NPC Mind: read what the characters in your story feel and want
NPC pills now show each character's current feeling and what they want. Their little minds shift with how you treat them, so keep an eye on both to build better relationships.
The characters in your story now wear their hearts a little closer to their sleeves. Tap an NPC's pill and you'll see two new lines: what they're feeling, and what they want.
Every NPC has a little mind of their own
The characters you meet in your adventures aren't just scenery. Each one carries a small mind of their own: a current feeling, and a want that drives what they do in the scene. And it isn't fixed. How you treat someone changes how they feel about you, and what they want from you.
Help the nervous innkeeper deal with the trouble at her door, and wary may soften into grateful. Threaten the wrong guard, and his want shifts from "keep the peace" to "see you in a cell." Their minds move with the story, one beat at a time.
Use it to build better relationships
This is the fun part: because you can see how an NPC feels and what they're after, you can actually play to it. Want to win someone over? Notice what they want, and help them get it. Want to know whether your last action landed well or badly? Check their pill. The answer is right there.
Keeping track of a companion's mind across scenes is one of the best ways to turn a stranger into an ally, or to realize, before it's too late, that your "friend" has been drifting somewhere colder.
What you see is what the story revealed
One important note: this isn't mind-reading. The Feeling and Wants lines don't expose an NPC's secret inner life or hidden agenda. You won't see anything you couldn't know in the story itself.
Instead, think of it as your character's read of the room, put into words. It's distilled from what the story has actually shown: what the character said, how they acted, their gestures and expressions, and any thoughts the narration revealed. If a smuggler is hiding her true intentions well, her pill reflects the face she's showing you, not the secret underneath. Uncovering that is still on you.
For the same reason, some NPCs show no feeling or want when they first enter the scene. A stranger who just walked in hasn't given you anything to read yet. Interact with them, and their pill fills in as their feelings and wants come to the surface.
Available now
NPC Mind is live in all adventures. Just hover or tap any NPC pill in the sidebar during play. As always, if a character's read feels off, or you catch a mind that doesn't match the scene, let us know. Your reports are how the storyteller gets sharper.
Cheers,
The LiveTale Team