Adventuring NPCs

Movies as Character Templates

The Oscars have awards for Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/Actress. While the distinction may seem ultimately a bit arbitrary, in practice, we can almost always tell the difference quite easily.

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A supporting actor may have a side plot or arc of their own, but their presence is almost invariably in service to the protagonist(s). So the key is baked into the name: a supporting actor is one who supports in a very literal narrative sense.

Case Study: Aratissa Amaquissar

This is my favorite NPC I’ve ever played. She was the noble elven older sister to one of the PCs. The PC (Rae) was shirking her noble birthright to go goth, steal things, and lay low. Aratissa (Tis) was concerned about her younger sister, but also concerned with appearances: her own and her family.

Tis skirted the official action for a while, writing to her sister about her exploits, which involved digging into the pasts (families, history, etc.) of the other PCs, to make sure Rae was safe with them. Mischief ensued, but all off-camera, so to speak. This news eventually got to the party, who were angered. Tis eventually showed up, all haughty privilege and vanity, annoying or infuriating the entire party at times.

And yet, she wanted to help. She was a cleric, and was concerned for her sister’s safety. She just provided her aid in a profoundly annoying manner…but it was still valuable aid. Near the campaign’s end, with the major threat ended, she used her noble status to gain an audience at a large public event and announced to the nobles present that her beautiful younger sister Rae was both a hero and eminently single…an announcement that gave Rae dozens of suitors to reluctantly fend off.

Rae’s player almost leapt out of her chair to strangle me, a huge smile belying her actual amusement at the event.

Ok, so what did this all accomplish?

1. By proving to be an annoying foil to her sister, it heightened and spotlighted her sister’s (the PC’s) behavior.
2. In digging into the past of the other PCs, even if only to meddle in unhelpful ways, it allowed me to bring elements of player backstories to the forefront. I even managed a couple cameos of other family members, all due to Aratissa.

Aratissa had, at times, a near-equal spotlight on her to the PCs. But I only brought her more and more into that spotlight because the roleplaying between her and the others proved to be so delicious. She chastised, stole from, nearly seduced one, and condescended to almost every party member at some point, but each of those actions supported some development of theirs.

Her on-screen presence was also limited. She was present for an arc of about 5-6 sessions, which is the longest I’ve ever kept a co-adventuring NPC around.

Taking us back to “movies as templates,” can you imagine a romantic comedy where the protagonist is a rebellious young adult, with an overbearing and obsessively vain older sister who’s worried about the family name, but still finds ways to genuinely care for her younger sister? It almost feels like a trope, though I can’t name a specific movie reference for it. In either case, the rebellious one’s arc is the main plot, but it’s shaped by the older sister.

Taking It Too Far

With his permission, here’s another short list of Clark’s about what NOT to do:

• Don’t let them become a “GM’s character”
• Don’t become so attached to them that they become immortal/invincible
• Don’t let them become a “solution of all trades” – they have a (narrow) role; they should act in that role
• Don’t let them become so static that they are 100% reliable/predictable

Let’s dig a little deeper into each of those.

Don’t Have a GMPC
Was Aratissa a GM player character? I was having grand fun with her, after all, and she was an ally for an entire arc of the campaign.

I don’t think there’s a set limit on how long a combat-ready PC should be around. Maybe it’s a single scene, maybe it’s a full session. Often, for me, it’s been 2-4 sessions. Aratissa was my record, at 5-6.

But I had an exit strategy from the start. And I think that’s one of the keys. Why are they there, and for how long? If the answer is that their goals are the same as the party, that has to be only for a subset of the party’s long-term goals. Even if they both want to rid the world of The Evil God, for example, how they accomplish that should branch their path from the PCs eventually.

Don’t Become Attached
The best possible end for an NPC is a noble death. Or even an ignoble death. Seriously, they are a fictional, ephemeral entity. Any death is likely to be memorable, which is probably the best thing an NPC can be.

Solution of All Trades
I’ve fallen into this trap. Hell, Tissa up there was a healer, which is something that party lacked. In the back of my mind, I was probably at least partially filling in that gap out of concern for the PCs in what was a long-running, dramatic campaign.

NPCs are narrative and character tools first, or serve a specific function, as mentioned earlier.

My personal solution is often to truncate adventuring NPCs’ abilities. A spell list will be one third the size it could be, or they’ll only use a couple thematic abilities. It defines their role in a specific way, rather than forcing me into a situation where I’m rifling through stuff to find the “best” option in a situation.

Don’t Make Them Static
It’s easy to let NPCs fill the role of tropes. But this also makes them predictable.

Tropes are fine; useful, even, at times. But if you’re keeping an NPC around for any significant length of time, what’s one thing they could do to break the expected mold?

One might be enough to instill a sense of mystery or uncertainty in the players, even if the character is still their ally.

Case Study: The Mad Monk

One of our campaigns featured a potential ally who had lost his sanity. This made him not just unreliable but dangerous at times. It took some ingenuity to cure the better part of his insanity, but the lasting image of his initial madness meant that we always kept him at a distance.

As a result, it was an alliance more out of necessity than anything else, despite the fact that we did share common goals.

Case Study: The Ambiguous Villain

Villains are villains, except when they aren’t. We’re familiar with the “anti-hero” archetype. I’d argue that “The Ambiguous Villain” (my own phrase) is somewhat different, though.

They serve their own ends, and aren’t afraid to do some dirty work to achieve them. This could include minor crimes or even major violations such as murder. There’s a moral compass somewhere in there, though, and their goals will often align with those of more traditionally goodly beings. Or their crimes will harm those who most deserve it. But their methods may still be objectionable.

So when presented with such an NPC, will a party oppose them? Ignore them? Work for them or with them?

This one, to me, makes the most sense as a quest-giver, patron, or faction leader. However, these roles all have the potential to become recurring, and could even include adventuring with the players. And what happens when a morally ambiguous NPC is adventuring with them, one that they might not be able to fully trust? The possibilities to play off of PC motivations and personalities are myriad.

Case Study: Tom Bombadil

Merry fellow, no? I agree. However, there’s more under the surface of this iconic, somewhat bizarre NPC ally of Frodo and company.

Bombadil is a bit of a “get out of jail for free” card in Fellowship of the Ring, so you may not wish to use a similar NPC in your party. However, I think there’s some benefit to it.

Say your party is low level. You want to impress upon them the danger of the world around them, and their comparative lack of power (at least at the moment). How to do this? Throw them into a nigh-impossible challenge, then have an even more powerful ally save them. Maybe if they meet that same NPC later in the campaign, it will provide a fun benchmark to mark their progression as characters.

I ran a variation of this once, where an NPC who was obviously more powerful than the PCs saved them in one fight, then helped them for a couple sessions. But then she was mind-controlled and the party had to fight her (and some others). It was appropriately terrifying for the players, but only because I first established the NPC as more powerful. In this case, the power gap wasn’t as large as the implied gap with Bombadil, but the principle was similar.