Dawn recently she said she sometimes misses what I call “NPC Driven” campaigns. That doesn’t mean an NPC overshadowing the PCs, it refers to the NPCs being more dynamic and involved. After 3 weeks I was able to pinpoint what she was missing. Dawn asks: “How is it that 15 years later we still know who Skiltor Rune is? Or Mythrella? Or friggin’ Norgrath Kane? Back in my Forgotten Realms days I did a lot of reading and kept up with the world. In my homebrew of Quais, I wrote it all. But there were no ‘player’s guides’ for these campaigns like there are these days. Everything I needed to transmit to the players regarding the world and cultures and threats were through my NPC ‘salespeople’. They were the portal through which I could describe the world. They were required to get the character’s motivations stirred and be involved in their adventures, even if just as a patron. Through NPCs the players were able to deduce what a city’s trade disposition was like, why the barbarians of the Leirwood are so hated, and why Nobles of Phlan are living in the past. They enabled me to set stages and convey a bit of flavor that transcended mere descriptive text. And because I played them with goals and reactions based off their history, they became real and an interest to the players. So, the players frequently sought them out when they wanted a friend or contact to help them. Now I did this nearly my whole career. It was even vital to Kalamar and Eberron, where we had never played before. But the last time it really happened was my very short Darkmoon Vale campaign where I felt I had enough Golarion lore behind me to accurately play folks from all over and deliver a story of their own. Since Shackled City Paizo has assured I’ve had a plethora of NPCs sprinkled within who are very well fleshed out but don’t have any purpose except to immediately further the story. They jump in, play their part, and then vanish. Or, if they stick around, they kinda hang back to give the PC’s more info to lead them to the next clue. There are a few things that distinguish an NPC driven campaign.
- The NPC’s were me. I dug down to some unfathomable part of my psyche that totally relates to these folk and breathes them life. It’s done with a creative spark that needs to be had, for there is not much to go on.
- The NPCs came into necessity because of the Player’s prompting, not the modules’. In other words they came alive because the player characters kept messing with them or sought them out.
- The NPC has to survive and have a real purpose outside of combat. The best NPC’s were evil or suspected evil the group still have to work with or against without it coming to rolling for imitative. You couldn’t just start or solve the problem with combat. Players had info on the NPCs/Villains, possible ways to convert them, or use them, or influence them, get something from them, seduce them, get seduced by them – not just run them through.
- NPCs are better with foreshadowing! I CAN make use of prewritten NPCs when they are courting the story for a while like investigator Viktor St. Demain, Daresh the mirror queen of Kalamar, Zon-Kuthon cleric Laori Vaus and the Beast of Lepidstadt.
So I might make a half decent actor. Actors are always asking “what’s my motivation” rather than a completely detailed write-up. I seem to do better with improvisation, thinking off the cuff and inventing some twisted amalgam of my imagination to create a personality. To showcase this I give you apprentice Kemia Hostcovel, Lady (later Queen) Rachella, Troll the innkeeper or Armorer Baldwick, all created literally on the spot or moments before the session began. So then, who do YOU remember and why?
