I love creating characters but worry that, despite my intentions, I play them all pretty similarly. And this bleeds over to the NPCs and followers when I am running games. Pretty sure I've mentioned that I am not good at handling multiple NPCs. Even when playing, I have a hard time with followers and all that. Reading some of the rules in Dolmenwood it talks about towns people and adventurers and gives succinct rules for finding them (which is oddly reminiscent of searching for trade goods in Traveller as you can only check once per month per location).
Every time I have more than 1 NPC with the players, I forget about them and do not use them as helpers to the group. I've forgotten NPCs that are there to help out the players. Not really sure how to deal with this, then realized I have far too many books on running games. So, I decided to see if there were any good ideas there.
XDM defines NPCs as follows:
Where to begin? With this questionnaire!16 Rather than starting from the backstory biographical bits, we’re beginning with the NPC’s function in the story. Because form follows function.
- Which player character motivation, value, or mission does this NPC oppose?
- Why do they oppose it?
- How vigorously do they oppose it?
- Can they be persuaded to explain their position?
- Can they be persuaded to change their position?
- How does this NPC’s backstory interlock with other elements of the story?
While it goes into motivations and backstories, it does seem to cover how to actually play the NPCs as far as I can tell. And to be honest, I did back the Kickstarter for this but in the end, was pretty underwhelmed with it for the most part. It had some really good theoretical and practical overviews of various theories of storytelling designs but seemed to miss the point in some ways. However - it has been a bit since I read it, so perhaps I should try & re-read it to see if I really missed the important bits. I have used some of it when designing an adventure, but between work, the gym and generally living, I don't seem to have the time really design some things to that level of detail. And honestly, some of my best games were ones where I had some real basic prep but not a lot of details and winged it. But perhaps if I re-read the chapter in running at the table it may help. 10 pages should include some good ideas. Though this stands out and I've tried it in the past but need to do this more often:
In Chapter 3, under “Go Modular for Maximum Flexibility,” we explained how the NPC we created to be a Miraldonian courier might also serve as a cudgel maiden on the City Watch. All the cells in your flowchart should be designed in this way so that you can move them around however you see fit. For these modular elements to be useful, they need to be sorted and perhaps categorized. It’s the difference between “which of my dozen NPCs will work best for this bit of dialog” and “I need a low-level townsperson, and hey, I have three to choose from.”
Hopefully somewhere it gives ideas on how you actually organize this.
Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering has some good tips about running NPCs: keep conversations short and try to get to the point. If conversations start meandering, remember that the NPC probably has job they are doing and must be off. Avoid too much NPC-to-NPC conversation except as it moves the story forward, He has notes about having lists of names ready to go and how to come up with names. Which I've done - I actually have a sheet of names I printed and used in the Corsairs game (which I need to work in for the game in 2 weeks. After several weeks of not playing, we're trying to get back into regular bi-weekly games). One fun note is not using the same name: sadly, due to spur of the moment the Corsairs game has 3 Henrys. At least the various ship crews have distinct names as the doctor, 3rd mate and cook came from that sheet!
The Secret Art of Game Mastering has decent advice and stuff as GM we already know: NPCs are one way of allowing the GM to play in the game but also help keep things on track. But there seems to be a dearth of advice as to how to run and organize these NPCs. And of course, one of these days I also really need to re-read this book. I've skimmed it but after some point, and so many books, a lot of the advice is pretty much the same old stuff, and I may miss the unique take in a specific book. Not sure why I keep getting them to be honest!
So You Want To Be A Game Master has an appendix on the supporting cast, aka NPCs. And this one starts out saying that it is challenging enough to run a single character, let alone a legion of them. At least it starts off with my view of things! And also notes, as do all the other guides, that the more important an NPC is, the more you have on that character. And then finding what is really important in the game can get lost in the walls of text. There is an NPC template with several sections: name, appearance, role playing (quirks and stuff to make the character unique, 2-3 bullet points was suggested), background, key info which is where the stuff the NPC is really there for does not get lost. And only if really needed, the stat block.
And I've got the tools to do all this: even bought index card sheets to put into a notebook, and those page holders, and I even have a punch for anything I print to fit into a notebook. Even bought a set of colored pens so help with notes. The only thing stopping me is, well, me. I may spend some time next weekend getting the Corsairs stuff organized into a single notebook. The Corsairs notes are scattered in a notebook with a bunch of other things, a file folder and scattered index cards in various places. To do this right, each game in progress I think needs its own notebook. I actually ran the Big Wreck game that way - I have a notebook with everything in there. I have note cards from that box I bought for TFT cards (yes, it was for recipes but it is the perfect fit for all those cards. And came with 3 colors of index cards so in theory I can also organize cards by color).
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| all the bestiary and solo game cards fit nicely |
Okay - after re-reading a few things, I feel I have plan for organizing my next session:
- find an empty notebook
- get the game rules organized
- create NPC cards for each NPC and place into card holder pages in notebook
- move the scattered notes into the notebook
- ...
- profit!
Okay, profit in the sense that perhaps I won't have another 3 Henrys in the game!
I will note that the group I play with handle NPCs really well. One GM is really great at it, the other is also really good. Makes me jealous but gives me a goal!
And yes, I will get back to the Traveller software. My approach is a lot different than others I feel: I'm creating the software that lets the user set up all the tables. Most of the generation software for Traveller has the rules and all that hardcoded in there. Cepheus has changed a few things, Mongoose in its versions have changed a few things, and T5 has also changed a few things. Hoping that this will allow people to generate systems using whatever they want to use as the rules by giving full edit capabilities to all the tables. That does present a few issues I've sort of been mulling over: what if they want 3d6 table instead of a 1d6 or 2d6 table? Or a d15 table? And yes, I've thought of that, and one of the thoughts was we add a table of tables, so that for each table we can indicate the die rolls to use. Classic Traveller is all 1d6 or 2d6 tables, and currently the logic for rolling on those tables is hard-coded. I do take into account the lowest and highest results in the table (and now realize I need to re-roll in case there are missing slots). But perhaps we need to make it even more flexible: a user may want a larger table for empty orbits or something. And of course, I also take into account various modifiers so that we can roll more than 12, say, on the government table. But do we want to make those modifications also user-controlled? So many options! And that is why I get stuck: a gluttony of choices!
