Game WISH #56
Ginger asks
Do your characters have friends and associates who play a regular role in the game? What about henchmen and hirelings in the old D&D sense or Champions-style DNPCs? How does your group handle playing them? What sorts of things are they used for in the game? Is their influence good, bad, or indifferent?
I would say that it depends on the character. Tatiana is the daughter of a reigning duke, and there are always some royal guardsmen around when she needs them–and more often, when she doesn’t. (All of the PCs in that campaign were siblings, which made for an interesting group dynamic, but that’s off-topic.) There are also family-member NPCs in the game; it’s very political, and the interaction between the family members drives the plot. On the other hand, Annika is an ex-figure skater who stopped training for the Olympics after an accident. I imagined her as very driven, and not terribly socially involved, so she probably wouldn’t have a lot of friends. However, her coach played a huge role in her pre-campaign life, and I tend to write him into her internal monologue a lot, especially because she doesn’t get along with her parents. In this case, “her” NPCs help me define her character, even though she hasn’t interacted with them in-game at all.
When I run a game, I like to have a companion NPC thrown into the mix; basically, an NPC member of the party who can round out a group. In the Teenagers from Outer Space campaign, it was Anoushka, who is the best friend of one PC and the girlfriend of another. In the Grand Ellipse, I threw Esperanza at Margaret just to see what would happen. (I’ll leave comments on the other Grand Ellipse NPCs to people like Dorothea, Alisa, and Cathy.)
Overall, I would say that I tend to populate a game fairly thickly. Different NPCs can serve different purposes–having a “companion NPC” lets me pass information to the group through the NPC’s set of personal filters; for example, Anoushka may not recognize her state’s Senators, but she can tell you who designed the clothes they’re wearing, and why they look good. (Or not, as the case may be.) Therefore, if she says she saw some important looking old guy in, like, major Armani get into a flying saucer with some three-eyed bad haircuts, the players have to work a little to figure out what’s going on. I can avoid a lot of contrived situations, which is a picky detail, but one that’s important to me. Other NPCs may drive the plot, provide a foil for the other characters, or simply act as “supporting cast”. Whether the NPC is good, bad, or indifferent depends on who s/he is and why s/he’s in the game.
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