June 2004
- believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Mike Rozak
Not having a world populated with NPCs, my personal preference is
more NPCs. I think/hope they would increase the immersion (despite
being lousy conversationalists), and provide more ways for PCs to
interact with one another.
Here's a slightly different approach that might (or might not) work:
1) Populate cities with lots of NPCs that don't do much except
wander around and answer questions that PCs might ask. My personal
preference would be for 3/4+ of the people wandering the streets
of a city to be NPCs doing ordinary jobs, to increase the illusion
of a world, as opposed to the reality of playground.
Some people might object to this idea because the NPCs are
basically scenery. My arguement is: So are trees, but MMORPGs draw
them. (How about SpeedNPC in addition to SpeedTree?) The biggest
problem with this is the extra computation.
a) The scenic NPCs could provide some useful services:
- Ask them where the local shop is.
- Ask them what time it is.
- Each one might know some special tidbit of information.
- Ask them if they have seen so-and-so walk by. (More
computation). This would be interesting, being able to track
other PCs (or NPCs) by asking around.
- Ask NPCs to repeat conversations they heard PCs
saying. (Never have a conversation in public?)
- If a fight broke out in the city, at least one would run to
the city guard, who would come and break up the fight.
- Random and interesing behaviors. One co-worker who attended
a conference in NYC related that he had walked past a homeless
person that had pulled his pants down and was yelling "I'm
naked." He didn't mention anything about the conference. Naked
people isn't family VW content, but it proves the point that
some behaviors can be very memorable. Kids running around and
shouting, "Tag, you're it!" or preachers professing the end of
the world, all add to the ambience.
- Etc.
b) Since there are so many NPCs, a PC trying to lie low could
masquerade as a NPC.
2) Allow GMs (or actors) to "possess" NPCs, like the Matrix
movies, except their outward appearance wouldn't change. That way,
if a GM thought that an intelligent NPC would improve the
experience, they could take over the NPC for a few minutes. GMs
could just as quickly leave an NPC back to its AI and possess
another one.
3) Allow GMs to affect entire groups of NPCs. Think of this as the
GM playing a God-game an manipulating the NPCs in bulk.
- Make the villagers angry, or happy depending upon what PCs are
doing.
- Make the villagers all flee an evil monster
- Control NPC buying habits (such as food and clothing)
4) Allow players to "hire" NPCs and give them tasks to do, such
as:
- Pickup and deliveries, to/from other PCs and NPCs (this
introduces the callenge of figuring out which NPCs are doing
deliveries and waylaying them)
- Wander around the town shouting "hear-yea, hear-yea, hear-yea,
Fred is a great guy!" or other ads
- Guard stuff
- Watch an area for specific passerbys ("Tell me if Joe walks
by." or "Tell me is someone from the Warlords guild is in
town.")
- Other AI?
One could also argue that NPCs aren't necessary because PCs can do
all those jobs. However, PCs don't like doing boring jobs, and
they don't stay in character.
5) PCs could approach NPCs asking if the NPC has any jobs to do
(insta-quest). Most NPCs wouldn't need any, but some would have
pickup and delivery tasks, or even item aquisition ("go find me
some belladonna, I don't care how.") More powerful NPCs would have
more demanding jobs.
6) NPCs could be intelligent enemies. Why not have a NPC that
pick-pockets from PCs? Or which steals treasure from monsters the
PCs just killed? Or NPCs that are hired assasins (perhaps hired by
other NPCs) whose job it is to kill a PC that crossed a NPC.
Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au - TECH: MUD Skeleton Craig L.
- DGN: Space MUD 67Me You
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