Challenging Players with People, not Environments

[Rafe]

Taken from this thread (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?8859-NPC-agency-NPC-framed-conflicts-in-BW), Luke wrote:

I find NPCs vital to my GMing style. When I challenge players, I like to do it in the voice/mode of another character. I like to give the challenge a face.

Unless I give my challenges the agency of a character with his own outlook, voice and priorities, my shit is weak. Environmental, physical or atmospheric challenges are not my strong suit as a GM. Therefore, I tend to develop a complex web of NPCs with their own perspectives on the PCs and their goals.
I didn't want to distract that thread, and I'm curious: Do you often burn up your NPCs, Luke (and anyone else!), or are many of them off-the-cuff? I tend to run most of mine off-the-cuff, simply because I don't know who they'll be Circling up, meeting, etc. I'm wondering because of your statement "I tend to develop a complex web of NPCs...." seems to say you have a lot of stuff done up before hand.

I know Berandor had an awesome post about burning NPCs and, in so doing, creating exceptional ideas for them, but I'm more interested in how GMs who use people as opposed to situations/environments to challenge players do so in terms of prep.

[luke]

90% of my NPCs are made off the cuff using the Rogue's Gallery rules in the Burning Wheel.
9% of my NPCs are rough or incomplete burns designed to provide me with the aspect of the character I need for an encounter -- his age, his Will, his traits, his FoRKs, etc.
1% of my NPCs are full burns.

I'll sketch a Belief or two for an NPC at any level if he's important opposition or a recurring character. But I'm notoriously lazy about this, too. If I'm not disciplined, I won't write Beliefs until after the NPCs has already made a number of appearances. This is a bad habit of mine because I find the Beliefs enhance the character in play.

-L

[Rafe]

Interesting to know, Luke, thanks! I find I'm about the same. My idea of a rough burn is to roughly know what lifepaths the NPC has and thus what skills would be available. I hate the idea of always having a skill for a versus test when the players might not when the likely lifepaths wouldn't support their having that skill as learned. (PC: "This farmer has Persuasion? Seriously?") In terms of Beliefs, I often just wing them as being opposed, slightly or strongly, to a PC(s), or in line but with a totally different spin. For instance:

PC: "All heretics must be brought into the fold of the true God."
NPC: "All heretics of the true God must burn for their souls to be cleansed."

That said, I need to get better about having NPCs with Beliefs drawn firmly. I find I still have a good portion of D&D NPCs; viz., window dressing without any real content and they don't add much.

[luke]

For almost any NPC I use, burned or not, I consult the CB. I look at the LPs to provide me with some guidance. I used to have the same bad habit of inserting whatever skill was needed for the challenge. Recently, in the past few years, I've let go. I enjoy having unskilled NPCs.

My players recently encountered a god with no social skills. He had a gray Will, but he was still testing unskilled. It was cool and added some depth to the encounter.

[gooderguy]

i often do full burns on any NPCs on the players character sheets, whether they are paid-for relationships or characters named in beliefs.
any re-occurring NPCs that the players seem interested in (either through constant circling or roleplaying dialogue) i'll write beliefs for, maybe age, will, traits, etc.
the majority of the rest are usually off-the-cuff with straight stats/skills of 3, 4, or 5 in everything and maybe an applicable trait and one generic belief like 'we must regain our sacred relics at all costs.'

[Z-Dog]

Makes sense. BW hands you a lot of tools to make interpersonal fighting, characterization, conflicts with words, meaningful and dense. Even most of the monsters in MoBu seem like beings with lots of agency (no mooks!).

And the resolution mechanics for environment are very quick: pass/fail this test and move on to the next interpersonal conflict.

When I think about planning games for BW I think about planning towns for Dogs in the Vineyard: a lose collection of issues and people who need help/intend to harm the PCs.

[Totally Guy]

So far I've done full burns of all the relationship characters. And I've burned up a couple of the major NPCs. The ones that have appeared and seemed important at the time. But of course I'm practising character burning that way.

[Z-Dog]

Yeah, Luke's method is kung-fu solid, but man, that's a little scary for me. I always fear I'm going to "cheat" when I make people up on the fly, so I usually do burns in my spare time to get a sense of the weight and feel of characters.

[Rafe]

Ken, do you have a list of templated NPC types, like shopkeeper, guard, thug, pickpocket, local priest, etc? Otherwise, how could you avoid "creating" (flubbing) ad hoc NPCs? I'm very curious about this, as it seems you aren't alone in terms of having NPCs burned up, but I can't see taking the time to try to cover the generic gamut of NPCs the players could have their characters run into or Circle up.

[Z-Dog]

Patrick, nope, not the generic people. Thinking about the serious opposition or challenging NPCs. For the general people I just give 'em 4 dice, a skill, maybe a instinct, more or less depending.

I guess I'm thinking about anyone I have them Fight! or Duel who could really make a difference.

Also, I've kinda gone through the human lifepaths enough to get a general feel for 3 or 4 LP peasant/city people, so no issue there. Not as familiar with orc/dwarf/elf, so I'd be cautious about doing stuff on the fly.

[noofy]

Hey guys, hope you're all still reading...
I've discovered that with my play (primarily one-on-one) we both trust each other to invest in the fiction without breaking our story. So if an NPC is circled up and named via at least one success, then we co-operate in the creation of the NPC (if it matters enough to the situation at hand or involves a creative tack we want to explore), otherwise we leave it at a Name, say 'Yes' and Move On. So...

The player not only names the NPC, but may add a brief description. We have a standardised format for this in our respective journals with a bunch of questions to bounce off each other. Lately we just spout the first thing that comes into our head and go with it: Sex?
Age?
Current Lifepath (often inferred through the intent of the circles test)?
Demeanour?
A notable character trait?
One or two exceptional skills / stats they are reknown for (B5 or higher)?
Smells Like? (awesome memory jogger for some reason)
Distinctive 'trapping'.
Last but not least, a simple, direct Belief tied to the situation at hand. 'I want X by doing Y and avoiding Z'

That's it. Embellished further with BITs, stats and skills as burnt through play or if the NPC becomes a relationship down the track. What I found was I was unconsciously following this format when sketching out Bangs for the next session. Its quick, Its dirty, but it gives enough of a skeleton for the fiction to hang on, plus in the context actual play allows the player to have investment in the narration. It involves them in the creative process of the story we have made. Also prevents the 'downtime' of the GM hastily scribbling down some stats to the twiddling of player thumbs. Often these NPCs become part of developed Beliefs because we want to see them back in play more often! We created 'em, we want to interact with 'em, push 'em, see what they're made of... How awesome is that?