Day 13 – Who is/was your favourite NPC?
As a DM, I admit to a glaring hole in my adventure running – I don’t do NPCs very much. I think it’s because I felt I needed to act out the character, but I’m very self-conscious about it and wasn’tr confident I could carry it off well. But I see now that NPCs are what bring the game to life – they breathe life into an otherwise sterile landscape. Nowadays, I have written up cards for my NPCs so that I always have a reference point for them. I start with a single card with details of a few NPCs, and when one or more of them increase in importance, they get their own card. I add notes to the cards, recording important events or conversations, and try to add a flavour to each of them so they become memorable for the players.
My favourite NPC though is Regnar the Dwarf Ranger. This was the character my father played over a 40-year span. When he passed away in 2014, I made the decision to carry him into every adventure I run from that point on. Our last adventure involved rescuing him from Hobgoblins. Our next adventure will be helping him to find some potion ingredients.
The image on the left is the original figure my dad sculpted (out of DAS) for our games – I still have it, and all of the other figures he made too. The one on the right is from Red Box Games and was painted by me. Still wearing the same green pants after all of these years!