Creating Useful NPCs

[robject]

I'm going to trawl TTA, Knightfall, and other sources to see how NPCs are written up.

In the meantime, what have you used (a template perhaps? a strategy perhaps?) for creating generally useful, recurring NPCs?

 

[robject]

Backing up for a moment.

In Patron encounters, an NPC has a problem, and the player characters are asked to solve it in return for something they want. It's ideal, since players are exactly placed in games to be problem solvers. Put another way, RPGs are excellent games for problem-solvers.

Patron Encounter (Baron)

Baron Karugula has a problem with his estate: namely, a nest of Vreepers badly wounded some of his gardening staff. Vreepers are a pestilential problem that must be dealt with on a planetary scale, involving government regulation and officially contracted extermination fire teams. However, Karugula wants this particular instance handled without government interference, and he asks your team to do it.

Referee's Notes. Karugula is willing to pay the players XXX for every successful Vreeper nest eradicated. ... Roll 1D to determine the true situation...

(options listed, from simple negligence all the way to political revolution)

That's all we need to know about Baron Karugula to make a patron encounter work just fine.

In full-fledged campaigns, however, NPCs have a richer background. They have nuance, quirks, problems that are not solvable in short time frames, and life goals.

I think I'm leaning towards the latter in describing my NPCs.

The art comes in with brevity. In two short paragraphs, I want an NPC to exhibit a full personality with lots of opportunity for dealing with the players in different ways.

Baron Karugula is a minor feif-holder on Regina (Regina 1910). His ancestor, Baron Gurakalu, was granted the land for his valiant actions during the Skirmish of 1751. His family has lived on an estate in the corner of the grant ever since. His land abuts Amindii reservation 43, which is known for its reclusive and standoffish families. In the tradition of his family, Karugula attended the Naval Academy and joined the Marines as an officer, serving with no particular distinction for two decades. When his father passed away, he took over the comfortable life of minor political entanglements amongst his peers on Regina. He has proven a careful manager of his family's money.

His brother Brakkali, on the other hand, was ejected from the family estate after washing out from university. At age 34, he was given a stipend on his promise to stay away from the Regina system. Rumors, discussed quietly and politely behind Karugula's back, suggest that Brakkali is currently dealing with less-than-savory elements of Republic society. A trader magnate who is also friends with the Karugula clan claims to have identified a very expensive, well-armed corsair transmitting Brakkali's personal standard.

 

[aramis]

Functional Patron Encounters have several requisite components:

• The patron
• The patron's problem
• The location of the problem
• The patron's suggested solution
• The timeframe for completion
• The players' reward

Optional parts include

• Additional problems, possibly undisclosed
• The patron's current psychological state
• The patron's physical description
• The patron's UPP.
• Potential alternate solutions
• failure consequences

Your exemplar lacks a suggested solution, a reward, and a timeframe for completion.. I've enough to RP him as a non-patron encounter, but not enough to run him as a patron.

 

[Ulsyus]

In Patron encounters, an NPC has a problem, and the player characters are asked to solve it in return for something they want. It's ideal, since players are exactly placed in games to be problem solvers. Put another way, RPGs are excellent games for problem-solvers.

In a nutshell, what he said, with Aramis' dot-points.

When I'm working on a scenario, I create the NPCs from the perspective of the outcome I want to achieve with them. In your game, what are they there for? Antagonist? Assistance to your protagonists? Colourful distractions? If you know what you want them for, then it's easier to determine what they need to say, do, know, and just as importantly not say, not do and not know.

 

[robject]

OK, yes, patron encounters have the data for the scenario.

Let me steer the conversation away from simple scenarios and encounters.

In campaign books, NPCs have more general information. Consider the profiles of NPCs in The Traveller Adventure, or Knightfall. They have goals, yes, and they have background, but their descriptions exist to help the referee understand how they might react to the players, or how they might act in ways that might create obstacles for the players. It's not just a patron handing a box to the players. The scope of the text is wider.

 

[Leitz]

The Ruby I was working on produced NPCs like this:

Roxy Conway F Age: 30 72B7A5 Other: 3
Wavey light green short hair chocolate skin
Teacher An enemy loved
Brawling-2 Gambling-1 Streetwise-1
Cash: 91838 LowPsg (2)

The third line might be useful. The first word is the Keirsey temperament and the rest is the "plot" the NPC is engaged in. There used to be a 0-6 number afterwards showing how close the NPC was to the "action" of that plot. I'm slowly working this into the Python stuff I'm doing.

If you need more the code is actually pretty simple.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I often have players turn my NPCs into patrons.

 

[aramis]

OK, yes, patron encounters have the data for the scenario.

Let me steer the conversation away from simple scenarios and encounters.

In campaign books, NPCs have more general information. Consider the profiles of NPCs in The Traveller Adventure, or Knightfall. They have goals, yes, and they have background, but their descriptions exist to help the referee understand how they might react to the players, or how they might act in ways that might create obstacles for the players. It's not just a patron handing a box to the players. The scope of the text is wider.

TTA isn't providing patrons; it's providing background.

 

[robject]

TTA isn't providing patrons; it's providing background.

Exactly. I guess my second post managed to derail the conversation.

 

[aramis]

Exactly. I guess my second post managed to derail the conversation.

Most of those aren't actually NPC's; PC's are not expected to interact nor encounter them except passively in news stories.

They're setting material, in the same way as the TD writeup of Norris Aella Aledon. Plot drivers, so one can understand what's happening.