NPC Archetypes to avoid

What are the worst archetypes for NPCs Veeky Forums? What kind of characters makes your skin crawl the second your DM introduces them? How do you avoid theses bland characters when you're the one running the game?

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Really any NPC reeking of Main Character Syndrome. Nothing is worse than starting a game and finding out you and the party are just a captive audience for the GM's boring soap opera. Even worse if the GM forces you to take that character along with you because she (usually a she) is some "group critical" role like a healer.

But healers are a common GMPC, because they're a role that's usually very easy to play, necessary for a party, but often not very fun to play. It doesn't make them the main character.

I got stuck with a GMPC as the damn party face and leader because the original GM had to drop and left me in charge, and nobody else really wanted to take over the role

I sorta resolved it by having them act as a sort of democratizing factor, where they usually stop and ask the party what they want to do and then eventually makes a ruling with the majority of the cast or syncretizes the party's ideas; it's a bit gamey but it preserves player agency. I still kinda hate it though because it feels wrong.

>necessary for a party

Not the GM's job to decide that.

Maybe, but let's be honest, healing is a basic utility any well-rounded party needs. If nobody wants to play it, there's nothing wrong with a well-controlled, non-spotlight-taking healer, and she need not be an un-fun healbot with no personality so long as that personality isn't assertive or proactive enough to take away from the PCs oh shit I think I just figured out why healsluts are a thing, nevermind

"Jackass Boss" NPC. Typical traits include
>A complete jerk to the players for completely no reason
>Typically hates adventurers - all of them, no matter what do they look like or how do they behave, but still employs them.
>Forces a quest on them that can't be avoided
>Has a shit ton of powerful guards, just four of whom could probably complete this entire quest without breaking a sweat
>Jews you out of the reward
>Never gets any comeuppance, and any attempt to do it gets shut down hard

The worst experience of my life with this trope was when we essentially handed the duke (whom we didn't even work for, we figured out that our employer is the bad guy and decided to approach his enemy) the treasure that he sought, and he decided to hang us. Why? Because we're too powerful and independent, and we could potentially cause trouble for him later.

Fuck this trope.

>healing is a basic utility any well-rounded party needs
Wrong.

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Fine, just parties who face challenges and have some kind of limited health or health-analogue type resource.

rogue with a wand of cure light wounds would be fine. How about a store that sells potions even? amazing ideas no one's ever come up with before.

You know what else works? An extra character who takes some unobtrusive role nobody in the party wanted to play but the players agreed they needed.

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Alright, bear with me here, how cool would it be to have a gynoid/synthetic golem/etc actual HEAL-BOT on the field.
What if in universe, everyone actively notices how no one wants to be the one doling out the ounce of cure so they dedicate the spot on the team to an artificial intelligence that doesn't let their ego get in the way.

Bonus points for thicc
Bonus points for not giving a damn about feelings when stabilizing their patient.

>What is a medic?

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as long as it's the players doing the agreeing my dude. When the GM decides the players need it without asking sometimes they're wrong.

It's not the GM that decides that, it's the guy who wrote the rules, usually.

Also, making sure the game runs smoothly and everybody at the table has fun is exactly what the GM's job is. If that requires attaching a quirky henchman whose job is to enable the PCs or clean after them - then it's the GM's job to provide one.

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>necessary for a party
1. Buy a wand of CLW
2. Congratulations. You've just replaced the party healslut with a cost effective healstick.

>You are playing Glorantha, a setting with deep mythology and history
>You can literally embody your god to smite supernaturally powerful threats
>now go fight some low-level henchmen to help the REAL heroes do their stuff

>the love interest.

You know what else works? Making that extra party member fulfill an actually useful role and contribute to the party's efforts in a meaningful way instead of being at best somewhat convenient addition and at worst a liability.

Maybe they are not playing D&D3.
Maybe they are playing a game where in-combat support matters, and slow inter-combat healing either does not matter or cannot be provided by buying CLW items in bulk.

It's the GM's job to provide avenues for the players to solve their group's shortcomings, should the group feel the need to do so.

It is not my job as a GM to force some stupid waifu healslut whether they want it or not.

>What kind of characters makes your skin crawl the second your DM introduces them?
>DM
Last time I checked, CLW and outside of battle healing was still the way to go in 5e.

>as long as it's the players doing the agreeing my dude
Nobody but you ever said anything otherwise?

>stupid waifu healslut
The healslut thing was an obvious joke.

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The Jack Sparrow.
Any npc channelling that persona can fuck right off.

How is a healbot going to hog the spotlight? If my player's don't want to play a healer, I just give them either a magic item to to the job or some npc devoid of personality who follows them and does not contribute anything except for cure spells and being too cowardly to be of use in a fight.

What if you a playing in a world where magic items are not commonplace? What if it is a wilderness adventure with no shops around? You don't have to be such a passive aggressive bitch about other people's games.

A npc should never be more usefull or active as a pc.

Who said anything about being more useful than a PC? An NPC can contribute in a meaningful way without overshadowing a PC.

>devoid of personality
Why? Are you so poor a writer that you cannot actually play an interesting character without immediately hogging the spotlight?

Is there a reason that you can not pose a question without being insulting?

I’m worried I might be about to do something like this.
Players are rookie cops that were quickly promoted to detective to root out terrorists in city
Idea is to have them do the leg work and find said terrorist hiding spot, they then call it in to hq, which will send in a swat team to deal with it as the chapter ends. Is that stealing the spotlight or am I good?

20 minute speech about how you were almost dead but the healer never gave up and they had childhood trauma that is carryover ng over the exact same way now and if they were better they could easily heal... ect ect
Or
Npc with deadly incurable disease only has few moments to live, guess who magically cures them.
That’s just some though, many are fine to heal and be done with it

CLW doesn't even exist in 5e, they just call it Cure Wounds and how much it heals depends on spell level you spent on it. Hell, Life Clerics are the only archtype I can recall off the top of my head that makes healing worthwhile.

The ones placed there specifically to make things take longer than they should.

>I'd like to get a permit for my weapons since getting stopped by guards every session is annoying
>Ok go talk to X
>X's office door is locked
>Inquire about X
>Oh yeah he's an alcoholic prolly sleepin right now, come back later
>Why don't you just fire him?
>...
>Is there anyone else I can talk to?
>Nope just X
>Is there someone who can let me into his office?
>Nope just the one key haha

After the session
>user that was some great RP! I could really feel how frustrated and irritable your character was!
No it's me getting shitty with you, you oblivious fuck

Nope, it's the job the the game designer to decide that, and they all made the same decision.

>the party are just a captive audience for the GM's boring soap opera

Reminds me when my group decided to drop everything and dig into a helpful NPC's past.

>be players in space fantasy
>be a crew of a merchant ship
>bunch of smartasses and cheats tied to eachother due to random circumstances
>eventually get wrapped into very deep occult conspiracy
>get accused of murder, treason, heresy and so on
>campaign focused on proving innocence and saving world from occult
>one combat focused player drops out, but his occult "rival" is still up
>gotta_make_it_work_somehow.exe
>add sideplot with another party involved in this whole mess
>said party offers players to have their combat oriented NPC to help them
>as plot goes they start to grow fond of him
>evanturally campaign ends, NPC supposed to go back to his masters
>players step up and offer to buy him out with reward money

While I had some doubts, I allowed that to happen. However, later on when they decided to explore said NPC's past on their own whim, it ended up being a very weird experience... I mean, they did get his loyalty and all, but in retrospective it felt like they were the NPC's in his own story.

If such situation would ever come up again, as in them getting into NPC's backgrounds, I'm just going to run a quick summary with quick rolls here and there, w/o going into any roleplay.

Games outside of D&D exist, you know.

NPCs with incurable disease is a stupid plot in a game with curative magic. It's the same way that easy resurrection sucks the effectiveness out of assassination plots. That GM needs to learn to work with the game they are playing.

I think reality is insulting to you and he's just acting as it's mouthpiece.

>>the love interest.

Jey it was NOT my fault that our Lord-Commodore did decide to get romantically involved with the ship's doctor, a female Biologis adept I effectively described as a competent but slighty sadistic Admech Mengele equivalent with a hidden streak for self flagellation due to guilt complex!!

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Yeah, but the guys running them aren't DMs, they're GMs.

They're about the same thing you nitpicky faggot.

They aren't the same thing you imprecise faggot.

you're both wrong idiots, they are Referees.

Underrated post. All the debate about roles and shit is stupid. If a group makes a party of the same character, the DM's job is to work it.

Is shooting up the terrorists what they want do?

If you're worried that sending in the doorkickers once their job is done will steal their thunder, make sure they know that their job isn't to be the doorkickers, it's to be the detectives who figure out whose doors must be kicked in the first place. If the players want the detective role and they can be trusted to stick to it, there is no reason why this should be a problem.

There is literally no difference.

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As a DM, I've sometimes been forced to use this because the party is too unstable to focus otherwise. Feels pretty bad desu, but it gets the story going, gives them a dedicated quest giver that they can't just blow off, and really, the character is there for about 5 minutes every session.

Though to be fair, mine doesn't hate all adventurers, just the party because they're a bunch of fucking smartass murderhobos.

That's fine for higher levels, but at level one, a healing potion is basically your entire starting wealth. A cleric is far cheaper.

I bet you don't even know what they stand for.

Fey.
>muh alien values
>muh insanity
>muh fey trickery quantum ogre
>muh whimsy lol
>muh I'm good because nature
>muh I'm totally caring about nature despite artificially bending every aspect of it to my hedonistic flights of fancy
>muh otherworldly beauty
>muh illusions
>muh did you know original fairytales are totally hardcore

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What you don’t like playing bureaucracy simulator? Fag.

You’re all fucking wrong. They’re Neckbeard Magistrates.

They make pretty cool enemies though. Imagine everything you hate about them, then blasting it with a shotgun loaded with cold iron flechette

This.

Fucking hate all that shit. Everything about it.

I also hate any recurring NPC that is completely one-dimensional without any ramp up. Like suddely we find the buddiest buddy who ever budded, laughs all at your jokes, pays all your beers and generally acts like youre chums since kindergarten. Even if its a traitor. Especially if its a traitor. Its so fucking jarring and completely breaks immersion, no one acts like this. Same shit with overtly mysterious, overtly assholish or overtly quirky characters with no characterization whatsoever, except their main think. These one-color crayons can just fuck off. Had a game recently where everyone was like this. If someone said 'hi' nicely he would die gallantly for you two days later, if someone gave you a bad look you know you had an enemy for life who would massacre your doomed hometown.

Unless the party has everything else necessary and built correctly for the balance of the game to require the healer in the game group format as assumed in CR( what is it, a wizard/cleric/fighter/rogue?), why is the healer necessary? If the groups challenges are already going to be adjusted to the group(that isn't a cleric/fighter/wizard/rogue), adjust them to a group with fewer hitpoints(from less healing) and disregard the healer. If you have have two wizards, you have to adjust the encounters already, without making a spotlight-stealing boring character. if you have two fighters, the same follows. If you have any other class selection scheme, it still doesn't mean you can plop in a healer and use the CR as a good difficulty rating, and still have to custom tailor encounters. What are you saving by forcing an extra character on the party for encounters you already have to custom fit, when custom fitting allows you to cut out the healer's necessity?

Why do you simply take as a given that such a character is "spotlight-stealing"?

If you just assume that in the premise, then obviously your conclusion is that the character is a bad thing.

>forcing on the party
Again, why are you taking these things as given? It kinda seems like you're just assuming extra steps here as an excuse to argue.