D&D General "One or More NPCs Associated with a Pre-Published Setting have Appeared in a D&D Campaign I have Run or Played In." (a poll)

[Retreater]

I alluded to Soth in "Curse of Strahd" and had an illusory duel with him - like Vader and Luke in Dagobah.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've definitely included famous FR NPCs in my games. When the party was based in Shadowdale, they would frequently go to Elminster for help, who would in turn either be away on business or too crotchety for them to tolerate talking to for more than a few minutes. Storm Silverhand also played a role in that campaign. When they were in Waterdeep, Elaith Craulnober was an antagonist for a little while. More recently, Drizzt showed up in a brief cameo in Out of the Abyss.

I consider them to be like seasoning. They help ground and flavor the world, but use them too much and it becomes inedible. Although, when I was dealing with a particularly aggressive power-gamer back in 2e, I was very much tempted to have Drizzt take him down a few pegs (at the time Drizzt had a percentage to outright just kill you with each strike).

 

[overgeeked]

False. I don’t like famous NPCs showing up. It’s more hassle than it’s worthy as the players inevitable try to get…cute…with the situation.

 

[Morrus]

Unless it’s part of a published adventure (ie Strahd etc), nope.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In Eberron I use a decent number of published NPCs. In the current game, Brenn ir’Gadden from the 4e starter adventure is the group’s main patron and close friend. They recently helped him defend his home from an assassin strike force, and then gave chase on magitech hoverbikes through the towers of Sharn. (My Brenn is an artificer, and was a spy during the war)
I’ve also had Kaius I as an ambiguous patron for the Karrnathi’s little sister.

I’ve used gods in FR, but I can’t recall any other published NPCs.

 

[J.Quondam]

True. I've seen NPCs from pre-published settings when playing in those pre-published settings. As for my own stuff, no.

Also, I've had a couple GMs include in their homebrews a few cosmic-scale NPCs, namely bigbads like Tiamat or archdevils, or certain gods. These were typically independent of official canon, though, except maybe for appearance, powers, and the like.

 

[Maxperson]

I have, but not in any sort of DMPC or "Swoop in to save the day" kind of situation. And a few times those personages were sought out by the PCs, such as the time when the players decided to go see if Elminster might have the answer to something they were looking into.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's not an easy question to give a binary answer too. I preped an encounter with Jarlaxle for when my party passed through, Luxan, but as it turned out, they never passed through Luxan, so they never met Jarlaxle. I have had encounters with obscure characters from video games such as Sand from Neverwinter Nights 2, and Icasaracht from Icewind Dale Heart of Winter, but that was to save me the effort of creating new characters when an old one would do. There is a cameo by the obscure brother of a significant Critical Role NPC in Call of the Netherdeep, which I am currently running.

 

[Laurefindel]

It’s really hard to avoid…

Between « my PC just had breakfast with Elminster » and « PC saw king Boranel from afar once », there is a whole spectrum of setting characters to meet and to be frank, I’d have to go out of my way to avoid dropping any NPC from any published book when I use a setting, if only the name of the bartender in a tavern described in an adventure book. Otherwise, I might as well not use the setting…

[edit] unless we’re talking about characters from novels associated with a published setting? I might have understood the question wrong.

 

[GuyBoy]

No!!!!!
Bad memories. Playing a badly railroaded FR campaign and Drizzzzzzzzzzt shows up to slay our adversaries and save the day. Hated it.
The fight took place on a bridge. No idea why I remember that? Maybe the bridge was more interesting than the campaign?