NPCs and Decisions

[Dorn]

So. Sometimes, it feels like players rely a lot on NPC's feedback before making decisions.

Personally, I sometimes feel like it happens too much and an almost stalemate existence can happen while messages go back and forth, with the waiting time in between, before characters are willing to commit to something.

I've questions to players, and the GMs regarding this.

To players I ask, why is it that your characters do this? Is your character scared about making their own decisions? Do they worry a lot that their decision will cause issues for them in regards to their standing with their Guild? Do you as a player just prefer to be directed a little more through things? Do you, as a player, tend to feel that a GM-offered solution is always going to be the most fruitful so your own attempts are not worth trying? I also generally ask to players, do you prefer this, regardless of your reasons? Or would you rather it otherwise? If an event/plot is GM initiated, does this make a difference to how you deal with the situation?

To the GMs I ask, do you prefer if players do this? If so, why? Be it from reasons to having a little more time/ability to deal with whatever gets thrown at your way to handle an event/situation so that it can play out to just in general knowing what characters are getting up in the world without you watching constantly, and others? Do you not prefer it, would you like to see characters be a little more gung ho/direct in how they deal with things without waiting on NPCs?

Back to the players... if characters were going to stop waiting for NPCs so much, is there anything that you could think of that would help spur that sort of approach from you as a player, and your character?

Or am I totally wrong? Entirely possible, it just sometimes feels this way to me. I've done it myself.

EDIT: Another one for players. Under what situations do you ask NPCs for direction.

[Jirato]

To the GMs I ask, do you prefer if players do this?

Can't stand it! It is one of my largest gripes with CLOK.

Do you not prefer it, would you like to see characters be a little more gung ho/direct in how they deal with things without waiting on NPCs?

YES

See the "Who's the star of your guild? YOU" thread.

[jilliana]

I agree with you that a lot of us do rely on NPCs to help our roleplay along, particularly when it comes to major things.

For Jilliana, it's not so much fear but more that some things don't feel like they're progressing unless a GM gives their support. Guild standing is definitely a factor. Mostly I think that some of us don't really know how far we can really go and how much flexibility we have, particularly when it comes to guild things. Jilliana is definitely struggling with this. I wish we didn't feel like we had to rely on NPCs, but it'd definitely help if they gave us a little guidance so that we know how far we can really push and not feel like we're on a treadmill with roleplay.

Back to the players... if characters were going to stop waiting for NPCs so much, is there anything that you could think of that would help spur that sort of approach from you as a player, and your character?

Or am I totally wrong? Entirely possible, it just sometimes feels this way to me. I've done it myself.

EDIT: Another one for players. Under what situations do you ask NPCs for direction.

I would play it by ear and probably go with my gut a little bit more.

[Rias]

In an ideal world, it would be awesome to have a meaningful and consistent relationship between PCs and NPCs. I really wanted that to be a thing in CLOK. I wanted to find ways to make it work.

It doesn't work. Or I didn't ever figure out an effective way to do it. Just for starters, consider that you are enacting your character (and likely a few alts). The [tiny team of] GMs are enacting an entire world of characters. That's a lot of "alts" to split time between and keep track of, even though we don't have to skillgrind them. And yeah, we like introducing new NPCs and fleshing things out and making the world feel alive and populated and fun. But then people get attached to these NPCs - which is good, to a degree, until the numbers start getting up there. So you're keeping your few characters straight, and the GMs are keeping the entire population of the Lost Lands straight and their associated guilds, factions, organizations, relationships with the PCs (and trying not to mix that up with all the alts) and so on and so forth. I hate to say it, but I regret ever implementing NPCmail. It seems like such a simple and great little system. What it did, though, was essentially say to players "contact any NPC you want any time you want!" and gave them the expectation of getting a response. And people use it, and my goodness can it be overwhelming, considering we're trying to keep track of these NPCmails on top of everything else we do. It might seem like it would be a simple thing, but it's not. Or we all just suck at managing it. That's a very real possibility, too.

And I'll play my broken record again: My #1 pet peeve is getting an NPCmail that says "I have information for you. Let's meet as soon as possible." Put the information in the letter. I've chatted, posted, said this a zillion times, but it still seems to be the primary thing that people use NPCmail for. Do you have information for an NPC? Put it in the letter you're sending them. Want to get info to an NPC? Use NPCmail! Do you have some information for an NPC? Write it in a letter and send it to them! Oh, you got that info the NPC requested you get for them. Super! Send the info to them in a letter! The moral of the story is: When you have information you want to communicate to an NPC and they aren't around (animated by a GM), send it to them in a letter instead of sending them a vague, brief letter saying you want to meet. Did that sink in? If discussions need to be had, the NPC will mail you back, or possibly show up to follow up in person. But for the love of Serafina and all Immortals holy and unholy, just send them the information you say you have for them instead of holding it hostage until the NPC meets with you in person! (Worried that sensitive info will be intercepted? Send that letter from a post office that won't be paranoid about the recipient. Don't send mail to Shar or Winston from the Shadgard post office, don't send mail to the Church from the Corvus post office, don't send information to the Leader of the Anti-Mistveil Citizens League from the Mistral Lake post office, don't send mail to the Dunwyr from the Haiban post office. Well, don't send mail to the Dunwyr at all. They don't have a post office to receive it at.)

That was a fun tangent.

But yeah, I would love for PCs to be more proactive instead of having an idea and then waiting on NPC approval. As Jirato mentioned, see the "Who's the star of your guild?" thread. Some people are worried they don't have the authority or that they should have some official title or recognition to feel that they can do things. Don't worry about that. Be proactive. Be the go-getter, the leader, the one who makes decisions and gets things done. If you're a member of the guild, you have the ability to act in your guild's best interests as well as you can determine! You don't need to say "I am acting with the ultimate superior authority of my guild" when you do it, just say "Hey, I'm a Tse Gaiyan, this resen situation is the kind of thing we handle, I've got an idea: Anyone who's in, join up." Not "I'm a Tse Gaiyan, I'll talk to my leaders and ask them what we should do." Guilds don't take members as gofers and yes men. They want their members to be active and take initiative. I don't like giving people "official" authoritative positions, because that tends to be the best way to burn them out and make them feel like they're being forced to do things they don't necessarily want to do, because now they have this "official" responsibility. Not kidding. It happens pretty much every time. And it's unnecessary, anyway. Do as much as you can, and if you feel it's necessary, send in a report.

Speaking of reports: I love reports. I love it when people sum up a situation and the action they took to the best of their ability and then send it to their leaders or whoever they think should be made aware. That's awesome. It keeps us in the loop as GMs, and then we can decide if we want to follow up with anything from the GM side.

All that said: If I could do it all over again, I'd axe NPC-run guilds compeltely. Splat. Let the players be the ones to set up their own groups, and manage all that stuff themselves. Get them in the mindset that they're in charge 100%, and don't have any NPCs they have to worry about upsetting, or misunderstandings about their guilds (or if there are misunderstandings, they take it up with whichever PC founded the guild, instead of taking it to NPCs).

Yeah. That'd be nice. Ahhhhh. Some NPC groups to set up a supporting structure and that can step in when necessary, but the PCs run their own groups themselves 100%, and then those can receive a little special support/recognition if they earn it. Mmmmm. Delicious.

Last but not least: Please stop trying to cave in/blow up/burn down areas as solutions to problems. Please? This tends to come up a lot. I know sometimes it'd be great to just be able to destroy that area that problems are focused in. And yes, it has actually happened a time or two with GM assistance. And sometimes it seems like the most obvious and logical solution. But generally speaking, we don't want to destroy the areas that exist in-game. Building takes a long time and a lot of effort. So let's suspend a little disbelief in this area, if we can.

So. Yeah. Those are my thoughts. I think at least some of them are on-topic.

[Rias]

P.S. A lot of players are very good at being proactive and not relying upon or requiring special GM support for everything they do. I want to publicly recognize that. You guys are awesome.

[Dakhal]

In my case, I would love to be more proactive. There's a lot of ideas in my mind as to what I'd like to do, but my situation is one that if I don't request permission to act in such a grand way, the chances are I won't any longer be a part of my guild nor city. So, there's a measure of caution that I must take, pass through the screen that is my guildmaster and then finally step forth. This takes time. A lot of time. It's lead to me not really enjoying my character for his guild, but instead for himself; unfortunately, without a guild, he doesn't get to do the nice things that he's thought of doing.

I very much like player-run organizations. I like players having true authority in their guild. This serves several purposes, such as having other players have someone to look to that may be more available than an NPC- of course, as Rias said, it could very well drive them away due to "obligations". Well, simply put, if you're afraid of having "obligations", then don't put time into becoming something more than a rank and file member of your guild, something without responsibility.

So, again; I'd love to do more than I am now. I just know I can't do it without impunity and so I spend months waiting instead.

[Lassyn]

A few thoughts
- Most MUDS have an ask first policy. You check with your GM or your guru and they say "yeah, go for it," and then you do.
- We are not most MUDs. Our thought process, as a GM team, is this:
"Go for it. If we don't think it will work/we don't want it to, we'll make you aware."

So, go make your decisions. Feel free to make decisions. There are some guilds you should be careful of. For example, if you're Tse Gaiyan and you say "all the Tse Gaiyan are now hunting so-and-so down because I don't like them..." well we'll stop you. But if it makes sense for your guild and for your character, go forth.

[Kunren]

I've had the same problems here myself with other people, and one thing that can exacerbate it at times, from what I've seen at least, is that some guilds stands on certain things are kinda vague. Are you acting in your guilds best interests? If your guildmaster was standing in your shoes what would he do? Are there orthadox and unorthadox ideas within guilds as well as simply "you pretty much think this way if you are in this guild, or are a vey good actor"? Whether or not your character would CARE is another matter entirely, but knowing the IC rules, regulations, and dogma of your guild would be extremely helpful in the case of, as pcs seem to need to do, acting as free agents. If a PC is a member of authority or influence even unofficially within a guild, they should probably know how to advance their guilds best interests.

Without this information, I'm sure many pcs (myself included) have simply not done something because they weren't sure they had the Authority to do so without getting knocked out of their guild. But back to GM focused things, I believe that something that would help majorly is if more pcs go their own storylines made! You want to chop down that gate to Valeria? Get some buddies and some axes and spend a few weeks rping it. You want to set up a trade connection between Corvus and the Dwaeden? Go for it, talk to pcs, ask GMs about talking to npcs whenever but send letters instead whenever possible, get it done. You find a random door that seems to be locked? Open it the freak up any way possible. Yes, this might mess with GM storyline plans, but that simply goes back to original problem-GM storylines should be majorly effected if players decide to do so, rather than simply not being able to or having to wait for days, weeks, months to have anything happen. This, however is asking a CRAP ton of the GMs, years of work could be dashed by an overly inquisitive player, and would require ever more work to make that players plans go wherever the GMs feel would be most likely.

READ THIS FOR SUMMARY
Need guild stances on issues, player imagination and dedication, and adaptable GM plans.

[sona]

If I go for world building stuff, is that cool? houses, walls, bridges, etc, etc.

If I go for world destroying stuff, is that cool?

I don't want to have to always ask NPCs for "permission" and "blessings", but I do want my actions to have impact. Maybe I make a few bad houses/homes/etc. That's life, maybe eventually I actually get pretty respectable at doing those things. That's what study and trial and error is all about, isn't it? but just a non-support, we don't want that, we're trying to move away from <thing> or having <thing>, or we don't know how to manage <thing> it's a real road block. Caveat: if it was cool, I wouldn't expect that GMs/staff do the designs, I would expect that I would have to submit designs, that they would have to meet a certain standard, and that appropriate materials and work must be supplied.

That's sort of my counter gripe. I want the living, breathing, I have an impact, I'm doing something world. Maybe it's with/for NPCs, because my character gives a [crap] about those guys too, maybe it's for players. Basically, I just need some guidelines for anything like that, and I'm more than willing to provide legwork to minimize GM work.

[Dorn]

For Jilliana, it's not so much fear but more that some things don't feel like they're progressing unless a GM gives their support.

Are you referring to player thrown up plots/situations, or just to GM run plots?

I hate to say it, but I regret ever implementing NPCmail.

Interesting to read. The tangent is quite funny though. I will say, the one amazing thing and I guess at the same bad thing with NPCmail is that having a voice of communication with the world and not just PCs is very powerful. It does help in making a lot of the NPCs feel more part of what we're doing, instead of static cutouts that only have life breathed into them when you guys take over with them. At the same time, it makes me wonder how many of those "Let us meet" requests are more about face time with NPCs (For some reason, in nearly every mud I've played this is regarded as some sort of holy grail). That might be the cynic in me.

Last but not least: Please stop trying to cave in/blow up/burn down areas as solutions to problems. Please? This tends to come up a lot. I know sometimes it'd be great to just be able to destroy that area that problems are focused in. And yes, it has actually happened a time or two with GM assistance. And sometimes it seems like the most obvious and logical solution. But generally speaking, we don't want to destroy the areas that exist in-game. Building takes a long time and a lot of effort. So let's suspend a little disbelief in this area, if we can.

I think that comes down to the expectations of players. For better, or worse, you guys have kind of managed to give players thoughts that they can actually change the world in ways and not always how you guys have foreseen but how the players have pushed something. What I do think the playerbase needs to do though, is get more creative. I kind of see the possibility that a lot of players won't do something, because the only things they can see as working/possible are via GM input as well. Instead of trying to come up with a workable solution themselves with a little ingenuity, they just wait instead.

I've had the same problems here myself with other people, and one thing that can exacerbate it at times, from what I've seen at least, is that some guilds stands on certain things are kinda vague. Are you acting in your guilds best interests? If your guildmaster was standing in your shoes what would he do? Are there orthadox and unorthadox ideas within guilds as well as simply "you pretty much think this way if you are in this guild, or are a vey good actor"? Whether or not your character would CARE is another matter entirely, but knowing the IC rules, regulations, and dogma of your guild would be extremely helpful in the case of, as pcs seem to need to do, acting as free agents. If a PC is a member of authority or influence even unofficially within a guild, they should probably know how to advance their guilds best interests.

I truly would love to see more with some of the Guilds in terms of dogma/regulations/ethos on the wikis. Not 100% sure how much it would help, because I get the feeling this even happens a lot with the well documented ones (such as the Church) but I might be wrong there. It would be very neat, to also see a little blurb about "standings" with the Guilds. Such as on the Rook wiki "Not much of a presence here, due to the conflict between Shadgard and Corvus making the town uneasy around the Nether" (Whether true or not, no idea. Never been to Shadgard. Except... once). A little something just for people to kind of get a picture how their Guilds actions might be reflected upon in different areas.

This, however is asking a CRAP ton of the GMs, years of work could be dashed by an overly inquisitive player, and would require ever more work to make that players plans go wherever the GMs feel would be most likely.

I kind of feel like this already happens but a lot of players give up steam when approaching long term goals, or expect stuff to just happen immediately. It does happen though. Just look at Dorn screwing up an Elemancer event.

EDIT: I wonder if a variation of the Never Page would assist with dealings with NPCMail/interacting with the world? IE. When you use the NPCMail command, a little blurb going "DO NOT ASK TO MEET! Letter will be ignored." Or just a general "Interacting with NPCs" help file with stuff like that on it, and "No burning the world down as a solution" and other things you can think of. Kind of, as GMs we will not... "Work with you to build personal houses, work with you to build your own village, help you burn down a village, etc etc." It is irritating as hell for you guys I'm sure, but one thing with saying something on the forums is in a few months time it will be lost to the Nether, while helpfiles/documentation is not.

[jilliana]

For Jilliana, it's not so much fear but more that some things don't feel like they're progressing unless a GM gives their support.

Are you referring to player thrown up plots/situations, or just to GM run plots?

A bit of both. It has been my experience that if a GM doesn't like where an event is going, then no matter how many players want this one thing to happen, it's not going to happen. Then we're left with a feeling like we have to guess what the solution is and to me, it just feels like it's forced rather than a natural conclusion to something. If there is anything I dislike about some events, it's force roleplay.

I definitely appreciate both Lassyn's and Rias' responses on this thread. They gave me food for thought.

Speaking of reports: I love reports. I love it when people sum up a situation and the action they took to the best of their ability and then send it to their leaders or whoever they think should be made aware. That's awesome. It keeps us in the loop as GMs, and then we can decide if we want to follow up with anything from the GM side.

Would you rather an e-mail as well as an NPCmail for if you want to respond in the game, or would just the first suffice?

[Jirato]

Would you rather an e-mail as well as an NPCmail for if you want to respond in the game, or would just the first suffice?

NPCmails go to our email already. It's not really a matter of missing NPCmails, just the volume and nature of some of the requests we get.

[Jaster]

Write Dear Master Greer,^^I can haz cheezeburgerz?!^^Thanx

[Jirato]

Write Dear Master Greer,^^I can haz cheezeburgerz?!^^Thanx

Code: Select all

gm guild points Jaster -50000

[Elystole]

"It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." - Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (who wrote the first compiler)

That's how Elystole operates. Wyatt told him that the Outriders shoot bad guys in the face, so Elystole does that. When that doesn't work, he tries something else that furthers the end of "make the wicked pay for their misdeeds." Afterwards, he writes Wyatt an npcmail saying:

Wyatt,

I ambushed Bad Guy outside of Haiban, tracked him through the wilderness, and gunned him down.

I am also dealing with Jerkface the Undying. They don't care much if they die, so I'm trying to squeeze them for riln to give to the family. Let me know if you know anyone who can help with that.

- Elystole

It's worked. My guild/organization leader knows what I am up to, so there aren't any unpleasant surprises. If I really screw up, they can tell me that I screwed up before things get too out of hand. Also note, with the second part, that I am not asking for permission to do something. I'm not saying, "May I do this?" but "I am doing this," and including a quick but nonbinding request for support. That gives the NPC an opportunity to veto or support my action. But until I hear from them I keep doing what I'm doing so things aren't at a standstill.

Now, I actually don't get replies. I imagine Rias takes the 30 seconds to read my npcmails, determines that I'm not doing anything egregious, then files them away. Sometimes I would like a bit more feedback (if you want PCs to act independently, reward independent behavior), but generally "Silence is consent."

[ydia]

I think many don't just act, because to be honest a lot of times there are questions that just aren't answered. I still don't completely get the lore or background, and it kills my drive if I have to search for the answer, or wait sometimes for days. It would help if the wiki was better updated I think.
I honestly got bored with this game, because it is so grindy, and I've been told make your own rp etc etc. I know how to do this, but making your own rp isn't always so simple when you get ignored unless you are needed. There is only so much alone with myself rp I can do until I get bored.
so if you wonder wher I've been now you know, that and I've been busy with school.