[Side note before this article begins: my brain right now is computing all things Starcraft 2, which I’ve been playing basically non-stop for three days. It’s… quite possibly the best game I’ve ever played. I just thought you all should know that. And go buy SC2. It will change your life. En taro Adun!]
Ahem. Anyway…
We’ve all been there: deeply engrossed in an RPG’s story when along comes Benjy, the happy-go-lucky town mischief-maker with a zip in his step and nothing but trouble up his sleeve. He takes a liking to your party and wants to adventure with the big boys and bring home the loot to further his collection of Kobold skulls and wax candy. The party becomes enamored with lil ol’ Benjy and invites him on an innocuous fact-finding mission. Then — splurt — Benjy’s face goes missing after an errant crossbow bolt flies from a trap your rogue failed to spot, as he was just too busy fashioning a dagger out of puppy bones and intimidation checks. The party mourns the loss of Benjy and has a memorial service for him. The DM is ready to move on when one of the party members lets loose a volley of in-game tears and blurts out, “But he was so young! Benjy! No!”
What.
They loved him. However, in your mind, you’re thinking, “But they only knew the kid for a day in-game. Dubya tee eff?!” Therein lies the problem, though. Your players will fall in love with your NPCs if you give them any mote of characterization. The players will even like hating the NPCs that you set up as big ol’ bags of crap that use snarkiness and bad attitudes to stand in the way of their adventuring. Today, I want to talk to you all out there in table-top land about the NPC and how your characters get attached to them. You think you’ve created a plot device; little did you know that you may have created one of your players’ next spouses
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