NPC's Your Players Love

[arguskos]

I don't know about the rest of you, but in my DMing career, I've made NPC's that my players just took a shine to.

For example, I created a NPC adventuring party called the Hired Hammer once. It consisted of Eberk the dwarven cleric, Starshot the elven arcane archer, and Xiltyn the drow wizard. The party ended up saving them in a dungeon, and they rapidly became fast friends and allies. In fact, they were so beloved that I made two different story arcs in that campaign with them, just cause the players demanded more of them. I even brought them back in other campaigns, bringing a smile to the faces of my longer-running players, who recalled them from the earlier games with fondness.

I have more NPC's like this, that the PC's just loved, but I'd rather hear about the rest of you? Anyone else have game-spanning NPC's that the players liked a great deal?

-argus

[Arros Winhadren]

My favorite NPCs are the ones that die quickly and drop lots of loot.

[GryffonDurime]

My players loved Ollam, an Ogre Magi-turned-Blacksmith who spoke with the drawl and decorum of a Southern gentleman. He was ferociously helpful and usually ended up forging magical gear for the party based on the miscellania they brought back from their conquests.

It was especially entertaining because he kept his forge in a deep swamp largely controlled by his former...well, I'd think of her as his wife, but they probably didn't stand on ceremony too much. She was a Green Hag with class levels, and their daughter Lili (pronounced like Lilly) was constantly getting into trouble.

[Kiara LeSabre]

TAT Guy is still the greatest NPC of all time.

[JackMage666]

The Cleric of Pelor. Cause he's the one who revives.

[Tengu_temp]

All five NPCs that were a part of my group (see sig) were well-liked by the players - so much that they were sad and angered when two of them were killed by the Big Bad. I guess I'm good at creating likable NPCs who are something more than just sword fodder/living plothooks - even if they make combat a pain, as they add more combatants to already large-scale battles.

Okay, I actually didn't say a word describing them. But I might later. Need to fight off my laziness.

[LoneStarNorth]

My players really like Lord Sirem, a grandfatherly nobleman that hired the party a few times and was an all around nice guy. They'd bite at any plot hook so long as Sirem dlivered it to them, and they'd probably die to protect him.

They've liked some of my less significant NPCs too. Father Samual, the cowardly, unarmed priest that would nonetheless follow the low-level party into a dungeon because it was the right thing to do. Blinkin Tinkerwright, the stereotypical gnomish inventor who seems to accidentally bring ruin down upon his village every other week. Tiglik, the ettercap that stole the party wizard's spellbook because he wanted to be an archmage (they let him live and everything).

I ran a haunted house type adventure awhile back where the players had to figure out how various members of the household died before the big boss ghost ripped them apart. They got pretty attached to some of the innocent house staff, even after they knew they were undead trying to kill them.

And lastly, they really enjoyed killing the succubus that pretended to be their ally for half a year. I think I've done pretty good as far as NPCs go.

[Lochar]

One of my players loves a dryad named Sarai, in the game I'm currently running. No, really loves her. As in, in game, he got engaged to her.

[EagleWiz]

My players really like Lord Sirem, a grandfatherly nobleman that hired the party a few times and was an all around nice guy. They'd bite at any plot hook so long as Sirem dlivered it to them, and they'd probably die to protect him.

Funny, whenever I run into this type of guy he is usualy either the BBEG or a Somewhat Less BBEG.

[Hal]

My players were shipwrecked on a foreign island in our last campaign (Boo! Cliched!), and I had an NPC sailor survive to tag along with them. They liked him, but only because no matter who was rolling for him, they rolled at least one crit each combat. It doesn't matter that his puny rapier hit for negligible damage, they loved playing him. Of course, since he was saving up his cash for a pregnant girlfriend back home, they later loved the idea of leaving him for dead and swiping his pile of gold.

Incidentally, their favorite NPCs were the ones who acted as vending machines. I swear, anytime I described a temple in a city, the cleric rushed in and started begging for handouts from the priests.

[quiet1mi]

The half elf psionic (telepath that specialized in diplomacy,bluff,sense motive etc...) who was their defense lawyer for my city campign... (all of them had,at most a charism of 6 and intelligence of 8)(I do not think their characters were much smarter)

This was all in a political intrigue campaign....

[Duos Greanleef]

Grintig is a Kobold archer in service to an Angel of Valor currently marooned in the world of mortals. The Angel sent Grintig with the party to help find some children who'd been kidnapped by devils. The final epic blow in the encounter was an arrow fired from his bow which turned to brilliant white light and stuck a boneshard skeleton to a wall 50' back from 4 squares away! The skeleton burst into dust and it seemed as if it were snowing in the cavern.
My group is pretty much Me (DM) Vega (Eladrin Fighter) and Lucie (Tiefling Rogue). They seem to have taken quite a liking to the little scout. He started out as a stat card for a mini and now I have to make him an official character sheet and everything.
On a side note; It's nice to know that I'm making progress as a DM!

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Jenya from the Shackled City series was a favorite. Last we played that group, One of my characters was trying to get to know her on a more intimate level...

[Deth Muncher]

Oh lordy...


There was this one Rolemaster game where the DM made a halfling (or Gnome, I forget) Cleric to stand in for our regular cleric. This cleric always took to...well, following closely behind the female player's character.

Tee hee, perversion.

And then there was this Kobold Illusionist named Hyglub who had a very interestingly shaped staff...Freud would have many things to say aboot it, if you catch my drift. It had the ability to stick people to the floor if you got hit with it...ew.

[SoD]

Heh, I remember one that my players loved to hate...a certain elven (with demonic blood) ranger...their first meeting, the players refused to disarm, so he shot one of them in the foot. The player who claimed to be the best archer in the world. Things went downhill from there. Good times.

[bosssmiley]

My favorite NPCs are the ones that die quickly and drop lots of loot.

Ditto. When it comes to D&D my group have a bad case of DM of the Rings syndrome.

Strangely this only afflicts them when they play particular games. They do treat NPCS as people when playing what sometimes get referred to as 'grown up's games' though. It's an odd dichotomy to watch...

Explore-kill-loot: D&D, WFRP, WoD, Cyberpunk/Shadowrun, Mutant Chronicles, Star Wars (d6 & d20), LUGTrek, HKAT...
Treat NPCs as people: Spirit of the Century, Ars Magica, Pendragon, Fading Suns, etc.

[Adlan]

Rodney and DellBoy. Two Independant Traders who show up in almost every game I run. With a Yellow three wheeled Mule/Wagon/spaceship (in Sernenity, Classic Fantasy Game, and a random Sci-fi Homebrew.

They always know when they show up. I start humming the theme song...

No Income Tax
No VAT
No Money Back
No Garuntee....

Of course, they are never announced as Rodney or Dellboy. They just are, the players work it out pretty fast, even if they've not encountered them before.

[Gwain]

There was this group of Gnome Knights wandering around my last campaign, i don't know why my players fell in love with them at first sight. Must have been the idea of a fully armored gnome punching an hobgoblin in the face while being charming.

It kinda became a recurring gag to find those guys in any kind of dangerous encounters, meeting the PCs casually, greeting them like nothing has happened, and asking to be excused as they had a "rather unpleasant situation at hand to deal with"

[SuperPanda]

Since there is a similar thread where I've already mentioned stories, I'll post a different one.

In the first game I ran for my most recent crew there came to be once NPC Paladin who they took a liking to simple because I couldn't seem to kill him even by DM fiat.

The party was reaching almost Level 8 and they had been starved for magical items and wealth for some time now (because in the 9 person group, out Rouge was playing a Chaotic Neutral A-hole and was trying to find ways to pinch all the loot without other's knowing about it, as such I was making loot only show up when it was obviously tailored to specific characters). The party Fighter (plate, greatsword, charge... then think) had a dream vision asking them to choose between two different swords, one that glowed with barely concealed magic power and one that looked spiffy. They set off after the obviously magic sword.

Some travel time later they, and a small band of NPCs they recruited, wind up in the frigid north reaches of the game world beset by demons. I stated the encounter such that the monsters (above the appropriate challenge rating) would take out the NPCs first, ignoring the players until the NPCs were killed. But the Druid and both the cleircs in the group (I did mention 9 players) just wouldn't let one of the Paladin's die.

The monster would knock him to negative, so they'd cure him. He'd charge the monster, the monster would knock him to negative... you get the idea.

Thankful for them saving his life, he happily began following the PCs (despite them mostly being chaotic and 3 levels higher than him). Another big fight goes about the same as the last one.

By this time I'm getting worried that I'm going to need more stats for this character than Attack bonus, damage, AC, and hit points. Most importantly I'm going to have to give him a name.

So before I do anything crazy like name him and write a backstory for him, I decide its time for him to go out by DM fiat. They get to a point where they need to scale a cliff over the arctic sea, more than 100 feet above a rocky shore while he is wearing full plate mail.

He fails a climb check and falls to his doom... but then one of my players hands me a d100 and says, "Give the guy a chance." So I decide that there is a 1% chance that the gods smile on him and he survives.

I roll 100 on the die.

When the party finally left the island, they were greeted by Sir Lazerous, Paladin of Heronious.

If you've read the DM's favorite DMPC thread, this was the same game my Big Bad Evil Henchman Ezekiel was in. The party wanted to recruit Lazerous as their shield against Ezekiel, unfortunately we never had the showdown between them, the number of players (and inner party fighting) wore down the campaign.

[mistformsquirrl]

Ohhh, I have a good one!

My players had been transported to another plane - one that was practically a post-apocalyptic wasteland thanks to its current masters. The first creatures they encounter upon arriving?

A group of 5 Goblins singing this song as they marched across the battered landscape:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvP0uwl3Q6A

<. .> The goblins were a mercenary troop. Not really stand up characters - but for the right amount of gold, happy to help the good guys. Or the bad guys if they get a better offer. (Ever since, they've occasionally made appearances in different campaigns as a band of extra planar mercs... some damn high level goblins! They don't even have names either, but the players, they know them quite well!)

[Skyserpent]

I've had a few, and all have been quirky slightly aged men.

The first was Jim, the Bartender. He's EVERYWHERE. he was our Nurse Joy or Officer Jenny, every Bar in the world had Jim. but it wasn't just A Jim, it WAS JIM. Who had a kind of relaxed, drawl and a shotgun. He also spent almost ALL Of his time cleaning a single glass with a dirty dishtowel. It was never clear whether it was the same glass or not but the players thought it was best not to ask questions...

The second was Vinny, the Conscripted Soldier turned Bard, who was a funny, easygoing type who like to drink and sing, usually in that order.

And finally, there was "The Bridge Guy" a Bridge Haunt who was very energetic and rather blissfully unaware of his spectral state. His mind was going however, so he would consistently reintroduce himself to the players and emphasize the importance of the bridge. Stating, matter-of-factly "It's the Bridge you know!"

[Nerd-o-rama]

Oddly, my DMPC, Karl the Generic Human Fighter mercenary, created as a meatshield when I took over as DM of a game and decided it was better to leave my old PC dead rather than risk Mary Sue godmoding. Perhaps because he saved them from being mercilessly skewered, perhaps because he once cut his way out of a Dire Shark, perhaps just because of his lovable complete lack of personality.

[Djibriel]

An elderly Orc Cleric who I invented on the spot. The PCs won a chest of random magic items and this guy was the only guy in town with Identiy spells. I gave him a wheezing, raspy voice to begin with, and swallowing crushed pearls every day didn't improve his condition. He was pretty sick around the time the PC's had a falling out with the church...

[hotel_papa]

I'm running an Eberron campaign that uses the Tolstoff Manor / Worm that Walks arc from Exemplars of Evil and Elder Evils, respectivly.

Sadly, the Changeling Factotum/Chameleon fell pretty hard for Katarin Tolstoff. Made for a fairly involved storyline of romance, manipulation and betrayal.

My groups favorite NPC of my own creation is a tie between Dubkirk the Gnomish Artificer and inventer of the elemental speeder bike and Jasmine the Changeling Master Inquisitive... and lawyer. Let's just say the best way to escape the law of Aundair is turn yourself in... in Breland.

HP

[slexlollar89]

My group really doesn't love a lot of NPCs mostly due to the fact that they don't get into the game as much as I do, but they all took a shine to Horace (AKA Horace the glib toungue). He was the owner of an old antique shop in the slummy section of my biggest city, and he would always ramble about how things were back in his day... but I had never set any age or class to him... doesn't even have a race! he just... is. He was awesome in battle and knoew everything about everything, if you could get him to stop talking nonsense and speak plainly. Yeah even when my players went back in time like 2000 years, he was still in his little dustbox shop selling anything you'd want... and even back then he was super old and annoying...

another funny thing about him was his shop: armour, swords, and all things stuff. no matter whennhorace was there or not, the fact he couldn't see well and assumed all young people were good spirited meant that the shop basement was frequented by assassins and a great place for dumping bodies or hiding from law types... yeah the party once walked in on a transexual cleric of the god of rape ttorturing a palladin, and he asked one PC out on a date (ironically another palladin with high Cha).

yeah Horace is a good man... if he'll stop talking.

[ArmorArmadillo]

Ligrivel
An insane derro factotum who ran an abandoned underground town all by himself by running around secret passages and constantly changing hats.

[Ravyn]

I've got a pretty decent list in my Exalted campaign--it'd take too long to go through all of them, so I'll boil it down to two.

There's Ruby the Genki Deathknight, quite possibly the best-developed NPC in my game (as an added bonus, she's also come in handy when I want to illustrate character evolution). She's a peculiar combination of deadly, outgoing, downright cuddly, innocent, and fiercely devoted to her purpose and her mentor, and I think she's one of the ones the group is most attached to--particularly the charming little crafter who's been courting her for a while. Imagine if you will a combination of battlefield sorcery, absolutely scary grappling, childlike innocence and a seemingly perpetual sugar-high, and you've got about the right idea.

There're a number of others, scattered throughout the gameworld--the group makes attachments quite easily, both IC and OOC. Though my personal favorite is a recent favorite of two thirds of the party. His name is Jalil, and he was the BBEG of the first story arc, annoying the players to no end before they finally killed him. Except.... well, some part of him lingered (yay reincarnation issues!) and is sharing a body with a friend of theirs, and it's created a highly amusing grudging alliance between him and the PCs. He knows things, after all; he was around for a while. And what results ends up being a combination of information grab and verbal sparring match, as they ask questions and he drops dry and usually somewhat accurate insults. The PCs' emotions towards him range from loathing to grudging respect, but apparently the players find the attempts to bait each other amusing.

[Archetype-]

<emerges simultaneously from a busy forge and a manhole in an alley>

Well, there's a couple of NPCs the party I DM in my adventure-on-the-high-seas (Stormscape for short) have gotten really attached to.

First is Eberk Gilrak, a Dwarven craftsman that hired the party early in their career. He was their second employer and the party was level one. He needed to move some goods from the huge port city of Redcliff to the nearby town of Skullsport, then to his other forge in the Dwarven port city of Lodestone Haven. The local goblin pest problem had been getting worse, but not yet bad enough for the city militia or the Thanos Imperial Guard (the ground forces of the human empire in my campaign world) to actually go into the lair of these monsters and exterminate them. So, what does Eberk do? He posts some advertisements for aid. “Aid needed in escorting goods. Buy a dwarf a drink at the Lucky Wolverine for more details.” I know it was a little cliched, but it worked a charm. He hired the party with the incentive of a nice chunk of change and a discount on his goods in the future, namely weapons and armor.

The party departs with Eberk driving the wagon and the rest riding along on it. About five days into the week-long journey to Skullsport, they hear a high-pitched voice deliver an ultimatum. “Give us your goods, and you won't get hurt.” The party shows their refusal by producing their weapons, and the battle between a sorcerer/rogue, a druid, a barbarian, a then-duskblade-now-swashbuckler, and Eberk begins. Their opponents? Ten goblins, nine MM-stock and one first-level fighter. The thief-mage, druid, and duskblade stay in the wagon and utilize it as partial cover, while the barbarian and Eberk take the fight to their foes. A few rounds later, the goblins are all dead and the party is moving along again.

The party's almost completely changed now, but they still do business with Eberk even as they prepare to leave known lands and explore the world. His uncanny ability to quickly produce equipment the party needs has led the player of the Swashbuckler to say that he thinks Eberk is secretly a Dwarven god of the forge. He's actually just a Chaotic Good Artificer that stays one level above them. He's also invented a couple of new weapons, the whip-hammer and the “shuriken” warhammer. He's always working on new weapon designs, armor improvements, and item upgrades for use in his shop. I definitely plan on keeping him as a recurring NPC in my games.

Now, at long last, the second NPC. He's a half aquatic elf (Stormwrack race option) rogue/assassin who first went by Dannil Coralwhisper. He was encountered shortly after the party first arrived in Lodestone Haven with Eberk. There had been a string of jewelery robberies going on, and the local guards were having a hard time pinning the culprits down. They had descriptions of all three of the robbers, Dannil and his two brothers, but that was all they had. Investigations turned up nothing, but then the brothers slipped up. They mugged an elderly Dwarf on his way to Grand Keep, the capital. The party immediately pursued, and not too far from the city they encountered the brothers Coralwhisper (Dennis the ranger, Dinelen the bard, and Dannil) setting up a fresh perimeter. The party got on the offensive, easily overcoming the smokescreen and avoiding the caltrops dropped. Dinelen was the first to fall, downed by the Duskblade's cutlass. Dannil and Dennis decided it would be best to flee, and did so. The Druid and Barbarian pursued, the former applying a Longstrider spell to the latter. He easily caught up to the ranger and took him down with a single swipe of his glaive. Dannil, knowing he couldn't outrun this fierce, suddenly very fleet-footed warrior, produced his rapier and made a last stand. In his second-level Rogue state, he managed to land two sneak attacks via feinting before he too fell in a single blow from that same glaive.

They were taken back into town to be tried for their crimes, but the thief-mage decided to help out her fellow rogue. She pretended to rough him up a bit behind the bars, and slipped a lockpick into his clothes while doing so. That night, Dannil made his escape and left his brothers and a pair of city guard corpses behind in the prison. His brothers hung for the murders as well as the various robberies, burglaries, and muggings.

He met the party again later while they were searching for a sword the Council of Ten on Dragon Island had asked them to retrieve, but this time he was on their side. He'd learned that a small, elite Hobgoblin army was also searching for the blade and relayed this information to them. Unfortunately, this came after the party encountered a couple cultists of an Erinyes looking to take Bel's spot as the Lord of the First. After getting assaulted by two waves of five Skum (the now-swashbuckler took some heavy damage during the fight, and there were only three party members present for game), a human fighter (bastard sword and short sword) and a half-elf sorceress came in to help finish them off. The swordsman made short work of the weakened pirate, and the sorceress was a blaster-caster with a full compliment of spells. If I hadn't planned on Dannil showing up to help them out, it would've been over for those three. Thankfully (and very luckily), the sorceress failed her save against Dannil's death attack. The fight was now much easier. It was now a half-elf rogue, the mage-thief, and Dannil against the lone, yet battered swordsman. Dannil took half his HP in damage from the initial attack routine, but he landed another couple sneak attacks with help from the other two to finish him off. He helped revive the swashbuckler, and he promised to aid him in his quest to slay a pirate lord as a way of apologizing for not making it in time to aid that particular party member.

He's now the head of a young, but rather strong thievery-and-assassination guild back in Redcliff. They don't bother to contact Dannil if they have need of his aid or vice verse. They just let it be known if need be and he contacts them. What's more, he's been declared dead thanks to one of his ears and a couple good bluffs by the party. Another character I'd readily re-use or transplant into another setting, especially Eberron.

-Archetype

[Moofin Bard]

Well in one of my campaigns, we had two NPCs. Their names were Eyem and El. They were both female halflings. One was a ranger and one was a rogue. My party liked them a lot because they helped them through challenges without taking over, they never participated in battles, and El, the halfling ranger, had a crush on one player's character. Gormesh, the half-orc wizard. It was weird but it worked.

[Lupy]

In a Star Wars d20 Saga campaign of mine that I just finished I had two major NPCs:

Lieutenant: He started out as a on liner to recruit them for the rebel alliance, and then he ended up going with them missions because he was a good hostage negotiator. Eventually he was a leading funder of the alliance, had lived through a blast that blew up most of a city somehow, an then come back to save them all and sacrafice himself at the end of the campaign. The characters hated his bossiness, and because he saved them alot but the players thought it was cool to have someone intellectual around to help them out.

Mara: Mara was originally a transport pilot to get the from place to place when a player radioed her for back up once. I sent her in in the emergency X-Wing, and she was really good at piloting. So I decided to eventually make her Wedge Antilles mentor, who had the gotten out of the Limelight to avoid Lt. interestingly enough. The characters liked her because she was easy going and she made Lt. uneasy, but she died with the rest of them on the death star sadly at the end of the campaign.