Player characters are often isolated characters, people with no ties to anyone outside of their adventuring party. It's a classic tradition to create characters who have tragic pasts with no living relatives; player characters are rarely involved with other characters in any meaningful way. This serves the player in that they are able to create characters who stand in the story without the support of a network of people who know the player character. And yet, no person is an island. Even the most fiercely independent player character is likely to have formed a bond with someone in their life. And you can use player character NPCs in your story to great effect. Read on for tips on how to do so.
The first step in this process is encouraging your players to develop backstories with NPCs in them. When I played Zig years ago, I spent considerable time developing a network of NPCs with whom Zig was close. Zig was a married man with children, and he was estranged from them, so there was a lot of dramatic potential for storytelling. I also wrote about every other major figure in his life, including family, friends, and mentors. Going off of this, my GM was able to integrate Zig's NPC relationships into the game. Zig's wife gave him another chance to make their family work, and Zig ended up spending a lot of time working on those relationships. And though my GM never made use of it, he always had the potential to use Zig's family as bait for the BBEG. From these two positions alone, it should be apparent that player character NPCs can be extremely useful in a game.
I have run games where player character-NPC relationships have become significant as well. When I was running Listen Check, Soren was a character who was affected by his relationships with NPCs. He wanted to tend to the wellbeing of his family, so he was often writing letters to them and sending them money; his hometown was eventually built up into a bigger, better place as a result of his funding it. Further, Soren developed a romantic relationship with an NPC, Spurla. Soren and Spurla hit it off rather quickly, and by the end of the adventure, they were bound for a new adventure together: starting a family. Soren's story was perhaps the most emotionally-driven of the player character stories from that campaign, and that Soren was played by a rookie player reveals that the veteran instinct to create unmoored characters does not always serve us.
So you should encourage your players to create NPCs who are important to them for the sake of realistic storytelling and your ability to dramatize their relationships. To do this, ask players to come up with a few people with whom they have regular contact. Even a hermit character is likely to have to work with or buy supplies from another person at some regular interval. For most player characters, you want the player to create at least three NPCs. They don't have to design every detail of the NPC, but the more they decide about the character, the more their vision of their character will be within their hands. These relationships can be familial, romantic, financial, friendly, marked by rivalry, or educational; what matters is that the player understand the kind of dynamic they have with the NPC and communicate it to you so that you can roleplay it.
Once you have your roster of player character NPCs, you have some brainstorming to do. How can these people take part in your story. It may be possible to replace a character in your notes with an NPC from your players--in that case, substitute them and watch as your players get even more invested in the story. If you can't or don't want to go that route, at least use the NPCs during downtime. When player characters catch up with these NPCs after some adventuring, the NPCs should be able to talk about what they accomplished that day and ask questions of the player characters that show they're invested in the player characters' lives. Basically, you have to choose between telling the story with the NPCs or creating a new mini-story that involves the NPCs.
If you're telling the story with the NPCs, you'll want to make sure that your understanding of the NPC matches the players. It defeats the purpose of player character-designed NPCs if your version of them doesn't suit what the players intended. Remember that your roster of NPCs should be true to the player's vision, but also that the NPCs can surprise them. Imagine a campaign in which the players were chasing a shadowy assassin, only to discover near the end of the story that the assassin was one of the player character's NPC relations. Doesn't that have more drama and excitement than simply having a BBEG?
If you're creating a new mini-story for the NPCs, you have plenty of options. Consider the goals of the NPCs as designated by the player characters. How can they pursue these goals while the adventure goes on? Perhaps you have a player character who has a steady romantic partner who is a healer. While the player characters are off adventuring, that NPC is off working on improving their healing and helping the needy. Perhaps the healing NPC tends to the wounded of the player characters' enemies, and now there is a conflict between the ideals of the party (defeating wrongdoers) and the ideals of the NPC (helping anyone who needs it). Now the player characters have to take a different approach than they normally would; they can't escalate the conflict with their close ally, and instead must talk it out. This makes better storytelling than if the player characters had no one to answer to.
Here are a few ideas on how to incorporate NPCs into your stories:
- A player character's business partner wants to invest in a new business venture. The player character hears that the new business venture requires working with a shady person. The player character must work with the business partner to make or not make the deal.
- A player character's younger sibling has gotten into some trouble with the local guards. They were carving profanities into the frames of houses throughout town, and now they must remain in the stocks for a day. The younger sibling requests help contesting the charges and escaping the stocks.
- A player character's significant other needs to travel back to their hometown because their mother is sick. They must walk dangerous roads to get there and don't know how long they will have to stay. The party must assist in whatever way they see fit.
- A player character's friend finds a magical charm along the road while traveling, and they believe it makes them wiser. Their behavior, however, becomes increasingly erratic. The player character can tell that the charm is causing this troubled behavior, but the friend is defensive of the charm. The party must do what they can to convince the friend of the harm it is doing.
- A player character's mentor is aging and wants to retire from adventuring. They need just a bit more gold in order to comfortably end their career, and they look to the player character for help. They are willing to go on one last job with help to secure their future.
No comments:
Post a Comment