Making NPCs out of PCs

[gmkieran]

I thought I remembered reading several posts about this recently, but now I can't find a single one. I have a couple of PC characters I would like to make into NPCs while I am running my portion of a multi-GM campaign. Is there any easy way to do this? Or do I have to create a Personality entry and manually enter my character information?

Thanks!
gmkieran

[Foen]

It depends on the ruleset, but generally you cannot just drag and drop a PC to make an NPC. When I am GMing, and need to run a PC as an NPC, I usually launch a second instance of FG and connect to the host session. That allows me to run the character as if I were a player.

Foen

[Spyke]

If you're happy with the NPC not appearing as a portrait along the top, and it doesn't matter that the players have access to the character sheet, then you can simply open the PC sheet as the GM and create an alias for when the character speaks.

Otherwise, as Foen says, log in as the PC in a second session. You could also do this in advance and make the PC owned by that session, blocking the sheet from the other players. If you do this, then you don't have to have the second session running during your game.

Spyke

[Ikael]

I have implemented the PC to NPC converter to my custom ruleset because I got frustraited in opening and using the large charactersheet. It was also too encumbersome to use second FG session, but better than just using the big charsheet in your GM's session (takes only precious space away). The conversion is kinda easy to do (depending on the ruleset) and it could be made as an ruleset-dependend extension. What ruleset are you using?

[gmkieran]

Running 4E_JPG. Unfortunately, a second FG session is not an option - I barely have enough machine to run the host session effectively with my players connected. How does one make a session the owner of a character? That sounded like an interesting possibility. I'd be perfectly happy to run the character like any other PC - no portrait, no player access to the sheet; this whole effort is largely in the interest of story continuity and is completely cosmetic, I just thought it might be nice and relatively easy to accomplish.

[Foen]

Launch a second session without the players connected and 'take' the PC - that stops it being visible to the players. Then disconnect - you shouldn't ever need to reconnect.

Now you can access the character from your DM session via the character list (not the NPC list) but your players won't be able to see it.

I'm not familiar with the JPG ruleset, but he may have implemented a facility on the character sheet for the DM to assume the voice of the character - a speech bubble next to the character portrait would be a sure indicator.

Hope that helps!

Foen

[gmkieran]

Thanks, Foen! I'll give it a shot in our next session and see how it goes!

[Zeus]

I have implemented the PC to NPC converter to my custom ruleset because I got frustraited in opening and using the large charactersheet. It was also too encumbersome to use second FG session, but better than just using the big charsheet in your GM's session (takes only precious space away). The conversion is kinda easy to do (depending on the ruleset) and it could be made as an ruleset-dependend extension. What ruleset are you using?

Is there any chance you share your convertion code, I'd like to add this functionality to 4E_JPG as an extension if possible.

[Moon Wizard]

For 4E_JPG, PCs and NPCs are treated differently by the rules. There is no easy way to perform a conversion, especially due to the way that equipment is integrated into the NPC stats vs. how it is separately specified for the PC.

Performing a complete conversion of PC to NPC or vice versa is definitely a non-trivial task for 4E D&D, regardless of whether you are using FG or using paper.

zephp, what are you trying to accomplish by converting PC to NPC?
* Lock access to character?
* Build an NPC using PC character sheet, because it's easier that way?
* Other?

Cheers,
JPG

[Zeus]

For 4E_JPG, PCs and NPCs are treated differently by the rules. There is no easy way to perform a conversion, especially due to the way that equipment is integrated into the NPC stats vs. how it is separately specified for the PC.

Performing a complete conversion of PC to NPC or vice versa is definitely a non-trivial task for 4E D&D, regardless of whether you are using FG or using paper.

zephp, what are you trying to accomplish by converting PC to NPC?
* Lock access to character?
* Build an NPC using PC character sheet, because it's easier that way?
* Other?

Cheers,
JPG

J, not trying to accomplish anything specific aside from further developing my understanding of how FGII rulesets work. I have recently been re-working a lot of my mods into extensions in an effort to simplify updates when new releases of the ruleset is made. Its worked quite well so was simply looking at the NPC to PC and vice versa as another challenge.

The ability to drop NPC's into the Character Selection window to create a PC character would have been a nice extra but its not critical path. I'll continue to run a 2nd session and grab the NPCs to prevent my players from accessing them.

Thanks for the heads up though.

[ddavison]

I toyed around a little with expanding the export to include characters so that adventure modules would allow pre-gens to be built and included with modules. My early forays looked promising but I haven't gotten back to it recently. I suppose allowing copying of NPCs to PCs would provide the basic functionality required for pre-gens as well.

The main problem with NPC to PC drag/drops (and PC to NPC) is that the data isn't the same -- as Moon already stated. The basic data is there, you'd just have to parse it out and assign it with a custom copy function. Each ruleset would have to implement that same basic code snippet but I doubt you would be able to provide a ruleset agnostic one.

[Foen]

NPC to PC drag and drop was included in the Call of Cthulhu ruleset, precisely to allow pre-generated characters. As folks have pointed out, it isn't strightforward because NPC data is abbreviated/truncated and it isn't always easy to fill in the missing bits.

For example, using the d20 ruleset, NPCs have attacks but these aren't split between melee and missile, so a converter cannot 'know' where to place them on the PC sheet.

Stuart

[gmkieran]

sadly, 4E_JPG does not include a "talk bubble" in the PC sheet, so the separate session for the PC-turned-NPC didn't work. I broke down and transferred his information to an NPC sheet so I can use him in encounters and whatnot.

[Tenian]

Uh...you can always use the /id command to create a new GM voice.