Forums » RP Discussion » No NPC's

What if we did an RP with no NPC's, so everyone... Grunts, kill able characters, shop keepers, everyone was an RPer? I think it may blow up and be too chaotic but it could end up being really cool. Game of thrones like. Every little character is connected to someone else, like a pyramid scheme except not at all. Sci Fi may be harder to do but I'm open for anything. Let me kno what you think...

I think that'd be a bit too hard to pull off really. It's a good and interesting Idea yeah, but if everyone doesn't put all their characters in the RP it would be really hard to pull off.

Not to mention everyone has this listing urge to be either the #1 hero or the #1 Villian. No one would want to be a shop keeper, and if they did he would be an OP shop keeper that sold like... Children's dreams, or orphan tears...

I concur your probs right.

A very fun idea, but I think it'd be a bit hard too! Every character in a scene would need to be played, but except for very few circumstances, not everyone will be in the picture at the same time, or even have any fun role to play at all.

Like a convenience store cashier - what would the player be doing when this character isn't in the scene because the other characters only visit the store once a week? How much would this character be able to do besides some smalltalk and checking out the groceries the other characters buy? I would get bored super fast.

The idea of not having NPCs is neat, but unless you can think of a more interesting way to cover such bases, I don't think many people would enjoy it at all.

Psh, I have a straight up plain old street performer. Sure, she's got potential to be more, but she never is. She just chills and gives a little advise sometimes.

Not that I'm gonna claim that's typical of RPers or that she's really that interesting of a character.

Sadly I agree with Sanne. Unless there was a way to make all the characters have an interesting role. For example all the players are part of an army, and the role play generally avoids towns and such, so that Merchants wouldn't be an issue, nor would generic villagers.

Or as another alternative have a sort of scenario that would warrant a lack of NPCs. Like maybe a lost scenario, where the characters are all stranded on an island/barren planet/ alt. dimension wher ethey are the only living things. Or maybe a scenario liek dead space/other Zombie appocalypse stories. Have the characters be the only survivors, and have one die early in the rp and begin to spread, allowing the slowly growing horde to still be playable.

That zombie one actually sounds cool, but with the low amount of zombies... There wouldn't be much zombie killing. Or much for the zombies to do except describe the weather and of scenery. The army would be a good use but I feel like we'd have he same problem with everyone wanting to be the hero. And then the lost one sounds cool. There isn't much to be a "hero" about, fractions would be made granting probable power to two individuals and it'd be like a lord of the flies thing!

I'd do the island one, and probably if we had enough people if do the zombie one... But only if some people started as undead, or played a multitude of characters. But with the island idea I'd say more then one character would be a big no. Both characters could better team up to get one or the other in power... Ugh, but it all sounds really interesting! I want to try it!!!

On the Zombie one, I think it might be better for the zombies to not be regular Zombies. Maybe have them be more intelligent, being able to communicate, show emotion, Etc. just have their brain re-wired to be more feral than a standard human, along with the rotting. That way that way the people playing the undead could do more than just go "Ugh" [insert name here] groaned shambling around" when not around other players.
EDIT: Also the low amount of Undead might be able to improve the story a bit, causing people to rely more on Character interaction and characterization rather than just relying on the Zombie action.

And I have no clue what you were saying regarding the lost idea

Lost idea: just think lord of the flies, sides/fractions, rock/stick weaponry, and modern day people returning to/ rediscovering a primal state of humanity.

I haven't read lord of the flies

School children (only boys) wash up on a beach and start a society. Then they go kind of insane and kill the fat kid... The end.

It's better then I make it sound lol

The only instance I can see this working is when you;re in a game such as furcadia. People make community dreams all the time which have different shops and positions. There people's characters are often owners of those shops or taverns. NPCs are used to represent a player who is not there or online, or as back up for guards. So even then without npcs it gets difficult. I tend to give my npcs personalities, names and backgrounds to make them a little bit interesting and not so copy and paste.

My character Yvette would be the closest to an NPC character as you could get. She doesn't just make your coffee (or tea or double frappe whatever), she puts a little bit of magic into it. Good luck or bad luck, it's literally a roll of the dice depending and up to the player to figure out what sort of good/bad luck happens to said character.

I have seen this work before a few times. One example is in Furcadia, with very large dreams. Because the game is map-based, it is very easy to tell where someone is in a city. What ends up happening is that there is NO main group of characters at all. Instead, your shopkeeps and the like mostly stay in their shops, but there are enough "citizens" wandering around that they are often visited and get to play a bunch of different scenes throughout the day.

On a forum, it is harder to deal with locales, and the pace of RP is typically slower, making this idea much more unwieldy. A thread will tend to focus on a particular group of characters all the way through, and syncing up the timelines of two different threads can be difficult when one is being posted in faster than another, so it's hard for a person to leave the convenience store thread and go to the park thread and have it be a smooth minute to minute transition from their day.

Pulling something like this off requires

1. A ton of players
2. The requirement that RP is more or less real time -- if someone has to log off, they are considered to have left IC as well, so play never stops
3. The ability to easily, rapidly wander from place to place, and no requirement for any one group of characters to stick together. Every PC will occasionally have to go do shopping and grab some lunch without the others.

This ensures that even people who tend static locations get visited an acceptable amount. And if they aren't online, then their shop is closed!

I think that would be super interesting, and it'd be something fun to try. But what do you think about the stranded on an island thing, that would work right? No NPC's needed... But in a way that's kinda cheating too because you're in a spot where no NPC's would even be so it takes away from the challenge.

If you're talking wilderness situations to get rid of the need for NPCs (and you don't count animals or monsters as NPCs... many do, though), then this is super duper super common and I've participated in RPs that were partially like this or 100% like this several dozen times. Most tabletop groups will do this for weeks at a time, as well. I see no reason why it couldn't work.

But I think the other way would be more challenging and more fun. Ancient or future, one town, shops and selling goods, Roll dice for money. Very intricate, seems like a blast!

Oh man, dice hate me. I could see my character winding up homeless, penniless, turning to a desperate life of crime which would land said character behind bars because of the dice... Alas.

like roll 1D6 and get 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000.... To get a shop of your own it costs 4000 and a home costs 1000. everyone gets a home cause you cant roll a zero... then you can work for a sore owner if they allow you too and get a salary from them like minimum pay would be 1000 so you could pay for housing but if a owner gave you 1500 then you could buy stuff or save up money for your own shop.