Building an Interesting World through NPCs

This old post from 2021 now is resurrected. 

I love building NPCs. It gives me great joy. I think the way to build an interesting world isn’t about lore that lives in a campaign Bible(what I think of as the Elder Scrolls lore problem) but is actualized by the characters the players meet.

Whether it’s the cabbage man whose business the players destroyed in a battle with a Mimic pretending to be a Market Stall or the French veteran half orc married to a Warforged tower, it’s how you make the world real.

Note: this approach is for important NPCs in your campaign but could be used in pieces to give more off the cuff NPCs some additional depth and flavor.

Questions that inform how I build NPCs:

  • Ask yourself, why is this NPC here?
  • What does this NPC want?
  • Who are they like in popular fiction?
  • How can they help or hinder the PCs?
  • What do they sound like? Voice/cadence, formal/informal, confident/timid?
  • What aspects might they have? aka sentences that reflect them and their values (this is from FATE)
  • What is their environment like and what does it say about them?

Example

In my Spelljammer homebrew game, a player character Jasper needed to find a technowizard to examine a magitech tooth they took out of a bioengineered necromancer pirate’s head.

I spent some time thinking about what kind of technowizard would fit our game. I arrived at the following

Name: 
“Dr.” Laertes Crank, metallurgical master and magician. Lizardman. Wears a Phoropter, the device that optometrists use to measure your eyes for glasses on his face.

Sounds like:
Kermit but creepier. Nervous tick: smash’s lips slightly.

Aspects:
  • My space is cluttered but well loved.
  • It’s around here somewhere
  • My makeshift creations are rusty but well cared for.
  • I may commit crime but I don’t hurt anyone.
  • There really is something else out there and we need to be ready. I look for patterns and signs.
Background:
  • “Dr.” Laertes Crank is a technowizard, dedicated to creating his “Robits” of makeshift materials. His makeshift porcupine shaped home made of drills and scrap metal is highly cluttered and humid.
  • Evidence of his altruistic metalwork can be seen at the playground down the street where he has repaired or made new equipment.
  • He is involved in petty crime but overall is a decent sort.
  • Paranoid of the “Metallurgical Mafia”. It is unclear if they are real.

Closing

I think one awesome NPC just gives so much life and narrative density to the game world. I hope this is helpful to other folks.

Comments

  1. Brent, a Glass BoySeptember 30, 2021 at 7:57 AM

    Awesome toolkit! When I'm creating NPCs, especially when I set out to create one for a purpose and I'm not just letting them bubble up out of my subconscious, I tend to focus too much on the person themself and not on the galaxy of stuff around them - their space, their relationships, their long term behaviors. Your Aspects seem like a great way to fix that! I sometimes worry I'm slipping into a rut with some of my NPCs and see too many similarities between them, so this post is super valuable.

    Do you ever identify yourself slipping into patterns when you write NPCs, common traits or categories you're focusing on? Do you think that comes through to your players, or is that just GM self-criticality speaking?

    ReplyDelete

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