Non-Player Characters: Friends and Allies

At some point your player characters are going to encounter other people, non-player characters, and interact with them. Creating these characters helpful characters is a fairly simple process that only requires you to pay attention to a few key aspects of the character. This post will focus on helpful NPCs whether they provide a service, information, or companionship for the player characters.

The first thing most players are going to want to know about a NPC is their name. Not every NPC you create needs to have a full name, just what they are generally referred as. How detailed the name of a NPC is can give the players a sense of how important the character is to the story. A character just named "Shopkeeper" is probably not important to the story but a character with a full name like Dale Johnson is probably someone the players should note.

Next would be to give a quick description of the character. This should be the first things a PC notices about a NPC such as eye/hair color, relative height and weight, and any distinguishing features. However, this means more than just giving a few physical traits. It is also important to note some personality traits as well. It is a good idea to write down at least three adjectives that describe the character. I prefer to write down two that are obvious for the archetype and then one that has nothing to do with the archetype but focuses on what makes them different. While they don't have to be as detailed PCs there should be at least a little depth to NPCs.

PCs interact with friendly NPCs because NPCs have some sort of item, skill, or influence that the PC wishes to utilize. This is the mechanical portion of NPC creation. I would then list any relevant skills or areas of knowledge or influence the character has and a note about how many dice or level of modifier needed when a roll is called for. NPCs tend to be more specialized than PCs so most of their skills will be relevant to their archetype. Adding a few skills outside of the usual can make the NPC more interesting and engaging.

Depending on how recurring a NPC is a short bio might be useful. This is just to give a brief overview of the NPCs motivation, skill set, or relation to a PC. This could also list possible places to encounter the NPC or what the character might be doing in their spare time. Just because they are not a main character doesn't mean that they just hang out until the PCs need their assistance. NPCs are people too.