Monday, September 24, 2012

Talkative Monsters

In New England, LARPing season is in full swing-- like many of my comrades, for the last few weekends and until it gets really cold, I've been packing my totes and zipping off to the event-of-the-weekend. It's been tiring, but grand. On these many rides to-and-from LARPs, conversations, unsurprisingly, drift towards LARP. One thing that's been popping up a lot for me is the issue of RP-active combat NPCs.

To be clear, these are the crunchies-- the little ones who pop up until you take down the bigger one(s). They are often played by tireless NPCs who have been thugging for most of the weekend. They probably don't have a backstory, and they may or may not have a particularly good briefing. They are there to fight PCs, to be a body, and to amp up the danger of an encounter. This brings me to the problems of role-play with these NPCs.

As a PC, I dislike completely lifeless, uninteresting crunchies. Even if you're only out for an hour, endlessly recycling, I really appreciate when people put in the extra effort to breathe life (or unlife) into Random Zombie 5. Monster-appropriate grunts, movements, and, when appropriate, strategies go a long way for me. With that being said, as a PC, there is nothing more obnoxious than a random monster who is distracting, through over-acting, from the real focus of the fight-- to me, it's like a chorus member constantly upstaging the lead.

So how do you strike a balance in crunchy RP roles? Personally, I think it has a lot to do with monster camp briefing-- as an NPC, I enjoy it when I'm given simple and clear instructions, which include motivations (this can come from a stat card or, ideally, a person). The monster master at Aralis is particularly good at doing this: rousing speeches, funny and wonderfully delivered, provide motivation and meaning for even the smallest roles. I'm curious as to other people's opinions and experiences regarding "RP-active crunchies"? Do you like them? Hate them? Notice them? If you staff games, how do you brief crunchies relative to RP? If you NPC, do you attempt to characterize even the most "inconsequential" monsters? How?

4 comments:

  1. Some of my most memorable NPC encounters have been ones with very particular acting in the movements and speech/noises they make. The homunculi of Lost Eidolons always do a great job of acting creepily curious and awkward with their movements and actions. (The blank white masks help.) I love watching them, and nothing makes me jump more than suddenly realizing one is staring at me through a window.

    The Tattered of Lost Eidolons were also brilliantly acted- they way they sort of invaded personal space and grinned maniacally... I think even the NPCs who weren't as sure of themselves with ad-libbing still had quite an impact with their crazy wide-eyes and grins. It sort of varied up the crazy- some were chattering nonsense non-stop, some were just silently standing two inches away and gaping.

    I dunno if either of those count as crunchies, since they're not really for fighting, but they're both great examples of hoards with distinct personalities, and they were both just fantastic.

    Sometimes just having the NPCs talk with you during combat makes a big impact. I remember an otherwise fairly generic module where a bunch of us went to fight vampires... I'm not sure I even knew why at the time, but the vampires were clearly slightly crazy and calling out to us- taunting us, trying to tempt us to join them, etc. as we approached, and that made the moment stand out to me. One called out to me, "you with the one ear, you're cute, come join us!" The fact that I remember that really says something.

    I actually took this as inspiration and tried to recreate it when I NPCed for an event for The Calling, but quickly discovered it's actually pretty difficult to keep up the ad-libbing during combat. So my hats off to those that do it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If we're restricting it to "crunchies" then I like them to be exactly what they should be. If they should grunt, howl, screech, moan or just be entirely silent, then I really get more into the mindset of the battle if they do just that.

    The thing I've found I really like and it's inspired me to do it more myself is when they respond appropriately to what's harming them, like the ones that look like they've just had an electric shock when hit with lightning (for instance).

    I find a particular delight in NPCs that are clearly just there to try and take us down with no other motivation. My goal with them quickly turns to trying to break them through my character interaction with other players. If I can't interact with the NPC directly then I'll do it by witty repartee with my fellow PCs to see if I can at least make the NPCs demeanor change a bit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. (there let's see if it lets me post this time :P)

    I find that I like it most when the crunchies react to players, rather than trying to force a reaction from players at the start. If players make eye contact, or a quip, and the NPC has some kind of reaction/banter when that happens, neat! But if the NPC just keep getting progressively more "hey pay attention to me", that breaks it for me somehow.

    There's a saying we used to have in theatre which was "no matter how small the role, give it your all because the audience WILL notice it if you don't. Even though your role may be fleeting, a bad impression is lasting." If your only role was to carry a chair out on the stage and then walk off, then you made sure you were the best chair carrier possible! That's what I think many of my favorite NPCs bring to game. I've always had this notion that you never know when some random person could be looking at you, and if you're standing around looking semi out-of-game or not going through your incant/ritual motions just because you don't think anyone's watching, it diminishes the game experience. Even if PCs are sparring and they need me to "pretend" to be a goblin for the sake of sparing practice.... then I act like a goblin even though Mira is a human (or I should say, I act like Mira doing "her" best impression of what she thinks a goblin should be heh. There is a difference). It just seems to make things more enjoyable for everyone.

    I do agree with Rick that the ones who can react as though they were hit by the particular attack type are amazing! Hell I try to do that as a PC and most times it's a struggle to just acknowledge the hit and keep track in my head if I'm dead or not, much less be able to insert the "proper" reaction on top of that. Plenty of times I've taken a hit, went "ow", did some quick math to myself, and then only afterwards realized "dang I should have acted like I was burning".

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm with Rick. Monster-specific sounds, if any, really help the bushirabble set the tone of an encounter.

    Also, depending on the monster type, *physical* roleplay can really set the tone also. Zombies shamble. Golems or robots, well, stomp like automatons. Animated puppets can have a spring in their step reminiscent of dancing on strings. Mounds shamble. Etc.

    ReplyDelete