Eps 1561: Becoming the best NPC I can be
— The too lazy to register an account podcast
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Host
Anne Williams
Podcast Content
Some NPCs give players a chance at romance, and others just float around ConcernedApes Stardew Valley for a few moments here and there. One of the things players tend to like best about Stardew Valley is how deep and varied the games NPCs are.
For veteran players as well as newcomers, making friends with townsfolk is one of Stardew Valleys biggest aspects. Dancing with someone during Flower Dance, improving your soup during luau, and giving a nice gift during Secret Santa events, each provide players a way to better their relationships with a NPC or NPCs. Players can build relationships with various NPCs in order to earn rewards, unique greetings and conversations, and much more. From romantic connections to neighborhood bonds, players can get closer with nearly all of the people in town, going from outsiders to actual members of the community.
Some NPCs are bound to be fast friends with players, and offer hidden narration and farming tips that will eventually improve the overall experience. As in a single-player RPG, NPCs will generally have a set behavior pattern, and often need to be interacted with in order to accomplish a certain goal. If an NPC is essential to the plot, there is a lot of time for them to develop further.
Before you can do this, you need to establish the NPCs in players minds, and this means including something that is easy to remember. The first step is making sure that none of your NPCs share a single name, or even names with a similar ring, if you can help it. If the NPCs name is slightly off-the-wall, it sticks with players more than a name that they have heard forever.
It is fun to come up with little stories of what NPCs are doing out there, when we are not seeing them. What I am saying here is I am interested in NPCs. I am not great at video games, not great at ANY games...unless the enjoyment factor is the thing that makes you good, in which case I am the gamer-in-chief. All of those games are about humans having NPCs (non-player characters, for the rest of you geeks and nerds.
NPCs are getting a little complicated, and can be difficult to understand how to deal with. NPCs are a necessary part of any game, but managing them can become quite the hassle, especially during longer campaigns. Even once you cut the overall number of NPCs, keeping them memorable for players can be difficult.
Relationships with NPCs decay naturally in Stardew Valley, and players lose a set amount of points every day they do not talk to an NPC. Various things can cause the players relationship with NPCs to deteriorate, and if things go down far enough, they may become Heartless. Relationships can also be damaged in specific Heart events, either through giving poor answers to questions, or when players are caught scavenging in trashcans by NPCs. Players who are dating several NPCs at once may experience some nasty, unpleasant consequences.
Feeding off of these NPCs could lead to dire circumstances for you in Vampyr. This shows these NPCs have the potential to make a huge difference to a game, and you should always think about the options before feeding an NPC. Killing NPCs in Vampyr is not that easy, since every murder changes the story, locks certain content away from you, and takes away some vendors, clues, and investigations within Vampyr.
In Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and other FromSoftware games, you can basically assault every NPC in the game, except in certain areas that are banned from combat. The same is true of one of the more prominent features in Elden Ring, particularly if, like me, you occasionally blast NPCs while playing. Open-world games are filled to the brim with NPCs, while narrative-driven linear games typically feature less such characters.
Whatever the case, additions such as NPCs are essential for making a world feel lived-in and larger than a game has the visual ability to display. This is something that is left to the GM. In a LARP, those running the game would play all NPCs once more, and they could recruit others to become NPCs.
This decision ends up connecting nearly all NPCs from this Guide into one big framework, with the exceptions being Mechanic and Goblin Tinker. The size of one large structure is an issue, for one thing, because its size means nearly all NPCs in this guide are going to be living very close together , severely restricting Pylons reach.
An NPC may live next door to two NPCs, but not be considered next door to these two NPCs. This can be achieved by placing them on a line, such as a road with houses along it. An NPC defines whether or not it is adjacent to any other NPCs within a 49x49 square, centred on the NPCs house tile, that may also be seen as 25 tiles outside each cardinal direction .
Below, you can see those NPCs, and also learn how to unlock them. Truthfully, you could fill out a list of the best NPCs in gaming history with these gaming characters, and you would have a hard time convincing yourself otherwise.