dead ends

offer rewards for a player character or a discount to pc- pushes your npcs to play. you will never get people that JUST npc with this incentive structure

Common arguments

if everyone npcs then you will not have anyone to player the game

Nobody will do anything if they are not paid for it

just mandate a 4 hour shift!

tactics

sell the dream of what you are making

talk about giving back

challenges

you can’t spoil the whole thing ahead of time

Nobody is honest about why they refuse to do it

people want to do their own thing rather than following a plan. “I want to contribute in the best way”

Sam

There needs to be good benefits to come NPC imo. Or you could try making NPCing mandatory for at least 4 hours like the larp I just went to did, but idk if you want to do that.

Wait. If the benefits are good enough, why would that push people to PC?

And…I don’t know. Bonus XP, free items, plot for your PCs? Pretty sure that’s what PRO does, iirc.

…um…most people just don’t want to NPC, dude, they want to actually play the game.

And unless you make it mandatory to NPC in the rules, idk what to really tell you. :/ Sorry.

If I go to NPC constantly and do it more often than I actually play, I’m not a player anymore, I’m basically an unrecognized staff member.

I’d argue pretty much the opposite here.

First off, let me hear what your definition of sustainable is. You said, what, a 60/40 split of NPCs/PCs?

Let’s assume you somehow make it more beneficial to NPC. Then everyone in their right mind would NPC and there’d be no players left. Then the game wouldn’t bring in money and it definitely wouldn’t be sustainable.

Am I being absurd here? You’re trying to make it more beneficial to NPC, when right now it’s essentially like unpaid work that one does to give back to the game in a way other than contributing financially by donating or playing.

The problem with unpaid work is…well, it’s basically a consensual slavery. Nobody would want to put themselves in a position where they aren’t rewarded for helping, unless they cared about staffing more than playing.

You’re basically asking for something impossible, in my opinion. But I’ll continue, even if I have a hard time explaining it.

I don’t understand why offering the NPCs perks for when they PC, or worst-case scenario, forcing them to NPC for a shift by rule, doesn’t solve your issue. You’d get more consistent, dedicated NPCs that way. Isn’t that enough, if the same bodies show up each event, or at least every other event?

But you want people to freely dedicate themselves to NPCing the entire event, which most would consider a form of work, when the point of a game is play, not work.

Your problem seems to be that you want to work on the game, but the players don’t. But you can’t force everyone to think about the experience of larping the way you do, dude.

This is getting hairy, so my arguments probably won’t make much sense. But whatever, you asked for my help and I’m trying to logic my way through this as best I can.

People contribute to open source, from my understanding, because it benefits the community as a whole in providing free software, while getting rewarded not in money, but experience that they could still put on a resume in theory. I could be wrong about this, hard, but that’s kind of what I know, without knowing all the details.

Yes, I would at least consider playtesting other people’s games. I’m still playing a game, providing feedback, etc.

But there’s just little to no incentive to NPC freely, dude. If there were, more people would, and as I argued, that leads to other problems for the game, at least financially.

Ways that work.

Getting the crew together at eat n park

the leader of a crew signing up to run an event

All your normal attendence problems are still there

Call them leading up to the event

It’s not really playing

Power fantasy is no responsibility

but the beatings!

I will only do it if I get to be special!

But I hate losing

but my equipment is going to expire

but my friends are pcing

but I drove so far

I had a bad experience once

camps that charge per person

Good for what they had

if there is a conflict between a player and an NPC the npc is far far more valuable

are you a cog or are you a valued member of the team

you get really fucking good at the game