All Your Characters Talk the Same

Let’s face it as GM, or a player, you only have so many characters in our arsenal. Personally I’m great at playing characters that fly in the face of everyone and are over the top in attitude and flair. This is my go to character, if I’m playing with a new Game Master. It’s easy and it’s like putting on a worn pair of shoes, I know where it’s been and where it’s going. And this bleeds through to my NPCs, they tend to be a bit crazy, powerful, and don’t mind showing it off.

But let’s be clear about something, not every NPC needs to be a beautiful and unique snowflake. Neither I, nor my players have a problem with my style of NPCs, they don’t over shine the players and they tend to be memorable. Take a deep breath and think about this. Quick character descriptions are awesome, general quirks about them are great, but not all of them need to be unique.

Paul is great at running NPCs that are authority figures and buck preconceived notions about authority. They are all personable and easy to relate to and come off as a casual authority. This is great for his style of game. Most encounters with royalty will have a scene were the characters are pulled aside and addressed one on one. The king will casually address the players and drop most of the pomp and circumstance they put on display in their court. His players eat it up. Through this use of his go to character he makes an easy to relate to authority figure that can provide new stories and jumping off points for new adventures. That and it’s down right cool.

Jeff takes the opposite approach with his authority figures; most of them tend to be closed off and impersonal. Then again he is excels at running Shadowrun style games where everyone is distrustful and distant. He sets up stories where every one is double crossing everyone else and distrusts everyone. The noir feel of his games lend to building the distopian worlds in which he is great at creating.

So what type of NPC are you good at? What changes can you make to your game to highlight this? Game Mastering is as much story telling as it is playing, if you are great at a couple of character types and they fit your stories, use them. There is no shame in doing what your good at.

What kind of character types are you good at?