Quirks and traits are fun, but I think the developers of 5e made a huge mistake in removing encounter reaction tables. Such a great tool for spontaneous reactions. The dice will create some great directions with reaction rolls gone south, which also makes charisma far more important in social situations. The 2e reaction table ports nicely into 5e however. Combine that with your traits, you can get some real mileage out of NPC interactions.
Good idea, Me I'm old school, for random encounters? I roll just roll 3d6. One of the dice is the chance for an encounter, A "1" being an encounter. Higher numbers being signs and clues. One die is the reaction of the encounter low being friendly, and high being hostile. One die is the power level of the encounter low is weaker then the party, high is more powerful the group. Last session, three possible encounters for the evening. 4-3-1 Signs of low level neutral creatures. "They hear jackals hunting in the distance.", 2-2-2 Nearby, Hostile, Low Level. "Jackal pack has gotten bigger, and the party can hear them sneaking around the edges of the camp, but they're staying away from the fire" 1-4-6 Encounter, Neutral, Powerful "Sky lights up with lightning and thunder scattering the jackals, and a blue dragon can be seen flying overhead. Half the party hides, a couple attempt to make contact attracting the Dragons curiosity, and end up having a long thoughtful conversation with the guardian of the desert."
1980 I came up with a halfling thief on the fly with athletes foot that the players named Fungus Foot. Still memorable to this day. And the bear that the Druid talked to that would always say “Hungry, happy and well fed!” Players still use that line 30 years later
For important NPCs I write 2 descriptions. A brief one and a longer detailed one. Give the brief one as a first impression. Use the second only when the PCs take a closer look or after they have interacted more with the NPC. I also use the long description as a red herring sometimes. Take an NPC that has the potential to be important, like the mayor or village headman. The NPC may be an important person in that town, but may have little to nothing to do with your story. But everyone in town will know who they are and they should be easily recognized or stand out anyway.
I was falling into that trap of being descriptive of everyone in my campaign. Thanks for the video! I'll definitely be more careful with how memorable I make my NPCs. Cheers!
This is really helpful advice. One of my first times DMing I had a few different npcs that I planned out and thought were pretty cool but of course my players chose to focus on the guy that I made up on the spot.
I tend to build a character around their motive - pretty much how you described the barkeep and what he cares about. Improvising around that central piece is what really breathes life into social roleplay IMO. If I happen come up with a unique voice for the NPC on the fly, that's a bonus. I think NPC details are better used to set the tone of a location (i.e., in the mining town, there are a lot of people returning home late in the evening covered in rock-dust, and many of the older community members are suffering from the bodily wear and tear of hard labor). When NPCs quirks aren't saying anything about how the character is connected to their community or environment, they often undercut the sense of realism in a scene - which I think is the opposite result a lot of GMs are trying to get when they make really detailed NPCs.
NPCs Keep on the Borderlands: The jeweler has a bad cough (smoker), the traders are brothers (Burge Bros. Incorporated), the tavern owner is a halfling called 2-dice cause he's always rolling 2 dice in his hand, bartender is huge and mute, Preist is called Father Lyes (always tells the truth), Banker is fat and jolly but greedy, Guild Merchant is Irish mobster. These are all for me the DM to remember whos who. My players usually gravitate towards their needs and what each npc offers not my npc quirks although i love my npcs quirks lol. DMs need to have fun too.
Love the video! I think the biggest takeaway from this video is that by developing what the players are focused on and interested with, we waste a lot less prep time. I think that there may be a lot more to explore in the realms of how players interest and focus can really shape what our prep looks like.
But he also said you need to know your world. You end up putting prep time into the situation. For example, the PCs decide to book passage on a ship heading South to Great Port because they've heard that 'the streets are lined with gold'. I haven't prepped this, but I know that ships travel that way, what the major trade goods are, what types of vessel are involved, what the journey times are typically going to be, what invocations the captain will make for a speedy passage and that the crew is likely to be from the same family. I can lay a set of NPC personalities on that with little effort. I can describe how the how is filled with fine ceramics and dye-stuffs, but still smells of the exotic spices of the last trip home.
Love the portrait photography analogy and I know exactly what you mean, you capture your own view of them, not their "true self". Funnily enough, I've learned a lot from your portrait tutorials over the years and then just happened to discover you again here in the D&D section of youtube. Awesome. I think I'm naturally drawn to making remote wilderness adventures with a very small number of characters, so how to describe them becomes less of an issue. For instance in my current one, players are deep in the woods. There's a mother, her ten year old daughter, a stoic old lumberjack, an overconfident hunter, and a talking hellhound. Those are the only characters who even live in this forest so who's who is crystal clear. I tend to avoid urban adventures where the PCs can just randomly go to the blacksmith or the mayor's house or whatever. I enjoy deep characters but improv acting as randos doing their day job in a town is not exactly thrilling to me.
I find those little character traits or hooks are best for ME as DM to keep all the many NPCs straight in my head. A few months back, in my d6 Star Wars game, the players were at a fancy ball on Coruscant. I had little hooks or traits noted down for the many NPCs at the ball. I rarely mentioned them, but going through my notes, I'd see them, and they would refresh my memory about each NPC.
Me!? I use the "Rule of One" 1) Concentrate on a single large trait that stands out, and then stop there. 2) Shine on the small details, the players won't remember anyways. 3) Only add more details when/if the players get interested.
I'm pretty much on the same wavelength here. Names though, those are important to have ready. One NPC I remember we players really liked was a young soldier/squire who was a nice youth a little bit over his head. He was never meant to be remembered but the DM changing his name from Leopold to Henmar we're still resentful of. This was about 20 years ago. Thanks for mentioning discord! I'm in the process of joining. I'm not super active but I'm sure it's a great crowd.
Most people are forgettable, so there's no need to try to make every NPC interesting. As it happens, to your point at 1:22, some of the most memorable characters in Critical Role's run were a boring flower merchant, and a patch of grass (spoken to through _Speak With Plants)._ At some point, all of the celebrity DM's character turned into the same squawking, stammering, insecure, melodramatic goofballs.
I do a bit of both. Most of my NPCs are cardboard characters until my players get interested in them. Then I jot them down in a list where I jot down their quirks and characteristics, also I take some notes regarding their interactions if anything special happens. (promises, threats, debts, etc.)
Great video! I gm Pathfinder. I do add traits to my npcs. Sometimes, just to sell a character. Other times to just flat out identify the bbeg. I think it's cool when used judiciously.
I guess my approach is informed by being a theatre kid, I do not try to create a full world, but only put NPCs on stage that have a purpose and thus the details I mention about them are like your rust example relevant to what can happen in the fiction. It is basically a Chekhov's gun approach. Which is of course a reason why I am not a friend of sandbox gaming, since there is then too much world simulation and not enough narrative purpose for the things on stage. Also, I leave plenty of room for my players to add to the NPCs, thus I might not even establish anything on what I guess about their character, they do that for me. Like an interaction with a bartender, I leave it to the player to frame that interaction for how they want to express their character. Thus the player can narrate how they are disgusted by the dirty dishcloth that is used, and so I have not just a detail for my NPC but also something that makes the player character also more memorable because they put their reaction into the fiction as well. Of course that only works with people who are willing to put the work into the game and do not just wait for the action to arrive, but for those players all the details on the NPCs the GM create would be just as lost.
I have a wonderful table that I can just click a button and roll an NPC that gives a good drive and way they’re pursuing it (as well as physical description and a couple of other things) that combined with a reaction roll gives a great starting point for an interaction with a “real person”. I want an NPC to be memorable for who they are/what they do much more than what they look like. Sure, if a physical thing is really important, then I’ll point that out, but that’s rare.
Great video! Motivations are what creates great characters in stories, not physical characteristics. Think about a film that's described as "over-produced". It means that you have elaborate sets, costumes, and incredible photography: super high production values. But if the character's are thinly drawn, and they act to forward a plot and not how real people act, the movie's no good. I have seen charts out there to help GM's create NPC's, and it's all these sort of "production value" things. Quirks and physical oddities that are supposed to make the NPC more real. But you can have bartender X with exactly the same physical characteristics in ten different taverns, and each one has a different story. One is trying to stay in business against a new competitor, another has a wastrel son who's taken up with the local rogues gang, another witnessed a murder behind the tavern and doesn't know who to tell, etc. And another is just a barkeep working nights for extra money: nothing to say or tell the players. And each one has a peg leg and rust on their hands which have an extra thumb. Which, by the way, is my next bartender!
As a DM, I have a list of generic NPC stats on one sheet and use them when needed. I sometimes use old PC stat sheets for important NPCs, bosses included.
I've been in a lot of sessions where the DM had to flesh out a fairly standard NPC on the fly because for whatever reasons our party kept interacting with the NPC. So the DM would improv a few quirks here and there. These NPCs where way more interesting then the ones that where unique from the start, because part of what made these initially "generic" NPCs unique was OUR interactions with them. They where shaped and molded by our campaign, which was way more engaging then a character with pre-written lore.
Ok Daniel, so I was the one who put up that NPC random traits sheet on your Discord. Know that I'd always be tickled to have you mention my name whenever I've inspired you to make a video, even if it's about how you don't agree with my methods! LOL I'll now pick this conversation back up on the Discord, those who are curious can head on over there ;)
Great Video - such good advice! This same idea applies to describing the dungeon and wilderness. If I describe a painting on the wall then there are really good chances that it hides a secret door, or it's trapped, or there's some treasure behind it (or it's worth a lot itself), or the content in the painting has information that gives clues about what else is in the dungeon or how to avoid some danger later. I used to have too much "meaningless" dungeon dressing and it meant the players just ignored it and were looking for the next monster they could blow up with Fireball. Sometimes the value from it came way too late and that was bad too. Players care about the setting/lore/NPCs when caring about them provides value to them. Once they see value a few times from it, they will be on the lookout for it. That's when you can sustain a much longer pay-off. Recently a player in my game remembered a rumor they heard 1 year ago (real life time), but they remembered it and it allowed them to identify a very powerful magic item that they might have otherwise ignored. Back when I had "too many" descriptions, that would have never worked out.
There has been so much ink spilled (or pixels... arranged?) Over how to beautifully describe a dungeon room, or how to narrate the bone crunching exchange of combat.... I think they have their place (special rooms get this) but BREVITY of description is super important. It's like always being forced to watch cutscenes and not being able to interact with these pristine renderings.
Excellent points. Thank you. As a DM who once tried to come up with a village full of unique individuals, I could have used this advice in the past. That was a lesson learned the hard way. You have a really good channel with a lot of good advice. I appreciate it. Keep up the good work. Subscribed.
When I run homebrew I usually don’t put much into NPCs. I should probably make them more interesting. I have been running the Dungeon Dude’s Dungeons of Drakkenheim the past couple months for two groups. There are tons on NPCs and it’s been a growing experience for me to prepare more to run NPCs and improvise in the moment.
Because you note a trait does not mean you share it right away. I have some quirks recorded for some NPCs but only disclose it when the players ask directly. For DMs with the inclination, play acting the trait can be fun (the big R in Role playing)
I try to give my npcs a noticable feature, but i try to keep it pretty lowkey. Like a scar or calloused hands pr a cool hairdo. It makes it easier for me later to be able to figure out what their backstory might have been like if it becomes necessary
Another excellent video. One of my three favorite channels: Bandit´s Keep, GFC´DND and Dungeons Craft. The best channels in you tube (i love Mage´s Musign and Questing Beast too).
I usually only give notable traits to the more prominent NPC's. It's a little meta-gamey, but whatever. I focus more on what information they know/ and their motivation/ background, and how that affects their treatment of the characters/ adventurers generally. EG. a sergeant of the the city guard is gonna be a little more tough, curt/ stern, and have experience talking to/ hiring adventurers, etc. Sometimes it's fun to go totally against type to make them stand out as well. Just whatever I feel like at the table.
Great video. Most of my NPCs are pre-planned. But I rarely do stat blocks. I prefer a simple description and a quote from them with relevant information. If a fight breaks out, I stat them on the fly. I also rely on my crappy five or six character voices to carry the bulk of the encounter.
@@BanditsKeep Yeah, I try to throw in some kind of exposition to help the players and also help me remember to give them the information. For example, in an upcoming session, the PCs will be traveling with a NPC who is a Priest of Dragonwright. When they encounter a great hall with depictions of a great war and strange writings, I'll have the NPC say, “This is the language of Dragons. The first word and the last. The lexicon of creation and desolation.” I try to keep it to one or two lines, specific to the NPC.
The tricky part of me to to make those certain NPCs memorable as a focus without making it seem like I'm railroading player interest. Like if I give one a voice or mannerism, that's attractive, but I give another nothing, then the players automatically assume there's nothing there and move on, even if that nothing NPC may have relevance (if not immediately, then perhaps later on). This advice also applies to environments, giving more focus to some than others to keep the story going. How I go about that is to describe one or two quick, general details about a location, no matter the size, that relate to the story, and leave the players to ask about more. There's no reason to describe room dimensions except to a map maker, and is that still a thing in RPGs nowadays? As far as lists go, name lists are CRUCIAL. You can stumble on any detail you want, but don't ever slip up on not giving any NPC a name. You'll never live it down.
I use mappers at my table, yes. I don’t think it’s railroading to highlight certain figures or features - it would be if they keep jumping up in front of the PCs when they show no interest though
It’s funny, the last session I played in of Tomb of Annihilation we actually had to ask for the GM to give us exact room dimensions cause we couldn’t get a good enough sense of the place to draw a map 😂 but I do think that’s the exception, not the norm.
I mostly wing it, improvising most NPCs, though those with potential importance I'll flesh out more and decide more about in advance. I almost never give really obvious traits unless there is some special relevance to it. This includes monsters who may become named NPCs simply because the players decided to talk to them.
I do whatever is necessary. I tend to not get too specific with individuals, especially classes and levels unless I expect to see combat. I tend to flesh them out as time and necessity requires.
Personally I only use the memorable NPCs for ones that I plan to make recurring, important characters. They still usually look normal, but there's at least a few things that stand out other than their name. If players *make* an NPC important, I try to retrofit it by brainstorming through their personal history
Yeah, I feel that urge to make every character and place unique when DM’ing. Though when I’m a player, I prefer to face sensible and trivial NPCs! I’m not the only one, right?
I think for me, most NPCs are born in the moment. When an NPC has something a PC wants, and it's not clear the NPC is willing to do it or part with it, I take a second to think of what that NPC wants and / or what they're afraid of, and it's almost always very simple. A guard wants to keep their job. A librarian wants to protect their materials. A merchant is afraid of losing business. That kind of thing. Knowing that tells me what leverage will work or not. You don't need much more than that. They may be a reoccurring character but it's a bit part after all.
A really insightful video! You put the concept really well into words. This is the sort of emergent gameplay thing that could even have its own name, like emergent NPCs. Does it have a name?
I'm really curious about the fire and ice game that's coming out. But I don't know anyone that likes fire and ice so I think it would likely just be a shelf piece. I'm going to order vermis instead. I think you'd appreciate vermis. It's an art book that's designed to look like an old dungeon crawl video game guide. It's very very fertile ground for DM thinky times.
Nothing destroys my immersion when "5 Anti-Paladins attack you in the Sewers on your investigation, they all have the same weapon and armor, I will number them 1 through 5 on the map" F this. I quit the Pathfinder in-person group I was in when it was hopeless like this.
If the anti paladins are attacking you, they are important characters and should be distinct in some way I’d say. But having the same weapon and armor makes sense if they are part of an order of some sort
A fun thing to do on occasion is to "hide" an NPC who will become important later, by giving all NPCs distinct quirks or traits at first. Then later, all other NPCs can fade into generic amorphousness, while the players keep running into the three fingered man again and again as that NPCs importance becomes more and more apparent. But if you do it to often the players might get wise =) But normally I prefer keeping NPCs fairly generic and undefined until extra details become needed.
Huh, good advice and everything but just wanna say a buddy of mine and I once talked about what we think creators did as a day job. He thought you were a teacher/professor, I said something artistic; likely architecture. Should’ve placed a bet… On the actual video it’s funny because my home game gets really slowly paced, takes a session for one in game day most of the time. Think that’s mostly because of a bunch of memorable NPCs that players feel like they always have to interact with! Sometimes a blacksmith is just a blacksmith.
I had an entire adventure in town because I mentioned. Some children lit at night and the players thought it was odd so focused the entire session on them 😂
I usually make up NPC as I go, but then my players start asking all sorts of questions that I never thought about. How do I get the players to stop asking me what the porters name is? (I've never used a porter. I was just trying to come up someone whose name you wouldn't care about in real life.
The first bit reminds me of the Chekhov's Gun concept. Don't mention a gun being in a room in a story if the gun in the room doesn't matter to the story. Including these extra elements, if they don't matter to the story, have the potential of serving as just a distraction. Also, if they end up being irrelevant, it can lead to a sense of dissatisfaction if those unnecessary extra elements are unresolved.
I don't worry about every NPC, I start improvised NPCs as "normal" too, but there's something you've overlooked about it; you subconsciously incorporate your own normality biases. Every NPC I introduced was a man and one of my players pointed that out to me and told me that it was impacting the experience of the game. So since then I've tried to ensure that diversity is respected for inclusivity at the table.
@@BanditsKeep My main NPC name sheet helped. I split the names into the 10 cultures on my map but only wrote 8 male names and 8 female names for each location. Having fewer names meant that I was encouraged to use women NPCs or cultural outsider characters when I had to grasp a name out of nowhere. I could still do better I'm sure but it definitely helped me.
Totally with you on not making every NPC special or noteworthy. But we should be careful about coloring NPCs with "quantum subjectivity". Even if the PC loves buxom bartenders, she could still gross him out with the fake beard she wears after hours (because she identifies as a dwarf).
Less can be better. If the GM is spending a lot of prep time assigning traits to characters the PCs will maybe interact with once for a minute or two at most, then it's probably not a wise use of time. Unless your group is really into roleplaying you can even just quickly narrate how the PCs talked to the guards at the gate, were recognized due to their prior good deeds, and then promptly pointed in the direction of the noble in need of their services without having to have multiple conversations with background NPCs to reach the same point. If an NPC will likely be an important or recurring presence, then it's worth fleshing out their personality, motivations, and goals a bit. There's also no shame in stealing interesting characters from TV shows, movies, or books and inserting them into your game. Unless you're really good with accents and mimic a character precisely, it's unlikely your players will ever notice, and it's an easy way to make a character have a bit of meat to them without having to do much if any work.
@@BanditsKeep well, used sparingly, it can be a prime motivator. Revenge for their lost comrade. Also the death of allied npcs can be a meatsheild warning to the reckless.😄
The vast majority of people you meet are bland and decidedly unremarkable and do not stand out in any way. True in real life as it should be in the game.
Quirks and traits are fun, but I think the developers of 5e made a huge mistake in removing encounter reaction tables. Such a great tool for spontaneous reactions. The dice will create some great directions with reaction rolls gone south, which also makes charisma far more important in social situations. The 2e reaction table ports nicely into 5e however. Combine that with your traits, you can get some real mileage out of NPC interactions.
Nice! is that 2e table in the DMG? I'll have to pull it off the shelf and take a look!
@@BanditsKeep Yeah... the only thing you need to do reverse it so it corresponds to the ascending system in 5e. But it works nicely.
@@Merlinstergandaldore awesome, thanks!
@@BanditsKeep Sent you an email.
Good idea,
Me I'm old school, for random encounters? I roll just roll 3d6.
One of the dice is the chance for an encounter, A "1" being an encounter. Higher numbers being signs and clues.
One die is the reaction of the encounter low being friendly, and high being hostile.
One die is the power level of the encounter low is weaker then the party, high is more powerful the group.
Last session, three possible encounters for the evening.
4-3-1 Signs of low level neutral creatures.
"They hear jackals hunting in the distance.",
2-2-2 Nearby, Hostile, Low Level.
"Jackal pack has gotten bigger, and the party can hear them sneaking around the edges of the camp, but they're staying away from the fire"
1-4-6 Encounter, Neutral, Powerful
"Sky lights up with lightning and thunder scattering the jackals, and a blue dragon can be seen flying overhead. Half the party hides, a couple attempt to make contact attracting the Dragons curiosity, and end up having a long thoughtful conversation with the guardian of the desert."
1980 I came up with a halfling thief on the fly with athletes foot that the players named Fungus Foot. Still memorable to this day. And the bear that the Druid talked to that would always say “Hungry, happy and well fed!” Players still use that line 30 years later
Awesome
You had me at the 'Fire & Ice' thumbnail (:))
Such a great movie
For important NPCs I write 2 descriptions. A brief one and a longer detailed one. Give the brief one as a first impression. Use the second only when the PCs take a closer look or after they have interacted more with the NPC. I also use the long description as a red herring sometimes. Take an NPC that has the potential to be important, like the mayor or village headman. The NPC may be an important person in that town, but may have little to nothing to do with your story. But everyone in town will know who they are and they should be easily recognized or stand out anyway.
So important might be to the town, not necessarily to the adventure?
@@BanditsKeep Exactly.
I was falling into that trap of being descriptive of everyone in my campaign. Thanks for the video! I'll definitely be more careful with how memorable I make my NPCs. Cheers!
This is really helpful advice. One of my first times DMing I had a few different npcs that I planned out and thought were pretty cool but of course my players chose to focus on the guy that I made up on the spot.
Yup, this seems to ways happen 😊
I tend to build a character around their motive - pretty much how you described the barkeep and what he cares about. Improvising around that central piece is what really breathes life into social roleplay IMO. If I happen come up with a unique voice for the NPC on the fly, that's a bonus. I think NPC details are better used to set the tone of a location (i.e., in the mining town, there are a lot of people returning home late in the evening covered in rock-dust, and many of the older community members are suffering from the bodily wear and tear of hard labor). When NPCs quirks aren't saying anything about how the character is connected to their community or environment, they often undercut the sense of realism in a scene - which I think is the opposite result a lot of GMs are trying to get when they make really detailed NPCs.
Good point
the 2d6 reaction roll is a useful tool in our repertoire for these interactions. not just for kobolds!
Indeed
NPCs Keep on the Borderlands: The jeweler has a bad cough (smoker), the traders are brothers (Burge Bros. Incorporated), the tavern owner is a halfling called 2-dice cause he's always rolling 2 dice in his hand, bartender is huge and mute, Preist is called Father Lyes (always tells the truth), Banker is fat and jolly but greedy, Guild Merchant is Irish mobster. These are all for me the DM to remember whos who. My players usually gravitate towards their needs and what each npc offers not my npc quirks although i love my npcs quirks lol. DMs need to have fun too.
Indeed
Love the video! I think the biggest takeaway from this video is that by developing what the players are focused on and interested with, we waste a lot less prep time. I think that there may be a lot more to explore in the realms of how players interest and focus can really shape what our prep looks like.
Yes!
But he also said you need to know your world. You end up putting prep time into the situation. For example, the PCs decide to book passage on a ship heading South to Great Port because they've heard that 'the streets are lined with gold'. I haven't prepped this, but I know that ships travel that way, what the major trade goods are, what types of vessel are involved, what the journey times are typically going to be, what invocations the captain will make for a speedy passage and that the crew is likely to be from the same family. I can lay a set of NPC personalities on that with little effort. I can describe how the how is filled with fine ceramics and dye-stuffs, but still smells of the exotic spices of the last trip home.
Good advice! Fortunately I am so often behind in prepping the stuff around the main action, that many of my NPCs are not overly prepared.
I hear you on that
Love the portrait photography analogy and I know exactly what you mean, you capture your own view of them, not their "true self". Funnily enough, I've learned a lot from your portrait tutorials over the years and then just happened to discover you again here in the D&D section of youtube. Awesome.
I think I'm naturally drawn to making remote wilderness adventures with a very small number of characters, so how to describe them becomes less of an issue. For instance in my current one, players are deep in the woods. There's a mother, her ten year old daughter, a stoic old lumberjack, an overconfident hunter, and a talking hellhound. Those are the only characters who even live in this forest so who's who is crystal clear. I tend to avoid urban adventures where the PCs can just randomly go to the blacksmith or the mayor's house or whatever. I enjoy deep characters but improv acting as randos doing their day job in a town is not exactly thrilling to me.
Sounds super fun, a talking hell hound is right up my alley!
I find those little character traits or hooks are best for ME as DM to keep all the many NPCs straight in my head. A few months back, in my d6 Star Wars game, the players were at a fancy ball on Coruscant. I had little hooks or traits noted down for the many NPCs at the ball. I rarely mentioned them, but going through my notes, I'd see them, and they would refresh my memory about each NPC.
Good point
Me!? I use the "Rule of One"
1) Concentrate on a single large trait that stands out, and then stop there.
2) Shine on the small details, the players won't remember anyways.
3) Only add more details when/if the players get interested.
Nice
I'm pretty much on the same wavelength here. Names though, those are important to have ready.
One NPC I remember we players really liked was a young soldier/squire who was a nice youth a little bit over his head. He was never meant to be remembered but the DM changing his name from Leopold to Henmar we're still resentful of. This was about 20 years ago.
Thanks for mentioning discord! I'm in the process of joining. I'm not super active but I'm sure it's a great crowd.
Welcome!
@@BanditsKeep Thanks!
Most people are forgettable, so there's no need to try to make every NPC interesting. As it happens, to your point at 1:22, some of the most memorable characters in Critical Role's run were a boring flower merchant, and a patch of grass (spoken to through _Speak With Plants)._ At some point, all of the celebrity DM's character turned into the same squawking, stammering, insecure, melodramatic goofballs.
grass can be super interesting so I've heard!
That’s a funny video title. 😂 I’ll take a listen. 😀
😊
I do a bit of both. Most of my NPCs are cardboard characters until my players get interested in them. Then I jot them down in a list where I jot down their quirks and characteristics, also I take some notes regarding their interactions if anything special happens. (promises, threats, debts, etc.)
Cool
Great video! I gm Pathfinder. I do add traits to my npcs. Sometimes, just to sell a character. Other times to just flat out identify the bbeg. I think it's cool when used judiciously.
For sure
I guess my approach is informed by being a theatre kid, I do not try to create a full world, but only put NPCs on stage that have a purpose and thus the details I mention about them are like your rust example relevant to what can happen in the fiction. It is basically a Chekhov's gun approach. Which is of course a reason why I am not a friend of sandbox gaming, since there is then too much world simulation and not enough narrative purpose for the things on stage. Also, I leave plenty of room for my players to add to the NPCs, thus I might not even establish anything on what I guess about their character, they do that for me. Like an interaction with a bartender, I leave it to the player to frame that interaction for how they want to express their character. Thus the player can narrate how they are disgusted by the dirty dishcloth that is used, and so I have not just a detail for my NPC but also something that makes the player character also more memorable because they put their reaction into the fiction as well. Of course that only works with people who are willing to put the work into the game and do not just wait for the action to arrive, but for those players all the details on the NPCs the GM create would be just as lost.
Nice! I like that approach
I have a wonderful table that I can just click a button and roll an NPC that gives a good drive and way they’re pursuing it (as well as physical description and a couple of other things) that combined with a reaction roll gives a great starting point for an interaction with a “real person”. I want an NPC to be memorable for who they are/what they do much more than what they look like. Sure, if a physical thing is really important, then I’ll point that out, but that’s rare.
Cool
Great video! Motivations are what creates great characters in stories, not physical characteristics.
Think about a film that's described as "over-produced". It means that you have elaborate sets, costumes, and incredible photography: super high production values. But if the character's are thinly drawn, and they act to forward a plot and not how real people act, the movie's no good. I have seen charts out there to help GM's create NPC's, and it's all these sort of "production value" things.
Quirks and physical oddities that are supposed to make the NPC more real. But you can have bartender X with exactly the same physical characteristics in ten different taverns, and each one has a different story. One is trying to stay in business against a new competitor, another has a wastrel son who's taken up with the local rogues gang, another witnessed a murder behind the tavern and doesn't know who to tell, etc. And another is just a barkeep working nights for extra money: nothing to say or tell the players. And each one has a peg leg and rust on their hands which have an extra thumb. Which, by the way, is my next bartender!
Great points!
As a DM, I have a list of generic NPC stats on one sheet and use them when needed. I sometimes use old PC stat sheets for important NPCs, bosses included.
Nice
I've been in a lot of sessions where the DM had to flesh out a fairly standard NPC on the fly because for whatever reasons our party kept interacting with the NPC. So the DM would improv a few quirks here and there. These NPCs where way more interesting then the ones that where unique from the start, because part of what made these initially "generic" NPCs unique was OUR interactions with them. They where shaped and molded by our campaign, which was way more engaging then a character with pre-written lore.
For sure
Daniel! I love the thumbnail for this video! It is very funny!
Thank You!
Ok Daniel, so I was the one who put up that NPC random traits sheet on your Discord. Know that I'd always be tickled to have you mention my name whenever I've inspired you to make a video, even if it's about how you don't agree with my methods! LOL I'll now pick this conversation back up on the Discord, those who are curious can head on over there ;)
It’s a great topic. I always love to see how people create their worlds!
Great Video - such good advice! This same idea applies to describing the dungeon and wilderness. If I describe a painting on the wall then there are really good chances that it hides a secret door, or it's trapped, or there's some treasure behind it (or it's worth a lot itself), or the content in the painting has information that gives clues about what else is in the dungeon or how to avoid some danger later.
I used to have too much "meaningless" dungeon dressing and it meant the players just ignored it and were looking for the next monster they could blow up with Fireball. Sometimes the value from it came way too late and that was bad too.
Players care about the setting/lore/NPCs when caring about them provides value to them. Once they see value a few times from it, they will be on the lookout for it. That's when you can sustain a much longer pay-off. Recently a player in my game remembered a rumor they heard 1 year ago (real life time), but they remembered it and it allowed them to identify a very powerful magic item that they might have otherwise ignored. Back when I had "too many" descriptions, that would have never worked out.
That’s awesome - I love the long game, such a great feeling when it pays off.
There has been so much ink spilled (or pixels... arranged?) Over how to beautifully describe a dungeon room, or how to narrate the bone crunching exchange of combat....
I think they have their place (special rooms get this) but BREVITY of description is super important. It's like always being forced to watch cutscenes and not being able to interact with these pristine renderings.
Right!
Excellent points. Thank you. As a DM who once tried to come up with a village full of unique individuals, I could have used this advice in the past. That was a lesson learned the hard way. You have a really good channel with a lot of good advice. I appreciate it. Keep up the good work. Subscribed.
Thank You!
When I run homebrew I usually don’t put much into NPCs. I should probably make them more interesting.
I have been running the Dungeon Dude’s Dungeons of Drakkenheim the past couple months for two groups. There are tons on NPCs and it’s been a growing experience for me to prepare more to run NPCs and improvise in the moment.
Cool
Because you note a trait does not mean you share it right away. I have some quirks recorded for some NPCs but only disclose it when the players ask directly. For DMs with the inclination, play acting the trait can be fun (the big R in Role playing)
Indeed
I try to give my npcs a noticable feature, but i try to keep it pretty lowkey. Like a scar or calloused hands pr a cool hairdo. It makes it easier for me later to be able to figure out what their backstory might have been like if it becomes necessary
Do you mention people’s hands if the players don’t ask?
Another excellent video. One of my three favorite channels: Bandit´s Keep, GFC´DND and Dungeons Craft. The best channels in you tube (i love Mage´s Musign and Questing Beast too).
Thanks 🙏🏻
This is a good way to use insight checks
True, could be useful
I usually only give notable traits to the more prominent NPC's. It's a little meta-gamey, but whatever. I focus more on what information they know/ and their motivation/ background, and how that affects their treatment of the characters/ adventurers generally. EG. a sergeant of the the city guard is gonna be a little more tough, curt/ stern, and have experience talking to/ hiring adventurers, etc. Sometimes it's fun to go totally against type to make them stand out as well. Just whatever I feel like at the table.
I agree
Great video. Most of my NPCs are pre-planned. But I rarely do stat blocks. I prefer a simple description and a quote from them with relevant information. If a fight breaks out, I stat them on the fly.
I also rely on my crappy five or six character voices to carry the bulk of the encounter.
You have a quote for them? That’s really interesting!
@@BanditsKeep Yeah, I try to throw in some kind of exposition to help the players and also help me remember to give them the information. For example, in an upcoming session, the PCs will be traveling with a NPC who is a Priest of Dragonwright. When they encounter a great hall with depictions of a great war and strange writings, I'll have the NPC say, “This is the language of Dragons. The first word and the last. The lexicon of creation and desolation.” I try to keep it to one or two lines, specific to the NPC.
"Even everyone's super....
No one will be."
Indeed
The tricky part of me to to make those certain NPCs memorable as a focus without making it seem like I'm railroading player interest. Like if I give one a voice or mannerism, that's attractive, but I give another nothing, then the players automatically assume there's nothing there and move on, even if that nothing NPC may have relevance (if not immediately, then perhaps later on).
This advice also applies to environments, giving more focus to some than others to keep the story going. How I go about that is to describe one or two quick, general details about a location, no matter the size, that relate to the story, and leave the players to ask about more. There's no reason to describe room dimensions except to a map maker, and is that still a thing in RPGs nowadays?
As far as lists go, name lists are CRUCIAL. You can stumble on any detail you want, but don't ever slip up on not giving any NPC a name. You'll never live it down.
I use mappers at my table, yes. I don’t think it’s railroading to highlight certain figures or features - it would be if they keep jumping up in front of the PCs when they show no interest though
It’s funny, the last session I played in of Tomb of Annihilation we actually had to ask for the GM to give us exact room dimensions cause we couldn’t get a good enough sense of the place to draw a map 😂 but I do think that’s the exception, not the norm.
I mostly wing it, improvising most NPCs, though those with potential importance I'll flesh out more and decide more about in advance. I almost never give really obvious traits unless there is some special relevance to it. This includes monsters who may become named NPCs simply because the players decided to talk to them.
Cool! Sure monsters - especially dragons - are often named in my worlds
Great video and love the title image reference so true lol
Thanks 🙏🏻
I do whatever is necessary. I tend to not get too specific with individuals, especially classes and levels unless I expect to see combat. I tend to flesh them out as time and necessity requires.
Makes sense
Geezer here....
I long ago adopted the tactic of a minimal NPC. The kittens (players) will let me know who I need to "develop".
Gaming on.
For sure
My players " I steal that Battleaxe!"
🙌🏻🙌🏻
Personally I only use the memorable NPCs for ones that I plan to make recurring, important characters. They still usually look normal, but there's at least a few things that stand out other than their name. If players *make* an NPC important, I try to retrofit it by brainstorming through their personal history
Cool
Yeah, I feel that urge to make every character and place unique when DM’ing. Though when I’m a player, I prefer to face sensible and trivial NPCs! I’m not the only one, right?
You are not
I think for me, most NPCs are born in the moment. When an NPC has something a PC wants, and it's not clear the NPC is willing to do it or part with it, I take a second to think of what that NPC wants and / or what they're afraid of, and it's almost always very simple. A guard wants to keep their job. A librarian wants to protect their materials. A merchant is afraid of losing business. That kind of thing. Knowing that tells me what leverage will work or not. You don't need much more than that. They may be a reoccurring character but it's a bit part after all.
For sure
A really insightful video! You put the concept really well into words. This is the sort of emergent gameplay thing that could even have its own name, like emergent NPCs. Does it have a name?
Thanks! I’m not sure if it has a name
I'm really curious about the fire and ice game that's coming out. But I don't know anyone that likes fire and ice so I think it would likely just be a shelf piece.
I'm going to order vermis instead. I think you'd appreciate vermis. It's an art book that's designed to look like an old dungeon crawl video game guide. It's very very fertile ground for DM thinky times.
I’ll take a look - yes fire and ice game looks cool, I’m up in the air about it though
Great video!
Thank You!
I used an NPC that was Schizophrenic and had multiple personalities
They still talk about him after 30+ years
Good points
Interesting, did the PCs figure it out or was there thought of magic?
I have similar thoughts with the Lazy GM's advice to make interesting locations. When every location is special, they lose their "magic."
Yup
Nothing destroys my immersion when "5 Anti-Paladins attack you in the Sewers on your investigation, they all have the same weapon and armor, I will number them 1 through 5 on the map" F this. I quit the Pathfinder in-person group I was in when it was hopeless like this.
If the anti paladins are attacking you, they are important characters and should be distinct in some way I’d say. But having the same weapon and armor makes sense if they are part of an order of some sort
A fun thing to do on occasion is to "hide" an NPC who will become important later, by giving all NPCs distinct quirks or traits at first. Then later, all other NPCs can fade into generic amorphousness, while the players keep running into the three fingered man again and again as that NPCs importance becomes more and more apparent. But if you do it to often the players might get wise =)
But normally I prefer keeping NPCs fairly generic and undefined until extra details become needed.
But why is this NPC showing up?
Off topic, but I thought I recognized you at Shire Con.
I was there! Such a great Con!
@@BanditsKeep Yes it was. My first TTRPG convention since 1985. I will definitely be there next year, and I'll probably run at least one game session.
Huh, good advice and everything but just wanna say a buddy of mine and I once talked about what we think creators did as a day job. He thought you were a teacher/professor, I said something artistic; likely architecture. Should’ve placed a bet…
On the actual video it’s funny because my home game gets really slowly paced, takes a session for one in game day most of the time. Think that’s mostly because of a bunch of memorable NPCs that players feel like they always have to interact with! Sometimes a blacksmith is just a blacksmith.
Thought* whatever…
I had an entire adventure in town because I mentioned. Some children lit at night and the players thought it was odd so focused the entire session on them 😂
I usually make up NPC as I go, but then my players start asking all sorts of questions that I never thought about. How do I get the players to stop asking me what the porters name is? (I've never used a porter. I was just trying to come up someone whose name you wouldn't care about in real life.
Ask the players to name them. I tend to do that quite a bit - just ask a player who is not engaged in the conversation
Does Alexa interrupt you frequently when recording XD
Yes 😂
The first bit reminds me of the Chekhov's Gun concept. Don't mention a gun being in a room in a story if the gun in the room doesn't matter to the story. Including these extra elements, if they don't matter to the story, have the potential of serving as just a distraction. Also, if they end up being irrelevant, it can lead to a sense of dissatisfaction if those unnecessary extra elements are unresolved.
For sure
Sometimes a farmer is just a farmer.....
Indeed
I don't worry about every NPC, I start improvised NPCs as "normal" too, but there's something you've overlooked about it; you subconsciously incorporate your own normality biases. Every NPC I introduced was a man and one of my players pointed that out to me and told me that it was impacting the experience of the game. So since then I've tried to ensure that diversity is respected for inclusivity at the table.
This is a very good point! I’m sure I do that same (bring biases) - do you have a specific way that you encourage yourself to create diversity
@@BanditsKeep My main NPC name sheet helped. I split the names into the 10 cultures on my map but only wrote 8 male names and 8 female names for each location. Having fewer names meant that I was encouraged to use women NPCs or cultural outsider characters when I had to grasp a name out of nowhere. I could still do better I'm sure but it definitely helped me.
The discord link is expired :(
Could you post a new permanent one? (You can configure it when you create it; by default it’s valid for 7 days)
Updated, thanks!
Totally with you on not making every NPC special or noteworthy. But we should be careful about coloring NPCs with "quantum subjectivity". Even if the PC loves buxom bartenders, she could still gross him out with the fake beard she wears after hours (because she identifies as a dwarf).
For sure
Less can be better. If the GM is spending a lot of prep time assigning traits to characters the PCs will maybe interact with once for a minute or two at most, then it's probably not a wise use of time. Unless your group is really into roleplaying you can even just quickly narrate how the PCs talked to the guards at the gate, were recognized due to their prior good deeds, and then promptly pointed in the direction of the noble in need of their services without having to have multiple conversations with background NPCs to reach the same point. If an NPC will likely be an important or recurring presence, then it's worth fleshing out their personality, motivations, and goals a bit. There's also no shame in stealing interesting characters from TV shows, movies, or books and inserting them into your game. Unless you're really good with accents and mimic a character precisely, it's unlikely your players will ever notice, and it's an easy way to make a character have a bit of meat to them without having to do much if any work.
For sure
I enjoy sprinkling in good npc in a sea of forgettable faces...like real life. :)
For sure
Less is usually more.
For sure
I like to make the players become attached to them. And then kill them.
🤔 doesn’t that teach them not to become attached?
@@BanditsKeep well, used sparingly, it can be a prime motivator. Revenge for their lost comrade. Also the death of allied npcs can be a meatsheild warning to the reckless.😄
The vast majority of people you meet are bland and decidedly unremarkable and do not stand out in any way. True in real life as it should be in the game.
Indeed