Hey y'all, so I'm making a list of neat NPC characteristics and things that can make towns unique to make my open-world campaign a little smoother. I'm curious, what are your favorite things to add to NPCs and towns. So far my favorite it having a giant buff dude who is really timid and shy and adding a library to a town.
One thing that’s fun and relatively easy to do is to give a specific town something it’s famous for. Maybe the town is an Industrial marvel. It’s manufacturers incredible equipment. Then you have easy time creating specific jobs. And Jobs create Npcs (or at least s that how my brain works). So your industrial town makes Steam Engines. Then look up actual steam engine jobs from the Industrial Revolution, and make characters around that. I also think it’s fun/helpful to decide whether a town has an Innovator or innovators. Maybe the the town just makes common mechanical things (clocks, tools, weapons etc) but there’s one (Dwarf, gnome, human. Etc) who’s has this cutting edge Idea. The Steam Engine (make it almost Magical). Or maybe there’s a whole host of incredible kinds in the City. This also helps the players feel like the world doesn’t revolve solely on them. Other people are incredible to.
Another aspect to play up, and this is situation dependent on your players being into this kinda thing, Is maybe introduce the main trade that a town revolves around. But then talk about the pros and cons of that trade. Maybe the living Conditions for the workers is horrible. The Vassal for the town isn’t corrupt, but his Lord is greedy. And he doesn’t have enough money to pay everyone a fair wage, so Everyone gets much less then is probably good. Right there’s a quest with a moral conflict, and multiple Solutions, perhaps that greedy lord needs to be “Removed” Or he’s involved in illegal Black Market Dealings, and the party needs evidence against him. Maybe the Players amass enough wealth to buy enough Stock in the business that they can change the town from the top down.
Hope this Helps. As far as Npcs, just like the PCs make up Backstories, important Npcs should ave Backstories as well. Some Backstories are as simple as “I was born, and raised a Carpenter” maybe there’s more, but if a character has a very noticeable Quirk, you should spend time figuring out why theyre that way.
Hey y'all, so I'm making a list of neat NPC characteristics and things that can make towns unique to make my open-world campaign a little smoother. I'm curious, what are your favorite things to add to NPCs and towns. So far my favorite it having a giant buff dude who is really timid and shy and adding a library to a town.
One thing that’s fun and relatively easy to do is to give a specific town something it’s famous for. Maybe the town is an Industrial marvel. It’s manufacturers incredible equipment. Then you have easy time creating specific jobs. And Jobs create Npcs (or at least s that how my brain works). So your industrial town makes Steam Engines. Then look up actual steam engine jobs from the Industrial Revolution, and make characters around that. I also think it’s fun/helpful to decide whether a town has an Innovator or innovators. Maybe the the town just makes common mechanical things (clocks, tools, weapons etc) but there’s one (Dwarf, gnome, human. Etc) who’s has this cutting edge Idea. The Steam Engine (make it almost Magical). Or maybe there’s a whole host of incredible kinds in the City. This also helps the players feel like the world doesn’t revolve solely on them. Other people are incredible to.
Another aspect to play up, and this is situation dependent on your players being into this kinda thing, Is maybe introduce the main trade that a town revolves around. But then talk about the pros and cons of that trade. Maybe the living Conditions for the workers is horrible. The Vassal for the town isn’t corrupt, but his Lord is greedy. And he doesn’t have enough money to pay everyone a fair wage, so Everyone gets much less then is probably good. Right there’s a quest with a moral conflict, and multiple Solutions, perhaps that greedy lord needs to be “Removed” Or he’s involved in illegal Black Market Dealings, and the party needs evidence against him. Maybe the Players amass enough wealth to buy enough Stock in the business that they can change the town from the top down.
Hope this Helps. As far as Npcs, just like the PCs make up Backstories, important Npcs should ave Backstories as well. Some Backstories are as simple as “I was born, and raised a Carpenter” maybe there’s more, but if a character has a very noticeable Quirk, you should spend time figuring out why theyre that way.
Happy Dming!
I hadn't thought of that before. There is definitely a lot of different commodities that a town/city could focus on, I'll have to start making a list.
I love the blind elf who never misses a shot, I think I'll save that one for later.
Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it!