The Art Of The NPC

[fredrik_nilsson]

I have always heard, "You write what you know."

 

I still have not mastered the art of the NPC; something that I think is vital to a great game. Next time I run, I am going to try to incoporate 'what I know' into my NPCs. I will take my co-workers, exagerate their personalities for effect, and use them as my NPCs.

I found this a bit off topic for the background thread, yet I couldn't resist myself for adding onto this sub-thread (so I created this new thread).

 

How do you create your NPCs?

[OddHat]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

Before the game, check to see that you have all the equipment needed for hunting and field dressing your potential NPC after the kill. Important items include a sharp knife for field dressing, a light rope or nylon cord for dragging, a signed hide tag with attaching cord, a cloth to clean your hands, a plastic bag for the liver and heart, and a gallon jug of water for clean-up after words.

Approach a downed potential NPC with caution, and be sure it is dead. Assuming a well-placed shot with modern ammunition, enough blood vessels will often be severed to bleed the NPC without additional sticking in the neck. Many careful hunters do bleed their NPC by sticking just above the breastbone.

Field dress your future NPC immediately.

 

Admittedly, the field dressing chore is not the most enjoyable part of the hunt, but the extra time spent taking care of the character will pay dividends at the gaming table. Field dressing takes effort, so your heavy hunting coat should be removed and your sleeves rolled up so they won’t be soiled. Disposable vinyl or latex gloves lessen the chances of passing infectious diseases and make hand cleaning easier.

 

Blood and digestive juices from organs possibly penetrated by the shot must be removed from the body cavity quickly, and the sooner the organs, which deteriorate rapidly, are removed, the faster the NPC will cool. Field dressing also eliminates dragging unnecessary weight when moving the character.

 

Before starting the field-dressing process, keep in mind that it is important to keep dirt and foreign objects away from the exposed body cavity. Removing the scent glands is not considered necessary, but is done with care by many hunters. This becomes a more desirable choice if your future NPC was originally a player. Some archery hunters save the glands for use as scent while hunting. Removing the glands carelessly can taint the meat.

 

Roll the NPC over on its back with the rump lower than the shoulders and spread the legs. Make a cut along the centerline of belly from breastbone to tail-bone. First cut through the hide, then through belly muscle. Avoid cutting into the paunch and intestines by holding them away from the knife with the free hand while guiding the knife with the other.

Unless the head will be mounted, the cut should pass through the sternum and extend up the neck to the chin to allow removal of as much of the windpipe as possible. The windpipe sours rapidly and is a leading cause of tainted role-playing.

With a small sharp knife, cut around the anus and draw it into the body cavity, so it comes free with the complete intestines. In doing this, avoid cutting or breaking the bladder. Loosen and roll out the stomach and intestines. Save liver. Split the pelvic or "aitch" bone to hasten cooling.

Cut around the edge of the diaphragm which separates the chest and stomach cavities, and split the breastbone. Then, reach forward to cut the windpipe and gullet ahead of the lungs. This should allow you to pull the lungs and heart from the chest cavity. Save heart. Drain excess blood from the body cavity by turning the body belly down or hanging animal head down. Prop the body cavity open with a stick to allow better air circulation and faster cooling.

A clean cloth may be useful to clean your hands. If you puncture the entrails with a bullet or your knife, wipe the body cavity as clean as possible or flush with water and dry with a cloth. Don't use water to wash out the body cavity unless the paunch or intestines are badly shot up.

Part of the satisfaction of GMing comes with making a clean kill and in doing a neat job of field dressing your NPCs. Veteran GMs may have variations in the steps of field dressing. The important points are to remove the internal organs immediately after the kill without contaminating the body cavity with dirt, hair, or contents of the digestive tract and to drain all excess blood from the body cavity.

All parts damaged by gunshot should be trimmed away. If the weather is warm of if the NPC is to be left in the living room for a day or more, it may be skinned, except for the head, and washed clean of dirt and hair. It should be placed in a shroud sack or wrapped with porous cloth to cool (cheesecloth is ideal). The cloth covering should be porous enough to allow air circulation but firmly woven enough to give good protection from insects and dirt. Lacking porous cloth, GMs often coat the inside of the body cavity with black pepper to repel insects. Adequate cooling may take six hours or more, depending on weather conditions.

Age the NPC in a cool, dry place. Aging of well cared for NPCs at correct temperatures yields better flavored, more nuanced games. Best results are obtained in a near-constant temperature, preferably from 34 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit. Aging for one to two weeks is about right for the best quality characters, depending on the age and condition of the source material.

 

Once the NPCs are fully prepared, it’s time to set up the room, invite the players, and begin the game.

[Cancer]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

I find it very helpful to base important NPCs on a real person from my past that the players don't know. That way, I know intuitively how that person will react to most situations, while the PCs have to deal with a stranger. Once you have that, flesh out stats (if you need them) as appropriate for the campaign and run from there.

 

Now, I've known (AFAIK ) no Criminal Overlords, Psychotic Mass Murderers, Amoral Megacorp Executives, Conquering Alien Invaders, Monsters From The Bottom Of The Sea, etc., so I'm a bit handicapped in creating those, but those are more or less always caricatures anyway.

[CourtFool]

The fArt Of The NPC

 

Well I thought I was on topic. Shows you what a llama knows.

[fredrik_nilsson]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

...

 

Once the NPCs are fully prepared, it’s time to set up the room, invite the players, and begin the game.

Hmmm, are you sure that's how you make a NPC? For me it sound more like how you bake a NPC. I might be wrong...

 

Well I thought I was on topic. Shows you what a llama knows.

You were on topic. I was afraid that I (or someone else) might go off topic if we continued on what you started.

[austenandrews]

Re: The fArt Of The NPC

 

Well I thought I was on topic. Shows you what a llama knows.

You were talking about PCs. Get it in gear, man.

[austenandrews]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

I found this a bit off topic for the background thread, yet I couldn't resist myself for adding onto this sub-thread (so I created this new thread).

 

How do you create your NPCs?

Hooks are important - distinctive characteristics, personality traits, motivations, etc. I usually think of two or more unless it's a throwaway NPC. If they contrast, so much the better. For example (making these up as I type) an outdoorsman who's a computer whiz, or a nerdy mathematician who's very promiscuous, or a timid fellow who's a deadly shot, or a five-foot-tall street enforcer. ("They fight crime!")

 

Hooks provide a jump start when I'm running the character. More than one hook makes the character less predictable, and therefore more interesting to the players. Contrasting hooks keep my own mind working to reconcile the character, and therefore more interesting to me.

 

For portrayals, friends and acquaintences with distinctive personalities are a great source. Myself, I often lean on actors & celebrities as a starting point, mostly character actors. Even though I'm no impressionist, I can front-load a set of verbal and facial characteristics if I act out a character as played by Vincent Price or Peter O'Toole or Brian Cox or Harry Dean Stanton or James Mason or whoever else strikes my fancy. In fact my own failure to produce a decent impersonation means that the NPC won't really sound like an impersonation. Odds are the players won't realize who I'm "doing." But they will recognize when I gather my face in a distinctive way for the NPC who, in my own mind, is played by Alfred Hitchcock or Yaphet Kotto or David Rappaport or Ian Holm.

[fredrik_nilsson]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

I once based a pantheon in a campaign on a group of relatives. It was fun to turn people I know into deities. I tried to hide their true IDs, while still keeping their key personality traits.

[CourtFool]

The fArt Of The NPC II: The Annoying

 

You were talking about PCs. Get it in gear' date=' man.[/quote']

 

NPCs are just my PCs. So what if they are more powerful and do everything for the PCs?

[yamamura]

Re: The fArt Of The NPC II: The Annoying

 

NPCs are just my PCs. So what if they are more powerful and do everything for the PCs?

 

LOL

[Just Joe]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

I'm not exactly sure how I create them initially. To a large extent, they seem to just come to me. But I'm rarely satisfied with how well I present them to the players. I've tried to base them on people I know, but that has only worked well for me a few times. I'm not a terribly good actor, and the circumstances and motivations of my NPC's rarely match those of their real-world counterparts well enough for this technique to help much. A notable exception is someone I caricatured somewhat -- but whose real personality very much lends itself to caricature.

 

A technique I have considered but not implemented is to make a character match some version of a zodiac sign. This might be more useful to those of you who have a zodiac system already in your head. I just find I can't easily remember what a Capricorn or a Monkey is supposed to be like anyway.

[Barwickian]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

A technique I have considered but not implemented is to make a character match some version of a zodiac sign. This might be more useful to those of you who have a zodiac system already in your head. I just find I can't easily remember what a Capricorn or a Monkey is supposed to be like anyway.

 

For minor NPCs I borrow 2300AD's playing-card personality creator - essentially, you draw two cards to determine an NPC's major and minor motivations.

 

Inspired by this technique, for major NPCs I'll sometimes do a full tarot reading if I find myself bereft of inspiration when I create them. A Celtic Cross spread is ful of useful information - how they perceive themselves, how they perceive others, what their immediate aims are and so on.

 

Note that I'm far too rational ever to use Tarot cards on people. Don't believe in them. But they're a very useful NPC motivation-creator.

[CourtFool]

Yeah, but he is an introverted bard.

 

I thought of creating a random Meyers-Briggs personality generator. Just something you could roll up quickly on the fly.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

That would be pretty cool. Post a first draft by this time tomorrow.

[CourtFool]

The Art Of Myers-Briggs

 

Roll 4D6

 

1-3 Extrovert

4-6 Introvert

 

1-3 Sensing

4-6 iNtuition

 

1-3 Thinking

4-6 Feeling

 

1-3 Judgement

4-6 Perception

 

Oh! You wanted more than this?

[austenandrews]

Re: The Art Of Myers-Briggs

 

Oh! You wanted more than this?

Will it run on Windows95?

[CourtFool]

Re: The Art Of Myers-Briggs

 

Will it run on Windows95?

 

It has not been tested in Windows95 but I am fairly certain you could run it in Windows95. Macs too. How about that for compatibility?

[austenandrews]

Re: The Art Of Myers-Briggs

 

[Chico]Atsa no good. I'll take two.[/Chico]

[Just Joe]

Re: The Art Of Myers-Briggs

 

1-3 Extrovert

4-6 Introvert

 

1-3 Sensing

4-6 iNtuition

 

1-3 Thinking

4-6 Feeling

 

1-3 Judgement

4-6 Perception

I seem to recall that extroverts are are much more common than introverts, and I believe that at least one more of the pairs was not split nearly 50/50. I think there might even be two or three personality types that collectively account for something like 50% of all people.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

http://www.capt.org/The_MBTI_Instrument/Estimated_Frequencies.cfm

 

Yeah, this will be a little more complicated than 1d6 per trait....

[austenandrews]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

http://www.capt.org/The_MBTI_Instrument/Estimated_Frequencies.cfm

 

Yeah, this will be a little more complicated than 1d6 per trait....

Looks straightforward to me, if you use 1d100.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: The Art Of The NPC

 

Percentage dice are no fun.

 

This table doesn't match up exactly on the percentages, and is a little more off for females than males. If someone wants to work up a 5 or 6d6 table, they should probably get enough granularity to make a better fit.

 

4d6 Roll..........Male..........Female

4-6............INFJ............INTJ

7...............INTJ............INFJ

8...............INFP............ISTP

9...............ENTP...........ESTP

10..............INTP............INFP

11..............ISFP............ENFP

12..............ESFJ............ISFP

13..............ISTP............ESFJ

14..............ISTJ............ISFJ

15..............ESTJ............ISFJ

16..............ISFJ............ESFP

17..............ESFP...........ISTJ

18..............ENFP...........ESTJ

19..............ESTP...........ENFJ

20..............ENTJ...........ENTP

21..............ENFJ...........INTP

22-24..........INFJ..........ENTJ