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This experience is a good laugh about NPCs... The party needed to travel a river, so they hired a barge. On the journey they spoke to the barge captain, asking his name. I never named him past barge captain, so I answered Harry Paratesticles (long e at the end there). After a few fights on the river and a safe arrival at the destination, they paid Capt Paratesticles to wait and give them a ride back home. A few river pirate encounters on the way home, and safe arrival. Later, they hired him again. And again. Every time they needed a river trip, they hired Harry Paratesticles. By his third hire, he was on retainer. Eventually he joined them on a few adventures. His barge business was booming so his son Long captained a second barge. His company grew to a fleet from the loot he got accompanying the players, when he did. Also his name grew because of his association to them. And now, a couple hundred years later, Paratesticles Shipping is a major company in the business of river trade. And the names Harry and Long Paratesticles have gone down in history as the greatest river captains to take the helm, and great heroes among the river trade. And I can't ever use those names again for NPCs.
This is just it. You never know who your players are going to single out, and the first time it happens it will be a bit challenging to think of something off the top of your head. Eventually you are ready though, and you create something beautiful. Long live Harry Paratesticles.
@@thetwojohns6236 This is getting better and better! 🤣 Also, how long-lived are those adventurers that their adventuring loot financed four generations of Paratesticlés? Are they all elves and dwarves? Or is it already _their_ offspring adventuring, too?
That is literally what my character is called. Well people call her Boblina now due to testing a misty doorway by walking into it. Yeah, she eventually learned not to test things on yourself, because she's a ghost now.
I went through a decade of merchants all being named Fred, with a vast variety of spellings. Fred, Fredd, Phred, Phredd, Ffred, Ffredd, Kfred (the K is silent)...
So... He's "Bob little the mouthy little one". I'm sorry, but you put it in my language... Just imagine if other races knew the names the Freemen gave them.
Meanwhile, the random dude they met along the side of the road whose name you had to make up when one player randomly asked for it has been accompanying the party since that session and is about to slay a god alongside them.
Secrets that aren't necessarily bad! I love them! One of my favorite things was when an NPC was pregnant and hadn't told the party yet. They were in a war zone, and the Druid cast a healing spell that didn't require sightline. I told the Druid, listen, you can sense two creatures in the same space, which one are you healing? It took a moment, but the realization at the table was priceless.
Let me tell you something. I was in a campaign once where we had to clear out a zombie infested mine. Purely as color and scenery decoration, the DM decided to throw in a zombie mine canary fluttering around in a cage. Guess what, the party decided to adopt it. Fast forward a couple sessions and we get into a fight with a wild magic sorcerer. Now, the DM had decided to use a d10000 wild magic table. And one of the magic effects that came up was that the nearest nonsentient creature would be given human level intelligence. This was, of course, The zombie canary. Over the course of the next few sessions with us teaching it how to read talk and giving it our warlocks pact book, it eventually became a warlock. And it was a pretty good ally, until it decided that it wanted to make all of us "like him", that is to say, dead. In the resulting fight, we found that it had actually taken our warlock as its own familiar, so every time we hurt it our warlock would take damage. We eventually defeated it but with our warlock dying in the process. He was revived, but came back half undead. And on top of that, the bbeg of the campaign took interest in the canary's soul as it passed until the afterlife. Seizing upon it and making it a general in his army. So that ended up not being the last we heard of it.
2:40 Bungie touched on this in a similar vein in a 2022 GDC conference (what follows is a paraphrasing because i'm too lazy to find the slide online) - Anger is - not - the opposite of loving a game. Loving and Hating are only like 2 degrees removed from each other, and they both come from passionate, engaged players. The opposite of loving a game - the thing that will absolutely kill your game - is Apathy
I have a BBEG that I still try to casually reference by name, and my Fiancee is just like "Oh yeah, I freaking killed her and had NO intention of learning her name"
I had an npc that the party tried to kill and literally the only reason they didn't is because I said "This is a literal child, if you kill them you will all become evil aligned."
@@espiritucallejero9127 I left campaign becaude DM gave us immortal kid lizard to say constantly in the most annoying voice: "Can I taste you? Oh you must be tasty? Can I taste them?"
My teenager players fell in love with a horse. One of them had “speak with animals”, so of course they spoke to their hired horses. GM (ie me): (in head) Oh Crap! Wasn’t ready for this! Horse1 - aloof and indifferent. PCs like. Horse2 - an idiot “Who dat talkin’ to me? Where are you?…Oh, you on my back.” Players LOVE the idiot horse. They plan on stealing him from the stables to take him on their adventures.
Reminds me of my players casting speak with animals and then awaken on the extra large Clydesdale horse. Introduce the thick southern accented Bud the Wiser …who later sacrificed hisself to rescue his arms brother, the Paladin, and now the Paladin uses Bud as his showing of divine power and after Paladin contracted lycanthropy it got changed to him being a werehorse due to Bud’s help…
Update: they raided the treasure room of the keep, bought a 2-horse cart, bought the idiot horse… and bought a horse from the Duke’s stables. I have had time to develop this one’s voice. Next session they will have to tell me if they bought a stallion (posh English accent, has to be referred to by his “full name” every time) or a mare (Valley Girl, “like, literally the best option”) … they brought this on themselves!
Have 2 villains. 1 bbeg and a second who is trying to take over, but isn't as powerful. This second one will help and hinder the party based on what the party does.
@ChristopherHogan-oi9ll yes and no. That is one example, but the one trying to take over doesn't have to have had any connection with the superior one, much less work for them. It's to go from ww2 was axis vs allies and instead to go, there were two major groups in ww2, but in each group, say axis, and show a power struggle between imperialist japan, n@zi germany, and Italy (I'm not sure what they were called so pardon me). Basically the idea of one bad team fighting one good team isn't as good as a set of more complex forces that aren't in complete opposition to one another acting for what suits them best.
Here is the thing, you had 5 pages of backstory and a character sheet. You obviously can't show this when introducing the NPC, so the created material doesn't matter at that particular point. An introduction to the NPC needs to be a banger to be memorable. Meeting the coolest NPC sitting in the tavern and sipping beer will be boring. It doesn't matter if you have just "Boblin the Goblin" in your notes or an essay and custom character art. But maybe when you meet that NPC in the tavern sipping beer, the entire glassware explodes and then you learn he is a psychic with uncontrollable powers. I have a very simple method of creating NPCs: 3 character traits, 1 secret, 1 relationship with other NPCs, simple backstory and the most important thing, goals and achievements. It takes me approximately 10 to 30 minutes to make a cool NPC, so even if PCs don't care about them, no big deal.
Exactly! If you're gonna put in all that effort for an NPC, you kinda have to be their hypeman. They're the talk of the town, name gets dropped in casual conversations and hushed whispers alike, everyone and their grandparents heard of this bundle of badass. But, until then, KISS method - keep it simple, stupid.
I should sleep so I haven’t started the video, so egg on my face if this is mentioned or a major part of the video: I think a big issue is DMs taking the techniques in film, books, and video games and using them in a cooperative storytelling game. In a video game the code keeps you from attacking certain characters and decides who your companions are. That means even if a companion seems uninteresting, you assume there’s something more to them because they’re a companion NPC. With DnD there’s an infinite amount of possible companions so you *need* to make your players like them. Making them have a lot of cool things to reveal later is fine, but it’s useless if you leave nothing out front to make the players go “Ooh let’s keep this one”
Npcs I make on the fly or intend to be one and done I'll give them 1 syllable sounding name (pat, Bob, frank, steve,may, ect) and they always become big hits. Pete the herbalist became so big/important npc it got to a point they wanted to protect pete from the horrors of the world (he was a stereotypical hippie)
@@scoots291 This, this right here. Chip, the tabaxi alchemist, was just a quest giver that I pulled out of my ass. Now, she has become a staple in my campaign and I've had to add so much story to her.
I think a bit of that perception is success bias. 80%+ of NPCs are made up on the fly; it makes sense that most successful NPCs are made up on the fly.
One of the players in our current campaign has collected 2 NPCs so far found in a dungeon that I'm 90% confident the DM had no plans on keeping around. We keep making fun of his character and saying that she has a habit of collecting strays. They actually ended up writing into the campaign that one of the other PCs she showed up with in the beginning of the campaign is in fact, also a dungeon spawn stray she collected from a different dungeon but our PCs don't know that yet, not that we would bother to ask and at this point, if it gets revealed, I think at least half of our PCs would not be surprised at all. Another player has accidentally killed several named NPCs in town which ended up mildly upsetting our DM to the point where he was hesitant on naming their replacement NPCs and a few other random NPCs. The player didn't intend on killing those people, he just wanted to hurt them a little bit, but when they only had 4hp... He might have possibly killed another NPC and who knows how many potental others by selling the bartender some slaad eggs as caviar. The bartender ate one before buying the rest of them to sell at his bar. As far as we're aware, the PC didn't know how dangerous those things are and figured they look like caviar. We aren't sure yet how that is going to play out.
Yeah. One player in a game I ran romanced a city guard so he became a member. Didn't expect to have a game where the elf went through the whole moral dilemma about elves and humans becoming couples on account of the elf, almost inevitably, having to bury not only their spouse but their children due to old age but hey, ain't complaining
My players favorite NPC: My players were entering a temple that was taken over. There was a table with offerings to the gods on it in the form of food. One such piece of food was actually a small living cheese construct that was there as a security measure from before the temple was taken over. I intended on it just being a random enemy, but my players were so determined to tame it that I relented and let them. It wasn’t that strong anyways. It became their mascot and somehow survived the whole campaign with only 4 max HP. I used their attachment to it to gain a reaction that honestly worked better than expected when I through it off an airship right before the final boss. During the epilogue when I was wrapping up everyone’s stories, I described how the cheese lived and eventually had a family (don’t question how). Somehow, that last bit made my players tear up a bit.
One of my DM's recently decided to infuse the party with 3 DM NPCs. His theory was that rather than creating the encounters for a party of 3, he'd include his DMPCs also. One character was somewhat amusing, a dwarf that talked like an Italian "made guy" from Brooklyn. Another was a wizard with all sorts of cool stuff. The third was a swashbuckler. ALL 3 of them were so uber powerful, and the DM was constantly having them save the day. The rest of the party was SO under impressed. When the adventure finally ended, and we were supposed to go into the NEXT chapter, where the swashbuckler was going to introduce us to his ultra rich family who would take us in while we explored in their city, my only question was, "Can't we just kill him off and go on our own adventure?" Despite how COOL the DM thought the NPC was, he was actually annoying as heck, and taking away from party agency.
I hope that DM changed their ways, they sound like an ass. I’ve run DMPCs in parties before (usually because no one wanted to heal or tank), but I’ve only ever run a single one to support a small party.
I've only ever run a DMPC once, when we were still looking for a third party member but we didn't want to wait to start the campaign. The DMPC did not speak and had taken a "Vow of Mediocrity" so as to not take the spotlight away from others. Once our third player was found, the DMPC was punted into oblivion.
@Riley_Mundt This is the way to do it! Nerfing the NPC not only keeps the spotlight on the PCs, but also makes them more interesting and sometimes even endearing.
My favorite part about this whole process is how each aspect of an NPC feeds into itself. I was designing an innkeeper, and thought it would be cool if he was a war vet. Earlier I had written his personality as "cowardly", and that seemed like a strange contradiction. I then gave him a peg leg, fulfilling his recognizable trait, but then wrote that he lost his leg when he slipped off his horse, broke it, and had to amputate, giving him an embarrassing secret and explaining his fear of mundane things.
@@senritsujumpsuit6021 Or the guy who died "saving" a girl by pushing her out of the way of a slowly approaching farm tractor... that didn't even hit him. I don't recall your first example, but the second sounds like "Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody".
One of my biggest worries as a DM was the thought of players lore diving on random NPCs. Asking insane questions. I used to over prep for every NPC which was torture. Instead I resorted to having a list of template background infromation that I would just pull from. However, this was also time consuming ... So eventually I took a narrator role and just said "The NPC relays a tragic story about their past, though nothing they said seems to spark any interest to you" and go full on video game notification. While it felt cheap ... I realized that players putting pressure on me was also cheap. Now they know if I go "Video Game Notification" mode, they know not to dig. I guess it's a bit meta, but saves my breath and a headache.
NPCs are not obligated to tell Players their whole life story. If your players went/go beyond that they are showing interest in your world and character writing. Are you not then betraying their interest by just going generic on them? If it's malicious on their part then sure... but if they are just absorbed into your world then isn't it a good thing that they want to know more?
@@Valsorayu Context is everything, I always make an attempt to fill in blanks where possible, but if I can tell they are pushing buttons that's when I go NPC on them. I think it's just feeling what's right in the moment. I've even pulled them up about their intense questioning as well as the NPC, I mean it's really odd when people randomly ask for your whoile life story when you don't know them so I'll give it the whole "I don't feel comfortable sharing those details about my life right now, but if there is something you need we could discuss it over a drink sometime" Then that gives me some playtime to come up with stuff. Just gotta feel what works out best.
Years ago, had a party in the service of the great Bahamut. We reported to an avatar of his, who projected as a slightly stout older man. One player could never remember the name Bahamut, so it turns out we were in service of "The Great Belly".
i played a rogue named Francis in a deadlands game that ran a "2nd hand store" in the campaign. the a DM liked it so much in many of his campaigns their is an NPC called Francis that helps PCs with supplies.
I had a junk encounter where the players were supposed to come across zombies fighting an evil group of npc's. The group was supposed to die to the zombies and then some lore stuff was supposed to happen that would intrigue the players to figure some stuff out. Well... The players stepped in to help kill the zombies, with one evil character still alive after the quick fight. That evil junk npc is now an important "necromancer-like" woman quest giver who is going to be a main part of the progression of the campaign. One of the players hates her, two of the players have had some very interesting interactions with her and are weary but friendly so far. First time DMing, btw.
Was playing a pokemon ttrpg. We got to the pokemart, and what my poor dm was unaware of, was that i personally love the store clerks in the games. Unlike the nurse Joys and officer Jennies, the store clerks dont get names. So as soon as we met one, i needed to know everything. And unfortunately for the dm, my speech about how the store clerk isnt a random nobody boosting jis moral while also completely taking advantage of him (becuase store) just became a great running gag. Lifting up these poor identical male merchants who never got the fame of the Joy and Jenny leniage. In my head all the clerks in games are named Justin, to match with the Joys and Jennys. But i did not bring up anything about that when the GM said his name was Clark. Clark is cool too.
For NPCs I always just come up with a name and a personality quirk. If the players latch on to that then I'll work on filling it out more down the line. My two greatest examples: 1) Alchemist that insists on correcting people on how to say his name even though they're saying it right. As the DM I roleplay him correcting them at least twice before finally saying they got it right even though in all instances they've said the name the same way, lol. They loved it, latched on to it, and now I've got him in the pocket for a reoccurring encounter. 2) Three siblings that started off as bandits but have a fondness for green beans; their mother's green beans specifically. The party decided to bribe them with food, the siblings asked if they had any green beans, and the party decided that for some inexplicable reason the majority of their rations were green beans, lol. They loved the situation and so later on they ran into a restaurant the siblings decided to open that served exclusively green beans; but with fancy, 5 star style service, and every single item is made entirely of green beans.
I've found a great way to flesh out an NPC is to ascribe to them the likes/dislikes, & mannerisms of a celebrity, person from history, or character from fiction. It does so much to inform how the characters talks and behaves, and it's really simple to remember.
I actually use character sheets for IMPORTANT NPCs. Like the main villain, quest givers, generals, captains of the guard, bandit leaders, etc. Why I do this is to give a "equal footing" to the players, where they (the players) are NOT the most powerful people around and give a solid challenge when I need the fight to be challenging. Having one of my players, who was a ranger, suddenly have a barbarian get in their face and start smashing them made everyone go "OH CRAP" which was the goal. They had to fight smart, as the barbarian was going to win a physical brawl. Another tried to pick a fight with the captain of the guard, who was actually meant to be a friendly, primary quest giver to the party. He was a multiclass forge cleric and fae wanderer ranger. Heavy armor, magical weapon, shield, and searing smite made it clear that this captain EARNED his position. The player, whom the others left to his own devices because they DIDN'T want to fight the NPC, got bodied, nearly died, and arrested. The other players were glad they didn't join the fight, as they weren't sure what else the captain could do. The guard captain actually became fairly liked, and definitely respected.
You have found the right way to utilize fully fleshed-out NPCs, as people that will be unavoidable who have actual reasons to be so effective. I've fleshed out a few notable enemies, as you have, but I also created an entire class of students for a solo Strixhaven game I'm running for my wife. I find character creation to be among my favorite aspects of the game, so if she only interacts with a few of the students, fine, they're all ready to interact with her as deeply or shallowly as she wants. She could ignore them all, and I wouldn't mind, I had fun making them and will still be able to incorporate them into the story regardless of how she views them.
@@seanmadson8524 I've also learned to wait to give characters player levels until they've gotten my player's attention. My most recent one is named Sigil. Basic young tiefling, he was essentially an escort quest for my party to help a commander in a war. His mission was to gather a magical box from a forest spirit, who was guarding it but is actually harmless (a talking manatee). The players decided not to take the box, but lost their insight and perception checks. They had a long rest and went back to the commander with Sigil, who was acting skittish but none of them paid him any mind. Once they got to the commander, Sigil gave him the box with a sad look on his face - he was aiming to be a paladin and this was the test of his oath. Sigil had killed the forest spirit and stolen the box when the players long rested. This completed his trial and became the paladin he sought to be. The commander used the box to warp his entire army with demonic energy - Sigil included - and sent the army to attack a peaceful village. The players attacked the commander, defeated him, and realized Sigil was nowhere to be found. They followed the army and helped the town defend against it. Once again, no Sigil anywhere. Now they are tracking him (ranger player is SUPER happy he gets to track something!). What they don't know is Sigil couldn't handle the dark price for his oath and immediately broke it. He is now a feral tiefling hexblade oathbreaker and sees himself as a monster for the party to slay. He actually looked up to them and wants them to be heroes, but also wants them to truly earn it from him.
11:00 we are playing a game where our player names are Laranlor, Lukikukushanda and Arikichariku. I started calling my charachter Lan, which he used a cover name since he was a the prince of a big country, but a half-elven bastard prince who his stepmother hires assasins to kill to secure her sons claim. The players and DM took this over and now our charachters are known as Ari, Lukiku and Lan.
I have a town in my world called Bitterstream. It's called that because of the flavour of the water, but the fish that come from the river are among the best tasting in the world. The population is mostly humans, but the tavern keepers wife was a Elf that I purposely gave a different accent. Upon being asked why she was in the village, she says the following: "Came for the fish, stayed for the company". During the second part she glances pointedly at her husband.
I have three types of NPCs: 1) Generic NPCs which perform the mundane aspects of the universe (shopkeepers, town guards, etc.) 2) Quest NPCs- These get a one paragraph bio and an original name. They are introduced for a specific quest and only return if it makes sense when making new quests. Their personalities are more involved, but still simple. 3) Campaign NPCs- These get a full page bio and probably also a custom stat block. These will repeatedly reappear during the campaign and receive more fleshed out personalities and voices.
Wow. I feel like an idiot now. I have felt the need to give my NPCs elaborate backstories & character sheets that never stay long enough to share everything. While watching this video, I just made up a pic for my newest NPC & slapped it on a generic bard stat block & he's pretty much good to go. I based him on a real person that I am familiar how the guy acts. I think you just took away about 75% of my stress DMing. 🤣
I am the same. I am in my way to DM my first campaign and spent days only to flesh out 6 NPCs Hopefully the work will be worth since those are NPCs relevant to the player characters, but I'm just speeding through the process from now on
How do they smell??? FINALLY! I put a note on how they smell every single time. EVERY single time! And it's a clue to who they are and what they've been up to every time. Fire powers? You bet they smell a little smokey. Comes from the coast? Salty notes and coastal florals all the way. My players thought it was hilarious at first, but it's actually come in handy once or twice. I've also flavored the same spell differently depending on the caster, and they love it and started flavoring their own magic more. When the fire themed NPC casts misty step, it's smokey step 😂
@@theDMLair lol if you stand next to someone and you can breathe through your nose that day, that person you're standing beside usually smells like _something_, and I like that to be a clue about their abilities or backstory- even if the PCs never end up finding out more. But they usually do- my players love NPCs and usually want to know everything 😹
My satyr bard smells like a goat when the party comes back from an adventure and needs to visit the bath house to wash off the charisma debuff. The centaur paladin smells even worse.
I love this, it seems very engaging for the players. Smell is such a special sense, you can smell something as an adult and remember a time when you were just a kid more vividly than your own recollection of your childhood might allow you to. Trying to evoke that feeling in players is such a clever idea.
The perfect way to create an NPC is to give them a really stupid quirk. I made a fairy archwizard NPC who didn't want people to know she was a fairy, so she dressed in normal human clothes and floated around as though she were a five-foot-tall human woman, but anyone who really paid attention would notice that her arms were too short and you couldn't see her feet moving under the bottom of her dress. Other than that, I kinda just came up with the rest of her personality on the fly. My players *_loooooooooooove_* Rowena Rainbowspirit.
Great video! One of my all -time memorable NPCs was a good aligned kobold named Kaggable. He formed a bond with the paladin and wanted to be one himself, someday. Mannerisms: he would hold his wrists in a sort of dinosaur (t-rex) bent wrist position and would croak out his name in a little soft voice as part of almost every sentence. "Kaggable help!" His tribe's favorite food was turnips and their way of honoring a friend was to give the friend a plate of their own poop as a gift. "Kaggable give you POOP!" (The poor pally who he'd attached himself too was both horrified and polite.) My husband, the pally, still wants to create stuffed toys and perhaps statues in Kaggable's honor.
My players got a kobold minion they names spot. Looking to eliminate a pack of kobolds, the bard cast a friendship spell on Spot to help him infiltrate. The spell wore off mid-way through the battle, but Spot "read the room" and stayed loyal to the bard. The quirk? Spot loved chickens. Particularly baby chickens. He would travel with a pouch of baby chicks and pet one almost all the time, muttering, 'Pretty chickee." When the party needed stealth, he would bite the chick's head off and put the rest in his pouch "for later"
When creating Major Villains, I like including plot twists, my favourite is when I had the BBEG be an accidental product of the main person who wanted the 'evil' defeated. Essentially the main villain used to be a normal guy who was relatively poor, forced into a position where he had to do dubious work to get paid so he could look after his family. The at the time human BBEG was working for one of the major lords, the lord was acquiring eldritch artifacts and materials to further his own goal, hiring men to smuggle the 'goods' into the city, to his private estate. Inevitably something goes bad while escorting the materials into the city, which lead to an incident that killed dozens of people, leading to the entire area to be quarantined to stop the spread. The players figured this out when they were eventually let into the infested area (ground zero) to investigate, leading them to the four men who were tasked with handling the eldritch materials, which three are dead with heir corpses laying about the wreckage. They find out who these people were, searching their houses etc, realising their was a 4th guy. They go to the fourth guys place and find his family, according to them the husband (the guy you're looking for) has been missing for weeks and have no clue where he is, to keep things short, the players pretty don't find anything of use, but one of the players realised that the young daughter was referring to the BBEG with a particular name which they picked up on, realising that this kid just so happens to have a children's book about the creature (the BBEG) that the father made up for his kids. (The BBEG isn't any preexisting fantasy monster, it is something I custom made for this adventure, most people refer to it has a snake demon, hellspawn etc, but the child referred to it with an actual name.)
5:00 - General NPC Creation Guidelines - Do NOT make Character Sheets for NPCs. 6:15 Create Stat Blocks instead. 6:45 - Do NOT make EVERY NPC have a complex backstory. 8:00 Make BULLET POINTS to skim over instead. 9:21 - NPC Creation Template - A name. Easy enough to pronounce. 11:22 - Lineage/Species/Ancestry/Origins 12:46 - Alignment, to help define the NPC's values and morals. 13:37 If your game has no alignment... (+ Defining the NPC's desires, wills and won'ts, likes and dislikes, fears, limits etc) 14:17 - Physical description, including other senses (breath, smell, voice tone & accent, personality traits). 16:00 - A secret, or more if the players are really invested on the NPC. 17:33 - On creating Major Villains. 17:46 - Means; the capability to strive for their goals. 18:24 - Method; how they run after their goals. (This mostly separates Good from Evil. Means to an End. A worthy cause, achieved through atrocious acts.) 19:30 - Motive; why do they desire the thing they strive towards? 21:15 - Flaw(s). 22:24 - Lieutenants. Bosses throughout the campaign who precede the Big Bad you are creating. 23:45 - Minor minions. Cannon fodder, who serve both the Big Bad and their Lieutenants. 24:40 - Creating allies.
My go to npc is a mercenary. He might be friendly, he might be hostile towards the party but he helps move the plot from adventure to this is the true bad guy. And he is either we hate you or we love you type of npc.
I was running a Fallout New Vegas campaign and my players' favorite NPC was a ghoul prostitute working in the Gomorrah casino named "Julie the Ghoulie", she had a Jersey accent and a menthol smokers voice and treated the party like they were all her favorite nieces and nephews. I was so surprised how much they loved her, but they latched onto her nearly instantly. Giving an NPC a unique appearance and/or name is a surefire way to get the party to really embrace them, I think.
I could tell a couple of stories about npcs I made as a DM, but probably the funniest is about an NPC I made as a player. I'm currently playing a battle smith artificer, no tech, rather flavoring it as a magic item crafter, using bones or discarded pieces of armor for his gizmos and then echanting them. He is a rather scrawny and grim looking fellow called Mr. Gloom, tax collector and adventurer extraordinaire (see, he used to live in the feywild and has been depressed since he moved by accident to the material plane). His partner in this venture is Mr. Marrow, a giant of a man, clad in armor, always silent, imposing and vigilant. Mr. Marrow is a steel defender, fashioned as a living armor with a skeleton inside, fit with cogs and enchanted machinery. My party treats Mr. Gloom well, but they friggin LOVE Mr. Marrow. He has the personality of an average great dane, silent strong type but loyal and friendly (although there are little ways he can show that friendliness). The contrast of the party trying to play with him or talking with him and him only answering with "..." are gold, and I'm enjoying every second of it.
like that meme on one side, elaborate dungeon with all the design ever - just some tumbleweeds flying arround on the other side, swarmed by the players - some cardboard cutout NPC they totally love
The amount of time and effort absolutely affects how much your players care about an NPC. It's an INVERSE relationship... the more time you put in, the less they care.... the random tavern customer that you never even planned for them to talk too... Yeah, that's the new party mascot.
Not the worst. Our dm made a dwarf alchemist who wanted us to find his stolen recipes. We found them, along with some unknown potions. When we showed them to the dwarf, he smashed them on the ground. The idea of our gm was for this dwarf to tell us those potions were crap and he would make quality portions for us and had these intricate questlines lined up. ... we took the smashing of our potions as an insult, and well... the dwarf did not survive.
The way I write all my major NPCs is to write a 1-ish page dossier that has their general outline, physical description, ideals and goals, dispositition and mannerisms, and any miscellaneous notes. This has proven extremely effective as it covers all the basics needed to make an NPC feel lifelike without getting bogged down in details that would likely never come up
I like to spend some of the time I use creating each adventure creating NPC's. The catch however, is that the NPC has to be an Integral Part/Element Of The Adventure, be it Villain or Hero, Innkeeper or Tailor, Cobbler or Candlemaker, Town Guard or Gung/Gong Collector (Person who collects the waste and urine from the local latrines for use by others post refinement), etc,. While stat blocks, I am as apt to use them as I am to have detailed the NPC's stats, kit, personality, history, etc,...however a maximum of (3) - 3"x5" index cards. My most recent gnome alchemist/rogue, Schneibel-Beb-Lebienhcs , or Schneibee for short among friends. Standing 2'4" tall, with a short flat-top cut black hair, deep-set steel grey eyes, a thick goatee mustache/beard. All Hill Gnomes have names that are the same forward as they are backwards. Our campaign STRONGLY disapproves of common modern names, Ned, Mary, Bob, Denise, ,Joe, Sue, Max, Jim, etc,... and those suffering such find a very short lifespan in most cases as they find favor only among demons and their ilk... As My/Our Campaign World Of Midoris is generally slower and far more detailed and character driven than many campaigns, if not most, yet this works well for this group.
I once made a DMPC to fill out the party since the module we were using was made for 4 players and we only had three, they were a mute kobold barbarian who looked like his scales were stone (costume race I made) who basically had no backstory, the party named him Stone Cold Steve Austin and LOVED him soo much.
after being a DM for more than 20 years I just take a single emotion (fear, love, anger and so on) or an ideal (honor, loyalty, respect and so on) to be the main driving force over the entire personality and for each situation the npc is in. I keep the back story about a paragraph long so it saves me a ton of time and leaves me room to improv. as the game unfolds. From my expeirence with this method quite a few of my characters are remembered by people that I have gamed with.
In my time as a DM, I've fallen into that trap a few times -- meticulously crafting an NPC specifically to be beloved by my players, and at best it only kinda-sorta works. Funny enough, the one NPC that my players absolutely *adored* and couldn't stop talking about long after the session was an eccentric dwarf medium who I just made up on the fly; honestly, gonna toot my own horn for a second here...I impressed myself with the way I was able to conjure her straight from the ether and fully engage the party with her.
That's why I use roll tables to generate NPC backstories, sometimes I pick them manually. Any detail is a suggestion when playing anyway, their background is just there to give flavor to the NPCs reaction to your players action or their role in advancing the plot. The other trick is the NPC economy if a character or enemy isn't dead, reuse them where it makes sense, until they die. Their reappearance might be a plot hook.
Moral of the story, temper expectations. Only put effort into NPCs and side-content for the love of doing so, not because you expect the players to even find it let alone love it. If you really really want your players to interact with an NPC, I say just stick em in whatever "HUB" city/town they are most likely to revisit or setup a base at. That or just save said NPC for another adventure you can run that is based around them. Don't be afraid to recycle "missed content" from one adventure to then place into another if possible.
All of these are extremely good points. From my experience, a "sticky" NPC needs to be loud (personality-wise), but not too loud (doesn't seem like a PC in disguise). Loud in this sense doesn't mean they can't be quiet-I fondly recall an NPC from a game I played in, Rachel Miller, who was very curt and used few words when she spoke at all, tended to stare at people until they found it unnerving, and whispered to her bow when she thought no one was looking... because it actually contained the spirit of her dead mother. If an NPC is just a chance encounter, a table of names and two personality traits is probably all you need. But if you're trying to make a recurring character, then review the backgrounds, ideals, bonds and flaws of your PCs to see what sort of NPCs might work as a potential ally, rival, foil, or enemy of one or more members of the party. Knowing your players also helps, since a player's interest will have is a pretty big factor in whether an NPC is effective or not. If a PLAYER immediately likes an NPC when they show up, then they'll find any reason or excuse for why their PC might decide to talk to them, even if they normally wouldn't ;)
Okay, okay...I can sneer and talk bad about your ideas, but I would like to say you are far more helpful than I could ever be in your place. My NPCs are basically trash no-names unless they survive a couple battles.
I am so glad I saw this video because I'm starting my first D&D campaign and was worried about how I'd be able to make statblocks for the 48 NPCs I currently have, but now I feel much better about that. I still made stat blocks for three of them, but those NPCs are already dynamic enough not to fit into any category (damn multiclassers)
Knew exactly what you were going to say as soon as you said you first sentence lol. This is why when I make a NPC, I hold back on fleshing them out I realize whether or not my players care about that NPC. All I care about is the personality and some other base info. Now if I want my players to like the NPC I care more about their entrance rather than the character themselves. I have found my players are more engrossed to an NPC by their entrance. If my players like them enough, then I'll create their backstory more and even put them more into the characters main story.
I just created a new NPC. I haven't gotten to his stat block, but he's an ogre named Crumblebones who managed to get out of the gladiator pits in the neighboring country. I had no idea how or where I was going to use him, but then it hit me that he's part of the Shankill Butchers who get their kicks by terrorizing small local towns and are wanted by the crown. This also led to Shankill being an orc barbarian who gets his kicks from terrorizing people. Still have to do stat blocks for everyone, but the idea is planted.
My players favorite NPC of all time (40+ years of DMing) was one I made up on the spot. Nicknames are part of the fun of a game table. Astafas instantly became "Ants in Pants" the moment he contacted the player characters. Also thrilled to hear that L&L1 hardcovers are back in stock! Let me get my CC out!
We did the pet name to a player character. A friend made an elf who carried both short and long bow. Each appropriate to certain endeavors and gave him an Elven name that would choke Tolkein. We ended up calling him Bobo or bow-bow. :)
I have to agree with what several people already said. For me, the players mostly seem to form attachments to random NPCs I come up with on the fly, those will be lifelong friends (or enemies) of the characters. If I put more than a few minutes into an NPC, it's a death curse for that npc.
I've noticed some truth to that. However, analyzing some of the random NPCs I've come up with that have been successes have allow me to draw some conclusions about what does work and what doesn't. I also think there is some success bias at work here, too. Since most of the NPCs in the game are random ones we come up with on the fly, the chances are very high that the majority of successful NPCs will be those that we come up with on the fly.
One page sheet is enough and another big thing is to come up with some basic traits and general idiom. If the NPC fits into the campaign, cool, you can always elaborate. Quite honestly the same advice on backstories applies to PCs, too! One or two bits of important information per tier level is plenty.
Made a NPC bugbear who was a sole survivor after a dragon attack and the key for the team to advance. He was smart, funny, a good fighter yet damaged and had layers. Like yourself, he had a few pages of backstory and the more I wrote, happier I become of this great character. Y-y-yeah, the team killed him. That taught me to have several ways to the campaign and that NPCs might not matter haha
I had something like this happen to me in the last campaign I ran. I made an NPC who was supposed to be a personal rival to one of my players' characters. I was planning on using him repeatedly over the next several weeks: one of those "bad penny" characters. Constantly harassing the party; constantly interfering with them. I poured over everything: his name, his backstory, how he fit in to the world at large, how he related to the bbeg, his goals and beliefs, his faction etc. And in their first little skirmish with him, my players Nat20'd that guy into oblivion. Crushed him and his entire party before I could even get to the round where the rival was supposed to call a truce. I was like "Oh, well... so much for that idea." It did teach me a valuable lesson though that I think DMs can benefit from. We often chastise players for being "murder hobos" or making decisions that get their whole party killed even though we tried to warn them like 5000 times. I think DMs need to be equally careful about what situations we put our "favorite" NPCs into as well just as if we were playing. Before pitting them against the players ask: am I ready to lose this character? Do I have a believable out for this character? Do I have a narrative replacement for this character if necessary? I'm running another campaign now with a similar "rival adventuring party" and I have been far more judicious with how the two groups interact with each other this time. lol
We had an ork prince npc who later we learnt was ment to die in the first combat to give the ork nation a reason to pursue and try to kill us, needless to stay combat didn't go the way the dm had hoped and all the orks survived and after a campaign that had been a pressure run no matter what the dm throw at the Prince we saved him and kept him alive no matter the odds or obstacles to the absolute hatred of the dm. Then finally fight we are fighting the many villian and 2 generals while the fight goes down the prince sacrifice himself killed the main evil and his uncle spear tackling him of the top of a very high tower we did still try to save him But the dm managed to block it and he died
The main questgiver NPC in my game is adored by my platers because the game started with them being surrounded by baddies that had pursued them to town. At level 1 they were being overwhelmed and the NPC who saved them (It's the only combat he's done so far, it was only to introduce him) had featherfall and came down upon one of the baddies with his greatsword. He helped the party battle and then afterward returned to the Temple of Bahamut, now issuing quests for the party or directing them where to go to speak to others if they need information or have other quests.
Players will always care about the most random NPC they feel is the most entertaining to them. My players once went to the docks of one of my cities to find a ship they could catch a ride on to get where they're going, and after a player got a critical success to search for someone "filled with adventure", the greenhorn guy calling himself the captain of a barely functional raft that I made up on the spot quickly became the most popular NPC character. I had to wrench him from the party saying his mum was worried sick about him after the quest was over so they wouldn't permanently adopt him as a companion.
The backstory stuff was one of the first things I learned while GMing. I’d write pages of backstory just to end up changing it on the fly to either help or hinder the players as the game moved forward. So now when I make an important npc I come up with a couple things like (a wealthy merchant from the mysterious Erie lands, has a homunculus as a trusted servant. He is in the pocket of lord SoAndSo but has no love for the dubious noble.) There is so much to play with there it makes me drool in anticipation I LOVE IT!!!
my players have come around to naming a random guard that i had trown in for not allowing the party to enter the castle due to the scandly clad ork (it was a homebrew race based on warhammer orks so no private parts anywhere) that turned into a duel and then i had to come up with a name on the spot wich was Becket, the party only ever refers to him as bucket or biscuite
I absolutely love putting in hours and hours of time into character building for npcs, giving them short little backstories, creating a look for them in heroforge, figuring out how they fit into the world... and of course these are my players' favourite NPCs: - the nameless flumph who's only purpose was guarding a temple (it was cute) - the scottish orc pirate who's only purpose was to ferry them from point A to point B (he's like shrek) - Obligatory random goblin - The nameless orc who's only purpose is to run a minigame stall (he's a hot I guess? Maybe they have a thing for orcs...) - Three kobolds in a trenchcoat (that one's entirely my fault) After they wanted to adopt the flumph I adapted my game to allow for hirelings and many sessions later they've amassed their only little guild full of blorbos they found on the street and I balance encounters around everyone having a little buddy with them. Not what I had planned but very happy with this outcome actually, it's a cute setup.
There is no way to predict the players. Their favorite NPC was one who hadn't existed and had no niche in the story until I said "Go find Iron Blade." He was born with the sentence and was around for all of 20 minutes, but my players loved him and were distraught with his death
The players when you make a very interesting NPC: *ignores them* The players when Glormpus the random goblin is introduced: Entire party instantly falls in love with the character
I'm glad you changed from "since high school" to "30 years experience". That tells us so much more. And although 30 years may not be that much to some old neckbeards, it does speak more to your experience and is more descriptive.
I hadn't noticed this till now, but I also appreciate the change. LOL dude, you were in diapers when I first started DMing, so the "since High School" always made me chuckle. But I had to take a bit of breaks between groups, here and there, so I'll grant you probably have more years in the game than I do. All due respect.
In the very first session I ever DM'd, there was a simple fight between one of the PCs and a group made of the other PC, the local captain guard and four guards. The enemies were supposed to be there just to bring some order and receive a beating. What actually happened is that all of them got names and personality on the spot, like one being very coward and one leading the evacuatiom of the pub (actually an excuse to rebalance the fight, since the PCs were meant to fight together), one almost dying one week from his retirement but surviving to see his granddaughter's wedding, and the captain of the guard ending up having an affair with the PC who fought with him. This all happened in ONE session with characters that were literally the first faceless guys you beat up, not even characters you properly interact with.
8:58 My jaw dropped, a whole page for an NPC! 😱 I fit 2 - 3+ NPCs on a page side. So front and back, I have a whole party, the heads of a government, a group of bad bad nemeseses. Usually max I have two pages to reference in any given gameday 🤔unless they do something I hadn't planned on then I may have to reference another page. I use the GURPS system, very straight forward, 3d6 is a bell curve so understanding difficutly is easy. 4 stats, 4 secondary, advantages/perks, quirks/disadvantages, skill w/ level. One paragraph, maybe two and very rarely 3 reminding you who they are, what they want, and why/how they're going about it. Penalties and bonuses to skill/perception/damage/effects/resistance is part of ordinary mechanics of the game system. Wife remembers parts of games I've ran that I don't remember, I just remember the closing of the game, wasn't easy & wasn't impossible... and people lived and people/things died. I stumble across those sheets, then I remember what the NPC was thinking 😂
one of my most iconic NPC's was a halfling that started the campain with them, and he was ALWAYS getting them into trouble. From running back down the trail with a horde of orcs on his tail to accidently burning down a village...he bathed the PC's in respect and admiration while being a total FK UP...and they loved him.
When you brought up Alignment, it reminded me of some characters, both NPC and PC that have one aligment, but some of them actually toggle between both. One main example was a setting I had where the characters were "Chaotic" in nature, even if the individual was Lawful, they may have sporadic moments where they are quite wild... But they would still maintain a sense of "Law" in some ways even then. A Dragon I have who is Lawful Evil SEEMS quite Good, and a little bit Chaotic sometimes, and during combat or outright war, he SEEMS anything but "Lawful" as he sows Chaos and Terror on the battlefield. He is still quite Evil, just Unstable, and knows what he wants, so his "Good" nature is more a means to an end... But if you treat him properly he will keep manageable. But he IS still Evil, so know that any contract or deal he makes with you... If he finds a Loophole, and has no reason not to exploit it, he will totally do so. So he's a bit of a chaotic mess. I call some of these characters "True Chaotic" because they can basically lean any direction they feel like at the time without the danger of alignment change... They COULD change themselves and shift their alignment if they chose to, but they definitely do not. It was all a complicated mess, but my "Gold Dragon" (Half Dragon, Half Serpent/Yuan-Ti) was the more popular one I made. For a "Lawful Evil" guy, the party liked how jovial he could be, and helpful... But greedy, (Dragon, duh?) and higher insight rolls revealed to some of them... that while his jovial attitude was genuine, he was always analyzing them, looking for motives and weaknesses to exploit if they happened to displease them. He also likes to send people on quests to retrieve magical items (or adventurers can go to him and request an item and he can "test" them) from his shifting puzzle fortress, allowing them to keep the rewards if they succeed (Sometimes with the promise that they return it lest they are hunted down later). But the catch is, if you Die or linger too long, you basically become dominated and one of his new "guardians" to wander his fortress and protect it from trespassers or future adventurers he sends in for key magical items. This part he USUALLY leaves out of the "rules", rules which seems to follow similar guidelines to the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin. "Touch Nothing but the Lamp" is basically, "Take nothing but your objective". A few missing coins might not cause problems, but touching other magical treasures could be, bad.
I spent about twenty minutes on a Gnome Expert. He was a con artist supreme. I meant for him to be a throw away encounter, but the players LOVED Twiggy Jackapple so he popped up from time to time, usually needing help because something he tried went wrong and he was on the run.
A good idea would be to have a stack of 'background and motivation cards' one short sentence, one thing which could be interesting and inform about the NPCs behaviour. Things like 'Suspects spouse to cheat' or 'Higwayman in hiding' or simple 'want's an effing muffin' That in combination with a list of names - and you will leave your players guessing which NPCs are plot relevant and well thought out and which you just invented on the fly.
I had an impromptu character named Eric (a name I randomly made up and made a quick general description of, since one player wanted to steal from any noble jerk). Instantly became a favorite NPC as I made him flawed with daddy issues but was actually a good dude at heart.
My Pathfinder campaign BBEG was a bard that had a plan to have his song be heard by all of creation, albeit at the risk of summoning an apocalyptic deity. The party members were working to stop him, of course, but totally understood why he was doing it.
I ran a campaign a while back, and the most beloved NPC from the party was a shopkeeper I whipped up on the fly. He was a general store manager, a Lizardfolk named Ben who ran the store Ben and Buckets. The players loved him.
There's a ton of great info here. If you add chapters to the video, it would be easier for your audience to come back and use this as a recurring resource. I'd like to think I absorbed it all, but I would love to find an exact point of reference during future game prep. Cheers!
I use fast character creator to make NPC’s. You can make a custom name or it will pick a random one. You just pick the race class and level and it makes a character sheet, so you can use them in combat easily
Hey there, fresh new blood to DnD here! Just finished my third session a couple days ago. Anyway, love the format and delivery of your content. Haven't tried my hand at game mastering yet but a lot of the information on your channel is just really insightful. Thanks for the awesome resource! Fun Stats: By the time you finished saying, "..letting me know how many times I say "NPC", I had already counted up to 58. ( 13:27 ) By the end, I counted 87 times ( 26:20 Last one ) with a heavy shift to using "character" and "villain" for the latter half of the video. Cheers!
"Most NPCs should have an ancestry that is native to or close by the location where they live." 11:30 Yeah. Please say that to the makers of, say, The Wheel of Time and their bumpkin village that has been cut off from the world for a thousand years or so. Also, hard disagree on the focus of villains who think they have a just cause that players can understand. Make something different for once. Look at Jack Horner, for example.
Im currently working on a campeighn, well I've been working on it for going on 10 years now. I've only recently finished with the foundations of the game and am now starting to flesh out the world with towns, cities, countries, and NPC's. It's a living world where the players tiniest choices in the begining of the game could have long lasting consequences, for better or worst. It's going to start out on a small island with several nations. When I say small island I don't mean a typical small island, but something about the size of australia. I call it a small island because it will be off the coast of a supercontinent. One of my NPC's is there to help introduce the playser to the wider world. Basically they will play on this "island" until they reach a certain level at which point they will start to become some of the most powerful people in recorded history, essentially demigods in the eyes of the common folk. Depending on how they play their characters even kings migh bow to them. Then they meet this innocent little girl in the middle of nowhere. She's friendly at first but depending on how they react to her they could turn her into an ally, an enemy, or she might remain neutral. If they go the ally or enemy path then she will act as a transition to the larger supercontient. The girl is an actual demigod, and introduces the players to the real world that is inhabited by monsters and demigods that make the most powerful human nations look like a colony of ants. An them soldier ants. However, they have the oportunity to break the bonds of the weak and become somthing that actually shapes the world. Depending on the players choices during the campeighn it could end any number of different ways, they could defeat the big bad and transiion to actual demigod status then returning home as heros, or they could end up actually befriending the big bad and fighting with them against an even greater threat that they couldn't even imagine in the begining of the game, abandoning their people to save the world, perhaps when they learn the truth they decide to simply return home and retire from adventuring living a life of luxary ruling overt the weak. The game and world is flexible enough to allow them to do pretty much anything that they want. I designed the entire world arround flexability, but at the same time in such a way that every tiny and insignificant descision they make will have lasting consequences that will become visible as the game progresses. Most of these are tiny changes that won't affect a whole lot. But will still be here for them to see as they progress. As for why I went into so much detail, it's for my own fun, I love world building and I don't care very much about whether or not these features impress my players. I started building his world out before I ever even had a play group to play with just because I enjoy doing it in my spare time. Now that I do actually have a group though I'm starrting to move the game into a more playable direction to let my friends experiance the world I've spent so much of my life perfecting. That is if I ever actually decide to finish it, I'm still only about 75% done with the world building, there's still A-LOT more work to do. Over 100 unique monsters, hundreds of dungeons and unique NPC's, every NPC, has a full backstory and family tree, some are simple farmers, and others are complex and drawn out. EVery house, and dungeon fully mapped out, hundreds of unique plants. And this is just the stuff I have so far...
Just like in writing, use seeding for your NPCs and for your quest hooks. Seeding is where you supply your reader (your PCs, in this case) with only the very basics. If you later find that this particular plot hook/NPC works really well (or if the PCs have latched onto it), that's the time for fleshing it out. This way you don't waste time and effort creating elaborate NPCs for your party to completely ignore and trying to force an NPC on them just because you, the DM, spent a lot of effort on them, never really works (unless they're the BBEG haha).
I recently started DM'ing a game for a pair of PC's, and came up with a supporting character idea of a dishonor samurai, named Tsunami the Coward. Her backstory is that during an expedition, her regiment was overwhelmed by a massive assault on thier camp, unable to prevent the deaths of her comrades, she fled, choosing to save her own skin rather than die honorably among her allies, and lacking the resolve to commit seppuku over the shame of defeat, she instead roams the lands as a ronin, seeking to regain some small semblance of her lost honor.
In my experience I think that one of the most important and fun parts of roleplaying NPCs is that they can have flaws. For example playing a real coward can really help you become a better roleplayer, so that you can play a more complex NPCs with more subtle fear. It also helps create nuance in the world so that the heroic adventures can shine through all!
You can also create memorable NPC's as a player, I did this somewhat unintentionally! My character would occasionally write coded messages to the Matriarch of his large family (his mother) using the Linguist Feat, one such message decoded (barely) by the party essentially boiled down to politely asking his mother to not kill a party member he had impregnated. Over time my party's curiosity led to him feeding snippets of information about his family such as its size (he has 19 siblings, 10 of them sisters), how his mother would frequently threaten the clergy of Abadar to ensure her survival through her Labors, subtly implied how she did not care for non-noble's intermingling in the family's blood, and her connection to the underworld. Now Rise of the Runelords™ is meant to be something of a horror campaign, but I don't think anything up to the point where my Wizard could cast Sending shook them quite as hard as when my character politely asked his mother to not kill his 'taken woman' and received: "I make no promises" as a reply.
I'm brand new to DnD (been playing for like 2 months), and I have the confidence to host, which I have been doing successfully. I have so many arcs lined up. However, I need to get into the nitty gritty for making sure my encounters and my helpers stay relevant and enjoyable
One of the my best moments at the table was when i forgot to write what the graffity and the walls say so i just defulted to "dave was here" whole table laughed for a solid 30 seconds
For major NPCS in my games, I always have them tie with either the current state of a player(s) or their backstory/backstories, have them be a big contributor, but not the hero in big successes and will allow an NPC to replace a player should someone have to leave early or cant make a session. There are 2 NPCs that I have character sheets for, the main villain and the "Goblin the party named and fell in love with" character
It organically evolved but my method now is to wait to see which NPCs the players choose to stick with and then I'll flesh them out much more. Although I do RP all the player interactions with NPCs and try to give them unique voices and personalities. I had a villain in one of my long running games who had a brother who was a paladin. The paladin fell from grace and became a death knight. The villain's motivation was to redeem his brother so he raised an army and sent them to take over the realm. He then created misinformation that the army was commanded by a dark fiend of shadow that was banished earlier in the campaign by different heroes. The current players latched onto this and found out they had to first summon the fiend to the material world before they could defeat him.. again. The crux of this was the villain wanted his brother to do this to be redeemed as a paladin by saving the realm. But it ended up the players doing all the work. Then as the players summon and defeat the fiend, they find out their benefactor was the actual villain the whole time and with the help of the death knight, were able to defeat the 'real' villain and successfully redeeming the paladin for a crazy plot twist scene for the end of the campaign as brother was forced to kill brother. The death knight had been an ongoing mini-villain in the campaign, as well.
My go-to, regardless of the system I'm using, is to lift from Fate's Aspects. Any NPC that is intended purely for social interaction just need to be defined narratively, so I give them 1-5 short descriptive phrases that sum up the key points. a random cop that's intended to just show up and got away just gets something like Polite Cop or Bent Cop, a slightly more important one might have One Day From Retirement if things are about to go sideways. A more important NPC gets the full set - one is their core concept, one is their biggest flaw or problem, and three others that cover their main values and personality traits. Just... never more than 5, at least for anything lasting. I'll allow temporary extras that are temporary or situational, but I find going much over that starts to water down their utility in keeping a character reasonably focused. By way of example, Bob is a Bartender With A Heart Of Gold, is In Debt to the Mob, feels Family is Everything, is Too Old For This Shit, and Keeps His Friends Close And His Shotgun Closer. It gives pretty clear hooks for things that will go over pretty well or very poorly if tried. Like, with Bob here, he's going to be a bit more susceptible to financial motivation or the idea that he's putting his family at risk, but will react very poorly to somebody who threatens his family and friends. Similarly, they can tell you what sort of things you can just assume about a guy, or places where their job in the story might call for flexing the rules a tad. Like, if a guy is A Master Of Hidden Weapons, you can just assume he'll be able to get /something/ past a search. Easy to expand, easy to modify. Even just one that ties into whatever situation the PCs are dealing with will do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of making them feel relevant. More details can be provided in a paragraph form, but these are the high points that define who the person is, and how they relate to others. I also use them for other things - locations, organizations, etc. Who hasn't described a place as a Cesspool of Scum and Villainy at least once? :)
I use a standard stat block for most NPC's [except villains and such], if players become interested in a particular NPC, then I add a bit more detail to them. In this way, I only do the work that is needed instead of trying to predict which characters the players are going to take to. One of my favorites was Ira the tax collector. He was just supposed to be a one-shot NPC but the players, one in particular hated that NPC so much that I actually had to write a series of adventures around this NPC. They loved hating him.
The Secret Art of Game Mastery thedmlair.com/collections/the-secret-art-of-game-mastery
Lairs & Legends and Loot & Lore thedmlair.com/collections/lairs-legends
Into the Fey thedmlair.com/collections/into-the-fey
This experience is a good laugh about NPCs... The party needed to travel a river, so they hired a barge. On the journey they spoke to the barge captain, asking his name. I never named him past barge captain, so I answered Harry Paratesticles (long e at the end there).
After a few fights on the river and a safe arrival at the destination, they paid Capt Paratesticles to wait and give them a ride back home. A few river pirate encounters on the way home, and safe arrival.
Later, they hired him again. And again. Every time they needed a river trip, they hired Harry Paratesticles. By his third hire, he was on retainer. Eventually he joined them on a few adventures. His barge business was booming so his son Long captained a second barge. His company grew to a fleet from the loot he got accompanying the players, when he did. Also his name grew because of his association to them.
And now, a couple hundred years later, Paratesticles Shipping is a major company in the business of river trade. And the names Harry and Long Paratesticles have gone down in history as the greatest river captains to take the helm, and great heroes among the river trade.
And I can't ever use those names again for NPCs.
ROFL - just awsome NPC names.
It's time for a great grandson to rise up and take a stand. A cunning and daring man full of spunk, being thrust into the world. His name? Hugh.
@CatoNovus Hugh was the son of Long. The current Paratesticles is named Braz. Yes, it's a real name.
This is just it. You never know who your players are going to single out, and the first time it happens it will be a bit challenging to think of something off the top of your head. Eventually you are ready though, and you create something beautiful. Long live Harry Paratesticles.
@@thetwojohns6236 This is getting better and better! 🤣
Also, how long-lived are those adventurers that their adventuring loot financed four generations of Paratesticlés? Are they all elves and dwarves? Or is it already _their_ offspring adventuring, too?
The amount of time and energy it took me to make "Boblin the Goblin" is a feat I will never strive for again
i immediately love Bobblin the goblin. There's also a lizardfolk in my party called Mizzard the lizard wizard so there may be a trend to this.
That is literally what my character is called.
Well people call her Boblina now due to testing a misty doorway by walking into it. Yeah, she eventually learned not to test things on yourself, because she's a ghost now.
I went through a decade of merchants all being named Fred, with a vast variety of spellings.
Fred, Fredd, Phred, Phredd, Ffred, Ffredd, Kfred (the K is silent)...
I have a Boblin too. He owns a chain of restaurants (named after himself of course) that's basically D&D Chuck E Cheese.
So... He's "Bob little the mouthy little one".
I'm sorry, but you put it in my language...
Just imagine if other races knew the names the Freemen gave them.
Meanwhile, the random dude they met along the side of the road whose name you had to make up when one player randomly asked for it has been accompanying the party since that session and is about to slay a god alongside them.
yep, that's the way it works! lol
My boyfriend summoned a cat familiar in the game named Aster, but eventually someone called him Assblaster and it was over 😂😂
Tremors 3 ftw. lol
@@theDMLair
That was a weird film series.
A good one but still a weird one.
Ahahahahahahah
Secrets that aren't necessarily bad! I love them! One of my favorite things was when an NPC was pregnant and hadn't told the party yet. They were in a war zone, and the Druid cast a healing spell that didn't require sightline. I told the Druid, listen, you can sense two creatures in the same space, which one are you healing? It took a moment, but the realization at the table was priceless.
Let me tell you something. I was in a campaign once where we had to clear out a zombie infested mine. Purely as color and scenery decoration, the DM decided to throw in a zombie mine canary fluttering around in a cage. Guess what, the party decided to adopt it.
Fast forward a couple sessions and we get into a fight with a wild magic sorcerer. Now, the DM had decided to use a d10000 wild magic table. And one of the magic effects that came up was that the nearest nonsentient creature would be given human level intelligence. This was, of course, The zombie canary.
Over the course of the next few sessions with us teaching it how to read talk and giving it our warlocks pact book, it eventually became a warlock. And it was a pretty good ally, until it decided that it wanted to make all of us "like him", that is to say, dead.
In the resulting fight, we found that it had actually taken our warlock as its own familiar, so every time we hurt it our warlock would take damage. We eventually defeated it but with our warlock dying in the process. He was revived, but came back half undead.
And on top of that, the bbeg of the campaign took interest in the canary's soul as it passed until the afterlife. Seizing upon it and making it a general in his army. So that ended up not being the last we heard of it.
@@Mark73 incredible
Moral of the story: Always destroy undead
😂😂
Players are like cats. You can build them the coolest thing ever, and they'll want to play with the box it came in.
2:40 Bungie touched on this in a similar vein in a 2022 GDC conference (what follows is a paraphrasing because i'm too lazy to find the slide online) - Anger is - not - the opposite of loving a game. Loving and Hating are only like 2 degrees removed from each other, and they both come from passionate, engaged players. The opposite of loving a game - the thing that will absolutely kill your game - is Apathy
apathy is the worst. better to have love or hate than indifference. that's probably true for most things.
"Apathy is death!"
I have a BBEG that I still try to casually reference by name, and my Fiancee is just like "Oh yeah, I freaking killed her and had NO intention of learning her name"
I had an npc that the party tried to kill and literally the only reason they didn't is because I said "This is a literal child, if you kill them you will all become evil aligned."
Wow, yeah...
My Home-brew Race would love you then free shielding
Worth it if the NPC was annoying
@@Keram-io8hv 🥴
@@espiritucallejero9127 I left campaign becaude DM gave us immortal kid lizard to say constantly in the most annoying voice: "Can I taste you? Oh you must be tasty? Can I taste them?"
My teenager players fell in love with a horse.
One of them had “speak with animals”, so of course they spoke to their hired horses.
GM (ie me): (in head) Oh Crap! Wasn’t ready for this!
Horse1 - aloof and indifferent. PCs like.
Horse2 - an idiot “Who dat talkin’ to me? Where are you?…Oh, you on my back.”
Players LOVE the idiot horse.
They plan on stealing him from the stables to take him on their adventures.
oh dear gosh you poor soul
When you say the pc fell love with the horse, you just mean the pc was fond of the horse right? Nothing more right?
Reminds me of my players casting speak with animals and then awaken on the extra large Clydesdale horse. Introduce the thick southern accented Bud the Wiser
…who later sacrificed hisself to rescue his arms brother, the Paladin, and now the Paladin uses Bud as his showing of divine power and after Paladin contracted lycanthropy it got changed to him being a werehorse due to Bud’s help…
Update: they raided the treasure room of the keep, bought a 2-horse cart, bought the idiot horse…
and bought a horse from the Duke’s stables.
I have had time to develop this one’s voice.
Next session they will have to tell me if they bought a stallion (posh English accent, has to be referred to by his “full name” every time) or a mare (Valley Girl, “like, literally the best option”)
… they brought this on themselves!
@@unfortunate_error this sounds awesome
Have 2 villains.
1 bbeg and a second who is trying to take over, but isn't as powerful. This second one will help and hinder the party based on what the party does.
Same here. The party definitely has a strong love/hate relationship with him.
Don't be afraid to pull a Secret of NIMH occasionally!
So a starscream like figure. Sounds useful.
so starscream and megatron?
@ChristopherHogan-oi9ll yes and no.
That is one example, but the one trying to take over doesn't have to have had any connection with the superior one, much less work for them.
It's to go from ww2 was axis vs allies and instead to go, there were two major groups in ww2, but in each group, say axis, and show a power struggle between imperialist japan, n@zi germany, and Italy (I'm not sure what they were called so pardon me).
Basically the idea of one bad team fighting one good team isn't as good as a set of more complex forces that aren't in complete opposition to one another acting for what suits them best.
Here is the thing, you had 5 pages of backstory and a character sheet. You obviously can't show this when introducing the NPC, so the created material doesn't matter at that particular point. An introduction to the NPC needs to be a banger to be memorable. Meeting the coolest NPC sitting in the tavern and sipping beer will be boring. It doesn't matter if you have just "Boblin the Goblin" in your notes or an essay and custom character art. But maybe when you meet that NPC in the tavern sipping beer, the entire glassware explodes and then you learn he is a psychic with uncontrollable powers.
I have a very simple method of creating NPCs: 3 character traits, 1 secret, 1 relationship with other NPCs, simple backstory and the most important thing, goals and achievements. It takes me approximately 10 to 30 minutes to make a cool NPC, so even if PCs don't care about them, no big deal.
Stealing this thanks!
Exactly! If you're gonna put in all that effort for an NPC, you kinda have to be their hypeman. They're the talk of the town, name gets dropped in casual conversations and hushed whispers alike, everyone and their grandparents heard of this bundle of badass. But, until then, KISS method - keep it simple, stupid.
Good formula! I'll be sure to write it down.
Also just have an adaptable backstory ready for NPC's without one. So when they adopt that random bandit or whatever, you have something ready.
I should sleep so I haven’t started the video, so egg on my face if this is mentioned or a major part of the video: I think a big issue is DMs taking the techniques in film, books, and video games and using them in a cooperative storytelling game. In a video game the code keeps you from attacking certain characters and decides who your companions are. That means even if a companion seems uninteresting, you assume there’s something more to them because they’re a companion NPC.
With DnD there’s an infinite amount of possible companions so you *need* to make your players like them. Making them have a lot of cool things to reveal later is fine, but it’s useless if you leave nothing out front to make the players go “Ooh let’s keep this one”
The players tend to do that
They latch on to an NPC that you created in that session on the fly.
Npcs I make on the fly or intend to be one and done I'll give them 1 syllable sounding name (pat, Bob, frank, steve,may, ect) and they always become big hits.
Pete the herbalist became so big/important npc it got to a point they wanted to protect pete from the horrors of the world (he was a stereotypical hippie)
@@scoots291 This, this right here. Chip, the tabaxi alchemist, was just a quest giver that I pulled out of my ass. Now, she has become a staple in my campaign and I've had to add so much story to her.
I think a bit of that perception is success bias. 80%+ of NPCs are made up on the fly; it makes sense that most successful NPCs are made up on the fly.
One of the players in our current campaign has collected 2 NPCs so far found in a dungeon that I'm 90% confident the DM had no plans on keeping around. We keep making fun of his character and saying that she has a habit of collecting strays. They actually ended up writing into the campaign that one of the other PCs she showed up with in the beginning of the campaign is in fact, also a dungeon spawn stray she collected from a different dungeon but our PCs don't know that yet, not that we would bother to ask and at this point, if it gets revealed, I think at least half of our PCs would not be surprised at all.
Another player has accidentally killed several named NPCs in town which ended up mildly upsetting our DM to the point where he was hesitant on naming their replacement NPCs and a few other random NPCs. The player didn't intend on killing those people, he just wanted to hurt them a little bit, but when they only had 4hp...
He might have possibly killed another NPC and who knows how many potental others by selling the bartender some slaad eggs as caviar. The bartender ate one before buying the rest of them to sell at his bar. As far as we're aware, the PC didn't know how dangerous those things are and figured they look like caviar. We aren't sure yet how that is going to play out.
Yeah. One player in a game I ran romanced a city guard so he became a member. Didn't expect to have a game where the elf went through the whole moral dilemma about elves and humans becoming couples on account of the elf, almost inevitably, having to bury not only their spouse but their children due to old age but hey, ain't complaining
My players favorite NPC: My players were entering a temple that was taken over. There was a table with offerings to the gods on it in the form of food. One such piece of food was actually a small living cheese construct that was there as a security measure from before the temple was taken over. I intended on it just being a random enemy, but my players were so determined to tame it that I relented and let them. It wasn’t that strong anyways. It became their mascot and somehow survived the whole campaign with only 4 max HP. I used their attachment to it to gain a reaction that honestly worked better than expected when I through it off an airship right before the final boss. During the epilogue when I was wrapping up everyone’s stories, I described how the cheese lived and eventually had a family (don’t question how). Somehow, that last bit made my players tear up a bit.
One of my DM's recently decided to infuse the party with 3 DM NPCs. His theory was that rather than creating the encounters for a party of 3, he'd include his DMPCs also. One character was somewhat amusing, a dwarf that talked like an Italian "made guy" from Brooklyn. Another was a wizard with all sorts of cool stuff. The third was a swashbuckler. ALL 3 of them were so uber powerful, and the DM was constantly having them save the day. The rest of the party was SO under impressed. When the adventure finally ended, and we were supposed to go into the NEXT chapter, where the swashbuckler was going to introduce us to his ultra rich family who would take us in while we explored in their city, my only question was, "Can't we just kill him off and go on our own adventure?" Despite how COOL the DM thought the NPC was, he was actually annoying as heck, and taking away from party agency.
I hope that DM changed their ways, they sound like an ass. I’ve run DMPCs in parties before (usually because no one wanted to heal or tank), but I’ve only ever run a single one to support a small party.
I've only ever run a DMPC once, when we were still looking for a third party member but we didn't want to wait to start the campaign. The DMPC did not speak and had taken a "Vow of Mediocrity" so as to not take the spotlight away from others. Once our third player was found, the DMPC was punted into oblivion.
@Riley_Mundt This is the way to do it! Nerfing the NPC not only keeps the spotlight on the PCs, but also makes them more interesting and sometimes even endearing.
My favorite part about this whole process is how each aspect of an NPC feeds into itself. I was designing an innkeeper, and thought it would be cool if he was a war vet. Earlier I had written his personality as "cowardly", and that seemed like a strange contradiction. I then gave him a peg leg, fulfilling his recognizable trait, but then wrote that he lost his leg when he slipped off his horse, broke it, and had to amputate, giving him an embarrassing secret and explaining his fear of mundane things.
that backstory reminds me of a anime where a dude dies by falling out of bed
instead of the slave labor of an office job lol
@@senritsujumpsuit6021 Or the guy who died "saving" a girl by pushing her out of the way of a slowly approaching farm tractor... that didn't even hit him.
I don't recall your first example, but the second sounds like "Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody".
One of my biggest worries as a DM was the thought of players lore diving on random NPCs. Asking insane questions. I used to over prep for every NPC which was torture. Instead I resorted to having a list of template background infromation that I would just pull from. However, this was also time consuming ... So eventually I took a narrator role and just said "The NPC relays a tragic story about their past, though nothing they said seems to spark any interest to you" and go full on video game notification. While it felt cheap ... I realized that players putting pressure on me was also cheap. Now they know if I go "Video Game Notification" mode, they know not to dig. I guess it's a bit meta, but saves my breath and a headache.
NPCs are not obligated to tell Players their whole life story. If your players went/go beyond that they are showing interest in your world and character writing. Are you not then betraying their interest by just going generic on them?
If it's malicious on their part then sure... but if they are just absorbed into your world then isn't it a good thing that they want to know more?
@@Valsorayu Context is everything, I always make an attempt to fill in blanks where possible, but if I can tell they are pushing buttons that's when I go NPC on them.
I think it's just feeling what's right in the moment. I've even pulled them up about their intense questioning as well as the NPC, I mean it's really odd when people randomly ask for your whoile life story when you don't know them so I'll give it the whole "I don't feel comfortable sharing those details about my life right now, but if there is something you need we could discuss it over a drink sometime" Then that gives me some playtime to come up with stuff. Just gotta feel what works out best.
Years ago, had a party in the service of the great Bahamut. We reported to an avatar of his, who projected as a slightly stout older man. One player could never remember the name Bahamut, so it turns out we were in service of "The Great Belly".
I am so glad I was not drinking anything when I read that!
i played a rogue named Francis in a deadlands game that ran a "2nd hand store" in the campaign. the a DM liked it so much in many of his campaigns their is an NPC called Francis that helps PCs with supplies.
I had a junk encounter where the players were supposed to come across zombies fighting an evil group of npc's. The group was supposed to die to the zombies and then some lore stuff was supposed to happen that would intrigue the players to figure some stuff out. Well... The players stepped in to help kill the zombies, with one evil character still alive after the quick fight. That evil junk npc is now an important "necromancer-like" woman quest giver who is going to be a main part of the progression of the campaign. One of the players hates her, two of the players have had some very interesting interactions with her and are weary but friendly so far.
First time DMing, btw.
Was playing a pokemon ttrpg. We got to the pokemart, and what my poor dm was unaware of, was that i personally love the store clerks in the games. Unlike the nurse Joys and officer Jennies, the store clerks dont get names. So as soon as we met one, i needed to know everything. And unfortunately for the dm, my speech about how the store clerk isnt a random nobody boosting jis moral while also completely taking advantage of him (becuase store) just became a great running gag. Lifting up these poor identical male merchants who never got the fame of the Joy and Jenny leniage.
In my head all the clerks in games are named Justin, to match with the Joys and Jennys. But i did not bring up anything about that when the GM said his name was Clark. Clark is cool too.
Who else thought the PCs killed Luke’s precious NPC? I’m kinda disappointed they didn’t 😂
They would have given enough time...
For NPCs I always just come up with a name and a personality quirk. If the players latch on to that then I'll work on filling it out more down the line.
My two greatest examples:
1) Alchemist that insists on correcting people on how to say his name even though they're saying it right. As the DM I roleplay him correcting them at least twice before finally saying they got it right even though in all instances they've said the name the same way, lol. They loved it, latched on to it, and now I've got him in the pocket for a reoccurring encounter.
2) Three siblings that started off as bandits but have a fondness for green beans; their mother's green beans specifically. The party decided to bribe them with food, the siblings asked if they had any green beans, and the party decided that for some inexplicable reason the majority of their rations were green beans, lol. They loved the situation and so later on they ran into a restaurant the siblings decided to open that served exclusively green beans; but with fancy, 5 star style service, and every single item is made entirely of green beans.
I've found a great way to flesh out an NPC is to ascribe to them the likes/dislikes, & mannerisms of a celebrity, person from history, or character from fiction. It does so much to inform how the characters talks and behaves, and it's really simple to remember.
I actually use character sheets for IMPORTANT NPCs. Like the main villain, quest givers, generals, captains of the guard, bandit leaders, etc. Why I do this is to give a "equal footing" to the players, where they (the players) are NOT the most powerful people around and give a solid challenge when I need the fight to be challenging.
Having one of my players, who was a ranger, suddenly have a barbarian get in their face and start smashing them made everyone go "OH CRAP" which was the goal. They had to fight smart, as the barbarian was going to win a physical brawl.
Another tried to pick a fight with the captain of the guard, who was actually meant to be a friendly, primary quest giver to the party. He was a multiclass forge cleric and fae wanderer ranger. Heavy armor, magical weapon, shield, and searing smite made it clear that this captain EARNED his position. The player, whom the others left to his own devices because they DIDN'T want to fight the NPC, got bodied, nearly died, and arrested. The other players were glad they didn't join the fight, as they weren't sure what else the captain could do. The guard captain actually became fairly liked, and definitely respected.
You have found the right way to utilize fully fleshed-out NPCs, as people that will be unavoidable who have actual reasons to be so effective.
I've fleshed out a few notable enemies, as you have, but I also created an entire class of students for a solo Strixhaven game I'm running for my wife.
I find character creation to be among my favorite aspects of the game, so if she only interacts with a few of the students, fine, they're all ready to interact with her as deeply or shallowly as she wants. She could ignore them all, and I wouldn't mind, I had fun making them and will still be able to incorporate them into the story regardless of how she views them.
@@seanmadson8524 I've also learned to wait to give characters player levels until they've gotten my player's attention. My most recent one is named Sigil. Basic young tiefling, he was essentially an escort quest for my party to help a commander in a war. His mission was to gather a magical box from a forest spirit, who was guarding it but is actually harmless (a talking manatee). The players decided not to take the box, but lost their insight and perception checks. They had a long rest and went back to the commander with Sigil, who was acting skittish but none of them paid him any mind. Once they got to the commander, Sigil gave him the box with a sad look on his face - he was aiming to be a paladin and this was the test of his oath. Sigil had killed the forest spirit and stolen the box when the players long rested. This completed his trial and became the paladin he sought to be. The commander used the box to warp his entire army with demonic energy - Sigil included - and sent the army to attack a peaceful village. The players attacked the commander, defeated him, and realized Sigil was nowhere to be found. They followed the army and helped the town defend against it. Once again, no Sigil anywhere. Now they are tracking him (ranger player is SUPER happy he gets to track something!). What they don't know is Sigil couldn't handle the dark price for his oath and immediately broke it. He is now a feral tiefling hexblade oathbreaker and sees himself as a monster for the party to slay. He actually looked up to them and wants them to be heroes, but also wants them to truly earn it from him.
11:00 we are playing a game where our player names are Laranlor, Lukikukushanda and Arikichariku. I started calling my charachter Lan, which he used a cover name since he was a the prince of a big country, but a half-elven bastard prince who his stepmother hires assasins to kill to secure her sons claim. The players and DM took this over and now our charachters are known as Ari, Lukiku and Lan.
I have a town in my world called Bitterstream. It's called that because of the flavour of the water, but the fish that come from the river are among the best tasting in the world. The population is mostly humans, but the tavern keepers wife was a Elf that I purposely gave a different accent. Upon being asked why she was in the village, she says the following: "Came for the fish, stayed for the company". During the second part she glances pointedly at her husband.
I have three types of NPCs:
1) Generic NPCs which perform the mundane aspects of the universe (shopkeepers, town guards, etc.)
2) Quest NPCs- These get a one paragraph bio and an original name. They are introduced for a specific quest and only return if it makes sense when making new quests. Their personalities are more involved, but still simple.
3) Campaign NPCs- These get a full page bio and probably also a custom stat block. These will repeatedly reappear during the campaign and receive more fleshed out personalities and voices.
"A player usually only has one character that they're running..."
Well, now I know! Lol
Wow. I feel like an idiot now. I have felt the need to give my NPCs elaborate backstories & character sheets that never stay long enough to share everything. While watching this video, I just made up a pic for my newest NPC & slapped it on a generic bard stat block & he's pretty much good to go. I based him on a real person that I am familiar how the guy acts. I think you just took away about 75% of my stress DMing. 🤣
Sweet! Happy to help. But yeah, minimal prep for NPCs is usually the way to go.
I am the same. I am in my way to DM my first campaign and spent days only to flesh out 6 NPCs
Hopefully the work will be worth since those are NPCs relevant to the player characters, but I'm just speeding through the process from now on
How do they smell??? FINALLY! I put a note on how they smell every single time. EVERY single time! And it's a clue to who they are and what they've been up to every time. Fire powers? You bet they smell a little smokey. Comes from the coast? Salty notes and coastal florals all the way. My players thought it was hilarious at first, but it's actually come in handy once or twice. I've also flavored the same spell differently depending on the caster, and they love it and started flavoring their own magic more. When the fire themed NPC casts misty step, it's smokey step 😂
Tracking how NPCs smell just in case a character decides to smell their hair? 😁
@@theDMLair lol if you stand next to someone and you can breathe through your nose that day, that person you're standing beside usually smells like _something_, and I like that to be a clue about their abilities or backstory- even if the PCs never end up finding out more. But they usually do- my players love NPCs and usually want to know everything 😹
My satyr bard smells like a goat when the party comes back from an adventure and needs to visit the bath house to wash off the charisma debuff. The centaur paladin smells even worse.
@@MichaelRainey Incredible 😂
I love this, it seems very engaging for the players. Smell is such a special sense, you can smell something as an adult and remember a time when you were just a kid more vividly than your own recollection of your childhood might allow you to. Trying to evoke that feeling in players is such a clever idea.
The perfect way to create an NPC is to give them a really stupid quirk. I made a fairy archwizard NPC who didn't want people to know she was a fairy, so she dressed in normal human clothes and floated around as though she were a five-foot-tall human woman, but anyone who really paid attention would notice that her arms were too short and you couldn't see her feet moving under the bottom of her dress. Other than that, I kinda just came up with the rest of her personality on the fly.
My players *_loooooooooooove_* Rowena Rainbowspirit.
Silly voices work quite well too I've found.
Great video! One of my all -time memorable NPCs was a good aligned kobold named Kaggable. He formed a bond with the paladin and wanted to be one himself, someday. Mannerisms: he would hold his wrists in a sort of dinosaur (t-rex) bent wrist position and would croak out his name in a little soft voice as part of almost every sentence. "Kaggable help!" His tribe's favorite food was turnips and their way of honoring a friend was to give the friend a plate of their own poop as a gift. "Kaggable give you POOP!" (The poor pally who he'd attached himself too was both horrified and polite.) My husband, the pally, still wants to create stuffed toys and perhaps statues in Kaggable's honor.
My players got a kobold minion they names spot.
Looking to eliminate a pack of kobolds, the bard cast a friendship spell on Spot to help him infiltrate. The spell wore off mid-way through the battle, but Spot "read the room" and stayed loyal to the bard.
The quirk? Spot loved chickens. Particularly baby chickens. He would travel with a pouch of baby chicks and pet one almost all the time, muttering, 'Pretty chickee."
When the party needed stealth, he would bite the chick's head off and put the rest in his pouch "for later"
When creating Major Villains, I like including plot twists, my favourite is when I had the BBEG be an accidental product of the main person who wanted the 'evil' defeated. Essentially the main villain used to be a normal guy who was relatively poor, forced into a position where he had to do dubious work to get paid so he could look after his family. The at the time human BBEG was working for one of the major lords, the lord was acquiring eldritch artifacts and materials to further his own goal, hiring men to smuggle the 'goods' into the city, to his private estate. Inevitably something goes bad while escorting the materials into the city, which lead to an incident that killed dozens of people, leading to the entire area to be quarantined to stop the spread.
The players figured this out when they were eventually let into the infested area (ground zero) to investigate, leading them to the four men who were tasked with handling the eldritch materials, which three are dead with heir corpses laying about the wreckage. They find out who these people were, searching their houses etc, realising their was a 4th guy. They go to the fourth guys place and find his family, according to them the husband (the guy you're looking for) has been missing for weeks and have no clue where he is, to keep things short, the players pretty don't find anything of use, but one of the players realised that the young daughter was referring to the BBEG with a particular name which they picked up on, realising that this kid just so happens to have a children's book about the creature (the BBEG) that the father made up for his kids.
(The BBEG isn't any preexisting fantasy monster, it is something I custom made for this adventure, most people refer to it has a snake demon, hellspawn etc, but the child referred to it with an actual name.)
5:00 - General NPC Creation Guidelines
- Do NOT make Character Sheets for NPCs. 6:15 Create Stat Blocks instead.
6:45 - Do NOT make EVERY NPC have a complex backstory. 8:00 Make BULLET POINTS to skim over instead.
9:21 - NPC Creation Template
- A name. Easy enough to pronounce.
11:22 - Lineage/Species/Ancestry/Origins
12:46 - Alignment, to help define the NPC's values and morals. 13:37 If your game has no alignment... (+ Defining the NPC's desires, wills and won'ts, likes and dislikes, fears, limits etc)
14:17 - Physical description, including other senses (breath, smell, voice tone & accent, personality traits).
16:00 - A secret, or more if the players are really invested on the NPC.
17:33 - On creating Major Villains.
17:46 - Means; the capability to strive for their goals.
18:24 - Method; how they run after their goals. (This mostly separates Good from Evil. Means to an End. A worthy cause, achieved through atrocious acts.)
19:30 - Motive; why do they desire the thing they strive towards?
21:15 - Flaw(s).
22:24 - Lieutenants. Bosses throughout the campaign who precede the Big Bad you are creating.
23:45 - Minor minions. Cannon fodder, who serve both the Big Bad and their Lieutenants.
24:40 - Creating allies.
My go to npc is a mercenary. He might be friendly, he might be hostile towards the party but he helps move the plot from adventure to this is the true bad guy. And he is either we hate you or we love you type of npc.
I was running a Fallout New Vegas campaign and my players' favorite NPC was a ghoul prostitute working in the Gomorrah casino named "Julie the Ghoulie", she had a Jersey accent and a menthol smokers voice and treated the party like they were all her favorite nieces and nephews. I was so surprised how much they loved her, but they latched onto her nearly instantly.
Giving an NPC a unique appearance and/or name is a surefire way to get the party to really embrace them, I think.
I could tell a couple of stories about npcs I made as a DM, but probably the funniest is about an NPC I made as a player.
I'm currently playing a battle smith artificer, no tech, rather flavoring it as a magic item crafter, using bones or discarded pieces of armor for his gizmos and then echanting them. He is a rather scrawny and grim looking fellow called Mr. Gloom, tax collector and adventurer extraordinaire (see, he used to live in the feywild and has been depressed since he moved by accident to the material plane).
His partner in this venture is Mr. Marrow, a giant of a man, clad in armor, always silent, imposing and vigilant. Mr. Marrow is a steel defender, fashioned as a living armor with a skeleton inside, fit with cogs and enchanted machinery.
My party treats Mr. Gloom well, but they friggin LOVE Mr. Marrow. He has the personality of an average great dane, silent strong type but loyal and friendly (although there are little ways he can show that friendliness). The contrast of the party trying to play with him or talking with him and him only answering with "..." are gold, and I'm enjoying every second of it.
like that meme
on one side, elaborate dungeon with all the design ever - just some tumbleweeds flying arround
on the other side, swarmed by the players - some cardboard cutout NPC they totally love
The amount of time and effort absolutely affects how much your players care about an NPC. It's an INVERSE relationship... the more time you put in, the less they care.... the random tavern customer that you never even planned for them to talk too... Yeah, that's the new party mascot.
Remember-DMs never have to kill their darlings- the players will do it for them
Not the worst. Our dm made a dwarf alchemist who wanted us to find his stolen recipes. We found them, along with some unknown potions. When we showed them to the dwarf, he smashed them on the ground. The idea of our gm was for this dwarf to tell us those potions were crap and he would make quality portions for us and had these intricate questlines lined up.
... we took the smashing of our potions as an insult, and well... the dwarf did not survive.
The way I write all my major NPCs is to write a 1-ish page dossier that has their general outline, physical description, ideals and goals, dispositition and mannerisms, and any miscellaneous notes. This has proven extremely effective as it covers all the basics needed to make an NPC feel lifelike without getting bogged down in details that would likely never come up
I like to spend some of the time I use creating each adventure creating NPC's. The catch however, is that the NPC has to be an Integral Part/Element Of The Adventure, be it Villain or Hero, Innkeeper or Tailor, Cobbler or Candlemaker, Town Guard or Gung/Gong Collector (Person who collects the waste and urine from the local latrines for use by others post refinement), etc,. While stat blocks, I am as apt to use them as I am to have detailed the NPC's stats, kit, personality, history, etc,...however a maximum of (3) - 3"x5" index cards. My most recent gnome alchemist/rogue, Schneibel-Beb-Lebienhcs , or Schneibee for short among friends. Standing 2'4" tall, with a short flat-top cut black hair, deep-set steel grey eyes, a thick goatee mustache/beard. All Hill Gnomes have names that are the same forward as they are backwards. Our campaign STRONGLY disapproves of common modern names, Ned, Mary, Bob, Denise, ,Joe, Sue, Max, Jim, etc,... and those suffering such find a very short lifespan in most cases as they find favor only among demons and their ilk... As My/Our Campaign World Of Midoris is generally slower and far more detailed and character driven than many campaigns, if not most, yet this works well for this group.
I once made a DMPC to fill out the party since the module we were using was made for 4 players and we only had three, they were a mute kobold barbarian who looked like his scales were stone (costume race I made) who basically had no backstory, the party named him Stone Cold Steve Austin and LOVED him soo much.
after being a DM for more than 20 years I just take a single emotion (fear, love, anger and so on) or an ideal (honor, loyalty, respect and so on) to be the main driving force over the entire personality and for each situation the npc is in. I keep the back story about a paragraph long so it saves me a ton of time and leaves me room to improv. as the game unfolds. From my expeirence with this method quite a few of my characters are remembered by people that I have gamed with.
In my time as a DM, I've fallen into that trap a few times -- meticulously crafting an NPC specifically to be beloved by my players, and at best it only kinda-sorta works. Funny enough, the one NPC that my players absolutely *adored* and couldn't stop talking about long after the session was an eccentric dwarf medium who I just made up on the fly; honestly, gonna toot my own horn for a second here...I impressed myself with the way I was able to conjure her straight from the ether and fully engage the party with her.
That's why I use roll tables to generate NPC backstories, sometimes I pick them manually.
Any detail is a suggestion when playing anyway, their background is just there to give flavor to the NPCs reaction to your players action or their role in advancing the plot.
The other trick is the NPC economy if a character or enemy isn't dead, reuse them where it makes sense, until they die. Their reappearance might be a plot hook.
Moral of the story, temper expectations. Only put effort into NPCs and side-content for the love of doing so, not because you expect the players to even find it let alone love it.
If you really really want your players to interact with an NPC, I say just stick em in whatever "HUB" city/town they are most likely to revisit or setup a base at.
That or just save said NPC for another adventure you can run that is based around them.
Don't be afraid to recycle "missed content" from one adventure to then place into another if possible.
This is great advice. Its nice to have a format and a base point for creating npcs
Happy to help!
All of these are extremely good points. From my experience, a "sticky" NPC needs to be loud (personality-wise), but not too loud (doesn't seem like a PC in disguise). Loud in this sense doesn't mean they can't be quiet-I fondly recall an NPC from a game I played in, Rachel Miller, who was very curt and used few words when she spoke at all, tended to stare at people until they found it unnerving, and whispered to her bow when she thought no one was looking... because it actually contained the spirit of her dead mother. If an NPC is just a chance encounter, a table of names and two personality traits is probably all you need. But if you're trying to make a recurring character, then review the backgrounds, ideals, bonds and flaws of your PCs to see what sort of NPCs might work as a potential ally, rival, foil, or enemy of one or more members of the party.
Knowing your players also helps, since a player's interest will have is a pretty big factor in whether an NPC is effective or not. If a PLAYER immediately likes an NPC when they show up, then they'll find any reason or excuse for why their PC might decide to talk to them, even if they normally wouldn't ;)
I dont even put 8hrs into my job....and i work 10hour shifts
Okay, okay...I can sneer and talk bad about your ideas, but I would like to say you are far more helpful than I could ever be in your place. My NPCs are basically trash no-names unless they survive a couple battles.
Thank you! :D
I am so glad I saw this video because I'm starting my first D&D campaign and was worried about how I'd be able to make statblocks for the 48 NPCs I currently have, but now I feel much better about that.
I still made stat blocks for three of them, but those NPCs are already dynamic enough not to fit into any category (damn multiclassers)
Knew exactly what you were going to say as soon as you said you first sentence lol. This is why when I make a NPC, I hold back on fleshing them out I realize whether or not my players care about that NPC.
All I care about is the personality and some other base info. Now if I want my players to like the NPC I care more about their entrance rather than the character themselves. I have found my players are more engrossed to an NPC by their entrance.
If my players like them enough, then I'll create their backstory more and even put them more into the characters main story.
I just created a new NPC. I haven't gotten to his stat block, but he's an ogre named Crumblebones who managed to get out of the gladiator pits in the neighboring country.
I had no idea how or where I was going to use him, but then it hit me that he's part of the Shankill Butchers who get their kicks by terrorizing small local towns and are wanted by the crown.
This also led to Shankill being an orc barbarian who gets his kicks from terrorizing people.
Still have to do stat blocks for everyone, but the idea is planted.
My players favorite NPC of all time (40+ years of DMing) was one I made up on the spot. Nicknames are part of the fun of a game table. Astafas instantly became "Ants in Pants" the moment he contacted the player characters. Also thrilled to hear that L&L1 hardcovers are back in stock! Let me get my CC out!
We did the pet name to a player character. A friend made an elf who carried both short and long bow. Each appropriate to certain endeavors and gave him an Elven name that would choke Tolkein. We ended up calling him Bobo or bow-bow. :)
I have to agree with what several people already said. For me, the players mostly seem to form attachments to random NPCs I come up with on the fly, those will be lifelong friends (or enemies) of the characters. If I put more than a few minutes into an NPC, it's a death curse for that npc.
I've noticed some truth to that. However, analyzing some of the random NPCs I've come up with that have been successes have allow me to draw some conclusions about what does work and what doesn't. I also think there is some success bias at work here, too. Since most of the NPCs in the game are random ones we come up with on the fly, the chances are very high that the majority of successful NPCs will be those that we come up with on the fly.
One page sheet is enough and another big thing is to come up with some basic traits and general idiom. If the NPC fits into the campaign, cool, you can always elaborate.
Quite honestly the same advice on backstories applies to PCs, too! One or two bits of important information per tier level is plenty.
Made a NPC bugbear who was a sole survivor after a dragon attack and the key for the team to advance. He was smart, funny, a good fighter yet damaged and had layers. Like yourself, he had a few pages of backstory and the more I wrote, happier I become of this great character.
Y-y-yeah, the team killed him.
That taught me to have several ways to the campaign and that NPCs might not matter haha
I had something like this happen to me in the last campaign I ran. I made an NPC who was supposed to be a personal rival to one of my players' characters. I was planning on using him repeatedly over the next several weeks: one of those "bad penny" characters. Constantly harassing the party; constantly interfering with them. I poured over everything: his name, his backstory, how he fit in to the world at large, how he related to the bbeg, his goals and beliefs, his faction etc.
And in their first little skirmish with him, my players Nat20'd that guy into oblivion. Crushed him and his entire party before I could even get to the round where the rival was supposed to call a truce. I was like "Oh, well... so much for that idea."
It did teach me a valuable lesson though that I think DMs can benefit from. We often chastise players for being "murder hobos" or making decisions that get their whole party killed even though we tried to warn them like 5000 times. I think DMs need to be equally careful about what situations we put our "favorite" NPCs into as well just as if we were playing. Before pitting them against the players ask: am I ready to lose this character? Do I have a believable out for this character? Do I have a narrative replacement for this character if necessary?
I'm running another campaign now with a similar "rival adventuring party" and I have been far more judicious with how the two groups interact with each other this time. lol
We had an ork prince npc who later we learnt was ment to die in the first combat to give the ork nation a reason to pursue and try to kill us, needless to stay combat didn't go the way the dm had hoped and all the orks survived and after a campaign that had been a pressure run no matter what the dm throw at the Prince we saved him and kept him alive no matter the odds or obstacles to the absolute hatred of the dm.
Then finally fight we are fighting the many villian and 2 generals while the fight goes down the prince sacrifice himself killed the main evil and his uncle spear tackling him of the top of a very high tower we did still try to save him But the dm managed to block it and he died
The main questgiver NPC in my game is adored by my platers because the game started with them being surrounded by baddies that had pursued them to town. At level 1 they were being overwhelmed and the NPC who saved them (It's the only combat he's done so far, it was only to introduce him) had featherfall and came down upon one of the baddies with his greatsword. He helped the party battle and then afterward returned to the Temple of Bahamut, now issuing quests for the party or directing them where to go to speak to others if they need information or have other quests.
Players will always care about the most random NPC they feel is the most entertaining to them. My players once went to the docks of one of my cities to find a ship they could catch a ride on to get where they're going, and after a player got a critical success to search for someone "filled with adventure", the greenhorn guy calling himself the captain of a barely functional raft that I made up on the spot quickly became the most popular NPC character. I had to wrench him from the party saying his mum was worried sick about him after the quest was over so they wouldn't permanently adopt him as a companion.
The backstory stuff was one of the first things I learned while GMing. I’d write pages of backstory just to end up changing it on the fly to either help or hinder the players as the game moved forward. So now when I make an important npc I come up with a couple things like (a wealthy merchant from the mysterious Erie lands, has a homunculus as a trusted servant. He is in the pocket of lord SoAndSo but has no love for the dubious noble.)
There is so much to play with there it makes me drool in anticipation I LOVE IT!!!
A good dm can bring just a great personality on a whim from a random npc without a character sheet, and the players could run with it.
my players have come around to naming a random guard that i had trown in for not allowing the party to enter the castle due to the scandly clad ork (it was a homebrew race based on warhammer orks so no private parts anywhere) that turned into a duel and then i had to come up with a name on the spot wich was Becket, the party only ever refers to him as bucket or biscuite
I absolutely love putting in hours and hours of time into character building for npcs, giving them short little backstories, creating a look for them in heroforge, figuring out how they fit into the world... and of course these are my players' favourite NPCs:
- the nameless flumph who's only purpose was guarding a temple (it was cute)
- the scottish orc pirate who's only purpose was to ferry them from point A to point B (he's like shrek)
- Obligatory random goblin
- The nameless orc who's only purpose is to run a minigame stall (he's a hot I guess? Maybe they have a thing for orcs...)
- Three kobolds in a trenchcoat (that one's entirely my fault)
After they wanted to adopt the flumph I adapted my game to allow for hirelings and many sessions later they've amassed their only little guild full of blorbos they found on the street and I balance encounters around everyone having a little buddy with them.
Not what I had planned but very happy with this outcome actually, it's a cute setup.
There is no way to predict the players. Their favorite NPC was one who hadn't existed and had no niche in the story until I said "Go find Iron Blade." He was born with the sentence and was around for all of 20 minutes, but my players loved him and were distraught with his death
The players when you make a very interesting NPC: *ignores them*
The players when Glormpus the random goblin is introduced: Entire party instantly falls in love with the character
I'm glad you changed from "since high school" to "30 years experience". That tells us so much more. And although 30 years may not be that much to some old neckbeards, it does speak more to your experience and is more descriptive.
I hadn't noticed this till now, but I also appreciate the change. LOL dude, you were in diapers when I first started DMing, so the "since High School" always made me chuckle. But I had to take a bit of breaks between groups, here and there, so I'll grant you probably have more years in the game than I do. All due respect.
In the very first session I ever DM'd, there was a simple fight between one of the PCs and a group made of the other PC, the local captain guard and four guards. The enemies were supposed to be there just to bring some order and receive a beating.
What actually happened is that all of them got names and personality on the spot, like one being very coward and one leading the evacuatiom of the pub (actually an excuse to rebalance the fight, since the PCs were meant to fight together), one almost dying one week from his retirement but surviving to see his granddaughter's wedding, and the captain of the guard ending up having an affair with the PC who fought with him.
This all happened in ONE session with characters that were literally the first faceless guys you beat up, not even characters you properly interact with.
8:58 My jaw dropped, a whole page for an NPC! 😱 I fit 2 - 3+ NPCs on a page side. So front and back, I have a whole party, the heads of a government, a group of bad bad nemeseses. Usually max I have two pages to reference in any given gameday 🤔unless they do something I hadn't planned on then I may have to reference another page.
I use the GURPS system, very straight forward, 3d6 is a bell curve so understanding difficutly is easy. 4 stats, 4 secondary, advantages/perks, quirks/disadvantages, skill w/ level. One paragraph, maybe two and very rarely 3 reminding you who they are, what they want, and why/how they're going about it. Penalties and bonuses to skill/perception/damage/effects/resistance is part of ordinary mechanics of the game system. Wife remembers parts of games I've ran that I don't remember, I just remember the closing of the game, wasn't easy & wasn't impossible... and people lived and people/things died. I stumble across those sheets, then I remember what the NPC was thinking 😂
one of my most iconic NPC's was a halfling that started the campain with them, and he was ALWAYS getting them into trouble. From running back down the trail with a horde of orcs on his tail to accidently burning down a village...he bathed the PC's in respect and admiration while being a total FK UP...and they loved him.
When you brought up Alignment, it reminded me of some characters, both NPC and PC that have one aligment, but some of them actually toggle between both. One main example was a setting I had where the characters were "Chaotic" in nature, even if the individual was Lawful, they may have sporadic moments where they are quite wild... But they would still maintain a sense of "Law" in some ways even then. A Dragon I have who is Lawful Evil SEEMS quite Good, and a little bit Chaotic sometimes, and during combat or outright war, he SEEMS anything but "Lawful" as he sows Chaos and Terror on the battlefield. He is still quite Evil, just Unstable, and knows what he wants, so his "Good" nature is more a means to an end... But if you treat him properly he will keep manageable. But he IS still Evil, so know that any contract or deal he makes with you... If he finds a Loophole, and has no reason not to exploit it, he will totally do so. So he's a bit of a chaotic mess. I call some of these characters "True Chaotic" because they can basically lean any direction they feel like at the time without the danger of alignment change... They COULD change themselves and shift their alignment if they chose to, but they definitely do not.
It was all a complicated mess, but my "Gold Dragon" (Half Dragon, Half Serpent/Yuan-Ti) was the more popular one I made. For a "Lawful Evil" guy, the party liked how jovial he could be, and helpful... But greedy, (Dragon, duh?) and higher insight rolls revealed to some of them... that while his jovial attitude was genuine, he was always analyzing them, looking for motives and weaknesses to exploit if they happened to displease them. He also likes to send people on quests to retrieve magical items (or adventurers can go to him and request an item and he can "test" them) from his shifting puzzle fortress, allowing them to keep the rewards if they succeed (Sometimes with the promise that they return it lest they are hunted down later). But the catch is, if you Die or linger too long, you basically become dominated and one of his new "guardians" to wander his fortress and protect it from trespassers or future adventurers he sends in for key magical items. This part he USUALLY leaves out of the "rules", rules which seems to follow similar guidelines to the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin. "Touch Nothing but the Lamp" is basically, "Take nothing but your objective". A few missing coins might not cause problems, but touching other magical treasures could be, bad.
I spent about twenty minutes on a Gnome Expert. He was a con artist supreme. I meant for him to be a throw away encounter, but the players LOVED Twiggy Jackapple so he popped up from time to time, usually needing help because something he tried went wrong and he was on the run.
A good idea would be to have a stack of 'background and motivation cards' one short sentence, one thing which could be interesting and inform about the NPCs behaviour.
Things like 'Suspects spouse to cheat' or 'Higwayman in hiding' or simple 'want's an effing muffin'
That in combination with a list of names - and you will leave your players guessing which NPCs are plot relevant and well thought out and which you just invented on the fly.
I had an impromptu character named Eric (a name I randomly made up and made a quick general description of, since one player wanted to steal from any noble jerk). Instantly became a favorite NPC as I made him flawed with daddy issues but was actually a good dude at heart.
My Pathfinder campaign BBEG was a bard that had a plan to have his song be heard by all of creation, albeit at the risk of summoning an apocalyptic deity. The party members were working to stop him, of course, but totally understood why he was doing it.
Maybe avoid karaoke? Particularly if there is a tarrasque in the region!
I ran a campaign a while back, and the most beloved NPC from the party was a shopkeeper I whipped up on the fly. He was a general store manager, a Lizardfolk named Ben who ran the store Ben and Buckets. The players loved him.
Great advices!
There's a ton of great info here. If you add chapters to the video, it would be easier for your audience to come back and use this as a recurring resource. I'd like to think I absorbed it all, but I would love to find an exact point of reference during future game prep. Cheers!
I use fast character creator to make NPC’s. You can make a custom name or it will pick a random one. You just pick the race class and level and it makes a character sheet, so you can use them in combat easily
Hey there, fresh new blood to DnD here! Just finished my third session a couple days ago. Anyway, love the format and delivery of your content. Haven't tried my hand at game mastering yet but a lot of the information on your channel is just really insightful. Thanks for the awesome resource!
Fun Stats:
By the time you finished saying, "..letting me know how many times I say "NPC", I had already counted up to 58. ( 13:27 )
By the end, I counted 87 times ( 26:20 Last one ) with a heavy shift to using "character" and "villain" for the latter half of the video.
Cheers!
"Most NPCs should have an ancestry that is native to or close by the location where they live." 11:30
Yeah. Please say that to the makers of, say, The Wheel of Time and their bumpkin village that has been cut off from the world for a thousand years or so.
Also, hard disagree on the focus of villains who think they have a just cause that players can understand. Make something different for once. Look at Jack Horner, for example.
Im currently working on a campeighn, well I've been working on it for going on 10 years now. I've only recently finished with the foundations of the game and am now starting to flesh out the world with towns, cities, countries, and NPC's. It's a living world where the players tiniest choices in the begining of the game could have long lasting consequences, for better or worst. It's going to start out on a small island with several nations. When I say small island I don't mean a typical small island, but something about the size of australia. I call it a small island because it will be off the coast of a supercontinent. One of my NPC's is there to help introduce the playser to the wider world.
Basically they will play on this "island" until they reach a certain level at which point they will start to become some of the most powerful people in recorded history, essentially demigods in the eyes of the common folk. Depending on how they play their characters even kings migh bow to them. Then they meet this innocent little girl in the middle of nowhere. She's friendly at first but depending on how they react to her they could turn her into an ally, an enemy, or she might remain neutral.
If they go the ally or enemy path then she will act as a transition to the larger supercontient. The girl is an actual demigod, and introduces the players to the real world that is inhabited by monsters and demigods that make the most powerful human nations look like a colony of ants. An them soldier ants. However, they have the oportunity to break the bonds of the weak and become somthing that actually shapes the world.
Depending on the players choices during the campeighn it could end any number of different ways, they could defeat the big bad and transiion to actual demigod status then returning home as heros, or they could end up actually befriending the big bad and fighting with them against an even greater threat that they couldn't even imagine in the begining of the game, abandoning their people to save the world, perhaps when they learn the truth they decide to simply return home and retire from adventuring living a life of luxary ruling overt the weak. The game and world is flexible enough to allow them to do pretty much anything that they want. I designed the entire world arround flexability, but at the same time in such a way that every tiny and insignificant descision they make will have lasting consequences that will become visible as the game progresses. Most of these are tiny changes that won't affect a whole lot. But will still be here for them to see as they progress.
As for why I went into so much detail, it's for my own fun, I love world building and I don't care very much about whether or not these features impress my players. I started building his world out before I ever even had a play group to play with just because I enjoy doing it in my spare time. Now that I do actually have a group though I'm starrting to move the game into a more playable direction to let my friends experiance the world I've spent so much of my life perfecting. That is if I ever actually decide to finish it, I'm still only about 75% done with the world building, there's still A-LOT more work to do. Over 100 unique monsters, hundreds of dungeons and unique NPC's, every NPC, has a full backstory and family tree, some are simple farmers, and others are complex and drawn out. EVery house, and dungeon fully mapped out, hundreds of unique plants. And this is just the stuff I have so far...
Just like in writing, use seeding for your NPCs and for your quest hooks.
Seeding is where you supply your reader (your PCs, in this case) with only the very basics. If you later find that this particular plot hook/NPC works really well (or if the PCs have latched onto it), that's the time for fleshing it out. This way you don't waste time and effort creating elaborate NPCs for your party to completely ignore and trying to force an NPC on them just because you, the DM, spent a lot of effort on them, never really works (unless they're the BBEG haha).
Do you have a video of you doing this? Would be fun to watch.
torture... :D
I recently started DM'ing a game for a pair of PC's, and came up with a supporting character idea of a dishonor samurai, named Tsunami the Coward. Her backstory is that during an expedition, her regiment was overwhelmed by a massive assault on thier camp, unable to prevent the deaths of her comrades, she fled, choosing to save her own skin rather than die honorably among her allies, and lacking the resolve to commit seppuku over the shame of defeat, she instead roams the lands as a ronin, seeking to regain some small semblance of her lost honor.
In my experience I think that one of the most important and fun parts of roleplaying NPCs is that they can have flaws. For example playing a real coward can really help you become a better roleplayer, so that you can play a more complex NPCs with more subtle fear. It also helps create nuance in the world so that the heroic adventures can shine through all!
You can also create memorable NPC's as a player, I did this somewhat unintentionally!
My character would occasionally write coded messages to the Matriarch of his large family (his mother) using the Linguist Feat, one such message decoded (barely) by the party essentially boiled down to politely asking his mother to not kill a party member he had impregnated. Over time my party's curiosity led to him feeding snippets of information about his family such as its size (he has 19 siblings, 10 of them sisters), how his mother would frequently threaten the clergy of Abadar to ensure her survival through her Labors, subtly implied how she did not care for non-noble's intermingling in the family's blood, and her connection to the underworld.
Now Rise of the Runelords™ is meant to be something of a horror campaign, but I don't think anything up to the point where my Wizard could cast Sending shook them quite as hard as when my character politely asked his mother to not kill his 'taken woman' and received:
"I make no promises" as a reply.
I'm brand new to DnD (been playing for like 2 months), and I have the confidence to host, which I have been doing successfully. I have so many arcs lined up. However, I need to get into the nitty gritty for making sure my encounters and my helpers stay relevant and enjoyable
One of the my best moments at the table was when i forgot to write what the graffity and the walls say so i just defulted to "dave was here" whole table laughed for a solid 30 seconds
For major NPCS in my games, I always have them tie with either the current state of a player(s) or their backstory/backstories, have them be a big contributor, but not the hero in big successes and will allow an NPC to replace a player should someone have to leave early or cant make a session. There are 2 NPCs that I have character sheets for, the main villain and the "Goblin the party named and fell in love with" character
It organically evolved but my method now is to wait to see which NPCs the players choose to stick with and then I'll flesh them out much more. Although I do RP all the player interactions with NPCs and try to give them unique voices and personalities.
I had a villain in one of my long running games who had a brother who was a paladin. The paladin fell from grace and became a death knight. The villain's motivation was to redeem his brother so he raised an army and sent them to take over the realm. He then created misinformation that the army was commanded by a dark fiend of shadow that was banished earlier in the campaign by different heroes. The current players latched onto this and found out they had to first summon the fiend to the material world before they could defeat him.. again. The crux of this was the villain wanted his brother to do this to be redeemed as a paladin by saving the realm. But it ended up the players doing all the work. Then as the players summon and defeat the fiend, they find out their benefactor was the actual villain the whole time and with the help of the death knight, were able to defeat the 'real' villain and successfully redeeming the paladin for a crazy plot twist scene for the end of the campaign as brother was forced to kill brother. The death knight had been an ongoing mini-villain in the campaign, as well.
My go-to, regardless of the system I'm using, is to lift from Fate's Aspects. Any NPC that is intended purely for social interaction just need to be defined narratively, so I give them 1-5 short descriptive phrases that sum up the key points. a random cop that's intended to just show up and got away just gets something like Polite Cop or Bent Cop, a slightly more important one might have One Day From Retirement if things are about to go sideways. A more important NPC gets the full set - one is their core concept, one is their biggest flaw or problem, and three others that cover their main values and personality traits. Just... never more than 5, at least for anything lasting. I'll allow temporary extras that are temporary or situational, but I find going much over that starts to water down their utility in keeping a character reasonably focused.
By way of example, Bob is a Bartender With A Heart Of Gold, is In Debt to the Mob, feels Family is Everything, is Too Old For This Shit, and Keeps His Friends Close And His Shotgun Closer.
It gives pretty clear hooks for things that will go over pretty well or very poorly if tried. Like, with Bob here, he's going to be a bit more susceptible to financial motivation or the idea that he's putting his family at risk, but will react very poorly to somebody who threatens his family and friends. Similarly, they can tell you what sort of things you can just assume about a guy, or places where their job in the story might call for flexing the rules a tad. Like, if a guy is A Master Of Hidden Weapons, you can just assume he'll be able to get /something/ past a search.
Easy to expand, easy to modify. Even just one that ties into whatever situation the PCs are dealing with will do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of making them feel relevant. More details can be provided in a paragraph form, but these are the high points that define who the person is, and how they relate to others.
I also use them for other things - locations, organizations, etc. Who hasn't described a place as a Cesspool of Scum and Villainy at least once? :)
I use a standard stat block for most NPC's [except villains and such], if players become interested in a particular NPC, then I add a bit more detail to them. In this way, I only do the work that is needed instead of trying to predict which characters the players are going to take to. One of my favorites was Ira the tax collector. He was just supposed to be a one-shot NPC but the players, one in particular hated that NPC so much that I actually had to write a series of adventures around this NPC. They loved hating him.
Luke you are lucky the damb PCs did not murder poor Pudding Pop and loot all his stuff.
I'm sure they were planning to after calling him Pudding Pop got old...