NPCs and Threats in Hammercalled
Since I'm now near releasing a game built on my Hammercalled system, it's time to have massive second thoughts about core functions.
NPCs in Hammercalled have been a pain forever. They are at odds with the whole system. Right now they are the main thing that the GM does, and they are a component with no real similar element in them.
Right now what I'm thinking about is the role characters play in stories. The main thing I have issues with is this:
Good characters aren't measured by numbers.
Hammercalled doesn't like the notion that the GM rolls dice.
As a result, the only function of NPCs in gameplay is as associated collections of numbers.
In thinking over this, they also lead to issues with core mechanics. The inverse margin system is problematic for novices.
The solution to this is to turn most non-player characters simply into narrative constructs. This makes the GM's job easier, and also lets the player driven mechanics of Hammercalled shine.
Threats are the new equivalent. You can assign threats to any narrative element. Bad guys are threats, as are security systems, diseases, and the like.
Threats are defined using three elements:
Challenges give the rolls that characters typically need to make. For instance, a character makes a Toughness roll to avoid falling ill.
Thresholds are conditions that need to be met in order for the threat to be avoided or eliminated.
Scopes are measures of how threats occur. These are tags like qualities, and are used to indicate that something happens in combat or recurs like a disease in a certain twenty sided die rolling game.
This makes the mechanics totally player facing, and should simplify things well.
Any thoughts?
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So... a NPC would have a defined Threat level, based on their Challenge, Threshold, and Scope numbers or qualities?
Can a NPC be friendly and non-threatening?
I may not be fully understanding the idea but it is intriguing
Yes.
Basically, the idea is that a friendly NPC doesn't need to be mechanically represented, because the mechanics are all player focused and as a result the GM just does whatever they want with them.
The idea is to make the GM a storyteller, but a bookkeeper. If you have two NPCs get into a fight, just decide who wins; it's your world.
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Makes sense to me in the context of friendly and non-plot related NPCs. Will villains then have a Threat level and fights with them be dice based or is there another mechanic?
Generally yes. The Scope of a threat can be used to turn them into recurring characters, and their Threshold can be something like "Deal X damage", which makes it function like your garden variety enemy in any other game.
Sounds like it will be easier to track things in general then, better to get on with the story!