NPC STRONG: MORE LIFTING AND DND

This post is a logical continuation of my most recent DnD post along with something that’s been brewing in my head for a while, so welcome kismet.  Observant readers are familiar with the fact that I absolutely despise the pursuit of optimal, as I find that chasing after optimal results in such sub-optimal results that a trainee would actually be better served to settle for “good enough” and keep racking up those small wins over a long enough duration that they add up to something big.  You know who was good at placing second and third a lot in individual events?  Mariusz Pudzianowski. Often, in our pursuit to be the absolute best at something, we sacrifice being pretty damn good and end up mediocre.  Funny that.  So anyway, about Dungeons and Dragons…

I am SO happy this image exists

Once again, a crash course for you philistines: you play a “hero” in the game of Dungeons and Dragons.  And yeah, you can be a villain too, but in either case, you are a standout among the crowd, for you are a player character (a character played by the players of the game).  In the world, you will encounter inn keepers, blacksmiths, constables and all other manner of background character to flesh out the world: these are referred to as “non-player characters” (NPCs).  Since you need to stand out among the crowd, you are simply “better” than these NPCs when matched on an even level.  The Player Character can be a fighter (master of warfare), paladin (holy warrior with spiritual magic) or barbarian (intuitive warrior with rage abilities), whereas an NPC, if they’re a fighting type, is relegated to the “warrior” class, which has none of the tricks of the fighter, the magic of the paladin or the rage of the barbarian: they’re just pretty good at swinging a sword.  You go to the magic shop to buy some potions and there’s no wizard or sorcerer behind the counter: just a magic adept who knows a few spells.  You’re the hero and they’re not.

Well here’s a reality breaker for you: YOU’RE the NPC in someone else’s story.  I’m sure that stings, but it’s the truth.  We can’t all be heroes, or else the story is boring (although they DO keep making Expendables movies…), and some folks have to be the denominator.  How do I know you’re the NPC?  Because the heroes are out there getting gold medals, winning World’s Strongest Man or the Arnold, or getting their face plastered on supplement bottles and advertisements.  And the vast majority of these folks AREN’T reading about training, because for these folks they were so naturally blessed with talent that they never needed to think about what they were doing: they just did it.  And for those that DID have to study, they certainly weren’t reading a free blog about DnD, so let’s be honest with who is reading this and where they rack and stack: they’re NPCs, not heroes.  

But I could be wrong...

What are the ramifications of being an NPC?  They simply cannot do the things a player character can do.  That’s what makes them NPCs.  This means that the pursuit of optimal, as it relates TO a Player Character, does NOT translate to an NPC.  “Optimal” methods only work for optimal individuals living optimal lifestyles: this is what we “learned” from Soviet studies.  When you can hand select the best athletes based off genetic pre-disposition (hey look: heroes) and then control ALL the variables in their lives as it relates to training and recovery, you can discover and implement the optimal programming and nutrition approach to elicit the optimal gains.  For the rest of the world (NPCs…it just keeps working), things are going to need to take a decidedly SUB-optimal turn in order to accommodate all the sub-optimal variables at play.  Poor physical structure, brittle frames, predisposition to hold onto bodyfat, irregular work schedules, food allergies, etc etc, all of these can impact the NPC such that they simply cannot keep up with the heroes, and attempts to emulate them just result in disaster.

This is why there are NPC classes in the first place: an NPC can’t hope to be a fighter, paladin or a barbarian, so they settle in and become a warrior.  They make do with learning how to swing a sword, swing it pretty well, and then just get strong and touch enough to clear out the goblins that have infested a local farm or go to war under the banner of their lord.  They make the most out of the potential that they have.  We do the same as NPCs in the world of training.  It’s fine to believe that “optimal” is out there, but we settle for “good enough”.  Why?  Because good enough gets the job done, and when you rack up enough “good enough”, you suddenly become a threat to heroes that have underestimated you.

This scene is practically my religion

Storytime: my friends and I once got killed by an Inn Keeper.  We were a high level adventuring party, in a tough campaign, and we wanted somewhere to set up camp.  We figured killing the Inn Keeper and squatting in his inn would be a great base of operations.  We did NOT factor in that, since this was a high level campaign, this Inn Keeper had lived long enough to see some serious sh*t, and despite being an NPC, was WAY higher level than our party (reference my previous post regarding leveling up vs min/maxing).  Our entire party was wiped out, despite our superior tricks, skills, feats, magic and equipment: because this Inn Keep was just plain STRONGER and higher leveled than we were ready to deal with.  YOU, as an NPC, can BE this Inn Keeper.  You can find A method that works and stick with it for a few decades and grow to be something incredibly formidable, even IF you’re not the hero of the story.  There can only be so many heroes in a story, otherwise it gets boring, but the story ALSO gets boring if every single NPC is a pushover that gets instantly slaughtered at the whim of the adventuring party.  Some NPCs are going to be like Clint Eastwood in “Grand Torino”: “Ever notice how you come across someone, every once in a while, that you shouldn’t have f*cked with?  That’s me.”

The world NEEDS NPCs: in their absence, nothing is significant, and things are boring.  And hell, even adventuring parties are going to be comprised of SUB-optimal characters, because again, “good enough” is good enough.  One of the original catalyst that started the brainstorming on this post in the first place is my love of comic books and super heroes and, specifically, super hero teams.  And knowing me, you know that the only character I really care about ON a super hero team is “the muscle”.  Any good team has some dude that is just there to be super strong.  The Avengers have “The Hulk”, Fantastic 4 have “The Thing”, X-Factor has “Strong Guy”, X-men has both Colossus AND Rogue, etc.  And what’s interesting is, if you look at the characters I mention, some of them are actually STRONGER than others.  Hulk is “strongest of them all”, which of course makes him pretty damn boring, and they actually have to write him out of the story often because, otherwise, it wouldn’t be interesting to just watch someone who is the strongest beat people that aren’t.  Rogue has beaten Strong Guy in a fight before, Colossus and Thing can’t match The Juggernaut, etc.  But these dudes are still ON the team, because even though they aren’t THE strongest, they’re still “strong enough” to be able to fulfill a VERY needed role ON the team.  When you’re picking teams for your mutant kickball league and you need a strong guy…you pick “Strong Guy” if he’s available, because he’s at LEAST going to be stronger than Cyclops…and also because no one likes Cyclops.  

We all cheered

Only a few people get to be heroes.  That’s their role in the story.  Everyone else gets to be an NPC.  But you can STILL be a handful as an NPC, as long as you settle in and maximize yourself IN that role.  The NPC that keeps trying and failing to be a hero winds up a pretty pitiful character, whereas the NPC that is at peace with being, at most, second best, can end up being a pretty damn powerful second best.