Being able to improvise interesting NPCs is a key skill for DMs, in my opinion. Credible NPCs create the illusion of a credible world, and help the players stay immersed in the story. While encountering another “bearded dwarf called Bob” really exposes the fact that we are just making this shit up as we go along… while also signalling that this particular NPC is very much superfluous to the story (not usually a huge problem, but in a mystery adventure, for example, you might want to maintain the illusion that this NPC could hold an important clue).
Sadly I’m not the very best at improvising material on the fly. What comes out is often a bit of a cliché. Or else, realising I’m about to serve up a trope, I blurt out the exact opposite of a stereotype, such as a “gentle, graceful orc with long blonde hair” or a “fat, sweary elf with a crew cut”. This actually isn’t a bad improvising technique (think of a trope and then go with the opposite), but it sometimes leads to incongruous results, and doesn’t always lead to concrete descriptive details.
The Tool
Overall, inventing NPCs on the fly is a bit of mental stress I could do without, so I decided to create a one page reference tool to basically do it for me, come game night… here it is below:
A little something to keep behind your DM’s screen!
Using The Tool
Anyhow, as you can see it starts with the info that usually you wish to convey first to the players… an NPC’s age, gender and species (I greyed out the rarer species, as I’m less likely to use them), and then it has a bunch of categories that I plan to just skim and grab things from to complete my physical description. The idea isn’t to describe every new NPC’s eye and hair colour etc., but just have a few categories I can pick one or two details from.
The Personality Quirks are my favourite part of the tool and I think they will really help me bring NPCs to life. Once I use a quirk, I plan to cross it off the list and then, when I’ve used half of them already, transfer the remainder onto a new sheet with some new options to choose from.
Ditto with the names, which I have divided into first names and surnames, the former of which are further divided into common and posh, because improvising a punter in a tavern or local farmer usually requires different nomenclature to fancy folks attending balls and galas.
The surnames I split into first and second parts of names, so that you can quickly create compound monikers (many of these I ripped from my own NPC Name Generator, which I go back to quite often!).
Colourful NPCs help bring Waterdeep to life… (Art by WOTC).
PDF & OpenOffice Versions
Anyway, I think it’s going to be a useful tool for me. If you think it might be of use to you, feel free to print it out and stick it behind your screen… here it is as a PDF.
You can also grab an easily-edited OpenOffice version here, so that you can refill quirks and names. Or change up any details or entries to suit your own needs or preferences. Or tailor it for a different RPG to D&D!
Your NPCs? And Tools?
Right, that’s it from me today! But I’ve got some reader homework for you… please share in the comments the best or most entertaining totally-superfluous-to-the-story NPC you ever improvised! I’d love to hear your stories.
Or let me know if you’ve developed a similar NPC tool to mine in the past, or what techniques you’re still using today…
Highland Troll
I’ve been looking for something exactly like this!
duncan
🎯
Oooblio
Thanks! Really appreciate your work and fenerosity in sharing this resource. I just used it for ginning up a couple of faction agents for my 5e game tonorrow.
duncan
Good stuff. Yeah it should make coming up with NPCs ahead of time a bit easier as well. Have fun tomorrow at the table!
Alexander atoz
I use the personality traits from the backgrounds section of the 2014 Player Handbook. Also their bonds, flaws, etc. In general, I find that 1-2 items is plenty for an NPC.
If I was going to make a spreadsheet, I would focus on how they talk, not how they look. Examples include high or deep voice, accents, traits like a drawl or a stutter, and so on. Visual details are hard to bring into a D&D game, while dialogue details show up every time the NPC opens his mouth.
Tim
Heartsmasher the Goliath poet. He was made up on the spur of the moment as someone who would get the party out of the way by giving them dodgy information in excruciating haiku – but they took it *very* personally. They hunted him down and demanded payment, which he duly provided – in 50,000 copper coins, along with some sarcastic stanzas! He’s now commander of a rival adventuring company, and every now and then (when I feel like raising their blood pressure) they find mocking verses attached to tree trunks
duncan
Love it! Thanks Tim!
Gonna steal the copper coins payment and sarcastic stanzas ideas for sure!