The last thing a game master wants is for parts of his or her carefully crafted world to be immediately forgotten or dismissed. This is especially true of NPCs, but sometimes it can’t be helped. If an NPC is only there to sell the party a new sword, a fresh horse, or a set of fancy clothes for the upcoming festival party, then chances are the players will simply dismiss the NPC. GMs can be guilty of this as well, and this is fine if the NPC’s sole purpose is to finish off a transaction with the PCs.
However, many GMs want a deeper level of immersion for the players in as many different facets of world building as they can pull off. When someone approaches a typical GM about “world building,” the typical response falls to thoughts of terrain, cities, ruins, dungeons, creatures, key NPCs, races, classes, and the like. Rarely does someone invest a great deal of time into what I call a “transactional NPC.” These are NPCs that exist merely to exchange hard-won treasure for a new piece of equipment or to bump the PCs toward the right direction in the storyline.
Because these NPCs are often on the stage with the PCs for a very brief period of time, it doesn’t make much sense to do a deep dive into the background, motivations, characteristics, stats, fears, and goals of these characters in the game. The return on investment just isn’t there. I am just as guilty as the next GM in not pumping huge amounts of time into the shopkeepers of the world… unless that shopkeeper is going to play a pivotal (or recurring) role in the story we’re telling.
The Fine Details
Because of the lack of spotlight on these characters, we don’t want a full dossier on them. However, they are getting some of the spotlight, so we want a feature or characteristic to catch the players’ attentions, just for that moment. Think about how long the NPC will share the stage with a member of the party. There’s no fine-tuned equation on X minutes equals Y details, but the more the NPC will be around, the more details you want to provide about the character.
There are a wide range of things you can add to an NPC to catch the players’ eyes. These range from a strange hair color or style to odd clothing to an accent to a scar or a lazy eye to tattoos to some physical handicap. These slight alterations to the “cookie cutter NPC” break them out of the cardboard cutout mold, and give them some flavor or unique quality. For some starter ideas, you can search the World Wide Web for “list of physical characteristics” and see where that leads you. There are oodles of lists out there, and none of them are complete. All of them are immensely helpful, though.
These details can, and should be, let loose on the players over time. Perhaps a new detail comes to light with each encounter the PCs have with the NPC. Another way to do it is to hold back on some details, and if the players really start to engage with the NPC, then more information can come to light. Even changing details (such as an initial limp that now seems to be better) over time can bring temporal life to your world.
Hazards and/or Improv
There is a danger with adding these touches of detail to your NPCs. Players are trained to hook into details and imagine someone is more important than they really are. If you add five details to the local blacksmith, but only three to the local crime lord, then the players will immediately be more interested in the transactional NPC instead of the archenemy you spent hours toiling over. Make sure you don’t overdo it, because the story you end up telling might be different from the one you had outlined for the game.
However, here lies the fun of running an improv game where you lay out a few details and see which one(s) the players hook into. It can be immensely surprising and enjoyable to realize that the tavern guard’s lazy eye that always wanders toward the sword on the wall behind the bar leads the party to think there’s something special about the sword. Likewise, a sudden wound or scar appearing on a well-known transactional NPC can lead to an impromptu quest for vengeance upon the person who created the scar or caused the wound. If the thought of improvising a game based on a minor characteristic to an NPC shakes you up a little, I can highly recommend Unframed by Engine Publishing as a source to assist you in mentally preparing for an improv game.
Polymorphing the Transactional NPC
Like most of your world, the NPCs around the settings aren’t static. They change over time along with everything else going on. If you want to convert a minor NPC to something more, simply pull out some details from your web search mentioned above and add some into the character. By building up and adding to the character, the PCs are sure to catch on and will be super intrigued by the alterations going on. I advise you to avoid the info-dump, though. If you suddenly add five or six new details to the local cheesemaker the next time the PCs run into her, then they’ll feel the heavy-handedness of this approach. Be subtle. Be cunning. Be creative!
Good article. I often fall flat on the little details that makes a character unique, and I’ll definitely look up some lists for physical characteristics.
I don’t like the idea of an NPC that’s strictly transactional though. As in any story telling medium, every scene should drive the plot. I like an NPC to either impact one of the plots or tell a story of their own, while still accomplishing the transaction. In a hub-and-spoke type game this helps because it allows you to create fewer NPC’s. The players will always gravitate to Bartok the Magnificent if they know that not only can he purchase their gems and other lute, he also knows where to find that potion you need and can offer meaningful information on the local geography, history, arcana, etc. That’s not to say that you should always build one “catch all” merchant. I don’t mean that at all, I just mean that any NPC the players encounter should be able to more than simply exchange goods and/or point to the next quest.
Part of an article I’m working on right now talks about building secrets into every NPC. A “standard” merchant who “Knows the location of a hidden stash of XYZ, but is too weak to make the journey himself” and “Will kill that damn watch guard next time he comes near his daughter” opens up a whole web interactivity. Who knows which of his secrets, and how do they use that information? Where is the stash? Why is he too weak to get it himself? Who is the guard? Who is his daughter? What is going on between them? Will he really kill that guard, or is that just the level of his hatred?
Those two secrets have the potential to add a TON of playability to an otherwise throwaway character. Has the party already had run ins with a particular watch guard? Guess what…that’s the guard harassing (or truly in love with, or is trying to stay away from) the merchants daughter!
I don’t build any backstory into any of my non-villain NPC’s. I give each a secret or two, play off my players expectations (and sometimes may directly ask a player to fill in a detail for me), and build their story during play.
Thanks for the article. I especially like the idea of the NPC’s changing with time. That is an excellent way to add hooks!
Adding secrets, special knowledge, or custom rumors to an NPC are also excellent ways to build up the world and setting. Great idea! I wish I had thought of that for inclusion in my article. Thanks for the tip!
I very much enjoy, as both a PC and a GM, having a home base city/town/village where PCs can return and rest. When that’s the case, it makes it easier to create a handful of local NPCs that they might get to know in a limited fashion. In a long term game, I keep a file of those NPCs, and track changes to their lives along the way– the first time the PCs meet Mary the Blacksmith, she’s a lean mean weapon making machine. Three months later, she’d noticeably plump up. The PC’s leave for a year, and when they return, Mary’s a lean mean weapon making machine . . . with a little Mary Jr. strapped on her back.
Tracking changes for NPCs can be tricky. I always tend to lose my notes and then I cross-pollinate the changes between NPCs… which confuses the players and myself. Do you have any tips or tricks for keeping the changing times straight in your head?
If an NPC is going to make a regular appearance, as far as is practical I like to have the players play them. the fence the murdo hobos sell their dungeon treasure to, the IT guy who expels the digital daemons from from their Laundry issued palm top. It takes some agreement from the players but it gives the whole game a great deal more depth… and th players have to do the heavy lifting of remembering what the NPC is like between sessions