MATT: Hey everyone! My name is Matthew Mercer. I'm a voice actor
and the Dungeon Master for Geek and Sundry's Critical Role,
and welcome to my video series with tips and tricks on Dungeon Mastering
or Game Mastering your own RPG. Today, we're talking about NPC creation: one of my favorite topics.
[trumpet fanfare]
MATT: Things you want to consider when creating your NPCs: first and foremost,
are they a major or a minor NPC? I mean, if you have a lot of free time on your hands, you can flesh out every person
in the world to an extreme degree, but at the same time, that can get a little... ominous. So when
you're thinking of a minor NPC, you want to think of just the basic elements of their character:
think of their name, their sex, their race, their class (if any). And they don't have to always be
classes from the player's choices - they can be Merchant, they can be Butcher, they can be the guy
who cleans the bathrooms in the space lodge, you know? You don't have to be too particular, but
note those things. Note their general alignment or morality, if they have any political or social
affiliations in the world that you've created or you're currently running. That helps as well. If
they belong to any guilds. Any major allies or enemies they might have. But all you need is quick
notes just in case those come up in conversation.
As you get more intense about NPCs, and more major ones, you start considering, "What are their
ideals? What are their desires? What are their fears?" Those are really cool driving elements
that you can understand where that character exists in your world, and when players have
conversations with them, where a lot of their answers would come from. You also want to keep a
little note on what their disposition is towards the players. Sometimes they'll start indifferent,
or even hostile, but depending on their actions and how the players interact with them, they can
become their friends. [baby voice] Their fwiends. And you want to make sure you note that on the
side for future use if they ever come back. Or, if they do something really terrible down the road,
that can completely flip to the other side. [serious voice] Not fwiends.
Also note their appearance, their equipment, what their special skills and mannerisms may be,
especially if they're going to be a recurring NPC. And if they ever decide to fight alongside the
party or help them out tremendously to some extents, you want to know what they're capable of
and maybe hint that to the players through some social encounters, which is kind of fun.
If they're planning to go into battle, whether it be as an ally or an enemy, put up a combat sheet that
generally lists what abilities they have. You can definitely make things up on the fly, but I prefer
and would recommend having something solid on the side at all times, even if it never comes into
play, just in case it does. It's really helpful, and you'll be glad you had that, as opposed to
sweating it last minute going, "Uh, I-- he has, um-- laser sword."
If you're doing silly voices, like I do-- I do a lot of silly voices. A lot of them. It helps keep
the psychosis at bay-- keep a note of what type of vocal texture or tone or accent you used for that
NPC so if they come back later, you can quickly reference the ballpark of where you had them. If
they had a high, shrill voice, if they had a thin, reedy voice, if they had a low, gravelly voice, if
they had a very intense militaristic tone, if they had a particular dialect or accent, just write
little notes in the side to that NPC so that you know exactly where to jump in if the players go,
"Oh, we're going to go visit Timmy this week!" and you're like, "Timmy? Timmy was nine months ago.
[voice cracks] I don't remember what Timmy sounds like." But they'll remember. They always remember.
There are also a lot of great resources and a lot of source books like the RPG Dungeon Master's or
Game Master's Guide or any of the source books, the main books. They have really great tools for
creating NPCs that involve personality traits, story hook backstories for them, and cool places
to branch off and create someone from, so don't be afraid to do some research. Don't feel like it's
lesser of you to pull from the books; they're there for a reason and they're wonderful resources.
One of the most important aspects of a good story, though, is a good villain. And creating a good
villain can be many things but it's something you want to make sure to put enough energy and effort
into. For one, not all villains think they're villains. Their morality may be skewed, and they
have their own personal goals, but what they're doing is for their own beliefs and for their own
personal interests, and they may see others as the villains of their own story. So try to flesh out
why they're doing the things they're doing. What are the driving experiences in their life that
gave them this twisted righteousness? What acts have they done in the past that mark them as evil
in this world or from the player's perspective? These are cool things to keep in mind going
forward. Also, good versus evil, black and white, that can work every now and then, but it's really
fun to play in areas of gray. As you will find out, or have already, players tend to play in
areas of gray. No matter how good you make your characters, weird, sometimes not-so-good things
happen in games and characters spontaneously end up dead and you have to hide bodies. Happens.
Often. So, you know, villains also can play in areas of gray. Sometimes a character who starts
good can turn evil. A character that starts evil can turn good. Sometimes they just borderline that
middle area where even the players aren't sure if they're good or evil for a lot of the game and
it's one of those, "Are they useful in the moment?" It's fun to leave those questions up to
them and let them make those choices. And you secretly know what the outcome is. Haha!
Now as far as grandiose villains, it's good to choose an archetype. And a really great reference
that I pull from is the classic DnD book called Book of Vile Darkness. The 3.5 one in particular
has a wonderful breakdown on deliciously built villains. They have archetypes like the scheming
liar, the tyrant, the sophisticate, the misguided fool, or the monster. These are all different,
great personality types that you can build a great villain off of. The sophisticate, in particular -
one that's very involved in societal, grandiose attention, and uses society to get their means,
and sees themselves as definitely an erudite and above-it-all type persona, is really fun - versus
the monster, which is the straight-up murderer, a person that relishes in the death and destruction
they cause. You can pick from any of these and customize and alter from those bases, but I
find that those are five really cool bases to build a villain off of.
And then once you've created a cool villain, consider how much power do they wield? Are they
solo? Are they just this unbridled force of chaos in the world, or do they have a network of
henchmen and people that work for them that either agree with their cause or at least can be paid
enough to go along with it? Is there some sort of long reveal that you can build the character
towards? - something about their history that's either dark or very surprising that you can,
later on, pepper in clues to as the players progress. These are cool things to discuss as you're
building this villain. And don't be afraid to let the villain have a grandiose death, no matter how
attached you are. If the players are really smart and really intelligent about it, sometimes the
final encounter may not be as epic as you think, and you don't want to steal that from the players
just because they were really clever and really intelligent in how they approached it. Just make
sure you give him his Hans Gruber final scream as he falls off the building into all of oblivion.
Thank you guys so much for watching! We'll have more of these videos available for you to watch on
the geekandsundry.com website and we'll see you next time.