Breathing Life Into Your NPC's

Role-playing NPC's is one of my favorite things. Villains, shopkeepers, allies, cannon fodder, all provide wonderful opportunities to interact with player's and join in the improvisational fun. Over the years, I've pieced together my NPC creation toolkit from a variety of sources. Inspiration, experience, Dragon Magazine, DMG's, etc. Here, I'll create an NPC and share some of my ideas on the process.

Let's say we need a henchman/retainer for a local lordling who's causing some trouble for the party. We'll name our henchman Grueden, make him a fighter and/or rogue of some sort (edition dependent, so take your pick) and if there are no other Needs than a greater or lesser bent toward evil, we can take it from there. Let's start putting together some ideas and associations, modifying and tweaking as we go.

He wears leather armor and wields a longsword and dagger; he also carries a garrote. He's bald, medium build, and at this point, as the various levels of my awareness are working on the problem, I get an image of Arnold Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark; it's a bit over the top, but the sliminess of the character is exactly what I want, so I use my idea of Toht as the basis of my NPC personality profile.

Taking the personality of a character from film or television as the basis for your NPC is a great way to start building the symbol you're going to use when role-playing him (especially when you're running and need to create someone on the spur of the moment,) but you may need to do some more tinkering before he's ready to take the stage. Playing a gate guard, or a King based on Herman Munster is great for laughs, but even if you aren't looking for so much levity, a toned down/altered version may be exactly what you're going for, so you can alter him however you wish. Now, back to Grueden/Toht.

I'm not going to use a German accent or anything; but we'll keep the snaky, whispery voice. Let's see what else my mind cooks up. He licks his lips a lot (his lips are always wet) and he has a disturbing habit of fondling his sort hilt. I think I'll give him a mustache as well.

Now, let's give him some history, motivations and current preoccupations. Grueden has been a loner most of his life. He was raised motherless by a soldier father and spent his formative years in the follower train of the local army. His off-putting personality gave rise to several beatings at the hands of other children, which encouraged him to learn to fight back both effectively and nastily. He followed in his father's footsteps and came to the attention of the local lord, thanks to his brutal effectiveness. He's risen about as far as he's likely to and is quite happy with his current position; it affords him ample opportunity to exercise his sadistic urges and provides no little amount of protection from any possible repercussions. He doesn't have any friends, just underlings and his boss; we'll make him a functional alcoholic and give him a hobby, say, collecting religious paraphernalia. Other than remaining within the good graces of his Lord, our friend Grueden is building a house (complete with hidden torture chamber) and looking for a copy of a rare, heretical religious text called "The Eye of the Sons of Nessus." He's also seeking a "suitable" candidate to bear his child.

This is good for a beginning, though the above would be tweaked, changed, and informed by ideas arising from the details of the campaign world. As our creepy NPC is being played, all sorts of ideas will arise, modifying and fleshing him out. If he survives for a few sessions, especially if major changes are wrought in his life, the unfolding of events could bring new traits to the surface (he may obsess over one of the PC's, neglecting to fondle his sword in the process,) or, the impact of the adventure may encourage him to Change, in minor or major ways. If the PC's take out the lordling, what old buried ideas may arise as Grueden tries to salvage what's left of his World? He may decide to give up his dream of Home, Hearth, and Torture Chamber to devote himself to hunting down and killing the PC's who destroyed the good thing he had going. Perhaps his sadism was a defensive mechanism he used to hide feelings of emasculation caused by having to obey the dictates of mean-spirited overlords (his father, army commanders, the lordling.)  He may be willing to drop or modify this behavior with his boss out of the way, if he realizes his life is his own and chooses to feel like his own man after the dust settles.

I don't mean to suggest that your NPC's need to have a FBI quality psychological profile, but spending a little time on the ones who have more than a fleeting impact on the campaign is always a good idea. The various creative components of dming have a synergistic effect; enriching any one of them will have an effect on the whole.