"The term 'GNS' is moronic and annoying" – well this should be an interesting interview

[Thomas Shey]

The base game tends to go longer because the characters are more enmeshed in the setting, so yeah about 3-6. It depends on how many npc’s you have and how quickly and dramatically the various relationships can change.

I tend to play the overwhelming majority of games in this way though. I’m extremely reluctant to make up any new NPC’s in Apocalypse World after the second session, ditto for Monsterhearts. If I do have to make up NPC’s, then I’ll only ever draw them from an established group and I make them purposefully bland unless there’s an already established (compelling) reason not to do so.

That's a bit odd for Monsterhearts given the media its based on have new NPCs show up all the time.

 

[thefutilist]

That's a bit odd for Monsterhearts given the media its based on have new NPCs show up all the time.

I don’t really think about other media that much when I’m looking at role-playing structure. I used to reference The Wire, the Sopranos and Game of Thrones when talking about how things might shake out but even those aren’t great structural references. Although I am finding myself referencing Arcane a lot.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don’t really think about other media that much when I’m looking at role-playing structure. I used to reference The Wire, the Sopranos and Game of Thrones when talking about how things might shake out but even those aren’t great structural references. Although I am finding myself referencing Arcane a lot.

I get that medium matters (I just referenced that in another thread), but the "new NPCs wandering into the scene" is awfully common in the fiction Monsterhearts is based on, so it struck me as a bit odd.

 

[Umbran]

I get that medium matters (I just referenced that in another thread), but the "new NPCs wandering into the scene" is awfully common in the fiction Monsterhearts is based on, so it struck me as a bit odd.

And, you'd kind of expect it in Apocalypse World, as well. Folks in an apocalyptic setting are going to be moving around looking for safety and resources and all.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And, you'd kind of expect it in Apocalypse World, as well. Folks in an apocalyptic setting are going to be moving around looking for safety and resources and all.

Well, at least there I can see cases where NPCs you can interact with in a non-hostile fashion are rare enough its uncommon. But in the particular type of genre Monsterhearts is dealing with, even the villain-of-the-week/book is usually someone you interact with socially to some extent.

 

[thefutilist]

Well, at least there I can see cases where NPCs you can interact with in a non-hostile fashion are rare enough its uncommon. But in the particular type of genre Monsterhearts is dealing with, even the villain-of-the-week/book is usually someone you interact with socially to some extent.

Ah you might be misunderstanding me. I introduce no name NPC’s if needed but they’re essentially extras. If the werewolf goes for a drink with his uncle and his uncles buddies. Then I’m not going to detail the buddies, they’re essentially background furniture. So it would be more correct to say I don’t introduce any important NPC’s after the second session.

So taking the uncle case from above. Let’s say the uncle is Steve and he’s a charming, good looking, affable guy who is there to support the werewolf. Then Steve’s friends will also be generally affable and supportive of the werewolf. I’m not going to create Bob whose a friend of Steve’s but is actually kind of suspicious of the werewolf and secretly working for the FBI. (even though it’s plausible that an FBI agent would have infiltrated a hate group).

If the werewolf goes out into the streets with Steve and his friends, the innocent victims of the beating are going to be normal people, as dramatically inert as I can make them. I’m not going to decide one of them is a witch or something.

Hopefully that makes more sense.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ah you might be misunderstanding me. I introduce no name NPC’s if needed but they’re essentially extras. If the werewolf goes for a drink with his uncle and his uncles buddies. Then I’m not going to detail the buddies, they’re essentially background furniture. So it would be more correct to say I don’t introduce any important NPC’s after the second session.

So taking the uncle case from above. Let’s say the uncle is Steve and he’s a charming, good looking, affable guy who is there to support the werewolf. Then Steve’s friends will also be generally affable and supportive of the werewolf. I’m not going to create Bob whose a friend of Steve’s but is actually kind of suspicious of the werewolf and secretly working for the FBI. (even though it’s plausible that an FBI agent would have infiltrated a hate group).

If the werewolf goes out into the streets with Steve and his friends, the innocent victims of the beating are going to be normal people, as dramatically inert as I can make them. I’m not going to decide one of them is a witch or something.

Hopefully that makes more sense.

I don't think its any different than I understood, honestly. Let me give an example.

The Vampire Diaries is a poster child for the sort of thing Monsterhearts is designed to cover. Across the course of that show, new major NPCs came in constantly, I'd want to say several times a season. Some were around for about a season and left, some stuck around or came in and out. And the same was true of both successor shows.

I realize, as I said, that genres in different media operate in different fashions, but episodic but ongoing TV shows are probably in most respects the most like RPGs in how they operate, so the idea that you'd only see major NPCs introduced at the start and never again seemed to me to have some considerable dissonance.

 

[thefutilist]

I don't think its any different than I understood, honestly. Let me give an example.

The Vampire Diaries is a poster child for the sort of thing Monsterhearts is designed to cover. Across the course of that show, new major NPCs came in constantly, I'd want to say several times a season. Some were around for about a season and left, some stuck around or came in and out. And the same was true of both successor shows.

I realize, as I said, that genres in different media operate in different fashions, but episodic but ongoing TV shows are probably in most respects the most like RPGs in how they operate, so the idea that you'd only see major NPCs introduced at the start and never again seemed to me to have some considerable dissonance.

Yeah we’re on the same page as to where our tastes differ.

I’m not keen on the episodic model but I would use it, just never for something like Monsterhearts (which yes, is ironic given the source material). If I am doing episodic stuff then it’s going to be split into pretty discrete chunks. So I’d have the cast fixed in place for the specific episode and there would be a clear demarcation between the two situations (episodes). Or a very similar model is something like runs/arcs in comics.

I guess the closest media to my taste is something like the 10 episode limited series. One season and done. Even that’s too broad though because it’s a specific type of limited series.

 

[GobHag]

GNS is bunk, but the idea of a game being built around simulating a world to some degree isn't, and that is why those mechanics exist. Random encounters don't exist because of this idea about the unwelcome; they exist because of course theres random monsters running around the dungeon.

A phrase I liked from one of the posts I read was "Gygaxian Naturalism", which as I'm finding out right now, apparently is an actual thing coined to describe Gygax's methodology for worldbuilding, so go figure, there's the proof in the pudding.

I dunno, I always see random encounters as time pressure and a way to spice up a journey. Having it 'make sense' is a secondary concern.

Personally I despise Gygaxian Naturalism, I'm an anti-simulationist kinda guy. I think it has lead to fun anecdotes and mostly overcomplicared lore and justification. Gameableness trumps realism, hell--aesthetic trumps realism for me. I'm so happy that it's been largely abandoned in modern DnD and most other rules system.

Realism reminds me of worthless survival sims on Steam and overly complicated rulesets trying to consider the bullet trajectory of a gunshot when it hits your biceps when you're wearing t-shirts. It reminds me of boring martials while casters get to casts Meteors and teleports willy-nilly.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Realism reminds me of worthless survival sims on Steam and overly complicated rulesets trying to consider the bullet trajectory of a gunshot when it hits your biceps when you're wearing t-shirts.

That's important, though. Why else would I spend all this time working on these sick pythons, brah?