[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.
I love the NPC. I really do. As long as I’ve been playing/DMing, I’ve made sure to include the special NPCs in all my plans. By “special” NPCs, I’m referring to the ones with actual names (as opposed to “Guard-Who-Says-‘Welcome-To-Corneria.'”) and backstories that fit into the overall world of the game. As a player, I would either befriend the NPC or despise him, depending on my alignment and characterization of course. As a devoted, lawful-good paladin of Pelor, I wouldn’t traipse up to a death cultist of Vecna and strike up a conversation about tea cozies. Well, unless they were REALLY nice tea cozies, and good ol’ Faceripper McHatestheliving seemed affable. Furthermore, as a DM, I make sure to include several of these “special” NPCs for two reasons: 1) it simply makes your story more interesting; and 2) I know — beyond a shadow of a doubt — that the players will become hooked on at least one of the NPCs. And that’s probably an understatement.
Chances are that your players will become attached to several of your NPCs if you’ve made them at least mildly interesting characters. Myself, I can’t help but try out different accents and emotional positions with my NPCs. It just makes the players give so much back when you’re conversing with them in-game. For example: all of the northern tribe Goliaths in my 4th-ed. game right now speak with Russian accents, and ALL halflings sound like John Lennon. Seriously. The Beatle. The latter is mainly because of my friend Beau who, when he played enigmatic Bean/Beau Hilltopple (mentioned in last week’s mega-post), spoke with a Liverpudlian accent. For some reason, it just fit so majestically for the Halfling. And I’m pretty sure that every poor townsperson has a cockney accent. It’s just… the way it is. Furthermore, these Goliaths, Halflings, and others have — at the very least — actual thoughts and opinions about whatever is going on in the current story line. This makes them citizens of the world you’ve created instead of the game you’re playing.
Before I go, I’d like to leave you with the special case that inspired this article. My Monday night campaign stopped for a while, so now I’m running a game on Sunday night (“Team C”) and one on Tuesday night (“Side Mission”). As I’ve mentioned before, “Team C” ended up within the Pyramid of Shadows and journeyed through its harrowing and dangerous levels. However, before they entered the ancient site, they stumbled upon a roving band of thieves disguised as official soldiers. The party had to engage the thieves to make their way into the pyramid. They did so with relative ease; however, one of the thieves got knocked out and transported into the pyramid as well. This was not meant to happen. So, I allowed the players to threaten his life and make him travel with them through the pyramid (knowing full well that, as a fifth-level thief, he would have a lot of trouble with the 10th-level+ encounters within. He was a poor trouble-maker (hence the cockney accent) named Alain who turned to thievery to make a dishonest buck. I even wrote up a quick character sheet so the players could use his skills (albeit they were lower level skills) to fight and solve. Well. The first big fight came along and — sure enough — Alain took a combination face/ass-whooping and fell to the Raven Queen’s scythe.
The party — in their infinite infatuation with Alain — used their ONE Raise Dead Ritual to bring Alain back from the land of the breathless. I was stunned. This dude was meant to get to one big battle and perish. But the party loved him SO much that they sacrificed their get-out-of-jail-free card on an NPC with a two-session lifespan. I laughed at the ingenuity and hilarity of the situation and said, “Okay, he’s back. And you can continue using him as long as he’s alive.”
Alain of Dalefast has died once and nearly died six more times.
He’s doing well as an 11th-level rogue who can turn invisible after almost every attack.
I’m stil stunned.
The post The Tower Guard Becomes Legendary: Negotiating the NPC's Progression first appeared on Pixelated Geek.