How do you treat NPCs compared to PCs?

[suplee215]

I was wondering some minor table issues I've had in the past and I realized one of the key things that lead to me not liking to play with some players is how they treat NPCs. As a PC, I usually am just as invested in NPCs and treat them as just another character there. However, some people (especially people who tend to have "trolling" behavior of pissing people off which sometimes effect rewards and other things) tend to see NPCs as just the guy to fight or collect money from who can **** with as if it was a video game. I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this as while I often see threads about player behavior/difficult tables, I've rarely seen views on NPCs talked about as part of the discussion.

[Laserlight]

I was wondering some minor table issues I've had in the past and I realized one of the key things that lead to me not liking to play with some players is how they treat NPCs. As a PC, I usually am just as invested in NPCs and treat them as just another character there.

Well, my current character tends to treat NPCs as either "Useful" or "Expendable", but that's also how he thinks of the other PCs (and I've told them that, OOC). Despite the fact that he is avowedly Chaotic Evil, he is less bloodthirsty than most of the other PCs, and is consequently the party leader and face. I shake my head every time I think of that.

Other than that....most NPCs you don't spend a lot of time with and don't get to know, so of course you don't treat them with the same regard as you do the other PCs. If you have an NPC who is interesting (the players actually pay attention to her as Samantha, the pretty young alchemist who is struggling to keep her shop afloat, has an unrequited crush on the party's fire mage, and generally has romantic troubles, but can give some good recommendations on potions, rather than potion vending machine #3) and long term (the players don't move on to the next town and don't murder the NPC), then yes, the players can get attached to their NPCs.