Artistry of NPCing

meirya

meirya

Adept
I want to chat about the art of NPCing.

I'm not talking about the technical side of NPCing, the "do" and "don't" lists (do challenge the players, don't railroad them, don't try to be the star, do let the PCs shine, do know your skills/incants, etc). I'm not talking about stats and mechanics. I've read and heard all that before over and over again; sure it's necessary stuff, but it's pretty dry too.

I'm curious about the art of NPCing. How do you bring an NPC to life? What are ways we can enrich the game/player experience even more in our NPCing? Do you consider motive and physicality even with crunchies? What makes an awesome climactic monster even more awesome on a level apart from makeup/prosthetics/stats? What basic elements can you consider with a random villager that you bring in for dinner that will make that NPC a little more interesting or "real" seeming?
 
As tempting as it is to give your NPC a physical handicap, don't do an extreme one. Leaning on a cane when playing an old master Potion maker is one thing, a severe unassisted limp on you local farmer guy hurts after a while and can make it hard to switch roles later on.

When I play recurring roles, like townies or Big Baddies or beneficial characters, I decide how they walk and how they talk. Do they modulate their voices or keep them flat? Do they stomp, glide, swagger? Big words or small, polite or rude? How do they view the adventuring population, nobles, commoners? Is their grasp of English like a native speaker, or someone picking up a new language in their 20s?

If its a crunchy monster type, consider what's on the card already. Base Zombie? Don't run. Kobold? Stay up on your toes. You don't have to do silly voices for your crunchier roles, but consider how the creature would vocalize (if it can.)

I have an NPC that I love to play, she is the most prim and proper woman ever, but carries a giant two-handed sword she can swing for silly amounts of damage. So I had to find a combination of proper posture and a walk that conveys her confidence in her martial and magical ability without making her swagger or show overconfidence or pomposity. Her voice is a touch higher than mine, she articulates her Ts and rarely uses contractions. "Is not" and "Will not" frequently come out of my mouth, and my voice is generally soft unless I'm angry or speaking to a crowd, but even then is still on the "gentle" side of the spectrum. Contrast that with another NPC that spoke like she was from Clueless, her walk focused on her hips (while wearing costumes on the skimpier side), used all sorts of slang, slouched when she sat, and probably would have done cartwheels if I wasn't afraid of losing everything in my pouches (and flipping up my skirt, the real me has more modesty than that character.)

It made them distinctly different to play, and I bet without throwing a packet, having the costuming on or doing any of the makeup, people could identify who they were if I spoke a given sentence and walked across the room.
 
jpariury said:
Much as Lauren said, for me, it's all about accent, attitude, and prejudices.
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and in some cases, the Jim Carrey School of Acting (or Overacting).
 
In all my roleplaying, I try to focus on "action-creates-reality". As a PC, you have the time to build up a large and complicated inner life that informs all the actions of your character if you want ("Method Acting", in the lingo). As an NPC, you very rarely have the time to do that, so you have to rely on a different style. For me, I pick a couple of emotions that the character is feeling right now, and then I decide on a couple concrete actions that will show each of those emotions. If I'm going out specifically to hook something or drop a key piece of info, I'll even construct a bit of a script in my head, deciding what I'm going to say to open the conversation and outlining a couple likely responses in my head. But in the end, it's all about action for me. If I don't do or say something that communicates the character to the PCs, the character might as well not exist. This is where accents, gaits, and attitudes can really help suggest good actions and dialog delivery that will create the NPC.
 
Yay awesome points!

phedre said:
When I play recurring roles, like townies or Big Baddies or beneficial characters, I decide how they walk and how they talk. Do they modulate their voices or keep them flat? Do they stomp, glide, swagger? Big words or small, polite or rude? How do they view the adventuring population, nobles, commoners? Is their grasp of English like a native speaker, or someone picking up a new language in their 20s?
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I like this point - voice and physicality are clear, vivid ways to communicate character.

bepoped said:
As a PC, you have the time to build up a large and complicated inner life that informs all the actions of your character if you want ("Method Acting", in the lingo). As an NPC, you very rarely have the time to do that, so you have to rely on a different style.
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Yes, yes, exactly this. NPCing is a different art from PCing, I think.

I volunteered as street cast at a medieval faire back in Ohio for three seasons. We had a fantastic street cast and part of that was the couple months of college-level improvisational theater lessons/practice we got before each season started. I've found that those lessons apply really well to NPCing. I dug up my notes from the last season I volunteered for, here are the useful bits that might be relevant (or at least interesting):

Essential qualities of character - Once formed, characters must uphold these essential qualities:
  • Extra-ordinary: Life condensed and intensified. Dramatic, but proportionate and believable. Magnify, don't charicature.
  • Fascinating: Attract interest. Pay attention to details: movements, gestures, idiosyncrasies. Intensity, focus, passion; take the tiniest things and magnify them. Have fun as the actor too, the audience/participants {PCs...} will be more likely to have fun if you are.
  • Identifiable: Wear exposition on sleeve. At a glance: occupation? personality? It should be identifiable from 40 yards away. {This won't be as relevant necessarily for NPCing as for street performing, but it might be a little relevant for some situations.}
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Another useful thing I got from renfaire was a lot of physicality work. Ask questions like...
  • What is the character's rhythm? Heavy, slow, direct? Light, rapid, meandering? This plays into the rhythm of the character's movement and speech.
  • If the character were an animal (real or fanciful), what would they be? I think in animal symbolism quite a lot, so I pick an animal for every single PC I play, and more than a few NPCs. Their "totem", as it were. This gives me a quick, rough guide into voice/movement/personality. (Or a rough inspiration; if I've got nothing else to go on I can pick an animal and go with that.) This isn't just for wylderkin, obviously!
    At faire we'd be told to choose an animal, then walk around as ourselves in a shared space... then as 100% the animal... then as 50% that animal and 50% human... then 30/70, 20/80, 80/20, etc. The director would shift around the percentages and we'd experiment with that physicality influence. Really really useful and interesting if you've never done it before. (It shouldn't require all that much experimentation with an NPC, of course! I usually just pick an animal and use that as inspiration for physicality.)
    For example, a human (or elf, or barbarian, or whatever) with the character-animal "bear" might have a heavy, lumbering walk, head forward and low, arms swinging, taking up lots of space, and be kind of grumpy and gruff with a low voice. One with the animal-inspiration "robin" might move lightly and in staccato bursts, with quick jerky movements, bright-eyed curiosity, be kind of flighty with a shorter attention span, and speak in a cheerful tone.
  • What element do you associate with the character? This is obviously more powerful of a tool for those who think in elemental imagery but the imagery of alchemical elements (fire, water, earth, air) are pretty prevalent in our culture so this ought to be useful for a lot of people. The above-mentioned "bear" character would probably also be an "earth" character, for instance.
  • Where is the character's center of movement, and/or what part of their body do they lead with? You can experiment with this easily - imagine the center of your gravity to be in the cradle of your hips and walk around, then move that focus to your stomach - heart - head - see how it changes your movement. Try leading with your head - shoulders - hips - chest - feet - how does that change your movement at each one? The "bear" character above, for example, would lead with the shoulders but have a low center of gravity, while the "robin" character would lead with the chest and have a higher center.
 
I agree with a lot of what has been said here and will add:

I think it is very important to play smart. With obvious exceptions, your NPC should be as clever as the players, and not fall for the players' obvious traps and tricks (any more than players should fall for theirs). And even dumb NPCs (like goblins, which SHOULD be tricked by players) should run away if they're losing and try to stay alive.
 
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