NPC Lists

I have run a few campaigns that have gone on for years, and I return to them time and again, because I have a lot of data on NPCs, that just 'makes' the game more alive.. Players always comment when they find out, and I thought maybe I should share.

NPC LISTS.. 

A simple 'how to take your game up a notch'.

When we start Gamesmastering, we often have simple notes, names of towns on a map, dungeon locations, maps of the dungeon, but often when players arrive in a town, we have to quickly invent names of Taverns and N.P.C.s. Its so common, many game systems even have charts to help the GM come up with these, in the rules. Usually the Casual GM with a fly by night campaign, will end there.

But what about the consummate professional?

Fable II NPCs.

When players are arriving back in your city or town, weeks or months later, will they ever see your NPCs again? or worse, will they only ever see your NPCS?

If they frequent the same bars, sure, the bartender will likely still be there, but what of the staff? the patrons who frequent the place, might on certain nights of the week, but every single day?

Taverns

A simple approach is to have a page from a calendar, rip one out of an old calendar, re-write over the month with the name of the tavern, jot down the name of the bartender, and depending on your size, 2-3 bar wenches. 

Now, on the first row assign the bar wenches to days of the week, busy nights, get all 3, average get 2 and empty, one or maybe just the bartender. 

On the rows below.. roll on your favourite NPC generator and jot in regulars, each 'day' could cope with 3-6 names, in a social 'group' and on the very last row, non regular visitors.

Busy nights, should have 3-6 regulars per bar wench, so make sure you've got a bunch of names in those columns.. They aren't all going to be brawling 2nd-3rd ranked fighters, there should be some kind of hierarchy, choose 1 per 'group' as a leader, mark him as such. F2 or something. add some key 'visual' feature "broken tooth" or something..

Thomas Schmall: The Inn Keeper : oxpal.com

Viola, Your players arrive in town, you pull out 2-3 'calendar' taverns and ask which one they want to visit, remind them of the day of the week (they should be able to tell based on market activity). Once they choose, glance at your days of the week to determine how busy or empty your tavern is, roll d6 more irregulars, space them out on separate tables.. based on the weather.. cold: put em all closer to the fire, warm? the windows.

If your players engage in conversation, it'd be likely the leader who'd address them, point out your visual feature.. because weeks later when they return to this tavern, they'll remember 'broken tooth' better than they'll remember "Bob Farnsworth"

Now.. heres the fun part..

If your players are using this town as a base of operations.. have your irregulars turn up in different taverns, maybe broken tooth might be brokering a deal in a different place when the players turn up. Players aren't playing this game 24/7 so they'll forget and blunder over to talk to him, remind them.. "You see the broken toothed man from the Boars head, but he's engaged in a private conversation, seems like a bad idea to draw any attention to yourselves", If they now decide to go talk to broken tooth, its their own fault that they've angered him and he's now against the players.. add a -1 friendly to his name.

Over time, you'll add notes to N.P.C.s that players engage with, events that may (or may not) be relevant to the game.. maybe they sold a magic dagger to Klint Korgush, so next time there was a brawl in the Boars head, he accidentally killed a guy, and he sits in jail, blaming the players, his friends in the tavern don't look kindly on the PCs from now on.. 

But how will you know this?

Each session your players are going through adventures.. at the end of the session, roll some dice, consult some charts, and modify some N.P.C.s. Maybe Two NPCS have fallen in love with each other, a regular and a bar wench, or some guy fell off a ladder at work, and has a broken foot..

Make up a chart of things that might happen, roll once per tavern, 3d10 to find which 'day' of the month it happens to, d4 or d6 for which one in your list. it takes all over 5 minutes, 

But when your players come back after a quest, and spy Lillian the bar wench being overtly friendly to Bob.. then after the next quest, Bob has a black eye and Lillian is with Steve, then next time, Lillian has stopped working at the tavern they might inquire and find that she's married Steve now..

Years later, the characters have traveled the world, and return to grab some stash.. and you've been making the rolls all this time, and they walk into the Boars head, and find that Steve is no longer around, Bob is, and he's talking to a 16yr old kid that looks a little like Lillian and Bob, and he's interested in being the players sidekick, learning the ropes to be an adventurer, because Steve used to tell the stores of the adventurers often, before he died defending the town against goblins, and Bob took over as dad, but turns out all along that its Bobs kid..

20 rolls on the chart got me that.. 20 adventures, taking between 3 months and 2 years to perform, 17 years of adventuring, in real life, maybe 2 years, and the players return and the look on their faces when they see Bob in the Tavern, with a kid that looks like Bob, That's the moment, as a Gamesmaster, that my players understand the level of depth my world 'potentially' has.

Not just taverns, but town halls, guilds, and market squares all have the same or similar regulars, and goings on..  Noble families, administrations, governments too.. just a few more rolls.. and now you have a whole continent of NPCs for players to interact with.