Question 5
Marcus asked himself 12 Questions and I was playing along. He gave up at Question 4, and since I was following him, I stopped too. But, here's question 5:
What was your favourite NPC to run?
I didn't have to think long here - like so many of my best gaming experiences, this goes back to Gaslight, the short-term game I ran in mid 2006, a period I guess I need to look back on fondly as a Golden Age. I was playing in Ivan's epic Lace and Steel game and was about to start playing in Dale's even-more-epic Paths of the Damned run for WHFRPG.
Gaslight was the first game I ran that really fired on all cylinders, after a slightly slow first couple of sessions. It was one of my first experiences using the new-fangled "Bang" & "Kicker" technologies, though I don't think I quite thought about it in those terms at the time. It was thus a player-lead game, with me basically sitting on the sideline ensuring that things got some follow-through and preventing things from settling predictably. It was what you might uncharitably call "monkey wrench" GMing, but which you probably want to think of as "player driven."
Well, the best, most versatile, most successful, and most fun of my various monkey wrenches was a vampire named Ilya Calude. He was quite prepared to be a physical threat to the PCs, but mostly he wanted to use them for his own ends - he was largely orthogonal to the main plotlines of the game, which centred around the romantic destiny of Liz's character Rose (the gypsy thief) and Nick's revenant Gideon finding peace.
I've never had an NPC who so successfully meshed with the players while still retaining and pursuing his own agenda. I'd love to revisit him... although he was killed in the game, that never really matters much in Buffy-esque scenarios. Maybe once Hamish has finished his PhD and everyone lives in the same city again, I'll stage a sequel. But, then again, the moment has passed, and there have been some truly great games since then (my Werewolf game springs to mind) - just not congruent with other amazing experiences.
What was your favourite NPC to run?
I didn't have to think long here - like so many of my best gaming experiences, this goes back to Gaslight, the short-term game I ran in mid 2006, a period I guess I need to look back on fondly as a Golden Age. I was playing in Ivan's epic Lace and Steel game and was about to start playing in Dale's even-more-epic Paths of the Damned run for WHFRPG.
Gaslight was the first game I ran that really fired on all cylinders, after a slightly slow first couple of sessions. It was one of my first experiences using the new-fangled "Bang" & "Kicker" technologies, though I don't think I quite thought about it in those terms at the time. It was thus a player-lead game, with me basically sitting on the sideline ensuring that things got some follow-through and preventing things from settling predictably. It was what you might uncharitably call "monkey wrench" GMing, but which you probably want to think of as "player driven."
Well, the best, most versatile, most successful, and most fun of my various monkey wrenches was a vampire named Ilya Calude. He was quite prepared to be a physical threat to the PCs, but mostly he wanted to use them for his own ends - he was largely orthogonal to the main plotlines of the game, which centred around the romantic destiny of Liz's character Rose (the gypsy thief) and Nick's revenant Gideon finding peace.
I've never had an NPC who so successfully meshed with the players while still retaining and pursuing his own agenda. I'd love to revisit him... although he was killed in the game, that never really matters much in Buffy-esque scenarios. Maybe once Hamish has finished his PhD and everyone lives in the same city again, I'll stage a sequel. But, then again, the moment has passed, and there have been some truly great games since then (my Werewolf game springs to mind) - just not congruent with other amazing experiences.