What did I miss? Handling NPCs

I love podcasts. Everything from history to Disney and everything in between. I haven't listed to commercial radio in years. Being that there are easily 2 dozen podcasts in my queue right now, I am way behind.

This series covers podcast episodes I missed when they came out. Being These Old Games, you know I'm not going review new stuff.

They Might Be Gazebos! Banner. One of my favorite images from the OSR,
because I think I used to have these dice myself.

Anyway, the podcast and episodes that have caught my ear this week is They Might Be Gazebos' Playing Wrong: NPCs. I love this 'cast and this episode stand out as useful advice on the care and use of NPCs. My campaign has a great variety of NPCs, which you can download from the Pregenerated Character tab above.

Back in the day, I'd have 7 to 12 players sitting at my table, so the idea of loads and loads of characters is fun to me. When I know I'm introducing a character I usually have a sheet for them. PDFs make them easy. When I don't have sheet, I probably have another sheet that is applicable to a random person I make up on the fly or to sub in for a character the players find interesting.

It isn't so much the numbers on the sheet that make a difference, it's the immersion. If the players believe that I have stats on everyone, then everyone is real. It's pure showmanship, plain and simple.

Not every named person is terribly important, but sometimes, as Chuck says in his podcast is that sometimes the dice and players get to choose who is important. While Playing It Wrong espouses having simple character stats, I go the other direction. To an extent. I am actually using a modified character sheet from BSOLO to keep myself sane. They look pretty and 3 characters per sheet is handy.

Go ahead and bookmark my Pregenerated characters for you campaign and don't forget to give Playing It Wrong a try.