Feature Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay, Background image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay, color splashes & compositing by Mike

I generated two images to accompany this article (actually, I generated 10, but these were the two that made the cut) – and could not pick between them; they both reflected the content and title in equally-compelling but distinctly-different ways. So I’m using both of them. The second image will appear a bit later.

While this is being offered as a second entry in the current Blog Carnival on Characters and Characterization hosted by Plastic Polyhedra, it’s something that happens to be at the top of my to-do list anyway. I’ll explain why a little later (save me doing it twice).

It contains a series of thought-streams that collectively define an NPC in terms of how they will interact in-play with plot, narrative, dialogue, and relationships – in other words, with other characters, especially PCs. The technique described is optimized for modern-day play but works with any genre. Let’s dive right in…

First Thought: Foundation

When I create an NPC, even an off-the-cuff one, the first question I always ask is “what is this character’s purpose?” What do I want the character to do – within the plotline, within the immediate campaign, within the long-term campaign.

I may not have an answer for all these, and in most cases, that won’t matter – the odds are good that I will have an answer to one of them, and that gives me a starting point for the character.

Foundation purposes can be anything from “giving the PCs factual information” to “enabling the PCs to do X” to “selling something that the PCs want to buy” to “being an obstacle that the PCs have to overcome”. They span the gamut from things that are helpful to the PCs to outright opposition that has to be overcome for some approach to a problem to succeed.

A completely valid purpose is “keep the PCs attention while X is happening somewhere else.”

You may have noticed that most of these are defined at the plot level. That’s because of the way ‘purpose’ has been defined, which is in plot terms.

But not all purposes are so narrow in scope. A perfectly-valid answer is “to compliment the PCs abilities”. Or “to be a romantic love-interest.” These are also plot-related, but there is a layer of interpretation in between the plot and the purpose, like a Vaseline-smear on a lens (sometimes called ‘soft focus’). Those are perfectly valid, too.

One of the Key NPCs in my superhero campaign is a Kzin. He is a member of the team because he needs to repay a debt of honor, having been indoctrinated into a variant of the samurai code. Two of the PCs have abilities that are mutually incompatible according to the rules, and this also impacts their perspectives; the PCs purpose is not the plot-internal circumstance described, that’s just his motivation; it’s to bridge the gap and facilitate the PCs using their powers and abilities in concert to achieve things that either would find difficult or impossible on their own. This permits unbeatable enemies to bedevil the team until the right combination unlocks a weakness that the team can’t otherwise exploit. In other words, his purpose is to help the PCs achieve their potential.

That’s not all that plot-oriented, not directly – instead, it’s about adding to the tool-kit that the players have at their disposal for engaging with the plot.

The character has a secondary purpose, of providing an alien perspective, an “outsider’s view” which enables me to use him as a mouthpiece for interpretations of events and circumstances that the players haven’t thought of.

The other NPC who is a full member of the team is relatively weak, with no real super-powers of his own (at least, not yet). He’s a skilled agent, a former member of the SAS, an expert problem-solver slash fix-it man, with connections to the highest levels of political and social authority, and an expert on bureaucracy and structured planning – areas in which the PCs are weak. His purpose is similar to that of the Kzin, in that he is there to articulate a certain perspective that the PCs lack, and to take some of the boring bits of the PCs lives into the background so that I can focus gameplay more on the things that aren’t dull. He will also provide a gateway into, or out of, some adventures, at least in the medium-term.

So purposes can be emotional, or functional, or plot-oriented, or any number of other things. They can facilitate, enhance, constrain, or oppose. It’s a very broad field.

Second Thought: Imperfection

No-one is both completely believable as a character AND perfect at doing whatever it is that they are there to do. So my second thought is about what weakness, flaw, or imperfection might stand in the character’s way in terms of fulfilling this function. This doesn’t have to be internal; it could be an external circumstance or situation. Either the character or the PCs, or the two in cooperation, have to overcome this imperfection in order for the character to fulfill their basic function.

The term “imperfection” was not chosen casually; all the alternatives that come to mind have specific meanings in one or more RPG systems, but (to the best of my knowledge) this is a term that means the right thing and hasn’t been claimed by anyone.

Imperfections can be internal (‘doesn’t trust authority”) or external (‘the computer system is fried, they’re working on it”), personal (“doesn’t like people like you”) or impersonal (“die-hard environmentalist”). Their can be political, economic, social or even criminal complications or motivations.

They can be self-contained, or can simply be the tip of an iceberg (“character is being blackmailed into opposing what the PCs are trying to do and WILL NOT COOPERATE.” – which implies a conspiracy, and a very well-informed or carefully-planned one.)

Quite often (depending on the character’s purpose) the imperfection is something that is to be overcome, with or without the cooperation of the NPC. Quite often, it’s simplest to define the imperfection in terms of what you need to do to overcome it – “get a search warrant”, “show your authority”, “flatter them”, “agree with them”, “accept an invitation to dinner”, “show the importance of the outcome”.

“Scatterbrain” is a perfectly valid imperfection!

I pick and choose the imperfection at the same time as I am contemplating whether or not I want it to be overcome – and that’s thought process number three.

Third Thought: Through-story

Next, I need some idea of just how the imperfection could be, or will be, overcome. Or if it won’t be, or at least not yet.

Lots of possibilities there, so let’s break them down.

• Could Be – If the NPC is not to cooperate, if for any reason they might not want to fulfill their function, there is a roll involved. Specify the roll, and the requirements, and you’re ready to move on.
• Will be- If it’s their job to fulfill their purpose, for example to convey requested information to anyone who both wants it and is entitled to have it (including the PCs), then overcoming the imperfection should be straight narrative sequence or role-playing sequence / conversation, with no roll required. Map out the gist of the narrative/conversation, and (if necessary) the broad strokes of what the NPC is going to say, and you’re ready to move on.
• Won’t Be- There are many reasons why I might want to block the character from fulfilling their function when the PCs ask them to do so. It might be too direct or simple a solution, i.e. not enough fun; it might be that I want some other PC to solve it; it might be that I’m trying to set up circumstances for some larger plotline. The reasons don’t particularly matter, the end result is that I want to block off this particular road forwards for the PCs. The question then becomes one of preventing the PCs from overcoming the imperfection without the cooperation of the NPC. This can be especially effective if the NPC gives every indication that they want to cooperate but are unable to do so. Once I have what I need in terms of the roadblock to this avenue of approach to the story, I can move on.
• At least not yet- There are times when the background needs time to marinate, when a plot needs time to mature into a threat of sufficient magnitude or difficulty that it will pose an interesting challenge to the players, and the NPC overcoming their limitations eventually can furnish a gateway into the heart of that situation. That means that while I want them to fulfill their ultimate purpose eventually, I don’t want them to do so yet. For the time being, I need to stonewall the PCs as already described – but there has to be an imperfection within the imperfection that will enable it to be overcome when the time is right. Yes, this is metagaming from the GMs perspective – he’s having the NPC do things or not do things purely for reasons that the NPC would know nothing about – and it’s one of the reasons why I contend that not all metagaming is evil.

Fourth Thought: Distinctiveness

Every NPC should stand out in some way, however minor. Some are designed to be memorable (because they look like being fun to play – an example would be the lady who runs the New Orleans Historical Society in my superhero campaign world, who might or might not recur). Others are only to be present once, but need to make an impact. Others have to help sell the ‘reality’ of the situation the characters are in, or a particular mood or tone. I’ve had NPCs whose sole function was to exude competence at their jobs!

Distinctiveness often has a relationship with cliche – avoiding it, acknowledging it, embracing it, or even negating it. There are even times when you can explore a more complex relationship with cliche, adding terms like ‘exploiting it’ or ‘redefining it’ or ‘subordinating it” to the list of possibilities. I have an example later in the article that demonstrates the latter.

Fifth Thought: Manifestations

I’ve now got a handle on the character’s fundamentals in terms of how they will interact with the plot and/or the campaign. The next question is how all of the things that have been decided thus far will manifest in terms of interaction with the narrative or conversation. They can’t just sit there as concepts, there needs to be some tangible manifestation in order to express and define the character and their interactions with the purpose for which they have been incorporated into the adventure.

It can be verbal – a statement of some sort, or line of conversation – or descriptive, or lie in something that someone else says to the NPC (another NPC, whose sole purpose is to deliver that defining line). The more of a unique individual with a personal life and their own problems and demons that this manifestation can project onto the character when they are in the presence of one or more PCs, the better. It’s rare for a single manifestation to be able to accomplish all that, and equally unrealistic for every character encountered to be living their own personal soap opera, so this is an important subject.

The right manifestation is always the one that facilitates or delivers the PC to the interaction with the imperfection, either running up against it, or discovering the road through or past it. It can be as much about what not to say as anything else. The amount of individuality and uniqueness that it confers is an important but secondary consideration – which means that any of the list of qualities given in the previous paragraph that the manifestation doesn’t deliver can be a positive asset, too. But you need to know what the manifestation is, and how much of the NPCs life it reveals (and how much it doesn’t) so that you know the areas in which you may have to get on-the-spur creative and how to integrate any such character elements with the whole.

Sixth Thought: Implications

So far, your NPC exists in splendid isolation, for the most part. It’s a tree, part of an ill-defined forest. The sixth thing to think about is how the character reflects and influences the overall shape of that particular stand of trees to which they belong. This can be something that’s already been defined in general overarching terms within the campaign (“the civil service are uncooperative bureaucrats”) or it can be a blank slate.

Having at least some broad thoughts about the shape of the forest and the NPCs relationship to that shape is always useful, because if you don’t think about it, it can take you by surprise at a later date.

There are usually political and social considerations. There may be prejudices, either wide-spread and general or narrow and personal, involved. Outside perceptions of the PC, and of people like the PC, will always be a factor. This can be about assumptions made by someone – either the PC or the NPC or someone else in authority. It can involve or create conflict, internal or external. It can generate a standalone sub-plot or be over with in a single flash of sound and fury, denoting nothing significant – or having worlds of meaning. It can be about reputations, real or false, and about supporting, extending, continuing, undermining or deliberately opposing them.

You don’t have to focus too much on specifics; this NPC can always be an exception to a general rule when imperfect and messy sentient beings are involved. But you should always give it some thought, however fleeting.

Seventh Thought: Shadows

Train of thought number seven is all about the shadows, where some or all of what you’ve already decided will lurk, undiscovered. So far, everything has stemmed from what needs to be made obvious; this is about what you want to hide.

The great advantage of putting things into the shadows is that it gives you something that can be brought to light. “Why is character X being uncooperative?” – “You remind him of the jock his wife is having an affair with.”

The even greater advantage is that if something hasn’t come to light, it can be changed, or expanded, or extended, or reduced, or confined.

People aren’t the same, day after day. There are perpetual nuances and variations on a theme. Some days are good, and some days are not. Personality is a huge factor in defining how many of each there are, from the character’s perspective – and personality is (at least in part) an emergent property of all the decisions made to date. It might have been broadly defined, or left completely undefined at this point.

Shadows come in three forms: hard, fuzzy, and deep.

• Hard Shadows exploit the fact that you can define something by implication from the shadows that it casts – aftereffects, side effects, indirect manifestations, reactions from others, even knowing glances. The absence of something that shouldn’t be in plain sight but still manifests in some overt way creates a hard shadow, and huge gains in the realism of a character. But it can be easily over-used; not everyone will have a shadow of this type on display.
• Fuzzy Shadows are more general and undefined; they are generally used to contain character elements that don’t matter, and this is recognized by players subconsciously if not consciously, which means that it’s a great place to hide things that do matter. A character who gives off vibes of being a cool professional is hiding what it is that they are passionate about. This might be collecting Beatles records, or woodcarving, or stealing jewels, or membership in a white supremacy cult. But the latter two, being unusual, are not things that the PC would go looking for, and so would be completely taken by surprise when they are (eventually) revealed. And if the PC should somehow discover such, it puts them in an even more difficult and interesting situation – denounce the NPC and they lose the benefit that the NPC was there to provide and end any hope of cooperation. Silence can, however, be tantamount to complicity. Whatever the PC chooses, they have made their lives more complicated (and may have made new enemies).
• Deep Shadows Deep shadows contain things that the GM, for metagame reasons, does not what revealed. It’s not quite a matter of “whatever it takes” – having an asteroid crash to earth downstairs might be a bit extreme as a distraction – but every deep shadow should have some planned distraction or deflection associated with it, to be used only if the PC gets too close. The cop who is secretly undercover in a paramilitary terrorist organization who is secretly a recruit of an even more extreme satanic cult – or maybe he’s become a hidden true believer, or always was – and if the PC starts digging too deep, throw the bone of the undercover assignment to them. 99 times out of a hundred, that’s all there will be, so they should stop looking at that point, before they blow the cop’s cover, leaving the real deep-shadow content undisturbed.

No character is complete without a shadow – but you may not have decided on any specifics that happen to be there.

Part of the goal in NPC creation is always to avoid spending time on anything that you don’t need, unless there is the potential need at some future time, and it will be more efficient to create it while you have the character in mind. The first won’t happen that often, because (by definition) it’s outside the scope of the character’s purpose – but there will be times when you need to redefine that purpose, so I’ll get to that in detail a little later. The second will happen almost every time the first gets invoked – but if it will consume prep time that you don’t have, it’s not something that you can afford right now, and that makes it definitively less-efficient to do more than vaguely note the presence of something in the shadows and the general nature of the content..

Eighth Thought: Circumstances

You’ve dealt already with any significant circumstances within the character’s life, but its’ always helpful to have given passing thought to the more mundane aspects of that life. Throwaway narrative or conversational content can impart this and a greater plausibility to the character’s existence in a heartbeat.

“As you reach the counter, the attendant stops scribbling on a shopping list and asks if she can help you.”

or,

“The mechanic fiddles idly with a wedding ring as though he were unused to it’s presence on his hand.”

Job done. These no-name specific-purpose NPCs are suddenly real people.

Ninth Thought: History

Everyone has baggage. That baggage usually doesn’t matter in any given interaction or encounter – but there are times when you have the opportunity to bring a little bit of it into the light, and times when something makes the PC do a more thorough profile of the NPCs life. Again, you’ve already focused on anything that has immediate importance, so these are (by definition) things that don’t – but they can also be exploited, just like circumstances, to give a character additional light.

“Next week is my daughter’s formal debut. I remember my formal, it wasn’t like it is these days – not very formal at all, now, in my opinion! Sign here. I remember Rex Charters in his daddy’s pick-up, dressed in his late uncle’s wedding suit, looking so nervous that he almost ran us off the road when I touched his hand on the way to the dance. Initial here. Those were good times, don’t you think? Better times than these days, for sure. That will be Twelve dollars fifty, pay the cashier when she calls your name,” she concludes as she puts your paperwork in a basket on a moving conveyor belt.

Baggage. History. Everyone has it. Sometimes, you can use it, as in the above example, to make a dull process seem more real AND more interesting, to make a player feel like their character is really there, even if – as in this case – there is limited interaction required.

And notice how much personality the NPC has exuded as a byproduct of filling the gaps in the (presumed) process with conversation.

Here’s the same scene, done a different way:

The attendant holds out her hand for your paperwork. Flipping through it, she fills out various parts of the form. You attempt to engage her in polite conversation, but she immediately responds, ‘Ssh’ and returns to checking the validity of your request. On the fourth page, she holds out the form and a pen, and points to a space. ‘Sign,’ she announces in a grumpy tone. After you’ve done so, she takes a stamp pad and stamp and presses firmly on the form to add an additional term to the paperwork. Again holding the form out, she points to the added clause and grunts, ‘Initial’ in a who-cares tone. She then places the form in a tray on a moving conveyor belt and and announces, “Twelve-fifty, pay the cashier when called. NEXT!”

This example focuses on the LACK of engagement to achieve the same ends. The character is employed as a mindless servant of a process. She doesn’t care why the PC wants something, or who they are, or what they want, just whether or not she is supposed to make it happen. Having grudgingly conceded that she is, she completes her role in the process and passes the request on to someone else to satisfy. And again, oozes personality – with not a word of description or interaction. In fact, she shuts down any attempt at interaction with the character, she only cares about her interaction with the process.

Tenth Thought: Specifics

This is where a lot of people start, when they are generating characters – with the specifics, especially the stats. And sometimes that can be useful – for example, any biases or preferences on the GM’s side can be sidelined by basing the character’s choices of profession on what they are suited for, which is determined randomly. But, in general, stat blocks are designed to describe PCs, with far broader scope for interaction with the game world – they need to cover everything because they can’t predict what they will need.

A couple of past articles here have pointed out the time savings that can be achieved by only generating as much NPC as you need – see Creating Partial NPCs To Speed Game Prep, for example.

Again, always to avoid spending time on anything that you don’t need – except for when the caveats listed earlier apply.

Feature Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay, Background image by DarkmoonArt_de from Pixabay

Aborting The Process

Which brings me to this point: this process can be aborted at any time when you have enough. Several of the examples offered so far are of this kind. Stop when you have enough to meet your needs. Skip steps and processes if that’s useful, too. This sequence is a servant and tool, not a checklist or instruction manual; though there is a clear logical sequence to the steps. The twin examples under “History” demonstrate how you can skip directly to what you want or need, if you know what that is.

The more experience you have, the more skillfully you will be able to short-circuit the process in this way. Unfortunately, it’s not something that can be taught, you have to learn it by practice.

Timing The Processes

You might get the impression from the length of description of the ten steps that substantial time needs to be taken. In general, that’s not the case – we’re talking a handful of seconds. Some would say that it takes longer to remember the logical sequence and make sure that you haven’t missed a step, but I think that might be going too far, especially since you don’t need to memorize the sequence, just write it down or look it up or reconstruct it, or change it to suit yourself!

That’s not to say that deeper thought and more sophisticated constructions can’t be rewarding – they can be. The key is getting what you need. If you get to the end and what you have doesn’t contain enough depth, then more time and effort are needed.

I still wouldn’t spend more than minutes, though, because these aren’t about giving you the construction elements of the NPC, they are about giving you a playable image of the sum of those elements. As I said earlier, personality is an emergent property of the results of this process, and so is the guideline used to construct specifics, which is why that’s the last of the ten steps.

For an ad-hoc NPC, a meaningless (in terms of the big picture) encounter, five seconds a step, maybe ten – tops. One or two, more frequently (but part of that is experience, and I can’t say how much – so I’m being conservative).

Back to my point: You can only spend so long thinking about thinking about constructing a character before it becomes tail-chasing. Once you have an outline, you have to get your hands dirty.

But, if you do want more conceptual depth, rather than spending a lot of time on one thought process, it’s usually more effective to skip through the list repeatedly until your subconscious gets a nibble. Using the list helps keep you focused and your thoughts, directed.

Resuming The Process

Inevitably, there will be times when you underestimate what you need. You’ve prepared an NPC for a brief conversation and the PC wants to discuss things in more detail, or have some greater involvement with the character for some reason. That reason may or may not be spurious – for example, the player may have decided that the NPC is a possible suspect in something, or have some scheme to take advantage of them, or be matchmaking, or simply find the character you’ve created so enthralling that they want more – there are hundreds of possibilities.

Whatever the reason, you now have to restart the process to add depth to the character, and possibly in a hurry.

There are two approaches to doing so. The more difficult one is to start where you left off, and I generally don’t find the practice of doing so to be worth the time savings involved. The alternative, which I do recommend, is to restart with the implications stage.

Two reasons: (1) it’s unusual not to have gotten that far in your first pass; and (2), starting by expanding on the implications of what you’ve already decided not only gets you back into the swing of the creative process, it helps ensure consistency with what you have already established, which has to have at least some relationship with the real story. Yes, the NPC may have lied about something, but that requires a good reason for doing so – something that is implied by the fact of the deception.

Beyond that, follow the advice given above in ‘Timing The Processes’.

Restarting The Process

If you’ve pretty thoroughly explored everything that’s in the current characterization, and still need more – and it happens – then you need to dig deeper and approach the problem from left-field; and then, start the process from scratch.

I’ve offered my preferred techniques for doing so, quite a long time ago, in The Characterization Puzzle series.

Once you’ve worked your way through whichever of the three processes discussed in that series (start with the last part, The First Decision, which helps pick between the three), you can use this technique to start translating the results into characterization.

First example: A Double Act

This example starts with two images – one, a cliche of a used car salesman, the other a flamboyant guy in a white suit in front of a used-car lot. The purpose of these two characters is to sell the PCs a couple of second-hand cars, hence those two images of the owners of two different used-car lots.

I also decided that the two would need different sales techniques. I knew that one yard would be bigger than the other; I decided that the larger yard would employ a fast-turnover volume turnover while the other would not. Which one would use which technique had not yet been finalized, and in fact I was half-way through writing up the encounter before those details crystallized (and I had to rename the respective owners the other way around to make everything fit).

From those beginnings, here’s the write-up, exactly as it appeared in the most recent game session:

The two car lots are almost opposite each other on Dunkley Street (15-8-03-01).

(“15-8-03-01” identifies an image to be showed – Adventure 15, Act 8, Scene 3, Image 1).

Wormwood Motors is a second-hand GM (and related brands) dealership (15-8-03-02) owned and operated by Sal Wormwood (15-8-03-03).

Al’s Used Cars handles second-hand Fords (and related brands). It is owned and operated by Al ‘Six-Shooter’ Dunning, who appears to be filming a TV commercial as you arrive (15-8-03-04).

“So c’mon down to Al’s place to lasso yourself a bargain! If’n one of our hosses ain’t jest whut the sawbones ordered fer yuh, why, ah’ll shoot it! Yihaa!!” he exclaims as he points a six-shooter skywards without looking and pulls the trigger with a quiet click. He then turns to look at the revolver with a disgusted expression.

“CUT, cut, cut, cuuuut!” yells the director.

“Darn, Bob, the dadblasted peashooter done went all lame on me agin!” rumbles the salesman.

“Don’t you worry none ’bout it now, Al. We-all’ll jest dub us in an itty-bitty sound effect and no-one’ll ever know no diff’ent. Makes the goldarned sound levels easier ta balance out, anyways.”

“Really-truly, Bobby-boy? Y’all don’t say! Well, if that don’t jest beat all!”

“That was the last shot we done need from yuh, Al. You kin get selfless outta that there monkey-suit anytime you want – but ah jest had myself an idee, here. Whut say if y’all are wand’rin’ round the lot, like, checkin’ out the cars, see, in the background of the shots we take of the specials, hey?”

“Gol-darn, Bob, if’n that ain’t the best thing I’ve heard in a whole passel a time. If’n ah gotta wear this here angel-magilla, ah wanna squeeze ev’ry last skerrick-a value outta her. Less do it!”

From across the road, Sal yells in a loud voice, “Everythin’ all right there, pardner?” with a wave.

“Doin’ jess fine, thankee kindly, Mis-ter Wormwood. You’all take care-a yesself now!” replies the white-clad cowboy before heading back into the lot, followed by the camera crew and producer.

Blackwing/Basalt/Frank [The PC], how confident are you that your normal-person face will never slip, especially if you’re concentrating on something else? If you’re completely confident, then it would be best for you to wear some face other than any of the ones you’ve used so far and take Al’s yard – that way, it won’t matter if your face shows up in a TV ad. If not, then it would be better for Union Jack, as Roger, to take it, and for you to cross the road to see what Sal Wormwood can offer – someone you wouldn’t trust with used chewing-gum.

Wormwood Motors holds about 60 cars and is considerably smaller than his rival across the road, which has at least half-again as many. Glancing over the two, you can see distinctive differences in the way the two owners operate. Sal Wormwood is the more traditional in approach; he prices more consistently and is more content to let cars sit until someone makes an offer he can live with.

‘Six-shooter Al’ adds a much thicker profit margin, but is far more willing to do a deal; if he makes a small loss, he will make it up on the next sale, and either way, he frees up space in his lot for another car, another chance to sell. Overall, he probably makes more money per sale than Sal.

But his approach is even more psychologically-beneficial than this first glance suggests – customers are more likely to buy if they think they are getting a deal that may not be there, tomorrow. By making more room to dicker, he makes it more likely that he gets a sale, and by inflating the asking price, he not only gets to look more generous, he makes it more likely that the price he eventually gets is still enough that he turns a small profit. So he makes more per sale, sells more frequently, and hence is prospering. He might look ridiculous in his white cowboy three-piece suit, but he definitely has more going on under his hat than just his hair. At the same time, Sal’s approach lets him look more generous, with lower prices across the lot – so he probably makes more sales than he otherwise would, too.

This situation actually holds some benefits for the customers, too, you realize. Sal doesn’t have a profit margin that can both afford unhappy customers AND let him be relatively stiff-necked on prices – he has to be as honest as used-car salesmen get. And Al’s whole modus operandi is based on volume, on making sale after sale after sale- and any whiff of unscrupulousness would put that at risk. He, too, has to be as honest as they come in his line of work. Just count all the tyres before you try and drive off the lot.

An interesting thought comes to you as you start working through your chosen used-car lot, starting in one corner and working along the rows of cars systematically – what if the pair of them are secretly in cahoots? It’s so perfect a dynamic that they have set up between them that, while it would not be impossible for it to be a lucky coincidence, it’s also just as possible that both of them are a great deal sharper than they look. Something to bear in mind as you’re bargaining!

There are other differences. Wormwood has more big cars and fewer trucks, and is more haphazard in its layout. If there’s an organizing principle, it isn’t obvious.
This results in people wandering all over the place – but also means that you can come to look at a low-cost Chrysler and fall in love with the big Cadillac parked beside it.

Al has more small cars and more trucks and less in-between, and is far more systematic – small cars here, then medium, then the big iron, while the back of the lot has trucks and vans organized the same way but in the other direction – small stuff near the big cars, big trucks and prime movers near the small family cars. He seems to think about his potential market, his customer base, in a more coherent fashion than Sal.

Al has more variety in models, but more of the same model – row after row of Escorts, for example – while Sal has more makes and fewer of any particular one.

So it’s decision time – which used car lot are you picking?

That’s a LOT of juice to extract from those starting points. Remember, the primary purpose here is to sell the PCs two cars – and it’s up to them which cars they buy, and who from. All I’m doing here is framing the interaction for after they make their choices.

I also want to especially point out how much of Sal’s personality gets conveyed – given that he has a grand total contribution of five words of dialogue. But those five words, plus a wave, plus a reply from his rival, establish the character quite succinctly! (In fact, by contrasting him in this way with Al, everything that defines that cowboy also throws light on his opposite – and the entire purpose of the director’s presence is to be a vehicle for exposing Al’s character to scrutiny).

Second example: A complimentary Companion

The second example that I have is a character that I’ve written about before – the Companion character from the new Dr Who campaign. We’re actually going to do character generation (and start the first adventure) next week.

This character has a very different purpose – he is to serve as a compliment to the one-and-only PC of the campaign. So it becomes really hard to design him before the character construction of the PC takes place.

But there are some general principles. The PC is to be an ‘action-oriented’ character, fairly ‘boots-and-all’ ‘gung-ho’ in approach, even ‘where angels fear to tread’. He will have a very high empathy. he will be a Time Lord, and hence very knowledgeable – but that knowledge won’t necessarily spring to his fingertips.

What’s the opposite of those qualities? Someone who can’t undertake any ‘action’ at all. Someone who has difficulty understanding emotions, or who has a very low empathy for others. Someone who is mortal. Someone who doesn’t know a lot of useful things, but who is very adept at applying what he knows.

At the same time, a character who needs to appeal to the Doctor in some way – the intelligence is a start, but not enough; they need more common ground. So let’s ditch the low empathy and make the character an alien, someone whose emotions, and emotional understanding, is simply different.

And also at the same time, having a completely helpless character won’t cut it – so he needs to be able to do some things at least as well as, if not better than, the protagonist; it’s just that those things will be of secondary importance within the adventures that comprise the campaign.

Those traits led me to the Hoovaloo (I think I have the spelling right) from The Hitch-hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, a super-intelligent shade of the color blue. But this wasn’t to be an exact copy of Douglas Adams’ creation, so I gave the race a new name – and then stole that name for the character itself, I liked it so much.

This is a character who is completely immaterial – but solid enough that he can’t pass through solid walls or even doors without them being opened for him (he may be able to limbo under one if it doesn’t seal tight). He can interface directly with control and command computers, including those that are aboard the protagonist’s vessel, getting it to do things and cooperate in ways that not even the owner can manage. He can’t physically attack anyone – but may be able to stun susceptible types for a few minutes, creating a gap in their awareness that they won’t even notice. He will be young, and enthusiastic, and relatively naive about the universe and ‘the evil that men [and aliens] do’, which always appeals to this particular protagonist, he’s a big fan of innocence. So he fills in some of the gaps within the protagonist, and enables the protagonist to achieve more of his potential (sound familiar?). He’s useful enough to have around, but won’t steal the character’s thunder, he’ll supplement it.

Note that many of these thoughts were already embedded within the character from its early write-ups, as readers (except my player!) can see in Vortex Of War: A Dr Who campaign construction diary though they were not as fully fleshed-out as the statement above – my thinking has crystallized on the subject.

So, what’s my next step?

I will start, because he’s a non-human character, as I usually do – with the process described in Creating Alien Characters. Once I have that, I’ll be able to perform the sequence of conceptual development stages described in this article (and which is the reason why it was at the top of my to-do list). That will let me proceed to the game mechanics for an actual character creation – in this case, described in The Sixes System Part 7, Characters. And at the end of that process, I will have a fully-functional fully-detailed NPC, ready for play. A more extensive character than many of those described in this article, because it is to sustain interest and interactivity with the protagonist for the entire campaign – even to have a central role in some of them, as readers may know already.

Right now, to translate the character concept described into the structure of this article, I have the Fundamental Purpose, and I have the general imperfections (but may be incomplete), and I have parts of the through-story (but need a great deal more). I have distinctiveness, but it’s insufficiently defined. Before I can really dig into manifestations and implications and shadows, I need to finish defining those parts of the character that are incomplete, or I won’t have a comprehensive-enough ‘picture’ of the character.

Endgame Recap

So let’s sum up: there are ten streams of thought that can be used to define an NPC, regardless of genre or system. They don’t construct a character or a personality, they construct how those things will manifest in actual play – but they can be used as a mold to create those things.

It’s better to cover one stream of thought quickly and move on until inspiration strikes than it is to get obsessively into any one of them – you can always come back again.

The general principle is to never create more character than you need – given a couple of specific caveats about future appearances.

The ten streams of thought are:

1. Foundation Purpose
2. Imperfection
3. Through-story
4. Distinctiveness
5. Manifestations
6. Implications
7. Shadows – Hard, Fuzzy, and Deep
8. Circumstances
9. History
10. Specifics

The approach described works for everything from throwaway characters to NPC co-stars. You can input the product of other conceptual generators such the ones I’ve provided in the past.

This approach creates characters to fulfill story and plot functions, sometimes well enough that this is all you need – and it can take a fraction of a minute to have a character ready for play, if their involvement and engagement is to be specific and limited. This is about fast NPCs that are fit-for-purpose.

In particular, it’s about not handing things to the PCs on a silver platter, but instead defining what the PCs need to do to gain those things – anything from ‘sit there and listen’ to ‘rescue the kidnapped relative’. And it’s all about generating fun AND believability / realism at the gaming table – with virtually no effort.

That makes it a tool that everyone should know about, and know how to use, at least in my book!