How often do you include NPCs primarily for roleplaying reasons?

[Mark CMG]

Some discussion in a couple of other threads got me wondering if many GMs use NPCs in their games primarily for roleplaying reasons. If you do so at all, could you post a bit about when you do so and why? If you don't, why not?

 

[Sammael]

I am not sure I understand the question, what do you mean "primarily for roleplaying reasons?"

 

[Mark CMG]

I am not sure I understand the question, what do you mean "primarily for roleplaying reasons?"

I suppose I mean as opposed to when you build something into the game primarily as a combat challenge. As a follow up, when you create an NPC do you always give them stats because you assume they will become a combatant at some point?

 

[SnowleopardVK]

I tend to stat up any NPC that has a name, but I don't often expect to use most of them in combat. I'd say the majority of my NPCs just get roleplayed at, not fought.

 

[Sammael]

By that definition, 99% of NPCs I create are for non-combat purposes and I merely write down their level, alignment, distinguishing features, and motivations in my session prep notes. I'll only do a full write-up for NPCs that are likely to be encountered in combat.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Very confusing question.

First, everyone in the world except those five swilling beer in the corner are NPCs. Yeah, the elf, deva, tiefling, aasimar and drow. Them.

If you mean in the party, I almost never do this. The party might meet them or go back to them, but they are not party members.

If you are trying to separate monsters from NPCS, that is a false divide by the rule of most RPGs, who have 'human' as a monster type. Yeah, I do see the point of a human and a dragon with one clearly the monster, at least by physical looks.

If you mean NPCs as role-play fodder, which is what I think you mean, then I stat up very few of them as it is not long before the normals in the game are totally overshadowed in pwoer by the party. Sure powerful NPCs are are aound and they might be statted up, but in my case, generally not.

 

[Pentius]

Well, I don't know how they stack up straight numbers-wise, but I'd be surprised if I made less than 1 "RP" NPC per 1 Combat Encounter, and it's probably more like 2-3 per Combat Encounter. A straight Combat-NPCs:"RP" NPCs ratio would probably skew toward combat though, since I enjoy the liberal application of minions.

And I don't stat up anything at all unless I foresee a need for it within the current session or sometimes the current adventure. I never give full combat stats to something I don't intend as a combatant, in my experience, such NPCs only rarely end up in combat without notice, and if they do, I'm fine with winging it.

 

[S'mon]

There are NPCs in my games who you can talk to, yup.

Running 4e I rarely stat them up; I might reference an entry in Monster Vault etc - "Reskinned Orc Storm Shaman" - and if they have Ritual spellcasting ability I'll note which types and their maximum ritual level. I do stat up some 'capstone NPCs' intended to be the big cheeses in an area, as this lets me keep plausible demographics. If the greatest warriors in the Gray Vale are Elite-10s then their personal guards may be standard-7s; I'll not stat regular mooks as standard-15s etc, and I'll know what in means in terms of personal power to say a PC is 5th level ('mid level') or 11th ('Paragon').

 

[Kzach]

I think the answer lies in direct proportion to how much roleplaying goes on at a table. I roleplay dozens of NPC's that have no stats until they matter. Now that I'm back to running games on the fly, I actually use NPC's more often because I just run with whatever comes to mind in the moment, 90% of which has no direct story application and is just there to serve as entertainment for myself and the players.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I tend more toward investigation and intrigue adventures so there is usually more roleplaying. Definitely prepare a number of npcs for rp.