Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D changes over time when we’re not looking.
When your NPCs has personalities and goals, it can make your world feel more dynamic. But what happens when that NPC depth remains static over a campaign that spans years? How can we advance our NPCs so that they’re not just two-dimensional, but they actually travel through the fourth dimension. Today on the show we’re going to look at how and why to change your campaign NPCs over time.
From the Bardic College
Random tables for determining the traits of NPCs go all the way back to the AD&D 1e Dungeon Master’s Guide. The “Facts Tables” included details like Alignment, Possessions, Appearance, Sanity, General Tendencies, Personality, Interests, Collections, and Random Languages. You could have a neutral NPC with average wealth who is mature, neurotic, malevolent, friendly, and altruistic, collects books and scrolls, and speaks the language of stone giants. The DMG doesn’t say you need to use every table, just that you should have at least three general traits, and the DM is told to reroll any contradictory results. But is it REALLY contradictory to be malevolently friendly and altruistic? Was passive aggressiveness invented yet in the 1970s?
LINKS
Thac0 with Advantage Patreon
Join us on the THAC0 with Advantage Discord
Thac0 with Advantage YouTube Channel
Write for Gnome Stew
Pillars of Eternity: The Public Beta for Turn-Based Mode is now Available
Dungeons and Defense