How to Make Players Love Your NPCs

Your creativity forms the distant horizons of your world, invoking feelings of vast and limitlessness boarders and opportunity, but it’s the meaningful relationships with Non-Playing Characters (NPCs) that creates the depth needed for total immersion in your story.

It’s not just vital to the profundity of your campaign, but compelling NPCs tend to fix other problems as well. Players who suffer from boredom, distraction or disinterest in the story arc will choose your intended direction if there are NPCs they truly care about.

Who is that NPC behind the mask? They are lights in a dark world. They mark goals, boundaries and paths of opportunity. Your players should hate and abhor them, or be inexplicably attracted to them, but never indifferent. 

Pick good names and remember them: If I’m at a table where the game master refers to Kravlok Goldshanks as ‘that dwarf-guy you’ve been talking to’… then they’ve lost me. Pick a good name, but if you can't remember it after you've had lunch, they won't remember it between sessions. Keep an updated list of NPCs for everyone in the group.

Motivations: Make notes on goals or motivations for your NPCs, but a motto is a powerful tool that will help you organize your thoughts quickly. "My brother betrayed me but never again, that’s why I’m fiercely independent and trust no one." Or; “as a survivor of the Great Elven War, I have been moved to spread care and compassion throughout the world." Finally, "dwarves cheated me out of my noble birthright - that’s why I’ll screw one over whenever the chance arises!" A one or two line motto may seem like a humble beginning, but it will do more for your campaign then volumes of stat sheets.

Practice makes perfect: Emulating a favorite movie character can be the easiest way to create mannerisms for an NPC, but in the end, it’s not so much the funny voices that make them memorable - it's what they say. Practice your performance, that funny quirk or one-liner they like to repeat. You'll only look half as crazy as you think. Explain the story behind their motto to yourself while in character. Just like any serious student of acting needs to practice, so do you. It's the hobby with homework.

Characters and NPCs help each other: Have a NPCs request something little, such as delivering goods to a town they are traveling through or help loading a wagon. Later the NPC performs free services to them such as shoeing a horse, dinner and wine, or even singing songs about their bravery. Relationships begin with the small things, but as it grows, the party will actually care if the NPC is murdered.

Everyone loves an underdog: Give that delivery boy a painful limp, but he never complains about it and is enamored by the heroes. How about a one-handed baker or a blind circus entertainer? (Knife thrower, of course.) Or do the characters discover the owner of their favorite bar is also in terrible debt to a noble or a bank?

NPCs that ask questions and listen:  Heroes like to talk about themselves. It's a good exercise for PCs to explain things about their background to others and what they think their futures hold for them. Ask good follow up questions: "Losing your parents at such a young age must have been difficult. How did you remain so strong, living in the Red Wastes all by yourself?" Or, "I would think getting kicked out of the holy order of the Briar Knights would be disheartening... what makes you persevere now?" PCs will like the interaction because they get to talk about themselves, and it is good mental calisthenics as they work out their own character development.

Recognition of something familiar: Let the players see a side to your NPCs that they relate to on a human level.  "The dwarf's legs droop from the tall bar stool. He seems to be muttering to his cup of cheap ale. ‘Curse it. I'm a middle-aged failure... when I was younger I thought I would be ruling the 13 Kingdoms by now. Instead, I'm struggling with debt and the love of my life barely looks me in the eye.’ He reaches into his pocket and slaps his last coppers on the table.” [My table of 40 somethings fell completely silent, and the dwarf didn't pay for a drink the rest of the night.] If you don’t spend some time cultivating the player’s fondness for this dwarf, will they care when goblins kidnap his twin boys, (the imaginary sons whose names you pronounce differently every time you say them)?  Take the time to show players that ‘fantasy people’ can still have relatable issues. "Oh, I've got the money to open up the cobbler shop, it's just that everything I do fails. I'm afraid it will flop, just like everything else I've tried." He's not asking for the PC’s money, he just needs some encouragement... and when the thieves' guild burns it down because of non-payment in their protection racket - you've got the players’ interest.

Show the pain your NPCs are in: If tragedy has befallen them, do they simply seek the party out at the local pub? Wrap it in some mystery that showcases the pain they are experiencing. “A man stands on the edge of a building top, you can see his tears gleaming in the mid-day sun. A crowd of horrified onlookers gather below.” Will the PCs save him? Now he won't talk to anyone, won't eat. Can they save him again? Does he have additional family that needs to be cared for... are they sure he's just stricken with grief? Let them feel like you know more about your NPCs than has been revealed. These may not be problems your party wants, but the closure that comes when the bandits responsible for his lover’s death are finally brought to justice, is the first step to his recovery.

Comforting the characters and emotional indicators: Sometimes it is easy for players to forget how their characters must feel. Maybe they lost a party member, or loved NPC but the players are too busy dividing gold and shopping for weapons to show any respect for the dead. I use an NPC to remind them of this: "The bartender approaches you with a serving tray laden with fresh ales. “Drinks are on the house tonight, mates. We're all really torn up about losing Aellanmir to that damned basilisk. Funny, I was just gettin' used to his pointy little ears.' The large man begins to choke up a little and places his hand on your shoulder. 'Anyways, sorry for your loss, mates.'"

Birthing, Marriages and Funerals: NPCs have other life experiences besides being villains or victims. Why not beg the battle hardened warpriest to deliver a baby? Or ask to perform their marriage while the rest of the party acts as witnesses, cooks or whatever. "Mother Valdena, a superior in your church, arrives and orders you to perform a wedding for two devout parishioners, Missari and Dennal of Brooks Crossing, just outside of town. The regular priest has been called away and can't perform the rite." Death and dying is common in a monster filled world and rites of passage bring vitality to NPCs and your game. Will the characters be asked to speak eulogies at the funeral? Unless it is an adventure hook in and of itself, keep it short, but also award experience points for role playing (which is another article in and of itself). What does the party do with a fallen NPC's loot and equipment? Should go to the family, right? Do they leave the body to be eaten in the stinking bowls of a crumbling dungeon? Granted, with monsters’ jaws gnashing in the darkness, they might have to but... wow. Explain that to poor Bordvic's wife and fourteen children.

We must pay attention to our players’ feedback, (with the caveat that they may be upset they lost Bordvic’s hereditary masterwork sword, bequeathing it to his eldest daughter), but ultimately, they are our judges and jury with the power to execute your game. You may have an NPC that a single player seems to particularly enjoy and hopefully, you’ll have some embraced by the whole group. Ask them what they like about them and cultivate there answers into living, breathing NPCs that maybe, your characters will be willing… to die for.


High axe friends!

I go.