Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 212 - Distinct NPCs

Episode Date: February 18, 2024

In this episode I talk about ways you can make your characters and NPCs distinct from one another.  I do encourage you to try to use an accent, even if you don't feel comfortable doing it.  However, there are other ways to make them distinct:  with language descriptors and body language.   #dmtips #gmtips #dnd #pf2e #NPC Resources: 5 Ways to Make NPC Dialogue Better With No Accent https://youtu.be/hvGEltoAgg4?si=Gh2gr5ZyYBChOcUP 

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. If you've seen them make a mistake, chances are you just forgave them for it. So, similarly, you should forgive yourself. One of the best ways to learn is to just do it. Take the leap and add some variety to your characters and NPCs. After all, chances are you're gaming among friends. your gaming among friends. Thank you for listening to the Taking20 Podcast, episode 212, making distinct NPCs even if you can't do an accent. I want to thank this week's sponsor,

Lotion. My office mate stole my lotion for his dry skin. He really is just a smooth criminal. Do you have a topic idea for me? If so, please send it to me via direct message on Facebook or Instagram or via email, feedback at taking20podcast.com. I want to make what you want to hear, so send me those topic ideas. We all dream of being DMs like Matt Mercer, being able to have distinct NPCs that you recognize simply from the mannerisms he adopts behind the screen, with every single one of them having a distinct voice, a cadence, and instantly recognizable speech patterns, so it makes it so easy for

players to slip into role-playing mode. But here's the thing, There's only one Matt Mercer, and while I don't know him, he'd be the first to tell you to be the best version of you as a DM, not the second best Matt. Most of us can't. Hell, I know I can't. Make every NPC have a different accent and voice cadence and mannerisms, appearance, and everything else that he can do. So what are we to do? Make all of our NPCs the same? Throw up our hands and give up? Not necessarily. There are little things that you can do to help give your NPCs some variety. And players, this episode's for you too. Not every one of your characters you play in your various games have to have the same voice and mannerisms. Stick with me for a minute and give me the length

of this episode to try to convince you to try and add a little variety to your NPCs and your characters. Let's get the obvious out of the way first. NPC variety may not be important to your players at all. Every single NPC can sound the same and you can clarify who's speaking from behind the screen. Your game would be just fine sounding like this. You hold the hand of the king's daughter as you approach the guards at the city gate. Well, why is the daughter of the king out of her tower, hmm? Did you run out of toys, little girl? And the cute little five-year-old girl at your side

responds, blow it out your pants, cop! Initiatives are rolled and fun's had by all. Same voices, your players don't care, they're having a good time. However, I would say that we can apply a little variety to the characters that we play, especially those that are important to the story or will make recurring visits to the campaign. Those NPCs that make our games just a little bit richer and a little bit better would do well to have slightly distinct voices. bit richer and a little bit better would do well to have slightly distinct voices. Now, I will grant you I have a slight predisposed advantage when it comes to acting as different characters at the table. I've been in an improv troupe of one or another for 15 years now. At practice and at shows,

I have to play such a variety of characters from school crossing guard to casino pit boss to five-year-old kleptomaniac construction foreman. I've learned a lot of important lessons along the way, the first of which is, and you've heard me say it before if you've listened to this entire podcast, fuck your fear. I originally talked about this as a concept very early on, and what it means is that it is okay to be scared or nervous that you might screw something up. But what you'll learn very, very quickly is that if you do screw up, even in a titanic, catastrophic way while trying to act in a role, it really doesn't matter. At all.

If you watch the pro DMs do it, you'll hear them break character, screw up, repeat words, start laughing, and make mistakes. Matt Mercer, Debra Ann Wall, Troy LaVallee, Chris Perkins, people who could make a very good living just DMing for the rest of their life, will mess up characters. If you've seen them make a mistake, chances are you just forgave them for it. So, similarly, you should forgive yourself. One of the best ways to learn is to just do it. Take the leap and add some variety to your characters and NPCs.

After all, chances are you're gaming among friends. If you do decide you absolutely do not want to try an accent no matter what, that's okay. What you can do is get familiar with and consistently use things like descriptors when describing who's talking. Consistently use things like descriptors when describing who's talking. Guy Flanders over at HowToBeAGreatGM has a great YouTube video that I'll link in the resources of the episode. I'm not going to steal his thunder, but he has a great section about the use of descriptors. So what am I talking about with descriptors? Adjectives.

What does it sound like when the character is talking? Are there any distinct characteristics that the characters would notice? Is it flowery? Breathy? Is it soft? Loud? Bombastic? Are the responses quiet and short, almost staccato in nature?

Or are they grandiloquent and verbose or just diarrhea of the mouth to be crass about it? Describe how the NPC sounds to the characters, and that will help that NPC be distinct from all the other NPCs that you portray. If you want a certain type of speech to be associated with a certain NPC, then you'll need to keep track of that behind the screen. If you want your characters to know when Mayor Janus is speaking, then you'll probably want to consistently describe the way they talk. Do this enough and the players may recognize who is speaking by your description and before they ever even hear the words that are said. For example, if Janice's words are always honeyed and her voice is always husky, then while the PCs are at a party, all you might get out is that they hear a husky voice cut through the sound of the party complimenting someone on their attire, and the PCs may know exactly who it is. It's Janice. We know it is because that's the way

you describe her talking every time. Sure enough, they turn around and they see Janice speaking to Lady Shirmillion. Consistent use of these descriptors for certain NPCs will associate those descriptors in the player's mind and help them understand who's speaking, even if you aren't doing an accent. You don't have to go overboard with descriptors, by the way. A superficial description of the voice and mannerisms is more than enough. To quote one of my good GM friends, when you're behind the screen, you're not preparing for your Oscar scene. Keep it simple and just use a few words to describe the way they're speaking. If you're trying to think of different ways that your NPCs could talk, think about an actor and a role and base the NPC off them. Are you role-playing Strahd? How about portraying him as Patrick

Stewart as an evil version of Captain Picard? Or James Earl Jones as Mufasa from The Lion King? Or if you're going for a more lighthearted campaign, how about Richard Lewis as Prince John from Robin Hood Men in Tights? Do you need to make a capable but emotionally distant innkeeper? Carrie-Anne Moss from The Matrix would be great to emulate. How about Javier Bardem from No Country for Old Men? Heck, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Terminator. I'm not sure I'd go full-on I'll be back, but you could take the traits of the character you like and apply them to an NPC. Imagine a noble queen based on Audrey Hepburn or Frances McDermott or Lord Varys from Game of Thrones. I'm not necessarily talking voice,

although again, I would encourage you to get comfortable finding the voice of the character. Just think about that actor in that role when you're talking as that character. Here's a real-world example. I'm currently playing through the Bloodlord's adventure path as a flesh-warped mummy named Novius Hollyford the Thed. He is horrific to look at, having used alchemy and divine arcane and occult practices to modify his own body in an effort to improve himself. He is a stitched-together, patchwork quilt of a person, with parts from humans and orcs and elves and lizardfolk and others he stole while he was working as a corpse-stitcher repairing the undead workers in the land of Geb.

To get into his voice, I think of Charles Lawton's portrayal of the Hunchback of the Underdame. I fully realize, hey, this is an ancient movie, and this predates me by 40 years, so this is old. But his understanding of how others viewed Quasimodo, primarily through his monstrous appearance, but he kind of has a kind heart and wants to help his friends and those who are kind to him. There are differences between Novius and Quasimodo in that Novius is more power-hungry and repays evil and mistreatment with evil and kind.

He's not as altruistic, but he recognizes he's not an island. God, you know, I went way too far off on Novius. I'm sorry I'm way into the Novius weeds, but you get what I'm saying. I think about Charles Lawton's portrayal when speaking in character as Novius. Players, if you're going to have a little role playing and you're not sure how to do it, take this advice and run with it. Who cares if your rogue sounds just like Carrie Ells as Wesley from The Princess Bride, or your sorcerer is based off of Tilda Swinton as Gabriel in Constantine.

Peter Stomari, by the way, still has the best portrayal of Satan in any movie I've ever seen. Come at me. Or if your scout is based on Han Solo. Or as my speech to text typed out when I was preparing this episode, Ham Solo. Majority, but I think that'd be a great name for an orc scout in a comedy campaign. pejorative, but I think that'd be a great name for an orc scout in a comedy campaign. It should go without saying, but you should spend more time preparing important or recurring NPCs than you do the ones that will leave your campaign quickly. Heck, for a one-time throwaway NPC, I may not even waste an adjective. I'll just speak as me and may not use any descriptive words at all.

Just talk to the PCs, and if you use your regular voice to do so, so be it. But making characters sound distinct, even if you're just using adjectives, does require more work by the DM, so save that work for the important NPCs. To help find a voice for an NPC, picture what the character looks like, either in your imagination or a picture in the book of the adventure. What feature or body position grabs your attention? Are their shoulders thrown back in a proud posture? And if so, chances are they would have a louder, stronger voice, or a snooty voice if they looked down upon the lessers around them.

Hmm, yes. Do they look like they're sniveling and conniving? Perhaps they have a higher pitch, almost rat-like this. Is it, oh, nasally a little? Oh, yes. Do they laugh a lot? They have a, or they have, they could have a kindly old person voice. Oh, dear, let me, let me take a look at you. Oh, using description, they speak kindly, as if years of doting on children and grandchildren has given them patience when dealing with cuts and scrapes and bruises. Oh my dear, that looks awful. Let me take a look.

My last pieces of advice don't translate well to podcast format, but I'm going to try to give this advice anyway, and I will ask your forgiveness. If I need to make a video later on of what I'm describing, send me a message or leave me a comment below. To make an NPC distinct, change your body posture when you're speaking as them in character. Posture is a great non-verbal cue to the PC's or NPC's personality, or at least state of mind. A character who has their arms crossed in front of their chest usually indicates someone who is closed off to new ideas, getting frustrated or unfriendly with the speaker, or they're on the defensive, while open arms indicates trust and a welcoming attitude. Someone whose back is rigidly straight may indicate that they are inflexible, unyielding, or intimidatingly professional about things. Buy the book, old chap, as it were. Drawing on my own history of posture

for years, I was very reserved and wanted to blend in. I grew up to be six foot three, and it is hard to blend into most crowds, so I slouched, made myself smaller for a while, even tended to cover my mouth when I laughed. Since then, I've come out of my shell, but I always remember those character traits when I'm portraying someone who is shy and reserved or doesn't want to call attention to themselves. Channeling Eugene Banks, my former improv teacher, he taught me that characters who are aggressive, proud, and bombastic will put everything out there, so do that with their bodies as well. Wherever you are, as long as you're not driving, by the way, imagine being larger-than-life character. Physically put your chest and arms

and even chin forward and proud. It's easier to take on that over-the-top demeanor when you're physically acting that way. Meanwhile, if you're portraying a character who is demure and shy, modest, or reserved, they tend to keep their arms in closer, speak with a softer voice, keep their heads down more. That may even indicate submissiveness, passiveness, subservience, or obsequiousness. Again, I know this is not the best format to represent physical body changes, but by practicing changing the way your body is positioned when you speak as an NPC, if you're in the DM seat or behind the screen, it's easier to show that you're portraying different characters differently, just with slight changes in descriptors, slight changes

in body position. Give it a try the next time you're DMing, or for your players when you're role-playing. Mix and match with a weak-chinned character with big arms flying around when they talk or a shy closing of the legs despite having a stronger voice. Practice mixing and matching your voice volume, manner of speech, body position, and descriptors. And even if you don't think you can do an accent, I promise you and your players would have fun doing it. Do you like the podcast? Please like, rate, and subscribe to it wherever you have fun doing it. Do you like the podcast?

Please like, rate, and subscribe to it wherever you happen to find it. Tune in next week when I'll have another Back to Basics episode, this time focusing on player agency. And let me tell you, after reading some Reddit threads and overhearing some conversations,

you're going to want to tune in for this one. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Lotion. I have a lotion that both helps my burned skin and makes me a little funnier. It contains Aloha. This has been episode 212, all about distinct NPCs. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2024. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.