Our discussion of the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template has mostly focused on the effort that goes into originally prepping the NPC for the first time that you use them. For most NPCs, this is probably all you need: Most NPCs, after all, have a shelf life. They’ll be used once and then slip away into the night, vanishing along with the scenario which gave birth to them.
But some NPCs, of course, will become recurring characters, interacting with the PCs again and again, building long-term relationships — whether for weal or woe — that can endure for the entire campaign. (Or, in even rarer circumstances, persevering across multiple campaigns.)
What’s needed, as these long-term characters develop through play, is a new section for our NPC template: the activity log.
The quick version is that this is just a place for you to record the NPC’s interactions with the PCs — and possibly the wider campaign world as a whole — so that you can easily reference these events and keep the character’s continuity straight.
For example:
CARRINA – ACTIVITY LOG
- 9/24: Deputizes the PCs and gives them the Commissar’s Decree. PCs brief her on cult hot spots and tell her about the Banewarrens.
- 10/4: Carrina questions them about St. Thessina’s Chapel and tells them the chapel exploded. (They do not tell her about Yaeshla.) She’s told about bone devils escaping from Banewarrens. She orders the PCs to investigate the Blue Arsonists.
- 10/6: Carrina briefed on the upcoming Blue Arsonist attack.
- 10/6: Carrina briefed about Mrathrach. She needs more evidence.
- 10/12: Carrina told about purple wraith escape.
- 10/14: Carrina assigns Eliavra to help them with chaos cults.
- 10/17: Eliavra complains to Carrina about the screw-ups she’s been assigned to. She gets assignment to bodyguard Goldshields investigating tolling bell manifestations.
- 10/19: Mrathrach Raids. Carrina arrests them and strips them of their deputization. PCs manage to make peace with Carrina. Deputization reinstated.
- 10/20: PCs warn Carrina that there’s a rat in the city watch.
- 10/22: Carrina pays large bonus to the PCs. Refuses to intervene with Rehobath/Church Delvers.
- 10/22 (afternoon): Carrina summons them to deal with purple wraiths at St. Chausle’s Chapel.
The level of detail you want to use for your activity log is entirely up to you, and will probably vary depending on both circumstance and the character in question.
(For context, this log covers developments over roughly 80 sessions of play.)
Personally, I still run most of my games at the table from paper notes, and I’ll print my NPC briefing sheets on separate sheets of paper. My activity logs, therefore, are often somewhat informal, with the briefing sheets just accumulating handwritten notes over time as living artifacts of the campaign. (The back of the briefing sheet — which is often blank — can be a great place for note-taking!) But whether you’re running your campaign from a VTT, a wiki, or a Notions board, you should find it fairly easy to create an ACTIVITY LOG section on the character’s page and do the same.
AUDITING THE ACTIVITY LOG
If these notes become sufficiently unruly, of course, it can be valuable to recompile them, edit them, and bring them back under control. It’s important to remember that one of the primary goals of the NPC Roleplaying Template is to keep information related to the NPC succinct, well-organized, and easy-to-reference, and this remains true of the activity log, too.
It can be useful to remember that your goal is not to write a short story describing these events to some third party audience: You’re creating a quick reference for jogging your memory, making sure you don’t forget anything, and keeping the continuity straight.
Along similar lines, detailed information that was relevant a dozen sessions ago can often be reduced to a single sentence referencing those events now that time has passed.
On the other hand, in reviewing your notes, you may also discover that there’s stuff you should have written down that you didn’t. It’s usually easy enough to add the missing information to make sure you have it in the future.
I usually find a simple timeline — as in the example with Carrina, above — to be the best format for the log, but your mileage may vary. (And may also, of course, depend on the specific NPC.)
BACKGROUND – SINCE LAST WE MET
In my experience, it’s far from unusual for an NPC to disappear from the campaign for a bit and then reappear at a later date, whether because the PCs spontaneously seek them out or because they’ve become relevant to some new scenario you’re prepping. (Don’t forget Neel Krishnaswami’s Law of the Conservation of NPCs!)
Just like old friends getting together, you’ll probably want to know what the NPC has been up to in the interim. (Unless they were literally stuck in a cryo-stasis chamber for the duration.) Knowing that NPCs are “doing stuff” even when they’re not in their direct line of sight will make the game world truly feel alive for your players.
When prepping the NPC for their new appearance, therefore, you may find it useful to include a BACKGROUND – SINCE LAST WE MET subsection to their briefing sheet. You could just integrate this into a single updated Background section, but this, “What have you been up to?” material — although often not Key Info — is nevertheless something I’ll usually want to make a point of using, and therefore find useful to separate out a bit for easy reference.
(If it is Key Info, of course, you can just drop it down there, instead.)
The amount of detail you want to dive into with this will, again, vary a lot depending on the situation, but a little will go a long way here: One or two anecdotes, which can usually be no more than a sentence or two, will almost always get the job done.
Once you’ve actually used this material (e.g., they’ve told the PCs all about their adventures in the secret reptoid caverns behind Niagara Falls), you can then incorporate it into the NPC’s Activity Log. (Although this stuff technically didn’t happen while they were directly interacting with the PCs, it’s still part of the NPC’s personal, evolving continuity in the campaign.)
CAST OF CHARACTERS
A final thing I’ll mention here is that if you’re running a campaign with a big, rotating cast of recurring NPCs, you may find it very useful to maintain a cast of characters module in your campaign status document.
This is something I discuss in more detail in Campaign Status Module: Supporting Cast.
How you organize this list — whether alphabetically, by faction, by utility, or something else entirely — will obviously depend on your specific needs for the current campaign, but when you combine this with either a file folder or three-ring-binder or indexed wiki page of NPC briefing sheets, you should have everything you need to fill your world with fascinating characters who your players can form deep and meaningful relationships with.
FURTHER READING
Quick NPC Roleplaying Templates
Campaign Status Module: Supporting Cast
Random GM Tip: Memorable NPCs
Advanced Gamemastery: Universal Roleplaying Template
Thanks to Frolmaster and Olivia Bullocks on Youtube for recommending the topic for this article!
