Also, minor clergy (at least according to Spanish Lit. My wife teaches that stuff.) make superb petty villains, particularly in lwful neutral settings (e.g. Victoian England.)
Our GM solved the "every trader is the same" problem by... making every trader the same person, an eldritch deity of commerce called "Trader Joe", whose store would magically appear whenever we were in town and had to buy something.
Similar thing our DM made for us: He was a super powerful Wizard with portals established realm-wide (and forced to make one for the empire's army on the overrun continent to keep up supplies/components for the soldiers and spell casters).
What kind of campaign do you play in? I find the “magical Walmart” solutions to often be pretty poor (in my type of campaign, definitely not trying to say your fun is wrong) unless they are actually working out how a high level spell caster could realistically do this within the rules and limitations of the system. I like to make acquiring real power something that requires more than simply making a purchase. For me that can be as simple as making the party go out of their way to the only place around that would have what they need, or by selling lore and maps to magic items instead of the items themselves. For mundane items I only let my players buy things that make sense for the size/specialties of different locations, so all of my merchants don’t just offer the whole equipment section. Just my thoughts, but I’m curious about how it plays differently in your game if you’re willing to share!
@@caman225 The way my DM solved this in his campaign was he had the magic store owner have his store as a literal demi-plane that he created. The doors into the store acted as portals (enchanted with permanent plane shift) that teleported the individuals to his own plane and allowed them to shop.
Erocktastic that would need some hombrew rules for permanent enchantment though, since 5e doesn’t let you permanently create plane shift. Maybe if you set it in a plane such as Sigil and had it be a matter of knowing the keys for natural or otherwise created portals? I kinda like the idea of having it be in some isolated location of the prime material linked to multiple places by a commonly advertised and distributed teleportation sigil. That could result in a limited clientele (people with access to the teleport spell) which would keep the players from getting too op in the early game by buying tons of magic. Idk, it’s an interesting idea though for sure!
"How to Write an Interesting Character in 5 Minutes!" Is 13 minutes long me: 'You liar!' Turns out there's 6 NPC's that are made 13/6=2.2 me: 'You LIAR!'
he said in five minutes. in math it would be character creation must be less than or equal to 5 minutes. as long as he didn't take over five minutes, he spoke true.
Great video. Here's two tips to add to your own: 1. Be mindful of conflict between character weakness & role. A successful politician is unlikely to be bad with people; a 500yr old elven swordsman is unlikely to be clumsy; an Arch-Druid is unlikely to have a weak personality ETC. Role and weakness can still clash however; in which case it could be a small story, such as a city guard too afraid to actually do his job. 2. Some characters can genuinely lack a goal/desire. These are aimless characters who likely suffer from depression and can't find a purpose in life, and could happen if say Brent the Merchant lost his business and didn't know what to do with himself afterwards.
Also some personality types have dreams and goals, but just lack the ability to really do anything with them. Sort of all talk and no action. “One day, I wanna move to the capital city that’s very far away, and I’m going to have an inn, and all the bards will stay there on their way to the port cities, and the storytellers will come too, and every night there will be singing, and people will come there just to hear the greats doing their thing.” But... he has no idea of how that’s going to work out, and he’s making no actual progress towards the goal, just living life assuming one day it’ll all change and not actively working to make that change happen. It’s like waiting for a call that never comes, because you were the one who needed to pick up the phone. 😅 So there’s also a ton of very ineffectual characters (and people) who have goals, but in a hazy gauzy way that never have a chance to become concrete. If only the character really got it, maybe they’d have half a chance. It could be a joke around town, “Yeah, yeah, Kellen, you always say that. But every night you’re here at MY pub talking about it and never on your way to the capital. Why do you think that is, hmm?” You also make a good point about the clashing. For example, I’m an introvert. But for some reason, people open up to me and trust me. I hear “I don’t know why I just told you all that; I never tell people that,” pretty often. I’m the therapist of my friend group because of that. But because of that esteem, people seem to just.... assume I’m a leader and want to be a leader. I hate leading. I hate the spotlight. If anything, I want to help guide the leader, point out weak spots to get them fixed. But definitely not be the actual leader. Even in college I was kind of taken aback by the assumptions people made. “Wait, just because I said I thought it would be good if we got a study group together, it doesn’t mean I’m leading it! I’ve never BEEN to a study group! Someone else needs to do this!” And, “What do you mean, I’m going to choose our material and drill everyone and tutor? Oh, because you assumed I was a senior? I’m a sophomore! It really shouldn’t be me!” So the idea of people being in situations just because... it’s how it happened and they had to go with the flow, but they didn’t seek it out and are not at all comfortable with it, that’s something that I think could be used more in plots.
@@SunflowerSpotlight sir you might have a case of the high charisma's, future symptoms might include: being the chosen one, accidentaly being elected, and/or death. Please consult your local goblin for decharismification.
@@SunflowerSpotlight Hearing that person want that dream and being so optimistic made me want to follow them. I envisioned someone in a really bad spot in life where everything seems to go wrong, but they think to themselves "someday itll all come together, and itll all have meant something." It took like two sentences to get me to like your character, youre skilled.
Big Lumpy Beetle Yeah, none of that sounds like a good idea for me. I’ll take the risk of seeing just how persuasive I can be. I’ll definitely be seein’ about that goblin. 😂
Rockabye Ruby Thanks, I appreciate that a lot. I’ve kind of had a terrible... month and it’s heartening to hear. Sometimes I think optimism is like a badly abused younger sibling picked on by his older siblings. To see him be able to walk around, happy and bright and optimistic despite constantly being pecked at and trampled by what actually happens, it’s kind of inspiring and makes you want to protect him, that hope, from future abuse. It’s an interesting reaction people have to hope. Some people are absolutely disgusted by the naivety or how it just keeps... getting smacked around without some kind of negative retaliation. It’s seen as weak by those people. But it inspires huge loyalty from others, I think those people who still have that little positive voice show up in their brains, whether they listen to it or not. And it inspires them to believe again. It’s a weirdly powerful touchstone you don’t see utilized to its fullest extent like many archetypes or tropes now. Anyway, enough psychology and sociology, heh. Just.. thanks. 😅
@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 Its supposed to be for minor characters, not major ones that you want to involve for your story. This is also the quick way of making them, you can obviously take more time on characters you feel (as a GM) will be more important to the party/world.
@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 I feel like this creates a good starting point for the character though. Like when you first introduce the character, you don't know if the players will choose to interact more with them or not. This allows you to introduce them, and creates a TON of space to further develop the character if the players spend more time with them than expected.
John Schneider Like my Barney the butcher. Started out as an off the cuff butcher in the market. Over time the pcs kept going back to him. As it turned out (upon further development) he was actually an evil necromancer that the pcs had to deal with later. And yes. They bought meat from him. And to your next question... also yes. My players don’t like me much. Sometimes. ;)
Agreed! @Seth Sybrandy and the cool thing about making minor NPC’s this way is that it’s enough of a basis to start, and not so much that if the party you (as DM) are running doesn’t ever come back to the NPC, it’s not time lost via one single interaction, it’s a half-ironed out opportunity with the remaining wrinkles being left over for more character development for the next time the party visits the NPC.
“Because they’re not that important.” DM flashbacks to when players keep going to the same character eventually giving them their own story arc and making them pivotal in the grand scheme of things. Yeaaa...
I've watched this campaign on an actual play show where the party had an encounter with drug dealing werewolves, and after the combat they decided to get one of the werewolves a job at the school, and later he became one of the party member's adoptive dad So I imagine the work the DM had to put in to give this one time enemy an actual character arc
They're not important - at the time. If you make ten characters and one of them ends up becoming a PC favorite, it was still a good idea to not waste time on the nine others. Spend only minimal time on the intial concept, but if the PCs get attached to a character they can later be fleshed out more. (But you probably knew to already, and just wanted to make a joke, which was accurate to the DM experience. :)
Dude are you a real life wizard. First, when one of my players wanted to suddenly be a cleric without me having a pantheon at hand you release your Forgotten Realms gods video an hour later, and now that my Players want to go shopping in the next session (in 4 days) you helped me speed up my NPC production from 2h to 10min. My man you definitely got yourself a fan!
While this is meant for making NPC’s, this actually works very well for making player characters. For example, maybe your Paladin needs an affective way to help people that extends beyond killing monsters, wants glory, maybe land too, and his enemy is his older brother who bullied him and knew him before he was the devout Paladin.
this might be a video with a low viewer count in the first month. but this level of quality and fast precision will immortalize it man! Other DnD youtubers would take half an hour of boring rambling to explain what you casually said.
Oh yes. Good D&D channels on TH-cam are sorely lacking. You might get lucky if they at least use a green screen to capture their mug while they ramble. Or you might get unlucky and they use their phone to capture the video while they are in their car. (WTF?!) This channel has put much more effort into their video's. As it should.
Voice inflection, mood, tone, melody and body language. Several things you can change periodically as a DM to make different characters physically. Next, you can make mannerisms or side characters who don't have much word but have the same inflections every time. Like Bob, bob is the merchant in the basement who works for Fred. Fred shouts at Bob all the time and Bob only replies with "What?!" Or "Whatcha Say?!" and it's a shout match between the two merchants. Comical baboonery is a good choice to make a character, or duo memorable. Also giving merchants memorable pets or quests to help them achieve better things in their shop or adventure will give the party memorable moments and recall on them when meeting with the NPC. this is just some things I've noticed while DMing.
I think you could also make a video on tying these chracters together it really makes the world (city) come to life. Especially with the characters you have made here. Brent the merchant had a rival who is selling stolen goods and johnny five strings is a merchant who is selling stolen goods. They fit together perfectly. The Baroness has problems with bandits, they might be the one giving Johnny his goods. And on top of that you can have a criminal organisation who is making johnny work for them and not chase his dreams of being a bard. Throw in Dennis who is also trying to deal with this organisation. Thomas who is maybe stolen from and sarah who knows something about them. And you got yourself story that involves people from all around the city.
"This can be a struggle in immersion if all the shopkeepers are the same person" Me: Challenge accepted. *Makes a character who runs all the shops in town and changes costumes for each shop*
th-cam.com/video/4ZCIh_3b5K8/w-d-xo.html Abserd voice: Ah yes, you are wanting to buy my fine hats, no? Oh, veapons! Then you are to be vanting my brother, he is just at next stall! (Runs to next shop, puts on a hat made of pasta, and uses deep voiced telepathy) "Mindflayer": I am the brother of the cap salesman, as you can see. Would you like to purchase one of my many fine weapons?
I really want to emphasize the need for npc heros to interact with. Without them, the world feels empty. Its not nice, feeling like your group is the only one having to deal with all the problems, or that problems only seem to happen in the area the group is in. Just don't let them join the party, as the world needs them elsewhere.
It’s like having an epic fantasy book with absolutely no supporting or minor characters. They’re not just useful for background info; they’re anchors into the world. You infer a lot about culture, what’s deemed acceptable and normal, the background just from little interactions. It provides texture and, oftentimes, contrast. Seasoning, I guess. It’s like having a meal with just no seasoning. Really sad.
The Olympics but with magic and death robots is what some of that sounds like-and I don't mean modern-day Olympics. I mean like discus throwing and stuff. 'Bout to DM my first campaign, and you, my good sir, have given me an idea for one of my big items. Thanks, will definitely use that.
NADDPod do this excellently in campaign one, where the players are living in a world recently saved by three legendary heroes, and have to clean up the resulting mess. This is a great piece of advice and something my campaign needs!
Yeah, I like to have a rival squad of adventurers, maybe even had some of them try to hire on as henchmen of the party, but we’re rejected... so they formed their own team. As the players explore sometimes they come upon a cleaned out ruin with the rivals loading their wagons... About to head to an adventure? Here comes the rivals dragging in a wyvvrn carcass through the town gates. Also a party of the overlords troops ride off and attack big bads in military style. Maybe their main mission giver, say the powerful old wizard who gathered and sponsors them... also has a B-team he sends out too? So the adventurers realize they are not the only game in town. Better get on it when they hear of a prize quest.
When I have a table of players staring at me expectantly, your stuff is for whatever reason stuff on which my panicked GM brain can actually execute. This puts you on an exceptionally short list indeed and experienced GMs will know of what I speak. As an aside I also love the philosophical nuggets embedded throughout your content. You sir are a scholar and gentleman.
A merchant I have owns every shop and runs to each one at the speed of light. He is a doppelganger so he changes his name and appearance depending on the shop. His flaw is that he fumbles his names alot.
This video is terrible, everyone knows the best way to make an interesting character is just to copy paste Victor the Blackpowder Merchant from Critical Role for Every. Single. Character.
Inquisitor Thomas that’s where you’re wrong! You only need to make every character Stan Lee just cameo-ing in the entire story as if it’s a marvel movie!
Quick idea for a local villain: an executioner. Due to the 'sinfulness' of the position, executioners were also in charge of other questionably legal things, like gambling houses or prostitution. They were basically legal mob bosses, and the title was passed down through families. They also had a specific symbol, which was worn on the person, and sometimes advanced into the nobility due to wealth and power, often incorporating this symbol into their crest.
This was perfect. Thanks. I have started being a DM for my kids. I have started some very simple characters, but this will elevate my game. Thanks again!
This is amazing. It really is all you need to be able to role play variety and make the world seem large. Builds side quest ideas too in the background of your thoughts. I’m using this and love it. Fun thing I added is a movie actor that I assigned to them as a voice or accent to use. It’s really helps me remember the voices and characters at a moments glance. Thanks man! I love your channel.
So you're saying Thomas the farmer is the equivalent incel who is envious of the chad explorers, won't change themself to adapt and has a crush on someone way out of their league 😂
I'm only four minutes in and this is already more helpful than all other NPC character creation tutorials I've seen combined. An actual, solid method which is easy to use. I made Jaroslav the town guard along with the video, and I totally understand who he is and how to play him. You've saved me so much time and worry! I'm two sessions into my first time (properly) DMing, in a huge 'new world' style homebrew scenario. This will take it to the next level.
I like this video :DDD I've been developing a Rpg sistem, and there's a characteristic called drama divided in four sections that should be related to something those four sections are "vice, motivation, means and personality" and it really brings spark to the play. also a thing that helps a lot to flesh out a npc is to give him an emotion when he encounters the PC's
Clicked on this thinking it was just for general writing, and technically, I suppose it kind of is. Lol. Useful tip, though. Even if I don't make a character using that exact template, it is still a really good way to summarize a character in notes for quick reference, I'd imagine. Thank you for the video!
I just found your channel and instantly fell in love with it. Dude, I search a lot about worldbuilding/writing on TH-cam and you are one of the most helpful BY FAR. Your videos are part of what cured my writer's block. Insta sub and like
I can tell I'm going to come back to this again and again when I need to make hordes of NPCs, so imma drop a favorite on this. And I literally only have 8 videos in my favs, including this now, so great job!
I don't know how cold this comment is, but to me Thomas at 10:05 sounds the most realist kind of person especially with the cliche desire. There are a lot of people who think others heads are in the clouds while they themselves might be considered as such.
Here’s another tip. When your players want to get to know a local NPC, have some scenario ready involving them, something like a side quest. Players like to be rewarded when they go off the main path, and I see so many DMs not realizing that having a few side quests prepared can help you be ready for players derailing the campaign and help you get back on the main path quicker with the players feeling satisfied with themselves. As a bonus, Players often think that it’s their own idea to go do these things, and will praise you for good improv when you really were prepared for them. I’ll give an example using some of the characters from this video. When the players enter a shop, give them a description that hints at something being off, but not so obvious that it couldn’t just be part of the character. For example, “When you step into the small shop, you are struck by how tidy it is. The merchandise lining the shelves is neatly organized, nearby items are labeled with names and prices, and not a single speck of dust coats the stone floor tiles. The shopkeeper, a man dressed in simple, but neat clothing appears to be just as spick and span as the rest of his shop, but on closer inspection you can see the man is anxious about something. He dismisses you with a mumble that you barely make out as his name, Brent and a greeting that could clearly use some work, and as soon as he has done so, he goes back to rifling through papers behind the counter. He mutters something angrily while a bead of sweat makes its way down from his brow as he hurriedly stuff something beneath the counter. When you turn to the walls, the merchandise is high quality, but perhaps not as great a selection as it could be” Small details like this that take a few minutes to think of and jot down can do wonders for the player immersion into the setting. You’ll notice I didn’t give any details about the shopkeeper other than a vague description of his clothing, but I’ll bet you probably pictured him and his shop while reading that short passage. If the players decide to spend some money and talk to him, he’ll let slip that a shipment of his was stolen just outside the town, and he’s worried he won’t be able to stay in business. If the players want to help, he’ll tell them that a local mercenary has a lead on some bandits he thinks might have stolen the shipment, and the mercenary hangs out a local tavern. If they go there, they’ll meet a local hero of some renown named Dennis The Vigilant. He’ll grudgingly tell the players that he has a lead on a group of bandits connected to a local fence, and he’ll give the players the info if they agree to do the job for him. He’ll give them the location of a hideout on the edge of town, which will hold the bandits who took the shipment. The players can negotiate with them for the identity of the fence they sold to, or beat the shit out of them and take the info off their corpses. (The, “You find a suspicious note” trick works well here.) The part can them set up a meeting with the fence, Johnny Five-Strings, a former musician who is rumored to have dealings with the criminal underworld of the city. Again, have the choice to negotiate or beat the shit out of him for the name of the client he sells his stolen goods to. After them they’ll get the name of a competitor of Brent’s, who has been stealing Brent’s shipments as a way to drive him out of business. When they arrive at his shop however, he’s hired Dennis to protect him from you. This gives the players an engaging miniboss fight where they can try to talk Dennis down or take him down. If they kill him, maybe they get some animosity from the town who considered him a hero. An alternative way to end is that Johnny’s client is none other than Brent himself. He convinced the players to go on a quest he knew would lead you to Johnny because he wanted Johnny dead for some reason, maybe to take over his dealings. Brent then hired Dennis to kill the players to dispose of the evidence. This gives the players a good minor antagonist to hate, because he screwed them over. This also makes for some good interparty role play as it will give all the characters are directly achievable goal that all players have a reason to work together for. Good players because, criminal, and neutral and evil characters because “he screwed me over”. I personally ran the second ending for my table and got three sessions over the initial side quest and the following quest of revenge on Brent that included breaking into a meeting of the criminal lords of the city and assasinating Brent there. It took me about 15 minutes of prep for that first sidequest and about 45 more for the whole thing. If the players never did it, I could’ve just moved the quest somewhere else, or just scrapped it because I’ve scrapped way more than 15 minutes of work in the past I could live with it. It’s very easy to turn a few loosely connected NPC concepts into a basic quest that, at least in the case of my party, ended up in some of the most memorable sessions I’ve ever run. TLDR: USE SIDEQUESTS. I know they feel boring but they can add more fun to your campaign while also filling your players derailing quota,
A very nice and helpful video especially for new DMs (like me). The thing I luck, is some source that will make my gears of creativity working so I can create weaknesses, needs, desires, etc. for my NPCs as easily as you can in thins video.
Jason Papadopoulos I don’t know if you still have this issue, but you could create a list or spreadsheet with various weakness, needs, etc and kind of randomize them, then create a story that fits that. Sometimes I come up with my best stuff when I’m caught off guard and I have to try to rationalize the situation. I’m actually a writer, and if a beta reader comes up to me and asks me something I honestly haven’t thought about, sometimes I’m landing on the idea and saying it simultaneously. It’s maybe a dangerous way to live, but exciting. 😎😅 Also there are some generator apps available that I find useful for supporting characters. One I like is called Characterize; you can save ones you like, input your own, that kind of thing. It takes into account their appearance, a skill, their religious perspective, that kind of thing. Also for more in-depth stuff I like looking at personality types detailed in various systems. Myers-Briggs is pretty big. If you make sure the characters mix into the four major types and don’t overlap too much (some people have all dreamers or mostly leaders). It can help highlight a problem if one exists and also keep things varied moving forward. Good luck!
Just take a note from Zelda's book and have a 'Happy Mask Salesman' type character run all the stores and have everyone constantly question what the hell the guy is but never give an answer.
Actually, I once DMed a session where the players walked into a village of arcane clones named Belethor. The tavern keep was Belethor, the town mayor? Belethor. The shop keep? Belethor. That sexy hot barmaid with an ass of a goddess? Oh wait, it's a Belethor trap. the quest was to find a Shapeshifter who killed the one of the clones and took it's form... problem is, they all look the same... well except Bele-maid.
This video is just beautifull. Im only a player, but I'll share this with my DM and I think he'll like it, cause I as a player would love to encounter these characters. Keep it up!
Incredibly useful simple list!! My method of adding compelling depth (PC or NPC) is by asking what is the *characters values & motivation? Re-phrased, what is their decision flips? What would make flip from the normal expected decision to something else?* Example: A person may be a coward in the day to day, shirking away from hard things they might fail. But, their value might be hatred of abuse toward the helpless. If they see someone, not just being hurt, but helplessly hurt, they might flip out and grab for their cudgel and maybe lose control a bit (rage), spend their own money to help the person, then go right back to their cowardly life taking advantage of people. To me, this helps the PC's the most. Don't just make a barbarian who always charges headlong into battle. In fact, a barbarian who is reluctant to do battle might be more interesting and more human. He just wanted (past tense) a quiet life. Sigh. If you force him to have enough reason to fight, then he's going to make ___ sure you won't be capable of doing so again. Imagine playing a warlock that feels guilty about giving his patron service. Maybe he took that in a dire moment of desperation in his youth (without understanding, or even more tearing apart: with understanding but a decision to do it anyway). Now that he's older and the moment of crises has passed, he isn't distracted enough to not start to feel the weight of what he's done. Everyone is all excited about multi-classing. Instead of max-min-ing, how about a character who slowly stops using his powers, most especially the high power ones, coming to a climax where he ultimately leaves his patron, losing his powers... So he has to start the journey late or un-optimized. (work with the GM for a way to balance this with the campaign and maybe have some lingering effects good and bad from his prior service). You can bet people will remember the character who rejoice in the moment of party success in a great battle, then quickly disappears and is found the next day in a moping or self destructing or in drunken stupor trying to bury his guilt of his power use. The party will remember the character who astonishingly gave up his super-power while everyone else greedily scoops up new abilities. Maybe have him play weak for a session or 2, so that weight sets in... then have him earn the blessings of something powerful, such as a paladin - have him start each day weak and weary, because he is so determined to make up for his old life that he stays up late and gets up early practicing until he drops. or maybe a deity puts a piece of their self into him, instantly bestowing divine sorcery - something he can feel prowd/blessed to be able to use. Now he has a motivation of destroying the very things he used to serve, or maybe he just wants to show everyone that there is a better way than the bad choices. or have him struggle as bad stats frequently drunken now barbarian or fighter. (and plan some way he can catch up to being properly useful to the party within a 2-4 sessions) I'll definitely add your method as a go to and pre-prep a few character card of different classes that I can pull out and add to a picture on the fly (as if I had pre-planned the whole character, when it's really just mix & match, grab and go)
What I do without really thinking about it when I portray characters is shift my posture, my tone, the kind of language I use, the speed at which I talk, and the pitch to some extent. I knew from the start I wasn't going to do "voices" because I don't feel comfortable doing it and I fear it may sap the character's credibility. In the end the subtle changes were more than enough to distinguish most characters. Also I ended up doing it when they met goblins and it was pretty fun.
I think this essentially makes an Oblivion NPC and I love it, you have the rumor, the secret (disposition raising), then you have a way to raise disposition being gold for Brent or being polite, or as well being tidy for Brent as well. As well, if you add more needs, weaknesses and the like, you can make a full PC easily!
I played a Dwarf Solarian who, prior to the campaign, had spent the past 100 years as, effectively, a guard protecting the starfinder version of disaster relief missions on planets deemed dangerous enough to warrant extra firepower (dangerous wildlife, etc). With his tour of duty over, he quasi-unintentionally missed his flight home because he couldn't stand the thought of settling down.
AD&D first edition had full tables for this. Just roll the reqs and bam! You have an in depth character. I used to use the tables any time an intelligent item was found.
I feel you should add one more thing: disposition. How the character acts towards you can effect how they will act in moments where there is character growth, and it's a part of a character that doesn't change.
This video is great for people who are trying to get into being a DM and haven't yet figured out how to introduce the players to interesting characters without stealing other people's ideas 😊 You should definitely make more about making being a DM a lot easier for new people wanting to learn how to make a good story for others to play
This is really good, getting ready to build my first town and I feel a good ten to fifteen npcs is good. This changed my hours long work into minutes. Making npcs on the fly too is going to be easy, thanks.
Super nice video! I laughed at the comment about taking notes at the end, because right around the Hero portion I ran up to restart the video and take notes xD. And I love the idea for Sarah! My next campaign involves the party getting a task from a wizard, and I think I'm going to make an apprentice off of Sarah's mold.
I've already been doing something kinda similar, but I like your format and so I'll probably adapt it. Thanks for the tips! I do agree it is more fun to make NPCs a bit more human, even though that sometimes leads to them being a bit difficult to interact with at first.
Tbh i wouldnt just use this for dnd npc id say this is a fantastic guide for character creation subsequentially and worldbuilding thatd be great for game development, movies, series etc as well as dnd as said. So thank you fpr this!
This is a great video! Expanding on this, I'd like to see someone create a chart of 100 different ideas for each category that DMs can roll on the fly. I really enjoy taking random prompts and seeing what I can build with them!
This inspired me to make a character creation template on a spreadsheet. When you get stuck meandering on how to get to details it takes the fun out of writing; having systems like what's been introduced in this video fixes that!
Hey, just wanted to say this video is really helping me with my campaign and making better characters. My campaign is supposed to be like a Slasher movie from the 70's/80's and that's kinda hard to do for DnD, but it's a lot of fun to write! So thanks a bunch
Runesmith, your video is great! But, if I had to make one small change to make NPC characters more interesting is another bullet point: Physical Trait. One thing that has always helped me as a GM is giving the character some trait to help the party identify him afterwards. Maybe they do not remember Thomas, the unremarkable farmer, but someone may remember the jerk farmer with a single mirror. Or maybe give Sarah a british-like accent. Or Dennis could have a big scar across his eye. This will make the NPCs more remarkable and fun to roleplay.
My DM set all of the shop keepers sorta like Officer Jenny or Nurse Joys. There all different variations of Bob, Bobby, Roberto ext... Its a good time.
On the spot! My party is about to arrive to a tribal meeting of local techno-barbarians who gather to decide whether they should join the party's side of war, or the rebels (Warhammer 40k). I needed exactly 5 tribal chieftains NPC characters mocked up for this. When all of a sudden- bang! - i run into this video. A fantastic tips-set for me! Thanks a bunch, guys!!
One thing I like to add if the npc is selling goods of their own make is I like to add a selling point and flaw in the product. Example, I had an armoursmith named Bellmont who was a very extravagant guy so his work often looked way cooler but was a bit less functional.
In the Champaign I’m currently dming, One of my player characters is playing a naked grung with sailor moon hair that goes all the way to the floor, and they have a pitchfork with the name “my love” the name is Phy’r The Lost and the best part is he has constant memory loss
My local villain would be called "Johnny 12 Guns" on account of his 12 guns
Truly one of the greatest charecters in literary history
How many guns does Johnny 12 Guns with 12 guns have?
His real name is actually Brandon though.
And he only has 2 guns the rest are fake
But does he have a big iron on his hip?
"Local Villain" list
*notices tax collectors*
I see you're making your villains accurate to history
The Sheriff of Nothingham XD
Looks like he misspelled thieves
Love your pfp!
Also, minor clergy (at least according to Spanish Lit. My wife teaches that stuff.) make superb petty villains, particularly in lwful neutral settings (e.g. Victoian England.)
@@anon8740 Code of Hammurabi: The penelty for killing a tax collector is to be sent in his place, swordless, into Palestine. I shit you not.
Our GM solved the "every trader is the same" problem by... making every trader the same person, an eldritch deity of commerce called "Trader Joe", whose store would magically appear whenever we were in town and had to buy something.
Similar thing our DM made for us: He was a super powerful Wizard with portals established realm-wide (and forced to make one for the empire's army on the overrun continent to keep up supplies/components for the soldiers and spell casters).
What kind of campaign do you play in?
I find the “magical Walmart” solutions to often be pretty poor (in my type of campaign, definitely not trying to say your fun is wrong) unless they are actually working out how a high level spell caster could realistically do this within the rules and limitations of the system. I like to make acquiring real power something that requires more than simply making a purchase. For me that can be as simple as making the party go out of their way to the only place around that would have what they need, or by selling lore and maps to magic items instead of the items themselves. For mundane items I only let my players buy things that make sense for the size/specialties of different locations, so all of my merchants don’t just offer the whole equipment section.
Just my thoughts, but I’m curious about how it plays differently in your game if you’re willing to share!
@@caman225 The way my DM solved this in his campaign was he had the magic store owner have his store as a literal demi-plane that he created. The doors into the store acted as portals (enchanted with permanent plane shift) that teleported the individuals to his own plane and allowed them to shop.
Erocktastic that would need some hombrew rules for permanent enchantment though, since 5e doesn’t let you permanently create plane shift.
Maybe if you set it in a plane such as Sigil and had it be a matter of knowing the keys for natural or otherwise created portals?
I kinda like the idea of having it be in some isolated location of the prime material linked to multiple places by a commonly advertised and distributed teleportation sigil. That could result in a limited clientele (people with access to the teleport spell) which would keep the players from getting too op in the early game by buying tons of magic. Idk, it’s an interesting idea though for sure!
Stolen :D
"How to Write an Interesting Character in 5 Minutes!"
Is 13 minutes long
me: 'You liar!'
Turns out there's 6 NPC's that are made
13/6=2.2
me: 'You LIAR!'
But wait! He made more than 1 character for each 5 minutes of the video!
He didn't just lie, he did it better!
I expect preciseness from my D&D youtube videos. The betrayal cuts deep, even if it is in my favor.
he said in five minutes. in math it would be character creation must be less than or equal to 5 minutes. as long as he didn't take over five minutes, he spoke true.
@@bookworm3696 You, Sir are the People we need more of in Comment sections.
Johnny 6 the first character is written before 5 minutes so you can stop after there
I used this tips with an old lady npc and she ended up being the most powerfull entity in that universe
old ladies tend to be
When she bakes cookies for her grandkids, she uses little galaxies instead of chocolate chips
Im laughing my ass off from this comment
Spider ma'am
Um how? Was there a bunch of Koa toa's that made her a god?
"The merchants can't all be the same guy"
Clearly someone hasn't watched Avatar.
Or played Fire Emblem.
My cabbages!
@@pixelcat5725 There's also Dock, Xu, and Bushi
MY CABBAGESS
"This place is worse than Omashu!"
Great video. Here's two tips to add to your own:
1. Be mindful of conflict between character weakness & role.
A successful politician is unlikely to be bad with people; a 500yr old elven swordsman is unlikely to be clumsy; an Arch-Druid is unlikely to have a weak personality ETC.
Role and weakness can still clash however; in which case it could be a small story, such as a city guard too afraid to actually do his job.
2. Some characters can genuinely lack a goal/desire. These are aimless characters who likely suffer from depression and can't find a purpose in life, and could happen if say Brent the Merchant lost his business and didn't know what to do with himself afterwards.
Also some personality types have dreams and goals, but just lack the ability to really do anything with them. Sort of all talk and no action. “One day, I wanna move to the capital city that’s very far away, and I’m going to have an inn, and all the bards will stay there on their way to the port cities, and the storytellers will come too, and every night there will be singing, and people will come there just to hear the greats doing their thing.” But... he has no idea of how that’s going to work out, and he’s making no actual progress towards the goal, just living life assuming one day it’ll all change and not actively working to make that change happen. It’s like waiting for a call that never comes, because you were the one who needed to pick up the phone. 😅
So there’s also a ton of very ineffectual characters (and people) who have goals, but in a hazy gauzy way that never have a chance to become concrete. If only the character really got it, maybe they’d have half a chance. It could be a joke around town, “Yeah, yeah, Kellen, you always say that. But every night you’re here at MY pub talking about it and never on your way to the capital. Why do you think that is, hmm?”
You also make a good point about the clashing. For example, I’m an introvert. But for some reason, people open up to me and trust me. I hear “I don’t know why I just told you all that; I never tell people that,” pretty often. I’m the therapist of my friend group because of that. But because of that esteem, people seem to just.... assume I’m a leader and want to be a leader. I hate leading. I hate the spotlight. If anything, I want to help guide the leader, point out weak spots to get them fixed. But definitely not be the actual leader. Even in college I was kind of taken aback by the assumptions people made. “Wait, just because I said I thought it would be good if we got a study group together, it doesn’t mean I’m leading it! I’ve never BEEN to a study group! Someone else needs to do this!” And, “What do you mean, I’m going to choose our material and drill everyone and tutor? Oh, because you assumed I was a senior? I’m a sophomore! It really shouldn’t be me!” So the idea of people being in situations just because... it’s how it happened and they had to go with the flow, but they didn’t seek it out and are not at all comfortable with it, that’s something that I think could be used more in plots.
@@SunflowerSpotlight sir you might have a case of the high charisma's, future symptoms might include: being the chosen one, accidentaly being elected, and/or death. Please consult your local goblin for decharismification.
@@SunflowerSpotlight Hearing that person want that dream and being so optimistic made me want to follow them. I envisioned someone in a really bad spot in life where everything seems to go wrong, but they think to themselves "someday itll all come together, and itll all have meant something." It took like two sentences to get me to like your character, youre skilled.
Big Lumpy Beetle Yeah, none of that sounds like a good idea for me. I’ll take the risk of seeing just how persuasive I can be. I’ll definitely be seein’ about that goblin. 😂
Rockabye Ruby Thanks, I appreciate that a lot. I’ve kind of had a terrible... month and it’s heartening to hear.
Sometimes I think optimism is like a badly abused younger sibling picked on by his older siblings. To see him be able to walk around, happy and bright and optimistic despite constantly being pecked at and trampled by what actually happens, it’s kind of inspiring and makes you want to protect him, that hope, from future abuse. It’s an interesting reaction people have to hope. Some people are absolutely disgusted by the naivety or how it just keeps... getting smacked around without some kind of negative retaliation. It’s seen as weak by those people. But it inspires huge loyalty from others, I think those people who still have that little positive voice show up in their brains, whether they listen to it or not. And it inspires them to believe again. It’s a weirdly powerful touchstone you don’t see utilized to its fullest extent like many archetypes or tropes now.
Anyway, enough psychology and sociology, heh. Just.. thanks. 😅
Good shit. A smart, concise way to create more believable characters.
More stuff like this please.
Still i see this caracters can get veeeery shallow and often cliche-y
@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 Its supposed to be for minor characters, not major ones that you want to involve for your story. This is also the quick way of making them, you can obviously take more time on characters you feel (as a GM) will be more important to the party/world.
@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 I feel like this creates a good starting point for the character though. Like when you first introduce the character, you don't know if the players will choose to interact more with them or not. This allows you to introduce them, and creates a TON of space to further develop the character if the players spend more time with them than expected.
John Schneider Like my Barney the butcher. Started out as an off the cuff butcher in the market. Over time the pcs kept going back to him. As it turned out (upon further development) he was actually an evil necromancer that the pcs had to deal with later.
And yes. They bought meat from him. And to your next question... also yes.
My players don’t like me much. Sometimes. ;)
Agreed! @Seth Sybrandy and the cool thing about making minor NPC’s this way is that it’s enough of a basis to start, and not so much that if the party you (as DM) are running doesn’t ever come back to the NPC, it’s not time lost via one single interaction, it’s a half-ironed out opportunity with the remaining wrinkles being left over for more character development for the next time the party visits the NPC.
“Because they’re not that important.”
DM flashbacks to when players keep going to the same character eventually giving them their own story arc and making them pivotal in the grand scheme of things.
Yeaaa...
Do tell!
I've watched this campaign on an actual play show where the party had an encounter with drug dealing werewolves, and after the combat they decided to get one of the werewolves a job at the school, and later he became one of the party member's adoptive dad
So I imagine the work the DM had to put in to give this one time enemy an actual character arc
I mentioned an NPC ONCE and they decided to go find her and bring her with them on the quest. Well, now she is an important plot piece.
They're not important - at the time.
If you make ten characters and one of them ends up becoming a PC favorite, it was still a good idea to not waste time on the nine others. Spend only minimal time on the intial concept, but if the PCs get attached to a character they can later be fleshed out more.
(But you probably knew to already, and just wanted to make a joke, which was accurate to the DM experience. :)
@@carolkoski4875 Yeah Fantasy High has great encounters
Dude are you a real life wizard. First, when one of my players wanted to suddenly be a cleric without me having a pantheon at hand you release your Forgotten Realms gods video an hour later, and now that my Players want to go shopping in the next session (in 4 days) you helped me speed up my NPC production from 2h to 10min. My man you definitely got yourself a fan!
While this is meant for making NPC’s, this actually works very well for making player characters.
For example, maybe your Paladin needs an affective way to help people that extends beyond killing monsters, wants glory, maybe land too, and his enemy is his older brother who bullied him and knew him before he was the devout Paladin.
this might be a video with a low viewer count in the first month. but this level of quality and fast precision will immortalize it man! Other DnD youtubers would take half an hour of boring rambling to explain what you casually said.
He has a *lot* of quality content. Be sure to stick around.
Oh yes. Good D&D channels on TH-cam are sorely lacking.
You might get lucky if they at least use a green screen to capture their mug while they ramble.
Or you might get unlucky and they use their phone to capture the video while they are in their car. (WTF?!)
This channel has put much more effort into their video's.
As it should.
Doubel D. I don’t even bother to watch those videos. My time is too valuable for that.
Voice inflection, mood, tone, melody and body language. Several things you can change periodically as a DM to make different characters physically. Next, you can make mannerisms or side characters who don't have much word but have the same inflections every time. Like Bob, bob is the merchant in the basement who works for Fred. Fred shouts at Bob all the time and Bob only replies with "What?!" Or "Whatcha Say?!" and it's a shout match between the two merchants. Comical baboonery is a good choice to make a character, or duo memorable. Also giving merchants memorable pets or quests to help them achieve better things in their shop or adventure will give the party memorable moments and recall on them when meeting with the NPC. this is just some things I've noticed while DMing.
I just made all shop keepers part of a hivemind entity called the god of trade. A slight against one is a slight against all.
A 5e NPC building youtube tutorial that ACTUALLY HELPS? NANI?!?
Nandio
Well.. yeah...
Why are you implying they dont usually?
@@spudsbuchlaw I do believe that that is what he was saying yes.
5e NPCs? Dude this is helpful for all writing and ttrpgs
I'll have you know that I am an *extremely* remarkable farmer, thank you very much!
Generic Person
Is that you Peterson brothers!?
You can put green stuff into brown dirt with the best of them, you are the most outstanding Generic Person in the field.
@@michealnelson5179 It's true, he's been out standing in his field for about an hour now, someone should probably help him.
Runesmith: has a problem with all of one type of character being the same character
*The Swarm of Nurse Joys want to know your location*
You forgot the Officer Jennies.
I think you could also make a video on tying these chracters together it really makes the world (city) come to life. Especially with the characters you have made here.
Brent the merchant had a rival who is selling stolen goods and johnny five strings is a merchant who is selling stolen goods. They fit together perfectly.
The Baroness has problems with bandits, they might be the one giving Johnny his goods.
And on top of that you can have a criminal organisation who is making johnny work for them and not chase his dreams of being a bard.
Throw in Dennis who is also trying to deal with this organisation. Thomas who is maybe stolen from and sarah who knows something about them. And you got yourself story that involves people from all around the city.
Hallo Duda
This. Perfect.
Thomas loves Sarah.
"This can be a struggle in immersion if all the shopkeepers are the same person"
Me: Challenge accepted.
*Makes a character who runs all the shops in town and changes costumes for each shop*
Avatar: The Last Airbender did this with the episode 'The Painted Lady'.
th-cam.com/video/4ZCIh_3b5K8/w-d-xo.html
Abserd voice: Ah yes, you are wanting to buy my fine hats, no?
Oh, veapons!
Then you are to be vanting my brother, he is just at next stall!
(Runs to next shop, puts on a hat made of pasta, and uses deep voiced telepathy)
"Mindflayer": I am the brother of the cap salesman, as you can see.
Would you like to purchase one of my many fine weapons?
That’s just Larry from the Amazing World of Gumball
Dangit man I was gonna mention the guy from Avatar-xD
I really want to emphasize the need for npc heros to interact with. Without them, the world feels empty. Its not nice, feeling like your group is the only one having to deal with all the problems, or that problems only seem to happen in the area the group is in. Just don't let them join the party, as the world needs them elsewhere.
I never considered that, but it's an excellent idea!
It’s like having an epic fantasy book with absolutely no supporting or minor characters. They’re not just useful for background info; they’re anchors into the world. You infer a lot about culture, what’s deemed acceptable and normal, the background just from little interactions. It provides texture and, oftentimes, contrast. Seasoning, I guess. It’s like having a meal with just no seasoning. Really sad.
The Olympics but with magic and death robots is what some of that sounds like-and I don't mean modern-day Olympics. I mean like discus throwing and stuff. 'Bout to DM my first campaign, and you, my good sir, have given me an idea for one of my big items. Thanks, will definitely use that.
NADDPod do this excellently in campaign one, where the players are living in a world recently saved by three legendary heroes, and have to clean up the resulting mess. This is a great piece of advice and something my campaign needs!
Yeah, I like to have a rival squad of adventurers, maybe even had some of them try to hire on as henchmen of the party, but we’re rejected... so they formed their own team.
As the players explore sometimes they come upon a cleaned out ruin with the rivals loading their wagons...
About to head to an adventure? Here comes the rivals dragging in a wyvvrn carcass through the town gates.
Also a party of the overlords troops ride off and attack big bads in military style.
Maybe their main mission giver, say the powerful old wizard who gathered and sponsors them... also has a B-team he sends out too?
So the adventurers realize they are not the only game in town. Better get on it when they hear of a prize quest.
When I have a table of players staring at me expectantly, your stuff is for whatever reason stuff on which my panicked GM brain can actually execute. This puts you on an exceptionally short list indeed and experienced GMs will know of what I speak. As an aside I also love the philosophical nuggets embedded throughout your content. You sir are a scholar and gentleman.
A merchant I have owns every shop and runs to each one at the speed of light. He is a doppelganger so he changes his name and appearance depending on the shop.
His flaw is that he fumbles his names alot.
4 Things - 0:26
Simple Merchant - 1:34
Local Villain - 4:09
Kings, Lords and Barrons - 5:46
Heroes and Adventurers - 7:55
Commoners - 9:55
Scholars and Cultists - 11:27
Really interesting and super helpful! Please do more like this!
This video is also very good for making the start of a player character that can be easily developed throughout the game
This video is terrible, everyone knows the best way to make an interesting character is just to copy paste Victor the Blackpowder Merchant from Critical Role for Every. Single. Character.
Inquisitor Thomas that’s where you’re wrong! You only need to make every character Stan Lee just cameo-ing in the entire story as if it’s a marvel movie!
writing (and playing) dwarf character be like: I WONDER WICH MEMBER OF THORIN'S COMPANY SHOULD I CHOSE THIS TIME :}}}}
This is correct
every game I have a tiefling and a sorcerer, sometimes the same character, sometimes not. im usually the sorcerer though lol @@burnkern
Nothing but Victor or Pumat Sol
These videos have been great, keep it up my dude
Quick idea for a local villain: an executioner. Due to the 'sinfulness' of the position, executioners were also in charge of other questionably legal things, like gambling houses or prostitution. They were basically legal mob bosses, and the title was passed down through families. They also had a specific symbol, which was worn on the person, and sometimes advanced into the nobility due to wealth and power, often incorporating this symbol into their crest.
Where can you learn this type of stuff?
Random historical facts that are semi-interesting, i mean
This was perfect. Thanks. I have started being a DM for my kids. I have started some very simple characters, but this will elevate my game. Thanks again!
"Every villain is a hero in their own story"
I feel like this isn't only valuable when you're playing D&D but also when writing books or short stories
Bruh, as a new DM this is fantastic. I've also been enjoying your lessons on magic. I'll gladly listen to any tips on DMing you have to offer.
This is amazing. It really is all you need to be able to role play variety and make the world seem large. Builds side quest ideas too in the background of your thoughts. I’m using this and love it. Fun thing I added is a movie actor that I assigned to them as a voice or accent to use. It’s really helps me remember the voices and characters at a moments glance. Thanks man! I love your channel.
You should make a video on how you plan out your cities.
So you're saying Thomas the farmer is the equivalent incel who is envious of the chad explorers, won't change themself to adapt and has a crush on someone way out of their league 😂
You're joke was funny until you used a laughing emoji.
Fuck Thomas
Yeah... wait until he goes into a church with a repeating crossbow, then laugh.
2nd edition solutions...
I'm only four minutes in and this is already more helpful than all other NPC character creation tutorials I've seen combined. An actual, solid method which is easy to use. I made Jaroslav the town guard along with the video, and I totally understand who he is and how to play him. You've saved me so much time and worry! I'm two sessions into my first time (properly) DMing, in a huge 'new world' style homebrew scenario. This will take it to the next level.
I like this video :DDD
I've been developing a Rpg sistem, and there's a characteristic called drama divided in four sections that should be related to something those four sections are "vice, motivation, means and personality" and it really brings spark to the play. also a thing that helps a lot to flesh out a npc is to give him an emotion when he encounters the PC's
I love this channel more than I love my left foot :) Also the artstyle you have going on is great! Keep it up!
I'll take that left foot if you don't want it
@@2hatsontop475 Will that get me more Runesmith videos?
I dont want to know what you do with the right one.
@@AkiAmeko Walk, mostly.
Clicked on this thinking it was just for general writing, and technically, I suppose it kind of is. Lol. Useful tip, though. Even if I don't make a character using that exact template, it is still a really good way to summarize a character in notes for quick reference, I'd imagine. Thank you for the video!
11:30 "Savant and Servant" sounds like a Powerwolf song.
I just found your channel and instantly fell in love with it. Dude, I search a lot about worldbuilding/writing on TH-cam and you are one of the most helpful BY FAR. Your videos are part of what cured my writer's block. Insta sub and like
Thanks this helps me a lot,I am still pretty new to being a DM and npc creation has been kinda hard(not making them generic).
I can tell I'm going to come back to this again and again when I need to make hordes of NPCs, so imma drop a favorite on this. And I literally only have 8 videos in my favs, including this now, so great job!
I don't know how cold this comment is, but to me Thomas at 10:05 sounds the most realist kind of person especially with the cliche desire. There are a lot of people who think others heads are in the clouds while they themselves might be considered as such.
Here’s another tip. When your players want to get to know a local NPC, have some scenario ready involving them, something like a side quest. Players like to be rewarded when they go off the main path, and I see so many DMs not realizing that having a few side quests prepared can help you be ready for players derailing the campaign and help you get back on the main path quicker with the players feeling satisfied with themselves. As a bonus, Players often think that it’s their own idea to go do these things, and will praise you for good improv when you really were prepared for them. I’ll give an example using some of the characters from this video. When the players enter a shop, give them a description that hints at something being off, but not so obvious that it couldn’t just be part of the character. For example, “When you step into the small shop, you are struck by how tidy it is. The merchandise lining the shelves is neatly organized, nearby items are labeled with names and prices, and not a single speck of dust coats the stone floor tiles. The shopkeeper, a man dressed in simple, but neat clothing appears to be just as spick and span as the rest of his shop, but on closer inspection you can see the man is anxious about something. He dismisses you with a mumble that you barely make out as his name, Brent and a greeting that could clearly use some work, and as soon as he has done so, he goes back to rifling through papers behind the counter. He mutters something angrily while a bead of sweat makes its way down from his brow as he hurriedly stuff something beneath the counter. When you turn to the walls, the merchandise is high quality, but perhaps not as great a selection as it could be” Small details like this that take a few minutes to think of and jot down can do wonders for the player immersion into the setting. You’ll notice I didn’t give any details about the shopkeeper other than a vague description of his clothing, but I’ll bet you probably pictured him and his shop while reading that short passage. If the players decide to spend some money and talk to him, he’ll let slip that a shipment of his was stolen just outside the town, and he’s worried he won’t be able to stay in business. If the players want to help, he’ll tell them that a local mercenary has a lead on some bandits he thinks might have stolen the shipment, and the mercenary hangs out a local tavern. If they go there, they’ll meet a local hero of some renown named Dennis The Vigilant. He’ll grudgingly tell the players that he has a lead on a group of bandits connected to a local fence, and he’ll give the players the info if they agree to do the job for him. He’ll give them the location of a hideout on the edge of town, which will hold the bandits who took the shipment. The players can negotiate with them for the identity of the fence they sold to, or beat the shit out of them and take the info off their corpses. (The, “You find a suspicious note” trick works well here.) The part can them set up a meeting with the fence, Johnny Five-Strings, a former musician who is rumored to have dealings with the criminal underworld of the city. Again, have the choice to negotiate or beat the shit out of him for the name of the client he sells his stolen goods to. After them they’ll get the name of a competitor of Brent’s, who has been stealing Brent’s shipments as a way to drive him out of business. When they arrive at his shop however, he’s hired Dennis to protect him from you. This gives the players an engaging miniboss fight where they can try to talk Dennis down or take him down. If they kill him, maybe they get some animosity from the town who considered him a hero. An alternative way to end is that Johnny’s client is none other than Brent himself. He convinced the players to go on a quest he knew would lead you to Johnny because he wanted Johnny dead for some reason, maybe to take over his dealings. Brent then hired Dennis to kill the players to dispose of the evidence. This gives the players a good minor antagonist to hate, because he screwed them over. This also makes for some good interparty role play as it will give all the characters are directly achievable goal that all players have a reason to work together for. Good players because, criminal, and neutral and evil characters because “he screwed me over”. I personally ran the second ending for my table and got three sessions over the initial side quest and the following quest of revenge on Brent that included breaking into a meeting of the criminal lords of the city and assasinating Brent there. It took me about 15 minutes of prep for that first sidequest and about 45 more for the whole thing. If the players never did it, I could’ve just moved the quest somewhere else, or just scrapped it because I’ve scrapped way more than 15 minutes of work in the past I could live with it. It’s very easy to turn a few loosely connected NPC concepts into a basic quest that, at least in the case of my party, ended up in some of the most memorable sessions I’ve ever run.
TLDR: USE SIDEQUESTS. I know they feel boring but they can add more fun to your campaign while also filling your players derailing quota,
Logan, you are a legend. Jesus Christ, I'm taking every note possible from this video
Dennis the Vigilant: His Enemy, an Undead Overlord in a tower.
Ainz Ooal Gown: I don't have a tower.
A very nice and helpful video especially for new DMs (like me). The thing I luck, is some source that will make my gears of creativity working so I can create weaknesses, needs, desires, etc. for my NPCs as easily as you can in thins video.
Jason Papadopoulos I don’t know if you still have this issue, but you could create a list or spreadsheet with various weakness, needs, etc and kind of randomize them, then create a story that fits that. Sometimes I come up with my best stuff when I’m caught off guard and I have to try to rationalize the situation. I’m actually a writer, and if a beta reader comes up to me and asks me something I honestly haven’t thought about, sometimes I’m landing on the idea and saying it simultaneously. It’s maybe a dangerous way to live, but exciting. 😎😅
Also there are some generator apps available that I find useful for supporting characters. One I like is called Characterize; you can save ones you like, input your own, that kind of thing. It takes into account their appearance, a skill, their religious perspective, that kind of thing.
Also for more in-depth stuff I like looking at personality types detailed in various systems. Myers-Briggs is pretty big. If you make sure the characters mix into the four major types and don’t overlap too much (some people have all dreamers or mostly leaders). It can help highlight a problem if one exists and also keep things varied moving forward.
Good luck!
Just take a note from Zelda's book and have a 'Happy Mask Salesman' type character run all the stores and have everyone constantly question what the hell the guy is but never give an answer.
So give them an ideal, a bond, and a flaw?
yeam but I think the way he put it is more understandable, easier
Personality traits
And a gole would be nice
Great video! I will definitely use this to create a few characters in a play I'm writing.
I dig this, good resources for interesting NPC and Villain creation are hard to find.
Id like to thank you for making all your DM help videos because of you I've managed to make a decent interesting campaign in a short amount of time
Actually, I once DMed a session where the players walked into a village of arcane clones named Belethor. The tavern keep was Belethor, the town mayor? Belethor. The shop keep? Belethor. That sexy hot barmaid with an ass of a goddess? Oh wait, it's a Belethor trap. the quest was to find a Shapeshifter who killed the one of the clones and took it's form... problem is, they all look the same... well except Bele-maid.
That is all kinds of disturbing.
*seduce Belethor*
This is an amazing idea
Do come back...
The shapeshifter was Bele-maid, wasnt it? Lmao
This video is just beautifull. Im only a player, but I'll share this with my DM and I think he'll like it, cause I as a player would love to encounter these characters. Keep it up!
Incredibly useful simple list!!
My method of adding compelling depth (PC or NPC) is by asking what is the *characters values & motivation? Re-phrased, what is their decision flips? What would make flip from the normal expected decision to something else?*
Example: A person may be a coward in the day to day, shirking away from hard things they might fail. But, their value might be hatred of abuse toward the helpless. If they see someone, not just being hurt, but helplessly hurt, they might flip out and grab for their cudgel and maybe lose control a bit (rage), spend their own money to help the person, then go right back to their cowardly life taking advantage of people.
To me, this helps the PC's the most. Don't just make a barbarian who always charges headlong into battle. In fact, a barbarian who is reluctant to do battle might be more interesting and more human. He just wanted (past tense) a quiet life. Sigh. If you force him to have enough reason to fight, then he's going to make ___ sure you won't be capable of doing so again.
Imagine playing a warlock that feels guilty about giving his patron service.
Maybe he took that in a dire moment of desperation in his youth (without understanding, or even more tearing apart: with understanding but a decision to do it anyway). Now that he's older and the moment of crises has passed, he isn't distracted enough to not start to feel the weight of what he's done. Everyone is all excited about multi-classing. Instead of max-min-ing, how about a character who slowly stops using his powers, most especially the high power ones, coming to a climax where he ultimately leaves his patron, losing his powers...
So he has to start the journey late or un-optimized. (work with the GM for a way to balance this with the campaign and maybe have some lingering effects good and bad from his prior service).
You can bet people will remember the character who rejoice in the moment of party success in a great battle, then quickly disappears and is found the next day in a moping or self destructing or in drunken stupor trying to bury his guilt of his power use. The party will remember the character who astonishingly gave up his super-power while everyone else greedily scoops up new abilities.
Maybe have him play weak for a session or 2, so that weight sets in... then have him earn the blessings of something powerful,
such as a paladin - have him start each day weak and weary, because he is so determined to make up for his old life that he stays up late and gets up early practicing until he drops.
or maybe a deity puts a piece of their self into him, instantly bestowing divine sorcery - something he can feel prowd/blessed to be able to use. Now he has a motivation of destroying the very things he used to serve, or maybe he just wants to show everyone that there is a better way than the bad choices.
or have him struggle as bad stats frequently drunken now barbarian or fighter. (and plan some way he can catch up to being properly useful to the party within a 2-4 sessions)
I'll definitely add your method as a go to and pre-prep a few character card of different classes that I can pull out and add to a picture on the fly (as if I had pre-planned the whole character, when it's really just mix & match, grab and go)
What I do without really thinking about it when I portray characters is shift my posture, my tone, the kind of language I use, the speed at which I talk, and the pitch to some extent.
I knew from the start I wasn't going to do "voices" because I don't feel comfortable doing it and I fear it may sap the character's credibility. In the end the subtle changes were more than enough to distinguish most characters. Also I ended up doing it when they met goblins and it was pretty fun.
I think this essentially makes an Oblivion NPC and I love it, you have the rumor, the secret (disposition raising), then you have a way to raise disposition being gold for Brent or being polite, or as well being tidy for Brent as well.
As well, if you add more needs, weaknesses and the like, you can make a full PC easily!
I played a Dwarf Solarian who, prior to the campaign, had spent the past 100 years as, effectively, a guard protecting the starfinder version of disaster relief missions on planets deemed dangerous enough to warrant extra firepower (dangerous wildlife, etc). With his tour of duty over, he quasi-unintentionally missed his flight home because he couldn't stand the thought of settling down.
*"What's his last name?"*
Maybe that's his desire. He wants a last name.
"They're all orphans, don't bother asking."
@@AceOfWaffles so when you ask him that he just stops talking to you
"What is your name?"
"Fjord."
"Have you a surname?"
"No."
The fatal question to ask your DM. Whether it's fatal to you or them, we'll never know.
This was very useful and clever. I would like to see more videos along these lines. Great job. Thanks.
This was really good man, lots of things to think about. I tend to enjoy making my NPC's feel more real and human when the party encounters them.
This video is a staple of my character creation process now - whether that’s for worldbuilding or storywriting!
AD&D first edition had full tables for this. Just roll the reqs and bam! You have an in depth character. I used to use the tables any time an intelligent item was found.
It helps that these tips can also be applied to just writing stories overall, not just DnD.
I really like this channel, and Im super happy that you branched out to do this. Its already been super helpful to me!
I feel you should add one more thing: disposition.
How the character acts towards you can effect how they will act in moments where there is character growth, and it's a part of a character that doesn't change.
This video is great for people who are trying to get into being a DM and haven't yet figured out how to introduce the players to interesting characters without stealing other people's ideas 😊 You should definitely make more about making being a DM a lot easier for new people wanting to learn how to make a good story for others to play
This is really good, getting ready to build my first town and I feel a good ten to fifteen npcs is good. This changed my hours long work into minutes. Making npcs on the fly too is going to be easy, thanks.
I came here for books and got D&D. Didn’t regret watching. Nice.
Super nice video! I laughed at the comment about taking notes at the end, because right around the Hero portion I ran up to restart the video and take notes xD. And I love the idea for Sarah! My next campaign involves the party getting a task from a wizard, and I think I'm going to make an apprentice off of Sarah's mold.
You don, you've only done, gone and did it! Own channel. Solid pieces of work dude
this is useful for players too, who are just starting on roleplaying.
This was loads of awesome info on characterbuilding and fleshing out personalities. Thanks for sharing! :)
You just helped me give my character a need and weakness which they lacked because im new to DnD and writing characters.
Thank you very much!
Genial.
I've already been doing something kinda similar, but I like your format and so I'll probably adapt it. Thanks for the tips! I do agree it is more fun to make NPCs a bit more human, even though that sometimes leads to them being a bit difficult to interact with at first.
Thanks! I really enjoy, and definitely need, these DM tips and world building. Keep on keeping on!
Keep making content like this and I shall return with undying exuberance.
Loving these GM help / notes videos!
Tbh i wouldnt just use this for dnd npc id say this is a fantastic guide for character creation subsequentially and worldbuilding thatd be great for game development, movies, series etc as well as dnd as said.
So thank you fpr this!
This helped me in just a quick and easy way to come up with side characters for novel, short story or comic medium as well.
This is a great video! Expanding on this, I'd like to see someone create a chart of 100 different ideas for each category that DMs can roll on the fly. I really enjoy taking random prompts and seeing what I can build with them!
This is perfect even for writing outside from roleplay and d&d
This inspired me to make a character creation template on a spreadsheet. When you get stuck meandering on how to get to details it takes the fun out of writing; having systems like what's been introduced in this video fixes that!
How to make an interesting merchant npc:
1. Make them based on email spams
2. Give them a boss battle
I can relate to Brent: cold, blunt, aspirations of wealth, craves companionship but won't do the work the improve his personality. Good video.
Hey, just wanted to say this video is really helping me with my campaign and making better characters. My campaign is supposed to be like a Slasher movie from the 70's/80's and that's kinda hard to do for DnD, but it's a lot of fun to write! So thanks a bunch
This is incredibly helpful and much simpler than I expected, which is good because I'm often overwhelmed with things
Runesmith, your video is great! But, if I had to make one small change to make NPC characters more interesting is another bullet point: Physical Trait.
One thing that has always helped me as a GM is giving the character some trait to help the party identify him afterwards. Maybe they do not remember Thomas, the unremarkable farmer, but someone may remember the jerk farmer with a single mirror. Or maybe give Sarah a british-like accent. Or Dennis could have a big scar across his eye. This will make the NPCs more remarkable and fun to roleplay.
My DM set all of the shop keepers sorta like Officer Jenny or Nurse Joys. There all different variations of Bob, Bobby, Roberto ext... Its a good time.
I feel like i personally know these characters
On the spot! My party is about to arrive to a tribal meeting of local techno-barbarians who gather to decide whether they should join the party's side of war, or the rebels (Warhammer 40k). I needed exactly 5 tribal chieftains NPC characters mocked up for this. When all of a sudden- bang! - i run into this video. A fantastic tips-set for me! Thanks a bunch, guys!!
Found this very useful! Not that I play D&D anymore, but super useful for writing in general.
This is a great system. Very useful, thank you!
I love your videos and love this type too. You should do more like this
This video isn't just useful for DnD, but Writing Characters in general (Books, Comics, Video Games, ect)
Nice Job dude
This helped out a lot tonight I'm going to be implementing this for future uses for the foreseeable future
One thing I like to add if the npc is selling goods of their own make is I like to add a selling point and flaw in the product. Example, I had an armoursmith named Bellmont who was a very extravagant guy so his work often looked way cooler but was a bit less functional.
Enjoyed this and so easy to understand and apply, would love to see more.
In the Champaign I’m currently dming, One of my player characters is playing a naked grung with sailor moon hair that goes all the way to the floor, and they have a pitchfork with the name “my love” the name is Phy’r The Lost and the best part is he has constant memory loss