Tricks of the Trade: NPCs

Posted by Neel Krishnaswami on May 11, 2004 at 07:01 PM

I posted a version of this on rpg.net, but decided I wanted to post it here, too. It's a list of six tricks I've learned about how to put together compelling NPCs, and it struck me that I could extend that list by posting here and asking you all to add things you've found to work.

The first three come from an essay by Samuel Delany -- he was talking about why so many characters in science fiction stories are flat and unconvincing, and tricks for avoiding that problem. They apply just as well to rpgs as to books.He wrote that every character should have a habit or quirk, a strategy for dealing with life, and a goal or worldview.

• A character's goal is something they think is fundamentally important, and what they will strive to achieve. Whenever you're roleplaying the NPC, keep in mind what they are trying to achieve, and their actions will seem to have coherence and purpose -- a soldier who craves martial glory will want to do different things than one who wants only to return to his family and live in peace.

• However, not all characters react in the same way to the problems they face, even if their goals are similar. This is where a strategy comes in -- this is the general method that they use to deal with the problems they face. One character might have a violent temper, which they use to intimidate people into doing what they want; another might be trying to live his life in a way that his parents or religious teachers will approve of; and so on. Characters goals tells you where they are trying to go, and their strategies tell you how they will get there.

• On top of this, you should add a quirk. This is just something unique and unusual about the character. It shouldn't relate directly to the character's goals and strategies, because the quirk suggests to the players that the NPC is a full person, someone who is more than just his or her role in the plot. It also serves as a tag that helps the players remember the character.
  

These three rules are useful for a writer, but for roleplaying games, there are a couple more things that are really helpful in making NPCs come to life.

• When you create an NPC, ask yourself why the character wants to interact with the player characters. It's far too easy to come up with NPCs who would want to do nothing more than avoid the PCs. The writer of a novel can force confrontations between characters, but a GM can't, so there's a good chance that a reluctant NPC will end up succesfully avoiding the PCs. Instead, what you should do is come up with NPCs who WANT to deal with the PCs. They might want to kill them, or offer them jobs, or ask for their hands in marriage -- but they can't get what they want without interacting with the PCs.

I learned this trick from Ron Edward's The Sorcerer's Soul. When I saw it, I couldn't understand why it had never occurred to me. But it ties in very nicely with the next two pieces of advice, which I learned from Keith Johnstone's Impro.

• Whenever you run a scene involving NPCs and PCs, it's helpful if there is some kind of conflict between them. Having an NPC just show up and make comments feels kind of limp in play -- you really need something to happen in a scene for it to be interesting. But "conflict" doesn't necessarily mean opposition; it just means that there should be a tension between what the NPC wants and the PC wants. For example, if the mayor wants a PC to attend an award ceremony, but the PC's wife wants him to attend a friend's birthday party, then you have a conflict.

• Finally, one of the most powerful tricks for making the game world seem real is to re-incorporate things that the players have done. If you need an enemy for a player character, create one who has sworn vengeance on him because the PC killed his father earlier in the campaign. If you need an unexpected ally, have someone who the PCs helped earlier in the game show up. Base the NPCs' motivations on the PCs' backgrounds, too. Whenever possible, try to base the new stuff you add on old stuff that the players did. This helps create a strong sense of continuity and consequence, so that it feels like the NPCs and the PCs are inhabiting the same world and affecting each other, and this makes the NPCs seem more real.
  

What are the tricks you've learned for portraying vivid NPCs?