Playing "Good Guy" NPCs

[dreaded_beast]

As a DM, I enjoy and have a relatively easy time playing "bad guy" NPCs. It's fun and somewhat easy for me to get into character and at least come up with a few "cliched bad guy lines" if nothing else. I won't win any Oscars, but I believe my "bad guy" NPCs far outshine my "good guy" NPCs.

When it comes to playing "good guys" I feel as if they are somewhat the same and have no depth or personality to them. I am by no means a skilled actor or even that skilled of a DM. However, I think I have come accross that old saying (along the lines of) "evil is more fun than good". You know how some professional and amateur actors always prefer to play the bad guy instead of the good guy because they are more interesting?

Anyways, have you encountered this in your sessions? Do you enjoy/have an easier time playing bad guy NPCs than good guy NPCs? Any suggestions or comments?

 

[blargney the second]

I suspect it has something to do with exploring motivations. In most cultures it's considered unusual to be evil, while being good is the expected norm. So if somebody's being good, there's no particular reason to explore the reasons why they are that way - it's just expected of them.

-blarg

ps - Note to self - put as much prep time into my good NPCs as my bad guys.

 

[barsoomcore]

Interesting people are always people who want something very badly. Good or bad, doesn't matter.

Figure out what your NPCs WANT, instead of deciding what they ARE. That will make all of them interesting if you just let them go after whatever it is they want. Vengeance, power, the girl down the street, a new pony, a magic sword the hero happens to possess -- all of these are things good or evil people might want. Characters who really want something and will go to great lengths to get what they want are ALWAYS interesting. From Odysseus to Hamlet to Indiana Jones, it's the defining quality of good characters.

 

[blargney the second]

Interesting people are always people who want something very badly. Good or bad, doesn't matter.

We're on a mission from God.
-blarg

 

[Len]

I suspect it has something to do with exploring motivations.

Interesting people are always people who want something very badly.

That's good advice. But after you figure out what your NPC's motivations are, don't tell the players!

My party's biggest ally is a wizard who we haven't managed to figure out. I'm still not sure he's "good" even though he's never done anything evil as far as we know. He's reluctant to tell us about his past (but we know he was kicked out of the Mage's Academy for some reason), he pretended at first to be much lower level than he really is, etc. The DM has managed to keep us guessing for months.

 

[Len]

We're on a mission from God.
-blarg

OK, so Elwood never really seemed to care much about why they were driving around with their sunglasses on. But Jake's motivation drove the story.

 

[random user]

Knowing an NPC's motivations I think is a great start and definately helpful.

The thing I do is I often model NPC's off of someone I know either in real life or from the screen. That way if my players present a situation which I didn't expect, my memories/insight into the person I modeled the NPC after help me figure out an appropriate response.

I do think that this is a bit of a crutch -- that good DM's won't need to do this. But I'm not there yet, so for me it helps me define my characters. Just make sure you don't pick someone so popular that everyone will know who your NPC is emulating. While it may or may not be disruptive ("This guy is acting just like Ross from Friends"), you also don't want your characters to be predictable by the players.

This can sometimes lead to some amusing results. As an (hypotethical) example, the party came upon an inn. It was run-down and hadn't been dusted in quite a while. I want to introduce an NPC traveler that the party will meet and potentially be able to get information out of.

The person I base this off of likes to clean things and make things prettier. So as the party is sitting at the bar, my NPC comes in sits a little ways away from them. The first thing she does is start dusting off the countertop and stool. She's spending the night and after being shown her room, she's going to go outside and cut some flowers to take up to her room to make it nicer. Why do I do this? Because I'm pretty sure the person I've modeled this NPC off of would have done the same in the same situation.

This helps me make my NPC's more distinctive. Wiping off the countertop and snipping some flowers isn't a clue, has no meaning, and is totally irrelevent, except that I know that this is what this NPC would do, and it helps makes the world more real for my players.

 

[Barastrondo]

Funnily enough, I think I have an easier time just roleplaying "good guy" NPCs simply because I get so much more practice. I can detail out a sinister villain's deliciously convoluted and misguided personality easy enough, but if you're talking D&D, that villain doesn't frequently get a whole lot of actual roleplaying time — 'cause he gets killed. I don't actually try to set the players in situations where they must parlay with the villain without violence very often, because my players would rather just kill the miscegenated son-of-a-behir. If they don't like being compelled to parlay, I don't like compelling them to do so. (No, our campaign isn't built on the political intrigue model; when you play as infrequently as we do, you want a game model where there aren't as many details and subtleties to remember.)

The "good guys," on the other hand — that's where I have my reserve of romantic interests, arms trainers, benevolent nobility, city and town guardsmen, approachable magi, helpful (or not-so-helpful) priests, ship and barge captains, artists, entertainers, mentors, would-be students, relatives, prospective employers, prospective cohorts, soldiers, significant artisans, sympathetic victims, sympathetic criminal contacts, animal breeders, master armorers, heralds, merchants, and yeah, the inevitable slew of hostellers, barkeeps, serving girls and stable boys. That's where the real bulk of PC-to-NPC interaction takes place, and those are the people that motivate the PCs to go out there and kick evil ass — because they like these people, and have a strong motivation to beat evil into a greasy red paste so that they have a bunch of interesting friends/lovers/relatives to go home to when the loot is divided and the XP tallied.

I think it's part of the overall appeal of roleplaying a fantasy game that you are supposed to visit cool and interesting locales, triumph over cool and interesting (and reprehensible) villains in cool and interesting ways — but also that you can have cool and interesting allies and friends. Lord knows my players agree — I've gotten all too used to having to suddenly ad-lib when a player asks "So who's the best tattoo artist in town?", "Is there a local temple to Theht? I feel a crisis of faith coming on and need to talk to somebody," or "I want to find a local weapon school and observe their training." Proactive players who like making friends as well as killing enemies will force you to flex your "interesting sympathetic NPC" muscles until you can bench-press Elminster's ego.

 

[S'mon]

Hm, funny thing, I think these days I find my 'good guys' (including Neutrals on the side of the party) _more_ interesting than the villains, although 'lovable' rogues are always nice too. I like thinking about the psychology of the campaign world's NPC heroes, kings, dukes and politicians, high priests and wizards. It helps that many of these are ex-PCs from previous campaigns. When you've seen a player do an awesome job of playing a LG Christian Ranger (and I'm not Christian), it makes you want to do the same when the Ranger becomes an NPC in the campaign world. I have a very political campaign though, and often 'good guy' & 'bad guy' are interchangeable - today's enemy can be tomorrow's ally.

 

[hong]

Funnily enough, I think I have an easier time just roleplaying "good guy" NPCs simply because I get so much more practice. I can detail out a sinister villain's deliciously convoluted and misguided personality easy enough, but if you're talking D&D, that villain doesn't frequently get a whole lot of actual roleplaying time — 'cause he gets killed. I don't actually try to set the players in situations where they must parlay with the villain without violence very often, because my players would rather just kill the miscegenated son-of-a-behir. If they don't like being compelled to parlay, I don't like compelling them to do so. (No, our campaign isn't built on the political intrigue model; when you play as infrequently as we do, you want a game model where there aren't as many details and subtleties to remember.)

Barastrondo, you are doing great violence to my picture of the stereotypical drama-queen White Wolf gamer. Stop it.

PS. Having now seen Underworld _and_ Van Helsing (twice each, even), I am now convinced that the oughties will be the decade of vampires and werewolves. I am so playing the wrong game. I can only presume that d20 Vampire: The Requiem is just around the corner, yes?