Keeping track of NPCs

[brucecy92]

DMs, how do you physically keep track of your NPCs? That is, the party says "Now that we're back in town, we want to talk to the blacksmith, the priest, and that barmaid at the Pasty Pumpkin", and you...remember everything yourself? Pull out your box of 3x5 cards? Go to the wiki you have set up so you can see "Barmaid Bianca is actually an agent for the Inquisition, will try to get people talking about using forbidden magic"?

[prabe]

My session notes are in a three-ring binder, with a section for in-session things and another for out-of-session things. If there's an NPC that I'm whiffing on the name of, I go find it. Or, I check the session notes my wife posts (almost 800 pages between two campaigns) depending on what I think will be faster.

[JNAProductions]

In my games on discord, I have an extra channel called "NPC Repository".

I just post the NPC's name and a brief summary.

For instance:


Daniel Calhoun-Government Agent

And I let players post in there as well. Underneath that example is this:


^ Built like the [CUSS] child of a fridge and a linebacker

It's an easy way to keep track.

[Telok]

I generally go by location. Each location has a section in my notes and the relevant npc info resides there. With multi-location plots the plot itself is treated as a meta-location that holds locations and non-location bound npcs related to the plot.

[False God]

I have a notepad that tracks both NPCs I've pre-made and NPCs I've made up on the fly and what they're doing.

[Elysiume]

I have a text document where I track NPCs, their attitude toward the party, and vague attempts at describing the voice I used that almost inevitably ends up impossible for me to replicate.

[Isikyus]

My session notes are in a three-ring binder, with a section for in-session things and another for out-of-session things.


Pretty much this. All my NPCs go in the one section, but I try to have a visual cue to make them quicker to find — a coloured stripe at the top of the page, or in one case portrait cards.