Artist: Kim Diaz Holm NPCs are strange. The zeitgeist has also evolved the term of late, making it an insult, and in some cases, a fetish. In the TTRPG space, NPCs are necessary to facilitate the whole roleplaying aspect of the experience, but to act as someone else and understand them enough to maintain that illusive darling called EMERSION is just hard - fake being someone else convincingly enough for the indulgence of fantasy, but not too well or that in-and-of-itself is unsettling. I know the prevailing wisdom suggests that NPCs don't have to be that complex - that you don't need voices, or accents, or affects, or deep motivations, etcetera, and so on, but nowhere in the popular opinion is it held true that you don't need them at all. So all of the advice that downplays their importance tends to ring hollow for me, and I imagine, for many others out there. With the new 2024 rules (One D&D or 5.5...whatever history decides to c...
