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Totally Guy
2012-06-30, 06:02 AM
I've was thinking about how games treat PCs and NPCs and thought I'd kind of elaborate on something that is kind of obvious but I hadn't specifically considered before.

Some games have rules that apply to NPCs and PCs equally when being generated or when in conflict with each other. Others have rules which don't try to do that.

A symmetrical game would be something like Burning Wheel. The PCs and the NPCs both have stats and when there is a contest between the participants both sides roll their dice using the game's mechanics. The GM can choose to create NPCs using the same character generation procedure.

An asymmetrical game would be something like Dungeon World, Apocalypse World or Lacuna. In these games the GM doesn't roll dice. In Dungeon World the result of a failed attack roll is that the opponent manages to hit you and do you damage! Although the NPC being fought has numbers for damage and such the game mechanics don't treat the parties equally. The GM can't make an NPC using the character creation rules as it makes no sense to do so.

Yet despite the difference in symmetry I really like all those games.


D&D 3.5 is pretty much a symmetrical game. In most areas the NPCs and PCs use the same rules to contest each other and for character generation. The only obvious exception I can see is the use of social skills.

D&D 4th is mostly symmetrical in that the fighting and single skill contests use the same rules but the game excludes NPC generation and social skills from that.

How does the presence or absence of symmetry affect your preference in games? How much do you think this choice impacts the kind of game the designer is making? Which areas do you prefer to see inconsistencies if at all?

Yora
2012-06-30, 06:41 AM
One thing I noticed with d20 SRD games like D&D 3rd Ed. is that very often a lot of detail work that goes into making an NPC or creature is completely unneccessary.

Half the feats that exist are irrelevant to NPCs, since they only apply to situations that are only faced by PCs. And distributing skill points is way too fiddly for simple NPCs.
Assumed I have a band of thugs assaulting the PCs in a dark ally and I intend for them to be killed or flee and never to be seen again. They may use their stealth skills. The leader might possible use Intimidate. If the PCs spot them in advance, they might also use their perception skills. But for a 2nd level rogue, that's still 45 points to distribute. For an NPC that might very well be killed in a single hit.
Just saying "I select nine skills and put 5 ranks in each of them" speeds things up a bit, but then you still need to write down which skills they are and so on.
Then you have to count the number of feats, consider what combinations are possible because of prerequisites, factor in ability score increases. That's too much work for a throwaway NPC, many of which will actually never roll a single die.

I think personally I would prefer a system in which you have PC rules for "elite"-NPCs and monsters and a much more simple one for "minions" and critters.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-06-30, 09:01 AM
One thing I noticed with d20 SRD games like D&D 3rd Ed. is that very often a lot of detail work that goes into making an NPC or creature is completely unneccessary.

Half the feats that exist are irrelevant to NPCs, since they only apply to situations that are only faced by PCs. And distributing skill points is way too fiddly for simple NPCs.

WFRP 3rd Edition (not sure about 1st or 2nd) uses a solution I think is pretty elegant: It's "symmetric" in that NPCs use the same skill system PCs use, but instead of bothering to assign skill ranks using the character creation rules, you can give them a pool of expertise dice that you can apply to any rolls you want depending on what makes sense for the encounter. All NPCs in an encounter share the same pool, so the only things you need to keep track of for an NPC are there characteristic scores and maybe a few talents/actions (which are similarly reduced in complexity from what PCs use).

valadil
2012-06-30, 12:34 PM
I almost like asymmetry. I think the GM's workflow should be simplified compared to te players. I don't need NPCs to have as much mechanical depth as pcs.

But I don't like the limitation that NPCs only fight pcs and vice versa. If two players want to duel the system should support that. I quite like 4e but it falls apart here.

J.Gellert
2012-06-30, 05:12 PM
I'm running games where nameless NPCs are minion-types, with numbers that can be decided "on the fly" and one-hit-equals-death, while important NPCs (usually antagonists) use the same rules as PCs.

My campaign differentiates greatly between "movers and shakers" and the people whose names will never be known, after all...

Urpriest
2012-07-01, 11:13 AM
There is a way, a tricky way but a way, to have all the convenience advantages of asymmetric design with all verisimilitude and flexibility of symmetric design. All you need is a system that you can prove things about.

Here's my rough idea: in principle, every NPC is built using the same system as PCs. However, rather than working out every personalized aspect of an NPC, you use "provings": you know, because of how the system works, that the vast majority of characters will make certain choices. You then simply assume that your default NPC has made the same choices. In D&D 3.5, there is a small vestige of this in the fact that you can usually assume someone has max ranks in all skills. What I'm envisioning is a wider point: it should be possible to assume which "skills" an NPC of a certain sort has taken, what sort of advantages their "feats" give them, etc. Basically, you put together a "4e"-esque statblock: lots of bonuses to checks and a few specific powers. But you do it in the knowledge that it replicates one way that you could really build an NPC if you went through the whole creation process.

kyoryu
2012-07-01, 03:00 PM
I kind of like the GURPS way of doing things - both NPCs and PCs use the same stats and skills (the end result), but usually to generate NPCs you just assign appropriate skill/stat levels, which is a lot faster than going through the whole point-buy system.

Apart from that, I'll favor ease-of-GMing over PC/NPC symmetry every single time.

Totally Guy
2012-07-01, 05:40 PM
Whether NPC stats are approximated or not doesn't really matter. The observation is that in many games the NPC has got stats, theoretical or otherwise, that mirrors the PCs.

Valadil noted an interesting case in which the resolution system would become inappropriate for resolving a conflict between equal parties where the resolution system assumes the opponent would have been generated asymmetrically. Perhaps this contributed to people getting irked by some of the 4th edition of D&D's philosophy, they expected symmetry and didn't get it.

The resolution system in Lacuna introduces a special rule to modify the standard resolution system when such a situation arises.

Morty
2012-07-01, 05:48 PM
Personally, I prefer it if PCs and NPCs are symmetrical. It gives me more to work with. After all, just because I can built an NPC that will be functionally identical to a PC doesn't mean I have to. If an NPC is minor, I can give him or her just enough stats to fulfill his/her function. - a bouncer on an invitation-only party will have stats relating to the PCs' attempts to fool, bribe or sweet-talk him, nothing else.

navar100
2012-07-01, 05:54 PM
I prefer symmetry to help enforce fairness. NPC already have an advantage in that they have all their abilities by fiat. The DM arbitrarily assigns whatever he wants the NPC be able to do. The NPC need not ask for permission, earn XP, limit its wealth, limit its knowledge, nor limit its political power in the game world. The NPC has everything it could possibly need as the DM assigns it. When the NPC has to follow the same creation protocol as the players, then even if no PC would have such a build the fairness remains in that the PC could have.

dps
2012-07-01, 08:50 PM
How does the presence or absence of symmetry affect your preference in games? How much do you think this choice impacts the kind of game the designer is making? Which areas do you prefer to see inconsistencies if at all?

In theory at least, as a player I have no need to be aware of how NPCs are created, so whether or not they are symetrical is something that the GM should be handling "behind the scenes" and I as a player shouldn't even be able to tell the difference.

As a practical matter, as Yora pointed out, unless you're using a system in which character generation is extremely simple, fully creating NPCs with all the detail that goes into creating PCs is a waste of time, except for perhaps NPCs that are very important figures in the setting.

Oscredwin
2012-07-02, 10:40 PM
Personally, I prefer it if PCs and NPCs are symmetrical. It gives me more to work with. After all, just because I can built an NPC that will be functionally identical to a PC doesn't mean I have to. If an NPC is minor, I can give him or her just enough stats to fulfill his/her function. - a bouncer on an invitation-only party will have stats relating to the PCs' attempts to fool, bribe or sweet-talk him, nothing else.

Maybe my games are different from your games, but that bouncer would need combat stats too.

Knaight
2012-07-04, 01:01 AM
I'd say that both symmetry and asymmetry have their roles. Assymetrical design is particularly useful in rules light systems - for instance, you might not want to assign anything more than a difficulty class to any task once the mechanics, and a group of bandits is just a DC 20 Combat check, or a DC 15 Bluff, or whatever. Assuming the system is at least somewhat robust regarding degrees of failure, bets for success and such this is fine. In a crunchy system, symmetry is suddenly much more viable, as all that crunch is liable to be used.