DEVELOPER'S SPOT#1: I'M AN NPC, THE ROLE OF NPCS IN YOUR GAMES

I clicked on the article Solitayre linked just because the URL gave it instant mad cred.

In my older games I used NPCs to generally shitty effect. About three fourths of them were excuses to add more jokes to the games, with the other fourth giving you a single sentence of informative non sequitor that helped to either give hints or fill in minor plot details (You know that supposedly invisible tower you're about to go to? Let me complain that it's totally not invisible, while the person next to me suggests that the demons haven't been able to get inside it).



In my new game I'm going more of a route taken by a lot of newer RPGs like Diablo 3, FF13, and a bunch of Bioware games. Also, by almost every story-driven game in the world that isn't an RPG. Specifically, I'm making it so random NPCs generally can't be talked to or interacted with unless they serve some role, either in the story or in the gameplay (i.e., a shopkeeper). I think RPGs started doing this mostly because it made it helped with costs for voice acting, but the real purpose of this as far as I'm concerned is so that when possible, I get to combine multiple minor roles into a single NPC. Which means, if it's done right, that in the end that single NPC comes to life a little more, and ends up having quite a few lines and maybe even a personality.

Diablo 3 is a perfect recent example of this. Instead of having one character who gives you a sidequest to find his lost apprentice, and another who reforges a crown for you, and another whose grandfather was the chancellor, and another whose wife is turning into a zombie and needs to be put down, and another who upgrades your weapons and armor, they combine all of these roles into a single NPC, Haedrig. He could have easily been split into five or more characters who never showed up again, but they chose to use one recurring character instead. As a result, he's a dude I end up caring about.

This kind of treatment makes the NPCs come to life in my mind. It changes them from informative textboxes to actual characters. It makes me care more about the world I'm in and the people I'm protecting.

The downside? The rest of the people are downgraded from informative textboxes to doodads. Can't have everything. But personally I'd rather see a game do a few things well than a lot of things poorly, and I see no reason why that rule shouldn't apply to NPCs.

I don't want to create a game, if it was possible I'd create an entire living breathing world. If I approach my game-design choices like that NPCS don't need to serve any real purpose towards the game itself, rather they'd be living entities with their own choices and actions that change depending on their own individual behaviors. Of course I don't have the skills to pull off something like this but that's how I try to approach my game design. They end up adding to the gameplay in how they are able to interact with the character but I "try" to allow them to do their own thing and make their own choices. This way they appear to have more stake in the world and feel more grounded. They are not just there to provide a one-liner when the player speaks with them, instead they appear to have purpose of their own and not just to the character/player.

I think the most important thing is to define just what an NPC is - that is, a Non Playable Character. Kefka? An NPC. Queen Zeal? An NPC. Zorn and Thorn? NPCs. Lucretia, Hojo and the Turks? All NPCs. Important NPCs, but NPCs non-the-less.
Each NPC has a different rating of importance to the story being told, whether it be as the main villain, the girl the main character once dated, the mentor who just got killed, the guy who keeps showing up drunk in the middle of dungeons, the snarky shop owner with a heart of gold or the random kid on the street who worries about his lost dog.
Once you realise that anyone who isn't a playable character is an NPC, then you realise just how important they can be. No game can exist without them. They can be motivation, information, realisation and everything in between. They are just as, if not more so, important than the main character because they are what causes the character to learn, understand and become who they are. Without the interaction NPCs provide, games often become a monologue of the main character or divulge into the silent protagonist route.
Of course, that's not to say that there aren't games out there which don't carry off the whole 'I talk to myself and interact with on-one and this game is just as awesome as any other~' thing perfectly fine, but when it comes to an RPG, NPCs are very important.

What is the purpose of NPCs in your games?
In my own games I want the NPCs to be a mix of information dispensers, extra characters and people who deepen the experience. This means I try to give them some sort of life aside from someone the characters can talk to to garner information about the next area. I view them as little characters with their own worlds and thoughts, their own worries. They don't need to care about who the hero is or why s/he is doing what s/he is. They might lend an ear, if friendly, or help out in some way if generous, but they have their own lives to live.
Does this mean I make them ignore the player? No. If you walk up to someone in the street and say hello, they'll most likely reply in kind. If you walk up to a stranger in a book store and tell them that the book they're looking at is really good and you've read it, a lot of the time they'll try to engage you in conversation to work out if what you like is what they like too. It's human nature to try to expand ourselves into others' lives when approached like so.
So I craft characters who are going about their lives and end up talking to the hero - usually someone who is engaging and charismatic - about common interests. I make them talk about local news and sometimes throw in a joke or two - as people really do when they're nervous or just silly. I try to make them as real as I can, even if they only have two or three lines in the game.

How does your story affect the lives of these NPCs?
Usually only minimally, unless it affects a whole town or group, though there are times I'll have things change what happens so that a feeling of progress is reached. For instance, the road is blocked between two towns. The heroes head through that area, kill off the bandits blocking the road and continue on their way. If they come back to the towns they'll find travellers they first saw in one of the other towns now in the other, or even back in a previous town.

Do all characters who appear useful have to join your party?
No, and why should they? There are plenty of other inventors, fighters, magicians, alchemists, druids and what not in the world. Even Suikoden - a game where you collected people to join your castle (basically) - had people that couldn't join you. Even some that weren't enemies. Sure, they were mostly side characters, but they were there. Not every useful person should join you. Hell, some could make groups that try to outdo your performances - did that one before.

What is the purpose of NPCs in town?
Information, interaction, distraction, revelation, character growth, side quest, item gain, item loss - they will be what you have a mind for them to be. You could make them anything.


Why bother giving Bob the Farmer dialog if he has no life outside of "The weather is great today" *Move Event: Bob, Move Right, Move Right, Move Left, Move Left*?

Make him a person. Vary his movements. Maybe he randomly appears in places - watering plants, planting seeds, pulling weeds, raking grass, feeding/milking cows. Give him better dialogue.
"Sure is sunny today... Hopefully the sun worms won't decide to wreak havoc on my tomatoes. Damn, I need a new dog, I'm almost out of ice pellets." Then he could give you a minigame where you kill worms for him or a side quest to find him a dog. Hell, he already told you their weakness - ice. He'll only be boring if you make him boring.

In Short:

■What is the purpose of NPCs in your games?

Give hints. People don't need to over complex it by having rich dialog and conversations that go on forever, but are so realistic that they are on par with Quinten Tarrentino with 20 minute conversations about nothing.

■How does your story affect the lives of these NPCs?

It shouldn't. They should say how much it sucks and then how happy they are you saved them.

■Do all characters who appear useful have to join your party?

huh?

■What is the purpose of NPCs in town?

Give hints.

■Why bother giving Bob the Farmer dialog if he has no life outside of "The weather is great today" *Move Event: Bob, Move Right, Move Right, Move Left, Move Left*?

What would a farmer really talk about??? No they're there to give hints like monsters keep eating my crops. That never happened before X came here. Or if I weren't so busy tending crops I'd GO EAST and kill that X myself.

Giving hints to the player is important but there has to be a less retarded way to do it. What's your opinion on my suggestion, Shortround?

author=Darken

author=Lotus_Games
If I approach my game-design choices like that NPCS don't need to serve any real purpose towards the game itself, rather they'd be living entities with their own choices and actions that change depending on their own individual behaviors. Of course I don't have the skills to pull off something like this but that's how I try to approach my game design.

No one does. Not one studio in the world can create a "living breathing world" because there comes a huge compromise especially when time is precious. There's really no point anyway, a Pokemon NPC serves the player more than an NPC that's capable of fake human behavior.

To create a truly dynamic, realistic virtual world, I kinda think you'd probably need an entire design team to spend an entire game development cycle for each possible NPC.

Disclaimer: With the obvious exception, I'm talking about "unimportant" NPCs such as townspeople, not the main villain and other plot heavy characters.

In Short:

• What is the purpose of NPCs in your games?

• What is the purpose of NPCs in town?

I have seen people say world building and such. I prefer to say that they help give context to the game world. The heroes really are saving a world full of people, towns actually are towns and so on. It more or less means the same as world building.

I prefer saying giving context because while it pretty much means the same, I think that changes the focus. The NPCs aren't there to make the world living and breathing, they are there to make the world look like it's living and breathing. As such, you need to see it from the player's perspective.

For example, in one (now canceled) game I made, the potion merchants in the main town were two young twin sisters who has a semi interesting story, one which won't be revealed immediately though. However, I don't want to ambush an unsuspecting player who just want to buy healing items with it (there's also no guarantee in that game that they player will buy healing items at all either,) so I need a non intrusive way to alert the player that there's more to them than just being money -> healing item converters. Well, the twin sisters were supposed to be young and beautiful, so just have a couple of men in a pub longing for them and maybe have another NPC mention them as well, say an old woman thinks they should get married.

3-4 NPCs mentioning them will flag them as more important (less unimportant) than the average Joe citizen, hopefully without coming of as to gamey. Players who don't talk to NPCs won't know about them, but those kinds of players are less likely to be interested in hearing their story to begin with. Think of how the player will experience them because NPCs only serve a purpose when they affect the player (note that an NPC can affect players even long after they talked to them.)

• How does your story affect the lives of these NPCs?

Lately, I been choosing a model where I only have one town, alternatively I have one main town (think Toad town in Paper Mario,) so that gives me the opportunity to write different dialogs for the NPCs as the game goes on without needing an unreasonable effort. So, the NPCs will be affected by the events. Generally, things gets gradually worse to tell the player that something has to be done soon.

• Do all characters who appear useful have to join your party?

No?

Well, I have seen games where the only useful people are PCs and any other person who has any kind of power is a villain. I don't think that's the best approach for a story though.

• Why bother giving Bob the Farmer dialog if he has no life outside of "The weather is great today" *Move Event: Bob, Move Right, Move Right, Move Left, Move Left*?

I don't think you should write NPC dialogs just because that's the "proper" thing to do in an RPG. You can get the NPCs to convey something meaningful even with only one sentence.

For example, imagine that the random encounters are actually part of the story, the country is more or less overrun by monsters. The only semi safe places are walled cities. Now, let some children complain about not being allow to play at place X. By talking to another NPC, the player will find out that place X is near the city-wall. A guard patrolling the city wall will tell that while the wall stops most monsters, flying ones aren't very impressed by that barrier.

Now the player has the information to figure out that the closer to the wall you are, the more dangerous it is and that's why the children aren't allowed to be there. None of the involved NPCs need long dialogs for that, but they still helps painting a picture of the situation. You can also make NPCs who live close to the city wall be more anxious then those living further into the middle of the city.

You don't need to give every NPC a backstory, a family tree and a novel worth of dialogs, just a bit of thought can go a long way I think.

I use NPCs as an idea to tell the player how the world is like to the characters, not what, but how. If there's an evil king who rules a country with 2 cities, one rebellious and one under a spell, how do they act to it? And does the player's character react to it as well. Anything that hapens in a story, doesn't have to happen to a whole town, but should only effect the NPCs that are related to it, unless something out there is gossiping or just literally blurting it out to the whole god damn town. That's what I think.

I did a blog post on this fairly recently so I have a couple things to add.

• What is the purpose of NPCs in your games?

To make the game world seem more realistic and allow the story to unfold.

Also, I'm trying to get a give couple of NPCs their own individual sub-stories within my project. After every sizable section of the game, each NPC would have some sort of development (possibly even aided by a PC action), leading to new dialogue, and even possible quests, for the player.

• How does your story affect the lives of these NPCs?

With regards to the average Joe Randomwalk, it won't. The town the PCs are in does not revolve around their actions. Not until the very end, anyway.

• Do all characters who appear useful have to join your party?

Of course not. I don't think I need to elaborate.

• What is the purpose of NPCs in town?

My whole game will take place in a large town, so see my first answer. ;p

• Why bother giving Bob the Farmer dialog if he has no life outside of "The weather is great today" *Move Event: Bob, Move Right, Move Right, Move Left, Move Left*?

Exactly; cookie-cutter dialog like that just simply doesn't cut it in modern games, and neither does random movement. I think making an NPC as realistic as possible would go a long way; even walking past without speaking a word is better than acting like Bob the Farmer.

I admit that I'm probably going to resort to random movement out of sheer laziness, though. ;(

I mostly use my npcs to make fun of certain design choices.

Hey look! They're birds that can fly 500 MPH. What funky magic is that!?!?!?!

If my NPCs doesn't have a unique faceset and character set,
I won't try too hard to make them super realistic, but more convenient and/or funny to the player.