet when moments of chance or conflict arise, when are very very strict about letting chance decide such things. And it is the chance that has really given us some insane story arcs!
Timothy, I appreciate what you wrote, because so much of it is how I wished all of those I game with would see our experience. It being something awesome, beautiful, and fun that we work together to make every other person's experience as reward as we ourselves have found it. Because that is my goal, to see my friends leave a story happy, even introspective and slightly morose at times by story events, and to over-all have an experience better than any book, any movie, any performance they can have. Because for me RPGs, and specifically Ars Magica offers something that no other source of creativity can match!
I give thought to the numbers I use for NPC's I try and keep them reasonable for the age of the character. I don't often write out entire character sheets I typically think " single weapon 4 + specialization, +2 dex ,and an average quality spear would get me..." eyeballing things from my knowledge of the rules without going through the work of creating an entire character sheet.
There are two exceptions. First are magical creatures, for them I dream up the powers and stats that I want and then work backwards to create a creature that has them. While I do tend to use material from the realms books this is more for inspiration. IMO creatures of might don't follow rules.
The second is recurring magicians and magi. For these I want to keep them advancing at the same rate as the PC's and give them a chance to make plans and carry them out. I find that working within the limits of the systems makes me come up with better stories. I have a personal sense of verisimilitude that is hurt if the NPC's don't fit the rules. System is a description of the character, it would disturb me if this description didn't make sense. A character with incorrect stats is like a painting with anatomically incorrect people.
+1. For most NPCs this is how it works for us. It is like that for some grogs as well. We have characters that are 2 personality traits, 2 descriptive sentences, "washerwomen 4" and not much else.
That works for most NPCs as well. The king of England I think it was something like that as well (not my character) even if it was a major character for quite a few stories. Not likely that they will battle him, so no need for hard stats.
I love writing up characters, especially now, with the Training Packages from Grogs. It's fun for me. It's something I enjoy. So, I tend to write up a lot of my NPCs. I actually have a file of "generic NPCs" (soldiers, farmers, noblemen, knights, etc) so that I can grab them and use them if I need stats for someone or build on them and design a new NPC. Even so, they aren't strictly by the RAWs. Virtues and flaws are rarely balanced, but simply based on what the NPC needs for their role.
Some magical creatures I make using the rules from RoP: Magic. Others are made using that section of the rules that says NPC magical creatures don't have to be made strictly by those rules but simply given the powers and abilities necessary for their role.
Some characters don't have stats for the old logic of "never give anything stats if you don't want to PCs to kill it." No matter how high your Arts are, archangels and old gods are always beyond your ability.
Ultimately, my guiding star is and always will be: "never let the rules get in the way for the story."
Yes (with our limited house rules), because I want to encourage troupe-style play, and if I'm adjusting on the fly for something, using only my judgement, then it's tougher to do that. There are certain aspects, where we agree ahead of time, that might work differently, or need to be kept secret for a particular arc, but for the most part, it's pretty much to the rules.
Any character I am stat'ing precisely as a SG will be a major or recurring character, designed with a particular story arc (or two) in mind.
For this reason, I've invented a new major story flaw: NPC. This is because many NPCs don't need or want their own story flaws, they only exist to drive the story for the players. They might be the covenant's 'enemies' hook, or a rival Verditius magus. Their story flaw is essentially the players.
For most NPCs and critters, I first decide their personality and aims, then I generally use published NPCs for their game stats; on the assumption that the authors have done it right! I just change names, perhaps swap around some Ability/Art Scores, change House, or make them a few years older/younger, etc. That way, if the PCs try to interact in an unexpected way with the NPCs I have all the game-mechanic stats available.
I don't usually mind if the PCs manage to "defeat" an opponent in an unexpected or "easy" manner (either in combat or other circumstances). Equally, I don't mind too much if the NPCs unexpectedly kill the PCs.
I generally find (both as player and storyguide) stories that are about what the PCs are doing to be the most enjoyable. I get quite bored by stories that are about "foiling the plot of the NPC". ArM works pretty well for stories focused on the PCs.
(gods know I am one of those people as well... I should keep a stun gun in my pocket that zaps me whenever I start running at the mouth))