Membership Should all NPCs be fleshed out?

[Elena 546]

Do you think that the NPCs that were created as cannon fodder for a plot (not the reoccuring ones) should be as fleshed out as the reoccurring, permanent NPCs or as the played characters?

 

Somebody said : "We stop treating them like human characters by admitting that they are only temporary characters not worth being fully fledged. That does create very one dimensional characters who are just here to die. They were made to be evil and their good qualities were never even considered because the plot didn't need a family man who sought to earn a living for his children by doing bad deeds. Our plot needed one dimensional villains whom no one would feel bad about murdering. What if they were just doing this because their bosses had them under control via blackmail? How then would our characters have felt killing them or voting in favour of killing them? How many of our writers would have been in favour of going down this path if the lives that were taken were more than just an evil figure with no personality or significant history?"

 

Do you agree with this opinion? Or do you think that cannon fodder characters are needed too (on both sides) besides fleshed characters? And that this deep digging into the villains' personalities would have been worth for writing a different story, one from the villains' perspectives, but not the ongoing one, where they weren't the subject of the story but more... the flavour of the quest?

[Death Kitten 200]

There are characters that don't need to be more than a cardboard cut out, but they're not usually the ones killed for a plot. The death means nothing if the character is flat, and even looking at it from the most selfish point of view.... The player characters don't develop as much if they're playing a fps by killing flat and undeveloped characters.

 

If I've got a yeoman who is buzzing my characters in to see the Admiral, and we're never going to see him again... We don't need to know his name is Joel, he has a husband and two kids, and they have a lovely little house on Luna with a white picket fence. It's nice to know, but not needed. Now, if he's been recruited by Section 31 and will assassinate the Admiral to let s31 install a new Admiral, it might be worth knowing that it's because his grandmother lives in the demilitarized zone and doing this gets her safely relocated before a major attack planned by the Cardassians that s31 wants to happen for bigger reasons.

 

Knowing that will affect how the PCs deal with him. Finding out after they used deadly force will likely affect them and maybe even cause some soul searching.

[Elena 546]

I agree with you.

 

My problem was - do we ALWAYS need soul-searching of this kind? Don't we need sometimes just to say "The ogre had been killed, now the danger has been lifted" without caring for the killed ogre? (But caring for the killer, for his group who might have agreed with the killing or not, and for the little ogres around who might be as evil as their leader friend or not as evil - so some of them, the ones who survive, might be redeemable?)

Edited May 3, 2016 by Elena

[Death Kitten 200]

I think it depends on the goal of the plot and the goal of the players for character development. I personally adore putting my characters in position to question their actions, do soul searching, and watching to see what different reactions we get from each character.

 

For example, in our last plot, one of the villains had developed a cloning lab to install carefully conditioned clones of people in positions of power, influence, and/or access. When we raided the lab, we found clones who hadn't yet been aged to match those they intended to replace (basically children ranging from infant to adolescent). My first instinct had been to treat them as canon fodder, but my xo brought up that his character would offer a method to get them out and let them live a normal life none the wiser. This gave us a great character development moment for one of the crew who had come from a solo field mission heavy service history that also happened to have a lot more collateral damage, when he was faced with discussing how he would have just blown up the lab with the clones in it to completely neutralize the threat they posed to the Federation and other governments.

[Morrigan 1,826]

So to answer your question @Elena I think there is warrant for both types of characters but I certainly don't think that people are dehumanized for it. If people can't humanize them in their head because they aren't fleshed out then that's a skill thing. Basically it sounds like killing the bad guy is easy when there should be consequences, moral issues etc with it. If they can't come up with those because they don't know if they have a family, or if they are the only provider for their sick mother back home, then that sounds like personal growth opportunity for the writer.

 

You don't need to know those details to have your character feel guilty after killing them. In fact a character having to face that they didn't know that much about the person they killed should help in their torment and their nightmares.

 

I fully support that NPCs don't have to be fleshed out. In fact? Most of my NPCs are only fleshed out in character and are never developed OOC.

[Honorem 219]

As stated above, both types of NPCs work for me, depending on what's needed to progress the story. Fleshed out for a more meaningful conclusion, cardboard cut out for random fight scene. In virtually every action movie ever, you see multiple faceless redshirts being wiped out with zero sympathy from the audience. Then when you get to the main bad guy, they are more fleshed out and their death invokes more of a reaction. Don't see a reason not to treat roleplay in the same way, especially if you're doing action threads.

[VarnishedTruths 0]

I think that certain situations call for "cannon fodder" NPCs, yeah.  One, because the GMs don't have time to fully flesh out every backstory of every soldier in an army; two, because the PCs don't have time to consider the moral ramifications on an individual basis for every action.  Sometimes you just have to decide to stop the invading army and live with the fact that some of the individuals probably weren't that bad but were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

That said, I like to sprinkle details into the cannon fodder NPCs.  Let there be one guy or gal the PCs get to talk to a little and make them more of a full person.  They might be made to affirm the PCs are making the right choices, or might be designed to make the PCs consider the full consequences of their actions.  Either way, they can be a useful tool for a GM and also a good way to make the world feel more real--because this guy could be anybody, after all.

[BJ Reign 0]

Depending on how long you plan on using the NPC, the more information you should put for one. If you only have it created for a one shot deal, a basic description should suffice. 

[Huntress 2]

Have to say that I agree with all that has been said thus far, that is depends on the situation and that both of them have their time and place. Sometimes, I make a cookie cutter throw away NPC that ends up sticking around for longer than planned because the rp just did not go how I thought it would go. These NPCs get fleshed out through the rp itself and at some point I even take the time to make up a character sheet and write down the history that I might have thought up on the fly when one of the other characters cared enough to know more about the NPC. All in all, I love NPCs and love it when they are introduced no matter for how long or how short of a time.