He's the man of a thousand faces. He has appeared in hundreds of scenarios,
wearing many different guises, but underneath, always the same unmistakeable
character.

He plays the role of Mayor Crouch from Valley of Dying Things. He
masquerades as the Prime Director in At the Gallows. He wears the face of
Gwennyth in Shadow of the Stranger. He appears dozens of times in Falling
Stars.

Who is this man of mystery? He's the guy who sends you on missions.

Let's call him Bob.

Bob's a busy guy. While he isn't in every scenario ever made, if you pick
one at random, chances are he's there. Often he puts in multiple appearances
in a scenario. Why? Because, as smart as they are, scenario designers can't
do everything on their own. Sometimes, they need Bob's help.

Bob's bread and butter is providing direction for poor, confused players.
Often, it can be hard for players to know what to do next, so they get
confused. Confused players are unhappy players, and (most) scenario
designers don't want their players to be unhappy. So they want to help the
players, but it looks kinda sloppy to have a big booming voice out of the
sky announce "Try going to Centrevilleburgtown!", so they get Bob to do it.
Stuff happens, players come and tell Bob about it, and he tells them what to
do next.

Bob is so busy that he has his own little helpers. They're called Boblings.
There's hundreds of them, and they take all the little jobs. They handle
side quests, occasional courier missions, and other incidental stuff like
that. It helps ease the load on Bob.

But if a job's important, Bob comes in and does it himself. When you come
back to him time and again, and when the jobs he sends you on changes the
state of the story, that's Bob.

A funny thing about Bob is that he only seems to be able to play three basic
roles:

1) A mayor or some other kind of government official.
2) A military leader.
3) A powerful spellcaster.

No one really knows why, least of all Bob himself.

Also, despite the fact that Bob is almost always more important than the
party - after all, he's telling them what to do! - he's far too busy to do
it himself. So designers need to come up with an excuse why Bob doesn't go
save the world instead of getting other people to do it. Often it's that
he's too busy organising everyone, or something boring like that. It can be
more interesting, though it doesn't really matter if it is.

But there's a problem. You see, Bob feels a little unappreciated. He's a
very nice guy and isn't about to go on strike or anything, but he does feel
that he doesn't get the credit he deserves. After all, he usually plays the
most important NPC in the scenario! The player spends far more time talking
to Bob than anyone else. So Bob has a few requests. He's very understanding
and will help you out even if you don't do them, but it'll make him feel
better about himself.

First off, Bob hates being given stupid exposition all the time. When a
scenario has a complicated backstory to explain or someone needs to figure
out the bad guy's plan and tell the player, it's always Bob. He's getting
sick of it, because it makes him feel like he's nothing but a Fact Vendor -
insert completed quest, collect new info. No actor likes being given
exposition, and neither does Bob.

Because, you see, Bob is an actor. He can act any role you give him, good or
bad. And he really likes to have good roles. He feels so frustrated when the
party keeps coming to talk with him, and all he can do is play a
bureaucratic paper-pusher. He really feels that he should have the best role
in the scenario, considering how much time the player spends with him. He
liked his role as Gwennyth in Shadow of the Stranger and would like to do
more like that.

Also, since all of Bob's scenes are with the party and since there's so many
of them, he loves his character to have a really interesting relationship
with the party. The Boss-Subordinate relationship is pretty well explored by
now and pretty boring. Bob loves to try something new. He'd be thrilled if
he got to play someone like SHODAN from System Shock 2 (not a Blades
scenario!). The bad guy who forces the player to work for him because they
both know the party has no other option - he loves that idea. He'd also love
to play a rich, beautiful, picky young woman giving her suitors tasks to
determine who is worthy to be her husband.

Make Bob happy.

- The Creator