Go to Part 1

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!

A few years back I shared the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template that I’d developed for recording NPCs in my campaign in a way that both (a) focused prep on the essential elements for running a great character and (b) organized that information into a format that makes it easy to pick up the NPC during a session and play them with confidence.

(And also to rapidly swap between multiple NPCs in a single scene.)

It’s probably worth checking out the full breakdown of the template, but it basically involves splitting the NPC’s description into four major categories:

• Appearance
• Roleplaying
• Background
• Key Info

And, generally speaking, the result will be a briefing sheet for each NPC. You can attach a photo or illustration of the character if you’d like, and then you’re good to go.

I’ve used this template for years to great success. You can find it in a bunch of different published scenarios I’ve written or developed. I’ve gotten feedback from a lot of GMs who have had tons of success with it.

But there is one question about the template that I’m asked perhaps more than any other:

“You expect me to do this for every NPC in my campaign?!”

And the short answer is: Nope.

The template is intended for significant NPCs: Ones who will either be the primary focus of a scene (e.g., a major suspect being interrogated) or a supporting cast member who will be featured across multiple scenes (or possibly even multiple scenarios).

Obviously, there are lots of other NPCs in the world, and they don’t all require the same level of care and attention. Your goal with these NPCs should be to keep your prep tightly focused and as short as possible.

THREE BULLET POINTS

For quick NPCs, whether prepped ahead of time or spun up on demand during a session, I’m generally aiming to capture the essentials of the character in three bullet points. Each bullet point should generally have no more than 1-2 sentences, and each bullet point actually corresponds to one of the categories in the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template:

• Appearance
• Roleplaying
• Background

The “Roleplaying” bullet point is a good example of my intention here: The full template features multiple roleplaying bullet points, but with a quick NPC I’m looking to boil that down to just one essential bullet point. Because the type of information you need to run the NPC hasn’t fundamentally changed; you’re just trying to keep that information short, simple, and to the point.

Here are some quick examples:

KAIRA LIGHTBURN

• Appearance: Blond hair, but with half her head shaved to reveal a large, blue, runic tattoo.
• Roleplaying: Kaira closes her right eye when thinking about something or considering a deal.
• Background: Kaira has managed the Annodyne Armory weapons shop for mercs on Lytenol Station since her father was killed by Imperial troops during the Union Riots of 2432.

CJ ASSANTE

• Appearance: Pale, coppery skin with large blue eyes. He wears an immaculate Brioni suit.
• Roleplaying: Believes that Matani is innocent. Will react very badly to anyone suggesting otherwise.
• Background: His parents were Palestinian refugees. He worked his way through Yale, then worked his way up, and now owns CJA Investments.

PAUL ASAFIELD

• Appearance: African American man in his late ‘50s. A cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
• Roleplaying: A wracking cough.
• Background: Works in Manhattan’s 7^th Knows his partner, Kira Butterfield, is on the take for the Bonetti Family, but isn’t willing to put his neck out.

Appearance is just a quick sketch, usually focused on a single detail that will evoke the character in the players’ imagination and let them fill in the rest.

Roleplaying for a quick NPC is something I usually default to a mannerism. For me, that’s the most useful hook, and I find that the rest of the character will usually flow easily through that mannerism. Your mileage may vary, but try to identify what that actionable hook is for you.

Background is very much just the broad concept of the character. Just enough to give them a specific place in the world and perhaps just the lightest hint of what their life is like. You can, of course, improvise more details on top of this barebones foundation as needed.

Tip: If you’re wondering how to pick names for NPCs you improvise during a session, I recommend prepping a list of generic names that you can grab from as needed. Check out Fantasy Names for a sample list and some of the tricks I use.

KEY INFO

Conspicuously absent from our bullet points is the Key Info section, which is used to separate and highlight the key information an NPC has which is required by the scenario. (Which helps make sure you don’t miss this key information while running the scenario.)

Even though these are minor NPCs, they can — and arguably should! — still play key roles in how your scenarios play out. For example, a passerby on the street can still give vital information about the bank robbery in their eyewitness report during a mystery scenario. Or a goblin cult leader might have a useful map they’d be willing to trade in a dungeon scenario.

What this really boils down to is that if you an NPC has Key Info, then that should be handled in a distinct section which contains whatever amount of information (and however many bullet points) are needed for the information in question.

In other words, Key Info for a quick NPC is going to be handled exactly like it’s handled in the full roleplaying template.

EXPANDING THE QUICK TEMPLATE

As you’re roleplaying these quick NPCs, you’re quite likely to discover things about them: Where did CJ Assante and Matani first met? What was the name of Kaira’s father? What brand of cigarettes does Detective Asafield smoke?

You can just jot this stuff down in the margins next to the NPC’s bullet points.

The next thing that’ll happen is Neel Krishnaswami’s Law of the Conservation of NPCs kicking in: You’ll need a rich kidnap victim… couldn’t that be CJ Assante? And what if Asafield was assigned to the case?

In fact, a piece of advice I frequently give is to pay attention to which NPCs “click” at the table: Which characters do the players really respond to? Which ones do you have a ton of fun roleplaying? Which ones do you notice the players keep talking about even after they’ve left the scene?

It’s almost always a good idea to grab those characters and figure out how to bring them back.

All of which is to say that, at some point, you’ll almost certainly find a minor NPC blossoming into a major one. When that happens, of course, you’ll likely want to expand their write-up into a full universal roleplaying template.

And because the quick NPC template has a structure that mirrors the full template, it’s super easy to make the swap. You just take the bullet points from your quick NPC write-up — plus the notes you’ve been making! — and split ‘em up into separate sections. Then you can just fill in the gaps!

FURTHER READING
Universal NPC Roleplaying Template
Advanced NPC Roleplaying Templates
Campaign Status Module: Supporting Cast
Random GM Tip: Memorable NPCs

In 2015 I shared my Universal NPC Roleplaying Template, which is designed to structure the description of NPCs so that they can be quickly picked up and played at the table while simplifying the prep you do for them.

More bang for your buck, in other words.

The template is designed to be used with any system: I’ve used it in adventures for D&D, Numenera, Eclipse Phase, Trail of Cthulhu, Ars Magica, The Strange, Star Wars… The list goes on. I also implemented the template when I was the lead developer on Modiphius’ Infinity and, as the RPG Producer at Atlas Games, we now use it across most of our titles, notably to date in Over the Edge and Feng Shui.

Since posting the template, my use of it in development and at my personal table has seen further refinements to the system. I’ve also had a number of people contact me with either questions or suggestions. I thought this might be a good time to revisit the template with some advanced tips and tricks that you might find useful in enhancing your use of it.

BRIEFING SHEETS

The first thing I’ll note is that, when I’m using the template, I often think of and use NPCs as briefing sheets: For my personal campaigns, I try to have one NPC per page. And will try very hard to keep them on just one page. That’s not always possible, but the benefits in being able to quickly access information during play are usually worth tightening the NPC up if it means keeping them to that single page.

I say “page,” but I also try to keep it to just one sheet. (So the back of the page is usually blank, which – if the front of the page is rather full – can be a great place to keep notes for updating the NPC for future sessions.)

In addition to having easy, clear access to the information for an NPC I’m currently playing, when I’m setting up a scene this also allows me to “cast” the NPCs in it by simply grabbing the appropriate sheets.

I usually keep my campaign notes in a three-ring binder, so I can just pop these sheets out and lay them all out on the table behind my GM screen. I can swap between characters with just a flick of my eye.

Similarly, when running a scenario using my party-planning scenario structure, I can just pull all the guests’ briefing sheets and then quickly rifle through them, making it easy to constantly mix and remix the social situations the PCs are in.

For added utility, if there’s room on the page, I will always try to include a picture of the NPC at the top of the sheet. (Assuming I have one, of course.) This simple visual cue makes it infinitely easier to quickly find the NPC I’m looking for, particularly in large, complicated scenes.

In published books we have to compromise, but I will generally try to segregate the template from the main text (placing it in a box or sidebar). This also usually guarantees that an NPC’s description stays entirely on a single page in layout. (You can see an example of this from Paul Stefko’s Feng Shui: Apeworld on Fire! on the right. You’ll note that we also dropped the bullet points here for stylistic reasons.)

QUOTE NO MORE

The original Universal NPC Roleplaying Template included a section for a sample quote from the NPC (e.g., “Just give me time to think. There must be a way,” or, “You’re a goddamn crazy freak! A certifiable circus clown! Fuckin’ hell, man!”).

Truth be told, I don’t use these any more. Your mileage may vary, but I found they just weren’t providing reliable value, and they were almost always the first thing I’d cut when trying to reduce the size of a particular NPC write-up (e.g., to make it fit on a single page).

If it seems like it would be useful for a particular NPC – i.e., that the word choice and phrasing of the character is the best way to clearly communicate character to yourself – it can be dropped into the Roleplaying section as one of the bullet points.

ROLEPLAYING: NO REPETITION

A note I frequently give when looking at the Roleplaying section of the template is to avoid repetition.

I recommend having three separate bullet points in that section, and the key word there is “separate.” Too often I end up seeing the same idea expressed in two or three slightly different ways:

• He respects hard work when he sees it in others.
• He’s worked for years to make the Talon & Eagle the best tavern it can be.
• Hard work is how he finds solace from the death of his wife.

“Hard work is important to him” is clearly a crucial concept for this character, but it can almost certainly be more clearly (and usefully!) expressed as a single bullet point. (Which will also leave you with more space to explore other aspects of the character.)

One tip for avoiding this trap is to have each bullet point describe a completely distinct classification of things: values, physical mannerisms, ways of speaking, personality, etc. This is far from being a hard-and-fast rule, but it’s a useful tip if you’re struggling to flesh out a character. (I talk about this a bit more in Random GM Tip: Memorable NPCs.)

BACKGROUND BOLD

The Cool Mama used the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template on her website and introduced the idea of using bold text to call out key concepts in the Background section. This is really smart and makes it even easier to pick up your NPC briefing sheet and almost instantly re-familiarize yourself with the character.

For example, you can take this character background:

Bhaltair is Ariadnan of Caledonian stock. When he was just a young kid, his father went off to fight in a bloody frontier conflict between Caledonia and Rodina. He never came back. Bhaltair made a pledge that he would work to never see his homeworld torn apart by such senseless violence again. He became a politician and quickly discovered how difficult the dream of peace can be. When the Human Sphere returned to Ariadna, he was at first overjoyed at how it unified the planet…and then watched in horror as the Commercial Conflicts ripped his planet apart again. He lost himself in drink for a time and then, concluding that the only way to bring true peace to Ariadna was to solve the off-planet problems that were manifesting themselves there, he became a diplomat. He did not participate in the negotiation of the Tohaa Contact Treaty, but he has recently arrived to take part in the Alliance Summit.

And greatly enhance it with some key bold:

Bhaltair is Ariadnan of Caledonian stock. When he was just a young kid, his father went off to fight in a bloody frontier conflict between Caledonia and Rodina. He never came back. Bhaltair made a pledge that he would work to never see his homeworld torn apart by such senseless violence again. He became a politician and quickly discovered how difficult the dream of peace can be. When the Human Sphere returned to Ariadna, he was at first overjoyed at how it unified the planet…and then watched in horror as the Commercial Conflicts ripped his planet apart again. He lost himself in drink for a time and then, concluding that the only way to bring true peace to Ariadna was to solve the off-planet problems that were manifesting themselves there, he became a diplomat. He did not participate in the negotiation of the Tohaa Contact Treaty, but he has recently arrived to take part in the Alliance Summit.

Knowing that you want to call out key concepts in bold, you can also write to make those most effective. For example:

Bhaltair is Ariadnan of Caledonian stock. During the frontier conflict between Caledonia and Rodina, his father fought in the war and never came back. Bhaltair made a pledge that he would work to never see his homeworld torn apart by such senseless violence again.

The slight rewrite there allows for a much tighter and actually more comprehensive bold key point.

EXPANDED KEY INFO

The Key Info section of the template is frequently misunderstood: This is not where you put important information ABOUT the character. That’s what the Background section is for. The Key Info section contains the essential details about whatever the character’s structural function in the current adventure is.

For example, if it’s a mystery scenario then you would probably list the clues that this NPC can give to the PCs. If the NPC is a noble the PCs are approaching to join their alliance against the White Hand, then the Key Info section would probably describe their reaction to that request (what they might want in exchange, what aid they’re capable of giving, suggestions they might make for other potential allies, etc.). If it’s a heist scenario, then it might be the score, information, or resources they can offer to support the heist (and what they want for it). And so forth.

Usually, the Key Info section should be short and straight to the point. Its whole function is, in fact, to pull these essential details out to make sure that you don’t overlook them during play. The longer and less focused the section becomes, the more likely you are to overlook stuff even when it’s listed as Key Info.

Some NPCs, though, are natural nexuses for lengthy Key Info sections: Either they’re crucially positioned to serve a lot of different functions, or the information they have to share is complicated or very detailed.

In those situations, what I’ve found useful is to actually use multiple Key Info sections.

These might be distinguished by a specific function. For example, if an NPC who has clues for solving a mystery is attending a party, I might include both:

• Key Info – Clues
• Key Info – Topics of Conversation

With the former, obviously, listing all of the clues, while the latter has any notes pertaining to the various topics of conversation being bandied about at the party.

In some cases, you may also find it useful to create multiple Key Info sections by topic. For example, an NPC might have some information on the werewolf sightings and also a lengthy account of the Haunting of Greybear Mansion, and thus:

• Key Info
• Key Info – Werewolf Sightings
• Key Info – Greybear Mansion

I’ll note that you should try to avoid doing this capriciously. Just because you break up one NPC’s lengthy Key Info section by topic, it doesn’t mean that every other NPC needs to have the section broken up in the same way (or at all). Most of the time, a single Key Info section with a couple bullet points is all you need.

UNTESTED: ADVANCED KEY INFO

These Key Info section types are things I’ve been experimenting with, but which have not yet been put through rigorous testing at the table. They may prove useful or they might turn out to be pure bupkis. (If you use them, let us know how it goes!)

KEY INFO – REACTIONS: This special Key Info section lists an NPC’s reactions to specific prompts from the PCs. This section can be a little trick in actual practice, because it can be real easy to fall into contingency planning here. (If the PCs say A, then the NPC will do X. If they PCs say B, then the NPC will say Y. And so forth.)

I think the key here is to think of the section as being stuff that gets “unlocked” in response to specific stimuli. One example would be what the GUMSHOE system refers to as a leveraged clue: Just talking to someone will never elicit a particular piece of information. You first have to ask exactly the right question (which is usually predicated on learning a revelation elsewhere

But you can also imagine a similar rationale being applied to non-clue information. For example, in some cases the Topics of Conversation category I mentioned earlier for party scenarios might, in some cases, be interpreted as being of this type: The NPC will only offer their opinion about X if it comes up in conversation.

KEY INFO – ACTIONS: This is the section is for proactive social gambits that the NPC might attempt. I’ve always tried to play my NPCs proactively, but the presentation of the Universal NPC Template can often lend itself to a reactive presentation — it lists what the NPC knows, with the implicit assumption that the PCs will need to do something to extract that information.

Particularly in published material, there’s frequently a need to communicate clearly what courses of action the NPC will actively pursue in a social situation. For example:

• Carefully question the PCs regarding Old Man Rigger.
• Try to arrange a marriage between Fiona and their eldest son, Frederick.
• Slip a nano-tracker into a PC’s drink.

One thing I’m playing with here is the line between the NPC’s general goals (which I think probably fit better in either the Roleplaying or Background sections of the template) and the sort of specific actions (i.e. “this is a thing you, as the GM, should make sure this character does during this conversation”).

Design Note: Neither the Reactions nor Actions sections are meant to be comprehensive. They’re for keying very specific content that is essential to the structure of the scenario. It’s unlikely that they will be needed for every NPC. Most of the time you’ll be better off actively playing the NPC and discovering their actions and reactions in the moment.

KEY INFO – RESOURCES: This section would list any resources that the NPC has available to them. These might be resources that they can offer to the PCs aid (I’ve frequently included this sort of thing in the Key Info section without specifically calling it out). Or they might be resources they’ll employ to some other purpose.

Several of these tools were inspired by DragnaCarta’s social encounter stat block.

UNTESTED: SOCIAL PROFILE

This is another experimental tool, but the Social Profile would be an entirely new section of the roleplaying template.

An NPC’s Social Profile summarizes what social tactics may be particularly effective and/or ineffective when interacting with them. When used in conjunction with D&D 5^th Edition, I think this could be cleanly keyed to the mechanical hook of advantage/disadvantage on subsequent social checks:

• Advantage: Complimenting Frederick on his clothing or sense of fashion.
• Advantage: Anyone signaling their sympathy for the White Hand.
• Disadvantage: Offering a bribe.

Something to potentially think about is how the PCs might learn or be cued into this information. (It might involve research or perhaps Wisdom (Insight) checks. See Rulings in Practice: Social Skills for some additional discussions along these lines.)

It’s possible that the Social Profile should actually be folded into the Key Info – Reactions section (i.e., someone complimenting Frederick’s sense of fashion causes him to react favorably), but at least for the moment I see a clear and distinct utility for the Social Profile.

Once again, I’m not sure the Social Profile is something that needs to be done for every single NPC. (Although maybe so if it got hooked into a wider social resolution structure in which the PCs were expected to investigate the NPCs they’re socially interacting with to figure out how to approach them. In that case the Social Profile would be kind of like Armor Class for social encounters.) But significant, central figures in a scenario, particularly those the PCs are likely to need to negotiate with or need to sway one way or another in their opinions, would almost certainly benefit.

Go to Part 2: Activity Logs

Have you ever been running a published adventure, had the PCs encounter an NPC, and discovered that the NPC’s description was eight paragraphs of undifferentiated text? You remember reading through this stuff two days ago when you were reviewing the adventure, but how are you going to fish out all the little details from that wall of text? (And three scenes later, of course, you realize that everything has spun completely out of control because you forgot that the NPC was supposed to tell the PCs about the properties of the Starstone, but that was hidden away as a single sentence in the fourth paragraph. Whoops.)

Or have you been prepping your own material and found yourself wasting a lot of time writing up lengthy descriptions of your NPCs that never seem to have any real impact at the table? Are you trying to figure out a better way of organizing your NPCs so that you can just focus on the important stuff? (And so that, when your players decide to spontaneously visit the guy they met twelve sessions ago, you’ll be able to quickly pick that NPC up and start playing him again.)

Or maybe you’re really good at juggling all those little details, but you struggle when it comes to really getting into character or making each of your NPCs a unique, distinct, and memorable individual.

And maybe, as you’ve tried to find a solution for these problems, you’ve found various tools or techniques online or in How to GM books that are designed to give you richer and more evocative NPCs… but they all involve spending 5x longer prepping them.

Well, that’s what this Universal NPC Roleplaying Template is all about.

I’ve been using it for more than a decade now, slowly refining it through actual play. Generally speaking, it doesn’t take any extra effort compared to the traditional “wall of text” presentations, but it structures the NPC’s description into utilitarian categories that (a) focus your prep and (b) make it incredibly easy to use during actual play. I’ve found that I can design NPCs with this technique, lay them aside for months at a time, and then pick them back up again smoothly in the middle of play without any review: Instead of trying to parse several paragraphs of dense text, the template will guide you directly to the information that you need.

USING THE TEMPLATE

Name: Self-explanatory. (Or, at least, I hope it is.)

Appearance: Essentially a boxed text description that you can use when the PCs meet the the NPC for the first time. Get it pithy. 1-2 sentences is the sweet spot. Three sentences is pretty much the maximum length you should use unless there is something truly and outrageously unusual about the character. Remember that you don’t need to describe every single thing about them: Pick out their most interesting and unique features and let your players’ imaginations paint in the rest.

Quote: I don’t always use this entry, but a properly crafted quote can be a very effective way to quickly capture the NPC’s unique voice. Generally speaking, though, all you want is a single sentence. You should be able to basically glance at it and grok the voice. (Special exception if the character’s voice is “rambling old man”.)

Roleplaying: This is the heart of the template, but it should also be the shortest section. Two or three brief bullet points at most. You’re looking to identify the essential elements which will “unlock” the character for you.

There are no firm rules here, but I will always try to include at least one simple, physical action that you can perform while playing the character at the table. For example, maybe they tap their ear. Or are constantly wearing a creepy smile. Or they arch their eyebrow. Or they speak with a particular accent or affectation. Or they clap their hands and rub them together. Or snap their fingers and point at the person they’re talking to. Or make a point of taking a slow sip from their drink before responding to questions.

You don’t have to make a big deal of it and it usually won’t be something that you do constantly (that gets annoying), but this mannerism is your hook: You’ll find that you can quickly get back into the character by simply performing the mannerism. It will make your players remember the NPC as a distinct individual. And it can even make playing scenes with multiple NPCs easier to run (because you can use the mannerisms to clearly distinguish the characters you’re swapping between).

You’ll generally only need one mannerism. Maybe two. More than that and you lose the simple utility of the mannerism in unnecessary complexity. It’s not that the character’s entire personality is this one thing; it’s that the rest of the character’s personality will flow out of you whenever you hit that touchstone.

Round this out with personality traits and general attitude. Are they friendly? Hostile? Greedy? Ruthless? Is there a particular negotiating tactic they like? Will they always offer you a drink? Will they fly into a rage if insulted? But, again, keep it simple and to the point. You want to be able to glance at this section, process the information almost instantaneously, and start playing the character. You don’t need a full-blown psychological profile and, in fact, that would be counterproductive.

Background: This section is narrative in nature. You can let it breathe a bit more than the other sections if you’d like, but a little will still go a long way. I tend to think of this in terms of essential context and interesting anecdotes. Is it something that will directly influence the decisions they make? Is it information that the PCs are likely to discover about them? Is it an interesting story that the NPC might tell about themselves or (better yet) use as context for explaining something? Great. If it’s just a short story about some random person’s life that you’re writing for an audience of one, refocus your attention on prepping material that’s relevant to the players.

Key Info: In bullet point format, lay out the essential interaction or information that the PCs are supposed to get from the NPC. The nature of this section will vary depending on the scenario and the NPC’s role in it, but the most obvious example is a mystery scenario in which the NPC has a clue. Rather than burying that clue in the narrative of the NPC’s background, you’re yanking it and placing it in a list to make sure you don’t lose track of it during play. (The Three Clue Rule applies, of course, so just because something appears in this section it doesn’t mean that the PCs are automatically going to get it.)

You could also use this section to lay out the terms of employment being offered by the Mysterious Man in the Tavern. Or to list the discounts offered by a shopkeeper. It’s a flexible tool. In some cases, it might get quite long. But try to keep it well-organized (using the bullet points will help with that). If it just becomes a giant wall of text, its purpose has been lost.

Stat Block: If you need stats for the NPC, put ’em at the bottom of the briefing sheet in whatever format makes sense for the system you’re running.

DESIGN NOTES

Way back in 2001, Atlas Games published In the Belly of the Beast, a D20 adventure by Mike Mearls. This was a roleplaying-intense adventure featuring multiple factions trapped inside the belly of an immense demon. In and of itself, it’s a pretty awesome adventure. But it’s had a particularly enduring legacy for me because it contained the seeds of this NPC roleplaying template. Mearls broke his NPC information down into six sections: Key Information (which, in his version, was bullet points summarizing the character’s background), Quote, Background, Appearance, Roleplaying Notes, and Goals. The disadvantage of Mearls’ version is that it requires more prep work than the traditional method of prepping a character, but the basic idea of structuring the description of the NPC into utilitarian categories that were designed to be used at the gaming table was incredibly useful. (Like most good ideas, it seems simple enough… it’s just that nobody had done it before.)

I promptly absconded with it.

Over the years, I’ve refined the format and tightened its focus, developing it into a streamlined, universal template which I’ve found doesn’t take any extra effort to use, but which still brings all the benefits of the utilitarian structure. In that time I’ve used it in a wide variety of campaigns, and it’s proven itself to be a useful and flexible tool with a lot of different applications. (For example, check out the Muse to Your Left structure for Eclipse Phase games.)

EXAMPLE: BHALTAIR MCCLELLAN

Bhaltair McClellan is an NPC from Paradiso Countdown, an introductory adventure for the Infinity roleplaying game that you can currently snag if you’re a backer of the game’s kickstarter.

Appearance: A boisterous, round-bellied man with thick red hair that tumbles down into a beard that threatens (but does not quite succumb to) unruly excess.

Quote: “You should take a load off, mate. And have a drink. It won’t bring him back, but it’ll keep us all sane.”

Roleplaying:

• A loud and hearty laugh that comes easily.
• Somehow finds a way to use elaborate metaphors featuring Ariadnan ales regardless of the actual topic of conversation.
• Likes to slap people on the back. (If it stings, you know he likes you. If it is hard enough to make you lose your balance, you know he does not.)

Background: Bhaltair is Ariadnan of Caledonian stock. When he was just a young kid, his father went off to fight in a bloody frontier conflict between Caledonia and Rodina. He never came back. Bhaltair made a pledge that he would work to never see his homeworld torn apart by such senseless violence again. He became a politician and quickly discovered how difficult the dream of peace can be. When the Human Sphere returned to Ariadna, he was at first overjoyed at how it unified the planet…and then watched in horror as the Commercial Conflicts ripped his planet apart again. He lost himself in drink for a time and then, concluding that the only way to bring true peace to Ariadna was to solve the off-planet problems that were manifesting themselves there, he became a diplomat. He did not participate in the negotiation of the Tohaa Contact Treaty, but he has recently arrived to take part in the Alliance Summit.

Key Info:

• Although he is a fresh arrival on the EveningStar, Bhaltair had worked with Alinari a few years back when they were both stationed on Shentang together.
• Alinari roped him into working with a Tohaa named Sareelia Mogaal. They all work on the Technology Exchange Commission together and Alinari wanted to open up an “alternative channel of negotiation”.
• Alinari has been having an affair with Gudrun Vastag.

EXAMPLE: SYR ARION

Syr Arion appears in City Supplement 1: Dweredell.

Appearance: Arion is still a man in the flush of youth: Short-cropped, jet black hair sets off his piercing blue eyes. His frame is only lightly muscled, but toned and trained. The weight of his office, however, has brought bags beneath his eyes. And the late hours his sense of responsibility brings often causes his shoulders to stoop with exhaustion. But when the Syr gathers his strength, the image of a great man remains.

Quote: “Just give me time to think. There must be a way.”

Roleplaying:

• A passionate man, but — increasingly — a weary one.
• In desperate need of friends, but years of experience and loss have taught him not to trust lightly.
• Rests his chin heavily into the palm of his hand.

Background: Arion’s mother died in childbirth, and he was reared as the last child of the Erradons by his father, a man whose faculties were already deserting him when Arion was born. Arion’s father believed that his brother had been killed by the Guild, and the one edict he never wavered from was that Arion should be strictly sequestered. As a result, the only true friend Arion had while growing up was Celadon, the Captain of the Prince’s Guard – a man thirty years his senior.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Arion dedicated himself to rigorous self-perfection: When he was not learning swordplay from Celadon, he was spending hours pouring over the musty tomes of his father’s library. He saw that his father was a poor ruler, and believed it was his place to restore the honor of the Erradons by restoring the glory of Dweredell.

EXAMPLE: DEVOLA THE NAGAINA

Devola is a character from The Devil’s Spine, a campaign for Monte Cook’s Numenera. I adapted her into this format when I was running the campaign. My local players should skip this section, since I’m hoping to run this campaign again in the future.

Appearance: A massive serpent, 50 to 70 feet long. Her mouth is surrounded by tentacles 15 feet long, most of which have been adapted so that they end in cybernetic or bioengineered tools, syringes, or weapons.

Roleplaying:

• Extremely confident, intelligent, and cunning.
• Alien in thought.
• Considers non-nagaina inferior, almost inconsequential beings — useful as tools or test subjects, nothing else.
• Hoarse voice that sounds like the feeling of a slimy tendril against the back of your neck.
• Weave from the neck and shoulders. Cock head at odd angles.

Background: Devola is a scientist of sorts, specializing in surgical experimentation and evolutionary biology. She is far more learned in her chosen areas of expertise and far more intelligent than the vast majority of Ninth World humans.

Key Info:

• Does not speak to Lily. Lily does not speak in her presence. Never recognizes that Lily is even present.
• Immediately recognizes hosts of her offspring. Talks only to them if present.
• The Insidious Choir: Devola’s primary concern. She considers it a pre-eminent, excessionary threat. (See separate briefing notes.)
• Curing the Devil’s Spine: Devola will agree to remove the defender parasite from an infected character, but only if they agree to destroy the Insidious Choir’s Spinneret. In addition, she will need an impossible blade and gharolan (see next page for details.)

ADDITIONAL READING
Advanced NPC Roleplaying Templates
Quick NPC Roleplaying Template
Spell Component Roleplaying