Ashin Varanin
Professional Enabler
Why an NPC creation forum?
The NPC creation forum is a resource and an option. Our hope is that it will inspire people to flesh out their supporting characters, and share them with other writers, whether or not they're submitted here. Use of this forum is not mandatory.
Also, we've all been in that situation where someone instakills your squadmates that you've written for six months. If you want to be able to establish that you've worked on your NPCs, and that they're entitled to the same anti-autohit common courtesy as, say, your character's personal weapon or ship, this is one way to do it. It's one thing to wipe out faceless mooks; it's another to assume you can do the same to a well-established supporting character. Are they entitled to the same level of protection as a player character? Perhaps not, but remember that our General Rules require respectful RP conduct, and an autohit is an autohit.
Since this has been a gray area until now, NPC companions have often been vulnerable to charges of alt-stacking. The fact of the matter is, though, Han had Chewbacca, Luke had R2, and Revan and the Exile had their respective harems -- 'companions' and 'followers' are well-entrenched in Star Wars. Our hope is that, by recognizing NPC companions within reason, we'll be able to minimize conflict and make writers more aware of their options.
That's just the functional side of things, though. Fundamentally, the NPC creation forum is about creation, about making persistent, shared stories. If someone writes an amazing story and creates an NPC you love, ask them if you can use that NPC for one of your own threads. If they happen to have recorded that NPC in this forum as a point of reference, the overarching story can continue that much more easily and naturally.
Judging will be very lenient in this forum, because this forum can and should be used to record memorable NPCs who arose in response to the needs of a story. Please do not abuse this privilege by creating a 5000-year-old unkillable Dark Lord NPC to train your faction in forbidden arts, for example. We strongly suggest that NPC Force Masters be kept to a minimum, and given sufficient limitations that they cannot be used for powergaming. It would not be appropriate to make an NPC Master who can back you up in a fight, teach you rare and powerful techniques, and tell you where to find important artifacts.
This forum is not for creating armies. Should you wish to flesh out an NPC squad or the crew of a small ship, please just submit multiple copies of the template in the same post.
The NPC creation forum is a resource and an option. Our hope is that it will inspire people to flesh out their supporting characters, and share them with other writers, whether or not they're submitted here. Use of this forum is not mandatory.
Also, we've all been in that situation where someone instakills your squadmates that you've written for six months. If you want to be able to establish that you've worked on your NPCs, and that they're entitled to the same anti-autohit common courtesy as, say, your character's personal weapon or ship, this is one way to do it. It's one thing to wipe out faceless mooks; it's another to assume you can do the same to a well-established supporting character. Are they entitled to the same level of protection as a player character? Perhaps not, but remember that our General Rules require respectful RP conduct, and an autohit is an autohit.
Since this has been a gray area until now, NPC companions have often been vulnerable to charges of alt-stacking. The fact of the matter is, though, Han had Chewbacca, Luke had R2, and Revan and the Exile had their respective harems -- 'companions' and 'followers' are well-entrenched in Star Wars. Our hope is that, by recognizing NPC companions within reason, we'll be able to minimize conflict and make writers more aware of their options.
That's just the functional side of things, though. Fundamentally, the NPC creation forum is about creation, about making persistent, shared stories. If someone writes an amazing story and creates an NPC you love, ask them if you can use that NPC for one of your own threads. If they happen to have recorded that NPC in this forum as a point of reference, the overarching story can continue that much more easily and naturally.
Judging will be very lenient in this forum, because this forum can and should be used to record memorable NPCs who arose in response to the needs of a story. Please do not abuse this privilege by creating a 5000-year-old unkillable Dark Lord NPC to train your faction in forbidden arts, for example. We strongly suggest that NPC Force Masters be kept to a minimum, and given sufficient limitations that they cannot be used for powergaming. It would not be appropriate to make an NPC Master who can back you up in a fight, teach you rare and powerful techniques, and tell you where to find important artifacts.
This forum is not for creating armies. Should you wish to flesh out an NPC squad or the crew of a small ship, please just submit multiple copies of the template in the same post.