 May 3, 2009 - 7:00am | Trying to resurect my Friday night group which met every Friday but fell apart in Jan. anyway I been thinking over the situation of one character who under SF2000 rules is a spacer PSA. I had given him an NPC contact in the first prequel adventure that he managed to weazel a gyrojet pistol out of (Yazerian bartender who had always been like an uncle to him). The pistol was ornate and worth more than a std. Gpistol but fired the same and it was named old Bessy. With the true start of the Volturnus campaign having all PC weapons locked in a weapons locker and blown by the pirates I allowed the PCs to spot old Bessy in the Pirate captains belt. Which lead to an almost suicidal plans for storming the bridge to get it back but the ship started breaking up. anyhow the palyer has been stripped of "his pistol" and is now grounded on volturnus and his interest in the game was dying before the group broke up. If we can restart we're at the beginning of SF1 so I plan to have Captain Skragg with Old Bessy lead the pirates attacking the Kurabanga and jet pack away when the fight goes badly. He'll also be in command of the pirate outpost they're suppose to storm after meeting the Kurabanga. I'm hoping this will draw him back in plus the capture of the jetcopter at the pirate outpost will give hims more story share from that point on as he is the only pilot. plus some message traffic stored in the outpost's computer about Old Bessy turning up and how Skragg is on the outs with the Star Devil for not getting the owner of the weapon so that they can "question" him about a certain yazerian traitor that still needs to be killed. (Skragg can only redeem himself by capturing the PCs and he needs to do it soon or he'll be taking a long walk out a short air lock without a vac suit.) With the whole attachment to the gun and now his "uncle" is threatened I'm hoping it will make the game very personal for him. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 3, 2009 - 12:05pm | Wow, this is great. Sometimes it's helpful to have a mini-timeline of events. :-) |
May 4, 2009 - 7:13am | I was snared into rolling up a character for Shadow run 5th ed even though I had read some of the background fluff and found a few things distasteful about the setting (too gritty for me) and dispite my lack of enthusiasm for that game I was greatly impressed with 1 part of the character creation being you could spend points for NPC contacts and the points you spent paid for A how loyal this contact would be to your character and B how connected he would be in the over all society. These NPCs dont really get stats they just are a little blurb written by the player but they were a fantastic way to generate clues and info for the players as they could specify I'll call so&so and ask him about this. When I started my Friday night campaign I gave everyone a little something extra be it an NPC contact or a clue for the upcoming adventure or the totally amoral player who "only plays evil characters" was suborned by a rival corp for money if he provides them with copies of all data collected during the expedition. So far only the player with an NPC contact did anything with his little extra and I've now decided that ANY RPG I run will have NPC contacts for the players. and there will usually be oportunity for them to mine their "friends and family" for info at the start of an adventure with the help being tailored to what that NPC would know or its ability to help. Plus there is always the adventure hook of "you get a desparate plea for help from so & so" and since that NPC has helped them a certain number of times there would be the natural pressure to go help. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 4, 2009 - 5:36pm | I'm in shock! This is a great idea. I can see how the Ref could steer the party in a direction by throwing in that "desperate plea". Chance of me stealing your idea, 100% w00t!  |
October 2, 2010 - 7:13pm | I'm looking over my notes and found this link. Do you have guidelines on how to define a NPC for each character (or group of characters)? What information do you give them and how are they contacted? Seems like a good small article for the Creative Refereeing section of the magazine. |
October 5, 2010 - 9:25pm | Ah Nope. I have found that most players (particularly in online games) revel in creating I've noticed that if you provide a 1-2 page background for your setting/game that on line gamers will read this and include a detail from it in their PC background or connect the NPC contact to a detail in the background. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
