From: lower-tony@CS.YALE.EDU (Tony Lower)
Subject: Re: Repartee in Gaming
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 20:31:07 GMT

>In article <BuB65q.HF1@acsu.buffalo.edu>,
> v054nn84@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Foto...Taking pictures again,
> and Happy for it!) writes...
>
>>My problem is simple, how do I go about encouraging my
>>players to engage in repartee among their characters and between my NPCs and
>>their charcters.
>
>Quite simply, give 'em a reason to.  One good device is to describe some 
>interesting character to them...

   Absolutely.  In order to encourage repartee, you have to have
characters who the players can visualize with a good load of senses.
AT THE LEAST, you should have a distinctive voice for the characters
(although not a squeaky-cartoon-type voice unless the character is
a squeaky cartoon).  Subtle voice intonations are best if you can
manage them, but REALLY extreme voice tone allows people to recognize
the voice instantly when it comes up again.  My personal example is
from TFOS, where Pierre was a student who had spent a year in France,
and was now an obnoxious moron with an equally obnoxious accent....
I decided to subject one of the nice-person players to this idiot...
she was just being so moral about everything... she was with Roland,
an incredibly rich scuzz who was courting her... after about five
minutes of Pierre, this nice, even headed person finally broke:

	PIERRE:  So, Cherie... are you playing le Hard to Get? Oui yes?
	PC: Oh God... Roland, would you hire somebody to beat this guy
		up?  Please?

Everyone else in the whole room (including me) was absolutely stunned.
That's the kind of thing you can get if you get REAL repartee... it's
the only situation in which I've ever seen a nice character seriously
lose their temper...

The other thing that helps steer characters towards repartee is showing
them that it's the easiest option in some cases.  I'm not talking about
the "old man on the road who beats the shit out of you if you try to
brow-beat him", although that is one of the classic shticks.  I'm more
aiming at societal discouragement of violence (the prime way that players
avoid repartee).  Rather than let the characters start a bar fight and
drag someone off for torture/questioning, have the locals try to calm
them down ("Whoa big fella, there's no need for hitting the poor guy!")
Either your characters calm down or they look like rabidly psychotic
maniacs.  Either way, you've helped them towards characterization...
Heck, maybe they WANT to be rabidly psychotic.... 

  However, you will lose almost all of these benefits if the players
think that they can only interact with certain "set" NPCs.  You should
be ready with a personality (possibly generic... I keep a set of deviant
personalities in my head....... I didn't mean that the way it sounds :-P )
for any character with the capability of speech.  Some characters should
have personalities specified for them before they are introduced (major
characters, barkeepers, shopkeepers, comely members of the opposite sex,
etc.)  but many personalities you'll have to think up on the spot.  Just
pick a personality and stick by your guns, don't worry about all the
little issues of consistency... sometimes people aren't consistent. Be
careful of walking into stereotypes though... you CAN do it, but remember
that you're doing it.

  Ultimately, if the characters become convinced that they can talk to
everyone around them, they will (through the miracles of suspension of
disbelief) come to believe that all the characters you describe around
them have actual personalities!  This adds a whole new dimension to
their belief in the game.  Once that is achieved is the time to start
having NPCs have arguments off-stage, have NPCs who are (unbeknownst
to the characters) ticked off at one another, in business competition,
in love, or any of the other wonderful human relationships.  Have
characters start taking actions completely on their own, independent
of what the PCs do.  Amazing what vistas are opened up by adding a little
repartee...

>
>If you want them to interact with "monsters", have the monsters talk to the 
>characters!  Again the difference is (you see an ogre approaching) and
>(an approaching ogre lumbers your way, stating "Lubash goin' ta BASH you!"). 

  I'm not sure that I agree with the "tell the players what you want them
to do, but subtly" school of design.  I think that when the players start
talking with NPCs alot, the idea of talking with bad-guys will occur to
them naturally.  The best example I have is from a Comedy-DND campaign that
I ran just ages ago... we had a Paladin of the Church of Chaplin, who
was VERY in to slapstick... He was approached by a large ogre carrying
a huge club:

   OGRE:  Me gonna turn you into MULCH!
   PALADIN:  Alright then foul miscreant [drawing sword] prepare to...
		Hold on!  Don't move!
   OGRE: [freezing momentarily]  Huh?  What is?
   PALADIN: [clutching one eye]  I've lost a contact! [he gets down on the
	ground and starts crawling around]
   OGRE: [dropping his club and getting down as well] Hold on, we find, we
	find!
   PALADIN:  Maybe it's under the club!  [picks up club]  Do you see it?
   OGRE: [putting his head directly under the club to look] No, me no see...

			-W-H-A-M-

   OGRE: ZZZZzzzzzzz......
   PALADIN: Oh, never mind, I found it.

							-- Tony