[Reaver]

Ok, I am starting to paint myself into a corner with an NPC and my players are beginning to fixate on him a little too much. He has gone from being a fill in hacker (cause the group wasn't interested in playing one) to being the topic of several runs! I think I need to either run with his story arc, or put it to bed and I am looking for advice to do either.

The NPC:

Stats are as I need them to be, but he is young man (age 18) with "an impressive amount of headware", agonizingly clumsy (so far has managed to dose himself 3 times and other teammates twice with his own DSMO super squirt!) but brilliant infiltration hacker. He's more into video games and simflicks then women.

And some times, just some times, it's like talking to a whole other person. He forgets things he's done, or suggested. He goes from being a super infiltration hacker to an uber combat hacker... And then "forgets" his combat hacking adventures!

Sadly, he's just a poor sick kid suffering from MPD... But the mythos my players have built up on him!
So far they include:
Infected by an A.I
Is infected by a matrix ghost
Is a emerging technomancer, but doesn't know it
Is an AI contained in a kid
One of halberstam's creations!!
A "puppet" body for an evil matrix thingy! <what!?!>

And the list goes on!
My delemma is, do I continue to run with it? Or do I stick to my original background and watch as they walk down dead end after dead end?
Trust me, are going to continue this arc for some time as they have already spent 10 to 12 full nights exploring this issue and I feel there is more interesting plots to explore...

 Mind you, the players seem really invested and are enjoying the plot hooks I have thrown their way. (Their own interest into the NPC has caused 2 kidnapping attempts! All to ransom him back to them.. If they ever kept the initial attackers alive ). Should I just run with it? Or plan a full story arc where they find out the truth of the NPC before I continue to try to introduce new material and other story arcs?

[kirk]

Are they having fun? Are you having fun? Sure, you know there are more interesting things but... are you having fun? That is rule one.

If both are yes, then I say just run with this character.
Let him be your personal macguffin. Listen to your players and figure out how while they're checking out possibilities they can run into plot points - and how to subtly (or obviously) get them to deal with what they perceive as the red herring.

He's saving you hours of work, really, and will probably be THE thing they all talk about when reminiscing about the good old days while playing SR11 (because 12 sucks).

[Mason]

That is so cool! I wish I was playing and I HADN'T read that already! I love a good mystery!

[CanRay]

The group seems to be enjoying it, so keep with it.  In fact, the best suggestion I have is to never answer the question as to what he is, let the group constantly wonder.  Then have him disappear one day.

Happens every day...  *Poof*  Just gone.

Cue roaring rampage of revenge as the group goes looking for him.

[Solomon]

Dude, there are threads all over this board about how to motivate players. You got yours on the hook already. Why ruin it? Not only that but after they go down a dead alley and eliminate the AI issue, you should have an AI take over his headware, stealing their ideas and using them to spice up the game. Let the players do half of your work with conspiracy theories and wild ideas and then take them. They end up thinking you are a creative genius and you didnt have to work at all

[Crimsondude]

The group seems to be enjoying it, so keep with it.  In fact, the best suggestion I have is to never answer the question as to what he is, let the group constantly wonder.  Then have him disappear one day.

Happens every day...  *Poof*  Just gone.

Cue roaring rampage of revenge as the group goes looking for him.

DO THIS

[CanRay]

Glad to be of assistance.  Anything that gets a group going on a roaring rampage of revenge is a good reason in my mind. 

[Mystic]

The group seems to be enjoying it, so keep with it.  In fact, the best suggestion I have is to never answer the question as to what he is, let the group constantly wonder.  Then have him disappear one day.

Happens every day...  *Poof*  Just gone.

Cue roaring rampage of revenge as the group goes looking for him.

DO THIS

Pretty much. I can't add much more other than if you want to twist the knife a bit: have them go to his place and find either a) signs of a struggle, b) blood splatter, c) his place comepletely trashed, d) his comlink laying there broken or e) all the above. Be descriptive, be blunt, be vivid. Just having them go poof could be enough to make them paranoid and like the classic movies having things unseen can be more powerful, I still think a good old fasioned shock and awe crime scene can be fun too...or one hell of a red herring.

And speaking of why not use something like "Wait, if he's dead, why did my contact at X see him last Tuesday when he beat the snot out of 3gang members from the XYZ crew? He wasn't able to do that before!"

Red Herrings, "Elvis"-type sitings, and what not can keep the paranoia going for a LONG time, if you so choose.

But if it is a problem, I would say nothing stops NPCs cold like stray rounds or a round from a sniper rifle. Or, as it would be more fitting, they find him brain-fried from some nasty IC. Lots of possibilities.

[Crimsondude]

Ah. I finally remembered about this great derailment. Reminds me of your group.


Oh, and since there will inevitably be a great roaring campaign of brutal revenge I suggest you start compiling an appropriately badass soundtrack now. Lots of the moody instrumental pieces by Nine Inch Nails (like was using in Man on Fire) and such. The Social Network OST for plotting and planning scenes ("In Motion", natch). I would strongly suggest "Beside You In Time" because it gets quiet and then just explodes. It's like "The Mark Has Been Made" (which is the song used in Man on Fire) that way.

[Zilfer]

I sort of know the feeling however in this situation I am the player, and I managed to save an orc.

Plot was we were in the underdark and orc's controlled by Draconians(hate those buggers) attacked dwarves we were escorting. One of the orc's was able to be bound back up so I did so we could question him. (I'll mention right now I'm a Paladin of the god of Death Kelemvor) So we questioned him only got a little bit of information from him and then the dwarves wanted to kill him. <.< Including one of the other PC's so I rolled a diplomacy. Won against not only my friend who rolled a 1. XD but I also stepped in the way of the orc who would basically become my cohort. I wasn't meaning for that to happen but it just sort of happened.

The reason I was protecting him because I asked him what his last wish was, and it was simply. "I don't want to die." Simply put it's a loophole in my character's reasoning there, since by his faith he has to respect the last wishes of someone about to die. So he ended up saving him from the place and escorted him on the way out. Since we had basically killed his clan however who had named him "shortbow" he had no where to go so he ended up following my Paladin Tigaro around. Who protects him, and Shortbow who I renamed him Blacksword to represent him taking on a new life has become the blunt of so many jokes it's halarious. Seriously, Jokingly I have out done the bard's Bardic Knowledge with "Orcish Knowledge".  When the bard bombed his roll i jokingly yelled out, and orcish knowledge! Rolled a 20 so the DM went with it. So same thing happened again later that night and the DM asked if i wanted to try Orcish Knowledge again. Rolled a critical again. <.< Blacksword outshined the bard all that night with his orcish knowledge. There was only one more time we tried to use bardic knowledge that night and I rolled a crit against for the test again. (needless to say we bumped his intelligence up a notch. Since we were using the base stats for an orc in the book and just made it into a character sheet  because it didn't seem like he was going away any time soon.)

This NPC turned into a group controlled PC has also outsmarted a Sorcerer. We were deciding what watches everyone was going to have over night. We usually split the watches into 2 hour shifts. Well the orc holds up his hand. (5 fingers right?)

Sorcerer: "There's no fifth watch blacksword."
Blacksword: No.... one.
Sorcerer: That's five Blacksword. (thinking his usual played dumbness is coming into play)
Blacksword: No one hand!

The whole group erupted in laughter and the sorcerer face palmed. xD

Besides being smarter than the average orc he's also done some crazy things. (he some how has outshown my paladin on numerous occasions in battle except when undead are nearby. Tigaro seems to up his game during that time.) He's completely become a part of the group that everyone loves and makes jokes for. Another feat of his is we were on a quest because the group tigaro joined was working for this army. I can't remember why but we were working with a demon. Didn't know he was a demon but we were doing something and oh i remember. We had to find and stop the people attacking the army in the forest. Needless to say we found them but being my usual self I try to keep at least one of them alive for questioning. I found out these elves were fighting against the demons coming in and destroying their forest and killing their people. So I pretty much turned around and asked the guy they sent with us if it was true. He didn't deny it so I told him basically that I wasn't going to work for his master any more and through the word exchange. Well fighting a demon as you can tell isn't a good idea especially after you just had a fight against a group of woodland elves. Blacksword however manages to mostly slay the Demon with a small bit of help from my paladin damage wise.  After that blacksword proceeds to drink the demon's blood and later on down the road use it on his food as seasoning. "Hot sauce" says Blacksword whenever he takes some of it. xD (DM has made me roll a saving throw for him but he's never failed it when drinking the hot sauce yet so.... we'll see what happens when he does... xd)

Anyways they can be fun if you let them, but only let it if you like it in the game. My group loves blacksword so the DM let him basically become a crazy character in our campaign.