[Peer Review] Plot NPC (NPC)

[Kynier]

Plot NPC

Synopsis: Introducing a new category of NPC to fill in the gap between the City, Travelling, and Personal NPC types.

Outline:
A Plot NPC must be submitted to the HD for approval. Should it be approved it is then sent to the DS of the domain the Plot NPC will be making an appearance. Once the DS grants their approval the submission must be added to the character’s Plot Notes forum. A Plot NPC has three subcategories. When making a submission to the HD the chosen subcategory must be listed. The subcategories determine the NPC’s skillset. Any skills that are Lost Disciplines of Magic must receive a special note during the submission and may require a separate HD submission.

Master NPC:
These NPCs are people that are well-respected or at least well-known to certain groups. In general, they are older individuals due to the time it took for the to gain an understanding of their skillset to become a master. If the NPC is not an older individual, then they are probably eccentrics, savants, or a combination thereof. For their skillset, a Master NPC can have between 1-4 skills at Master level, though they can never have a skill above 97. Teaching may not be selected as one of a Master NPC’s Master skills. They can also have up to six skills at Expert level. Any additional skills worth noting will be Competent.


Expert NPC:
Certain individuals come close but never actually acquire a Mastery of their talents. This could be caused by life events or simply them reaching their maximum potential already. There is no recommended age range for Experts. An Expert NPC may have between 5-8 skills at Expert level and twice that number of skills at Competent.


Rival NPC:
The Rival constantly creates a challenge for a PC to improve themselves. In general, a Rival is someone that is only a few years older or younger than a PC and at a similar state of development in their life. Their skillset is less fixed than the other two categories. Select up to ten skills to be Competent. Then select as many as five skills for their Rivalry. These five skills must be skills that the chosen PC has as well. The Rival’s selected skills can never be five points greater than or less than the chosen PC’s skill level. As the PC improves in the selected skill so shall the Rival, and sometimes the Rival can increase their skill faster than the PC. Meaning the PC could have three more points in Unarmed Combat than the Rival, but once the PC increases their Unarmed Combat the Rival could receive a greater increase and exceed the PC’s new level.



Once the subcategory has been determined, and their skillset has been selected, the purpose of their involvement in a PC’s plot must be written out. Common questions that should be answered by this explanation are:

Why is this NPC important?
What sort of relationship are they expected to have with your PC?
Why are they being made a Plot NPC and not any of the other three categories (City, Travelling, Personal)?

After that, the duration of expected use of this Plot NPC must be listed. Is this NPC going to make frequent appearances during a whole season, or multiple seasons? Is there a set number of threads that they will be present for? Try to give as accurate of a timetable as possible. At the end of that timetable, if the Plot NPC’s purpose has not been fulfilled then another submission to the HD will be required for further use. A detailed explanation must be included to explain why an extension is needed. Also, a plan must be already determined for what happens to the Plot NPC when they fulfill their designed purpose. This can include them staying as a City NPC, leaving the domain that the selected PC is in, or even death of the Plot NPC.


As with any other NPC type, a background story must be included. If the NPC has a preexisting relationship with the selected PC that must be included with details explaining their current relationship status. There is no established length requirement for the background story, however, keep it below one thousand words.

Submission Template

Must be added to Plot Notes upon approval

Name:
Race:
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Title:
Relationship to PC:
Plot NPC type:
Skills:
Lost Disciplines:
Gnosis:
Expected Duration of Use:
Background Story:
Plot NPC Retirement: (Leaving, Death, Convert to City NPC, Oher)
Purpose of Involvement:

[Gillar]

To start, I like the overall idea that I think you are going for in this however, I have a number of questions and concerns.

First, these NPCs have the potential of allowing Player Characters access to Master Level Skills without having to do much to gain them. I am looking at the far end extreme of players using these NPCs to acquire skills rather easily; my Master Mentor taught me all of this sort of thing. If Players are granted the use of such NPCs, there is no real need for their characters to experiment and learn on their own. All they have to do is ask or rely on their Master NPCs to accomplish everything for them, including their training.

Currently, players are allowed to take control of various NPCs in the form of thugs, merchants, basically everyday people that one would encounter through the course of their lives. Their skill level is up in the air in a way but can be addressed by the dicing guidelines (assigned difficulty level). These are often one-time NPCs that are meant solely for story and plot. Those that may have a more long term presence can be addressed through the dice guidlines difficulty as well.

I have a problem with allowing players to access NPCs with extreme skill levels beyond what is already allowed as it provides these characters with the potential to push their characters beyond the limits otherwise allowed by the current rules. These are rules and guidelines put in place to maintain balance and fairness.

Let me put it like this. I have a character who I want to gain skills with quite quickly. I want to advance rapidly and become a prominent figure in the game. I twist and push requests to get Master NPCs and/or NPCs that go beyond the established set-up. I use these NPCs to gain crazy levels of skills rather quickly. It becomes an arms race in the form of who can get the most powerful NPC to grant them, on demand, the greatest level of skills? It boils doing to there being no need to actually tell a story about how you become what your since all you have to do is go to your NPC and ask them to make you what you want be. When we get to the skill levels you propose, that becomes a threat and it is a threat that could destroy the entire system.

An additional thought...City NPCs already accomplish what you are proposing in some ways. As far as Rival NPCs, are you looking for NPCs that are more powerful than your's or maybe equal? These are City NPCs that can be approved. I am seeing a form of exclusivity in this proposal that destroys fairness and openness. If you want a powerful NPC to interact with, propose a city NPC that has all these skills that anyone can access. This is already an allowed set-up that doesn't need a separate category of NPC to address.

I am failing to see how this is any different from a request for a city NPC. Your template is exactly what I would want to see from a request for a city NPC to be written up and allowed to be used by all players in the city. You cannot claim such NPCs for yourself and not allow them to be used by others. That is unless you have NPCs that fall into the established rules. If I am missing something, please explain.