Can I ask how people are reading the principle “Treat your NPC like hammers. Square peg, round hole.”
I’m interpreting it as play my NPCs and play up the one thing they do a lot (hammers hammer, Tony Stark has to be the smartest person in the room) and have them do that even when it’s not the best action for the situation.
Correct
From the text I would say it’s much more about how your NPCs interact with the PCs. Yes Tony Stark has to be the smartest person in the room, but that’s not as important as to what he thinks Iron Kid should be which is just like him. Or maybe not like him, but a better version of him. “How dare you get caught drinking, I don’t want you making the same mistakes I did.” Or what if Iron Kid is not nearly as smart as Tony, will Tony accept that or will he try to challenge Iron Kid to be up to his level?
From the text.
NPCs all have ideas for who the PCs should be, and this takes it one step further. They don’t just withhold approval until the PCs act the way they want—they take active steps to change and reshape the PCs. It doesn’t matter if the PCs want to go into those shapes. They’re going to hammer away at the PCs anyway.
I think a more revealing look at how to use NPCs as hammers would be Tony’s relationship to Howard Stark in the MCU. Granted we are getting that mostly from Tony’s point of view, but if you can make your PCs feel about your NPC the way Tony feels about Howard you’re probably wielding your NPC Hammer correctly.
Yeah, the way I interpret that text is the same way as Morgan. “Square peg, round hole” means trying to force one shape to fit into another shape. The PC is a square peg, the NPC’s idea of what they should be is a round hole, and they’re going to actively hammer that kid into that hole until they fit that ideal.
Another example I can think of (not being super familiar with Marvel comics but having seen Ultimate Spider-Man), is the Iron Spider suit. Iron Man doesn’t just want Spider-Man to be a tech wizard like him, he actively gives Spidey a new suit with cool gadgets to encourage that, hammering him into the Superior hole even though Spidey may see himself as more of a Savior.