So, I’m in the midst of converting PCs and monsters of our Pathfinder campaign to DW, and I come up against a question involving NPC allies in gameplay, and how they fit into DW’s gameplay.
At this point in the campaign, the PCs have founded a settlement and accumulated a secondary cast of 8-10 NPCs, several of whom regularly assist the PCs on adventures and in defending the settlement.
In DW, how do you handle competent NPCs? They seem like they’re more than hirelings. Should I write them up like DW monsters? Like full PCs? How do I make them autonomous contributors to things like fights and overcoming obstacles if I the players are rolling all the dice and the NPCs don’t have stats, per se?
Any help greatly appreciated!
Keep in mind that Hirelings are actually pretty darn competent in terms of outcomes. Being able to absorb a point or two of damage (or deal an extra point or two of damage) may not seem like much on paper, but the way you narrate it can make it seem awesome.
But at the end of the day, I wouldn’t stat any of it. Just go with what makes sense in the fiction. If your NPC would reasonably be able to handle an orc or two on her own, then just narrate them doing that.
https://plus.google.com/101873051689654385715/posts/FXCW5fjAeA7
making them hirelings doesn’t mean they don’t have free will or aren’t capable of doing things by themselves. You can stat them as hirelings and, when the time comes they act by themselves, you just follow the normal npc vs. npc rules.
Level 4 warrior hirelings are scary. Especially as their loyalty keeps dropping…
Yeah, hirelings are awesome, I find their mechanics to be sufficient. As with anything else, just add story.
Thanks for the advice. I’m seeing it now. Alessandro Gianni, where are these “npc vs. npc” rules of which you speak? I can’t find anything anything in my pdf of the rules.
It’s called “make a move”. You decide in accordance with your principles what happens if two NPCs go at each other.
Their tags can be a good indicator for this too.
Sure, that’s my baseline, but it sounded like Alessandro was referring to something more specific.
well, if you thought I was referring to some “npc vs. npc” paragraph, then no ;P
edit: npc vs. npc doesn’t have a specific paragraph because it’s like “who decides how’s the weather today?” or “how fare the battles between the northern kingdoms?”. It’s the gm’s responsibility to make these things believable, coherent, and in accordance to previously established facts. The again, you can always ask the players for help if you’re not sure.
Handle it purely in the fiction. Just describe what they’re up to and how they are contributing to the fight. Have them fight three more orcs off to the side. Make soft moves now and then that hint that they need help and portray the consequences if they don’t get it. Think Dangerously.