D&D 5E DMG Preview: Creating NPCs

[Sadras]

OMG! D&D is back. I have so missed you....

(not edition warring, just that these pages from the DMG elicit so much of my personal D&D playstyle that I can't help but be happy)

 

[eric.kiser]

It makes me want to start building things again.

 

[erf_beto]

ell, 22 responses to this preview so far, and none have been negative.
seems they did something right, oh yeah!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

ell, 22 responses to this preview so far, and none have been negative.
seems they did something right, oh yeah!

I hate this... why isn't it better ragequite!!!!!!

 

[Chocolategravy]

We're only getting 3 pages and half a page of that is being wasted on a pretty lousy art. This is particularly disappointing considering the complete lack of NPC creation and adjustment rules in the MM (and copious amounts of space wasted on lousy art well below what a google search gives me.) It's also a far cry from previous editions which included appearance, guild associations, job, family etc. This really comes off as just the barest amount of effort to get a check box on a list and lacking the real meat we got in previous editions and completely lacking the crunch we're going to need. The cliche start to an adventure is the bar scene, and if the PCs get themselves into a bar fight, the DM may as well have not even bought the DMG because it's doing nothing for giving guidance on how to run it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

We're only getting 3 pages and half a page of that is being wasted on a pretty lousy art. This is particularly disappointing considering the complete lack of NPC creation and adjustment rules in the MM (and copious amounts of space wasted on lousy art well below what a google search gives me.) It's also a far cry from previous editions which included appearance, guild associations, job, family etc. This really comes off as just the barest amount of effort to get a check box on a list and lacking the real meat we got in previous editions and completely lacking the crunch we're going to need. The cliche start to an adventure is the bar scene, and if the PCs get themselves into a bar fight, the DM may as well have not even bought the DMG because it's doing nothing for giving guidance on how to run it.

The rules for combat are in the PHB. Why should they be repeated in the DMG? Talk about a waste of space.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

My favorite part of this preview is the references to the section on NPC interactions that makes use of bonds, flaws, etc. I was hoping these would be mechanically integrated into the interaction skills and was worried when that wasn't in the PHB. Being able to suss out enemy flaws and ideals is a more interesting use of Insight than just opposing enemy bluff checks.

 

[Remathilis]

[MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] - lust and regret aren't the same as having something as an ideal.

Merely the evil expression of the desire for beauty. No difference than how vengeance is the evil expression of justice.

[MENTION=20187]GSHamster[/MENTION], I don't think those people have beauty as an ideal. They long for their own beauty, but they don't care about introducing ugliness into the world, or about destroying the beauty of others. Indeed, sometimes their jealousy leads them to actively destroy other instances of beauty that they encounter.

When Gygax said that evil people scorn beauty, I don't think he meant to rule out that they want it for themselves. I think he meant that, to the extent that a character cultivates beauty in general - for instance, to the extent that the villain rides around the garden rather than tramples it with his/her horse, or to the extent that the villain doesn't use a fireball spell in order to avoid destroying the artworks - than that villain is less evil than s/he might otherwise be.

Gygax's conception of evil is someone for whom purpose is the determinant - ie they acknowledge no constraint on their choices other than their desires. Once a person is having regard to things outside his/her own desires - such as promoting beauty, or at least avoiding the destruction of beautiful things - then in Gygax's framework that person is moving towards the good.

Only if beauty has absolute meaning. If beauty is truly "in the eye of the beholder", than an evil character can attempt to do evil acts to create in his mind, greater beauty. But that gets into the objective and subjective meanings of good, evil, and beauty, and that's a 50+ page thread I'm not willing to dive into. So lets just say, I could probably create an "evil' npc that prizes beauty in a very different definition than a good person can.

 

[pemerton]

Merely the evil expression of the desire for beauty. No difference than how vengeance is the evil expression of justice.

But you wouldn't say that an evil, vengeful NPC has justice as an ideal - would you?

Only if beauty has absolute meaning. If beauty is truly "in the eye of the beholder", than an evil character can attempt to do evil acts to create in his mind, greater beauty.

Like you I'm happy to avoid the 50-page thread, and I think on this occasion it can be sidestepped. Even if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what I found interesting is that the evil character is said to have, as an ideal, something external to his/her self-regarding desires. Whereas, in Gygax's presentation, evil is the absence of such ideals that might act as a counterpoint to mere selfish desire.

Suppose they said that an evil character might have as an ideal the rescuing and re-housing of abandoned pets - wouldn't that strike you as curious given the game's traditional conception of evil? Traditionally, beauty was in the same alignment category as the relief of suffering.

 

[GSHamster]

Suppose they said that an evil character might have as an ideal the rescuing and re-housing of abandoned pets - wouldn't that strike you as curious given the game's traditional conception of evil? Traditionally, beauty was in the same alignment category as the relief of suffering.

It depends on how you class means versus ends. There are a lot of villains who have good ends, but use evil means. Consider Poison Ivy or Ra's al Ghul from Batman.

For a villain who prizes beauty, consider a vampire who seeks out beautiful women and forcibly turns them, convinced he is preserving their beauty forever.