Do your players have NPC companions that they like and trust? Tell me about them

Do your players have NPC companions that they like and trust? Tell me about them.

I realized today that my players don't have any friendly NPCs they can rely on. I think this is because my players are newbies, and were originally selfishly evil in the first campaign I ran for them. Any NPCs I introduced were taken advantage of and the campaign ended with my players powerful but friendless. In this new campaign, they are finally coming out of their murderhobo phase and are starting to play because it's fun. One of my players today really played up character flaws, stating, "I think I realized that it's more fun to do what my character would do, even if it's not the best thing to do." It felt great to hear. But later, when they fell victim to a trap set up by some bandits, he said, "I guess that's what we get for trying to help people. Everyone always tries to screw us over." I realized I was running my game that way because they we're always such selfish bastards, but maybe they've grown enough to have characters with friends.

Share your favorite NPC buddies. I'd like to hear some good ones.

Also sorry for my English

My campaign has an old-as-fuck Black Dragon librarian as one of the major players in the PC's court, and his grandaughter periodically accompanies them, though usually as more of a supporting role.
They are on clear terms that the older dragon is using them to accumulate more artifacts, and this is an open understanding, but there is also a clear understanding that playing by his game is very beneficial.
His daughter I play up as something of a stereotypical teenager, albeit one coming to terms with her envious and malicious nature, with a few dozen years of practical experience and tutelage under the Librarian. She's fun and a spot of light-heartedness, everyone loves her.

My players warmed up to the "Yes, I'm evil, but my goals suit yours, and I'd rather not deal with a crusade right now, thank you" pretty well, all things considered.

Well the game that I play in there's a handful.

Good Old Scurvy Dan, a retired pirate who was a part of the same crew as our gnome wizard. He left to start an orange farm(orchard? Vineyard?). He helped smuggle us into a city because he knew a guy who knew a guy.

Eric, he was a human huntsman who's town got burned down because of demons. When we first met him he had a handful of survivors with him but we soon figured out they weren't real. They were just ghosts that had trouble passing on and Eric has some odd connection with magic so they were clinging onto him. They managed to pass on but broke Eric emotionally. We bumped into him again later and we needed to go to a dungeon. He offered to guide us there but he got captured by hags was offered as a sacrifice to demons. Eric didn't deserve any of this...

Darcel, a human paladin that my warlock worked with. They rebelled against the evil King who we thought was dealing with demons but we got our ass handed to us. 99% of our forces were killed and my character was left a cripple. But good old Darcel kept the fight going, he got some of the survivors to flee into the elf forest and they became Druids. So now he's running about giant animals raiding the King's forces. The party has sent wizards and sorcerers to protect since they're outlawed.

Gild/Godrick, so he was a tiefling rogue that helped our party out by blowing up the zealous paladin order's base of operations. He was damn a good thief. He always managed to steal shit but was always completely honest about if he stole something or if he was going to steal something. We later find out that he used to be a tiefling but a cult tried infusing something into him and my character apparently saved his life when he was still a paladin. We then later find out that the cult was trying to force gods into a mortal body so they could sacrifice them and gain the god's essence. Godfrey got Gild the God of Thieves shoved into him

>Do your players have NPC companions that they like and trust?

>Share your favorite NPC buddies.

Two questions with totally different answers.

So for me, I think an NPC kid in my current game is probably my favorite. He started out as the prince who was bethrothed to the princess PC, and who they had to drag along with them. They found him annoying because he was really stupid, and since he wasn't a combat beast who followed orders and mutely killed things for them, they found him worthless. So they were huge dicks to him for months, and he died and was resurrected a bunch of times. Each time I had him come back more demented as madness and PTSD took hold and he began talking to demons. Finally he died for real, and on their way through the afterlife to rescue another NPC they murdered, I had them run into an insane masochistic ghost who they eventually decided to bring back to life as well, and it turned out to be him. Now he has changed and become an emotionally numb weirdo. Over the course of the game, he evolved from an irritating but innocent kid into an unfeeling sociopath because he has been mirroring the personalities of the player characters and learning to behave based on their actions. I've really enjoyed making them laugh and rage at him, getting the mix of amusement and frustration every time they get him killed, and the bewilderment as they look at him now and ask why he's such a creep, not realizing he has changed to behave exactly as they do, and when they see it in another person, they recognize it as the behavior of an asshole, but never see it in themselves.

They would probably all say their favorite NPC was Barkles the dog, a Rottweiler they stole from a drug baron in a cyberpunk game a while back. He did nothing but maul people when they pointed at them, and I never made any attempt to roleplay him at all. They loved the shit out of that dog. They legitimately were cool with the game ending in a TPK because he survived.

My party almost makes a point to collect NPC's as friends and allies they can call on, or as straight up extra party members.

I'm a forever DM who runs two campaigns, and as much maligned as it is here, I always have a DMPC, however my players have never had a problem with this, and are happy for me to do so. I like playing in games as much as I do running them, I just keep the character seperate from me, and make them someone who could never be a leader or centre stage character, eg.

Campaign 1: An optimistic swashbuckler who acts as something of the moral core of the party, grew up raised by other adventurers, and hearing stories. Thinks in a very storybook manner, and thinks the world should follow the rules of a story. Also an idiot. Like, really dumb.

2. A witch/scholar with crippling anxiety disorder. Now that the parties gotten to hell, its kind of gotten worse.

However those are the ones I introed, the party makes a point to just nab npc's along the way. In 1 game we have;

- A badly scarred bandit whose enjoying being the good guy for once.
- A peppy, chubby elven cleric of Caeden.
- The lieutenant of the villain who was in it just for revenge against a party member for killing her dad. They made it their mission to redeem her and help her actually live a life, as she'd lived for nothing but revenge since she was a teen
- They did have a dullahan who they got to swear an honor bond to them, but he left to go find his long lost lover from when he was alive, who is a major npc in the other campaign
- A cleric who they got out of a devil cult and helped find the god who really suited her, and her sadistic lover who got her into the cult because they thought it was a fetish club. They're both currently trapped in a town deep in enemy territory.
- A kelpie
- A pair of mercenaries one of whom fled during a panic effect on the enemy stronghold and was just... never seen again, hes probably still there.

don't die just yet

My smuggler has a Twi'lek who owes him a life debt. She's pretty chill, and good with the persuasion that he really can't be bothered with. Dances too, but no funny business is allowed. She's pulled his ass out of the fire quite a few times now with a last minute save.

No, my players are insecure murderhoboing retards, who feel threatened by any NPC who isn't completely incompetent. They have literally murdered hirelings for being capable of doing the job they were hired to do.

I need a new group.

Remember no game is better than a bad game friend

...Not even a good game?

Stealth guy. The players has taken over a group of bandits, and converted them into a private military company. They would take a portion of their small army with them on occasion, when they knew they would be assaulting an enemy fortification. One of whom they would always bring was Stealth Guy. Only on of the players had any stealth skill, except the character in question was very impulsive and not good for solo work. So they brought the bandit that had the highest stealth skill, which was a modest 27, out of a max of 40. Nothing incredible, just a guy who was fairly skilled in it.

He got noticed in literally every mission, and badly hurt. So every time the party meant to leave he would hide. They always found him. And he would go, get hurt, and repeat. He eventually grew to a 34 in his skill, a very skilled individual. He still got caught and hurt. Every time.

My previous group has somewhat similar situation - out of 5 people in it, 3 were "murderhobos for life" and one of them was a pretty annoying powergamer. For very similar reason - extremely selfish party - NPCs were constantly giving them shit and generally treating them like dirt.
Some time in, they've managed to get themselves in a smuggling operation, but accidently got their contact killed, so ended up searching for the "receiver" of their smuggling. The guy they've eventually dealt with was a local don, first proding and testing them, pretending to be just an inn keeper for few scenarios straight, being always polite, informative and... playing them like fiddles for his schemes, which they've only realised by the end of the mini-campaign involving said don. In short, it boiled down to a competent gang leader, who was getting shit done by acting like a human being and not some brutal thug or mouthy asshole.
They've absolutely loved him and still recall Mr. Kristoff. If that really was his name.

Few games later, they've ended up in a classic "save the princess" scenario, where they've ended up tangled with run-away daughter of a local baron, chased by her insane brother and his thugs. She was sweet, innocent, almost sickeningly helpful, but quickly gained full trust of the party during the time they were busy escorting her, even fighting against thugs and group of hard-ass mercs for her safety. Upon reaching her uncle, a wealthy nobleman living in next county, she kept all her promises and they've even agreed to stay due to heavy rains. Then they've started helping her and her uncle when weird occurences started in the manor.
And by the end of the scenario, her brother showed up in force in the manor, with his version of the story - the girl is possessed, the weird occurences are all her doing and she was locked in a tower, until accidently released by a new maid, which she slaughtered.
TBC

Cont
Players knew what's up, but some of them decided to defend the girl in character, since she really did everything imaginable to gain their trust and never acted weird or conspicious. The whole situation eventually turned into half of the party defending the girl, her brother trying to kill her and the rest of the party trying to stop the fighting. She eventually showed her true colours by back-stabbing one of the PCs to make her escape and things only went weirder from there.
Also good memories and still brought up by the group, over a year later.

A novice explorer. She has dreams of mapping the entire world. She's kind of naive though so the party ends up rescuing her often.

An ambitionless fey that wants the world to remain more or less the same. He is the party's lawyer.

A druid who has not yet realized he's a demigod. He actually tags along with the party a lot because he can hunt and cook.

Gee, I guess I'd have to go all the way back to my first group, since that was THE most memorable NPC in my entire gaming experience, 12 years ago.
Our GM decided to run entire campaign inside a mega-city thing. Pretty quickly we ended up as regular guests in the city's architect bureau for plans, clues and informations (especially since city archive was in the same building). So the assistant of the main architect quickly turned into a confidence guy. Not as a quest-giver, mind you. But the sort of person that gets you infromations otherwise inaccessable to public, giving tips and doing general information brockerage, along with simply being helpful. The GM even brought him few times outside his "working hours" and once we even had a game dedicated to "doing nothing" (half of the party didn't show up), so the GM improvised a one-shot scenario involving mostly our characters and that NPC sitting in a bar, trading stories, roleplaying for the sake of it and trying to figure out why the ceiling is covered with blue splashes.

Recently, my players (I've graduated into a GM without ending up as Forever GM, yay me!) absolutely adore the only blacksmith in the entire barony. Since we are running West Marches-style game and there is only handful of places to visit, meaning I can keep reusing the same NPCs easily. Thus I have initiative to make them special and unique, rather than placeholders. The blacksmith won them, because he serves as a "helping hand" of sorts when they've got bogged in current plot and is a great source of handling trivia and lore without making it obnoxious or handling my players slips of paper. Basically I have few minutes to tell some story and hon my story-telling skills with it, while in the same time pretending to be stingy old guy. And of course it's always good to have a trusted blacksmith that can fix things for you without constant haggling or being faceless NPC

Bump

Couple, I have a Kuo-Toa who escaped his Illithid Master and managed to loop his insanity back into a (shadow) of goodness and lucidity. He runs a shop run by witches as a part-timer, and they're always away so he's usually the one manning the register. He's hilarious because I can be as erratic as I want and he's a lovable guy. He once switched his gender in front of 2/5 PCs, with bone crunching and horrible body horror agony. He switched back in front of the rest, who (thankfully playing in-character) had no idea what the fuck was going on.

Then there is Good Doggo, a Blink Dog that the PCs saved and kept bumping into them cause they stayed in the same Hex doing various stuff. He really likes the party Ranger.

Lastly there's an Ancient Copper Dragon who's the equivalent of The Dude except immortal and has ties to Bahamut, almost suspiciously so since he's been seen with him in human form. He's like a passive observer type of character that I can use as an excuse for the players to have aid, but not enough to succeed without sacrifices and merit. The second time they met him he was passed out on a hoard of gems drunk while a messenger from Asmodeus and The Grim Reaper both tapped their feet in annoyance. Only one PC succeeded on finding this out, and there was that one hilarious moment where he was alone and couldn't tell the rest of the party, and was understandably terrified.

He means it in the sense that not playing a game at all is better than playing in a bad game.

I tend to make my own, last dark heresy campaign I gathered a small band of crusaders from the local population... Only 2 survived.
I'll never forget you Tim

bumperino

Your english is pretty good, OP. I didn't notice any non-native gaffes

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