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.

Character Creation part 1: A Hero is Born

 Character creation is my favorite part of playing an rpg. This is the moment you get to craft your character into being. The choices made during this stage will affect how they interact with the world, decide what they can or cannot do within it, and define their role with the society so this step is worthy of much consideration. A well thought-out character can be the difference between an engaging story and a series of die rolls and box text. This will be the first post in a two part explanation of character creation. This will cover the actually mechanical portion of the game and how best to begin while the second part will cover more of the descriptive details.

Most games follow a basic format for character building; Concept, attributes, skills, advantages or special abilities, flaws (if the game includes them), and then derived stats so I’ll follow that format for my post. The first step in the process is Think of a character concept. This is generally a few words that sum up the central idea of your character like, Nerdy Do-gooder or Crazed Hatchet Juggler. This step will help guide you through selecting stats for the character as certain concepts should be good or bad at various tasks. Concepts tend to be broad but a good, original concept will make the next choices you make so much easier.

The next step is to decide which attributes best fit your mental image of the character.  Attributes are your characters innate abilities, things they can do naturally. I won’t cover them too much because not too many people puzzle over where to place their points. The Nerdy character should have high intelligence and the Juggler should have the dexterity to be able to actually juggle.  The thing to pay attention to with attributes are which ones affect the characters derived attributes. If your concept requires you to have a heighten level of those attributes, then it’s a good idea to plan accordingly.

After that it’s time to select skills. This is where people tend to take the most time during character creation as skills determine what your character can do and how well they can do it. It’s a wise idea to diversify skills as oppose to concentrate them into only a few high level skills. When people tend to make characters that are only focused in a few areas, the characters come out two dimensional. Playing a two dimensional character is boring! A good broad grouping of skills will give your character some depth and will allow them to overcome more obstacles. You’ll earn experience later on to level up your skills. This will give you something to work towards as you play.

Some games assign special abilities to certain characters archetypes but others allow you to pick and choose. Selecting special abilities and advantages should be based on your character, not how practical they are for the game ahead. This is where you can add more detail to your character, making them seem more real. Ambidexterity is really useful but how many people are really ambidextrous. It’s hard to know which advantages will come into play later so there is no sense in stacking up ones you think will be useful but don’t fit your character. Never underestimate the value of contacts. Access to resources is a good decision for a beginning character who may be unfamiliar with the game mechanics.

Some games offer either bonus character build points or more experience points in game for adding flaws to your character. I enjoy this part of games because if there is anything that helps create a real character, this is it. Everyone is flawed somehow and characters without issues aren’t very interesting. However, don’t over load yourself with them otherwise you risk having an unplayable character. Their handicaps will hinder them too much to be enjoyable. The trick is to find at least one that works for your character and then debated how fitting others may be.

Most derived stats can’t be directly manipulated. As stated above, just keep an eye on your stats to make sure they line up. This covers the mechanical part of character creation. Next post will cover the finer details.

Let the good times roll