"Simple" NPCs

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 call them) looming it got me thinking about something that hasn't changed since I started GMing over a decade ago, and that's NPCs. I'd say even in their simplest form - a name, randomly generated, pulled from the ether by a "What's your name?" - ad-libbed completely, which is how many of my, and I imagine other GMs, NPCs come into existence, an NPC is a deeply layered creation, and, at least for me, they have been consistent in how I run them. How a character swings a sword, casts a spell, even walks has often been reshaped between additions of D&D, but I've run NPCs with little to no changes between additions. Hell, I've run NPCs the exact same between radically different systems. That's why I want to talk about them in terms of what is actually necessary for the puppets that are NPCs to feel like real people for the short time we are them. Or at least, what's necessary for me. It seems only fair to give them some love given that how I approach them seems truly system agnostic. For me, anyway. 

WHAT I ACTUALLY PREP?

    This is what helps me:

    Name - There's so much in a name. Entire backstories have arrived spontaneously with the advent of a name. It's for this reason that I have a name-bank ready before my games. In my case, I have a baby name book, which is, in my opinion, one of the single most useful tools in my GM toolbox.

    Basic Appearance - Hair, eyes, height, heritage, whatever you think the barebones are that describe a person and get the shape of them across to your players, and more importantly, to you.

    Immediate Desire - What they want right now! If the NPC catches a case of the "long-term," then more global desires can be thought of later, but you need to know what they want at first contact so that conversation can flow from a natural place.

    Mechanical Descriptors - Wizard, smuggler, guard, king, if the occupation they have or the role they fill matters, then I try to make sure I remember it. Often, I'll put a particular ability here because that one thing they can do is more important to remember than anything else.

    Bonus Category: Archetypal Match - I'll put an existing character that I know and base mannerisms off of that character. Often times this is just a name like Kronk, Liz Lemon, or Amanda Palmer.

    That's it! Name, Basic Appearance, Immediate Desire, Mechanical Descriptors and, if thought of at the time, Archetypal Match. Those are the things that have made sure I'm not floundering too much during a session.

What This Looks Like

Name: Cinzel Vreen
Basic Appearance: Short gray hair styled in a sweep away from the face. A serene smile is something of a permanent fixture on an angular face atop an academic frame.
Immediate Desire: Cinzel wants to decipher the stone tablets recently unearthed and brought to their employer.
Mechanical Descriptors: Cinzel is a wizard (diviner) of 5th level. Their portent numbers for the day are 18 and 5.
Archetypal Match David Bowie

    Some of this is nonsense without context, but the point isn't to make it clear for everyone. I know Cinzel Vreen is an elf. This is something I don't need to write down. I know I'll remember that. Above all else, make the information usable for you. Most of the time, these descriptors are a block of text and bullet points that are much less coherent than the complete sentences seen above.