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<blockquote data-quote="Rune" data-source="post: 6102791" data-attributes="member: 67">Lesson 22:&nbsp; Make it personal.If you want to run a game with little prep, you want your NPCs to be memorable.&nbsp; Not only are the players more likely to be engaged in a world with memorable NPCs, but you'll find that having forgettable NPCs means lots of wasted time rehashing details about NPCs in game.&nbsp; Ultimately, the players' tendency to forget the NPCs might make them harder for you to remember—which, of course, translates to more prep time when using them.Of course, there are all kind of tricks to giving your NPCs personality, but nothing will make them more memorable than pure emotion.&nbsp; For now, I want to talk about just two NPC types: villains and friends.Villains are villainous.&nbsp; Of course, they do awful things to the NPCs in your world.&nbsp; But if you really want to make your villains memorable, make sure they do bad things to the PCs.&nbsp; They don't have to be anything major—at least, not at first—but they should be entirely malevolent—either entirely unprovoked, or disproportionately unwarranted.&nbsp; Get the PCs to hate your villains and they will not forget them!Okay, so that's easy, but what about friends?Well, that's easy, too.&nbsp; All kinds of allies might provide services or help the PCs in exchange for something, but consider having some NPCs do good things for the PCs with no strings attached.&nbsp; Your PCs will probably react to this in one of two ways:&nbsp; they'll either like the NPC, or they'll be suspicious of the NPC.Either is good for the game, because, assuming the NPC continues to do good things for the party, either the fondness will grow, or the suspicion will.&nbsp; This leaves your options open for a betrayal down the road, or continued friendship, or even a sacrifice on behalf of the party (which could be very interesting if the party was suspicious of the NPC!).No matter what, that NPC will be hard to forget.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Rune, post: 6102791, member: 67"] [b]Lesson 22: Make it personal.[/b] If you want to run a game with little prep, you want your NPCs to be memorable. Not only are the players more likely to be engaged in a world with memorable NPCs, but you'll find that having forgettable NPCs means lots of wasted time rehashing details about NPCs in game. Ultimately, the players' tendency to forget the NPCs might make them harder for [i]you[/i] to remember—which, of course, translates to more prep time when using them. Of course, there are all kind of tricks to giving your NPCs personality, but nothing will make them more memorable than pure emotion. For now, I want to talk about just two NPC types: villains and friends. Villains are villainous. Of course, they do awful things to the NPCs in your world. But if you [i]really[/i] want to make your villains memorable, make sure they do bad things [i]to the PCs[/i]. They don't have to be anything major—at least, not at first—but they should be entirely malevolent—either entirely unprovoked, or disproportionately unwarranted. Get the PCs to [i]hate[/i] your villains and they [i]will not forget them![/i] Okay, so that's easy, but what about [i]friends?[/i] Well, that's easy, too. All kinds of allies might provide services or help the PCs in exchange for something, but consider having some NPCs do good things for the PCs with no strings attached. Your PCs will probably react to this in one of two ways: they'll either [i]like[/i] the NPC, or they'll be suspicious of the NPC. Either is good for the game, because, assuming the NPC continues to do good things for the party, either the fondness will grow, or the suspicion will. This leaves your options open for a betrayal down the road, or continued friendship, or even a sacrifice on behalf of the party (which could be very interesting if the party was suspicious of the NPC!). No matter what, that NPC will be hard to forget. [/QUOTE]

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