Keeping it real

The Cairn principles for wardens says:

"NPCs don’t want to die. Infuse their own self-interest and will to live into every personality."

I saw two movies this summer that connect with this idea. The first was Mortal Kombat 2, which I really enjoyed. The second was Masters of the Universe, which I did not. Both transplant people from our familiar reality into far-fetched fantasy worlds. Both make attempts at comedy to keep the tone light. I thought MK2 was successful and that MotU fell flat.

In RPG terms, most of the NPCs in Mortal Kombat 2 are committed to their reality. They believe in the premises and the stakes that they are experiencing. There are a small number of characters who serve as comic relief - but to me, they read as people who are part of the world and who make jokes within it. So there are people who shoot off wisecracks, but there are also people who are wholly devoted to their principles and take them seriously. For me, that works. There can even be something quite authentic about a jester in the midst of a great threat.

Masters of the Universe on the other hand, seemed more like the RPG where any or all of the NPCs can make a fart joke whenever the GM wants to make a fart joke. It seemed like there was no character on screen who was fully committed to their reality. In that case, it ceases to mimic any reality and is just a CG backdrop.

When running an RPG, you don't have $200 million to fall back on to make an outlandish world feel substantial. One of the best tools you have is the attitude of the NPCs. Ideally, something in the game should be meaningful to the players: protecting someone or something, ending an injustice, pulling off a heist, just keeping each other alive. You may not know at the start of a game what that meaningful thing may be (maybe it's best not to know at the outset), but it's far less likely that the players will find meaning in a world if the NPCs don't believe in anything.