A character in an RPG whose decisions and actions are handled by the game-master or a designated assistant. An initialism that stands for "non-player character."
8
votes
6answers
195 views
Tools for tracking NPC/PC relationships and attitudes
I have always had difficulty keeping track of NPCs, their attitudes and their relationships with each other and the PCs. I find relationship webs/diagrams are helpful, but find them difficult to keep ...
10
votes
8answers
352 views
How do you make a new NPC likable?
The players in my campaign will soon rescue a woman who's been trapped in an awful dimension (think Jumanji, if that helps) for ten years, and bring her home. After 2 sessions, they'll realize that ...
9
votes
1answer
123 views
Where are a monster's skills?
If you grab a goblin for example, and the goblin test to escape it says to have it make an acrobatics or athletics check but I can't seem to find where it says there skills? Any help?
8
votes
6answers
238 views
Can the GM give control over a support NPC to the players?
If there was a group with only 2 characters, and an NPC with a missing skill set was presented, would it be feasible at all for a player/the players to control the NPC in question, or should this only ...
5
votes
1answer
140 views
How much experience should a vampire of a given age have?
I'm creating a setting for a Kindred of the East chronicle and I'm not sure how many discipline points or virtues characters should have.
There was an old trick in V:tM that consisted in giving an ...
2
votes
1answer
145 views
Creating NPCs from Real-Life People
I have some friends that would like to be part of my future D&D campaign as NPCs. What I need help with is creating stats for a NPC based on a person.
I am a player in this campaign. Our DM will ...
11
votes
2answers
172 views
Reducing a monster below CR 1
There are many instances in Pathfinder and other 3.5 based systems when you might need to reduce a monster below 1 or 1/2. For example, if I'm using a CR 1/2 monster from a 3.5 source in Pathfinder, ...
2
votes
1answer
174 views
NPC Ships for Rogue Trader
Anyone know of a good list of premade ships for Rogue Trader? I'd like to build up a good collection to choose from for some one off sessions I plan to run at a Con this year.
15
votes
4answers
986 views
Please stop giving the town sheriff a noogie!
Related to this question but more closely related to this question.
How can I get my PCs to not cause a single or small handful of characters to become the butt of a joke when that humor could easily ...
16
votes
4answers
732 views
Why shouldn't I use fully statted PC characters as NPC antagonists in D&D 4E?
According to the DMG (187), NPCs in 4e seem to be run as a weird sort of template halfway between a monster and a PC - you don't generate an actual character with a full array of powers and feats. Is ...
0
votes
1answer
89 views
How many XP points should an enemy have?
How can I assign an amount of XP points to an enemy that I have created for a campaign that I am writing? What would be a good way to decide, and still be fair? The campaign that I wrote is for the ...
7
votes
3answers
278 views
Who are the movers and shakers in any larger city in Vampire: the Requiem?
I'm making a list of influential vampire NPCs that will exist in any but the smallest of cities. I do this because I wish to start a sandbox campaign in Vampire, and as such, the players will need to ...
11
votes
2answers
254 views
Tips for keeping track of NPC stats and conditions
Is there a good paper based solution to keep track of NPC stats so they are avaliable when you need them in-game but don't take hours to keep up to date?
I have a bunch of NPC notes and lists of ...
5
votes
1answer
231 views
How do I handle a PC - NPC?
In my online game, it's often hard for me to handle NPCs with the loads of characters we have so sometimes I ask or a player volunteers to play some of them. The issue is though, that one player ...
1
vote
8answers
344 views
Survivalist NPC build?
How can I best optimize an NPC so that instead of having perfect power attack or sneak attack, they're just really hard to kill? I can think of thief acrobat and perhaps exemplar or dungeon delver, ...
8
votes
2answers
209 views
One-sentence NPCs
A while ago ChattyDM and someone else ran a couple contests where people submitted one-line NPCs. The collection of submissions was free to download, but now that I want to use it my google-fu has ...
13
votes
5answers
347 views
Truly alien NPC races
How can I make intelligent NPC races that are truly alien?
They need to be:
Culturally non-human. They need to be stranger than any sort of human culture that already exists.
Rational. Behaving ...
22
votes
5answers
542 views
How can I learn how to negotiate as an NPC?
I'm a new GM (the system is DND 4.0 but that's not relevant here). I've quickly found that I perform very poorly when I'm portraying a negotiation between the PCs and one or more NPCs. Even when they ...
12
votes
5answers
213 views
How to I create material (on the fly) to support plot changes?
In both pre-plotted adventures and more story-telling ones, a lot of situations occur where monsters/npcs/magical items/geography appear, which wasn't thought of beforehand. I.e. I do not have the ...
7
votes
6answers
247 views
How do you come up with attribute values and skills for your NPCs
I have been playing PnP for some years now and also had one session GMing (my first) and I discovered that my biggest problem wasn't creating a world, inventing scenes or reacting fast if my players ...
17
votes
8answers
380 views
What's a good method for making cultures differ?
Just read through a great question (on getting players to play in line with their characters' cultures) and it got me thinking:
What do you do to make the cultures in your setting differ?
Let's say ...
23
votes
6answers
510 views
How do you handle verbal exchanges between NPCs without taking the PCs out of the spotlight?
One of the assumptions I make as GM is that the players should always be in the spotlight. Sometimes the players find themselves in a situation where they watch NPCs speak to each other. I don't ...
4
votes
4answers
460 views
What's a Denver accent sound like? [closed]
For a couple of Shadowrun sessions coming up, I'm going to be playing an NPC from the Mile-High City. She's an inexperienced ork fixer, low-class background, brought up among shadowrunners. I want to ...
8
votes
1answer
213 views
Does No-Key the Mushroom King appear in any Exalted 2nd Ed Sourcebooks?
No-Key the Mushroom King was originally a canon NPC from 1st edition Exalted in the book Creatures of the Wild; notably, he was the only person to have defeated Octavian the Living Tower (a 2nd Circle ...
15
votes
4answers
384 views
How could I have a sidekick/squire in DnD3.5?
In Mutants and Masterminds you can purchase a side kick as a feat.
I'm rolling up a knight, and I want a squire, using a similar game mechanic.
Is there anything like this in DnD, other than ...
9
votes
1answer
344 views
Are there any guidelines or samples for creating Henchmen or Villains?
Going over the Game Master's Guide for 7th Sea, I can't find any information on creating henchmen and villain NPCs (other than the villain-specific arcana, and the special damage rules for henchmen).
...
43
votes
22answers
1k views
How can a GM quickly create interesting, engaging NPCs?
What techniques do people have for coming up with interesting personalities and histories for non-player characters? I'm mostly interested in the GM side of things. I don't want to do a ton of prep. I ...
11
votes
7answers
259 views
Cameo Characters?
There are some good books in the Forgotten Realms library. Do you use cameo characters form these books? If so how do you balance them with your campaign?
I know there was a campaign that came with ...
