NPCs! NPCs! NPCs!

[Betote]

I guess I am not sure what I am asking here, except do other folks have such large casts of fleshed out NPCs? How do you handle them? How do you (and your players) keep track of them? Do your players take advantage of this resource?

Steal

I mean, with a name, race/class/level, alignment and one or two sentences (even better if you can relate it to characters you might remember, as in "He's like Ben Stark, but older", you can easily (over)populate a world. If you want your players to remember him or you plan him to be a recurring character, I've found it useful to add a catch phrase or a characteristic detail as Bill's whistling, a "We meet again, lads" or a particular way of laughing.

It's always fun when you hear "no, not him again. This time he won't escape" from your players

 

[el-remmen]

<Casting Necro-Thread!>

I am still having this issue 13 years later. SO. MANY. NPCS! (currently, one of my groups is adventuring in a small village which is actually worse than a big city, because a big city has some anonymity and good chance you might not run into a random NPC again, but even a village of 75 people is way too many to detail, but is still small enough that the PCs could interact with a significant percentage of them).

5E's move away from previous editions' use of standard classes for NPCs makes the kind of notation I mentioned above - (F2/LN) - kind of obsolete. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like easy modularity of making NPCs that does not require building a complex PC each time like 3E did, but I find it is not as easy to make a coherent notation about what they are/should be able to do without taking the time to make that stat block.

I do wish that some of the NPC quick stat blocks were tiered. For example, I want four or five tiers of assassin for use for parties of all levels, rather than one 12 HD version I then have to tweak, so then my notation could be something like (Ass/CR8).

 

[aco175]

A quick search of DMsGuild showed something like this. This one is from a few years ago, but I seen several more on the site for all sort of classes and professions. I do not own this, but the preview pages show a barbarian at 2,4,6, and 8th level with new powers and such.

 

[el-remmen]

A quick search of DMsGuild showed something like this. This one is from a few years ago, but I seen several more on the site for all sort of classes and professions. I do not own this, but the preview pages show a barbarian at 2,4,6, and 8th level with new powers and such.

For $2.50 I can't afford to NOT try it out! Thanks.

Edit to add: Seems useful, but a table of contents would have made it even more useful!

 

[Zaukrie]

<Casting Necro-Thread!>

I am still having this issue 13 years later. SO. MANY. NPCS! (currently, one of my groups is adventuring in a small village which is actually worse than a big city, because a big city has some anonymity and good chance you might not run into a random NPC again, but even a village of 75 people is way too many to detail, but is still small enough that the PCs could interact with a significant percentage of them).

5E's move away from previous editions' use of standard classes for NPCs makes the kind of notation I mentioned above - (F2/LN) - kind of obsolete. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like easy modularity of making NPCs that does not require building a complex PC each time like 3E did, but I find it is not as easy to make a coherent notation about what they are/should be able to do without taking the time to make that stat block.

I do wish that some of the NPC quick stat blocks were tiered. For example, I want four or five tiers of assassin for use for parties of all levels, rather than one 12 HD version I then have to tweak, so then my notation could be something like (Ass/CR8).

I keep thinking about doing a product like this.....but never do it.

I share your general frustration over NPCs though....I can never remember them all. When I start a new campaign, it will be laid out more in advance, I hope, than normal where I end up with Swanson and Smith over and over.

 

[el-remmen]

The product above provides NPC examples for different classes/subclasses for each even level, which feels redundant. I think one example for each four levels with some unique or modular abilities thrown in to choose from would have been better.

 

[uzirath]

In the '90s—when I had a lot more time on my hand for gaming—I created a relational database along the lines of what @ExploderWizard mentioned above (12 years ago). It took a while to build the thing, but then it was very helpful. I used it over the course of a 10+ year campaign. It was particularly useful for tracking locations. So I could pull up all the named NPCs in a village, for example. I built it to include GURPS stats if I wanted to, but I usually left that part blank. I could print and export them in a variety of ways.

I've always struggled with index cards. I end up pulling them out and then misplacing them. And I always get stymied by the constraints of physical reality (these cards can only be sorted or filed in one way... argh!).

A full-on database is a lot of work to maintain and update. A spreadsheet can manage most of this more easily. Could have columns for name, location, faction, personality, etc. And you could even have stats columns that you could use if needed. Or a column for hyperlinks to full character sheets or Google Docs or whatever where you have the most important NPCs written up more thoroughly. With filters, you could easily pull up NPCs from a particular town or faction easily.

 

[Zaukrie]

In the '90s—when I had a lot more time on my hand for gaming—I created a relational database along the lines of what @ExploderWizard mentioned above (12 years ago). It took a while to build the thing, but then it was very helpful. I used it over the course of a 10+ year campaign. It was particularly useful for tracking locations. So I could pull up all the named NPCs in a village, for example. I built it to include GURPS stats if I wanted to, but I usually left that part blank. I could print and export them in a variety of ways.

I've always struggled with index cards. I end up pulling them out and then misplacing them. And I always get stymied by the constraints of physical reality (these cards can only be sorted or filed in one way... argh!).

A full-on database is a lot of work to maintain and update. A spreadsheet can manage most of this more easily. Could have columns for name, location, faction, personality, etc. And you could even have stats columns that you could use if needed. Or a column for hyperlinks to full character sheets or Google Docs or whatever where you have the most important NPCs written up more thoroughly. With filters, you could easily pull up NPCs from a particular town or faction easily.

World Anvil...even the free level allows this.

Or, try notion using this advice: Using Notion.so for Lazy D&D Campaign Planning

Or, this free database:

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[bloodtide]

I love NPCs and have huge huge huge lists....not just by place, but by time.

Paper, index cards, spread sheets, wikiis and more....I use them all.

And stat blacks.....well, 2021 has you covered here. With only a simple search you can find a TON of 5E stuff, both free and at cost. Adventures are the best. Just take stat blocks from a PDF....get rid of the name, and re use them for hundreds of other NPCs.

The Goodman Games adventure Glitterdoom starts with a dwarf Okkar Ironeyes. Just drop that name, and you have a perfectly good dwarf stat black. It's easy.

 

[The Green Hermit]

I have a binder with a tab for every chapter of the campaign. I also have a tab for potential wandering NPC's. If there are groups of people in a chapter, I put them in a folder of their own, that way, they can easily be separated from the other groups during play/moved to the next relevant chapter in the campaign.