The following article sprung from a discussion on the DM-Friendly Initiative (DMFI) forum. Thanks to all those who contributed their ideas and comments, I've incorporated them into the below article. If you are interested in further discussion, please use the link to the topic to look at additional ideas and post your comments. If you want to post and are not already a DMFI member, simply request to join the guild.

While adventures in the original Neverwinter Nights (NWN) and Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) may often be about combat and exploration, many times what makes them special are the various personalities (both friends and enemies) we interact with along the way: the non-player characters (NPCs). It makes a dramatic difference to the feel of the game if players can interact with believable and memorable NPCs who can liven up even mundane quests. Conversely, “cardboard cutout” NPCs can help ruin players’ fun and immersion by not being realistic or responsive.

This article will focus on ways we can most effectively play NPCs as a Dungeon Master (DM), although builders looking to breathe life into their scripted NPCs may also find it of use. Two major areas will be examined: technical skills, meaning how we can use the DM client to bring NPCs to life; and substantive qualities, meaning how we can create and then convey an NPC‘s personality and background. For those interested in learning and practicing DMing skills in-game, I recommend either the DMFI 101: So You Want To Be A DM module for NWN, or the DM 101 for NWN2 tutorial module.

Below are several common DM client techniques that can be employed while playing NPCs. All DMs have their own style and preferences for such things, so doing things one particular way is by no means necessary. However, it’s useful to see what has worked for other DMs and to have a variety of techniques and skills to draw on.

-- Multiple NPCs participating in conversations: this adds a strong element of theater and interest to scenarios, in which NPCs can talk and argue amongst themselves and with player characters (PCs). You can use the DMFI Wands and Widgets “Voice” in NWN, or the DMFI Tools in NWN2, to "throw your voice" to multiple NPCs as a DM. Without the DMFI add-ons, you can still achieve a similar effect by jumping between NPCs using Full Powers in both NWN and NWN2. In NWN, one can quickslot the Possess Full Powers option, so it just takes two clicks (one on the slot, one on the NPC) to do it; NWN2 requires use of the right-click menu on your target. Using either technique, if you have an idea of how you want the conversation to go and are a decently fast typist, the interaction will appear natural to the PCs.

-- Typing skill: this is pretty basic, but necessary for a DM that wants to use NPCs for longer conversations on a regular basis. Free typing tutors are available for download. Being able to have a "normal" speed conversation versus a slow one really does make a difference in-game, especially if you are using multiple NPCs in a conversation.

-- NPC conversation emotes: the DMFI emote functions in conversations work just as well for NPCs as for PCs. Having guards *salute*, NPC friends *wave* goodbye, and so on can add a lot of visual flavor. Even if there's no actual graphic of the NPC doing the emote (because the emote is not included in the game‘s animations or is too complicated), having NPCs emote their activities periodically via the chat line adds significantly to the environment’s ambiance for players and also can allow the DM to draw players’ attention to possible NPCs of interest.

-- NPC action emotes: emotes outside of a conversation can be controlled using the DMFI wands in NWN; similar scripted tools are available for NWN2, for example this emote device. Many types of things that can be done on a regular basis are rather mundane - having NPCs sit, lie down, fall down, appear to be searching etc. However, it helps not having NPCs just standing around all the time. It's also necessary in order to have NPCs visibly react to non-combat actions by PCs, for example if PCs knock down an NPC and tie them up.

-- Multiple NPC control: while using the DM avatar, or possessing an NPC with full powers, use CTRL+left-click with the mouse to draw a box around target NPC(s) to select them, then shift-click on a spot on the ground to make them move there (or on a creature to make them attack). This is a necessary, basic skill for DMs, that is used in a variety of situations. Note that PCs can also be included in the forced move. For example, in the “Desperate Measures” module, PCs often have to be escorted between jail cells by guards. The DM can possess the head guard with full powers, emote *shackles the prisoner* and use the above technique to move everyone together through the hallways.

-- NPCs going "off screen." Sometimes an NPC will have to go to another area to check on something, or fetch something or someone. To make it look realistic, you can walk the NPC to the area transition (door, whatever), then unpossess it and send it to limbo. If it's a large area, you can just walk the NPC to the point where PCs can't see it anymore. Using the DM avatar, you can then shut the door or do whatever else is appropriate that the NPC would have done from the other side. Coming back, do the reverse - open the door using the DM avatar and then jump the NPC from limbo to the spot right before the door. A simple technique, but helpful to keep the DM always in the same area with the players, while at the same time making the NPCs seem like they're interacting with the environment in the same way the PCs do.

-- Create and have notes easily available on the NPC’s background and personality. This will ensure consistency and avoid awkward pauses while you try to remember key background elements. An issue that frequently arises when playing on a persistent world (PW) is the use of a single NPC by different DMs; inconsistencies demonstrated while possessing that NPC could leave players scratching their heads or may even anger them if the DM is ignorant of important plot points involving that NPC. One common technique is to have a no-drop book (or other appropriate item) in the inventory of major NPCs listing their allies, enemies, personality quirks, and some key background information. That way a DM put on the spot can still play the NPC in a reasonably consistent and appropriate manner by looking at the item in inventory.

Using either the NWN or NWN2 DMFI tools, a DM can create a clone of one of the PCs. While not an everyday occurrence (one hopes), this can be done to create truly believable and memorable NPCs of...the players themselves! Possible scenarios include: a time travel episode where the PCs meet past or future selves; encountering a doppleganger; a dream sequence where the PCs see themselves; or the result of using a Mirror of Opposition or similar object in-game.

Below are detailed instructions for using the NWN Wands and Widgets to create a PC copy as an NPC. For NWN2 DMs, you can find the relevant DMFI Tools commands (PC_Copy, Copy_Party_PC) in both the DMFI Target box Creature Tool and Server Tool menus.

-- Use the DMFI DM Wand on the player or another NPC you wish to copy.

-- Select option 4 (Player: store and Recall/Copy)

-- Copy player or party to campaign object (option 1 or 2)

-- Then select DM Wand option 4 again (Player: Store and Recall/Copy)

-- Then option 3 (Recall the Player campaign objects)

-- You should now have a copy of the player as an NPC.

With the latest version 1.09 beta DMFI Wands & Widgets you can change the name of the NPC if you wish, as well as alter its appearance if necessary. The NWN2 DMFI Tools also incorporate a feature which allows you to change the names of NPCs.

One important thing to note is that PC clones will drop a exact copy of all their loot if killed. If the DM does not want that to occur, they can do a couple of different things:

-- Use the DMFI DM wand on the clone and select option 2 (Player Macro Inventory functions). You can then remove all items from the NPC, or if that is too much, all non-equipped items. Note that this does not transfer the items to your DM inventory, it destroys them.

-- You can also adjust settings on the NPC clone with the NPC control wand. Use the NPC control wand. and go to option 8 (NPC corpse functions). Setting it to a normal vanishing corpse on death or a raisable or static corpse will assure that the items don’t drop.

The technical side of playing NPCs is a much smaller topic than the substantive side. There is a lot of existing material on playing NPCs available - much of it meant for pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) - but we can't (and wouldn’t want to) reproduce all of it here. That said, we will look at a number of the most important creative techniques for creating and playing NPCs that can be used in NWN and NWN2.

-- Treat each NPC who is going to interact with the PCs as a separate person/character. They have their own reasons for living and for doing whatever it is they are doing when the PCs run across them. For the DM, simply having this mentality will automatically add some depth to playing even generic NPCs.

-- Building on the above, give NPCs unique characteristics, or at least ones that are largely different from each other. This can be done physically with an NPC's appearance and clothing in-game, but should flow logically from who the NPC is. A paladin NPC might have a unique set of impressive armor and a warhorse nearby, while a jester NPC could be dressed in an outlandish costume. Going against expectations can also be effective, like having a rich well-dressed oaf, or a poorly-dressed, badly-groomed wise scholar; these things can stick out in the mind. In any case, bright colors and weird outfits aren't necessary to set important NPCs apart; giving them a unique set of clothing/armor or varying their appearance is usually enough.

-- Tailor an NPC’s name to their personality; warrior NPCs might have rough-sounding or guttural names, peasantfolk unremarkable names, wise or smart PCs softer-sounding names, as a few examples. Epithets and nicknames are easy to remember, so play around with those. The players may not remember Benjamin Verhannesberg's full name, but they can remember he's known around town as Big-Belly Ben. Be sure to keep the names simple enough to type frequently. If you do have a character with a long, difficult-to-pronounce name, then try to make it a name that's easily shortened in informal chat. In an ideal world, you want your PCs able to refer to NPCs by their names, so make it easy on them. If you must use the random name generator in the toolset, don't use the name as-is; use it as inspiration, perhaps, but tweak or modify it. Players can spot the randomly generated names after a while, and tend to associate a randomly-generated name with an unimportant character.

-- From the NPC's perspective, the PCs are not necessarily the most important people in the world. NPCs should react to PCs based on the NPC's knowledge, priorities, and interests. Keeping this in mind helps avoid the single-player computer roleplaying game (CRPG) phenomenon of NPCs within a few minutes becoming intimately friendly with PCs and offering them major quests. As a DM, you may sometimes have to work to come up with a logical reason for NPCs to work with the PCs - emphasis on logical - but it’s always good to keep in mind that the average NPC won't immediately share their innermost thoughts and problems with a PC. Players actually appreciate this, as it gives them a sense of challenge and progress in working with NPCs, rather than just treating them as a quest-o-matic machine.

-- Have NPCs perform and emote actions periodically in the background. This gives the impression that they are doing things independently of the PCs, making the world more alive. When interacting with PCs, this can also be effective in making the NPCs seem more real, especially with "generic" ones such as guards. Maybe one has a cold, so keeps blowing their nose, and their dialog comes out with a nasal "accent." Bartenders polish glasses, merchants work on ledgers, soldiers march by, and so on.

-- Most of an NPC's truly memorable characteristics derive from his or her behavior and personality. When fellow gamers comment on NPCs they remember well, rarely do they talk about their clothes, but rather how the NPCs interacted with their PC or the party as a whole.

-- Give NPCs their own unique speech pattern. This is not always easy, especially if you give them a special "accent" and you have to type it consistently for all of their dialog. Players can use accents with their PCs very successfully as a characterization technique and it can be done with NPCs as well. If you’re not particularly good at this, when using accents you can limit it to some basic things like substituting "Ye" for "You" and the like. Sometimes it's also worth avoiding the standard fantasy cliches if they detract rather than add to PCs' perceptions of NPCs (i.e. don't necessarily give all dwarves Scottish accents) .

-- How NPCs interact uniquely is much more than accents, it's about the rhythm of their speech, whether the NPC sticks to their original point or wanders off on another subject, how often they pause, their vocabulary, etc. Intelligent, well-educated NPCs should "sound" very different from peasants, and different classes and professions will have their own specialized vocabulary to draw on. Some NPCs will be easier to talk to than others (consider their charisma score) and some may have annoying habits, like not knowing when to shut up in a conversation, or having a speech impediment.

-- Give the NPC unique personality characteristics. Even generic NPCs seem more three-dimensional if they have one or two characteristics that easily come across, whether they be positive or negative. A guard who likes to tell bad jokes, a merchant that is very prideful of his appearance, a barmaid who limps because of a wound she got in a bandit attack on her village (and who tells everyone she meets about it) are all examples.

NPCs aren’t just window dressing, since they are used (and sometimes abused) in an adventure’s plot. This merits discussion apart from creating their behavior and personality characteristics. One can think of their behavior in specific scenes as their “tactical” use, while their role in your plotlines is more of a “strategic” use. Important NPCs should generally be more complex and their personalities should also be capable of evolving if they have long-term interaction with PCs. This is especially true with NPCs who are antagonists, as cardboard villains can get boring for players. Have the NPCs learn, adapt, and better understand the PCs as they continue to oppose them. Also, giving villains positive characteristics, or giving NPC allies negative ones, can lend greater depth to the game, since they'll be more realistic personalities and therefore require the PCs to think more about how they handle their NPC relationships. Allies might not always be trustworthy, while enemies may have similar goals (although a different way of going about them) as the PCs do, for example.

Here are some thoughts on how to use NPCs strategically in your adventure.

-- Give NPCs a reason to be special to one or more of the PCs. This can be a shared background, shared personality trait, or even just a similar interest ("What? You collect Underdark ales too?") In this case, the special connection is created by the DM based on an already-existing characteristic of the PC. The PC comes from a family of horse breeders; the NPC breeds horses too. A little more tricky, but worthwhile, is to have a dynamic link evolve between NPC and PC. This can be positive or negative: an NPC who helps the PC out, and in return receives a favor from the PC, could easily develop a friendship with the PC, in the process perhaps giving the PC access to special areas or items. Making friends with a particular NPC merchant or town leader is a common example of this. On the negative side, having the PC cross an NPC by disrupting their plans or taking something desired by the NPC can result in creating an enemy.

-- Make NPCs the center of their own lives, with their own motivations and desires, but don’t have them be the center of the PCs' lives. Have friendly NPCs come up with ways the PCs can help them out, but not to the extent that the NPCs always control how the PCs accomplish the tasks, or will usually accompany the PCs. This helps give the PCs some necessary direction for plot purposes, but also gives them choice in how they approach the task at hand, as well as a chance for failure. NPCs leading the PCs by the hand to a guaranteed success (or failure) is fun for no one.

-- Place the PCs in the position of having to make decisions about the fate of NPCs. This immediately draws the PCs more into your world, thereby increasing the immersion factor, and if done properly makes the PCs care more about the situation they are placed in. Regardless of what the situation is and what the PCs choose, there should be significant in-game consequences. Examples include freeing or purchasing slaves at an auction, serving as a jury at a trial, or coming across a crime in progress and having to decide how to react.

-- Be flexible and think in advance about how NPCs could react to future PC actions and decisions. Players will always surprise DMs with their decisions - often to the DM's shock and horror - but considering how NPCs would react to different possibilities will help the DM adjust more easily to surprises. Keeping a plot relatively non-linear, or at least with flexible outcomes, is much less difficult to manage if this is done. Instead of saving the princess and returning her to her father, the PCs decide to take her to a neighboring kingdom for ransom - entirely possible in a DM'd adventure! Other, more common types of deviations include deciding to keep an important quest item rather than returning it to the quest-giver; consequences for such an action should be thought of in advance.

-- Don’t make too many major NPCs that will interact with plot repeatedly, as this takes away focus from the PCs. Having too many complex NPCs also makes it harder to keep your NPCs distinct and tires out the DM. It's harder to bring them all to life when there is a cast of thousands, harder to remember how they are supposed to react and sound, and harder for the players to separate them from one another and remember what each of them are (or should be) doing.

Below are some comments regarding memorable NPCs, provided by several different contributors. Note that some memorable scripted NPCs are included.

-- My favorite NPC and most memorable one was one that I took from the background of one of my players. The player was a rogue pursuing another rogue who had stolen something from the player's employer. Little did he know that the rogue he was pursuing was the adopted daughter of another NPC that another player was pursuing. The daughter started out as a typical young thief: brash, manipulative and a tease (she tried to use her wiles to put off the players, especially the one pursuing her). The party met up with her fairly quickly into the campaign because her father saw them as annoying thorns he wanted removed. Well, the party killed her and kept after the father. Little did they know that she didn't die, but was raised as a vampire by her father after the players left. This brought out her darker nature and she then vowed to not only revenge herself on the players, but to also destroy her father for transforming her against her will. For the rest of the campaign, she taunted the players, occasionally kidnapping one of them and sending lesser vampires to try and kill them at various intervals. It was quite an experience to play a manipulative bitch, but a worthwhile one. I use her as a template for all of my antagonistic female NPCs now.

-- Kaguya the Bamboo Princess from an oriental campaign was based off the myth "The Bamboo Princess and the five sacred treasures." The NPC started out as a neutral force that was manipulating the PC party for her own ends before becoming a full-fledged villainess. She had been sealed away by her siblings and she sought to fill the void that the creator of all celestial beings left behind when he disappeared from the world. Furthermore, she had reached such heights in power that she was the second most powerful divine force in the world. The PCs had to absorb the powers of minor deities as well as use fragments of a sacred artifact just to stand up to her. The final battle was a roleplay dice battle but it was very memorable. She swiped the artifact fragments from the weaker willed PCs while the stronger willed continued to attack. The stronger willed PCs tore down her barriers long enough for the "powerless" PCs to ram a candle brazier through her body.

-- Ravel the night hag from Planescape: Torment is one NPC that springs to mind. Repulsive, sadistic, but still affectionate for the main protagonist, if only out of a curious interest. Ravel should deserve no pity, but seeing the old hag get killed did feel like a loss.

-- Aerie from Baldur’s Gate 2 was memorable. She had a beautiful and unique appearance and was a helpful companion, yet was annoying in various ways. Her interactions with other NPCs (Jaheira for example) were quite entertaining, even if not always the most helpful. She had her own issues with her Avariel heritage and as a result was both an attractive and flawed character. Not always what you wanted, but definitely stuck in your mind.

-- The boy Simon from Arawen’s Planewalkers: Dreamland module. The party had to enter Simon’s dreams in order to rescue him, creating a fantastic situation to begin with. A number of different aspects of Simon were encountered, but the boy himself was not met until the end. It was a very creative way of having the NPC be central to the plot, but yet not dominate the PCs’ decisions, and a unique way of getting to know him.

The techniques and examples discussed above should provide NWN and NWN2 DMs a large number of ideas on how they can use NPCs in order to bring their worlds to life. Some of the ideas are likely familiar, others may be new or untried for you. Hopefully they will be useful additional resources for your own adventures, whether they take place in a single module, an ongoing campaign, or a PW environment.

Below are links to some DMing resources for your convenience, including ones listed above as well as additional ones which are related to the article‘s topic. As mentioned at the beginning, the DMFI welcomes your comments in the discussion on the DM-Friendly Initiative (DMFI) forum.

DMFI 101: So You Want To Be A DM - DMing tutorial module for NWN

Game master tips: Advice for role-playing NPCs - additional ideas and examples for playing memorable NPCs