In any adventure, the party of player characters (PCs) will inevitably encounter other intelligent creatures and people. These are the non-player characters (NPCs) of the world that are largely controlled, run, an enacted by the game master. There are moments (and some systems greatly support these moments) where an NPC will be “taken over” by a fellow player at the table to reduce the load on the GM or to allow for a wider variety of interactions. That topic, however, is an entirely different article.

The article that I’m presenting to you today is about supporting and opposing NPCs. There can also be neutral NPCs, which I had not considered until I started writing this article, so there will be an addendum at the end to touch on that topic. However, most NPCs will be somewhere on the spectrum of opposition-to-supportive. It truly is a spectrum, and not a binary. Few NPCs are going to risk their lives for the benefit of the PCs. An equally small number of NPCs will drop everything in their lives to hammer down on the PCs’ plans to put a stop to them. Sure, both of those can happen, but for the most part, support and opposition will be measured actions, no absolutes.

I’m not going to get into how to create effective NPCs on the grand scale. That topic has been covered (in quantity and in quality) via other articles and Gnomecast episodes. However, I’ll touch on a few areas of consideration as it relates to your adventure that you’re designing.

Overall Traits

 NPCs must have goals and motivations. (Sounds like familiar advice, eh?) 

Your NPCs need to have a reason to be in the adventure as an opposing or supporting force. This is their motivation for doing what they are doing. Of course, if someone is motivated to take action, odds are they have a goal in mind to apply that motivation to. If you’ve read any of my articles on characters or storytelling, then you know I hammer the drums for “goals and motivations” quite hard and heavy. Creating NPCs for your adventure is no different. They need to have a goal that supports (or opposes) the PCs’ goals. Then the NPC needs to have a deep reason for why they’re going out of their way to help/harm the party.

Also, by now you’ve determined your Boss (and sub-Bosses, if any). The NPCs in the locales that intersect with the Boss locations should support (or intentionally break) the themes, styles, and tones you’ve set for your Boss and the mooks. This means if you have the party get lost while trekking through a swamp, then a mountain dwarf ranger is probably not the appropriate NPC to show up and help. However, it would be quite humorous for a mountain-based ranger to also be lost in the swamp and team up with the party until the entire group gets oriented. A better alternative to the mountain ranger would be a friendly swamp hag who knows the environment and area. Why would a hag help the party? Perhaps the hag is diametrically opposed to the trolls in the area that the party is hunting. Perhaps the hag lost a sister or parent to the troll’s depravations, but the hag alone is not powerful enough to take down the troll or the Troll Boss.

Supporting NPCs

 What does the NPC have that they are willing to sacrifice for the PCs? 

Supporting NPCs need to have a reason to risk something to help the PCs. Sometimes the risk is merely a small percentage of profit at their store by giving the PCs a discount at the local store the NPC owns. Sometimes the risk is to step up, put on armor, grab a weapon, and push into the swamplands alongside the party. There’s an infinite number of choices along the spectrum between the “neutral NPC setting” and the “fanatically supportive NPC setting.” The trick is to adjust that dial to the right place, so the party doesn’t suspicious about the over abundance of assistance or the lack of total support.

Different NPCs are going to be able to support the party in different ways and to different extents. This entirely depends on the capabilities and motivations of the NPCs. Once you’ve determined ways an NPC can 100% help the PCs, you’ll need to use the NPC’s motivations to determine how close the NPC will push to “100% support.”

Opposing NPCs

 Why is the NPC opposing the party? How are they doing it? 

Flipping the coin to the other side, why would an NPC get in the party’s way? That’s usually where I start with opposing NPCs. Once I know the why, I figure out the how. Is is sabotaging the party’s mounts or equipment? Stealing something vital from them? Lying to them and feeding them misleading clues? Directly attacking them? Informing the Boss or mooks of what the party is up to? Simply charging them 110% of an item’s value in the general store to try and sap their funds?

Once I know the why and how, I determine the “how much” factor of the resources the opposing NPC can throw at the party. Sometimes, the “how much” is trivial (such as charging 110% of items’ values in the general store). Sometimes, the “how much” could be assembling a large strike force to ambush the party on the trail while they make their way to the edge of the swamp.

One thing to note is that opposing NPCs should not always be “behind the curtain” and unseen. This is just frustrating to the players and makes it appear as if the GM is “cheating” by having the Boss always knowing what the party is up to when there’s no logical way the Boss should know the party’s plans. The mysterious NPC can be spotted in the shadows or glimpsed from afar (or even hidden in plain sight as a villager), but the mystery should be revealed by the end of the adventure of who the major opposition was during the course of the story. This can easily come in the form of a handout or three where there are letters between the NPC and the Boss. (Side note: Why do the bad guys always keep their incriminating notes around? Why not burn them? Alas, those are questions for another day.)

Neutral NPCs

Not everyone opposes or supports the PCs.

Somewhere in the middle-ground of the supporting vs. opposing spectrum lies neutrality. This is where the bulk of the NPCs will start the adventure. These are your townsfolk, other citizens of the city that don’t know the Boss or PCs, merchants, and folks met on the roadways during travel. Each neutral NPC may have something to offer the PCs, but they will not freely offer it up. At the same time, they will not try to hide or keep the offer away from the PCs. This is where the PCs will need to work just a little (or spread some coin) in order to get the NPC to offer up whatever rumors, tales, wares, or advice the NPC has in hand.

Changing Alignment

No. I’m not talking about a paladin losing her lawful good alignment and becoming a “mere” fighter in this section. Here, I’m going to talk about shifting an NPC’s outlook toward the PCs based on the party’s actions. In this case, I like to keep it pretty simple. Use a scale of 0-20 with 0 being highly opposed, 20 being highly supportive, and 10 being neutral. After a assign a starting point on the scale, I’ll bump the alignment of the NPC up or down the scale depending on what the PCs do with the NPC. This is purely a gut call and a quick reference. There are no hard-boiled, carved-in-stone rules or mechanics for what a 12 means vs. a 14 on the scale. I just have a note in my document next to each NPC, so I can quickly see if Graynar the Merchant is a 4 or an 18 because that will sway what Graynar is willing to sell to the party and at what percentage of actual value.

Conclusion

I hope this article helps you out in solidifying your ideas of which NPCs should oppose or support the party (and why!), and how to approach determining what the NPCs can and are willing to do in order to show that opposition or support. Next month, I’ll be talking about some fun stuff: Clues, Rumors, and Connective Tissue.