The Assassination Game @ Lungfishopolis – How to do assassins well as PCs or NPCs.

My Home Brew Old Hack: What about Assassins? Need them or not? @ The Geek Life Project – Grogtard talks about his OSR homebrew game and whether assassins should be a class.

Assassins in My Game @ World of Alidor – Jon says assassins are silly and why. (Consider your Coin of the Dead scooped for my campaign!)

Grupo de Asesinos @ El Hacedor de Dados – Talks about the assassin theme, in Spanish!

Asesinos @ Laboratorio Friki – And Spanish blog post about assassins. Also check out their second post for the carnival, Asesinos, como encajarlos en una partida.

Almas Blancas/White Souls @ La Choza del Friki – Another Spanish post that picks up the gauntlet.

Assassins in RPGs – Character Class or Character Type? @ Roleplaying Market – Looks at an alternate idea of what an assassin class could be. I agree.

RPG Carnival: Gremio de Asesinos de Canalburgo @ Los chismes del Narrador – Another Spanish blog, with a first-time entry in a blog carnival.

Assassins @ Board Enterprises – Asks who is the most useful assassin-type in games.

RPG Blog Carnival: Character Types – Part 17 – The Assassin @ Reality Refracted – Talks about running assassins as a GM and playing them as a player.

just a job to do @ Fame & Fortune – Offers three historical iconic assassins.

And STAY Dead! @ Lizard’s Gaming Blog – Offers a collection of items and rituals designed to aid in killing NPCs. (I could have used his Oil of Eternal Silence earlier in my Riddleport campaign.)

Inspirational Viewing – The Mechanic (1972) @ Sea of Stars RPG – Reviews the Bronson Classic about a professional world-weary killer.

Aptitud de asesino @ Detras de la Pantalla – A Spanish post the covers the assassin class plus another post about an unexpected type of killer.

Roleplaying Tips offered two articles on the topic – How to Contact and Hire an Assassin and 5 Effective Combat Tactics For Assassins.

And Campaign Mastery celebrates the upcoming release of a product Mike and Johnn worked on called Assassin’s Amulet -

• The Creation Of A Deity: The Origins Of Cyrene
• Dark Shadows In The Night: Lessons from the writing of Assassin’s Amulet
• Five (Plus One!) Effective Combat Tactics for Assassins
• 50 Assassin Hooks
• Roleplaying Assassins: An excerpt from Assassins Amulet.

Thanks to everybody who contributed to the RPG Carnival. I hope you had a lot of fun writing about this classic game element.

Be sure to head over to October’s carnival, Making The Loot Part Of The Plot.

Many GMs struggle with running killer NPCs. One big goal of the book is to arm you with enough actionable advice that you’ll scare the crap out of your players if they ever catch wind of an NPC assassin ever again.

Part of this GM training involves learning some general principles of engagement when running assassins.

I hope you find this advice useful.

* * *

Chief caveat for assassins in combat situations: avoid combat if possible.

The most favorable combat situations involve fighting with allies. However, assassins tend to work alone, which causes tactical problems.

In all the tactics below, hit-and-run is the only reliable method to combine with any combat tactic. Using an assassin’s amulet in combination as a means of escape makes this even more reliable.

1.  Maximize Sneak Attack Opportunities

Sneak attack is the best option for assassins in combat. Do anything you can to give NPC assassins this opportunity so they can cause damage while trying to get away.

It is difficult, though not impossible, to flank an opponent without an ally – anything that removes an opponent’s Dexterity bonus or causes him to become flat-footed will grant such an opportunity.

Feint/Improved Feint: using the feint option of the Bluff skill, the assassin spends his first round trying to cause the opponent to be off-balance or otherwise unready.

This denies the opponent his Dexterity bonus to his Armor Class on the assassin’s next attack, giving the killer a sneak attack.

This tactic provokes an attack of opportunity, so use it carefully. Give the assassin the Improved Feint feat when it becomes available.

Foes defeat this tactic using Sense Motive, if they have that skill, or a raw check aided by their Wisdom modifier.

Therefore, an assassin should scout out foes to determine their ability to sense others’ motives or see through such tricks as feinting.

The killer must know in advance if a foe can defeat feint. This saves the assassin a full round of futility plus exposure to a potential attack of opportunity.

Invisibility: except for class dipping with caster levels, which is not recommended, becoming invisible means using a magic item and the Use Magic Device skill.

An invisible assassin initiating combat denies their opponent a Dexterity bonus to that attack, and so the foe must suffer a sneak attack.

Blindness: like invisibility, if the opponent is blind, the assassin is effectively invisible (see above).

Possessing the feat chain Critical Focus and Blinding Critical is helpful, though unreliable, as the NPC must engage in at least one round of combat with no advantages, and he must succeed on a critical hit, which can never be counted on.

Eggshell grenades-pepper (from Oriental Adventures) are a mundane device that require use as a thrown weapon. With a successful hit affecting a five-foot area, the opponent is blind, though he gets a save to avoid the circumstance. Any magic item that causes blindness will also do this.

2. Single Striking

A one-shot kill relies on high Strength combined with Power Attack and using a two-handed weapon, granting half-again Strength bonus on attacks. Unfortunately, Strength is generally a tertiary stat for assassins, following Dexterity and Intelligence.

Focus on causing as much damage as possible with a single attack using magic, magic items and equipment to eke out all the extra damage you can.

Enhance this tactic with Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack, as well as the vital strike feat chain. While this is feat intensive and takes away valuable feat slots to make an effective assassin combatant, the three feats mentioned allow him to strike without attacks of opportunity, so offer better survivability.

Having the Quick Draw feat also gets the weapon in hand quickly. Combine this with sneak attack and this could be a one-shot kill.

3. Two Weapon Fighting

Using two weapons in combat means more opportunities for sneak attack. The assassin should possess the Weapon Finesse feat to rely on the character’s Dexterity instead of Strength

While effective, this combat tactic does not cause as much damage as the single strike tactic, though it uses far fewer feat slots for combat.

4. Sniping Using Ranged Weapons

If the assassin can prepare to choose a hidden spot to attack from this can be an effective combat tactic. However, it requires time unseen to prepare such an opportunity.

The assassin must hide, shoot at their target, and then move to another location to repeat the process. The assassin must be skilled with ranged weapons and will spend his combat feat slots doing so.

This tactic does not accommodate being caught unawares and forced into melee, so the two previous combat tactics are more reliable.

Take the Arcane Trickster prestige class instead of Assassin so ranged sneak attack is possible to make this a more viable combat tactic.

5. Using Traps

Indirect combat offers a usable strategy, but also requires some time in preparation prior to engaging in combat. Simple is sometimes most effective.

For example, tossing caltrops in areas of expected movement for oncoming combatants or use of tanglefoot bags.

Consider allowing assassins to use portable traps either mundane or arcane, where the assassin can arm, disarm, move and rearm such a device in a move-and-wait or move-and-run-away tactic.

Always consider poisoning any blade, ranged weapon or traps to improve damage and escape chances, as well.

* * *

If you liked these tips, you should check out two more previews of Assassin’s Amulet:

50 Assassin Hooks

Assassins make awesome NPCs. Thing is, they often have paper-thin character development. Well, you can fix this right now. Start by giving your next assassin one of these tasty hooks. Get your hooks now >>

How to Roleplay Assassins

Assassins should be compelling in every encounter in which they appear. This excerpt describes how to run assassins as compelling characters to roleplay and deadly adversaries to fight. Read the roleplaying advice >>

From the GMMastery Yahoo Group

A GM asked for help making a haunted house become an interesting NPC. Lots of ideas poured into the thread, which I thought I’d highlight here.

I fully support giving locations personality. And as you’ll see below, creative GMs can also make places interactive and dramatic.

The Initial Request From Eric

Hey all,

I could use some help. I am four sessions into a new campaign. People have low magic, it’s loosely renaissance and it’s fantasy. There are sometimes more powerful magical effects in the world.

On campaign day one, a person unleashed magic onto the world. Now the PCs are magical and trying to figure out how to not get ostracized from society. So they’re forming a guild. The guild needs a house and one of the aforementioned powerful magical effects poses a possibility.

An abandoned monastery rebuilt itself into a new configuration on the day that magic was unleashed into the world. I have had the idea all along the building could become the PCs’ guildhall. The players had the same idea and now they want to explore it.

I want the building to be an ongoing NPC. It needs some quirks, personality and purpose. Though it won’t dialogue, it will continue to reconfigure itself occasionally.

I also want the guildhall to be infected with a variety of magical maladies and it needs to be cured. What the problems could the PCs encounter when exploring the building?

I need some descriptions. If sentient magic created a building, what would it look like?

Thanks in advance for suggestions.

From Mark of the Pixie

Create A Personality

Personality would come first. If it is a grandmother type personality, caring for her tenants, protecting them when needed, spoiling them a bit, then she would be very different from living in a building that had an accountant’s personality. Both would be different to the personality of a passing rat infused into the main hall.

But if we go with abandoned monastery, then we can assume it may be something like an abandoned monk in personality. It is a calm and serene place, but lonely. Perhaps it wonders why everyone left? Perhaps it worries deep in its cellars that it wasn’t good enough. If there was a fire, then it may be afraid of flames, suffering a form of architectural Post Traumatic Stress.

Create A Purpose

Once you have personality purpose follows fairly logically. The monastery is lonely and wants to guide people to wisdom. It wants to shelter them, keep them safe, but above all, it doesn’t want to be abandoned again.

Create Quirks

This leads you to quirks.

It is lonely, so it loves having people around. It will open doors and try to make people comfortable. It will be warm and inviting.

There is a downside though. It desperately fears being abandoned again, so it will not let the last person leave. Doors will slam and bolt themselves, windows will prove unbreakable, corridors will lengthen as you run down them. New people can come in, and then all but one of them can leave.

Because of the old fire, it is afraid of flame. Candles are constantly extinguished by drafts; no one can start a fire in any of the fireplaces, no matter how skilled they are. Lanterns are ok, but even then you get the feeling you are being watched constantly (Light spells would be much better).

That said, if a someone does start a fire in a room (or throws in a burning bottle of oil) then the house panics and the fire spreads like something from a nightmare.

It wants to impart wisdom, so books are welcome. Any books inside the building will be protected as fiercely as the people. There will always be more room in the library. Anyone who is wise, kind or helpful will be rewarded as their rooms gets bigger and nicer. Anyone who is unkind or mean will have their rooms shrink.

Create Flashbacks

Another good one for buildings is flashbacks. Perhaps the roof collapsed in a storm. Now every time there is a storm, a extremely convincing illusion occurs where the roof collapses and rain pours in, people are trapped, etc.

It is all fake, but it also can give clues as to the building’s past. For example, they see someone put a signet ring under a floorboard before running off to help with the collapsed roof.

Create Trouble

Fixing up a ruin that has been abandoned for centuries and is now magical should provide quite a bit of trouble. Rooms might be repaired, only to “heal” back to their ruined state.

The building may have a fractured personality, and the PCs may need to merge them or even kill parts of the building to make it safe.

Rats, crows, spiders and other animals who lived in the ruins may now be magical as well. An awakened fox mage who is now smart enough to ogranise the other magical animals would be a cool rival who can compete with the PCs for ownership of the buildings, especially if she has already got the basements and cellars on her side. She doesn’t want the PCs dead, she just wants them to leave. After all, this is where the fox has lived her whole life; it is her house.

Some parts may be haunted. Some rooms might hold the emotional echoes of their last inhabitants. For example, terror if the last occupants of the room happened to die in the fire. It may be that anyone stepping into the room feels like they are on fire (no actual damage though), and only the most strong-willed can stand it for more than a few seconds.

A nice balance would be that the PCs have to feed the house magic to keep it going.

From Roger Barr

My initial thoughts were small eddies of magical power that flow through the guild house, particularly in certain rooms.

 Annoying

There might be a closet that gets visited now and then by a dust storm from another dimension. Once every week or so, everything in the closet is covered in dust and sand.

A spot in the hall will cause any food taken through it to spoil.

There was a cat in the abandoned structure when the magic hit, and now it is anchored to the house and cannot be put outside. If someone tosses it out a window, it returns inside in a different place. If they try to kill it, weapons pass through it harmlessly.

A closet will enchant clothing so the next time the clothing is worn it automatically fits the person who dons it. Borrowing clothing could get interesting at that point, as well as all of the PC’s wardrobe suddenly radiating a magical aura.

A spiral staircase designed to make it easy for older wizards to get upstairs by allowing you to walk downstairs until you get to the basement; if you keep walking downwards, the next landing is the attic. Fun thing can be to not let it work in the other direction.

Possibly Helpful

A box on a table is always cold, like a tiny refrigerator.

A barrel of water never runs dry.

A chamber pot is self-cleaning.

One window always has beams of sunlight streaming in, even during bad weather outside.

Everlit candle that will not burn out. (May not even have real heat, just light.)

 Give It A Helpful Personality

I would be tempted to have it work like an old butler commanding a household staff in a manor house. “He” is sometimes forgetful, but very dedicated for service.

Things get done, albeit slowly. Dishes get washed and put away in the kitchen. Laundry gets cleaned, armor polished and weapons sharpened. The garden is well tended. Horses are groomed and fed.

If you want to make it more challenging for the players, have things the butler performs happen sometimes, but not always, so the PCs will end up being used to check on what has been done and what has not. Did the horses get fed? Better go check.

This makes it more of a pleasant surprise that they sometimes get to skip a chore, than to always have things done for them.

Some mornings there is a nice breakfast laid out in the dining hall, other days just a pitcher of milk or juice.

From Douglas E Knapp

After reading the others’ ideas, I got to thinking about a person who moves into a bedroom but the house does not like them.

At first, the room is safe and in a good place in the house. However, with time it is moved to the outside wall of the house and made to have a hallway into the main building.

One time the PC goes to sleep and the door locks. He wakes up to find half the roof gone and part of a wall. He can’t get back in because all the doors are locked. A lot like a cell getting rid of toxic stuff.

From Telas

The building has a near-random opinion of new people, depending on their resemblance to former occupants. As a former monastery, it dislikes elves and opposing priests, but likes anyone who is bald. If the person can somehow prove to the building they are different, it will change its opinion.

Different parts of the building have different personalities and different magical effects. The kitchens are warm and inviting, and any food prepared there is tastier and more nutritious.

The infirmary was basically a hospice, and until rebalanced it will make people sick. Rebalancing will require building a monument to all who died there, or properly sanctifying the mass grave.

The library encourages people to stay a while (and lose track of time).

The twist is that the areas may not be immediately identifiable; the library may look like another storage room, etc.

From Mike

Eric,

I had a creepy idea that may not fit with your vision or your campaign, but here it is anyway.

Two similar horror stories come to mind. One is the story of the rich old woman who kept building and renovating her giant mansion because she thought she would die when she stopped (when she did stop, she died).

Another is the tale of Rose Red, the mansion of a rich oil baron in the 1900s. The lady of the house swore that it was haunted and that it claimed the lives of a few tenants. She swore it was alive, and the creepy lady actually became an avowed Satanist, if I recall correctly.

There are many places you can go with such ideas, from the slightly creepy (fitting for a formerly low magic world) to the outright scary. Perhaps the monastery is somehow tied to the spirit of its founder? Perhaps he was secretly a mage or alchemist, or alternatively, perhaps he HATED magic. His spirit can be trapped in the place, or the effects of his metaphysical experiments could still linger in the place, causing all the changes.

Perhaps the place needs blood (or the blood of a mage) every so often? If the owners don’t realize this, the place causes accidents (minor at first, but increasingly serious).

If you flesh out the founder, you’ll be able to explain the weird shifts in the hall. The founder might have hated mages or been a secret mage, but he might also have loved innovation or study, so the hall may help any residents engaged in such activities.

Before you get to work, ask yourself what you want out of this whole idea. Have an end goal. Though this isn’t well thought out, my gut says I would want a place that is tempting and inviting for PCs, but one that is equally dangerous.

This would create tension for the players (which is good for games), for they will always be craving the new and exciting (and seemingly limitless) perks the house can provide, while dreading the increasingly serious dangers.

From Johnn

Give the building a no-go dark or bad area. Work this into the backstory and personality. Be ready for the PCs to want to go there first, but try to block for several sessions. The mystery will gnaw.

I side with others who give the house control of rooms, lighting and furnishings. This offers you interactivity.

Have doors lead to different places, at the house’s control. A nice way to block, trap or confuse.

Traps! Just thought of that as I wrote trap above. Mouse traps (elf-sized mouse traps preferably), coughing chimney, sliding stairs.

Give the building a sage area. A meditation room or part of the ceiling with a changing paint splotch. Gives you a way to provide clues and communicate.

Put Cthulhu in the toilet. PC has a seat and boom goes the dynamite.

More From Douglas E Knapp

As a bad person sleeps, the house forms a drip on the ceiling and drips it into the person’s mouth. God only knows what this is a drop of.

As the person sleeps, the floor goes mushy and the bed drops down into a pit of hell, a dungeon or just a musty old basement.

Can we animate the house goods? Player eaten by chair, anyone?

Player wakes up to find himself mummified by wallpaper.

Heater goes super nova.

Age old stairs turn into slide.

House sucks player into a wall to save him from….

Plain old creaking can be scary. I know this from being a kid in an old house.

Flickering lights are always scary.

Doors of closets and such will not stay shut for bad people, but shut by themselves for good ones.

Clothing is made damp or clean for players if they leave it out, perhaps food and stuff too.

Room is always dusty or clean by itself. Good air or bad depending of course on the player.

Might want to look into fung shui. They have a lot of info about good and bad houses and what can happen.

I always liked the blood from the water taps in movies.

How Do I Participate in the RPG Blog Carnival?

To participate in an RPG Blog Carnival, just write a blog post that matches to the month’s theme. For September, it’s assassins.

Then post a comment below with a link back to your post so it can get published at the month-end wrap-up.

Please be sure to include a link in your post back to this blog carnival hub post.

What Should I Write About?

You can write anything as long as it relates to assassins in some way.

Tell me a story about an assassin in one of your games. Or talk about assassins as PCs or NPCs. Or talk about an assassination encounter or plot.

Tell me what bugs you about assassins.

I find they are something with huge gaming potential, but hard to pull off well. What player wants his character assassinated? And assassins as PCs are tricky because they tend to be evil loner types, which does not suit typical team-style RPG gameplay.

Maybe tell us about Assassins Gone Wrong. Have you ever employed an assassin in a game and the encounter went poorly?

I remember one time in a Cyberpunk 2020 game a friend GM’d where my PC was shot by an assassin sniper in the first minutes of the game. I was shocked at first, but then we were all laughing. What a way to start a campaign! We were careful PCs after that.

Tell us your stories.

Ok, It’s Time To Write

So, take a stab at this month’s topic, post your blog link below, and link back to here in your post.

I look forward to reading your post!

by Ruth D. Kerce

A lot has been written about how to develop the hero and heroine in a story. An often overlooked, but equally important character, is the villain. He/She must also be developed properly to make the plot believable. Many of the techniques used to develop other characters will also work in developing the villain, but there are some additional factors to keep in mind when you are writing a “bad guy or bad girl.”

1. Don’t Let Your Villain Intimidate You

The villain can intimidate your characters, but shouldn’t intimidate you; otherwise, you won’t be able to write him/her effectively; if you’re pulling back in your writing, then you won’t do the character justice; get him/her under your control or the villain will fall flat and not sound convincing; in other words, don’t be afraid to write “evil”.

2. Even Villains Have A Good Side

Remember that no one is all good or all bad; a villain can have a soft side, too; maybe it’s for women or children or animals or some aspect of the human condition; your villain is a “bad guy/girl,” not a demon (unless you’re writing a horror story); so make him/her a believable human being.

3. Villains Have A Reason For How They Act

As the writer, it is essential you know the villain’s motivation (even if the reader doesn’t); only this way will you be able to keep his/her words and actions consistent; he/she acts evil for a reason; even if that reason is “crazy” in the eyes of society, the villain believes the reasoning is logical and performs accordingly.

4. Be Aware Of The “Class” Of Your Villain

Villains come in many different shapes, forms, and backgrounds; these factors will determine how you present the character; a small-time drug dealer will act, speak, dress, and move differently than a corporate spy; do your research.

5. Don’t Overdo It

This doesn’t mean to pull back in your writing; however, don’t get “villain- happy;” make your villains as evil as they need to be for the storyline, but no more than that; otherwise, they will either ring untrue or they will take over the story, distracting from the hero, heroine, and original plot.

6. Setting Plays A Role

This may seem obvious, but a villain from the present and a villain from out of history or from the future needs to be viewed and written differently; society changes over time, and a villain in the past, may not be a villain in the present or the future; for example: in the 17th century, witches–particularly on the East coast–were considered villains by a large portion of society and were incarcerated or put to death; however, now that belief is no longer a “frenzy” in our society; so when you incorporate a villain into your plotline, that villain need not be an all- encompassing villain, but simply needs to be a villain in the context of the particular theme of your story.

7. Do You Need A Villain?

Don’t use a villain unless you need a villain; an unnecessary villain is a nuisance, not an asset to a story; don’t create one just to have one; the villain must have a reason for being there other than simple shock value; many plotlines revolve around the internal conflict between the hero and heroine and do not need a villain in order to tell the story.

8. A Villain’s Demise

Finally, your villain must get his/her punishment in the end; if he/she simply disappears, then you’ve given the villain too much power; take away his/her power; give the reader the satisfaction of closure for all the evil that the villain put your hero and heroine through; this doesn’t necessarily mean that the villain must die, but he/she should suffer in some way for his/her actions.

Give Them Family, Friends, Contacts, And Enemies

For gameplay, give a follower at least a few relationships. This provides you more great fodder for plot hooks and encounter seeds. Better yet, it adds depth to what is often a one-dimensional NPC type.

For flavour and immersion, give NPCs their own lives. On the surface, life might seem to be about tangible things, starting from food and shelter and then moving to toys and status symbols. The true measure of a life, however, is a person’s relationships. And so it is with NPCs, too.

An NPC with existing relationships will have carved a place in the world long before the PCs came along. That place might be big or small. Regardless, it makes the NPC seem real, and less like a tool, servant, or slave.

Use relationships to give players pause before abusing a follower or taking him for granted. Ensure the NPC will be missed if he dies or disappears. Better yet, if powerful people take notice, then the characters will be held accountable to the NPC, causing the group problems if he is killed or abused.

In times of trouble, the follower should rely on people other than the PCs for advice and help. In times of success, the NPC should want to share with, brag to, or help others. In this way, you introduce other NPCs for plots and encounters in a believable, seamless, fun way.

Potential relationships:

• Parents and grandparents
• Siblings
• Sons and daughters
• Former trainers, teachers, and mentors
• Past and present rivals and enemies
• Former patrons and employers
• Romantic partners
• Others who need the NPC

The enemy of a follower will likely become the enemy of the PCs.

Also, complications in relationships do not need to always turn into side quests or lengthy encounters. Even a one minute situation adds a lot to a game session.

Be sure to offer a few boons resulting from a follower’s relationships as well, to balance things out and not make players feel penalized.

The great thing about followers with relationships external to the party is you have control of all the other NPCs, so you can impose checks and balances, challenges and fairness.

Give Them Feelings

In the game system I run, characters can gain the ability to attract loyal followers. One interpretation of that is the henchmen are only loyal to the PC they’ve chosen to follow. In addition, the PC is not a king or god who commands fanatics.

This offers up several interesting possibilities:

• The follower’s loyalty must be continually earned.
• The NPC chose the PC, not the other way around. Unless the PC has a number of supplicants to choose from, the GM gets to pick the follower.
• The follower is loyal to their chosen PC – not to other PCs, nor the group.

I see you rubbing your hands together and I hear your evil cackle. I join you. While you do not want henchmen to steal the spotlight away from player characters too much, and you do not want to nerf a character’s hard-earned rewards, you should always try to make life interesting for PCs.

For example, a character abuses his cohort. He names the NPC Pit Finder, gives him latrine duty every day, and uses him for +2 cover during battle. After awhile, the NPC snaps. As he should. Who would put up with that for long?

Instead of letting the NPC fade into the background and being abused this way, you have him stand up for himself. Some ideas:

• He confronts the PC. Good roleplaying opportunity. Also reminds the player the NPC is a living, breathing, independent game element.
• He hides. The PC will not only lose the NPC’s services and benefits, but he might lead a search party resulting in lost time and resources, and causing embarrassment to the character and party.
• He switches sides. This one is a doozie. The defection might only be temporary, but it’ll sting. The cohort might go on a single mission with a rival, become a double agent, or get a second job for somebody who happens to be unfriendly to the PCs.

Another opportunity is intra-party politics. The follower is loyal to the PC they have chosen. That does not mean loyalty to every PC. The NPC might cause other party members all kinds of trouble.

Imagine a loyal cohort who felt another party member was a threat to his master. What would he or she do? Very interesting possibilities here.

If you take the follower seriously, the player will too. If not, you have lots of ways to show characters the error of their ways.

Give Them A Name Players Will Respect

A respectful name helps NPCs get the respect they deserve. Give a follower a cheesy name and they are doomed to be a party joke. This is fine for one or two NPCs, but a cheeky name should be the exception.

You can use names to enhance campaigns and add flavour. There are a lot of name resources available online.

Treat a follower’s name as an opportunity to build your world and improve gameplay.

Prepare a name cheat sheet so you do not get stuck mid-game coming up with a great NPC name.

For my Riddleport campaign, I assigned each world culture an Earth culture, and built name lists based on those cultures. Then I put the names into TableSmith software for easy random generation.

Give Them A Private Agenda

Serving their master should not be the NPC’s only motivation. Here are two interesting possibilities for some great gaming.

1) What did they want before becoming the PC’s follower?

Give the NPC one or two strong desires that remain unmet when becoming a follower. Have these ambitions come to the fore once in awhile, triggering gameplay opportunities.

Perhaps the NPC takes a strong position during a party debate. Maybe he uses his spare time to kick off an interesting side quest. Or maybe he makes requests of his leader that affects party decisions, for good or bad.

For example:

“I have a chance to meet master sculptor Ardonis in nearby Waterton. I have waited years for this opportunity – he never travels this far south. I’ll be back in three days. You won’t even miss me.”

The PCs may choose to accompany their henchman to Waterton, and get into some fun encounters there. Regardless, the follower falls in love with Ardonis’ daughter, and he becomes torn between love and loyalty – an interesting predicament!

2) What new needs, desires, and ambitions do they develop during the campaign?

This offers interesting twists and gameplay potential.

Even getting a new hobby mid-campaign makes players look at a follower as more than a stat block.

But what if the NPC started having feelings of personal ambition? How would he try to steer his leader, or what actions would he take to earn notice amongst others, possibly stealing the spotlight away from the PCs?

Alternatively, though the NPC might remain loyal to his PC leader, he might not feel the same about other party members and followers. Maybe the NPC spies on another PC in exchange for money, secret training, or romantic interests.

Here are a few ideas for interesting private agendas:

• Wants to surprise his leader with some great accomplishment, which ends up going awry or actually working against the PC.
• Dreams of owning land and settling down with his wife of ten years. This might make him adverse to risk at the wrong times.
• Seeks revenge against a lord whose army killed his family. At key times, the NPC’s loyalty to the PC competes against opportunities for vengeance.
• Wants to change class, but his leader won’t let him.
• Wants to impress a noble’s daughter and some day have enough wealth to win her hand in marriage.
• It turns out a PC’s friend or family member murdered the follower’s brother.
• Deluded. He believes in a contrarian prophesy or dream.

Whenever possible, developer followers and cohorts into living, breathing NPCs. Loyalty does not mean without fault or stagnation. Avoid making followers liabilities, and instead design interesting situations that make for fun gaming.

Balance risk, reward, and failure according to the pacing of your campaign.

Guaranteed, nobody will forget gaming with followers such as these.

By Adam,

A fan of the blog and news letter, Adam writes in with a great source of inspiration for character and NPC backgrounds.

I had a small thought, something I’d like to share. I was listening to a song (Pistolero – by Juno Reactor), it had this great sound bite:

“I hate robbing banks”.

Now this thought stayed with me for quite some time, still does. The more I thought about, the more story I could come up with. The phrase was so laden with potential and weight of story untold. Why does this person still rob banks? How did they get into that situation? Why do they stay in the situation? Personally I’m using as a spring board for a character I’m playing in Star Wars (Saga Edition). But I was thinking it would be great for NPC generation and for general character generation.

It got me thinking, what other great statements, questions, phrases are out there that can succinctly put a great germ of a story out there?

Hemingway was once asked to write a 6 word story. Here was his response:

Baby crib for sale. Never used.

And in Ray Bradbury’s book about writing, he says the greatest asset an author has is his sense of curiosity and a penchant to keep asking Why? and What if?

What sources do you use for inspiration when creating backgrounds for characters and places in your games?

Pursuit adventures can be difficult to GM but exciting to play

I received the following interesting request from a reader about how to handle a campaign where the PCs are the prey. Below is the reader’s request, and then after that I offer some tips. If you have any other tips to add, please add a comment!

Hi Johnn,

I really enjoy both Roleplaying Tips and Campaign Mastery – thanks for presenting such well thought out ideas to GMs everywhere!

I’m running a sci-fi game, and in a previous adventure the leader of the PCs was told his chief rival had sent someone after him. Someone with double his resources and known for tracking and destroying starships.

By the end of their current adventure, their pursuer (or an agent thereof) is likely to have found the PCs, at which point the theme becomes, “Hunt, or be hunted.”  This puts control squarely in the PCs’ hands. They either come up with a way to overcome a superior foe, or they come up with a way to flee a relentless enemy.

I’m aware I can’t plan for every contingency either option presents, and I have a few ideas of my own (at minimum, how the adversary will keep finding them in the vastness of space), but I could use some help.

How do you and others handle pursuit-style adventures?  What can I do to enhance the mood and evoke fear and paranoia?  What obstacles can I put in the PCs’ path?  What can I put in their path that they can use to even the odds?

Many thanks, and keep up the good work!

- Richard Coulson

Hi Richard,

One thing you can do is put yourself in the players’ shoes. What would you do if you were them? You can better envision this by listing out what info and clues they have available. Too often we GMs assume the PCs have more info than they do, and players can only act on what they know or think they know. The chief clue types are locations, NPCs and items.

Once you have some ideas of potential PC actions, you can use these to plan ahead. And if the PCs do not make your anticipated choices, then you have game material ready to steer them towards.

Paranoia Will Destroy Ya

For paranoia, first try to abstract the hunter’s resources down two levels. You’ve already got one level – his agents.

For the second level, figure out what the agents can do without getting involved directly. Agents of agents, informants of agents, technology of agents. What do the agents need to get the job done?

Thus, you’ll end up with:

Tier 1: Villain

Tier 2: Agents

Tier 3: Agents’ resources

Focus On Tier 3 Encounters

Next, implement the third tier in various encounters. This gives you two buffers – one for the agents and two for the villain.

It will also allow you to stretch things out. This way, as the PCs clear out the third tier, there are still a lot of gaming options. If you just went head-on with encounters with agents, the adventure would be over quickly because once the agents are finished all that is left is the villain.

Once you have the third tier figured out, introduce it to the PCs via encounters. Perhaps an agent’s agent and the PCs are on the same quest for a piece of tech. In another encounter, an informant gets caught. In another encounter, a PC’s bank account or employment records get hacked.

The paranoia part comes in when the PCs learn about connections to the villain before, during or after encounters. Normal encounters become scary, dramatic or exciting once the PCs learn of the connection.

Be sure to leave clues or bread crumbs the PCs can use to track things back to an awareness of links to the villain.

Further, paranoia comes from being watched, hampered or manipulated by the villain (preferably via tier 2 and 3 encounters). Generate encounters around those three themes (spied on, hindered and manipulated) and be sure the PCs know the villain is linked.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Johnn

GMing Droids Well Is Tricky

In RPT #512 RND(axe) asked for help on running interesting droids in his Star Wars game. I received the following two great responses:

Keep Droids Tools

From Mark of the Pixie

When I run droids, I stay focused on their purpose.  Droids are tools, not characters (helps stop them outshining PCs).  It colours their outlook on everything.

If you want to make them comedic, you need only take this narrow perception to an extreme.  An example would be a repair droid who keeps trying to fix everything, including a PC’s poor pronunciation, or the captain’s failed marriage.

By keeping droids as tools, it allows PCs to use droids to do things and still have the PCs shine.  Apply the same to NPCs, and the assassin droids become just an extension of the villain.

Give Droids One Interesting Quirk

From David K.

In the first Star Wars campaign I played in, the GM had a droid he called ML-58. My character, a Jedi Investigator, and the rest of the party were trapped on a space station, so we borrowed one of the docked starships to escape to the planet below.  ML, or “Mel” as we called him, happened to be on that ship.

We didn’t think much of him until our first battle of the campaign when I found I no longer had my light saber.  After the battle, I learned Mel had stolen and disassembled my light saber and, after the exchange of a few blows, he was my eternal enemy for the rest of the campaign.

Despite my continuing hatred of Mel, I think he proves a good example of an interesting droid character.  Whenever anything mechanical was left unattended near him, he would compulsively tinker with it. In this way, I was:

• Assaulted by my own cargo mover droids, which he reprogrammed
• Flamethrowered by my own astromech, which he reprogrammed
• Held hostage and crammed unceremoniously into a packing crate by the above cargo movers

Through just one personality trait (compulsive tinkerer), this typical protocol droid became a memorable NPC.

Give droids one interesting quirk and run with it.  Some examples I’ve used are:

• Shuts down when he sees a battle droid, stormtrooper or other enemy
• Cannot tell a lie, and cannot avoid telling the truth (this is great in negotiation encounters, especially if the droid is a translator)
• Is romantically interested in one of the PC’s, and brings them little gifts (such as the daughters of political figures and stolen jewelry)
• Likes to instigate disagreements with unpleasant people (which often turn violent)

Some famous examples of these are Marvin (the depressed robot from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), HK-47 (refers to non-droids as “Meatbags” and takes a bit too much pleasure in killing them), and even R2-D2 (who always has a new trick up his sleeve since we last saw him).

Pick at least two traits for each NPC

RPT reader Chad Samuels sent me a spreadsheet of 1,000 NPC traits. A great resource! Thanks Chad.

Below are all the traits listed. Just roll d1000.

Chad advises picking at least two traits per NPC to add some depth of personality.

At the end is Chad’s spreadsheet for download.

1,000 NPC Traits

Download Chad’s traits list as an Excel file.