Non-Player Characters: Enemy Combatants

Conflict is central to a storyline and no conflict is more straight forward than a physical confrontation. At some point you will push the characters of your story into a violent conflict (unless you are one of the very few groups that no interest in combat in games) and you'll need to populate your world with a few bad guys to be serve as the physical manifestation of conflict. This post will cover what you need to remember when creating these enemy characters.

First thing to remember is to not worry too much about the finer details of these characters as their only purpose is to be beaten up or killed. Names are typically only given to "bosses", combative NPCs with special skills or motivations, to signal their importance. Most of your throw-away villains, minions, and other One-shot Johnny's will only be around for a scene, unless they are reoccurring, and will only require a brief descriptor for a name such as thug or mercenary.

The most important part of creating a combative NPC is listing their fight skills and ranks. You have to focus more on the mechanical side of the game for these NPCs as combat is the most rules heavy portion of the game. However, these NPCs still don't require a full sheet of stats as long as you have what they can do with a fight. Minions should be weaker than your PCs and Bosses should be a few levels above. Most minions will not have any speical abilities but your "Bosses" should have a few tricks up their sleeve to keep the battle interesting.

Health and armor are also good things to consider as they will let you know what your NPC can handle. The same rule applies to health and armor as it does to combat skill level; minions should be lower and bosses should be at the level or better than PCs. To humanize my combative NPCs I tend to make a note at what level of damage do they lose morale and flee since most people aren't willing to throw their life away if they can help it. Not only does this help to shorten the time consumption of battles it also makes sure that not everyone you create for a fight is part of a suicidal death squad.


Once the mechanics are in place all that is left to decide is what items the NPCs have on them. Looting the bodies of the fallen takes place in many games so it would be wise to figure this out beforehand. For the most part this equates to money and small items that might prove useful or interesting to the character. This can also be a good time to work in a few story elements as you never know what you might find in the pockets of a dead man.

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.