Intel
Huh. That’s an uncharacteristically snarky Buckle. I can only assume that things have been financially stressful since they lost that jousting match. Fantasy boat insurance is crazy expensive, yo!
While our genius buccaneers figure out that pirate maps can be exchanged for goods and services, what do you say the rest of us discuss Doublepatch Hookhanderson? He may just be a rando NPC, but I’ve got a soft spot for the guy. That’s because he represents one of my very earliest gaming memories.
It was way back in high school when I encountered my first inn. It was a D&D 3.0 campaign, and I was still having trouble with the whole “roleplaying game” concept. At that point in my life I’d played Legend of Dragoon and Chrono Trigger, and I’d watched a buddy race a few chocobos in Final Fantasy VII. So when our extremely cool characters materialized in Ye Olde Medieval Town, I used the knowledge I’d gained from these experiences.
“I go to the inn,” I said. “Am I there?”
“Um, sure,” said my bemused DM. “What are you doing at the inn?”
“I walk up to the nearest NPC and ask if they’ve heard any rumors. I tell them that I’m looking for quests.”
“The random drunks at the bar don’t have quests.”
“How about the bar tender?”
“The bar tender gives you an odd look. He also does not have quests.”
“Very well then. I head out into the village square. You there! Old woman!”
And at that point my DM paused the game to explain that 1) it’s usually his job to decide whether old women in the village square actually exist, and 2) talking to randos is not always the best way to locate the plot.
I think we all learn this lesson at some point. Forcing GMs to improvise NPCs may be amusing, but it’s usually more productive to ask established characters for the narrative goods. Royal viziers, high priests, and mysterious old dudes in pointed hats fall into this category. And in retrospect, I think that’s a bit of a shame. Many years later and I’m the one behind the screen. And whenever my PCs are flailing around looking for the plot, I sometimes wish they’d just ask a rando. I bet that Doublepatch Hookhanderson would be more than happy to point them in the right direction.
How about the rest of you guys? Do you bother with NPC pleasantries? Or is it safer to assume that the drovers, blacksmiths, and temple acolytes who make up your setting’s window dressing are a waste of narrative time? Have you ever met a random commoner who turned out to play a bigger part in the story? Let’s hear your take on RPG small talk down in the comments!
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Usually most of my NPC’s, when contacted, have some things to contribute. Not necessarily to the quest, or plot, mind. Usually something along the lines of: My pig got stolen by my neighbours kids, my husband is making eyes at that hussy, my horse has gone lame (and the witch/kids/overwork did that). In short, anything that normal people who get accosted by strangers, and asked about things that are out of the ordinary, or remarkable, come up with. And sometimes the PC’s go and do something about it. Which can lead to them having a sidequest so to say. And once in a while they do find out stuff about the main quest that way. And sometimes the interaction with the NPC is good enough for me to channel some of the required info through them, yes.
So mostly non-quest rumours and stuff, occasionally sidequests, and sometimes true quest info. But most of the time the info has to be somewhat believable for that NPC. So no small kids knowing about stuff weeks of travel away, unless they are the kids from the traveling merchant of theater troop.
In your case, I suspect that it helps having such a strong tradition of “asking the local hermit” for advice. Granted it’s even money that your travelling theater troop kid is just Merlin in disguise, but still: Knights are known to hail courteously.
” In short, anything that normal people who get accosted by strangers, and asked about things that are out of the ordinary, or remarkable, come up with.”
“Yeah, I heard some weirdos are asking weird questions to townsfolk. Watch out for them, who knows what they’re plotting.”
I once had to call the department of abandoned mine lands about blowing up some abandoned mines. It was location scouting for an industrial safety infomercial. They thought I was a terrorist. I believe everyone in the state bureaucracy had heard about me by EOD. Friggin’ gossipy commoners….
Hells, yes, we talk to the locals. Never mind the key plot figures; the nerdy alchemist has neat goggles! The alley cats are crazy for our dancing-lights cantrip! The high-strung coffee girl sells coffee! Any or all of them might still be embroiled in our shenanigans long after the evil vizier is a distant memory.
And once the shit hits the fan and lives are at stake, a bit player is even more likely to become a star, if the roll of the dice or the rhythm of the narrative lets them pull off something memorable. Random Airship Pirate #6 survives against all odds because, round after round, the PCs simply cannot roll higher than a 3 when attacking at him. Once the DM realizes that the players are starting to ROOT for that slippery bastard, “Lucky” the pirate strikes a bargain for his life, and our own crew expands by one.
Awesome! It’s often fun to let chaos theory flesh out your campaign. While it’s frustrating when four hours have passed and the PCs haven’t made it out of the village, much less entered the dungeon–if everyone’s having a good time, then it was time well spent.
I once saw an encounter with HELLHOUNDS (x4) produce a PC’s new animal companion when one beast consistently rolled a 1 to rebel against Handle Animal (henceforth “Goodboy”), one always rolled a 20 (thereafter the recurring threat “Rebel”), one bit off a creature’s ear in combat (“Mike Tyson”), and one had no distinguishing characteristics at all (“Dave”).
…and now I’ll remember poor unsung Dave the Hellhound just as well as his more colorful siblings!
This is more or less how Pugilist came into being: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/origin-stories-pugilist
When it comes to ascended mooks, kobolds are in a class by themselves. I’ve had players win over whole tribes of initially-hostile kobolds, and turn the lovable little maniacs into the most dangerous (to friends, enemies, and themselves!) civil engineering force imaginable.
Methinks that the goblins and gnomes of the world would object to this characterization. I suggest an arc about competing contractors….
It’s all good until the gnomes talk the kobolds into joining their Union and then the backroom shenanigans begin 😉
Oh yes, our games – especially anything in an urban environment – tend to be full of NPC interaction… by the time we were a few sessions into DragonHeist, it was starting to feel like we’d made friends with half the population of Waterdeep.
Generally speaking, we’ll quickly become acquainted with innkeepers and their regulars, anyone running a business that might be even tangentially related to adventuring supplies, local priests, mages, or druids who might be able to help with things like curse removal, at least one contact in the criminal underworld, along with assorted nobles who might value the talents and discretion of some competent adventurers. In short, if there’s an NPC to talk to, we’ve probably spoken to them at some point.
Mostly these are either campaign NPCs, or relatively generic individual that the GM has prepared… but we’ve had a few NPCs over the years that have been improvised on the spot, and gone on to be significant recurring characters.
Examples! Who were these folk, how did you meet, and how did they grow in importance?
The most notable example was a wizard. Our party wizard, relatively low-level at the time, wanted to consult with someone more experienced… I can’t remember the reason, but let’s say he was looking for advice around portal spells. So the GM had to make up a suitable wizard NPC on the spot.
The same fellow ended up being quite helpful on several other occasions during that particular adventure — but he also showed up some years later (it was a long-running campaign) as a mentor for a group of alternate characters we ran a filler adventure with, then again some time later to provide some assistance to the main characters again. He wasn’t some grand archmage or anything… just a wandering wizard with some valuable knowledge, and what turned out to some very useful connections.
There really ought to be more “consulting wizards.” My own game has a non-magical sage, who basically serves a “pay gp, get legend lore” function. It’s been useful for those times when my PCs are stumped.
Talking to some random minor NPC’s is good color to spice up the evenings gaming in my opinion, though of course one shouldn’t let it take up too much time.
In addition to that, gathering up some basic rumors around town is a time-honored adventurer activity in my corner of the woods, why asking the bartender is as classic as the mysterious dude in the shadowy corner.
On the GM side of the table I find that this is an useful habit to encourage. Even if Doublepatch Hookhanderson isn’t the sort of person that’d logically know the details of the plot it’s often quite possible for them to know stuff like “I have heard that The High Priest of Local Temple is looking for capable help with something Important. Might be of interest for capable folks like you, I’d go myself if I hadn’t lost both hands in a tragic boating accident”.
The time where talking to a random minor NPC paid off the most was in an L5R game. We talked with this random peasant servant who had been sent to receive us and lead us to our meeting with the samurai commander in charge of an army that where camping in the area. Turns out that he was the head of a local cult cell who had plans to summon a demon and the personal apprentice of the campaigns Big Bad, and we managed to catch him then and there by noticing certain suspicious inconsistencies in his story and putting him to the test.
This completely changed that weeks adventure since instead of a slow burn before learning something was wrong, we got to swiftly defeat him without his allies and then set about dismantling the local cult top down (we still had to fight the demon, but before it was fully summoned and this way we managed to save the ancestor whose name they intended to ritually feed to said demon for a nasty power boost).
That’s the thing. If you’re in the mood to get to the plot, then “local color” threatens to become a waste of time. By turning random NPCs into “tributaries” that all run into the the river of “plot” and empty into the ocean of “story arc,” you make that sort of interaction useful even for let’s-just-get-to-the-point type players. Your example is exactly that: “I have heard that The High Priest of Local Temple is looking for capable help with something Important.”
Our game night has a rotating series of GMs. While I often have some sort of minor mystery to investigate with a little RP and at least two combats (1 mob, 1 boss) thrown in in an attempt to keep all corners of the table happy, another of our group runs meticulously-designed and elaborately-described fetch quests or hunts. If the NPC rumor mill says there are dire cats on the mountain, then you will fight DIRE CAT (solitary or pair) on your way to the magic macguffin that will be used exactly once, and only in the following adventure.
Its fun, but different.
The difficulty comes when someone who is new to the table or not DM-savvy switches campaigns. Telling someone on the sly that we can ask the cook’s name and description, but not quest details (Bill’s running tonight) is awkward, unless the DM leaves the table or is distracted for a moment.
I imagine the same thing happens when I leave the table for a minute or turn to answer someone’s question.
PLAYER 1: “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
PLAYER 2: “No idea. Something about a prophecy. Try asking a random priest or inanimate object. You never can tell.”
Like so much in this game, the GM determines much of play. I often wonder what would have happened if that high school GM of mine had “yes, and’ed” my weirdly video gamey quest seeking. I mean, if you were faced with that sort of noob player weirdness, how would you respond?
Oh, the drunks would have had odd looks for Noob Nübersonne, but in my universe all bartenders have a sense of humor. The new player would get a quest to escort this empty barrel back to the brewer (or some such), and on the way would encounter something or someone who might prove useful later.
“…or inanimate object…”
Sometimes it’s like talking to a brick wall, other times it’s like talking to the peephole in the wall or the disillusioned priest in the confessional.
Other times it’s like…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdBvL4DOULc
The ‘Agent 13’ running gag in the TV series was a lot funnier but youtube search doesn’t seem to be co-operating today 🙁
Agent 13 is a dryad.
As GM, I tend to include a number of background NPCs to help the setting feel alive (mostly shopkeepers and guards), throwing in a few extras when necessary, and the players are free to make friends if they wish. Of course, the real stars when it comes to “random NPC gets an unexpectedly big role” are enemy mooks: I’ve seen minor bandits, goblins, and hostile soldiers go from filler enemies to long-term allies just because the party wanted to get to know them. It tends to throw off my plans a good bit, but as long as the players are having fun, I don’t mind.
I’m beginning to suspect this happens because they get more focused attention. They’re part of combat. It matters what they do on their turn. That means that random mooks have a better chance of becoming companions than the non-combat friendly NPCs you tend to meet at the bar.
My players, and I am not exaggerating, created an ENTIRE RELIGION because they kidnapped a xvart on their very first session. They are just now making the leap from “very odd but mostly harmless cult/ponzi scheme” to “officially endorsed state religion” due to their relentless shenanigans. This has included creating the first xvart bard (his one hit wonder was, with apologies to Eiffel 65, “I’m Blue”) (it became the party’s theme song), teaching the xvarts mangled Common (all insults are compliments and vice versa, so xvarts can be rude without anyone noticing), and utilizing xvarts as a cheap and expendable workforce throughout the city.
All this happened because of a singular xvart the PCs kidnapped back in session 1.
Gives new meaning to the whole “I’m not your buddy, pal” routine.
Don’t know how people do things on Faerum or Golarion, but from where i am we treat NPC feelings like they matter. That poor old women was happy, for the first time on a while, that someone and even more a handsome adventurer looked at her for help but then the DM decides she doesn’t even exists 🙁
On life you don’t know where the help you need will come. Why would a RPG be different? The high priest tells the heroes he doesn’t need their help but outside temple a novice comes to them. That could work as a double plot hook. Why would the high priest don’t say the heroes what it needs to be done? He doesn’t believe they will manage and tries to protect them? Or is part of the problem and sending them away is part of a scheme? 🙂
All interesting stuff, but in my mind this is really a matter of “planned plot hooks” vs “improvised plot hooks.”
Chances are that your GM expected you to hit the high priest and has a big quest all laid out and ready to go in their notes. Conversely, that GM would have to do a bit of mental tapdancing to explain why the random acolyte you asked has the same quest hook instead. Add to this the difficulty of gauging whether an acolyte suddenly becoming a weirdly knowledgeable NPCs will break suspension of disbelief and you’ve got yourself a sticky wicket. Is it reasonable that they’d know? Is this just the high priest in disguise? Should the improvise a side quest instead of advancing the main plot? Or is this just a fun opportunity for a bit of RP and worldbuilding? A GM has to process all of these possibilities in the split second when you say, “You there! Old woman!”
Me: “You there! Old woman!”
DM: Oh, crap 😛
DM: “I’m 37!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZx1mUaosCI
DM: And also a guy 😛
It really depends on the NPC. If they’re a rando or one that we’ve grown to like, my group tends to treat them well and listen to what they have to say. If they’re one of the NPCs that has pissed them off for one reason or another, generally what is said is going to go in one ear and out the other, along with a substantial helping of snark.
Unlikable NPCs are the Cassandras of the RPG world.
I flop-flip on whether NPCs even have names other than “Smith”, “Horse Seller”, or the upgraded “Albert Chemist”, and giving them names, backstories, and lives…
It all depends on what the Players want and I hammer that out in “session zero”. If this “B&P Dungeon Fantasy” then only the most important NPCs get names while the shopkeeps don’t even get numbered… but if they want High Drama Island gaming, then everyone get’s names, love interests, backstories, goals, etc.
Sometimes I try to meet these groups int eh middle (I’m more in favor of ‘only important NPCs need names” – unless I’m the Player, then I’m asking everyone their name and remembering it bucko), but middle ground is often so very hard to find.
When you’re running High Drama Island, how do you deal with improvised NPCs? Do you just keep a list of bit players in the drama to introduce as necessary?
For High Drama Island everyone who gets named get’s a notecard, I fly by the seat of my pants in general so there are rarely that many pre-done lists.
There are no unimportant NPCs, only NPCs with less //plot// relevance.
Notecard? I feel like this is one of those GMing technique type things that doesn’t come up in conversation, but is actually really important. How exactly do you use notecards in your process?
I’ve gone digital lately, so… it’s more like individual .txt files with a single master index that lists “NAME – CREATURE TYPE – CHARACTERS HOOKED – NOTE” (one word notes, generally no more then 5). When I used index cards each card had NAME at the top and then various notes, which just expand upon what is on the master index.
So the Master Index might say:
Sir Dude of Loc’nomeneius | Human | Paladin/Fighter/Anti-Paladin | Knight/Noble/Vicious/Squires/Daughters
And the Notecard/.txt file would have:
(and would be filed under “D” for “Dude”)
Sir Dude of Loc’nomeneius, AKA Barnes Dude Wigglesworth the Third, Royal Protector of Coctu Paludo, Landed Knight of Loc’nomeneius. Current Squire: Squire Sul Lun.
24th in succession to the throne of Adventureopa, Sir Dude was the Knight to Fighter, Paladin, and Anti-Paladin when they were Squires. He is a vicious jerkwad, unnecessarily cruel in the name of “toughing up those worthless lads” and to “any race that just deserves it”. Fighter remembers him fondly, Anti-Paladin longs to someday get revenge, and Paladin never realized it was both unnecessary and cruel for the sake of being cruel. Secretly trying to kill off the 23 between himself and the throne, not successful so far his schemes have been inadvertently foiled by Party and Anti-Party accidentally (and Anti-Paladin on purpose twice with help from Squire Lun). Cursed with 6 daughters who were spoiled rotten and became as vicious as he is.
His Thoughts on the Characters: Considers Fighter the son he never had, Paladin “the one who is going places”, and Anti-Paladin the “one who should have been killed when he was weak”.
Showed up: Thief and Wizard’s Wedding (background) – Fighter drank with him; Twice for Paladin’s birthday (25 and 27) to make sure “the boy” remembered him. Has avoided Anti-Paladin since discovering they worship the same demonic team.
So like that, if and then I just keep filling out notecards as the NPC becomes more and more relevant… or, now the txt file, which I have to admit going digital makes this all so much easier.
Usually I can just scan the Master Index real quick when the NPC comes up or needs to show up, it’s got the highlights. But if I need a refresher the Notecard/txt file has bite-sized nuggets there to spark my memory.
I don’t really use it much for anything but a repository for memories, so instead of relying on brain space, I offload the indexing to the Master Index and quicky refreshers to the Notecards.
I do like the idea of creating a separate document for this purpose. I’ve tried appending a “glossary of names” to my session notes, but that just makes the notes ugly.
I guess I do things half way in-between? I typically run very sandboxy style games (or at least that’s my aim), but on the other hand I also tend to have NPCs exist in a way I feel makes sense.
Though honestly I haven’t had a ton of luck with my games and more often than not I have to kind of lead the PCs by directly telling them what the quest is and reminding them that someone should make some kind of decision so the game can progress. sigh
So how I’d respond to them trying to get a quest from a complete rando? It really depends. I expect normally I’d just respond however makes sense for said NPC, but if it was the sole ray of hope in a game I might very well bend (fake) reality to make it work.
Some folk want the railroad. It is a hard life as a GM.
So let’s talk about the example in today’s comic. In what circumstance would you have ol’ Doublepatch hand the players the plot on a silver platter like that? How long do they need to wander around randomly before that becomes necessary?
I think it heavily depends on the type of narrative you’re going for- The party of a lovecraftian hell-trip like Strange Aeons or a Call of Cthulhu game probably don’t care about the exact name of the npc they’re dealing with if they’re not plot-relevant- they have bigger fish to fry, sometimes literally if innsmouth is involved. However, in a political drama campaign, knowing every individual person’s name might just save your ass when you can pull out ‘Oh, I know and made friends with a local guard, he can get us out of the city without the corrupt official learning about us’ or something.
That latter example is where you want a player with excellent note-taking habits. Nothing like recognizing your jailor as an old drinking buddy. Plus it’s really good GMing if you think to do that on the spur of the moment.
Our GM tends to be very accommodating because who do that a lot.
E.g.: “Hey, you. What’s your name?”
“I do not have a name. I’m just one of the spell-created servants of this castle. We’re all the same, so we don’t need names.”
“So you say. But do you know what question I asked to that other servant this morning?”
“No, I have no knowledge of this.”
“That means you have individual memories. So it can be useful for you to have precise identifiers.”
“I suppose if that would be of use to our masters and their honored guests, that could be justified.”
“Well, then, what name do you want?”
“I… I cannot choose a name for myself.”
“Well then, how about, I dunno… Scarlet, since that’s your color.”
“Oh, it’s a delightful name! Thank you!”
And afterwards, Scarlet the Spell Servant became more and more free-willed and intelligent, developing a real personality, eventually getting recognized by the castle’s master as a real person instead of a throwaway magic effect. It also meant that the other spell servants were henceforth forbidden to attend to us the next times we went for a visit here, though.
I uh… I may have a fondness for this premise.
https://adventureaweek.com/shop/5th-edition/5e-mini-dungeons/5e-mini-dungeon-119-mages-malevolent-mansion/
There was an NPC who started out nameless. He was one of four minions who were with a minor villain, there to serve as intimidating entourage.
“With him, there’s a huge, muscled human man, an obese half orc man, a grizzled old dwarven man, and a weasely-looking halfling woman.”
By gods did the players latch on to the big muscled guy. They tried talking to him, they kept trying to arrange meetings with him, they actually rolled pretty darn well on repeated checks to befriend him. Eventually I was pretty much obliged to graduate him from nameless NPC to named minor character.
Ultimately, Maheem (as he wound up being named) switched sides, saved the day against his former boss (turning what would have been a TPK into a “All PCs down, but the villains are defeated” rout, and went on to become their most significant ally of the campaign.
He never really provided a ton of quests or information, exactly, but he was very important to the party’s success.
It’s almost as if the concentrated attention of PCs generates narrative significance wherever it happens to turn.
Also of note: https://tenor.com/view/mongo-punch-blazing-saddles-horse-ko-gif-10018763
If you want to mess with random side characters then AI Dungeon and Novel AI are probably your best bets
Actually, strike that, just Novel AI now. Apparently AI Dungeon got censored to be boring and G rated even when the content filter is turned off
From the handbooks advice, I thought this comic was gonna talk of Halflings, Gnomes and other shorties in general.
I struggled with this one. Is there a better word for “background NPCs”?
Common-folk? Peasants? Mundanes?
Just realized… I’m not just getting “smallfolk” from Game of Thrones. It’s also Glass Cannon Podcast. Everyone in the Giantslayer AP referst to non-giants as “small folk.” I guess it got into my vocabulary.
As a GM, one thing that I’ve picked up on is that random NPCs don’t really have to be random. I’m actually kind of on the players side in the intro; if a player is going around looking for trouble, that’s a good time for the GM to gently steer em down the right path a bit. It’s a high fantasy land, why shouldn’t the drunks be packing quests?
But that’s not the question! So!
I haven’t had that moment where a true NPC is important YET, aside from one session one shop keep having an a tangential alliance alliance with the big bad. And since that relationship when entirely undiscovered, I hardly think that counts.
Most, if not all, of my NPCs aside from the notable wizards, nefarious villains and guard captains and such, ended up being interesting window dressing. But I do think they serve an entirely different, still vital role of actually making the world feel alive and magical.
If the world is a salad, villains are the greens, quest-givers the fork, and all the other NPCs are the fixings; the dressing, tomatoes, croutons. You can have a nice healthy salad with just heroes and villains, but it’s all the other crumbly bits that really make a good story enjoyable.
Which bit of the game world is the hard boiled egg? Which is the salad dressing? How do you parse low fat vinaigrette vs a full bore blue cheese? We must explore this metaphor to its utmost limits!
…
But yeah, I agree that “background NPCs” are there for verisimilitude purposes. GMs tend to feel slightly shocked when the players force a changeup though, transforming those window dressing characters into the subjects of narrative attention.
hey, it looks like the random button is wonky on the backend? It keeps taking me to https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/starting-level