One way to get your players to role-play more is to do so yourself. When you have them meet an NPC, bring something fresh to the table when you play that character. How do you do that without spending hours planning an NPC? Well, one way is to bring in elements from your daily life into the game. Essentially what you do is start becoming an active observer of the real world and apply that to your campaign world.
There are two main areas where you can get good NPC fodder:
1) Personalities: Pay close attention to the people that you often see in your life. Make a mental note of how they act towards strangers and also towards acquaintances; is it different? Make a mental note about how they eat their food when they think no one is watching and when they are with a group; is it different? Note how they talk to peers and people of lower status; is it different? What good is this? Well, it gives you some insight into how they see themselves in the world and that is exactly what you need in order to make a believable NPC that is different from all the others. I’m talking about more than an accent, lisp, scar, colorful way of dressing, or missing teeth. These things aren’t bad, in fact they are very good, but what I am talking about goes way beyond those superficial things and into a whole persona – you need to role-play this person so that the players feel their response to him.
Example:
You know that guy at work that everyone always complains about? What is it about him that rubs everyone the wrong way? Your NPC is that guy. Yes, that’s right, he is annoyingly arrogant, brags about his meager accomplishments at work, says socially inappropriate things in the cafeteria, and takes advantage of people in small ways (like taking a chip off someone’s plate, without asking, as they eat lunch, or always taking the last of the coffee but never making a new pot; i.e. he’s selfish, but acts as though he is entitled to be that way). Yes, he is a jerk-ball 99% of the time, but… then you found out that he donates two weekends a month to help build houses for underprivileged families, or that he spends one weekend a month at the old folks home entertaining the patients who are too ill to leave the building. And the one thing he doesn’t brag about is the good stuff he actually does. Yeah, he’s got a heart of gold, but he is annoying – that guy is your NPC – how do you play him?. He annoys the heck out of your players, but he is possibly the most helpful, connected person they will meet in this region, so they’d better find a way to role-play the situation appropriately. Sound a bit cliche? That’s okay, cliches are cliches for a reason… there is at least a kernel of truth to them and they are readily recognizable. The key is role-playing the NPC so well that the players forget that the persona is cliched and respond with some good roleplaying of their own.
2) Professions: You come into contact with people every day, start paying attention to how they act and apply that behavior to your NPC. You know the young, artistic barista at the local coffee house that is extremely bored with his job and therefore speaks as though he is completely uninterested? That is now the magic shop attendant in your game. Stereotypical magic shop keepers are very salesman like – “Oh, this spell here is the most powerful in it’s class – this can put up to 20 minions to sleep with a single utterance!” Contrast that with “We do have some spells of that sort around here somewhere, hold on a minute and I will try and find them.” And then he lets out a huuuuge sigh as he gets up and goes to the back of the shop, muttering to himself about pesky customers interrupting his nap. Just apply the attitude to any particular important NPC and you can get some great role-playing. In game, most NPCs who know great information are itching to sell it to the party for a big price, and are willing to part with it happily – what if you have the NPC act like the disinterested, yet stubborn, barista, bored and tired of being asked questions and given orders? Slightly different flavor that gives some variety to your game. If this NPC is relatively important and the players may deal with him on a regular basis, this can be a big part of the flavor of the world.
A great trick for relatively unimportant NPCs, like shopkeepers and guards, is to make them the opposite of the stereotype. What are the biggest stereotypes that you can think of in terms of craftsmen and shop clerks? Here are some: The gruff dwarven smithy who happens to make the best armour on the continent, even though he is generally rude and lives in a tiny border town. Or how about the retired elven ranger that was once great, but now just makes arrows which happen to be the best arrows in the world. The halfling street urchin that rose up from the gutter to become the leader of the thieves guild, and is now very powerful but still thinks like a street urchin. The devout human paladin that was once the greatest defender of his god, but fell from grace and now lives the life of a hermit who feels there is no redemption for his acts.
Take these stereotypes and turn them upside down. One of the easiest ways is to change the race of the NPC: the gruff dwarf is now an elf, and his crafted armour rivals those made in the best dwarven forge in the land. That elven fletcher is now a halfling who makes the best longbows, which are taller than he is, but he is the gruff one now. The street urchin is a dwarf that happens to be the most stealthy being in the city, running the thieves guild that is full of halflings.
An important part of roleplaying is to have things in the world move forward when the payers aren’t there. The elven armour maker can’t possibly be in his shop selling armour all the time – he has to go and buy the finest metals and also spend time in his forge actually making the armour. What happens when he does that? Does he have someone else run the shop or does he close it down until he returns? Maybe when the players get back to town after a week or two, they hear that he went to buy metals and hasn’t returned yet – perhaps someone is worried because he usually isn’t gone this long. Maybe there was a power grab in the thieves guild since the last time the players were in town and no-one has seen the dwarf since. These things may or may not directly relate to your campaign, but they will give the players the idea that the world is living and that things happen when they aren’t around. This ends up giving the feel of variety and movement, even though you really didn’t do much.
Until my next post – I wish you good gaming!
~DM Samuel