To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

--- Sir Issac Newton, Principia Mathmatica

A friend in power is a friend lost.

--- Henry Brooks Adams

Everyone's so used to referring to dependents non- player characters as DNPCs that we often forget the "C" stands for "Character". A Dependent is a major part of a hero's life, but it's a rare campaign where the GM puts much effort into detailing these recurring NPCs. Of course, it's not all the GM's fault. While the GM is usually responsible for NPCcreation, she should be excused if she feels that dependents are more the province of the players - after all, the player did create them; what little characterization there is of the dependent (the "wife" or "child" label), is the decision of the players as well.

Maybe that's a hint.

The DNPCs are closely bound up with the lives of the PC heroes. Perhaps the detailing of dependents should be the players' duty. Perhaps GMs To ensure that players don't get ahead of themselves and create dependents advantageous to the PC - DNPCs who just happen to be multi-miltionaires, powerful politicians, or gifted inventors - the GM should have a hand in this, too.

carrot or stick

A typical Champions DNPC is worth 5-15 disadvantage points (20-45 in GURPS). While fundamentally some effort should be put into the creation of a DNPC, traditionally many GMs have simply required that dreaded DNPC: Husband listing on the character sheet. If a GM has been negligent in this regard in the past,s he can inspire the players through punishment or reward - deducting points from the value of the dependent in relation to its skimpiness, or giving bonus points to players that expand the write-ups. Which the GM chooses is just a matter of the preference of the GM, and an evaluation of which is more likely to produce the desired response.

Once the player has created some sort of expanded dependent description (whether it be a completed character sheet with Attributes, Skills, and the like, a multi-paragraph prose description, or a combination of the two), the GM should secretly add a bit to the mix; the player is only creating the dependent as he sees him, but the GM knows the truth about him, that some of this stars are lower (or higher) than they appear to be, that he has some deep, dark secret shame, or that he's not as psychologically bland as the player and the PC think. This isn't an optional step; every dependent has some sort of problem to hide, special contact or connection to exploit at just the right moment, or annoying habit that might not seem important to the PC until it causes a catastrophe.

dicing for dependents

Frequency of appearance governs a dependents value as much as realtive strength. The traditional method of use, requires the GM to roll at the begining of every adventure to determine which dependents are making an appearance for the session. This isn't very inspired. First, it forces the GM to shoehorn the dependent the adventure, possibly disrupting any plans he has for the evening. Second is that it fails to provide the dependents with the illusion of a continuous existence; they're completely invisible for days or months at a time, and then suddenly appear out of nowhere to play a major role in an adventure before returning to obscurity until the next time the dice command them to make an appearance.

Yeah, that works?!?

There are two solutions to the first half of this problem. The easiest is to abolish the Frequency of Appearance factor entirely, replacing it with the average of +10 points 'in Champions (or with a multiplier of 1 in GURPS).

The other approach is to roll frequencies normally, but to "bank" the results. For instance, the dice indicate that The Extinguisher's dim-witted brother should make an appearance in today's game session. However, this will interfere with the GM's plans. She decides to record that the dependent should have made an appearance and plans to design an upcoming adventure that will include Extinguisher's brother. If this DNPC Appearance Account gets multiple entries before an adventure can be concocted which can accommodate his brother (e.g., if the brother misses three mandated appearances durin the weeks that The Extinguisher is adventuring in outer space), the resulting adventure appearance can be upgraded from a cameo or guest shot to a central role, using up all of this account at one time.

As for the second part of the problem, the question of where DNPCs go between successful appearance roles, we must look to...

dnpc independence

If we're going to make dependents seem more real and less like the plot- and point-devices they really at we have to give them real lives. The first step is having the DNPC appear in almost every adventure (after all, what sort of a home-life does a hero have if he only sees his wife on a roll of 9 or less on 3d6?), white still only letting them play a significant role in a few.

At first, this may seem difficult and time-consuming' but it really only has to amount to a couple of minutes per game session. Instead of telling the player that Captain Clean notices an item in his evening newspaper that mentions his arch-nemesis, Professor Squid, the GM should tell Clean than his wife, Jane, points out an item in the paper about her scientist father, which would then force Captain Clean's player to spot the significance of what the GM's saying; that Jane's father is secretly Professor Squid. The end result is the same, but the scene has a touch more roleplaying than by simply giving the information to the player, and it establishes in the mind of the player the fact that Clean has a wife that he returns to every night. Then, when the dice determine that Jane will play a bigger role in an adventure, she won't be a stranger or a cypher to the players in the group.

If the GM isn't bothering with frequency rolls at all, then he should keep in mind (or on paper) a vague idea of what every PCs dependents are doing with their lives from day to day. just as there has to be an explanation for a dependent's involvement in certain adventures (see below), for consistency there should also be an explanation for his absence from others. If Jane doesn't appear in many of Captain Clean's adventures (because of a low frequency roll), it can be decided that she uses the nights alone (when the Captain is on his patrols) to go to night school, hoping to complete her degree. When she does appear in an important role in an adventure, this "cover story" can be used as inspiration for the adventure. Perhaps there will come a day when she'll graduate, get a new job, meet new people, and set up Captain Clean for a new set of DNPC-related adventures. And the day that The Extinguisher's brother returns from a vacation in upstate New York is likely to be the same day that some cold-wielding menace arrives in New York City from snow-bound Buffalo.

One way to make DNPCs seem independent and more substantial than the majority of other GM-run characters, is for the GM not to play them. This doesn't mean that Captain Clean's PC should run Jane, as that could lead to either boring or points-abusive play. Instead, the GM can farm out these recurring roles to other players. This has a number of effects: it provides a different spin on the NPC than would have resulted if the GM had run him; it gives the GM a break from running all the NPCs in the campaign; and it gives otherwise uninvolved players a to do some roleplaying when the spotlight is on another PC.

If this is done, then each player should consistently run the same DNPCs, and the GM should even consider giving out experience points for good portrayals points that can be spent on either the player's own PC or (even better) on the dependent he's running; at the discretion of that player or the GM. As a result, the player running the DNPC could end up developing the dependent in ways that neither the GM nor the PC's player would have anticipated.

The player running the DNPC decides that Jane should spend "her" experience points on an education, and further develops the dependent character.

plotting from the dnpc's pov

Okay, the GM has reached the point where she's ready to include The Extinguisher's dim-witted brother in an adventure. She picks a villain from her files, has him kidnap the brother, and then sends The Extinguisher a ransom note to get him to the big rescue scene, right? Wrong.

Sure, using such a plot fulfills the requirement that The Extinguisher's brother make a certain number of appearances to justify his disadvantage value, but it doesn't take into account the fact that The Extinguisher's brother is, in numerous ways, a different person from Captain Clean's wife. If the adventure could just as easily have used Checkmate's sidekick-wannabe, Reactor's mother-in-law, or the Subdominant's crippled daughter, then it'll feel "generic" to the players; they'll have no feeling for the dependent involved because he will only be a casting decision, not an actual part of the adventure. Instead, adventures that involve dependents in a major way should revolve around the dependent. This can take two forms: mundane or extraordinary adventures.

In a mundane adventure, the events of the hero's secret identity take centre stage. Without access to his super abilities, he has to deal with hassles (getting the shopping done or the Kids off to school on time), as well as some major event that forms the crux of the adventure.

What would The Extinguisher do about the threat of his brother being institutionalized after some close-calls that could have meant deal or injury to the brother? And what if those close-calls had been the result of The Extinguisher's actions? Can he keep his brother out of the asylum without being forced to reveal his own complicity? And exactly how is Captain Clean going to react to Jane's tentative discussions with a lawyer about a divorce? A mundane adventure provides a way for the GM to make PCs pay for the Secret ID points they received, but it also gives good roleplayers a chance to game something out of the ordinary for a superhero campaign.

On the other hand, if the players still want to play superheroes instead of mundanes with secrets, a dependentspurred adventure can have superheroic plot elements, as long as it's tied to the motivations and life of the DNPC. What does the dependent do with his off-camera time? If he has a job, where does he work, and what does he do? Might the company he work for be the front for a criminal organization? Could he unknowingly he developing one of the components that could be combined into a weapon of mass- destruction?

And even if the GM wants to employ the kidnapping- cliche-routine, the dependent shouldn't be chosen at random, but should be an integral part of the kidnapper's plot; he should be taken to a remote location and be forced to complete work on the villain's partially-built super-weapon, or should be whisked away to the kidnappers' hideout to perform emergency surgery.

Ideally, the work should be something that the DNPC could possibly perform. This is where it helps to know what the DNPC is doing.

Another interesting dependent-centred adventure is one in which the PC hero discovers that his dependent has been investigating his secret identity from either end; as a wife wondering where her husband goes every night, or as an investigator who wonders where a superhero goes after completing his night patrol. This scenario can feature a mix of costumed and mundane activity, and adds two twists to the normal, villa in-centred, version of this plot: the hero probably shouldn't use deadly force or mind-alteration to protect his secret. The hero can actually consider letting the dependent in on the secret, leading to further plot ideas.

dependents to the rescue!

In order to remain a DNPC a dependent need only be a disadvantage to the PC... on average. It is quite conceivable to be a positive boon on occasion, without changing the overall status of the dependent.

Every once in a while, the heroes are going to get into a situation that they can't extricate themselves from (capture by a supervillain, perhaps). Usually, the heros eventual escape is engineered by the GM or the other players.

But what about the possibility that the hero can't escape that easily, either because the villain's trap is too cunningly set, or because all of the PCs were captured as a group? In such a case, one of the biggest liabilities that a superhero has going is his independence; if no-one ever knows when to expect a visit from Checkmate, then her disappearance from the super-scene for a day or a week might not even be missed by the average police chief, newspaper editor, or even by other superheroes.

On the other hand, Checkmate's annoying sidekick-wannabe is likely to notice her disappearance, and will quickly be off to make an inept rescue attempt. The rescue may not succeed on its own, but at least the sidekick might have the presence of mind to alert the police to Checkmate's change in habits.

And the rescue doesn't have to be from a physical trap. A dependent's assistance can be just as effective if he helps the heroes convince a politician to vote against a bill that would severely restrict the heroes' ability to combat crime. The rules for creating DNPCs warn the GM to guard against players using the dependent as a source of extra skills that he can't afford to pay points for directly, but it would be ridiculous to assume that any reasonably competent dependent wouldn't have some professional skill or knack that the PC doesn't duplicate: even teenagers or younger children conceivably have some one skill that could come in handy.

If players are swapping to play each other's dependents, then this scenario doesn't have to take place off- screen; the entire game session could be taken up by the dependents' rescue attempts, giving the players a different adventuring feel. After all, how do you rescue a bunch of superheroes when you're their non-super spouses and siblings?

super spouse

But there's no reason why a PC's dependents can't be supers as well. At least, on occasion. It's only in the greater scheme of things that dependents have to be a drag on the PC in order to be worth their disadvantage points. And the comics are just full of incidents of dependents suddenly, accidentally, gaining temporary superpowers, forcing the hero to work even harder than ever before to protect his incompetent loved one from harm.

Methods by which dependents can gain superpowers are even more common than those by which the heroes gained theirs, simply because DNPCs are likely to spend more time around nuclear reactors, magic-flinging villains, and chemical reagents in the company of the PCs than the heroes did themselves, before their own transformations.

Reactions to gaining superpowers are also varied. If the DNPC knows the secret identity of the PC, he might decide to help the hero he was formerly dependent on, by becoming a superpowered ally instead of a potential victim of every villain's scheme. If the PC's secret is unknown, then the dependent could become the new masked hero on the scene, appearing for a number of game sessions before circumstances conspire to reveal the dependent's identity to the hero. And as a result of the warping e the powers, the dependent could even become a supervillain, with his suspicions about the hero transformed into hatred, or even love (especially awkward when it's accompanied by amnesia).

The only requirement necessary to make super- dependents rules-legal is that the change either be temporary (so that the benefits can be followed by balancing detriments), or that the positive value of the powers be offset by negatives, such as the extra concern the hero will have for the dependent's safety, or by long-term effects on the character or the campaign that can result from inexpert power- usage.

truly dependent

Going to the other extreme, a GM can balance a period when a dependent was advantageous to the PC by another period when he is more of a disadvantage than usual. Most DNPCs are actually quite independent as currently played, since they make so few demands on the PC during their infrequent appearances.

If the GM wants to increase the effective disadvantage value of a dependent, he can make him suddenly more cloying, sicker, more demanding, or more suspicious of the hero's activities; whatever activity currently constitutes his disadvantage value can be exaggerated. If the PC doesn't seem to be particularly inconvenienced by having a DNPC daughter, she could suffer an accident, becoming crippled, and thus needing extra attention, and arousing guilt, pity, and all those other crippling emotions in the PC.

As with giving a dependent superpowers, making one an extra burden on the PC should be a temporary affair, allowing the PC an opportunity to rectify the situation with a few sessions of dependent - related roleplaying.

disadvantages can be advantagous

So, not only are there many opportunities for players to enhance their own experience of an RPG by putting a little more effort into DNPC design, but GMs can also benefit in a number of ways from taking a closer look at dependents. They can be the source of adventure ideas, they can play significant roles in adventures that don't revolve around them, and they can give a realistic depth to a campaign that otherwise consists of a series of hyper-chargcd super- fistfights.

about the author

Spike Y. Jones has been writing for more than a dozen years, and has been selling his writing for more than a decade. His most impressive writing achievement has been 140+ consecutive monthly contributions to Alarurns & Excursions, an amateur gaming magazine he highly recommends.

Check out www.rahul.net/starport/xeno/aande.htmI