Any tips or tricks to making memorable NPC's and/or villains...

any tips or tricks to making memorable NPC's and/or villains? It's something I would like to work on improving in my own storytelling.

.pic may or may not be unrelated.

Giving generic NPCs voices works wonders. Same goes for minor appearance oddities. So if a shopkeeper has a strong voice and a thick accent and wears an eyepatch, he goes from someone who is there to fill a role in to someone who has a story to tell.

Give your actually important NPCs very distinct vocabulary, costumes and gestures/movements. So instead of your BBEG's Lieutenant just being an arrogant douche, he can constantly refer to the players as "worthless insects" and whenever he casts a spell he clearly shoots his left arm upwards and closes one eye. Also consider varying up the accents, depth of vocabulary, speed of talking and tone for each important NPC to match their personality.

One or two obvious quirks. Don't overdo them.

The 3e DM's guide actually has a d100 table for rolling random NPC quirks.

At the risk of getting flamed for posting this, there actually is some wisdom to pic-related, even if autists will endlessly bitch about certain examples shown.

Alternatively look at a series with great villains, like Batman, and try to boil down what makes so many of them so great and memorable. Is it the motivations and psychological quirks? The abilities? The unique and varied abilities? A mix of all three? What speaks to you the most.

Whatever you do, avoid the shit-tier.

But sometimes even a shit-tiers villains can be fit to a story and being memorable. Just let them have what they deserve, with interest

Villains: Short answer, they have to take meaningful from a player, or the party as a whole, something they can't easily get back if at all. This is the easiest and most surefire way to make the party care. If your players have nothing they care about, then you have shit players.
Long answer, do what said and look at villains from other media who are memorable. Often times it's due to their strong personalities and them being interesting as characters, villains or not.
Alot of the time it's because they'll have some slight difference in world view that skews their morality in a way that doesn't align with the party's, but is still understandable from a certain perspective. However, even this isn't always necessary. Otherwise "good" characters failed by the world or manipulated by forces outside of their control also work.

According to my players, one of the best villains I ever ran in a campaign was a pair of sorcerer sisters. In the setting, sorcerers were seen as freaks of nature, unnatural, ect. The original BBEG of the campaign felt the same way, but adopted this pair to basically use as pawns in his bid for power. As far as the sisters were concerned though, the BBEG was like a father to them, the only person to ever care about them or show them any love. It was all a lie of course, but the sisters believed it entirely.
Anyway, I had intended for them to be a mid-boss for the campaign, but the players defeated the BBEG alot earlier than I expected. The catch is, they did it while these sisters were watching. They watched the party murder what was basically their father... and their reaction to this was to continue his plans, continue his legacy, and do so with an extreme, but justified, hatred toward the players. They wern't bad characters, they just wanted to live a happy life with someone who loved them, even if that person himself was evil, but the players took that away from them. It was all they ever had.

Racemixing!

REEEE!!

(How many Es in a frogpost?)

NPCs: Make them useful to the players and not just quest givers. Or make them ego-trips for the player.

For the latter, an NPC that's studying or practicing something a player is good at, who wants to learn from the player character or become their apprentice or student, is an instant ego-boost that makes the players feel awsome. Even if they're just taking some time in between adventures to teach the kid some spells or alchemy or something.

For the former, make the NPCs more than just quest-givers. One of the best quest-givers I ever ran in my game was a noble's spymaster. She had the party working under her as "muscle" in her operations, and had an almost sarcastic/teasing/smug/dismissive attitude towards them. Even when they pointed out that she needed them and that she couldn't fight the things they did, she just laughed it off saying she didn't need to fight when she had stealth and charisma. It was a little offputting, it made them dislike her at first, but this was intentional... and eventually became endearing later on.
The key that made this endearing was quite simple actually. While they were working for her, I simply had her leave them supply caches and "care packages". The party would set up camp for the night outside of a military fort they were supposed to take back from a traitorous guard captain, and then in the morning they'd wake up and find a small bag out potions and other supplies had been left for them (with a teasing note from the spymaster about the party's night watch having not seen her). Essentially it was a way to show the party that for all the shit this character gave them, she really did appreciate their efforts and wanted to help them succeed. It softened the intial blow to their egos from being demeaning shit-talking to being a friendly rivalry they had with the person they were working for... and in that they came to respect her as an actual character and not just a quest-dispenser.

Shitty picture. "Villain with a good intentions" are as bad cliche as "Villain who in it for power and money".

Everything in story-telling ever is either cliche, or a tryhard subversion of a cliche. Really the execution is the thing that actually matters.

Yes, and that's the reason this picture is shitty. It implies that tryhard subversion of a cliche is better. And that's just leading to many novice GM doing "oh, my villain is a totally tragic figure!" when most of the time he is just stupid crybitch.

Can't really argue with you there. I was more pointing out that the whole concept of "tiers" was flawed to begin with it implies certain cliches are better than others, when in reality they can all be good or all suck depending on how they're executed.

>any tips or tricks to making memorable NPC's and/or villains
NPCs: quirks. 1-3 quirks or easily rememberable features.
Easy way to do so: physical feature, emotional response, other thing.

"That one-legged angry dwarf that owns the Rotted Hull tavern"
"The tiny mischevious witch whos potions are weird colours"
"That burly bearded thoughtful fellow who knows all about the explosion powders"

For villains, easiest way to engage the players is to have them initially be allies or bystanders, and then have them betray or otherwise throw the party in great danger. No-one likes a traitor.

implying AKU SHAPESHITING MASTER OF DARKNESS is not top tier

Aku just wanted some magical realm in his campaign, alright?

>And that's just leading to many novice GM doing "oh, my villain is a totally tragic figure!" when most of the time he is just stupid crybitch.
won't be a problem for me, the Villain I'm working on is a pathetic loser who is a villain because he's selfish, emotionally immature, and has a weak grasp of how society in general works.

The problem is "my villain is a totally tragic figure! unironically!", its fucking annoying.

>my villain is a totally tragic figure!
how about a villain who claims he is a tragic figure, but, in fact, everything that has happened to him is actually his own fault.

Nah, you couldn't run that now. People play games for escapism, why would I run an SJW/Tumblrina as my main villian? I'm not haughty enough to write a satire, and the target audience wouldn't get it even if I did.

Give your NPCs and villains life outside of what they do with the party.

They have their own deals, business, fights, and family lives. They have their own quirks. Don't just parrot these things to the players, but let them figure them out/ask if they are curious. If they get along with an NPC they can get to know a lot of details about them and not forget them.

Quirks can be very helpful. Players may sometimes have a hard time remembering names, but if something about the NPCs stands out and is fun to roleplay with, they will remember them.

As for villains, well. Minor villains should be remembered for being fun to fight against or fun to antagonize. Main villains should be either complex figures with very understandable (if not agreeable) motivations, or be fun to hate. It's not a problem if your main villain is "simple", as long as your players genuinely want to kick his shit in.

10/10 would want to work for smug bitchy qt pie who's not actually a total bitch.

But seriously, this is how you do good NPCs. Helpless peasants who need rescuing are boring. Just gotta be careful not to slip into DMPC territory when giving the party someone who's not afraid to playfully mess with them a little or act like their equal.

Call me a newfag but who's the Elder God Tier?

Ozymandias from the critically aclaimed comic book Watchmen.

he unleashed an alien squid to kill people in order to unite humanity against a common foe and drag them out of the cold war iirc

Would guess Ozymandias from Watchmen.

this,

also the most memorable NPC will about 3/4ths of the time be the one you made up on the spot, so that badass guy who throws knives isn't going to mean as much to them as the runty kolbold, who was getting kicked by the others in his clan and you just meant him to be an example of how evil the kolbolds are, and such, the party turned him to their side and kept him around, seeing him as the little friend that he is.

Good if you're looking for realism, since that's how most people who comits criminal and evil acts think.

Maybe not the better way to make him memorable though, unless he's the most massive cunt ever and your PCs remember him because of that.

>Great Tier
>Not Nox

What a shit picture you have there, friendo

Examine what your players like.

My party faced once an enemy who was pretty edgy, powerful and a massive cunt. Those of my players who were into grimdark and powerful sheet building showed interested on this guy, the others not so much. Those players who were more into personal drama and protecting the weak, the jerkass traitor who abandoned and backstabed them when he was most needed caused way more reaction.

The best would've been combining both this guys to make a villain who is "liked" (read hated in a good way) by everyone. In this case it was no possible, so remember that having a big/diverse group will mean that it's hard to make a villain/NPC that will be memorable for all of them. Luckily, a campaign doesn't need a single villain and it can have as much NPCs as you need as long as they're there for an actual reason.

Also this players tend to love a lot of light-hearted NPCs you just invented in 5 seconds to face a situation you didn't expect.

What's really worked for me is having an "Ally" turn out to be a villain.

Have a villain tell the party a sob story, then stab them in the back at an opportune moment. Nothing inspires hate like a traitor.

If you do it right, the players will take irrational risks just to try and hurt the villain.

Make them unique and interesting without being overcomplicated.

Pic related.

> Consistency
Good NPCs have certain dependable behaviors. Think of them as like buttons. If a PC presses Button A, they get this reaction out of the NPC. Consistency makes an NPC feel like they are not solely driven by the plot.

> Mystery
We never know the people in our day to day life entirely. Same should go for your NPCs. NPCs should feel more like they exist as part of the setting rather than solely for the convenience of the PCs.

> Internal mechanics
NPCs should feel like there is something deeper than the sum of their actions. Could be motivation, background, something in their life that the PCs are unaware of, etc. The main idea is to turn your NPC from a "what" into a "who." This is ultimately what makes a character "three dimensional."

> Collaboration
PCs are often more invested in characters that they had a hand in creating. This could be literal in which they get to add details to the character but it could also mean that their interactions with that character brought something out. Give your PCs those opportunities to see new facets of that NPC.

> Surprises and Shake Ups
No better way to freshen an NPC up than to put them into a situation that neither you nor the PCs have seen them in and then playing to find out what they do.

> Existence
NPCs both should have lives beyond the PCs but simultaneously should have the PCs as part of their lives.

> Role
Generally, NPCs should not solve problems. They should make them or bring them to the PCs to solve.

> Useful NPCs > Useless NPCs. Being amusing, interesting, pathetic, etc is useful.

Newfag.