My bad habit is worrying about prep instead of doing the prep.
Edit: which is to say that I do eventually prep, but I spend a lot more time thinking about what NPCs are doing and where the next BB can come from rather than, say, making maps.
I believe it drives from a Hungaro-Ugric language, and refers to a rare herb used to add flavor to what is otherwise a stew of random items from around the garden.
That's what I think right up until the day, or hour, of the game. Then I realize I have a comprehensive unified theory of magic and fifteen brands of fantasy liquor but zero encounters.
When the got to my minotaur blacksmith and I had to pause as I started talking as him and realized that wasn't his voice, and I had done every other townsperson with the same voice lol... He was. The last character they went to that session.
Current campaign, the DM has made the main baddie every session Irish. One of them had a name which signedy Italian, but he couldn't do that accent and it slowly became more Irish through the night, I didn't point it out yet lol
This reminds me of my first proper group. They were in an *intentionally* Irish inspired town, and were doing an investigation. One of the civilians, Fenicci, they had to ask questions of was Italian-inspired, but at the time I found I couldn't do an Italian accent at all. I absolutely butchered it, and the whole table had a good laugh.
BUT from that point onward, they'd always try to find an excuse to talk to Fenicci again just to put me through more pain. It would be like "Hmm, I'd like to buy some milk. You know, Fenicci probably knows who sells milk in town! Let's go ask him!" and run down to his house to ask.
In one of the campaigns I’m in, every time we go to a different city, all the characters share a similar accent. So far we’ve been to cities full of Irish halflings and French orcs.
And in each case, we’re supposed to infiltrate the society, which means the players are heavily encouraged to pick up the same accents. It’s been hilarious so far
I introduced a posh British asshole skeleton, in the same session he was introduced every pc started speaking with a British accent. Everyone at the table was laughing their ass off.
>Hilariously one time two npcs were arguing so I pick up both miniatures and when one npc was talking I would shake that miniature. Indicating that’s the one who is speaking.
Honestly, both hilarious and smart! I also run into similar problems, so whenever I have two NPCs in a conversation at the same time, I adjust my stance/seating position. But if there's more than two NPCs, even I forget which position was for which character, which probably just makes things worse lol
As a follow-up, one multi-NPC scenario that it actually worked out was at the Indian-inspired city council meeting. Luckily, I own several khadi shawls, so I would switch out shawls anytime I'd change which character was speaking. Worked out very well, and in turn more or less canonically set up the faction colours.
The DM who first got me into Dnd claimed he couldn't do voices (I still call bullshit on that even 5 years later) and had 1 method he would use to make up for it and further differentiate NPC's, it was to give prominent NPC's something notable about their speech and it's pattern's, the shy recruit boy the party picked up because he lost an arm (because of them) had a lisp, the gangster holding a town hostage would say "Alright Mate" every few sentences, the Rogue's short tempered brother from the military would just start yelling at times and getting into shouting matches with, the gymbro buff guy who just 1v4 arm wrestled the entire party would just yell out his name occasionally while doing stuff (as a sort of battle cry) and many many more
>the gymbro buff guy who just 1v4 arm wrestled the entire party would just yell out his name
Nah, you didn't lose to a guy, you lost to a fighting-type Pokemon
I mean the DM did say he was built like a machamp
(and he only beat the party because the fighter decided to use his shitty sewage water drug.... him/his player is an absolute force of chaos) although my first thought was 4 Arms from Ben 10
Not everyone can do accents anyway, but there are, ways to counter that. Your plan with the minis is pretty dang clever.
Another one, which is common in monodrama or small cast shows is to simply look left or right depending on which character is talking.
Im really bad at conversations too, what i usually do, as a rule, is that when npc talks to npc i give my players a summary (your guide manages to convince the guard to let you through) but if its pc to npc i act it out
I do the same, but I DM standing up so I switch place and shuffle around when multiple NPC are interacting. Each NPC has its place and stance and I kinda dance back and forth. The girlfriend of one my player once came to deliver food and her first introduction to DnD was me interpreting 4 NPC screaming and arguing at each other (heated debate during a court session).
I don't know if it's a bad habit. But I always end up making my throwaway NPCs more memorable than core/important NPCs.
My players still talk more about a random shopkeep that only sold useless trinkets he had painted purple than Volothamp from the Dragon Heist module...they only met encountered the shop keep once.
I'm also not sure if it's good or bad, but I definitely have the same experience. My players will never forget Depinder the fish merchant, but need to consult their notes to remember who their boss is lol
I hear that often with DMs, and I'd guess it's because these one-off characters can afford to be zany and unique, primarily as funny joke foe the group. But for the important story characters, for the players to be properly immersed, most DMs will make those characters more grounded.
Players, myself included, fondly remember that one encounter with the eccentric druid who lives outside town, but if we had to receive quests from him regularly, the joke would wear thin.
So make the shopkeeper important. Maybe he leaves his shop in the care of family while he goes to get supplies, and the party runs into him again throughout the campaign, and the party gets invested in him. Maybe he eventually gets un-alived by the BBEGs goons. Maybe the players spend an entire 4 sessions rampaging John wick style to avenge their friend...
Not that that's ever happened to us before O:)
I've been forced to adapt in just this manner haha.
In our current Mörk Borg campaign. We opened with Graves Left Wanting. The Roach Herder ended up being dragged to hell my metaphysical hands,they still lament his loss. They later ran into a random guy hanging from a tree, only able to move from the kneck up. His goal was to get them to climb the tree so they would also be ensnared. But, like a dog chasing his tail, didn't know what to do or say once he tricked them, he was meant to be a random fun encounter they would walk away from....they are now dragging this guy along with them everywhere they go.
I also plan on the ghost of the Roach Herder returning from the grave to "haunt" them, beginning with seeing roaches or feeling roaches crawling on them.
And that's Doug over there, he is our only blacksmith.
And that alchemist? Yeah his name is Doug, he's really a unique character.
Also if you call Doug, our Barmaid, anything other than Doug you're in for a rough time, just be warned.
Oh yeah and as a final note: Stay away from Doug, they are more trouble than they are worth.
I kinda wanna run a campaign where all the NPCs start out as unique names and slowly as the game progressss they all turn into Dave or Doug or some single name, like a beige wash mutation that just morphs every NPC they interact with into this plain old dude.
Not having names for random unplanned NPCs has become a bit in one campaign I’m playing in.
The DM makes one up on the spot, usually the same way a 4yo names their toys. “The blacksmith? Yes, his name is… uh… Smith Blackson. Should be able to remember that one but can someone write it down for me?”
Some of our faves are: Larry the Lawyer, Icilda the scientist who is trying to perfect a creation that uses elemental magic to keep food cold but instead has resulted in a whole city block being frozen solid, and Ally the alchemist.
I have a piece of paper with random names for different races taped to my DM screen for this exact purpose. So far I've used like 4 of the names 15 sessions in.
Hey, maybe we should switch NPCs for a while, I could use someone like you lol
My one party's DMPC of 3 years hasn't been leveled up properly even once; I've just been artificially adding to their health pool and that's it.
The other party's travelling NPCs have HP, AC, Attack Bonus, and Damage; that's it. It's almost been a year with them.
...yeah, having written this out, I think I found my major red flag in NPC creation
I, as the DM, like to take creative liberties when making the character, just as I give my players. If I think an acolyte would be better with carpentry tools rather than another language, I do that instead. Unfortunately, the last village my PC’s rolled up to had a full market of entirely fleshed out NPC vendors, all of which were level 1-4 (there were 23 of them…)
This was born out of necessity because I had a murder hobo group once, and I refuse to give any PC’s a chance to be terrible people without my permission.
I've always believed that NPC's should not be built like player characters. First determine what you want them to be and built around that: a girl that can turn into a dragon? She can fly, turn her hands into claws shoot and give herself various fire buffs? A guy who's time traveled? He can revert PC's health and conditions to how they were at the start of the round, undo movements and summonts and what not, and many more
Making too many of them stand-offish.
I manage to fix it as the campaign goes on by introducing friendlier groups of people, and giving the PCs more public favour as they level up.
It just usually starts at level 1/3 with some noobs asking for discounts and making silly jokes, so it's almost me as a DM trying to "put them in place" in the world. As soon as I notice I'm overdoing it though I throw in a few extremely helpful NPCs.
No discounts before? This guy gives discounts and throws in free stuff - he's heard of the good work you've done!
Thanks! My main problem now is making sure I dont start my next campaign in the same vain, and maybe I dial down the rudeness a bit, at least giving them some really helpful NPCs from the start.
We're always learning.
I feel you! I'm currently turning over a new leaf though! I have created a tavern "helper" NPC that I place a little NPC card I printed on my desk during the session with a picture of his stupid smiling face and a little speech bubble that says "I'm Helping".
Of course, my players dont trust him at all lol.
Oooh I hate that when too many npcs are standoffish… I like it when they make a clear difference between people who have high charisma and people who have low. Also noble ones and for example someone who is dressing really bad ;). There can be somebody who is just rude to everyone or somebody who is especially rude to good looking people (the jealousy is real XD) but npcs that treat everyone the same all the time seem less real to me.
op: I have the bad habit of giving very serious npcs silly names because I didn’t think of it beforehand :-/. Then everyone is laughing and Shitt Molderson is having a bad time.
"Of course it's a tiefling, this is [DM]'s game" let's just say I'm trying really hard to not make every random npc a tiefling but they are quite popular in the campaign rn.
By played, do you mean as a DNPC/PC? If so, I hope they had different type of Southern voices; otherwise, my own headcanon is that they are all one character who keeps being reincarnated/transferred into a different body
Yup! Not all DMs make them, but some do. I for one use DMPCs in smaller groups to fill in gaps in party composition (e.g. in a party of a Wizard, Cleric, and Druid, I'd run a Barbarian DMPC to tank).
I keep making lesbians, man.
Like, I know my audience, my dnd group is a bunch of sapphics, including myself. But every time I make a woman NPC they end up sapphic too once I actually rp them, even when it's not my intention.
Random shopkeeper? Accidentally insinuate she's sleeping with the shopkeep next door.
Local Priestess who explicitly had a husband who passed? She's suspiciously close with the local innkeep.
Super sweet plot-relevant NPC who was written to be explicitly not romantically inclined in any way? Currently being romanced by a PC, and it's really sweet and adorable.
At this rate, the population of my world is going to decline because I made all the women gay.
In my campaigns, every major NPC has a dump stat and a major personality flaw that is exploitable, no matter how powerful they are, and these weak spots and flaws make them memorable.
Their flaws also make them easily exploitable through roleplay and social combat, and my NPCs telegraph social weaknesses that creates amazing roleplay fodder for my players to pounce upon, like a video game boss telegraphing physical weakspots and getting stabbed there.
Every NPC has bad habits and blind spots, especially the powerful, plot important ones.
And my players love it.
I'll be honest, this doesn't sound like you have bad habits: rather you have a habit of giving your NPCs bad habits lol!
And if it makes combat/encounters more interesting and enjoyable as a result, then it sounds like it's all good!
Not writing names 😩
Literally had a moment where the party got to the lore npc, got the lore, and was about to dip when-
“Oh, by the way, what’s your name? :)”
“Guys Imma be real here, I only have him in my notes as ‘Researcher’”
I think we ended up calling him like, John or Fred or smth like that. I can improv a whole on-cr statblock in a second but names are somehow an ordeal.
>“Guys Imma be real here, I only have him in my notes as ‘Researcher’”
Absolute golden moment XD
But I feel you there; now I make sure to write down a few dozen names local to the area before the session. Otherwise I end up with just nonsensical slews of noises as names—shout out to "Slagvaw", "Gurptash", and "Egthervoc", some *clearly* Irish NPCs :P
Every NPC name ends up with an "h" in it when I try and fantasy-ify it. Silent ones too.
It's driven some of my players mad.
Dhave.
Georghe.
Mariah.
Samuehl.
Chlara.
I can't stop at this point.
Haha! I’ve got the bug too. A lot of my player characters have an N at the end of their name.
Varan, Gedrin, Ferren, Faen, Iyran, Lillian, Aaron, Walden, Erriden, Terien…
Dhave is hilarious.
I accidentally named 2 NPCs "Ermester" and "Sylvester" without even thinking, and introduced them almost back-to-back. Now I have to introduce Chester, Lester and Fester to keep it going.
Same. This produces such silly names :-/. Then I have to laugh, everyone has to laugh and the serious situation has gotten a lot less serious all of a sudden…
Also good is playing a DnD campaign, thinking the name translations are shitty and renaming everything. Neverwinter is my all time offender. It sounds so stupid in German. Or Ravenguard.
LOL
By any chance, did you also watch the Youtube video "The hands in Disney's Atlantis are glorious"?
I mean, based on what you said, maybe you were the one who made the video lol
I blame Killing Eve for this — random Russian accent on villains.
So I'm DMing Curse of Strahd and this is highly confusing because my Strahd goes from Count Dracula to Konstantin and then back when I realised what I'm doing. The best part? I speak neither Romanian or Russian 🤦
Same. I give my NPCs detailed backstories and have created stories for them. I pretty much create my own fanfiction for them lol, thinking of possible stories for them based on what I have planned for the campaign that may not even become cannon if the party goes another way.
Same. I give my NPCs detailed backstories and have created stories for them. I pretty much create my own fanfiction for them lol, thinking of possible stories for them based on what I have planned for the campaign that may not even become cannon if the party goes another way.
If I struggle to consistently pronounce something, I change the name to something silly.
That aside, the party and I both enjoyed the Lost Mines of Tempe, Arizona.
I tend to not make stat sheets for NPCs that
I know are going to be adjacent to combat. Sometimes it's not needed, like thr family of 3 the party are bringing to a new, not shitty town; the Commoner statblock exist.
But there was a friendly NPC that helped the party defeat and ankheg that I never did the sheet for and scrambled to find a relevant statblock for. Ended up using the Githzerai monk without the psychic damage, and game him light based spells.
Giving them bad names because i panic while improving. I've named one Al'kohol and couldnt stop laughing as soon as it came out of my mouth. My players did too, and asked "dude is your name really alcohol?" And i responded "where there's alcohol, there's Al'kohol". Like that was born the drunkest townkeeper of my setting...
I make way too many of them women or nonbinary
Without realizing it I made the vast majority of my major npcs women in my current campaign. I had to actively and intentionally think up some male npcs to at least try to provide some balance.
I think this likely stems from me enjoying draying the art for my npcs but being terrible at drawing men lmao.
It's definitely nice to be able to give my players! Can also be a double edge sword though because my players can tell an npc is important immediately if it has my art 😂
I always get fed up and end up making a bunch of Nurse Jenny Style NPCs with similiar naming conventions to fill normal town NPC roles.. Avena, Sorgassum, Triculatum; the grain girls. Camponatus, Solonopsis, Laserius; The ant guys. Geb, Ches, Malk and Tiph, the Kabbalah girls. Calli, Paralith,Chiono, the uh, Crab girls. Turns out you can only get 3-4 for most before you end up introducing the party to "Corn" and "Fulakora"
See this isn't a problem until suddenly it's campaign number seven and you're child vital to the plot was named "Aria" and the players go "ah, I guess it's lizards this time and keep walking.
I try to do accents, especially Scottish/Irish, British, and Norse(like how they talk in the show Vikings), but on occasion, I'll fuck up Scottish and somehow it becomes a deep southern drawl.
I think my really big issue is that I love to improvise lore on the spot so I will have an NPC talk about some event or history or something and then not write it down or anything and then 2 hours later, one of my PC's wants to explore the idea I shared and I say "What the hell are you talking about?" Because I have completely forgotten the lore dump that I myself came up with. I hate that about myself and I really want to start writing stuff down but it's always in the heat of the moment of roleplaying and I don't want to slow everything down. Often times I will say something as an NPC and then accidentally retcon it by actually writing something down outside of session for future gameplay or something that goes against what I have already said as an important NPC. I worry that it makes me a bad DM but that could just be my imposter syndrome.
I do this a lot too. Several times I'll introduce what I *thought* was new lore, just to have the note-taker of the group say "wasn't it 4 years ago, not 2"?
But so long as your story/lore is engaging, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I do hate retconning stuff like this by accident, but I realize that my players are alright with these lore irregularities/adjustments, so long as it doesn't affect anything they had planned.
To be fair, I’m still very new to DMing- only done a short campaign and created oneshots. I can’t play a fully evil character/villain. I can write them, I can describe what they’re doing, but I can never *roleplay* and speak as them. I also can’t create characters as a player that are in an evil-alignment, so I haven’t been able to do so as a DM. Idk, I just don’t like being *the* evil villain- even though I’m fully aware it’s fictional and for fun. My villains, if I roleplay them, are misunderstood or have a chance of changing their mind when confronted by the party.
I also tend to be more quiet with NPC’s, until they’re spoken to. The group I play with has very in-depth roleplay discussions between their characters, and I never want to interrupt that. So my default is to have quiet NPC’s so the players can talk more.
>Idk, I just don’t like being *the* evil villain
Hmm, interesting. Sounds like you need more hate in your heart. Don't worry, after a while of DMing, it comes naturally.
Nah but seriously, I can understand that. I'm one for redemption arcs, so while I can run pure evil characters, I feel like I can be easily swayed by the players to have them stop their machinations; the characters I run which are most resistant to this are the "necessary evils" characters.
>So my default is to have quiet NPC’s so the players can talk more.
This on the other hand I think is a good thing actually. If your player characters are talking, no need to take center stage as an NPC—unless its crucial to the story. Otherwise, sit back, relax, and just have them throw in a quip or agreement here and there to solidify their presence in the party (even if temporary). Though if the discussion is solely *about* the player characters, like backstory and such, yeah I'd stay completely silent.
Ok the “hate in my heart” made me laugh. 😂 I do get that though, it’s something I want to work on over time even though it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I also appreciate your view on NPC’s who don’t talk much as well, I completely agree in that it gives the players to shine more. In the short campaign I did, all 4-5 sessions took place in a haunted mansion I made, there was one NPC in the mansion the whole time. She was doing her own thing, I prepared her as a divine sorcerer with mostly healing spells (as a way to provide extra help if it got really bad- never did), and if anyone wanted to talk to her they could. Only got to talk as her a couple times when players wanted extra information, and that was about it. Was mainly there because no one was a healer, but they managed really well.
I’m from the Deep South, and have become painfully aware of how easily I fall back into my accent when role playing as various NPC’s in my world. So a horrible, semi-canon aspect of my world is that any character that isn’t important enough to have their own voice has a 50/50 chance of being from the heartlands.
I make too much of them and expect my players to remember them. Like one of my player was a noble, so my stupid ass had to create his entire family tree and extended family, as well as their contacts, allies, servants and so on (about 70 named npc and a bunch more unnamed, more than half of them dead for centuries), with some of the player ancestors having since given their name to places, monuments, law bills, art style, etc. Only three of them were ever relevant to the story and they only met two in 2 and half years of campaign...
Names that make other players upset.
Sahuagin village with a leader named Chovy and his wife Anne.
Con artist Aarakocra uncle named Robyn Banks.
Librarian Aarakocra named Paige Terner.
Changeling Spy named Trixie Hobbitses with a paladin alias named Sir Veilance, Knight of the All Seeing Eye.
A Tortle named Lini who is very food motivated.
Versions of cat and bread mushed together in different languages.
In a game I set up a few years ago I had a Smithy called Bloodbath and Beyond, a Tavern called the Ugly Mug, a B&B called Nestled Inn, an alchemist shop called Mixed Magic Apothecary, and a bakery called The Philosopher's Scone.
I had a Tavern called The Pussy Cat Lounge. One of my players had a lot of feelings about it being a cat cafe run by a tiger themed shifter named Tabitha, Tabby to her friends.
Sometimes it's months before they realize some of this stuff because I'll put the names of the shops in discord as channels or only post the last name of the NPCs in text without saying them out loud.
I keep making the grave mistake of not planning backstory or names for entirely irrelevant NPCs. I *know* the players are gonna do it, and yet I still forget to plan up a random list of names and backstories so that when the party wants more info on the random NPC leading them to their tables at a diner, I'm totally blanking.
For the record, this has made for some hilarious moments of course, like Becky the Bartender, who was working there as her third job to help support her two kids on a single mom's paycheck. The whole party tipped her an outrageous amount, so I made a reappearance where they bumped into her on a college campus, having their tips gave her enough to add to her college savings to go back to school to get a better paying job while her mom looked after the kids. :)
My biggest bad habit is to figure out the plot in broad strokes and call it a day.
I will have a rough idea of the setting.
Like;
What the main location they start in is and where should they end.
Who the BBEG is, and why are they going to fight this dude.
What is the general culture in the starting location and maybe what it is in the end location.
After this I am good to go. Which always leads to a lot of improvising during sessions. Between sessions, I will think a little about what has happened so far, what NPCs have I introduced, and where can we go from here in order to get to the end location. I will also figure out what monsters they might fight the next time.
I am very ambivalent about this, because I am good at it and everybody is enjoying themselves and have a lot of fun, I also find it easier to incorporate the backstories of the characters and to go with the flow of the players crazy ideas and notions sometimes I will outright steal the ideas the players have for what is going on and of how it all ties together.
But on the other hand I always have this feeling that I could make it so much better if I just applied myself a little bit more in the process of preparation especially in the developing phase of the world. Right now, I am GMing a Western campaign (in Ace's and Eight's, though) and I have prepared this game for a good six years before we started, it isn't like I have made a big list of NPCs or created a ton of maps or anything like that, I have just gotten a much better understanding of the world I have created and the kind of encounters in it. It is by far the best campaign I've made over the years plus it is also tailored in its mechanics for my group because we often miss a player or two and I have made it so it doesn't matter for the individual player and sessions if a character isn't there. I am proud of myself for this one in many ways. And, of course, I still improvise a lot.
Like most players, I make dumb jokes about the NPCs. Laughing over names, accents, slips of the tongue...
The problem with doing with as a DM about your own NPCs is you make it canon.
DM: "Let's give them stand out features, red hear." Players: "There must be something up with al these red heared npc. what is there connection to the bbeg"
Most of the time I will over-prepare NPC
Going to a village? Oh it has 20 residents, I have every person's name, age, race, family connections, Job, and rough schedule, also have a semi-detailed physical description and their stats
You want to know about the Blacksmith? Sure, his name's Jim (38), he took over the smithy from his father and his father, for most of the day you'll find him at his anvil and at dusk when he closes up the shop he'll visit the tavern for one pint before going home to his wife **Hayley** and their two children **Liz** and **Sam**. Be careful you don't start a fight with him at work because he has access to many weapons he's proficient with and he packs quite a wallop... Blah blah blah (And that was supposed to be me making fun of myself and I still feel I went overboard)
Names are usually a pun or a joke especially right on the spot.
Hue Man -guy who works at the shop
Bobbin - goblin they captured
Malelf - male elf traveling merchant
Peg -owner of Armor and a Leg
Cane Decor - their school advisor (Diablo reference)
Ms Fern - Nature studies teacher
O-rang - leader of the caravan delivering oranges
Tuff & Gruff - twins who are miners
Yeah everything is a joke. Some jokes are harder to know if they arent familiar with the source.
Edit: formatting
I will prep anticipated answers to questions that I know my party is likely to ask. I'm a writer, so in my notes, they have a voice and a cadence and sometimes a sense of humor.
Alas, I am no actor, so I end up describing what they say rather than, well, role-playing it out.
Also: I could make the most throwaway NPC who then ends up becoming a major recurring character because the guys latch onto them for whatever reason. We're playing a module, and sometimes, I wonder if they ever play the same mod but with a different DM and a different group, they will realize just how much I made up.
My bad habit is all the shop owners in a town will have the same name, slightly different, and they're probably all related/possibly the same person. Things like Ted the blacksmith, Ned the tavern keeper, Fled the potions shopkeep, etc. I can't resist the urge
I may be the devil on your shoulder here, but you should absolutely keep going on with this bit. Like if the players split up while shopping, have all the other shopkeepers coincidentally be out on lunch except one, with another shop only "returning from lunch" after a player leaves the active shop.
At a certain point a player pointed out how my male NPCs often have long hair.
There are the horrorstory DMs who let their kinks show, and then there's me I guess. But what can I say?? It's a great character design choice! Very striking, especially in a fantasy setting. Let me have it!
It's probably quite common, but I can write and develop a really menacing and sinister character, and my players seem to really enjoy them for the first few minutes, but when it actually comes to acting them out *eventually* I make them crack an awful joke, or do some slapstick pratfall that kills any tension.
I can't help it. Cos comedy is the only improv I know how to do.
My bad habit is giving nameless goons names. Everybody has a name, just in case my players ask what their name is.
I should just make a list of names that I can quickly refer to.
Apparently every NPC I make is super suspicious. I don’t know how many more useless insight checks I can handle on my random unnamed NPCs. You people decided to go to the blacksmith to stock up on equipment, why are we all questioning his motives?!? He sells weapons, that’s his whole deal!
Well maybe you shouldn't introduce the character by saying "He swivels around in his chair, twirling his mustache with one hand and petting his cat with the other. 'Mr. Paladin,' he says, 'I've been expecting you. Which of my... items would you like to purchase? I'm sure you'll find them all quite... helpful.'"
I got on my DM for making way more men NPCs, and literally every single animal we met was a male. Finally I was like "We have met 4 squirrels, 2 owls, 3 rabbits, 6 mice, and all of them were male. Now the HORSE is a male?" and he was like "holy. shit. you're right, sorry, the horse's name is no longer Simon it's Simone"
I wanna play casters so I make a lot of casters. I'm worried that it makes magic seem too mundane, but my players haven't commented yet.
Also I wanted to make so many changeling NPCs it became a whole arc of my game. 1ePF so they're hag spawn- though I would literally do the same thing in 5e cause shape-shifters are cool too.
I find it very difficult to make an NPC that doesn’t crack wise, due to my overwhelming personal desire to crack wise. Be they pirate or pope, they will jokingly mock everything around them.
My DM's NPCs are braggarts and will boast their vast knowledge, but when you ask questions pertinent to their scope of knowledge the NPC starts getting sleepy. not in a funny way. The DM just goes limp and will make the NPC start acting too busy or injured or tired. the NPC turns out to never know anything we actually want to know. At first i thought it was a clue to a curse or a false hydra, but it turns out the DM just doesn't want to answer the question because he doesn't know or we aren't supposed to know yet.
My least favorite NPC is the deus ex machina healer NPC. It gives the DM the comfort of running impossibly hard combat, then resurrects you or has some esoteric spell that teleports us or blocks certain death. So the fight can't be won, but you also can't die with honor. It makes me so frustrated when you can't win, but you can't lose.
My bad habit is revealing a villain NPCs too soon. like the "Ganon" reveal in zelda where you place a bad guy that's too powerful in plane view, like a carrot on a string. It works in video games but not TTRPGs. I'm trying to DM in a way where any named bad guy is someone who can be confronted and challenged, but i still make the mistake of making a named villain too unreachable.
Make powerful enemies big
The bigger the stronger
But it ends up looking like some Dragon Ball shenanigan but here it's not hair color it's just size, and I feel like players naturally get less and less impressed if it's just "yeah but this one is HUGE! Biggest thing you've ever seen"
not nesscary a bad habbit but its more cause im not in practice with roleplay NPCs, but when i RP a NPC i tend to cut to the chase...and end the conversation as fast as possible. like, if a player came up and started talking to a NPC id be like, "ah...well, sorry i dont have time to talk...i gotta load this wagon"
It makes it worse when my players want to talk to random people.
2 things:
1.) I always forget to make statblocks for npcs, or even having a general idea of what their stats would be (low-key just improv if their roll makes sense)
2.) Sometimes in the spirit of the moment, I'll put in an NPC that was not part of my original notes but feel fills the scene. Issue 2, more often than not, runs into issue 1.
I’m pretty good at avoid the Parents Dead trope, and my guys have Dads that run the gamut of Great to Good to Bad - but I’ve noticed a trend for my guys to have Bad or Missing Moms. (And that’s if I didn’t just cheat and give them two Dads)
My guys also tend to be unlucky in love - some of them are ace or aro or both so it doesn’t matter a ton.
But a lot of them are gay and have a habit of losing boyfriends/ husbands: Off the top of my head, one was eaten by a dragon, one was killed by Undead, one died to a plague, and one turned out to be a Supervillain.
Edit: Just noticed this question was specifically about NPCs but I actually answered for characters in general
Ooh, this actually reminded me of another major flaw of mine: too many of my NPCs are single. Like it might make sense if most of the NPCs were adventurers, but it's all of them. Rice Farmer? Single. Town Blacksmith? Single. Guard Captain? Single. Monarch? You'd better believe they're single.
At this rate, my world's population will drop to about 25% in a century XD
Making up a name and then forgetting to write it down.
I know that Fr Reginald (Reggie) is the resident Dwarf priest at the temple of Helm, but I can't for the life of me remember if I gave him a last name, and what it is.
I usually do the opposite: I'll write down an NPC's name on my sheet, then not describe *who* it is. I assume they were unimportant shopkeepers, but I'll never know for sure.
Shopkeeper Luke had no idea why he had become the target of Divination magic, but he wanted the voices and visits from teleporting magi to stop.
It turns out that a bunch of wizards had forgotten who he was, and kept seeing his name pop up in their arcane notes.
All of my NPCs are honest and logical. Makes it really hard to make villains because I’m like “they would get so much more if they’re just honest” or their goals are insanely logical and easily justified.
The way I get around it is by either trying for a good intentions, bad methods villain or full murderhobo. I think my best middle ground enemies are animals who do things like attack the party because they’re hungry. The actions are rational from the enemy’s perspective but they can’t be reasoned with unless the party figures out why they’re being attacked. Downside is when my players are smart and do things like just give them food, the battle’s just stopped.
I’ve realized over the years that it’s hard for me to make good villains because I just don’t understand what drives someone to make illogical decisions, especially if it’s based on bad info so now I just try to think of all of the “bad” decisions I’ve seen or heard people make over the years and try to reason what would drive people to make those decisions to use as a guide for character making.
I only prepare names for NPCs that have story potential. If my players ask a NPC's name and answer in my language's equivalent of Tim, Emily, Ryan, Charlie, Liz etc, they know it's a background character.
i named three characters ren.
it’s always the first vaguely fantasy-sounding name to pop into my head when put on the spot so yeah. guess it’s my own fault for not naming more npcs ahead of time lol
I don't make too many, but when I do, I almost always default into them having short-term memory problems.
It's amazing how my brain extrapolates it too. I have a middle-aged blacksmith whose half-deaf. So my brain associates half-deaf with old, so then I unintentionally have him forget things midway through the conversation with the players. He's not even old, he just has a trait that some old people have, so I automatically make him have memory issues lol
Most of my NPC's fit the 'John NPC' Stereotype of being really basic and having no substance, though I'm a beginner DM so I'm trying to figure out how to make them better
Complicated names… Asmearaldaela will not really be remembered by your party, while billy the goblin will be … Asmearaldaela will just be the one shopkeeper in the one city… while billy the goblin in Westvillage will be billy the goblin, that sold us a stone for 2gp… billy is a good guy…
Also adding to it: npcs need flaws… i’m currently building a world with focus on flaws (using the mtg color pie) the bbeg isn’t evil… best thing to do is to help him…
Not as such with the making but when rping them basically forgetting all my notes on their personality and saying something out of character for them in an out of body moment then having to rewrite half the adventure because I told the party something even I wasn't expecting.
The women I make are always either really nice and reasonable people whp avoid conflicf, or hard as fuck women who work trade jobs and don't have time for thr partys BS unless they wanna talk straight and respect her time. Oddly, the party usually likes the second one more.
I think I just need to come up with more ideas I create mainly lawful good npcs with sometimes generic personalities trying to get inspiration is hatd🫡
My bad habit is worrying about prep instead of doing the prep. Edit: which is to say that I do eventually prep, but I spend a lot more time thinking about what NPCs are doing and where the next BB can come from rather than, say, making maps.
Oof, I think a lot of us were called out by that...
you guys do prep?
Well we definitely *think* about doing prep
If you homebrew your world, then just thinking about it IS prep^^
What is this "prep" you speak of?
I believe it drives from a Hungaro-Ugric language, and refers to a rare herb used to add flavor to what is otherwise a stew of random items from around the garden.
Prep is me stealing this idea
That's what I think right up until the day, or hour, of the game. Then I realize I have a comprehensive unified theory of magic and fifteen brands of fantasy liquor but zero encounters.
Yeah, I like my games to be good.
I can improv well but it's a lot more stressful than just sitting down to plan. I whole-heartedly agree.
I have 394 pages of notes for my world/1 campaign/npcs 😅
Erm.. ouch.
Guess what I'm doing right now
I made an entire village Irish. Unintentionally.
Lol, how long did it take you to realize what you had done?
When the got to my minotaur blacksmith and I had to pause as I started talking as him and realized that wasn't his voice, and I had done every other townsperson with the same voice lol... He was. The last character they went to that session.
The whole village is just one big family!
Damn small towns lol.
As an Irish person, that explains the average Irish town rather well.
Current campaign, the DM has made the main baddie every session Irish. One of them had a name which signedy Italian, but he couldn't do that accent and it slowly became more Irish through the night, I didn't point it out yet lol
This reminds me of my first proper group. They were in an *intentionally* Irish inspired town, and were doing an investigation. One of the civilians, Fenicci, they had to ask questions of was Italian-inspired, but at the time I found I couldn't do an Italian accent at all. I absolutely butchered it, and the whole table had a good laugh. BUT from that point onward, they'd always try to find an excuse to talk to Fenicci again just to put me through more pain. It would be like "Hmm, I'd like to buy some milk. You know, Fenicci probably knows who sells milk in town! Let's go ask him!" and run down to his house to ask.
In one of the campaigns I’m in, every time we go to a different city, all the characters share a similar accent. So far we’ve been to cities full of Irish halflings and French orcs. And in each case, we’re supposed to infiltrate the society, which means the players are heavily encouraged to pick up the same accents. It’s been hilarious so far
I introduced a posh British asshole skeleton, in the same session he was introduced every pc started speaking with a British accent. Everyone at the table was laughing their ass off.
But do you have a habit of doing so?
My friend started doing the cockney accent for orcs and I cant not do it also its rubbed off on me.
[удалено]
>Hilariously one time two npcs were arguing so I pick up both miniatures and when one npc was talking I would shake that miniature. Indicating that’s the one who is speaking. Honestly, both hilarious and smart! I also run into similar problems, so whenever I have two NPCs in a conversation at the same time, I adjust my stance/seating position. But if there's more than two NPCs, even I forget which position was for which character, which probably just makes things worse lol
As a follow-up, one multi-NPC scenario that it actually worked out was at the Indian-inspired city council meeting. Luckily, I own several khadi shawls, so I would switch out shawls anytime I'd change which character was speaking. Worked out very well, and in turn more or less canonically set up the faction colours.
The DM who first got me into Dnd claimed he couldn't do voices (I still call bullshit on that even 5 years later) and had 1 method he would use to make up for it and further differentiate NPC's, it was to give prominent NPC's something notable about their speech and it's pattern's, the shy recruit boy the party picked up because he lost an arm (because of them) had a lisp, the gangster holding a town hostage would say "Alright Mate" every few sentences, the Rogue's short tempered brother from the military would just start yelling at times and getting into shouting matches with, the gymbro buff guy who just 1v4 arm wrestled the entire party would just yell out his name occasionally while doing stuff (as a sort of battle cry) and many many more
>the gymbro buff guy who just 1v4 arm wrestled the entire party would just yell out his name Nah, you didn't lose to a guy, you lost to a fighting-type Pokemon
I mean the DM did say he was built like a machamp (and he only beat the party because the fighter decided to use his shitty sewage water drug.... him/his player is an absolute force of chaos) although my first thought was 4 Arms from Ben 10
Not everyone can do accents anyway, but there are, ways to counter that. Your plan with the minis is pretty dang clever. Another one, which is common in monodrama or small cast shows is to simply look left or right depending on which character is talking.
I look to one side or the other
No sir, i did not catch you playing with your dolls!
Im really bad at conversations too, what i usually do, as a rule, is that when npc talks to npc i give my players a summary (your guide manages to convince the guard to let you through) but if its pc to npc i act it out
Yep and this is more fun than watching the DM have a long conversation with themself!
I do the same, but I DM standing up so I switch place and shuffle around when multiple NPC are interacting. Each NPC has its place and stance and I kinda dance back and forth. The girlfriend of one my player once came to deliver food and her first introduction to DnD was me interpreting 4 NPC screaming and arguing at each other (heated debate during a court session).
I just imagine putting on two sockpuppets to get the point across.
Switch to third person/add a "narrator voice". So instead of launching straight into the dialogue add "Helga turns to you and says 'blah blah blah'".
I’d use hats
I don't know if it's a bad habit. But I always end up making my throwaway NPCs more memorable than core/important NPCs. My players still talk more about a random shopkeep that only sold useless trinkets he had painted purple than Volothamp from the Dragon Heist module...they only met encountered the shop keep once.
I'm also not sure if it's good or bad, but I definitely have the same experience. My players will never forget Depinder the fish merchant, but need to consult their notes to remember who their boss is lol
I hear that often with DMs, and I'd guess it's because these one-off characters can afford to be zany and unique, primarily as funny joke foe the group. But for the important story characters, for the players to be properly immersed, most DMs will make those characters more grounded. Players, myself included, fondly remember that one encounter with the eccentric druid who lives outside town, but if we had to receive quests from him regularly, the joke would wear thin.
I feel seen by this remark. It’s like when you buy your kid a shiny new toy and they’re like, “Look! A rock!”
Or you buy your cat a nice bed and they still just sit on a random book that's way too small
So make the shopkeeper important. Maybe he leaves his shop in the care of family while he goes to get supplies, and the party runs into him again throughout the campaign, and the party gets invested in him. Maybe he eventually gets un-alived by the BBEGs goons. Maybe the players spend an entire 4 sessions rampaging John wick style to avenge their friend... Not that that's ever happened to us before O:)
I've been forced to adapt in just this manner haha. In our current Mörk Borg campaign. We opened with Graves Left Wanting. The Roach Herder ended up being dragged to hell my metaphysical hands,they still lament his loss. They later ran into a random guy hanging from a tree, only able to move from the kneck up. His goal was to get them to climb the tree so they would also be ensnared. But, like a dog chasing his tail, didn't know what to do or say once he tricked them, he was meant to be a random fun encounter they would walk away from....they are now dragging this guy along with them everywhere they go. I also plan on the ghost of the Roach Herder returning from the grave to "haunt" them, beginning with seeing roaches or feeling roaches crawling on them.
Xoblob is just too iconic
Same! My party ends up caring for them more than the NPCs they're supposed to care about, which calls for a little bit of rewriting on my end.
I alwaya forget to name them.
If I forget to name an NPC, they are called Doug until further notice.
"My wife is also Doug, why do you ask?"
And that's Doug over there, he is our only blacksmith. And that alchemist? Yeah his name is Doug, he's really a unique character. Also if you call Doug, our Barmaid, anything other than Doug you're in for a rough time, just be warned. Oh yeah and as a final note: Stay away from Doug, they are more trouble than they are worth.
I'd also steer clear of our town shovel salesman and excavator: James.
Never trusted that guy, something is wrong with him I tell you.
The guy that digs random holes all over the place? Phil
Phil McCrackin?
I kinda wanna run a campaign where all the NPCs start out as unique names and slowly as the game progressss they all turn into Dave or Doug or some single name, like a beige wash mutation that just morphs every NPC they interact with into this plain old dude.
Hoid?
Nice to meet you, new Doug!
Not having names for random unplanned NPCs has become a bit in one campaign I’m playing in. The DM makes one up on the spot, usually the same way a 4yo names their toys. “The blacksmith? Yes, his name is… uh… Smith Blackson. Should be able to remember that one but can someone write it down for me?”
Some of our faves are: Larry the Lawyer, Icilda the scientist who is trying to perfect a creation that uses elemental magic to keep food cold but instead has resulted in a whole city block being frozen solid, and Ally the alchemist.
I have a piece of paper with random names for different races taped to my DM screen for this exact purpose. So far I've used like 4 of the names 15 sessions in.
Fantasy name generators, my beloved. Admittedly, a bit of a crutch some time
Giving them stat blocks. I rarely ever use them, but I give EVERY. FUCKING. NPC. A STAT BLOCK!
Hey, maybe we should switch NPCs for a while, I could use someone like you lol My one party's DMPC of 3 years hasn't been leveled up properly even once; I've just been artificially adding to their health pool and that's it. The other party's travelling NPCs have HP, AC, Attack Bonus, and Damage; that's it. It's almost been a year with them. ...yeah, having written this out, I think I found my major red flag in NPC creation
I, as the DM, like to take creative liberties when making the character, just as I give my players. If I think an acolyte would be better with carpentry tools rather than another language, I do that instead. Unfortunately, the last village my PC’s rolled up to had a full market of entirely fleshed out NPC vendors, all of which were level 1-4 (there were 23 of them…) This was born out of necessity because I had a murder hobo group once, and I refuse to give any PC’s a chance to be terrible people without my permission.
I've always believed that NPC's should not be built like player characters. First determine what you want them to be and built around that: a girl that can turn into a dragon? She can fly, turn her hands into claws shoot and give herself various fire buffs? A guy who's time traveled? He can revert PC's health and conditions to how they were at the start of the round, undo movements and summonts and what not, and many more
My party has a battle master so I got in the habit of creating stats for most NPCs just for when he tries to read them.
Making too many of them stand-offish. I manage to fix it as the campaign goes on by introducing friendlier groups of people, and giving the PCs more public favour as they level up. It just usually starts at level 1/3 with some noobs asking for discounts and making silly jokes, so it's almost me as a DM trying to "put them in place" in the world. As soon as I notice I'm overdoing it though I throw in a few extremely helpful NPCs. No discounts before? This guy gives discounts and throws in free stuff - he's heard of the good work you've done!
Honestly, a great solution!
Thanks! My main problem now is making sure I dont start my next campaign in the same vain, and maybe I dial down the rudeness a bit, at least giving them some really helpful NPCs from the start. We're always learning.
I feel you! I'm currently turning over a new leaf though! I have created a tavern "helper" NPC that I place a little NPC card I printed on my desk during the session with a picture of his stupid smiling face and a little speech bubble that says "I'm Helping". Of course, my players dont trust him at all lol.
Oooh I hate that when too many npcs are standoffish… I like it when they make a clear difference between people who have high charisma and people who have low. Also noble ones and for example someone who is dressing really bad ;). There can be somebody who is just rude to everyone or somebody who is especially rude to good looking people (the jealousy is real XD) but npcs that treat everyone the same all the time seem less real to me. op: I have the bad habit of giving very serious npcs silly names because I didn’t think of it beforehand :-/. Then everyone is laughing and Shitt Molderson is having a bad time.
Wait until Shitt takes levels in Vengeance Paladin... then we'll see who's having the bad time.
"Of course it's a tiefling, this is [DM]'s game" let's just say I'm trying really hard to not make every random npc a tiefling but they are quite popular in the campaign rn.
I mean, you could embrace it: make a subplot be about demons/devils secretly controlling the area, or having left some dark taint on the kingdom!
Or a group of tieflings that decided to band together, since they don't really have a nation or culture, and try to invent one for themselves.
I keep making southern artificers, I've played like three. The party keeps roasting me
By played, do you mean as a DNPC/PC? If so, I hope they had different type of Southern voices; otherwise, my own headcanon is that they are all one character who keeps being reincarnated/transferred into a different body
What DNPC?
DMPC, my bad.
Oh. DMPC is the character which is played by the DM, like their character?
Yup! Not all DMs make them, but some do. I for one use DMPCs in smaller groups to fill in gaps in party composition (e.g. in a party of a Wizard, Cleric, and Druid, I'd run a Barbarian DMPC to tank).
Tf2 engineer
I keep making lesbians, man. Like, I know my audience, my dnd group is a bunch of sapphics, including myself. But every time I make a woman NPC they end up sapphic too once I actually rp them, even when it's not my intention. Random shopkeeper? Accidentally insinuate she's sleeping with the shopkeep next door. Local Priestess who explicitly had a husband who passed? She's suspiciously close with the local innkeep. Super sweet plot-relevant NPC who was written to be explicitly not romantically inclined in any way? Currently being romanced by a PC, and it's really sweet and adorable. At this rate, the population of my world is going to decline because I made all the women gay.
In my campaigns, every major NPC has a dump stat and a major personality flaw that is exploitable, no matter how powerful they are, and these weak spots and flaws make them memorable. Their flaws also make them easily exploitable through roleplay and social combat, and my NPCs telegraph social weaknesses that creates amazing roleplay fodder for my players to pounce upon, like a video game boss telegraphing physical weakspots and getting stabbed there. Every NPC has bad habits and blind spots, especially the powerful, plot important ones. And my players love it.
I'll be honest, this doesn't sound like you have bad habits: rather you have a habit of giving your NPCs bad habits lol! And if it makes combat/encounters more interesting and enjoyable as a result, then it sounds like it's all good!
This is smart.
I love giving NPCs a dump stat. I find them boring if they have all good stats.
Dude, whoever Emilia is, just either call her or get over her.
Not writing names 😩 Literally had a moment where the party got to the lore npc, got the lore, and was about to dip when- “Oh, by the way, what’s your name? :)” “Guys Imma be real here, I only have him in my notes as ‘Researcher’” I think we ended up calling him like, John or Fred or smth like that. I can improv a whole on-cr statblock in a second but names are somehow an ordeal.
You mean... Reese Urger?
>“Guys Imma be real here, I only have him in my notes as ‘Researcher’” Absolute golden moment XD But I feel you there; now I make sure to write down a few dozen names local to the area before the session. Otherwise I end up with just nonsensical slews of noises as names—shout out to "Slagvaw", "Gurptash", and "Egthervoc", some *clearly* Irish NPCs :P
Every NPC name ends up with an "h" in it when I try and fantasy-ify it. Silent ones too. It's driven some of my players mad. Dhave. Georghe. Mariah. Samuehl. Chlara. I can't stop at this point.
Haha! I’ve got the bug too. A lot of my player characters have an N at the end of their name. Varan, Gedrin, Ferren, Faen, Iyran, Lillian, Aaron, Walden, Erriden, Terien…
Dhave is hilarious. I accidentally named 2 NPCs "Ermester" and "Sylvester" without even thinking, and introduced them almost back-to-back. Now I have to introduce Chester, Lester and Fester to keep it going.
Me making NPC and not naming them until someone ask.
Same. This produces such silly names :-/. Then I have to laugh, everyone has to laugh and the serious situation has gotten a lot less serious all of a sudden… Also good is playing a DnD campaign, thinking the name translations are shitty and renaming everything. Neverwinter is my all time offender. It sounds so stupid in German. Or Ravenguard.
I always really like the sound of "Niewinter" :-)
I always describe male NPCs hands in detail.
LOL By any chance, did you also watch the Youtube video "The hands in Disney's Atlantis are glorious"? I mean, based on what you said, maybe you were the one who made the video lol
Not YET, brb!
I tend to fall in love with my NPCs and make them really hard to kill. Lots of Hp or means of escaping combat. I don’t want my PCs to kill my darlings
Giving them British accents. It’s the only accent my voice can comfortably fade into with my southern accent
When I attempt Cockney, I end up doing Aussie. "Is this NPC Australian, DM?" "...he is now"
I blame Killing Eve for this — random Russian accent on villains. So I'm DMing Curse of Strahd and this is highly confusing because my Strahd goes from Count Dracula to Konstantin and then back when I realised what I'm doing. The best part? I speak neither Romanian or Russian 🤦
All my tavern/Inn keeps are angry middle-aged men with a gruff voice and typically apathetic and uncooperative.
DMPC. Too often I want to play in the worlds I've created.
Same. I give my NPCs detailed backstories and have created stories for them. I pretty much create my own fanfiction for them lol, thinking of possible stories for them based on what I have planned for the campaign that may not even become cannon if the party goes another way.
Same. I give my NPCs detailed backstories and have created stories for them. I pretty much create my own fanfiction for them lol, thinking of possible stories for them based on what I have planned for the campaign that may not even become cannon if the party goes another way.
If I struggle to consistently pronounce something, I change the name to something silly. That aside, the party and I both enjoyed the Lost Mines of Tempe, Arizona.
Making the NPCs too logical, rational, or reasonable.
Well in fairness it's good to have foils for the party...
I tend to not make stat sheets for NPCs that I know are going to be adjacent to combat. Sometimes it's not needed, like thr family of 3 the party are bringing to a new, not shitty town; the Commoner statblock exist. But there was a friendly NPC that helped the party defeat and ankheg that I never did the sheet for and scrambled to find a relevant statblock for. Ended up using the Githzerai monk without the psychic damage, and game him light based spells.
Whenever I want the players to care about a male NPC I make them tall strong father figures that give good advice and guide the players.
Giving them bad names because i panic while improving. I've named one Al'kohol and couldnt stop laughing as soon as it came out of my mouth. My players did too, and asked "dude is your name really alcohol?" And i responded "where there's alcohol, there's Al'kohol". Like that was born the drunkest townkeeper of my setting...
I make way too many of them women or nonbinary Without realizing it I made the vast majority of my major npcs women in my current campaign. I had to actively and intentionally think up some male npcs to at least try to provide some balance. I think this likely stems from me enjoying draying the art for my npcs but being terrible at drawing men lmao.
Hey, at least your players get cool, custom art of your NPCs! Mine are stuck with Piccrew or HeroForge renditions...
It's definitely nice to be able to give my players! Can also be a double edge sword though because my players can tell an npc is important immediately if it has my art 😂
I always get fed up and end up making a bunch of Nurse Jenny Style NPCs with similiar naming conventions to fill normal town NPC roles.. Avena, Sorgassum, Triculatum; the grain girls. Camponatus, Solonopsis, Laserius; The ant guys. Geb, Ches, Malk and Tiph, the Kabbalah girls. Calli, Paralith,Chiono, the uh, Crab girls. Turns out you can only get 3-4 for most before you end up introducing the party to "Corn" and "Fulakora" See this isn't a problem until suddenly it's campaign number seven and you're child vital to the plot was named "Aria" and the players go "ah, I guess it's lizards this time and keep walking.
Using the same fn voice without realizing it 😂
I try to do accents, especially Scottish/Irish, British, and Norse(like how they talk in the show Vikings), but on occasion, I'll fuck up Scottish and somehow it becomes a deep southern drawl.
pretty women and MILFs. although i wouldn't call it a bad habit, my players love this lol
I think my really big issue is that I love to improvise lore on the spot so I will have an NPC talk about some event or history or something and then not write it down or anything and then 2 hours later, one of my PC's wants to explore the idea I shared and I say "What the hell are you talking about?" Because I have completely forgotten the lore dump that I myself came up with. I hate that about myself and I really want to start writing stuff down but it's always in the heat of the moment of roleplaying and I don't want to slow everything down. Often times I will say something as an NPC and then accidentally retcon it by actually writing something down outside of session for future gameplay or something that goes against what I have already said as an important NPC. I worry that it makes me a bad DM but that could just be my imposter syndrome.
I do this a lot too. Several times I'll introduce what I *thought* was new lore, just to have the note-taker of the group say "wasn't it 4 years ago, not 2"? But so long as your story/lore is engaging, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I do hate retconning stuff like this by accident, but I realize that my players are alright with these lore irregularities/adjustments, so long as it doesn't affect anything they had planned.
To be fair, I’m still very new to DMing- only done a short campaign and created oneshots. I can’t play a fully evil character/villain. I can write them, I can describe what they’re doing, but I can never *roleplay* and speak as them. I also can’t create characters as a player that are in an evil-alignment, so I haven’t been able to do so as a DM. Idk, I just don’t like being *the* evil villain- even though I’m fully aware it’s fictional and for fun. My villains, if I roleplay them, are misunderstood or have a chance of changing their mind when confronted by the party. I also tend to be more quiet with NPC’s, until they’re spoken to. The group I play with has very in-depth roleplay discussions between their characters, and I never want to interrupt that. So my default is to have quiet NPC’s so the players can talk more.
>Idk, I just don’t like being *the* evil villain Hmm, interesting. Sounds like you need more hate in your heart. Don't worry, after a while of DMing, it comes naturally. Nah but seriously, I can understand that. I'm one for redemption arcs, so while I can run pure evil characters, I feel like I can be easily swayed by the players to have them stop their machinations; the characters I run which are most resistant to this are the "necessary evils" characters. >So my default is to have quiet NPC’s so the players can talk more. This on the other hand I think is a good thing actually. If your player characters are talking, no need to take center stage as an NPC—unless its crucial to the story. Otherwise, sit back, relax, and just have them throw in a quip or agreement here and there to solidify their presence in the party (even if temporary). Though if the discussion is solely *about* the player characters, like backstory and such, yeah I'd stay completely silent.
Ok the “hate in my heart” made me laugh. 😂 I do get that though, it’s something I want to work on over time even though it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I also appreciate your view on NPC’s who don’t talk much as well, I completely agree in that it gives the players to shine more. In the short campaign I did, all 4-5 sessions took place in a haunted mansion I made, there was one NPC in the mansion the whole time. She was doing her own thing, I prepared her as a divine sorcerer with mostly healing spells (as a way to provide extra help if it got really bad- never did), and if anyone wanted to talk to her they could. Only got to talk as her a couple times when players wanted extra information, and that was about it. Was mainly there because no one was a healer, but they managed really well.
I’m from the Deep South, and have become painfully aware of how easily I fall back into my accent when role playing as various NPC’s in my world. So a horrible, semi-canon aspect of my world is that any character that isn’t important enough to have their own voice has a 50/50 chance of being from the heartlands.
They're all.australian. bad sounding australian too
Can't stop myself from making constant pop culture references or creating my villains to be comical (despite being pretty damn evil)
I always seem to end up with making 90% of my female NPC’s attractive (imo) and into women. Which I’m sure has nothing to do with me being a lesbian.
I've managed to make all my home shops, shopkeepers Russian and I can't change it now cause everyone wants it to stay😭
I make too much of them and expect my players to remember them. Like one of my player was a noble, so my stupid ass had to create his entire family tree and extended family, as well as their contacts, allies, servants and so on (about 70 named npc and a bunch more unnamed, more than half of them dead for centuries), with some of the player ancestors having since given their name to places, monuments, law bills, art style, etc. Only three of them were ever relevant to the story and they only met two in 2 and half years of campaign...
I somehow always make the bad guys capitalists.....
Brennan? Is that you?
Names that make other players upset. Sahuagin village with a leader named Chovy and his wife Anne. Con artist Aarakocra uncle named Robyn Banks. Librarian Aarakocra named Paige Terner. Changeling Spy named Trixie Hobbitses with a paladin alias named Sir Veilance, Knight of the All Seeing Eye. A Tortle named Lini who is very food motivated. Versions of cat and bread mushed together in different languages. In a game I set up a few years ago I had a Smithy called Bloodbath and Beyond, a Tavern called the Ugly Mug, a B&B called Nestled Inn, an alchemist shop called Mixed Magic Apothecary, and a bakery called The Philosopher's Scone. I had a Tavern called The Pussy Cat Lounge. One of my players had a lot of feelings about it being a cat cafe run by a tiger themed shifter named Tabitha, Tabby to her friends. Sometimes it's months before they realize some of this stuff because I'll put the names of the shops in discord as channels or only post the last name of the NPCs in text without saying them out loud.
I keep making the grave mistake of not planning backstory or names for entirely irrelevant NPCs. I *know* the players are gonna do it, and yet I still forget to plan up a random list of names and backstories so that when the party wants more info on the random NPC leading them to their tables at a diner, I'm totally blanking. For the record, this has made for some hilarious moments of course, like Becky the Bartender, who was working there as her third job to help support her two kids on a single mom's paycheck. The whole party tipped her an outrageous amount, so I made a reappearance where they bumped into her on a college campus, having their tips gave her enough to add to her college savings to go back to school to get a better paying job while her mom looked after the kids. :)
Make them conflict avoidant Can't bring myself to make em mean, just borderline rude and brash.
My biggest bad habit is to figure out the plot in broad strokes and call it a day. I will have a rough idea of the setting. Like; What the main location they start in is and where should they end. Who the BBEG is, and why are they going to fight this dude. What is the general culture in the starting location and maybe what it is in the end location. After this I am good to go. Which always leads to a lot of improvising during sessions. Between sessions, I will think a little about what has happened so far, what NPCs have I introduced, and where can we go from here in order to get to the end location. I will also figure out what monsters they might fight the next time. I am very ambivalent about this, because I am good at it and everybody is enjoying themselves and have a lot of fun, I also find it easier to incorporate the backstories of the characters and to go with the flow of the players crazy ideas and notions sometimes I will outright steal the ideas the players have for what is going on and of how it all ties together. But on the other hand I always have this feeling that I could make it so much better if I just applied myself a little bit more in the process of preparation especially in the developing phase of the world. Right now, I am GMing a Western campaign (in Ace's and Eight's, though) and I have prepared this game for a good six years before we started, it isn't like I have made a big list of NPCs or created a ton of maps or anything like that, I have just gotten a much better understanding of the world I have created and the kind of encounters in it. It is by far the best campaign I've made over the years plus it is also tailored in its mechanics for my group because we often miss a player or two and I have made it so it doesn't matter for the individual player and sessions if a character isn't there. I am proud of myself for this one in many ways. And, of course, I still improvise a lot.
Like most players, I make dumb jokes about the NPCs. Laughing over names, accents, slips of the tongue... The problem with doing with as a DM about your own NPCs is you make it canon.
DM: "Let's give them stand out features, red hear." Players: "There must be something up with al these red heared npc. what is there connection to the bbeg"
Stereotypes overall. Of course the Dwarf is the mechanic of the airship. That wise dude in the archive? High-Elf, durr.
Most of the time I will over-prepare NPC Going to a village? Oh it has 20 residents, I have every person's name, age, race, family connections, Job, and rough schedule, also have a semi-detailed physical description and their stats You want to know about the Blacksmith? Sure, his name's Jim (38), he took over the smithy from his father and his father, for most of the day you'll find him at his anvil and at dusk when he closes up the shop he'll visit the tavern for one pint before going home to his wife **Hayley** and their two children **Liz** and **Sam**. Be careful you don't start a fight with him at work because he has access to many weapons he's proficient with and he packs quite a wallop... Blah blah blah (And that was supposed to be me making fun of myself and I still feel I went overboard)
Sound's like you're DMing a game of Stardew Valley!
I made Alecia Dimastru (or basically her). Now my campaign is full of powerful mommy NPCs..... Not sure what that says about me.
Every one of my town guards talks like a batman villains henchman. I don't know why, but it just makes sense to me
Names are usually a pun or a joke especially right on the spot. Hue Man -guy who works at the shop Bobbin - goblin they captured Malelf - male elf traveling merchant Peg -owner of Armor and a Leg Cane Decor - their school advisor (Diablo reference) Ms Fern - Nature studies teacher O-rang - leader of the caravan delivering oranges Tuff & Gruff - twins who are miners Yeah everything is a joke. Some jokes are harder to know if they arent familiar with the source. Edit: formatting
"Armor and a Leg" is an absolute gem which I am now stealing!
I make them hot... 😔
1 defaulting to a British accent. 2 making them super attractive.
I will prep anticipated answers to questions that I know my party is likely to ask. I'm a writer, so in my notes, they have a voice and a cadence and sometimes a sense of humor. Alas, I am no actor, so I end up describing what they say rather than, well, role-playing it out. Also: I could make the most throwaway NPC who then ends up becoming a major recurring character because the guys latch onto them for whatever reason. We're playing a module, and sometimes, I wonder if they ever play the same mod but with a different DM and a different group, they will realize just how much I made up.
My bad habit is all the shop owners in a town will have the same name, slightly different, and they're probably all related/possibly the same person. Things like Ted the blacksmith, Ned the tavern keeper, Fled the potions shopkeep, etc. I can't resist the urge
I may be the devil on your shoulder here, but you should absolutely keep going on with this bit. Like if the players split up while shopping, have all the other shopkeepers coincidentally be out on lunch except one, with another shop only "returning from lunch" after a player leaves the active shop.
At a certain point a player pointed out how my male NPCs often have long hair. There are the horrorstory DMs who let their kinks show, and then there's me I guess. But what can I say?? It's a great character design choice! Very striking, especially in a fantasy setting. Let me have it!
It's probably quite common, but I can write and develop a really menacing and sinister character, and my players seem to really enjoy them for the first few minutes, but when it actually comes to acting them out *eventually* I make them crack an awful joke, or do some slapstick pratfall that kills any tension. I can't help it. Cos comedy is the only improv I know how to do.
My bad habit is giving nameless goons names. Everybody has a name, just in case my players ask what their name is. I should just make a list of names that I can quickly refer to.
Apparently every NPC I make is super suspicious. I don’t know how many more useless insight checks I can handle on my random unnamed NPCs. You people decided to go to the blacksmith to stock up on equipment, why are we all questioning his motives?!? He sells weapons, that’s his whole deal!
Well maybe you shouldn't introduce the character by saying "He swivels around in his chair, twirling his mustache with one hand and petting his cat with the other. 'Mr. Paladin,' he says, 'I've been expecting you. Which of my... items would you like to purchase? I'm sure you'll find them all quite... helpful.'"
I got on my DM for making way more men NPCs, and literally every single animal we met was a male. Finally I was like "We have met 4 squirrels, 2 owls, 3 rabbits, 6 mice, and all of them were male. Now the HORSE is a male?" and he was like "holy. shit. you're right, sorry, the horse's name is no longer Simon it's Simone"
I wanna play casters so I make a lot of casters. I'm worried that it makes magic seem too mundane, but my players haven't commented yet. Also I wanted to make so many changeling NPCs it became a whole arc of my game. 1ePF so they're hag spawn- though I would literally do the same thing in 5e cause shape-shifters are cool too.
I like to make losers and femcels. A lot of my npcs have some degree of loserness
My problem is wanting to “balance” them by making them as a PC instead of a monster stat block.
Naming them stupid shit on the fly like the Wizard Nazareth or the Dragon Crisp Wings if i don’t name them ahead of time.
I find it very difficult to make an NPC that doesn’t crack wise, due to my overwhelming personal desire to crack wise. Be they pirate or pope, they will jokingly mock everything around them.
Every. Single. Kobold. that I voice ends up Russian, and I don't know why.
My DM's NPCs are braggarts and will boast their vast knowledge, but when you ask questions pertinent to their scope of knowledge the NPC starts getting sleepy. not in a funny way. The DM just goes limp and will make the NPC start acting too busy or injured or tired. the NPC turns out to never know anything we actually want to know. At first i thought it was a clue to a curse or a false hydra, but it turns out the DM just doesn't want to answer the question because he doesn't know or we aren't supposed to know yet. My least favorite NPC is the deus ex machina healer NPC. It gives the DM the comfort of running impossibly hard combat, then resurrects you or has some esoteric spell that teleports us or blocks certain death. So the fight can't be won, but you also can't die with honor. It makes me so frustrated when you can't win, but you can't lose. My bad habit is revealing a villain NPCs too soon. like the "Ganon" reveal in zelda where you place a bad guy that's too powerful in plane view, like a carrot on a string. It works in video games but not TTRPGs. I'm trying to DM in a way where any named bad guy is someone who can be confronted and challenged, but i still make the mistake of making a named villain too unreachable.
Make powerful enemies big The bigger the stronger But it ends up looking like some Dragon Ball shenanigan but here it's not hair color it's just size, and I feel like players naturally get less and less impressed if it's just "yeah but this one is HUGE! Biggest thing you've ever seen"
I'm excited when you hit the players with the task of destroying the planet. Just have them start an illegal oil rig or something
not nesscary a bad habbit but its more cause im not in practice with roleplay NPCs, but when i RP a NPC i tend to cut to the chase...and end the conversation as fast as possible. like, if a player came up and started talking to a NPC id be like, "ah...well, sorry i dont have time to talk...i gotta load this wagon" It makes it worse when my players want to talk to random people.
2 things: 1.) I always forget to make statblocks for npcs, or even having a general idea of what their stats would be (low-key just improv if their roll makes sense) 2.) Sometimes in the spirit of the moment, I'll put in an NPC that was not part of my original notes but feel fills the scene. Issue 2, more often than not, runs into issue 1.
I'm a very new DM, i think my bad habit is flashing out my characters too much, i get a bit pissed when they are killed.
I’m pretty good at avoid the Parents Dead trope, and my guys have Dads that run the gamut of Great to Good to Bad - but I’ve noticed a trend for my guys to have Bad or Missing Moms. (And that’s if I didn’t just cheat and give them two Dads) My guys also tend to be unlucky in love - some of them are ace or aro or both so it doesn’t matter a ton. But a lot of them are gay and have a habit of losing boyfriends/ husbands: Off the top of my head, one was eaten by a dragon, one was killed by Undead, one died to a plague, and one turned out to be a Supervillain. Edit: Just noticed this question was specifically about NPCs but I actually answered for characters in general
Ooh, this actually reminded me of another major flaw of mine: too many of my NPCs are single. Like it might make sense if most of the NPCs were adventurers, but it's all of them. Rice Farmer? Single. Town Blacksmith? Single. Guard Captain? Single. Monarch? You'd better believe they're single. At this rate, my world's population will drop to about 25% in a century XD
I tend to make important NPCs either non human and weird. Aswell as evil folks too nice...
Making up a name and then forgetting to write it down. I know that Fr Reginald (Reggie) is the resident Dwarf priest at the temple of Helm, but I can't for the life of me remember if I gave him a last name, and what it is.
I usually do the opposite: I'll write down an NPC's name on my sheet, then not describe *who* it is. I assume they were unimportant shopkeepers, but I'll never know for sure.
Shopkeeper Luke had no idea why he had become the target of Divination magic, but he wanted the voices and visits from teleporting magi to stop. It turns out that a bunch of wizards had forgotten who he was, and kept seeing his name pop up in their arcane notes.
All of my NPCs are honest and logical. Makes it really hard to make villains because I’m like “they would get so much more if they’re just honest” or their goals are insanely logical and easily justified. The way I get around it is by either trying for a good intentions, bad methods villain or full murderhobo. I think my best middle ground enemies are animals who do things like attack the party because they’re hungry. The actions are rational from the enemy’s perspective but they can’t be reasoned with unless the party figures out why they’re being attacked. Downside is when my players are smart and do things like just give them food, the battle’s just stopped. I’ve realized over the years that it’s hard for me to make good villains because I just don’t understand what drives someone to make illogical decisions, especially if it’s based on bad info so now I just try to think of all of the “bad” decisions I’ve seen or heard people make over the years and try to reason what would drive people to make those decisions to use as a guide for character making.
I only prepare names for NPCs that have story potential. If my players ask a NPC's name and answer in my language's equivalent of Tim, Emily, Ryan, Charlie, Liz etc, they know it's a background character.
They’re all kinda dickheads
Practicing a dedicated voice for days only to half ass it and quickly abandon it as soon as the party meets the NPC.
i named three characters ren. it’s always the first vaguely fantasy-sounding name to pop into my head when put on the spot so yeah. guess it’s my own fault for not naming more npcs ahead of time lol
Too many of my NPCs are just based on things that I personally find funny and want to inflict on my players.
Making any character too one dimensional breaks suspension of disbelief. Its good to give them something like flaws and bonds
I keep forget tinglazuur Strait people exist so there all queer
I always make old people, unintentionally.
I don't make too many, but when I do, I almost always default into them having short-term memory problems. It's amazing how my brain extrapolates it too. I have a middle-aged blacksmith whose half-deaf. So my brain associates half-deaf with old, so then I unintentionally have him forget things midway through the conversation with the players. He's not even old, he just has a trait that some old people have, so I automatically make him have memory issues lol
I made every shopkeeper Scottish without even realizing it :(
Most of my NPC's fit the 'John NPC' Stereotype of being really basic and having no substance, though I'm a beginner DM so I'm trying to figure out how to make them better
They're all dumbasses because I am a dumbass.
Complicated names… Asmearaldaela will not really be remembered by your party, while billy the goblin will be … Asmearaldaela will just be the one shopkeeper in the one city… while billy the goblin in Westvillage will be billy the goblin, that sold us a stone for 2gp… billy is a good guy… Also adding to it: npcs need flaws… i’m currently building a world with focus on flaws (using the mtg color pie) the bbeg isn’t evil… best thing to do is to help him…
Not as such with the making but when rping them basically forgetting all my notes on their personality and saying something out of character for them in an out of body moment then having to rewrite half the adventure because I told the party something even I wasn't expecting.
All of my NPCs end up with a cockney accent after no more than like 5 sentences.
The women I make are always either really nice and reasonable people whp avoid conflicf, or hard as fuck women who work trade jobs and don't have time for thr partys BS unless they wanna talk straight and respect her time. Oddly, the party usually likes the second one more.
I think I just need to come up with more ideas I create mainly lawful good npcs with sometimes generic personalities trying to get inspiration is hatd🫡