Unrelated to current topics, I was mulling over ST theory and philosophy and came up with this little gem:
Let's say an ST decides he wants to introduce a new NPC that will ally with the PCs, so he has him steal their stuff and lead him on a merry chase. The intent is to use this event to introduce the actual Plot/Threat/Whatever. The PCs will get their stuff back, and they'll have a memorable scene to look back on.
Unfortunately The ST has now now - to the players- wasted their time. There is a reason why most people hate Yuffie.
So- what I think a better angle to approach is, is cut out the NPC and use the planned big bad/enemy faction instead; Have the intended threat-antagonist steal their stuff and then put them in a position to Get Even/Solve the Problem presented by the antagonist.
I had to look up who Yuffie is, and in the process found that it's
not that 'most' people hate Yuffie, but that Yuffie is causing
polarized reactions: getting into various top-50s of characters, but
also catching flak. And I think that should be insightful into any sort of campaign preparation: people can have different tastes, including in NPCs.
In a recent discussion of what makes NPCs likeable elsewhere, one of the things people mentioned disliking is the fact that an NPC
is designed with a plot hook in mind. I.e. people disliking not necessarily the NPC concept, but rather that said concept is presented
with a story in mind, as opposed to as a person in her own right. But, as I said, that's just
one way of looking at it; different crayons have different tastes and all that.
Also, as a personal opinion, the 'wasted their time' is not necessarily a big factor all by itself. Instead, there are some questions on matters of security and paranoia that get raised.
Basically, if a GM wants a Plot-Inducing Thief, that means that the GM is dead-set on making the thief
very effective, perhaps even
successful by fiat. The latter involves, at a minnimum, getting past Excellency-boosted Awareness when pickpocketing, or Excellency-boosted Home Security Configuration in case of burglary. At this point, a GM runs the risk of getting one or both of the following reactions:
- The players think that the paranoia level they have set for their characters so far was insufficient (particularly if the feat was achieved by a mortal theif).
- The players think that the thief is some sort of übergodblood or Exalt. If it turns out the theif was a mere mortal, players may call out the GM for a very un-nice form of fudging. Perhaps words like 'godmoding' and 'mary-sue' will be flung, whether deserved or not quite.
Liking the NPC after either one of those two will be harder for players and their PCs. It becomes easier to produce a 'I love to hate this antagonist' reaction by stealing stuff. So yeah, that seems close to your final paragraph on using an enemy faction (and thus implicitly its members). But I think that has nothing to do with disliking an NPC for wasted time. IMHO.
