I’m wondering how GMs are running NPCs/monsters who are allied (however temporarily) with PCs against a common enemy.
What do you do?
I’m wondering how GMs are running NPCs/monsters who are allied (however temporarily) with PCs against a common enemy.
I’m wondering how GMs are running NPCs/monsters who are allied (however temporarily) with PCs against a common enemy.
Unless it’s specifically a hireling and PCs are utilizing the Order Hirelings move, I usually just narrate what happens in between PCs making actions and triggering moves.
“Three of the orcs charge at you. That griffin you helped free flies up high and swoops down, lifting one of them up by the shoulders and carrying it over the cliff. The other two are close and swinging their axes at you. What do you do?”
Could just give a +1 on the action or maybe just allow the fiction to dictate the proceedings. You could also borrow a damage die from them, roll it along with yours, and take the higher result, kinda like how multiple enemies will do – that’s if you’re in a fight.
I lean toward playing them as if they were PC-like, with the GM choosing the actions, but letting a player roll the dice for either a basic move, or a cast-a-spell analog. This involves some serious “winging it” at the moment, though.
Johnstone Metzger Have you had this come up in Lair of the Unknown with Kirsha or Supper, and if so, how do you deal with it?
Make a GM move
Or monster move
I treat NPCs like any other element of the surrounding fiction, usually just like Misha Polonsky described. IIRC, the only time the NPCs in Lair ever helped the PCs fight was when they went into Zarina’s bedroom. Deru was in front, so I just killed him for activating the trap (the PCs were deliberating in the doorway I think), and Supper was with them too. I think I may have just had him do damage to Zarina because “pound on foes with his mace” is one of his moves. He only attacked because the PCs attacked though, so I was still taking some cues from them.
But like, say if Kirsha was between the PCs and a monster and they abandoned her, what “would normally happen”? I would probably have her blast it with Prismatic Spray, turn Invisible, and follow them back to town to exact revenge.
In other situations I usually just decide what they would do based on moves and tactics, and decide on the whole outcome based on the situation. I tend to go with “what would usually happen” for anything the PCs aren’t influencing. But other times, I’ve had the PC parley with an NPC to get them to do something, and let that roll influence their success (like a 10+ might mean they do better than “what would usually happen,” and a miss might mean that instead of refusing, they try to do it and make a mess of things).
Also, I sometimes don’t describe the action, in order to keep focus on the PCs. Like: “You look up from your foe and you can see Sir Mandelon has dispatched one of the ghouls, but the other two have pinned him to the ground and are struggling with his visor. What do you do?” Throw them a bone for having an ally (one ghoul dead!) and give them a friend in need (he’s pinned).
I run friendly NPCs exactly the same way as Misha Polonsky and Johnstone Metzger do; as fictional elements. They don’t make Moves the way PCs do, and they don’t add bonuses to a player’s roll. They just do stuff appropriate for the fiction and their nature.
I started out where Misha Polonsky suggests with straight up narration, but found myself second guessing that approach when it came to narrating NPC success or failure for actions in alignment with the PCs goals.
The more I think about it, the more comfortable I am with that approach though.
Johnstone Metzger it was Supper Brown’s alliance with the party after his own group had triggered the Rise of the Undead that really brought this topic to a head for me.
Thanks, all for the food for thought!