Use NPC Creation Advice for Everything
I’ve been meaning to write a post for about a week now, but I have had 0 executive function to give to doing a thing that I have deemed in my head to be “productive”. Oh how labels scorn me and my every desire. But I actually bothered to write a to-do list last night, the house is quiet, and I am slightly too caffeinated, but I did a lot of pacing so I’m back down to a normal level.
I’m continuing my ventures into deciding how much complexity is actually necessary in TTRPGs, at least from a “proper nouns” perspective. I feel like somehow I’m reverse-engineering the story game from an OSR perspective and that really is laughable. Now laugh.
So I’ve previously written about how a person is just the smallest form of a Faction that there can be, so we really could use Factions as our base objects for dealing with any number of people from 1 to infinity. Sure, we could entertain the idea of like a Disco Elysium “people are made up of a million little guys screaming into the void of alcoholism and denial” where a person literally is a faction, so don’t take that as a hard and fast rule.
I’ve had this idea for how I want my home game to go for a while, and a lot of the high-level ideas come down to the players playing a faction, each having the large share of the control of their subfaction, or their stable of characters, and of course in any given session the executive control over the specific character they have brought along to that adventure. Other than assuming a stable of player characters, which is an old-school not-as-common practice, although we are all pretty chill about hirelings and henchmen or whatever, that whole relationship from top to bottom is pretty standard. But my systems brain wants to map group sizes to areas of control, which implies some level of power to control such an area. Me, a random guy, can’t stand in my house and declare the 100km radius around me my domain. I just don’t have the power. Honestly, I can’t stand in my house and declare I control the house, because well, I’m not the owner, and I share the space with others, who have their own major influences on the space. My stable of characters could certainly control an establishment, and probably bleed into their neighbourhood as a whole. Maybe they have a neighbourhood as turf Blades in the Dark style.
So I want some kind of template, some kind of system, that lets me create any Entity, from singular NPC to intergalactic mega-empire, quickly, tersely (is that a word?), and consistently. Think Traveller’s Universal Codes but in language and not trying to solely represent stats, but vibes.
There’s a lot of great advice for building really deep, intricate characters with deep motivations, internal struggles, relationships, 2.7 copper pieces stored in their left knee, and every hair on their body mapped and labelled. In the same vein that some of the best adventures start with “Goblins’ Got Talent” scrawled on a random sticky note, I want exactly enough information to fill in the gaps as needed, on the fly.
There are a few sources that I’ve found that can generally be used to make an NPC exactly like I’m looking for. This is obviously not a comprehensive list, but here are a couple.
John B's Motive, Means, and Opportunity
and
Colin's Prepping Three-Dimensional NPCs with Fewer Words
And that’s actually all fine and dandy and serves the exact purpose I need. 9.5/10 no notes, I just don’t give out 100s.
But now I’m thinking about all of the other proper nouns in the typical OSR fantasy elfgame. What about Adventuring Locations, Rooms, Treasures, Monsters, Hexes, Towns, Factions, Combats, Skill Challenges, or Traps? Let me see if I can try them on for size.
My summary of the above NPC advice is that I need something short and sweet that nails 80% of the vibe in 20% of the words. Joseph M. Juran (someone turn that into a JoJo’s name, I watched 1 episode) would be proud. Then, I need what their general purpose is, what the do to change the status quo, and if I’m really feeling quirky, why they want to so badly. Then of course, the general gist of how they go about doing the things, whether that is stuff, people, methodology, whatever. Now you’re all caught up, so lets make some examples.
NPC Vibe: Neon Chainsaw Wizard Purpose: Embodies chaos and abrasiveness to be left alone for personal security Methodology: Chainsaw, Pyrotechnics, Flashy Costumes, Sharpened Teeth, Loud Music
DUNGEON Vibe: Big City Sewer Lair Purpose: Sewer King enslaves Street Urchins to steal him money and food for status and luxury. Methodology: Crocodiles, Isolation, Verbal Abuse, Labyrinthian Layout, Water Control
ROOM Vibe: Goblin Poop Room Purpose: Interspersed Junk and Shinies to encourage others to humiliate themselves among the waste. Methodology: Bodily Waste, Shiny Objects, Stench, Instability, Insects, Fire Hazard
TREASURE Vibe: Retractable Laser Sword Purpose: Cuts through basically anything, and gives you the assumed status of a religious leader Methodology: Alignment Gem Colour, Light Source, Retractable Blade, Very Sharp
MONSTER Vibe: Junkyard Turret Purpose: Kill targets with a ton of bullets in short order, or by explosion upon destruction Methodology: Rotating Base, High Speed Drum, Shoddy Construction, Unstable Chemicals
HEX Vibe: Wildflower Hills Purpose: Appears to be quiet cover for Travellers, but is instead quiet cover for Giant Wasps Methodology: Giant Wasps, Pollen Storms, Huge Honeycombs, Friendly Bumblebees, Great Smell
TOWN Vibe: Haughty Merchant Estate Purpose: Huge Drug Trade hidden under an otherwise “clean” plantation front. Methodology: Field Labourers, Underground Storage and Tunnel Network, Lavish Mansion, River
FACTION Vibe: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (literally perfect example, but I have not consumed their content so please don’t judge my ignorant abstractions) Purpose: Clean up New York City crime with ninja powers while being radical dudes Methodology: Ninja Skills, Vigilante Tech, Adoptive Rat Dad, Human Allies, Pizza, Skateboards?
COMBAT Vibe: Roadside Goblin Ambush Purpose: Attack from the shadows, and maybe catch them by surprise Methodology: Poison Darts, Slingshot Rocks, Fallen Tree, Tall Bushes, Guerilla Tactics
SKILL CHALLENGE Vibe: Random Ingredient Soup Purpose: Making the best soup for the food critic, out of whatever the heck you can find Methodology: Spice Drawer, Meat Waste, B-Grade Vegetables, Spicy Pepper, Heavy Cream
TRAP Vibe: Pressure Plate Poison Dart Purpose: Slow down intruders, divert them away from certain spaces, or steal their attention Methodology: Weight Thresholds, Tile Patterns, Dead Intruders, Random Rubble, Dust Patterns
These were all pretty off the dome, some were much easier than others, but largely because I wanted to spread the love to a variety of genres and setting assumptions, and of course my personal usage of any of these proper nouns. I’ve never really been a traps guy, so my vision of the options is pretty slim. I do think all of these would be enough that even in a printed adventure I would be able to form exciting game content from any of them, and they each took 4 lines in my word processor. And the point was never that these were going to be all of the notes you ever take on the subject, but instead the minimum viable product to actually play the game for all of them. If a Faction returns in another adventure, yeah, you might need to add some details from previous encounters, and continue to determine what they’ve got and what they want to do with it. But I regularly, and I mean regularly get caught trying to perfectly elaborate absolutely everything about absolutely everything in a session, a setting, a location, what have you, that I never actually play the damn thing. 4 lines, some rulings, and then some notes. 4 lines certainly never feels like over-prep, and it can always, and should, iterate, expand, and change over the actual usage of these things.
So yes, places and things are all people, and you should treat them like such. And honestly, that sounds way cooler than a sword just being a sword. My sword is a person, and yours can be too!