One of the scary and difficult aspects of running Role Playing Games new Game Masters have to deal with is social interactions. While all players have to worry about is their own Player Characters, GMs have to manage every other element of the world. In “Beyond Reason”, Shapiro and Fisher discuss Five Core Concepts that all human beings desire to feel fulfilled: Appreciation - We want to feel like our efforts are appreciated, and to not have those efforts ignored. If your characters are going to be rational beings with emotions, they will be acting certain ways based on which Core Concerns are being affected. If they feel unfulfilled in that particular area, they will lash out accordingly. In addition, if you know they feel like they feel unfulfilled in that area and interact with them in such a way as to make them feel more fulfilled, they will treat you much better. Now, I highly recommend that everyone should read “Beyond Reason” for the sole reason that having the vocabulary to accurately diagnose and describe how you feel and why is incredibly useful. However, for our purposes, the Core Concerns offer us a system agnostic framework for social encounters that is easy to quickly use to play an NPC or enemy. The Core NPC Generation Kit |
AuthorChristopher W. Reynolds has been running Pen & Paper Role Playing Games for over 16 years. He has a knack for explaining gaming concepts to others, and loves to teach people about the games he loves so much. Archives
March 2016
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