How do you do NPCs?

[shilsen]

Great tips guys - thanks very much!

Especially that one from shilsen (my hero) - give all the NPCs a bit of stage time and see which click - that's really a great idea!

Glad to help. The more I DM, the more I find that having less preconceptions about what'll work and more playing off player/PC reactions is the way to go. At least for me.

I have one more question - for someone like Avner who is annoying but a nobleman - how to get the PCs to take him seriously when he hasn't really got any power over them and they can all kick his ass. Or should I just hope that they take his power and influence seriously enough to let him become their burden? (Which basically has to happen - they have to LET him annoy them )

Personally, I think it's just fine if they don't take him seriously. He can still be a serious annoyance even without them doing so. Just play him as you think he should be and leave it up to them to decide how to react. Since the PCs are substantially more powerful than him physically, if they do decide to kick his ass, it'll seem more like bullying than anything else and will likely provide little satisfaction. And unless they're completely callous, they'll probably end up keeping him alive (just like all the other NPCs) even though they think he's a jerk. The trick will probably lie in making him irritating enough to get under their skins but not enough for them to seriously consider tossing him overboard. I think as long as you give the other NPCs enough stage time and just have Avner pop up once in a while to whine and try to pull rank on them, it'll be just fine.

 

[Herobizkit]

When I NPC, I portray them like any other PC. Normally, I fall back to common tropes; one or two personality traits/flaws/interests, a name, and a job. The more the player(s) talk to one NPC, the more I develop on the fly. While there are 'generic' people in town, it's a guarantee that if a PC spends more than a few words on them, I'll add things like voices, habits, and have them show up more often. Many times, I've had to carry on conversations as two NPCs, and it's a fun time.

 

[Li Shenron]

Do you give them all different voices? Do you use the third person? How about when there are more, and they talk to each other? Two voices? A summary of the conversation? Third person report style "The minister says he's never heard of the bad guy, his assistant says 'Hang on a minute... what about that guy at the party with the funky hat?'"

We're starting the sea voyage in the Savage Tide soon and I'll have loads of NPCs, so all tips are welcome!

Anything that I feel like at the moment, except funny voices. I could have fun doing it, but since I find it usually a bit annoying when the others do that, I guess that's how they feel about me too...

Plus the most annoying case of all is when someone is trying to make the voice of a character with opposite gender. It always end up in the most horrible cliches.

Rather than changing my voice, or using weird accents, I prefer to only ajdust the intonation a bit (e.g. emphasising calm or anxiety, charisma or shyness etc in the speech for instance), and adopt some very simple mannerism, just something as simple as positioning your hands differently (arms lazy on the armchairs, fingers tapping on the table, fiddling with an object, touching your face or hair, hands tight on your hips...) can already evoke a character's personality without making you look ridiculous or exaggerated.

 

[rossik]

Do you give them all different voices? Do you use the third person? How about when there are more, and they talk to each other? Two voices? A summary of the conversation? Third person report style "The minister says he's never heard of the bad guy, his assistant says 'Hang on a minute... what about that guy at the party with the funky hat?'"

We're starting the sea voyage in the Savage Tide soon and I'll have loads of NPCs, so all tips are welcome!

i do diferent voice tones, but not actually voices. i use both first and third person, depend how much hurry i am

i dont do two voices, but i say like "so XX talks this and that to YY".

funny story, IMO: a friend was DMing and make some voice for a citadel guard. later, we were drinking at a local tavern, and the tavern owner had the same voice! so we laugh and say : so, you were a citadel guard?

 

[Aus_Snow]

Yeah, sometimes I do voices. I try to make my voice as inobtrusive to the portrayal of the character as I can without straining something. That's probably as good as it gets, most of the time. There are plenty of accents I can do quite well, but most of those really don't translate, if it's fantasy, say. And no! No frickin' Scottish Dwarves. Uh, if there are even Dwarves to be seen. . .

I try to keep things / encourage things to be as much IC and in the first person as possible, too. Players and GM. Not always possible, let alone easy. But yes, it's my preference.

Uh huh, I've also been known to do more than one NPC voice, when they're talking to each other, or both/all talking with PCs. Strangely, it can and does work. It's a bit of an effort, it takes practice, but it kicks ass when I and others are really getting into character, when this world disappears from view for a while, so to speak. Doing voices can help with that.

Most importantly, I like to have at least a vague idea, a sketch, of what NPCs are like, what they like or dislike, stuff like that. Worth a million times more, those things.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Do you give them all different voices? Do you use the third person? How about when there are more, and they talk to each other? Two voices? A summary of the conversation? Third person report style "The minister says he's never heard of the bad guy, his assistant says 'Hang on a minute... what about that guy at the party with the funky hat?'"

We're starting the sea voyage in the Savage Tide soon and I'll have loads of NPCs, so all tips are welcome!

It depends on the NPC if I give them a "voice" or not. For a grizzled veteran warrior/town guard sergeant type, I might give them a scratchy, rough type of voice. For the rank & file town guardsmen, however, probably no special voice. If the NPC was going to play a major role, I would try to give him a memorable personality quirk - there is an old veteran warrior type in my current campain -(I even have the old Warhammer Mordheim mini painted up for it that is kind of bulky/portly, balding on top and with an eye patch). But, when he talks, it's kind of like he's lecturing the novice PCs, "I tell ya, them orcs ain't been down out of the mountains in years, something must be up, I tell ya!"

I gave an Irish accent to a helpful faerie creature (brownie) in my current campaign, since I do a decent Irish accent, and if the PCs ever run into the boss of the evil cleric I had created, I was planning on giving him a very soft-spoken Southern accent.

The players may be journeying to the land of Svimozhia in the near future (a large island in the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting) where the residents are typically brown & black skinned, and I was trying to come up with a standard accent to use for everybody there. My accent range is somewhat limited, however.

 

[Mamacat]

Do you give them all different voices? Do you use the third person? How about when there are more, and they talk to each other? Two voices? A summary of the conversation? Third person report style "The minister says he's never heard of the bad guy, his assistant says 'Hang on a minute... what about that guy at the party with the funky hat?'"

I do voices usually, unless it's "Guard #1" type scenes. I mix third and first person, and if it's someone who's going to interact with the PCs for more than one session, I do up a short background. In fact, I've come up with several NPCs that have turned into PCs later, or have been around as NPCs for years and have extensive backgrounds, because the players loved them so much.

 

[Pelwrath]

Do an dfdon't do

Lets see, when FtF gaming I will do some voices, but no widows or chopping firewood. I do llove having the npc's talk in the third person and unfortunately, sometimes my npcs becoem a bit similar and I've got to step back and review things.

Yes, I'll have npcs talk to each other, if it adds something or is appropriate.

I've even had them lie, cast spells and use rougue skills on the players.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Lets see, when FtF gaming I will do some voices, but no widows or chopping firewood. I do llove having the npc's talk in the third person and unfortunately, sometimes my npcs becoem a bit similar and I've got to step back and review things.

Yes, I'll have npcs talk to each other, if it adds something or is appropriate.

I've even had them lie, cast spells and use rougue skills on the players.

What do you folks mean by having NPCs speak in 3rd person?
PC to stable boy: "Stable boy, did you see anybody run through here?"
NPC stable boy: "Stable boy says he did not."

is that how it would work?

I try to have all my NPCs speak as a normal person would. I think i would get too confused switching back & forth between 1st & 3rd person.

 

[carborundum]

What do you folks mean by having NPCs speak in 3rd person?

NPC stable boy: "Stable boy says he did not."

LOL! Nah, it's more whether you do everything as a conversation or not. Extreme examples -

1st person:
PC: Stableboy, did you see anything?
DM: Me, sir? No, I ain't seen nothing!
PC: Aha! A double negative!
(continues for 15 minutes)

Or 3rd person
Player: Has the stableboy seen anything?
DM: (knows it's not important and wants to get the players to the next cool scene) He says he was asleep and looks embarrassed that he missed the fun.

I guess most people mix the two and use a different style for nameless NPCs (he says he'll have your order next week) than for chats with 'known' NPCs (How dare you break into my house!)