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Advanced Dungeons & Dragons	-	Dragon #102	-	Dragon magazine

(Editor's note: Two previous articles by
Jim Dutton have appeared in this magazine;
see "Blueprint for a big game," in
DRAGON® issue #97, and "Detailing a
fantasy world," in issue #98. Jim Dutton is
the president of Entertainment Concepts,
Inc., which is producing the AD&D Play
by Mail Game.)

This article discusses a part of the creative
process that is one of the most entertaining
for the gamemaster building his own
campaign. Most AD&D® game players
enjoy rolling up characters, and if you?re
planning on developing a complete cast of
NPCs for your players? characters to encounter,
then you?ll wind up doing quite a
bit of dice rolling.

If you have a supply of NPCs already
rolled up when your campaign starts, it
makes running the campaign much easier.
When players want their characters to hire
a certain type and level of NPC, when you
need some quick information on a possible
villain NPC, when you roll a random encounter
with another party of adventurers,
or in any of several other circumstances,
you won?t have to rush to roll up an NPC
or ?fake it.? All you?ll have to do is open
your file of NPCs and pick out pregenerated
characters that fit the situation at hand ?
no muss, no fuss.

When I build a campaign, I like to have
several characters of each PC class and
special NPC class worked up on 3" x 5"
index cards. I keep these NPC cards in a
plastic card file and use the lettered dividers
that come with the file to separate the various
classes.

Once I have the cards and file, I get out
my Players Handbook, plus issues of
DRAGON Magazine that have information
about various NPC classes. Armed with
these, a few sharp pencils, and a table full of
dice, I'm in business. Starting with the
player classes, I create as many as ten to
fifteen NPCs for each character class by
rolling four six-sided dice six times (using
the best three dice for each group), recording
the rolls, and then placing them next to
the six abilities, usually in the most advantageous
order for that character class. For
classes like rangers, in which there are
minimum ability scores to be met, I may
roll five or six dice (taking the best three) to
help insure rolling the minimum score for
those abilities. I don't always use the six
scores in the most advantageous manner for
the NPC, which gives each NPC a more
individual flavor.

Of course, whenever you want to create a
special NPC that you want to be a part of
your campaign, you don?t have to roll the
dice. Just decide what you want his abilities
to be. For example, if you want to insure
that there is a Conan-type barbarian in
your campaign, there is no need to roll dice;
just write down 18/00 strength on his 3? x
5? card. However, I don?t recommend
creating these types of special NPCs at this
point. There is a later step in the campaign
design process where it fits in better.

Once you have the abilities of an individual
NPC generated, there are a few other
things that need to be determined for that
NPC. First is level. You can assign a level,
making sure as you create all the NPCs for
one class that you have included a broad
range of levels, or you can use a statistical
dice rolling system to help you make up
your mind. (That?s what I normally do.)
One of the easiest methods for rolling levels
is to roll a ten-sided die and a six-sided die.
The level of the NPC is read off the tensider,
but if you roll a 6 on the six-sider,
then add ten to the level. If you rolled an 8
on the ten-sider and a 6 on the six-sider, the
NPC?s level would be 18. This method
gives you a good mix of characters from
levels 1 - 10, and an occasional very powerful
NPC.

When the level is rolled, you can then
determine the NPC's hit points using the
AD&D rules. The back of the Dungeon
Masters Guide has tables for generating
magic items for player classes by class and
level, and money and treasure owned by the
NPC can be generated using a likely row on
the treasure table for monsters in the back
of the Monster Manual.

At this time, you may also choose to
select some personality traits for the NPC.
Again, there are tables in the Dungeon
Masters Guide for doing this. However,
don't try to roll up one selection from each
of the tables in this personality section to
assign to a single NPC. You'll be likely to
wind up with a clutter of descriptions that
will be confusing and useless when it comes
time to try to use that NPC in role-playing
situations. Just pick out two or three of the
categories to roll for. Jot down those personality
descriptions on the NPC card, and it
will be a lot easier to decide how he might
react when he comes in contact with the
players' characters.

Generally, I will not follow all the steps
above for every NPC generated. First, I
generate all the ability scores and levels for
one class of character. Then I go back to roll
and calculate hit points for each of the
characters. Next I roll for magic items and
treasures, select additional equipment, then
roll the personality traits for each NPC.
The advantage to this method is that you
only have to turn to the proper pages in the
correct book once for each character class,
rather than once for each character.

Now you have a card box full of rangers,
paladins, magic-users, witches, barbarians,
and whatever. This is an important step
toward an organized and smoothly flowing
campaign. One last thing to remember as
you generate these NPCs is to create a
supply that is tailored to the scale of your
campaign. If you have a small campaign
world set up to accommodate only a few
players, then you will not have to generate
nearly as many NPCs as if you have a large
campaign that will include a large number
of players. One nice aspect to creating this
part of your campaign is that it is not as
exacting as some of the other parts. If, in
administering your campaign, you start to
run low on a few types of NPCs, it is easy
enough to roll up a few more before the
next session.

The next step is to place some special
NPCs and groups of NPCs in various locations
about the campaign map. What this
entails is deciding on what mountain top
will the fortress of a reclusive magic-user be
placed, in what dense forest or dismal
swamp will a coven of witches be located,
and so forth. You can place as many of these
special NPCs of any and every class as you
desire; the key is what flavor you want your
campaign to have.

Again, we go back to a sheet of paper for
each special NPC area, just as was done for
each nation (see DRAGON issue #98).
There are really 2 topics to consider:
special individual NPCs and special groups
of NPCs. Individual NPCs of this type will
generally be very powerful characters. You
can also have certain individuals found only
in their home area, while others roam the
world and could be encountered by the
players? characters anywhere. It's a good
idea to have about one-third of these characters
be good guys and the rest be possible
trouble for the players? characters. For the
most part, when generating these NPCs,
you should make your own decisions regarding
an NPC?s abilities, possessions, and
personality. Remember the discussion from
issue #98 on creating interesting NPCs,
avoiding stereotypes whenever possible.

There are many examples of interesting
?loner? NPCs. I mentioned the reclusive
magic-user above; one of these can be working
on dangerous magical research or enjoying
the solitude of the wilderness, away
from prying eyes. Powerful fighters or
rangers who make careers as bounty
hunters are interesting, as are skilled thieves
who trail parties on quests, intending to
steal their treasure. You can create solitary
druids and monks who roam the wilds
reflecting on their philosophies, and dangerous,
crafty illusionists who have been cast
out from society.

The subject of special NPC groups is just
as fascinating. When you create these
groups, you may want to generate two or
three special NPCs as the leader and main
lieutenants of the group; the rest of the
group can be generated in the manner we
described for generating NPCs above.
These groups can become the targets of
quests, factions causing trouble for established
political orders, or mercenaries whose
services are for hire to the highest bidder.
One coven of witches in one of our recent
campaigns created quests and wars that
lasted for months and inspired numerous
deeds of valor on the parts of the PCs. The
real fun of special NPC groups often lies in
the interaction of these groups with the
political framework you created earlier in
the campaign design process. Other examples
of NPC groups are select orders of
monks, fraternities of rangers, brotherhoods
of magic-users, thieves? guilds in certain
cities, small mercenary units and barbarian
tribes, orders of knights, and secret societies
of assassins. The possibilities are as varied
as your imagination.

Crucial to your formation of the special
NPC groups is a firm idea of what role that
group will play in your campaign. You can
approach the problem by either thinking of
an interesting group of characters that you
want to have in your campaign and creating
a role in the campaign for them to play, or
knowing a function in your campaign that
must be filled and then creating an NPC
group to fill it. Jot down some of your ideas
about the group on the sheet of notes you?re
keeping for them. If the group will play a
part in the international politics of your
campaign, you do not have to limit player
character contacts with those NPCs just to
the area of the map where you have placed
the headquarters of the group.

In preparing the AD&D Play by Mail
Game, we used a slightly more sophisticated
method of producing a variety of NPCs for
use in our vast campaign. Knowing that
hundreds of players would be involved in
each version of our campaign that we
started, it was obvious that it would require
literally thousands of NPCs to provide
enough variety for the gamemasters to
select sidekicks, rivals, and villains from
them. In fact, we decided that it would take
at least 5,000 NPCs to make sure each
campaign was adequately supplied!

A sophisticated method of generating
NPCs of various classes, levels, alignments,
personalities, and possessions was embodied
in a computer program that turned out
these NPCs in a remarkably short period of
time. Not only did this provide us with an
adequate supply and variety of NPCs for
the players to meet throughout our campaign
world, but if the NPCs start to run
short, the same program is ready and waiting
to restock the supply.

Creating the NPC groups was not quite
so easy. We had to design these in the same
manner as would have to be done for any
campaign. However, with several designers
working, we came up with a large number
and wide variety of NPC groups placed
throughout the campaign. As described
above, some of them are unique to one
location, and some are societies that make
their influence felt throughout many areas
of the campaign. Specific information on all
these groups is stored on a large computerized
?Description File,? which the gamemaster
can refer to for his own use, and to
print selected info on players' move
sheets.  Info on the specific stats
of the NPCs in these groups are stored on
the NPC file mentioned above.  We will be
using these NPC groups extensively in the
adventures we create for the many players
in our campaign, and expect this to be a
richly entertaining element of the game we
are providing.

Just as important as the NPCs are the
monsters with which you populate the campaign.
One important area to consider here
is the availability of interesting types of
monsters. You should plan in advance for
places where players can expect to find such
creatures as unicorns, pegasi, dragons,
griffins, giants, and so on. Of course, most
monsters do not have to have special work
done for them to establish their place in the
campaign; their presence is accounted for in
the random encounter tables used when
adventurers are traveling from one place to
another. The monsters you will want to do
special preparation for are the ones that
characters are likely to seek out for a special
purpose.

For example, one player might decide
that his character wants to capture a pegasus
to train as a steed. You can decide at the
time he declares his intention where pegasi
can be found, but preparation at that point
can delay your AD&D sessions and leave
your players twiddling their thumbs for a
few minutes while you decide on all the
relevant details.

This is where preparation plays a big role
in establishing you as an organized and
entertaining Dungeon Master. If you have
previously made notes about pegasi, then
you will be able to look in your notebook
and see in what areas of your world pegasi
reside, what factor makes their location so
remote that they are rare in the world of
men, what dangers are to be found on the
approach to pegasi grazing lands, and any
other information that during your preparation
period you decided would be relevant
and useful in your campaign. Not only will
this speed up your playing sessions, but
your players will be impressed by the forethought
you used.

There are several other topics to consider
concerning monsters. One involves deciding
on details for special-purpose monsters.
Another is a subject discussed in issue #98,
that of creating political areas that are
monster-ruled. A third area, which doesn?t
need much discussion, is deciding on an
individual basis whether you want to include
a certain monster type in your campaign.
These are all needed to design a
completely organized campaign, but the one
topic I find to be the most interesting and
fun involves individualized monsters.

Individualized monsters have a great deal
in common with individualized NPCs, as
discussed earlier in this article. Basically,
you create some of the most important
encounters that players will have in your
campaign. For example, somewhere on
your map you may want to place the very
oldest, largest, meanest red dragon alive.
You may want to know where the leader of
the lammasu lives; and on which mountain
top the castle of the most powerful storm
giant stands.

Some individual monsters should be good
instead of evil, so that they aid the players
instead of creating problems for them. They
should also be powerful enough to survive
and escape an adverse encounter with the
players? characters. The reason for this is
that these monsters are not the average
dungeon fodder, and they?re not the stuff of
random encounters, to be fought and forgotten.
Instead, they are relatively permanent
features of the campaign. Adversary
monsters of this type can be long-time rivals
and enemies of players, and friendly monsters
in this category can provide pleasant
surprises and occasional unexpected help.
Creatures with illusionary magical powers
are especially fun to work with, for they can
appear in different forms at different times,
thereby confusing players and making sure
they stay on their toes.

In organizing these monsters, I suggest
making notes about each of them on 3? x 5?
cards, just as was done for the NPCs.
Groups of these individual monsters can be
formulated just as was done for NPC
groups. A powerful magic-user might have
a team of intelligent dragons that work for
him, just as a monarch might have a fellowship
of knights in his employ.

As you create the nations, monarchs,
NPCs, and individual monsters in your
game, and make notes on each so that they
are a permanent and consistent fixture of
the campaign, you are creating a more
stable environment for the player characters
to operate in. By using these notes as you
work, you allow characters to accumulate
their own stock of dependable knowledge
about the campaign. This will make the
players of those characters feel like a part of
a whole, rather seeing their personas as an
isolated group in the midst of chaos.
Though you may want the environment to
seem chaotic at times, over the long run,
the players (and you) will enjoy the game
much more if there are established facts that
can be learned and acted upon.

OCTOBER 1985