"Jefferson" Project Forum News

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(Originally posted by Veldrin)

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

CNPC Information: A few words on CNPCs in Jefferson:

CNPCs who are willing to join the Protagonist are also initially willing to let the Protagonist (the player) command them (just like BG-style NPCs). CNPCs have particular "behaviors" that they like or dislike. Behaviors like:

* Wild
* Hateful
* Idealistic
* Sentimental
* Unprofessional
* Loyal

When they see the Protagonist taking actions that support these behavior types, their bias scales towards the Protagonist move up or down. Typically, they will clearly let the Protagonist know they are unhappy with the things he or she is doing. At a certain low cutoff point (modified by the Protagonist's charisma, among other things), the CNPCs stop trusting the Protagonist, and will act as a follower, rather than a controlled character. If the bias scale gets low enough, they may choose to leave or (in very severe cases) attack the Protagonist. The CNPCs can never be used as "the speaker" for the party, but they may interject with their opinions or insights from time to time.

You may be wondering why you would ever bother increasing the speech skills of the CNPCs, or taking good "speaker characters" at all. CNPCs also have bias scales and breakpoints towards each other. If/when the CNPCs reach breakpoints and start arguing with each other, they may need to use their own charisma and speech skills to avoid conflict with the other party members. Of course the Protagonist quite often has the ability to calm down the CNPCs through the use of his or her own speech skills.

So, in summary, a low charisma, low speech-skill Protagonist will typically only be able to take CNPCs that do not have inherent conflicts with each other or the Protagonist's behavior. A high charisma, high speech-skill Protagonist will very often be able to keep a diverse group of CNPCs together in spite of their conflicts and his or her own questionable behavior.