The world of D&D would be pretty empty without NPCs (non-player characters)! These people give a voice to your campaign. They’re the personalities that your players will interact with throughout the game. Your players will clash with, negotiate with, protect, fight, and stand beside these characters.

But what makes a good NPC?

The good news is that anyone can make a good NPC—you don’t have to be a writer or an actor to do it. Like anything else, a good NPC is one that fulfills their purpose. We’re talking about every role from shopkeeper to villain, from rival to guardian.

So, what might those purposes be? There are two main categories, if we boil it down—

  • To oppose the player characters

These NPCs clash with your PCs in some way. This also goes beyond combat encounters. How do these characters challenge your players? Why do they? Just a few lines can give you a clear motivation for your character without needing to spend a ton of time developing them.  

Characters who oppose the PCs are anything from a grumpy guard to your overarching villain. They can also be rivals, authority figures, and so on. Their reasons may be noble or petty.

  • To help the player characters

Similar to the previous section, but in reverse—these people want to help your player characters. Why do they want to help, and how do they do so (or, how might they try)?

Oftentimes these might be characters who come from your PCs’ past—family members or other contacts. You can work with your players to fill in the necessary details if that is the case. Otherwise, they might be people the adventurers have assisted along the way. Like the opposing NPCs, their reasons for helping can be various.

Of course, you’ll want to invest some time in developing characters who are (or who become) recurring and important to the campaign. But you can save time and energy on your end by, well, making simple characters simple.

Some characters might fall on the neutral side of things, rather than starting out as an opposing or helpful force. These characters either haven’t met the player characters or have conflicting impressions of them—and, therefore, conflicting motivations. They might agree with the party’s ideals but be off-put by their attitude (or vice-versa).

On top of their character motivations, you’ll need appearance and a few personality traits to round them out. Some DMs have a big list of names and characteristics to pull from, while others are good at coming up with characters on the spot. You can draw inspiration from really anything—a song on the radio, the last movie you watched, a character you’ve played before.

You don’t have to do any weird voices or master ten different accents to play good NPCs. If you can, those are good tools to have, but something that comes a lot easier to me is posture. Some NPCs slouch, some square their shoulders, refuse to make eye contact, or fiddle with their hair.

Need a quick history for an NPC? There’s nothing stopping you from grabbing a background from the Player’s Handbook. The traits and prompts there can help you quickly flesh out a character if you’re wanting for inspiration!

To give more depth to those quick NPCs, you can edit and add to their motivation:

An NPC may want to assist/oppose the PCs because of [reason], but [complication].

  • The mayor wants to assist the PCs because they saved her town, but pressure from the local lord keeps her from offering direct aid.
  • The wizard wants to help the PCs because they have information he wants, but he isn’t actually as powerful as he pretends to be.
  • The guards want to oppose the PCs because they distrust adventurers, but they need a good reason to bar them from entering the city.

These complications can help direct NPC action (and reaction) during a session. It also fills out your world and makes things seem a bit more real.

What are your go-to methods for sketching out NPCs? Who are your favorite NPCs to play?