Today, we’re back to where I thought I was going after the world-building article.

NPCs, or non-player characters, are the people of note whom your players meet on their journeys. It could be the king of the land, a peddler along the road, or a thief in an underground society. Any character important to your story is going to be an NPC.

What makes an NPC interesting is how it interacts with the players. Does it really want to help them? Is the shop owner going to try to upsell the party when they are looking for clothes? Do they have a bit of history that makes them friendly toward or distrustful of adventurers? Do they need something from the group of adventurers?

These characters really help to give depth to your world. In the Dungeons & Flagons game, I had pretty well fleshed out Lino and Camdell, the two pirate princes the group met (as well as the rest of the princes on the island), and gave them their own desires and characteristics as they interacted with the players. But Jonathan, a guard patrolling Lino’s estate, was made up on the spot, and still added something important to the world of Barbuga.

So how much planning do you need to do for NPCs so they don’t all end up sounding the same, and so they aren’t just cardboard cutouts of characters?

This is something that I’m still trying to balance out, but here are some tips to help you along the way:

Not every NPC needs to have a personality, desires, and motivations all their own. A barkeeper in a small town might have some secret that the adventurers could discover, but doesn’t necessarily need one. The random guard at the castle gate probably doesn’t have specific issues with a more powerful suitor who’s trying to steal the love of his life. For characters who are just there to add a little extra depth and realism, feel free to make up a name for them on the spot, and let them share basic information that they would likely know. For example, the bartender knows how much a drink costs, if there are rooms in his inn, and maybe some gossip. A guard at the gates probably knows what people of importance are in town, if the Queen is holding court today, and other such items. These things will help move the story forward, but aren’t the story themselves.

Now, sometimes you have an NPC who is more important. To flesh out those characters, write up a few simple notes. What are some of the defining traits of their looks or speech? Lino was written up as a short bowling ball of a female dwarf who talks loudly and isn’t shy around delicate matters. What really matters to her? Lino clearly loves sex and her position of power. What does she need? She had a snake problem. Boom. Now you have a character who isn’t Guard #1, but is someone whom you can bring back again, and who feels more fully realized.

Why don’t you do that for all NPCs? And how do you know how many to create the background for?

Don’t do it for all of them; you’ll find yourself going insane. Your players are going to a town of 25,000 people and you have no idea where they will go next or how many people they’ll talk to? Trying to create a background for so many characters would be crazy. Pick the important ones; for example, what does the shopkeeper at the general store sound like, or the blacksmith, or the ruler? Those are the ones whom the players are going to interact with. They might end up spending more time talking to the guy at the gate, but if he isn’t as important to your story, just make him up on the fly.

The town you are creating may be a small one, in which you only need to create two or three important people whom your characters will interact with while there, whereas a larger city might have part of a thieves’ guild that your players go to, and a king, and several different merchants, or many other things. But don’t let a large town overwhelm you, because while you never really know what your players are going to do, they will generally follow the breadcrumbs you leave for them and go meet the people you want them to meet, and usually won’t go off in some random direction that’s way different from the one(s) you’ve prepared for.

And if you do find yourself needing to create a character of importance on the fly, take some notes. Do a better job of this than I do. When you introduce a big-wig, jot down their name, what you are doing for their voice, and what job/title they have in the city. That way, you can use them again in another part of the story and the players will remember them.

I hope these tips will help you as you create your non-player characters for your next session — and if there is anything else you want advice about or would like to know more about, ask away in the comments.

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