Actual Talking Between Player and NPC

The first post in this series can be read here.  

After this bricklaying of the background, we can address the problem at hand: as a player, you want to talk to an NPC.  How do you go about doing this?

We have certain hurdles, which ought to apply in an RPG as much as they do in real life, in part because communication is built-in as a game challenge and in part because the game gives us an opportunity to play-test real life situations.  These hurdles are the same obstructions that we suffer with all the time: that it is hard to address someone we don't know; and that it is expected that anyone addressing us does so out of a motivation we don't trust.

We're in game, and your fighter wants to speak with a town resident to learn something about the game world.  We should assume that if you're from around here, the DM shouldn't insist on you asking anyone anything about the surrounding environment.  This is your home.  You should already know everything there is to know, and you should already have a relationship with everyone around.  So, the trouble with speaking to a town resident should only apply if you're a stranger in this town.

Think of how you feel when you're addressed by a stranger.  Not every stranger you've met has an agenda, but you've met enough to know that anyone might have one.  Is this a salesperson?  Is it a religious fanatic?  Is this stranger trying to distract you, so that someone can pick your pocket or knock you out from behind?  Is the stranger a beggar?  Depending on where the reader lives, these possibilities are greater or lesser.  Readers from New York will view strangers very differently than readers from the Platte Valley in Nebraska.

For D&D purposes, it ought to be understood that the enclosed, tight packing of people together in even the smallest towns made every urban center a dangerous place.  A crowded avenue was less openly aggressive than a slum, where a gang could brazenly attack in the open, but every street had some kind of threat.  Without welfare, with hundreds of recent arrivals from the country struggling to live in the city, with an occupying "police" force whose only concern was to protect the money of perhaps 10% of the city's residents, factions and families openly contested in the streets over territory that could amount to no more than a hundred foot stretch.  Think Romeo and Juliet, think drug dealers or streetwalkers ready to knife someone for standing on the wrong corner, think New York street gangs who still fight over which people are allowed to use a convenience store.  I don't mean to paint constant discord and violence, but it's there like an constant bass tone ... and anyone who might walk up and talk to you without obvious cause could mean a threat.  While that case may not occur more often than 1 in 30 times, or 50 times, each time it has occurred in the past causes you to treat everyone with vigilance.

So, randomly talking to a stranger in a town, how do you think they're going to treat you?

That's right: they're going to treat you like a potential criminal.  Which means the weirder you sound, the less straightforwardly you talk about specific, relatable things, the more you will sound like an uncertain threat.  "Hey, Mr. Townstranger, can you tell us where the local dungeon is?"  wtf.

Even if you try something friendly—like, "Hey, those are nice beets you've got growing there.  How do you get such a green colour on those?"—you're still going to sound like you're setting the stranger up somehow.  Why do you, a stranger, care what sort of beets I'm raising?  Small talk is hard; strangers, particularly the sort of xenophobic strangers who largely have never gone more than 7 miles from the place where they were born, want you to get to the gawddamned point.  Are you buying these beets?  Are you asking directions to a specific place, that I would know?  Then fuck off.

This is what makes a tavern better than a random person on the street.  Strangers are expected in taverns; the tavernkeeper's livelihood depends on them.  This doesn't mean the tapster is all that anxious to speak; mostly, the focus is on serving you food and drink and getting your money—and as a stranger, there's no reason to assume you'll ever be back, so gaining your approval isn't high on the list of priorities (this not being the PR era of the present day).  Still, you're permitted socially to say something to the tavernkeeper about the weather, the general feel of the town, asking questions about employment or getting directions.  Those are safe subjects.  But asking, "Hey, heard any rumours, Mr. Strangebartender I've never met before?" deserves nothing less than a trite fuck off.

Players should not have to ask these sorts of questions.  If there is a dungeon about, it wouldn't be called a "dungeon" and probably if it were known to the town someone would have gotten rid of it already.  Dungeons are found by chance, not by someone presenting a travelogue showing players the way.  This bad, bad trope was invented by lazy writers who couldn't think of a better reason for a party to tramp into the wilderness, where they could accidentally stumble across such a thing.  Additionally, if there were a rumour, it wouldn't be told to a stranger; it would be told under the auspices, "Don't tell anyone, but I heard ..."  That's how rumours are.

Somehow, the players have to figure out a way to make themselves "belong" to the general tapestry of the town.  This means NOT expecting to be instantly accepted, giving NPCs a definite reason to see the player as trustworthy (and generous), not acting goofy or weird, not wearing their weapons and armour to the bar, buying stuff and hanging around a few days getting to know people.  Good first lines include statements like, "I just came into town and I'm looking for a bed and a good meal."  "I'm not feeling well, could you direct me to the apothecary."  "Hello."  "Nice day."  And, if a response is given, adding something like, "That's a fine animal you have there," or "Good morrow to you."  Then, moving on and not trying to force a conversation.  Get a room.  Get a drink and a meal.  Sleep, get up the same morning, get another meal from the same place.  Mention that yesterday's meal was fair but that this morning's was excellent.  Mutter about a few things you'd like to do that day to the innkeeper.  See if he/she responds, offers some advice.  TAKE IT.  Come back, describe your experience taking the innkeeper's advice.  Get another drink and another meal.  Sleep again.  Have the same thing for breakfast the second day.  THEN cautiously address the subject that you really care about.  "I have a job that's taking me up to the Strangedark Forest tomorrow.  I'm concerned about what I'll find there."

IF the innkeeper knows anything at that point, he/she will definitely tell you.  Unless the DM is a dolt.  If the innkeeper says, "I've never known anyone who went up there before," (because the DM can't see  a cue for shit), then thank the innkeeper, remark that you've got to buy an animal and that since you got such good advice yesterday, maybe he/she knows a good place for horseflesh?  When there, strike up a conversation about horses with the stabler, mentioning your planned travel in the woods, and later a conversation about food with the provisioner, mentioning your planned journey to the woods ... and get someone to bite.  A good DM will take opportunities like that to feed you more and more information, about the fact that the woods are too dense for horses, you should take a mule, or you'll want jerky, because it rains a lot up in those foothills, or whatever expands the character's knowledge without the character having to blatantly ask blunt questions.

However, like I said, this is how it works when the Player AND the DM has some sense of how people actually converse with each other.  Given that many game participants are, well, garbage at communication, this is a long, long climb to a better role-playing experience.  Good sense on both parts, however, can lead to those kind of deep, caring relationships between DM and Player that I've been addressing.