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Laurellien
2008-10-13, 08:54 AM
It's quite likely that I'll be running an NPC-heavy campaign (Savage Tide by Paizo) in the future. Can any of you give me any hints on how best to run large numbers of NPC's?

AKA_Bait
2008-10-13, 09:31 AM
I'm not really familiar with the setting, but some general suggestions:

1. Keep them differentiated as much as possible. Posture, inflection, mannerisims and verbal pacing will be essential for this.

2. Keep the PCs interacting. Don't have extended exchanges bettween NPCs that the PCs aren't a part of. Be prepared to go 'off script' with a prefab to allow the PCs room to make decisions and have an impact on the outcome of situations.

Thiel
2008-10-13, 09:53 AM
Remember that no matter how important a NPC is to the plot, the PC's will always be more important.

Maxymiuk
2008-10-13, 10:24 AM
2. Keep the PCs interacting. Don't have extended exchanges bettween NPCs that the PCs aren't a part of. Be prepared to go 'off script' with a prefab to allow the PCs room to make decisions and have an impact on the outcome of situations.

95% of the time this is true. However, I found out that players really enjoy witnessing one NPC verbally owning another, provided the latter is someone the group dislikes.


Another idea is to avoid NPC mood and attitude being static. They're supposed to be people to, so presumably things happen to them as often as to anyone else - they find money on the street, get harassed by their boss, sleep unwell.

Of course, keeping track of all this would be a ridiculously complicated task, that however can be easily simulated with a die roll - assign a number to the NPC being happy, angry, seething, moody, etc. on a given day, and then just come up with a reason depending on the roll.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-13, 12:33 PM
Do you mean in combat or outside of it?

Laurellien
2008-10-13, 03:39 PM
Both situations.

Ravyn
2008-10-14, 07:16 PM
Internalize them ahead of time--sort of a practice, as it were. I find that writing myself a little prompt in the NPC's voice can help me make sure I stay true to them.

If there are two you have a hard time differentiating between, try to make sure they're never in the same room.

Play up the differences between them! This one's big; it can make it lots easier for both you and the characters to be able to tell a given pair of NPCs apart. For some reason, I find assigning them a color can help--me particularly, since I do my gaming by chat, but there's something about identifying a character as a given color that makes the recall easier for me.

Play up the features that resonate best with your players. I'm not picky as to how they resonate, though both harmony and discord can be useful depending on what sort of effect you're trying to get across, but the resonance helps.

Give them real little details. It helps a lot. This also feeds into the above tips.