Gone Gaming

When creating NPCs I try to find ways to make them memorable to the players, and often I’ll do that by the choice of language they use. Accents, funny pronunciations, tone, and strange speech patterns all come into play. Today I want to focus on some of these ways to make characters memorable.

Have a character be reliably unreliable. That is, the players know the NPC is regularly going to give them a lie or half-truth. The players will find it frustrating if you have characters that they don’t know are going to lie them and it happens regularly, but if they know the character is unreliable, they can have fun teasing out the truth from the character’s known lies.

Picking an accent for a character also helps make them stick out, but something to be considered is to try to be consistent with which characters have which accents. Without blatantly saying that two characters are connected you can imply it by using accents for both of them that are similar. You can use this to create red herrings sometimes as well.

Alliteration can be used as well, and certain consonants can lend a character a feel that comes with the sound made. A prime example is using “s” to give a character a reptilian or lizard-like feeling. But other letters can be used, a good example being in “V for Vendetta” when he first introduces himself. “L” is often used to give a linking to more luscious and lascivious illicit licentiousness.

Another way to make your characters unique is through eye contact. Whether it’s an intense unblinking gaze, avoiding eye contact, constantly looking over your shoulder, or refusing to look the player in the eye, it creates an impression of a certain personality or state of mind. Anthony Hopkins used this technique to create an eerily disturbing character out of Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs by refraining from blinking, thus creating a very intense and memorable personality.

I find another technique that is effective is altering the level of aggressiveness of a character. Using “aggressiveness” in this post I mean something different than just their willingness to confront a situation head on. Does the character interrupt people? Do they make bold statements, or hedge their speech with qualifications? Do they direct the course of a conversation, or do they need to be prodded to reveal things? Do they talk in statements, or only in questions? These choices also give rise to an interesting character.

All of these little tics also help you get into the character when you need to bring them up again later, getting you back into their mind set so the players can interact with them. They can also help you keep track of a vast wealth of characters that are wandering through your world, as you will be able to remember the little things that make them special.

These little things add greatly to a game’s atmosphere, and you don’t have to attempt doing all of them. Just a few can make a huge difference and create a memorable experience. They can also let you quickly create the simple “throw-away” NPCs that inevitably occur that you didn’t anticipate, simply by making very small stylistic choices that convey whatever information the players need to react appropriately.

As a last thought, feel free to borrow from popular culture to find ideas for tics or traits that help create the character you want, or that will immediately tell you players what this character is about. The stereotypes of tough cops are an excellent example, but liberally interjecting “Dude!” will also create a vivid image. Go! Create someone fun!

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