Times are tough. Especially for NPCs. But they provide a lot for any adventure, if you know how to wring them for their metaphorical juices.
NPCs are the secret engine to any good D&D game. They’re the point at which you, the DM, can step in and have opinions about the world. Used properly, an NPC can add flavor to a scene, give information to clueless players, or even become the party’s honorary mascot for whom they’d all die.
But what can you do with them? How can you squeeze the juice, literal or figurative out of the NPCs? Well, that’s what we’re here to help with today. Here are five things that an NPC can add to your next adventure!
Texture, Or If You Prefer, Mouthfeel
NPCs are one of the best places for a DM to build verisimilitude or immersion. They’re how you create the sense that this is a world that is lived in, not just a move studio stand-in town that exists only when the player characters are looking at something.
And one of the best things you can do with them is express facts about the world with a little it of texture. By which I mean, an NPC is a microphone for you, the DM, to speak to the player characters, but with the timbre of emotion to it. Consider a scenario where you have to let the players know there are strange lights in the haunted marshes. You could easily say “the town is full of rumors, strange lights in the eastern marshes.”
But a cowardly shopkeeper might be afraid of the lights people have seen. A braggart guard captain might think they’re no real threat. You get to express all the delightful little fantasy opinions about the world. And by giving your NPCs an emotional reaction, you add a crunchy little crust to the fact nuggets you’re presenting to the PCs.
Guidance
Even the most proactive, goal-driven players in the loosest of sandbox settings needs a prod every now and then. It doesn’t matter how full of interesting things the world is, every now and then people just spin their wheels and putter around. But that’s when a helpful NPC can come along.
They can ask the players leading questions like, “I hear you were investigating the cult? Did you find anything in the sewers?” Or “did you ever make it out to that old crypt you were talking about in the tavern?” It’s a very diegetic way to remind players of their own stated goals, or what adventure beats they might have forgotten about are.
Mentoring
This is one of my favorites. If you want to run a sandbox type campaign, where players can come up with their own goals and just pick a direction and go, you may find that it’s hard to get people to actually do those last two things. But a good NPC can mentor a group of PCs.
This is a technique I usually see in like a good cyberpunk RPG, where the world expects certain things from the players. There you have an NPC like a Fixer who will outline what you have to do, until you can plan jobs of your own. And this can work in D&D too – you just have to decide what it is that you need to demonstrate.
Maybe it’s finding where monster lairs are, or how to track down signs of the cult the PCs are chasing down. Either way, an NPC that can show the players what to do instead of telling them what to do is a great tool in the ol’ toolbox. Just be sure to fade them into the background (or kill them off dramatically) once the players have the hang of it.
Highlight Reels
Sometimes PCs can get so used to battling demons and the servants of eldritch gods that they forget how cool it is. And that’s where a humble NPC can act as a sort of spotlight on what might be a play of the game. Did a character get a clutch critical hit? Or cast a healing spell at just the right time?
You can have an NPC call them out on it. Talk about how cool whatever it is the PCs are doing. Even if they didn’t see the battle directly, they could remark on how amazing it is that their village was saved from the very forces of the Nine Hells or whatever.
Motivation
Finally, NPCs are a way to get the PCs invested in the world. Maybe they don’t care about whatever the cult of Vecna is up to. But I guarantee you if the cult threatens their favorite shopkeeper the PCs might take action.
In a nutshell, NPCs are a way to hit the player characters where it hurts. Is there a small squishy little friend that the party would die to protect? Kill them off in front of the PCs if you can. Watch as the game takes on a whole new timbre. It will unite the player characters against the villain – but take care, it might also unite the players against you.
Happy adventuring!
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