Nonplayer Characters

Nonplayer characters (NPCs) are supporting characters controlled by you, the DM. Examples include the local innkeeper, the sage who lives in the tower on the outskirts of town, and the death knight out to destroy the kingdom.

The Monster Manual contains stat blocks you can use to represent NPCs in your game. You can add details to make them distinctive and memorable. For example, your players will have no trouble remembering the no-nonsense blacksmith with the tattoo of the black rose on her right shoulder or the badly dressed musician with the broken nose. NPCs in your game rarely need much more complexity than that.

Stat Block

Choose a stat block from the Monster Manual to represent the NPC’s game statistics. You don’t need to do this if you don’t expect the NPC to engage in combat or use any special abilities (such as casting spells). You can customize the stat block using the guidelines under “Creating a Creature” in this chapter to better reflect the NPC you have in mind.

Alignment

Choose the NPC’s alignment, which can help you sketch the outlines of an NPC’s behavior and personality. See the Player’s Handbook and “Alignment” in this chapter for more information.

Personality

With the NPC’s alignment and ability scores as a starting point, use the guidelines in the Player’s Handbook to pick a few words that describe the NPC’s personality. You can choose or randomly determine one personality trait associated with each element of the NPC’s alignment, or with the NPC’s highest and lowest ability scores, and combine them to inspire a persona.

For example, if you find the adventurers unexpectedly arguing with a Lawful Neutral guard, you might create a cooperative but laconic guard who is happy to help the adventurers but speaks curtly, hoping to end the conversation as quickly as possible. Or, looking at the Imp stat block in the Player’s Handbook and noting its highest ability (Dexterity) and its lowest (Strength), you might decide that the little devil is fidgety and indirect, constantly on the move and talking in circles to get to its point.

Appearance

Briefly describe the NPC’s most distinctive physical features. You can start with the basics—skin, hair, and eye colors, as well as the NPC’s species. The NPC Appearance table can also help you identify one or two things that stand out about the character’s appearance.

Recurring NPCs

NPCs who keep showing up over the course of a campaign build the sense that the world of the game is a living, breathing place. Whether these NPCs are allies, patrons, friends, or villains, they can deepen players’ investment in the world.

You can use different stat blocks in the Monster Manual, perhaps with some tweaks, to reflect the same NPC at different times as they grow over the course of a campaign. For example, characters on their very first adventure might face a villain who uses the stat block of a Mage Apprentice, only to have that villain escape and return many adventures later to haunt them as a Mage. Still later, the same villain might reappear as an Archmage. Of course, the trick here is making sure that the villain survives from one adventure to the next, or at least coming up with a plausible way for the villain to return from death. After all, death is rarely the final word for adventurers, so it needn’t be for their opponents.

Don’t Go Overboard

Developing nonplayer characters can be fun. That said, use your time wisely. Beware of writing three pages of backstory for an NPC whose interactions with the adventurers will be over in three minutes. The advice in this section is meant to help you create an interesting character quickly while providing just enough detail.

Loyalty

Loyalty is an optional rule you can use to determine how far an NPC party member will go to protect or assist the characters (even those the NPC doesn’t particularly like). An NPC party member who is abused or ignored is likely to abandon or betray the party, whereas an NPC who owes a life debt to the characters or shares their goals might fight to the death for them. You can simply decide on an NPC’s loyalty, or you can track a Loyalty Score using the following rules.

Loyalty Score. An NPC’s loyalty is measured on a numerical scale from 0 to 20. The NPC’s maximum Loyalty Score is equal to the highest Charisma score among all adventurers in the party, and its starting Loyalty Score is half that number. If the highest Charisma score changes—perhaps a character dies or leaves the group—adjust the NPC’s Loyalty Score accordingly.

Tracking Loyalty. Keep track of an NPC’s Loyalty Score in secret so that the players won’t know for sure whether an NPC party member is loyal or disloyal.

An NPC’s Loyalty Score increases by 1d4 if other party members help the NPC achieve a personal goal. Likewise, an NPC’s Loyalty Score increases by 1d4 if the NPC is treated particularly well (for example, given a magic weapon as a gift) or rescued by another party member. An NPC’s Loyalty Score can never be raised above its maximum.

When other party members act in a manner that runs counter to the NPC’s alignment or personality, reduce the NPC’s Loyalty Score by 1d4. Reduce the NPC’s Loyalty Score by 2d4 if the NPC is abused, misled, or endangered by other party members for purely selfish reasons. A Loyalty Score can never drop below 0.

Meaning of Loyalty. An NPC with a Loyalty Score of 10 or higher risks anything to help fellow party members. An NPC whose Loyalty Score is between 1 and 10 is tenuously faithful to the party. An NPC whose Loyalty Score drops to 0 no longer acts in the party’s best interests. The disloyal NPC either leaves the party (attacking characters who attempt to intervene) or works in secret to bring about the party’s downfall.

Crew Loyalty and Mutiny. If the characters own or operate a sailing ship or similar vessel, you can use these rules to track the loyalty of individual crew members or the ship’s crew as a whole. If at least half the crew’s Loyalty Scores drop to 0 during a voyage, the crew turns Hostile and stages a mutiny. If the ship is berthed, disloyal crew members leave the ship and never return.