Think of numerous NPCs with complex backstories and motivations, all of them heavily interwoven with the plot

Putting a lot of work ahead of time into a bunch of npcs is for sure a waste of time. Its a tricky thing, but liking your npc while still thinking of them as disposable has done me well. Initially they're a name, a job, a few traits and some desires on an index card. If the players run with that, the index card gets filled with more notes and grows into an interesting character. But if not, that's okay, it was just an index card. You can use that for scrap paper or whatever.

>Force NPCs into my players
>They hate them
Who knew?!

The players and their relations are the ones that should be heavily interwoven into the plot. There should be no NPC main characters.

This. No one wants to play a game where they're just playing second fiddle to some princess waifu.

> Party fights succubus and imp
> They beat the succubus into a pulp and then turn on the imp
> Imp screams "I'LL NEVAH SURRENDAH!"
> "Wait, these things can talk?"
> "Why does he sound like Danny DeVito?"
> "Grab his legs, I want to keep him alive!"
> Party trusses him up
> Spends an hour interrogating him just because they like to hear him plead in a New Jersey accent
> Ends up adopting him as a party mascot, because he's too pathetic to do anything but serve them

Memorable NPCs can come from anywhere.

that's great user!

Should you keep weaving popular npc's in the plot, even if it goes against whatever logic applicable?

I once had the BBEG execute a goblin terrorist that the party was fond of. It made it so that I didn't have to keep carting the goblin around everywhere in the plot, and it helped the players go from fearing the BBEG to despising him.

Of course, you can't kill off every character the party gets attached to, but killing off one or two of them helps prevent plot issues from happening, and makes the players fear that their other favorite NPCs are on the chopping block.

>Party stranded on an island after their ship crashes into it
>Days go by until they see another on the horizon
>They make a signal flame and, being the bastards they are (And having a heavy bounty on their heads), plan to murder whoever comes out to get them on a rowboat and just book it
>A single guy paddles to the shore
>"Oi! Errythin' ok?"
>Party draws their weapons
>"We're taking your raft peasant!"
>"...Don' s'pose I could stop dat. Go 'ead. 'Ave it."
>Awkward pause, they expected some resistance at least
>They take the poor bastard with them and go on more rotten adventures
>He levels up slower than they do and was generally useless for a while, but they keep bringing him along various oddjobs all while avoiding the law
>Eventually reaches a level of competency around the time the group as a whole gets pretty rich and influential
>They're spending some time counting coin and dicking around
>One players quips "Remember when you were just a fisherman all those years ago?"
>"Yea. Now lookit me. Iom a fookin' king."

Players man. Players.

>forcing
>into
What?

fpbp

I once had players in my space commando game sideline their mission and turn back around mid-FTL because I commented the bartender they last talked to looked and sounded like John Hurt.

>>"Yea. Now lookit me. Iom a fookin' king.
Topkek, someone can screencap? Im stuck on a shitty tablet and wish I could save that story

Meant for

>Let go
>Roll with it

Wow, DMing sounds like a massive boring chore. Who wants to provide a big entertaining game for people and expect nothing in return?

...

I gotchu famalam

I don't think you can accurately predict what players will care for. And

I suspect that your super well developed npc's with deep personalities expressed them by being annoying to the players and causing them problems. Players usually don't want to deal with problems.

While your made up on the moment npc's were just along for the ride and didn't give them any trouble. Thus were seen as 'good' by the players.

Little bit like real life I guess. People you like are typically people who are far more useful than they are annoying.

Because hating on the DMs shit is probably a meme by now.

Also I feel that people tend to not like things that they are told they are supposed to like.

>Numerous NPCs
>Interwoven into plot manually
>Too deep to be memorable

If you want to have the party like an NPC, make them easy to summarize and don't keep shoving it into their faces repeatedly. If they don't bite just ease off and do a callback to the NPC a few sessions later to see if they've changed their minds.

You're overthinking things and allocating resources too early.

Once they like an NPC you can start adding depth to them.

Also players tend to resent needy NPCs. Plot-important ones often come with more tasks and demands rather than benefits and bonuses. Do you want to hang around the baker that gives you free sweetrolls or the one who has three missing daughters that constantly need rescuing?

Needy NPCs are the worst. Especially when the DM tries making players beholden to them.

It's hard to throw your weight around when you require the services of players

It's good practice; anything that sticks the character into the player's mind. Be the meme!

as for myself I basically just give the players the Guy's Title or call sign. Or sometimes just there occupation. Intern Steve. Cleaner Joe.

The impression game is strong in this one

It's very hard to rationalize killing a man without a weapon. Even when they're playing the bad guys. players still want to be the hero protagonist.

I once stopped a group of mages from raiding a technocratic hospital with a Receptionist named Pam. She had the best mental shield and empathy scores I could reasonably give a non enlightened civilian. They didn't even get to the proper technocrats.

She became the first tool kit in my Fck Stupid Mages Kit. 1) Receptionist Pam 2) Proper Fire Exits and 3) Second story fire escapes

>all these entitled players inferring that these npcs were "forced" on the players.
>how dare a character we don't find interesting interact with us
Don't worry about it so much. Players tend to act in the way you least expect them to, sometimes on purpose. Don't get too attached to your npcs and you could probably get away with putting in less work on their backstories too.

A good rule of thumb is to make NPCs useful, or make them have something the players need from them. For example, that prince with a huge backstory you spent 5 weeks writing? He's willing to support the Party's endeavours with his vast resources and political clout, just as long as they help him out a bit too... Make sure his reward is more than 'here are some gold pieces' though.

Party gets in trouble with the law? Prince is able to pull some strings and get them absolved of their crimes. One of the PC's gets into serious medical trouble, like losing an arm? He knows the best healers in the land who can help and will secure them an audience. Off to fight a Lich and it's overwhelming horde of undead? Say no more, he'll raise a levy to support them.

That way even if the players don't initially care about the NPCs off the bat they will still be interested in them because they are a valuable asset. Additionally, they will help the players achieve their goals and their plans instead of forcing them to unconditionally work for THEIR goals and THEIR plans.

Really the only NPCs you can force your PCs to care about are Antagonists. And that's because they usually threaten their plans and/or the things they care about. The most common way to do that is the whole 'destroy the world' thing, or even more simply 'I'm going to kill you' but you can dial it back too and make it more personal.

>DM makes big, intricate campaign scenarios (like all DM's, he's """writing a book""" and wants us to form material from our campaign)
>the most memorable stuff is our party deviating from any storyline he could think up and fucking up the his plans with cringy antics plans

It's true, most campaigns begin with the DM writing everyone to be The Fellowship of The Ring and they always end up with everyone as The Knights of The Round Table from Monty Python.

You never know when the random schmucks become endearing schmucks

>DM writing everyone to be The Fellowship of The Ring and they always end up with everyone as The Knights of The Round Table from Monty Python.

Not necessarily. It's more likely that DMs don't bother to explain theme and mood of the campaign to their players. Also, if you have players by the balls with your engaging story they'll take it way more seriously.

dice+1d3

Reminds me of a campaign I started a few years ago. The first quest the players went on was to find a missing hunter. They went to where he was supposed to be and eventually the ranger found his camp ransacked. There was a bonus if he was brought back alive, so the players decided to keep looking around. They followed tracks from the camp and came across a road where they saw a hobgoblin warband (like 200 footsoldiers and 50 cavalry) heading away from a ruined castle in the distance. They hid as they let the army pass, but did not escape the eye of the leader of the warband. (They will never forget that guy either, but thats another story) It was very clear to the party that the leader saw them, but he paid no mind and kept going. The party then headed to the castle and eventually found a small entrance to the castle dungeons. The party proceed to do a very good job of sneaking around and killing the entrance guards and the patrol without raising an alarm. In the dungeon they found the hunter alive and chained. They sent him back home, but wanted to keep looking around. -c-

this

I forgot to mention that the cave was filled with lesser goblins and not hobgoblins, anyway.

Further inside the dungeon the players (who are lvl 1 mind you) come across this massive troll that sorta like pic related chained to a wall in a store room. They were freaked out because the beast could have easily killed them in one swing of its arms and they thought that it was on guard. Yet the thing just sat there and stared at them with its big goat eyes. Eventually one of the players noticed that it had a small wooden bowl with some very polished copper coins in it. The party gave the troll a handful of change and the troll smiled and said in a big dumb voice "shiny". As it turned to put the coins in the bowl they saw it had a large and old wound on his head. After realizing the thing was brain damaged they players spent half an hour irl deciding what to do with the retarded troll. They figured, after they cleared out the rest of the goblins they could set him free and keep him as a pet or something. They were super exited about this prospect but had to keep going. They told the troll they would be back and went upstairs. There were more goblins upstairs, and after doing a great job sneaking and clearing rooms they got caught and the alarm was raised. - c-

A brawl broke out, but the players were able to fight their way through to the throne room easily enough. There waiting for them was a hobgoblin dressed in robes withe two goblin guards on either side of him. In the middle of the room was a hobgoblin dressed in makeshift plate armor. The robed hobgoblin boasted that the palyers would not be able to defeat his champion. The warblade didnt like being taunted and managed to charge the champion and crit him, killing him in one blow. The terrified hobgoblin yelled for his guards to charge while he cast a spell and then fled as his guards died. The party chased him up a tower to his chambers, kicked down the door, and knocked the hobgoblin out. Inside the room they discovered a crystal ball that, when touched, showed them a vision of an sleeping elder god surrounded by shadowy worshipers and the god opening its eyes. Once back in reality, the players felt the ground shake as the castle collapsed. Hoping that the hobgoblin might have information, they grabbed him and fled the castle. Once they woke him up the hobgoblin said that the crystal ball was just regular glass but that he was in their debt for saving and sparing his life. His name was Yorik and he told them that the army that left was lead by his brother Yorin but that he was an ambitious and ruthless person who tormented Yorik while he passed by. -c-

Yorik told the party where the army was going and that they were going to attack a town that apparently was not on any map they had ever seen. Someone also realized at this point that the troll had been inside during the collapse and that his is dead. So in order to balance karma for letting the retarded troll die the party would alert the town to the attack. Yorik was allowed to come so that he could also earn his forgiveness.

So during the long trip the party bonded with Yorik and came to really like him. They still felt really bad about the troll and I think that is one of the reasons that they spared Yorik. I used this opportunity to play up Yorin and make him seem like an evil badass so that when they fought him with Yorik they would feel epic.

In time the party got to the town that was like a hidden magical research city. After faffing about there and warning of the coming attack, the party went on another quest underneath he city to find some old magical item that may be useful for the defense of the city. Hidden away deep in the catacombs was a strange complex inhabited by troglodytes. The place was covered in strange marking and the trogs had undead minions. Apparently I did a good job of making the place creepy because the party's pace hastened, but they were very careful to make sure they werent going to get trapped or ambushed -c-

Locked away inside the place was a demon that the trogs worshiped but feared. They were half trying to gain power from it but also trying to keep anyone from releasing it. The party never realized this and broke the seals keeping the demon bound. The demon attacked and the party fought back, Yorik included. All was going well enough for a boss fight when I noticed that the party had for the most part scattered and the Yorik was left alone in the middle. He had not been able to do much other than cast some buff spell, but the demon swooped in and killed him anyway swallowing him whole in the process. The party was devastated that they npc that they had spent the last few months befriending had died. After the killed the demon it's body disappeared and so they didn't even have a body to bury.

While I did a lot of things well in that campaign, I regret killing Yorik. Everyone loved him even though he wasnt anything other than a meek hobgoblin wizard who spent his life living in the shadow of his older brother.

So long story short, your right. Its the little things that the party cares about because they did it. The story of the marching army was not what I originally planed for the party to do, but its what I rolled with because thats what they latched onto.

Alas, poor Yorik indeed.

>Who wants to provide a big entertaining game for people
People who enjoy it?

I understand OP.
Sometimes your NPCs are like your kids, and who doesn't love other people's kids?

>>forcing
>>into
>What?
Are you saying you don't literally insert your characters into your players, as well as their game?

Effort =/= likeability, sometimes even when you put that effort into making them likeable, which I'm willing to bet you didn't. However, interesting characters don't necessarily have to be likeable, while likeable characters don't necessarily have to be interesting on a deeper-than-surface level.

I've seen a lot of GMs make asshole NPCs that they didn't expect to get hated on or straight up murdered so quickly, "before the PCs really got to know them for the good person that they were", and then blamed the players for being retarded and went on to do the same thing again and again. But really, all it takes for an NPC to be liked is for them to be kind towards the PCs rather than snarky assholes, a trait which a surprising amount of GMs mistake for depth, or a showcase of strength and independence on the part of the NPC. It just doesn't work very well unless the NPC is clearly meant to be antagonistic. Believe it or not, but most people aren't dickheads to each other, at least not openly, but if you do act like a dickhead, it's not a surprise if somebody ends up wanting to hurt you.

For a no name one off villain I think he got a decent ending. Even if it was sad.

>Who wants to provide a big entertaining game for people
I question why you think "letting go" and "rolling with it" necessarily cannot be a part of "a big entertaining game". Why is that?

>and expect nothing in return?
What are you expecting in return?
Obedience?
False interest in your characters?
Oral?

On the players' first meeting with an NPC, all they need is a name, a 1-dimensional personality, and a very simple motive. Often, you don't even need a personality ahead of time - you can just look at whether they're supposed to help or hinder the players' goals, and base their behaviour off of that.

If the PCs interact with the character again later, then you can start filling in the details. Maybe they act completely differently the second time, because before they were having a bad day, or didn't know who the players were, or whatever. Maybe they reveal more of their past than was obvious in the first encounter. Maybe they now have a job for the players to do. Expand your NPCs however you like, just as long as you put down the broad strokes first.

Because in real life, the vast majority of people you meet, you will never meet again, and never know more about than the few surface details you could glean from your one chance encounter. The same is true in RPGs, so why bother making every NPC as deep as a lake, when your players are mostly going to see puddles? If you want players to get invested, throw out as many puddles as you can, see which ones players choose to jump in, and then make them deeper for next time.

goodjob user you played it perfectly. Regret and loss are just as much the game as swords and spells.

not an evil man or a good man. just a man(well goblin but you get the point) who died on a path to be his own person. and in dying he completed the transformation that started with a troll

Being fair here. It's a lot of give and take. Say what you want but it's the GM who makes the game happen. He's the guy who puts in extra work to get the game going. If you can't make the GM happy No one is happy. And You have to respect the guy putting in extra work for your amusement. You have to be willing to work with the guy running the game otherwise you wouldn't get anywhere.

This.

Few things are more annoying than a GM who uses his players as a captive audience for his shitty novel concepts.

>make a sentient battle-robot NPC as the champion for a combat arena that the PCs are visiting
>gets defeated with ease by one of the PCs in two rounds due to some incredibly good rolls
>for suffering such a crushing defeat, battle-bot's dickhead owner relinquishes the former champion and doesn't bother repairing his damages
>kindly PC decides to repair the battle-bot and says that he can pay them back for the healing later
>without an owner, battle-bot decides to follow the PCs around until he can pay them off
>ends up getting involved in a combat with some assassins out to get the PCs
>battle-bot was meant to be a combat champion so he's entirely optimized for murder
>enters blender mode and begins eviscerating the encounter, killing half the mooks while the PCs mostly focus on a pair of minibosses
>instead of getting mad at an NPC hogging the kills, the PCs instead get super hype and start cheering him on as he darts around killing enemies in a single blow

>tfw you accidentally a GMPC and the party loves it
I was going to have him leave the group as soon as he managed to pay off his debt, but I'm too sure anymore.

>plot
There's your mistake right there.

Good GMs don't plan plots, they make a sketch and see which parts the players are interested in coloring.

Am I the only one who thought these guys might've had a bit of Sgt. Colon and Cpl. Nobbs in them?

But humoring the GM's uninteresting and unlikable DMPCs is no fun for the players.

Forcing the players to kow-tow to an NPC just because the GM thinks the character is interesting is an exercise in frustration for both parties.

Players need to feel engaged, and the GM needs to provide engagement
When this is done, everyone has fun.

Because I had an idea for a game and I want to see it realized? Doesn't seem too alien to me.

What do I expect? It's more of what I'm hoping for: interest in my ideas, in my world. I don't DM anymore anyway- I've had too many shitty experiences with players so I stick to headcanon and romhacking.

>run a session of a horror game
>make the teacher purposedly shifty and untrustworthy, plan on having him abandon the rest of the players
>they end up doing everything he says and following him around like a puppy

>You have to be willing to work with the guy running the game otherwise you wouldn't get anywhere.
This would actually be a valid expectation.

This is a bad example, but:
I had a GM once that began a session with our traveling party coming upon an old, abandoned haunted inn.
We were quite the noblebright group and if there were any sign of evil or innocents in danger, we would jump at the chance to help.
But it was presented literally like a Scooby-Doo mystery, to be investigated because it was what the GM had prepared.
So we chomped down hard on the plot hook rather than ignore everything he wanted to run.
>Jinkies! Looks like a mystery, gang!
But that was largely because that GM was kind of crap, especially at improvising.

My point being that the players should work to go with the plot hook, rather than against, if at all plausible.

Well it's still useful to call it a plot, it just doesn't match the literary definition.

Especially when they shake hands before they bayonet charge.