How do you effectively create a NPC players won't know if they should consider him an ally or a threat?

How do you effectively create a NPC players won't know if they should consider him an ally or a threat?

With really good writing that's perfectly tuned to the tone of your game and the expectations of your group.

Seriously though, it's real fucking hard to do. It's a cool archetype but unless you're really sure of what you're doing the uncertainty is likely to collapse way sooner than you'd like.

Don't know it yourself. You will roll for it when the time comes.

Maybe by not taking ideas from the last anime you saw as something you automatically should incorporate into your game?

In all seriousness, what works in a TV show or comic or manga or even a video game what have you DOES NOT always work in a trpg simply because the basic execution of the plot is always completely different in method just due to media changes. Izuka works really well for a number of reasons that in certain cases other manga authors really don't have the skill to replicate or aren't telling the kind of story where that sort of character works.

Best guess solution?
NEVER have that type of NPC fight the PC's. For 90% of all players they will never trust that character ever again or will automatically assume them an enemy forever afterword. Chances are you've been a PC before and done that same thing in fact. Instead have them only hinder the PC's indirectly, but only in small ways before helping them out of another one relatively soon afterword.

Even that might not work; a lot of players will see through what you're trying to do and hate the character for it and in worse case you for trying it at all.

>It's a cool archetype but unless you're really sure of what you're doing the uncertainty is likely to collapse way sooner than you'd like.
In my experience it only works when the characters he's being Frenemies with act exactly as the plot requires them to act.
Of course in D&D this is an automatic fail because the assumption that the players will EVER do exactly what you want them to do is pretty damn stupid.

They help when it doesnt matter, they leave you to die and sometimes they are the deus ex machina that saves the party. They dont help or oppose the antagonist but a higher and hidden power.

>With really good writing that's perfectly tuned to the tone of your game and the expectations of your group

I expect to pull this trope fro Vampire or Kuro and some other roleplay focused games, but not for the average D&D game

The trick is to make the players help or feel like they're helping the NPC. If you introduce some guy to help the players they won't like him but if they choose to help someone else who then grows to be capable in their own right and be of aid to the group then they'll feel more attached to them.

Comes down to player expectation/participation. I could see it maybe working in something where the PC has a character like that specifically in their backstory, or if it's just an expectation of the setting like a pokemon rival.

I just make people, and then let the party turn them into allies or a threats.

If you're determined on the frenemie path. I'd Introduce them as a mercenary who fights for gold. maybe have them meet in a pub or somthing

Off the clock he can be friendly.
>"Hold it, I don't want to fight you guys, hell I even like you."
At some point he can be hired to say; guard a door they want to go through. for an example
>"Nothing personal lads, buy they're paying me to guard this door. So I'm going to have to ask you to leave"

And above all, whenever players want to know something: It's a Secret

No, this isn't possible unless you have the most domesticated group in the world and you could just tell them "Your characters don't know if they should consider him an ally or a threat". Because if they're not sure, they WILL default to threat.

Depending on the tone of the group and the setting it may not be possible at all.

Isn't what I would do, but it could work with the right group.

What this user describes is probably the easiest way to do it without forcing it onto the party.

This guy could be right, but it sounds like he's playing with people more concerned about winning than narrative, which defeats the purpose of a character like the one you want anyway.

It's not about concern for winning, nobody I know treats the unknown as an ally. They certainly don't play characters that react positively to things they're not sure of. This isn't the 70's when people felt awe and wander at things before unseen.
Consider, Spielberg's Close Encounters in 1977, then War of the Worlds in 2005. Everyone is WAY too frightened these days to play along with a character like OP describes.

>close encounters
>'77
>war of the worlds
>a novel written before the advent of television and adapted as a radio program
Yup, people are more scared of the unknown now than ever! It surely checks out :^)

You aren't wrong about how most people behave regarding total unknowns, but the characters we're talking about, or at least the impression i got, aren't complete unknowns. I run an NPC like this in my game, he has only ever directly harmed one PC, and they brought it on themselves. He has also saved the party's ass more than once. The players have only vague ideas about his motivations, but not once have they been hostile toward him, nor will they be until there's a reason to.

TL:DR if your players aren't paranoid they'll treat unknowns with less than outright hostility.

Look buddy, I know I didn't mention Spielberg twice, but I was obviously referring to the movie. The interesting thing is that the same man made both films, and I hate to burst your Veeky Forums-cred but the film has little in common with the original Wells novel besides a few plot points.
And I still stand by the idea that people are far more jaded towards potential "allies" from space now than they were back then.

There's an entire scientific community spending millions on broadcasting messages into space and listening for replies that disagrees with you. Star Trek is one of the longest running science fiction franchises in existence and it hinges on the fact that extraterrestrial life is on the whole good.

You have him help one day and fuck en over the next

So in what way would he seem like a threat then? He seems like "not sure if Ally or Neutral", a threat is by its nature something with an element of fearsomeness, contestion or hostility. Of course the people I know would still keep a weapon ready to cut him, because anything less than a sincere declaration of loyalty is not enough.

>There's an entire scientific community spending millions on broadcasting messages into space and listening for replies that disagrees with you
Please. Back in my day, there was no fucking question that humanity should try to contact the aliens if they were willing to listen among SETI participants. Nowadays it's debate, debate, debate. You seem to think that active sETI don't have their hands tied by government and other forces breathing down their necks to avoid finding anything that could upset the status quo.

>Star Trek is one of the longest running science fiction franchises in existence and it hinges on the fact that extraterrestrial life is on the whole good.
And it too has undergone massive changes during its time, for instance something like the Borg was never going to come up in the original series. Instead you just had Romulans and Klingons who were naturally the expies of "non-democracy" states rather than actual aliens.

I've never really had any trouble with this. Here are some pointers that I've found generally effective for my group, but no two parties are the same, so you'll have to figure out what works for yours.
>Make him exceptionally friendly and/or helpful. If the guy is a dick, my players typically just assume he's going to be an antagonist later or write him off as "just some asshole." What really bothers them is when he's too welcoming: "Hello, hello! Come, come, sit down! My colleagues have told me all about you. Would you like a drink? A smoke? How about a warm bed or a companion to share it with? On the house for you, my friends."
>As in the dialogue I used in the above example, this hypothetical NPC comes at the recommendation of other, trusted NPCs. The players are either going to feel like they're being irrational, or think that they've been deceived by characters they trusted.
>If you imply that the character is somehow powerful or well-connected, make a show of it. Have him give orders to others, easily dispatch a foe that might have daunted the party, buy them something expensive as a gift, anything that establishes him as presenting some sort of potential threat, even if he's all smiles at the moment.
>Building on this, when the players meet him at neutral ground (or better yet, his territory), show that he's also on friendly terms with groups they dislike at the very least or have clashed with at the extreme. These groups may regard them the same way, but none of them are willing to raise a blade, gun, glowing finger, etc. in the presence of this NPC. If you're worried he's going to come across as too badass and derail the focus too much, try to make it clear that they could and he couldn't stop him, but they aren't doing it for a different reason - respect for him, a desire for things to proceed smoothly at the moment, etc.

(1/2)

>Give him some kind of tic or identifying feature, like something you'd expect a James Bond henchmen, if maybe a bit more subtle.
>If you like to use music in your campaigns, choose a recognizable theme (possibly a jarring one that breaks the tone a bit) for him that will make players cringe the moment they hear it.
>Keep his motives vague so that he remains mysterious, though if the players want to investigate him, there's no reason not to throw them a bone. If they get too distracted, you can always just have the main threat of the campaign reestablish itself in a big or personal way that will force them to pause at the very least.
>And finally, perhaps most importantly, never have him actually do anything to fuck the players over unless he absolutely has to. The players will be all the more concerned that he wasn't a bad guy, or at the very least was never one they had to deal with.

This ended up being far longer than I'd planned on, but hope it helps you. If you'd like any examples from campaigns I've run, I can provide those too. This is an archetype I rather like because I tend to run scummy campaigns about shitty people in shitty settings.

(2/2)

>Brilliant
>Nihilistic
>Wicked sense of humour

I usually have the characters as initially helpful, yet obviously withholding information.
That way works well. The guy's only crime is not telling everything he knows about anything, which just as easily could be because I don't want to bore them with this guy's life story, which gives him reasonable doubt, yet still gives the distinct feeling that the person only used the party to accomplish their goal. Further, he offers incentives to work with him, which is all the loyalty some players need.

Never engage in direct conflict, unless this guy is actually definitely a villain and it's either boss time now, or time to reveal the ruse.
I'm also fond of appealing to stupidity. Make the guy an idiot, who "accidentally" leads bandits to the party's camp, gets upset and blurts out critical information in a tense moment, or makes people arrive in a place a day earlier or later than they needed to. That's usually reserved for true villains though.

Just make a regular character with a hidden set of motivations and goals that may or may not conflict with those of the PCs.

OH MY __________


btw. Withhold some crucial information or try to hide that information.

There was the one instance of him fucking up a PC, but the players, not I, established that he deserved it. Another party member went missing under unusual circumstances, his body turning up later, the NPC in question has information about that which they won't share. A third player attempted to start a cult to worship his god (yog sothoth) which the NPC promptly destroyed.

He screws with their plans on occasion and is strong enough to take on anything short of the whole party (8 players) and even then they'll suffer heavy casualties.