The 7 NPCs You Will Only Ever Need - GM Tips

All my players grew up with games like Zelda. When I have an NPC suggest a terrible idea, they don't see a terrible idea, they see a side-quest.

8:22 *The guide*, the shorcut, the point A to point B guy. 9:40 *The advancement*, the plot-hook. they advance the plot. 10:02 *The rival*, not evil, provides some friendly competition for the party. 11:56 *The mentor*, the voice of the DM. 13:46 *The long term*, the living npc (no more than 3 at a time). 15:08 *Support*, makes the lives of npc easier, the lil helpers, almost like Santa elves. 16:12 *Comic reflection*, the funny guy.

"Building up courage to jump off a bridge." I laughed way too hard at that.

This was incredibly helpful, but we all know that Sam was the real hero of LOTR.

"How does a dwarven blacksmith know about 3000 year old elven cooking techniques?" "They had a good ale! And, I mean, once you have a good ale...you need some food to go with it..." "...How long did it take you?" "Ten years."

It's also useful to subvert expectations for some of these. For the Guide archetype: my players arrive at a town just north of the southern jungles. The players know the jungle as having a reputation for being extremely dangerous and impossible to navigate. In the town, they are encountered by Rico, a local guide who boasts about his great experience navigating the treacherous southern jungles. The players hire him and go to the jungles. As they travel, Rico continues singing high praises of his accomplishments in documenting the flora and fauna of the jungles. Also, he reveals an iron strongbox, whose contents he says are for absolute and dire emergencies alone. He does not say what's in the box. It's the first night in the jungle and the players are making camp. So far they have relied on Rico for navigation and foraging. Rico comes to camp with what he claims is the white dragon plant, a rare delicacy which can be boiled to make a tea so delicious it's heartbreaking. He brews it, takes a sip, and immediately falls over dead. The players open his box, and find inside... a sandwich. Will the players survive the jungles and manage to navigate to their destination? What will they do when the thieve's guild frames them for the murder of Rico? :) Feel free to steal this.

7:45 I'm not agreeing with this. You CAN make a shopkeeper very interesting. I had one NPC character for my campaign, it was a shopkeeper, who was very unsatisfied with her job and looked up to the adventurers. She was very curious and amazed by their stories. The players really liked her. Besides her giving many discounts, she was also pretty smart and fun, but she lacked the confidence to leave her shop and do something else. One night her shop was raided, and she was gone. The players put down their main mission to find her. Reason that she was kidnapped was because she hid away a magic weapon the bandits wanted to find. The group rescued her, but in the last fight she also found her courage and she started to fight back: She rescued herself. After that, she took out the magic weapon she had been hiding for so long and decided to become an adventurer herself. She accompanied the party for a few sessions after that, they taught her about combat. She eventually became a fighter and seperated ways with the group, she wanted to start her own group of adventurers. The group of players clearly showed that they found this ''side quest'' very wholesome, and Lydia Shortstep, the Shopkeeper, is still an NPC my players talk about after 2 years. :) Maybe I'll give her a comeback.

“Elrond is here because Elrond is great!” -best line ever.

I like to add a line of detail to each NPC's story each time the characters interact with them. It keeps me from falling off the deep end and backstorying everyone in the world, while NPC's my players latch onto wind up fully fleshed & developed.

I think there should be the emotional attachment NPC. This character has one purpose: to be beloved and then die horribly.

So, I have this trio of NPCs in my game. One is an Advancement NPC that morphed into a Long Term NPC friend, one was a Guide that now serves as an Advancement NPC, and one is a Mentor. Over time, it evolved that the three of them had been adventures together when they were young, but only the Mentor had kept adventuring once they'd become successful (the other 2 retired and went into business for themselves). The Mentor has been nerfed to prevent her from becoming a shortcut by making her exceptionally old, so her magic is really good (8th level caster), but a 90 year old woman is in no position to trek around or engage in battle. The other two retired at roughly the NPC equivalent of lvl 7, so while they're still physically capable (dwarf and drow, so slow aging by comparison), they aren't strong enough to be much help against the big bad guy. The retired two have admitted that they just couldn't continue adventuring because the third was just a bit too crazy, destructive and impulsive, accidentally burning down taverns by using fire spells indoors or angering people at really inconvenient moments (she's a "classic" CN...not evil, just disruptive, though now mellowed with age), making her also a bit of a dark mirror as a Mentor for our PCs. Finding out all the stories about the NPCs adventures has been fun for the players. They're starting to ask a lot of questions about the history of the troupe. My players actually want to do a short side game now playing the NPCs in a PC party, as a prequel to their current game. Lol.

Guy: "Sam never overshadowed Frodo" Me: "ummmmmm..."

One warning for the "rival" in that inexperienced or unaware DMs might actually turn them into a DM character insert. You need to ask yourself if you really need this rival npc or will the players just see this as you the DM trying to create a character that you're playing who is better than the players. To prevent this, consider having the character not start out as a rival, or have the players complete a quest and move to a new town where they might find this character now with a grudge because the players stole their chance at glory. Some rivalries, certainly in real life, can have one side or both wanting nothing more to happen than have the other person fail, be ruined and humiliated because they are petty and bitter individuals, but there's also the kind who tries to elevate the other side, in this case the players, to make sure that they are keeping up to their own ever increasing skill. You can then wrap the "rival" into one of the other NPC types so it isn't just the players asking "Why is the dm using this character as a chance to be a jerk to us in the game?" Make them the begrudging guide, or a mentor or trainer, they could be a long term npc that doesn't have to be around the party. Maybe they could go away on their own quest due to the actions of players. Of course there are people out there who do seek out to make these characters for the sole purpose of one upping their own players but I didn't want to touch on that aspect as I wanted to highlight other ways this npc could be done.

The dude feeding pigeons in the park is actually the BBEG's lieutenant having a mid-life crisis, and depending on the PC's interaction they might have an in to the BBEG's lair. Or, maybe he is the BBEG! And they can turn him into an ally based on their interactions.

"Only when the rocks fall together, does everybody die." ;)

"the only 7 NPCs you will ever need" I think makes more sense. trying to read your title made my brain explode

I always feel like I might make it as a GM when I realize I've accidentally done something in my games intuitively that turns out to be a part of Guy's advice.

This was a great video. After thinking about the question, I realized that I would add a few more NPC's to the list. I noticed that the archetypes mentioned closely mirrored Jungian Archetypes: The Guide is the Explorer Archetype, The Advancement is the Magician Archetype, The Rival is the Hero Archetype, The Mentor is the Sage Archetype, The Long Term is the Lover Archetype, The Support is the Caregiver Archetype, and the Comic Reflection is of course the Jester Archetype. I already wanted to add the Antagonistic as the Outlaw Archetype (This being the contrary character like a gate guard you need to get past without killing), and the Extra as the Everyman Archetype (Faceless and indistinct from the crowd), which leaves the Ruler, Artist, and Innocent Archetypes. The Innocent NPC is of course the character / characters that need to be rescued. It's good to introduce this character in one of the other roles first, to establish their utility / pathos for the PC's. The Artist NPC is the mad scientist, Hephaestion smith, or crazy wizard that goes beyond what the rules traditionally allow. They create one-of-a-kind magic objects, threats, and locations. They differ from the Support character in being antagonistic as often as helpful, and they differ from the Antagonistic character in being largely neutral to the PC's. Finally, the Ruler Archetype is the character that is in charge of all the other NPC's. They can overlap with the Advancement, Antagonistic, or other archetypes, but are distinct in their narrative function to lend verisimilitude. The Ruler Archetype allows the PC's to access or contend against a wide variety of resources (soldiers, prisons, propaganda, money) that they would not otherwise encounter. While the other Archetypes tend to support the PC's in some way, the Ruler, Artist, and Antagonistic Archetypes tend to bend the story-narrative around them and provide more obstacles than aide.

I can't think of other types, but I can think of many times I have cross-typed NPC's. The cleric that disliked the NPC's and showed it at any chance, but was actually an important mentor who, slowly grew to like them and actively became a mentor. This was planed and based on the Master-Of-Arms from the movie The Black Shield Of Falworth.

No! (I cry dramatically) I need my cast of 197 intricately crafted DMP- I mean NPCs in order to guide my players through my fantasy world!