One of our favorite things is bringing our players dangerous, multi-faceted, and overall fun Non-Player Characters (NPCs). And we could not do this without those on their NPC shift! Sometimes, it can be hard to express the expectations of NPCing between mods going out. Thus, we want to bring you a blog post that outlines the best practices for NPCing at Dystopia Rising: Michigan, so that both players and NPCs can have a blast.
General Terms:
Non-Player Character (NPC)/Extra: At DRMI, we have a saying-- 'NPCs are also people.' Every Lineage you encounter presumably has a name, life, family, motivations, and should present a moral consequence if killed. That said, as NPCs, their role is limited to the scope of engagements written by staff. This means that sometimes, their agency becomes secondary to the need to provide players with an enriching and satisfying experience.
Player Character (PC)/Lead Character (LC): These characters are used by standard participants for the majority of their engagement with a game. These are characters that players portray with full agency over the character’s decision-making process within the guidelines of community, shared story, and genre. A player’s ability to have 100% agency over their character shifts to a shared agency once a character engages other participants. This is the nature of shared storytelling, where all involved (staff and participants) share the authority over scenes engaging participants within the framework of genre, safe community.
Guide: A Guide for a Dystopia Rising event is any employee or team member at an event who is able to assist you by answering questions, addressing problems, or making the experience of an event more enjoyable. Between events, branches have employees and owners who will take care of your needs. Regardless of an employee or team member’s level of involvement with the branch, all individuals tasked to help players are called Guides at an event. This ensures that all team members are treated equally and helps remove hierarchical community structures.
Module/Mod: A scene sent out by the Ops guide, whether a written scene, or a roaming threat.
Melee Damage: Any damage done by a melee weapon- a Standard, Small, Two-Handed, Unarmed, or Florentine weapon- does base 2 damage.
Projectile Damage: Any damage done by a projectile weapon- a Firearm, Bow, or Thrown weapon- does base 5 damage.
Loot: Cards and items PCs may search you for. PCs must take 30 seconds to search, and must ask for permission to physically touch you if they want to. You are allowed to say no, and they will pantomime the action.
Out-of-Game/Wind: When you are walking to a mod, or respawning, you should put a hand on your head to represent that you are invisible. PCs may also call you the wind, or say it’s windy when you pass by to let others know there is nothing there.
Rhino Hide: When a NPC or PC takes many more hits than the Body and Armor they have, seemingly giving them a “thick hide”. This is frowned upon, as it is cheating.
General Behavior
Play for a story, not to win: When you are a threat, such as a Zed or Raider, you are there to give the Player Characters (PCs) something to rally against. Be challenging, give them a fun fight- but if they defeat you, let them. This isn’t to say your NPC can never strike a killing blow, if told to you by a Guide. But we ask you don’t Rhino Hide, overuse skills given to your threat, and generally read the room on how the PCs are feeling.
Hush, hush: When leaving Ops to NPC, please stay quiet and listen to the directions your Rules Guide gives you. It can be very distracting for a PC to hear someone that is supposed to be “invisible” talking about out-of-game things. If you must communicate, please do so in low, hushed tones. While walking from one place to another, try to stay out of sight or in the shadows. Not only is this less distracting for PCs, but if they don’t notice you in the first place, you could give them quite the surprise!
If your NPC perishes, as some are meant to, use the Out-of-Game symbol and quietly return to your Guide to see what they want you to do. Try to stay out of the way of combat when doing so, for your safety and others!
Don't use all of your skills on one person: It may be tempting to use all of your NPC’s cool skills on one person to take them down, but we promise it's much more fun if you spread the love. If you’ve used a skill, such as Break, on a PC, use the next skill on another PC nearby. Taking three Breaks in a row can be downer, especially for newer players, and others may want to face the challenge. So turn around and share that horror with the PC behind you too!
Going down in combat: When four people are on you in combat, it can be hard to know when to go down. The best rule of thumb is: if you’re not sure, it’s okay to go down early. Otherwise, there are tricks to help you count damage taken! First off, count upward- two, four, six, eight, etc. If counting in twos is difficult while in the moment, halve the damage you can take and count in ones. So 30 Body halved is 15- now just count up by one for every melee strike, and round up to 3 when shot. Still tough to remember? Why not break it down into strikes you can take. If you have 30 Body, you can get hit 15 times by a melee weapon, or 6 times by a Projectile. Just count as the strikes come.
Once you’ve taken the appropriate amount of damage, you are in Bleed Out. Safely move out of combat, so that you don’t get tripped on or injured, but wait until PCs perform a Killing Blow to die. Growl and yell at them until they Killing Blow your NPC- you’re only in Bleed Out and can still give them a show. When they finally end your NPCs short existence, give them a cool death. They just worked their butts off to kill your NPC!
Finally, don’t forget to let PCs loot you. Even if you don’t have loot, they can take the opportunity to check your NPC out and search. They must ask for permission for physical contact if they want to touch you- and you have every right to say no. Otherwise, they may just pantomime searching for 30 seconds to see if you have anything on you- or ask the Guide some questions if you’re particularly interesting.
Not full speed ahead: If you are assigned a threat that runs, such as a Burster Zed, we ask that you don’t full sprint at PCs. You should run at them at a safe speed, still screaming and being terrifying, and before you get to them, pull off to the right or left. This is for safety, so you don’t end up running directly into them and injuring yourself or the PC. The last thing we want is real world injuries to happen and for someone’s game to end early.
Pronouns and you: When referencing an NPC, even if they are a Zed, Raider, or Critter, you should never use “it” or “its”. We ask that you use they/them as a neutral pronoun. Not only do we have LGBTQ+ players that have been called it or its as a negative term, using they/them pronouns reminds us that our NPCs are actual people, and we should always show respect and be kind to other players.
Zed Roleplay
Zed intelligence: Zed have one thing on their mind: food. Zed don’t use tactics or move intelligently, and most shamble slowly unless otherwise stated. There are exceptions to these rules, such as Predatory Zed- but even they are just opportunistic, efficient hunters, looking for their next meal. Zed’s power comes in the amount of waves in which they hit survivors, slowly wearing them down. While they are ravenous, dangerous killing machines, they should not tactfully zipping in and out of combat.
Zed Brawlers: When fighting, Zed use their hands, which are represented by Brawler boffers. These boffers are not weapons themselves, but extensions of the hands- just like for PCs using the Unarmed skill. So when the boffers are hit, the Zed NPC takes damage as if they were hit on the body unless otherwise noted. This is important to note, as PCs may try to hit Zed brawlers to do damage. Please pay attention to this and count that damage- your Zed probably doesn’t have iron hands.
Zed don't block: When playing a Zed, you most likely will be swinging as if you don’t have a brain- because Zed really don’t. Thus, Zed also don’t have combat tactics like blocking. Let folks hit you, it’s more fun that way!
Raider Roleplay
Growl, don’t talk: While more intelligent than Zed, most Raiders cannot communicate with Strains. They make growling noises, roar, and chant in their own language, but only Thrill Kill Raiders are capable of convincingly mimicking Strain speech.
Salvage cards and what to do if you don't have any: Raiders are supposed to be handed Salvage cards in case they are looted. These represent their extremely rudimentary weapons and armor. If you find your mod went out without Salvage cards, just tell the player that searched you to find a Guide. The Guide will return to Ops to take care of any loot that needs to be handed out after the mod is finished.
Our final point is very important. Whether you are a PC or an NPC, show respect to your fellow players. NPCs are there to build stories for PCs, but they should be having just as much fun and feel safe out of game, even if your PC is hunting them down in game. At the end of the day, we are all here to tell memorable stories and have a great time. So get out there and give someone a story!