Maybe "Rants" is not the best category, but I think it will work, if I use it consequently for this kind of posts.
I am writing an RPG blog since 2006 august and I was thinking about translating some of my own theoretical or technical posts into English. I decided that it is easier to write some posts in Engilsh based upon earlier of my posts. So, here it is my first thinkabout: The secret mechanics.
Be prepared that here will be stated common knowledge things, because they are needed to derive the technique presented at the end of the post.
I was thinking lately about what an RPG really is. I always see that some people start to put together rules and worlds and they admittedly don't have any idea what are they good for, they just do it. My opinion is, that a role-playing game is a hybrid: it is part a "parlour game" (people are playing together, like playing cards or boardgames) and it is part a "role-playing game" in the original sense (maybe there is a better term: dramagame, dramaplay or some perturbation of the words drama, game and play). (There is a third part containing story-writing, but that's not the issue now, because it doesn't regard "actual play" in the classical sense, only conceptwriting etc.)
Note: I'm talking about classical role-playing games, like D&D, not collaborating story-writing, like Universalis.
Mostly the RPG books write extensively about the "parlour game" part: numbers and dice and cards etc. The other part is dismissed with one sentence: "You can do anything". But the truth is: there are entire books in the real world about this drama-game thing. There is drama-psychology, there is drama-pedagogy. One sentence is not enough to dismiss it.
In actual play the drama-game and the parlour game are working parallel, but distinct. For example a battle is parlour-game, but to fast-talk someone is drama-game. Sure, there are social skills, and there are drama decisions that modify stats. That means, the drama-game is equally important. My opinion is, that the parlour game is only there to help the drama-game, to strengthen it in the right places and to help doing things the drama-game can't do. (For example if the drama-game is escalating into a swordfight.)
So, there are these new, parallel mechanics. What should we do. We have great luck, because these have the same rules in each and every classic RPGs. In essence these mechanics make an RPG an RPG. When these rules change, someone almost at once yells: "But this isn't an RPG." It's not because this yelling someone would be against new and interesting rules. It's because this yelling someone feels the change of the mechanics of the drama-game in his/her guts.
Note: this drama-game mechanics is not the same as the drama mechanics of DFK. The two are entirely different things.
NPCs
This parallel game has the most important influence on NPCs. In reality there are 2 kinds of NPCs. The ones whom you fight and the ones whom you talk with. It is not this simple, but almost. If the role of an NPC in an adventure is to do something that is regulated by rules (mostly fight and magic in classic fantasy settings, but every skill using etc.), it belongs to the former, if its role is to give information, to have hot conversations etc., it is the latter. Certainly there are NPCs that belong to both.
First of all there are the "monsters". Those have only combat stats. If there is a thief, it will certainly have only percentage skills etc. That means, if an NPC is rather of talkative kind, it must have drama "values".
I rather think only for the next session, not the entire adventure, because it is always good to focus every energy into the next session. So if I make an NPC, I make it only for the next session, and I must remake it for the second, because things will change.
I made some example drama-values, but this is a rather incomplete phase:
Motivation: Every motivation is described with one or two words. Remember: it is valid for only one session. There is no need for entire chapters.
Information: These are informations wich are important to the players and known to the NPC. The important part of this value, that you have to define for each and every information, how hard to get it is, and in wich cases does the NPC give it.
Flame: (I know, I should give a better name, but who cares.) A drama-game conflict (and its goal) that is started by this NPC with/against one or more PCs in that session. What is the goal of it is the core of it, but the strategy is very important. The question is: what does the NPC (and in wich circumstances?) to get to his/her goal?
Behaving: If it is unclear how does the NPC behave or if there is a special rule. (For example sees one of the PCs as example and follows his/her behaving. I think the most common example will be the change of behaving based upon the success of a "flame".)
Definition: The selfdefiniton and/or social status of the character. One word. ("knight") Or two. ("rich noble")
Networking: This is not the usual wich NPC does like wich NPC. There is no need to make links between NPCs. Only the most important links to the most important PCs is needed, only for the next session.
These made for me and more importantly for my party the conversations hotter and the session more exciting. I know, maybe it is only needed because I'm not a natural born GM, and yes, I had bad experiences: the players were bored, inactive etc. But this helped for me, maybe it can help someone else, too.
Well, that's all. I hope I didn't write too many stupid things.
Coming soon:
- The Adventure as a Multiheaded Hydra
- Morphology of the PRG Adventure