I kinda feel sorry for Dweebles' existential crisis.

In support of #2, motivation, to quote Vonnegut: "Every character should want something. Even if it's a glass of water."

Am I the only one who started saying "those aren't NPCs those are player cha-- oh." It's funny how we attach ourselves to the skit characters.

Ok so looking back on your older vids the names are. Long hair: todd Mustache: mike Goatee: Dweebles

In our second adventure, I ran Sunless Citadel for our party. In it, the party comes across a Kobold named Meepo, as I'm sure you know. His whole thing is that he guides them for a few rooms, helps them find a white dragon wyrmling, then dies. But no. The party became so attached to this little guy. They used a healers kit to stabilize him when he was downed by the dragon, lied to him saying the goblins from the lower level killed the dragon, and took him with them down the next two levels of the dungeon, basically using him like a back line archer with his sling. He developed some quirks, a taste for goblin flesh, and became friends with this small group of adventurers. Eventually, they killed the young black dragon and brought Meepo back to the Kobold tribe as a hero rather than the worthless sack of meat the tribe thought he was. He had more self-confidence, felt more assured in both his social and combat skills, and advanced within the tribe. When they see him next, he will be leading the band of kobolds, expanding their influence to control the whole of the sunless citadel, having evicted the goblins. I didn't mean for any of this to happen.

You are so mean to Dweebles. Keep up the good work.

Uhg. That voice brought back memories, terrible memories, and now I'm angry again!

I feel like this has transended the 4th wall, and we are now breaking the 5th wall Fantastic video as always

I'll be totally honest, it took me watching a few of your videos before I realized "Hey wait-a-sec, that's the same guy."

Buying an expensive clock to prove oneself to NPC... this is an example of someone really immersed into a character and a game. Brilliant.

*Sobs* "He's a Monster!" (I legit lol'd at work)

During our pathfinder session, our cleric mentioned he wanted to learn the profession Alchemy and ask if he could. I told him that he needed to find a teacher. So next session we had a relaxed session, I gave them the chance to discover Sandpoint a little. On the market, there was a traveling merchant selling the all-curing cure. It turned out to be a master alchemist, willing to take our cleric as his apprentice. (his accent changed to Russian for a reason I cannot explain because it was not intended I'm terrible with accents) He introduced himself as The GREAT Alphonse The GREAT Alchemist. (this is how he calls himself every time. when he talks about himself he says, "I, The GREAT Alphonse The GREAT Alchemist") My players loved him instantly. I really like this NPC, He was made from the top of my head and turned out to be amazing. I think im going to make him a character sheet.

Ok, honesty time, I honestly thought that those were real people you played with. Only a couple times did I think maybe, just maybe, they were you.

"Quiet Dweebles" says Mike, the at the table NPC who Seth name dropped instead this episode.

#justice4dweebles!

The skits in this video were especially on point.

You missed an excellent opportunity to make a Candle Jack joke. You really can't let these pass you by when you get the -

My players just left from a late night game. So this video is well timed for my post-game unwinding time.

Waiting for Dweebles to go John Wick mode.

In my Shadowrun 3 game... Boris the perpetually drunk Russian arms dealer. He constantly says "No refunds!" He may actually have tourette's. I haven't decided yet. He wrote a cookbook called "Cooking with Flamethrower" and was trying hard to sell it to our street sam, who only wanted some non lethal ammo. In the end, Boris marked up the ammo by 3¥ a box, then casually mentioned to the PC that there's a coupon in the cookbook for 3¥ off boxes of ammo. It ended up saving him a buck or so, so he bought it. Now every time he comes into the gun shop Boris asks him if he tried this recipe or that.

Great vid and I've got the same tee shirt :D Edit: For those of you curious- ESSENTIAL NPC ! The success of the main quest depends on my continued survival Do NOT maim, rob, or kill NPC is not worth significant xp and does not carry excess amounts of cash, unique clothing, or named weapons. After that, at least on mine, is just copyright stuff.

strong 4th wall breaking here, I loved it

My best npc's came from my own old characters i made for other games. My most notable is Jimmy John, of Jimmy John's used Wands. He was a used wand salesman who had dozens of wands from 3.5 when they had charges, but each of them had fewer than max charges, mostly all half used up. He spoke like danny devito sort of and he was a goblin from the plane of air. He was made of magic and he sold ya wands (which he said like w-ands, no "on" sound but an "And" sound, so Jimmy J-ands used w-ands) he became an instant favorite that a friends mom compliment the voice and was like, who's doing that?

I was joking with my dad the other day about making an NPC based on a very scary monster usually found in dungeons in D&D, but actually making them friendly, and a lovable dork and goofball, as well as a powerful ally if the players choose to trust him. I don't want to say any more since one of my tabletop players watches your videos and might read comments, but I know I'm very excited for a certain NPC come my first time DMing D&D.

That moment when you realize that you're really just an npc in somebody else's game.

I wanted my players to do most of their magical shopping in one place so I made a teleporting wooden shack that on the inside is the size of a major library filled with magic items. Then I made the shopkeep a little old lady named Matilda but after my barbarian tried to intimidate for better prices I put my foot down. Suddenly she snapped her neck to the right and her voice became deep and scraggly, her face shifting slightly to be more square jawed and called himself Stan. Then he snapped his neck to the left started talking like quagmire and called himself Greg. Finally the barbarian pissed him off, he snapped his neck downwards his eyes became red his skin became smoother and purple his jacket opened up to reveal hundreds of red eyes staring back as he cursed out the dumb barbarian in infernal. Thus the shopkeep of the Emporium Comporium Spletorium was born Matilda, Stan, Greg, and Markus. Later on they hired a naive ancient silver dragon to collect magic items for them, an axiomite artificer to make magic items for them, and a psychotic gnome who makes alchemical concoctions in the corner salad bar.

Great video as per usual

I had a NPC in an Aquatic campaign named Fenz Thelphant who did the whole hand-rubbing thing as he talked. After the boat captain died, he tried to position himself as the new captain. Eventually the PCs caught him trying to steal gold out of the cargo hold and he got so embarrassed that he gave up trying to become the captain and got off the boat the next time they docked.

Always good to go back and see the very start of Dweebles' villan arc!

more videos, i'm burning through your content.

what Seth is Jack?! MIND BLOWN

I do this thing with imagining the actor too. I one time had to make a deacon at a church which our Paladin spoke to, and he was 100% my best Tony Amendola (Of Stargate, Annabelle, etc fame) impression. I totally imagined him as playing the NPC. Also I love that essential NPC shirt! Awesome video and advice, Seth!

"an NPC has no name"

I'm shocked that a player got that upset with your NPC but good on him for admiting it and sticking to the game

Yea, I have a few red shirts that became huge deals and integral parts of the campaign because the player loved them, and it forced me to develope them more. Its always fun.

I've only just started watching your videos, but I think they're great. One method I use for giving a character voices, is by impersonating different Star Trek characters, and writing the ST character name under the NPCs name.

"He might as well be a racist too". I lol'd. I love it. I started voicing all of my NPCs in Mouse Guard and it was actually fun. I think my players like the apothecary the most. I gave him a dark, scheming kind of voice. But he can't help how he talks. He's actually a really nice mouse with no evil plots.

Here for the refresher course on making memorable characters. I usually ace this when being a player. But struggle from time to time as a Game master.

I'm here to feed the algorithm. But more than that, this is the third time I've watched this video. It's both fun and helpful. Thanks for making these!

You covered every point I could possibly add. Nice job!

Another great video, I always get a kick out of the "Jack"s. I always like using NPC's and I often find them useful in campaigns to add some little RP breaks to a combat heavy campaign just to spice things up sometimes even add little mini quests.

Lol didn't notice your eyes moving and reading til you mentioned it. Great videos

Recent story from my last group. I was play testing a Brawler (PF1), and ended up basically getting into a “mirror match” to see if I could use the class mechanics. One of the other PC’s ran “Slippery Pete” and it got into street level grapple fighting and using whatever oil it was that made Slippery Pete... lubricious... I still can’t stop the guy who played him from cheering Pete all the time.

With regards to your last point Seth - regarding the very ooc emotional response you received to an in-character npc interaction.... this proves the RP was done really well to my mind. That's a testament to both you and your players btw and in my opinion at least, this is what the game is really about. I do most of my RP both in my own game, and in games I play in, via text (PS if you want memorable npcs, mannerisms and catchphrases become an absolute must when its just text). Probably the most memorable RP moment of the last decade that I can remember was when I made one of my players cry. Should add, this wasn't bullying lol... it was just a very emotional scene. Funny thing is, I ended up in tears myself and I'm a 40+ very blokey bloke! Anyway - great video yet again!

Awesome, thanks for making this!

I use the Twilight 2000 system of cards and a random card generator, when I need a quick NPC motivation. It works quite well.

so glad to see more seth!!!!

Right on Seth. I can't tell you how many spur of the moment NPCs my players decided to "keep". This is ok though because if I really need to get them motivated I kill/maim/kidnap one of them

This is a great channel! Thank you!

Awesome! I love coming across inside jokes like this. I finally know where Dweebles got his name!!

I love your "Bill and Ted" NPC. Good job, man.

This video was brilliant. One of your best (that I've seen) so far!

Brilliant video! I think it's your best yet. Just watched this a second time and I think I enjoyed it even more this time. Keep up the great work!

You sir, are hilarious. Thank you for your content. Informative and enjoyable!

Thank you so much for this video! It helped a lot!

I just found this channel and I'm really digging it!

Very interresting and well presented. Thanks for this and all your great videos!

I've been inspired a good deal by audio books and the voice acting of the narrators. Also the voice acting in video/computer games since the voice needs to make up for any lack of physical presence it tends to be more emphasized and impressionable.

Great video! I think this is an awesome bit of advice and information for DMs/GMs no matter if they are new or veterans. I think GMs tend to be intimidated creating NPCs and RPGing them. I like how honest you are about how you do things. RPGing NPCs is something you have to learn to do just like you have to learn to GM. When I realized that it is part of the GM's privilege to roleplay NPCs I embraced it. It is so much fun to throw quirky NPCs at my players and see their reactions. It is interesting that most of my NPCs that were really fun are those that I didn't really plan but that just happened during a campaign. Plus, I absolutely love the shirt!!! I need a shirt like that! Keep up the great work with all of your videos!!!!

I love your NPCs and even with my 20-something years of experience, it's always nice and helpful to get input from fellow DMs and how they do things. Keep them coming. :D

Frankly I think your characterisations are awesome - the skits where you play Mike, Todd and Dweebles and the various versions of Jack make for extremely enjoyable content.

Holy hell. That opening 2 minutes is great lol!

My favorite thing about these videos is that there is a load of passion inside of them. These videos are created to help others and not to grab attention or money. They are very helpful, thank you for another excellent video, Seth.

Just found your videos quite recently and I must say they are so good. The clock story was hilarious! 😄

Poor Dweebles

Also good tips for memorable PC's too. Great vid.

The most beloved npc in my group was a random bouncer who did his job kicking out a rowdy player. The player decided to take revenge and hatched a plan to kidnap this bouncer (an orc named thoric). At this point he was still a generic red shirt npc, but once we got to roleplaying I made him be extremely dull witted which lead to a lot of misunderstanding and hilarity. The players took a liking to him and he became a recurring antagonist / friend who always made situations more chaotic and interesting and always made the players laugh.

Our DM once had a NPC in a long-running campaign that was our contact to some elite underground syndicate bosses we were in debt to, so we had no choice but to talk to this guy if we wanted to keep those bosses on good terms with us by doing jobs for them. That guy had a personality ... like whatever we did, that guy was never pleased, even if we followed our orders to the letter and everything worked as planed. He was not snobby or elitist, but the way he talked and phrased certain things always made us feel that we did something wrong. It felt like you could save that guys life and he expected you to apologize for it. We all hated that guy especially since we had to keep talking to him. We stil game with that DM and ocasionally he throws us a curveball by having a random NPC speaking in the tone of that guy because he still get's a reaction from us after all those years and he enjoys that 5 seconds of cringe everyone who was part of that campagin gets when he hears that voice. Awesome NPC but boy do I hope I will never encounter such a guy in the real world.

Oh man, I was convinced the guy in the cap was an impression of Wayne in Wayne's World. Although it's been a long time since I saw the movie, so I'm not even that sure what the character was like C: Dweebles is awesome btw.

12:26 Jack, your catch phrase is "Freaking" especially "freaking brilliant"

Love the shirt and the content!

Ran my first little mini campaign of Call of Cthulhu. I gave my party a handful of NPC's to fill some holes and help them get the hang of the system. I only planned to keep one as a running friend of the party who was basically Bostonian Jack the NPC. However i made each of the 3 other NPC's to kind of fit with one or two members of the party to give them some personality. Well one of them was meant to be a starlet and i built her to be mildly annoying but incresibly useful at a few tasks. (Track, a couple of the interpersonal skills, and something else) I apparently did a good job because my group loved her because of how much they hated her. Bostonian Jack and her were the onlytwo NPC's who stayed in the party.

So glad I discovered your channel!

Awww, Dweebles is an adorable name! X3. Aww, don't be sad Mr. NPC! TTnTT. I think you're a GREAT NPC! D':

Seth has some of the best t-shirts I've ever seen. Also, solid advice. But great tees.

During my very first Call of Cthulhu game I ever ran on my birthday earlier this year, my players made me recall the information on this video and I thanked God for every word of it. Let me explain. Were in southern Vermont, and the players are supposed to be going into the woods after a group of thieves who had kidnapped a young girl. The PCs during the town hall meeting when the Sheriff was laying down the facts of the botched ransom handover, and the subsequent gun fight, was asked where the leader of the gang was known to hang out so they could ask for more clues. Being that it wasn’t in the scenario itself, and that it was a rural town, on the fly, I made up that he had a local hangout at a seed barn that doubled as a bootlegging Shop, and basement speakeasy. Assuming that the players wouldn’t care too much about it, I left it at that. Instead, they were told to take an hour to buy supplies and gather clues before being driven to the woods to try to search for the missing girl and her kidnappers. Did they want to do that? Of course not, they wanted to question the bootleggers. I had to make up an NPC on the fly, and came up with this creepy ginger young guy in overalls with long red hair, freckles, and nearly white skin, who’s mouth was slightly open in an eternally half smiling, half surprised expression, with the creepiest “I’m so happy!” voice. My players were immediately creeped out by, and loved this guy even though he had zero relevance to the story, and threatened them with a sawed off shotgun mounted under the shop counter before they finally left. That was so much fun, but I’m still baffled as to why the PCs wanted so much to chat this guy up when it’s like “The game is over here guys! See? It’s over there!”

Great video and very entertaining NPCs.

Man! I'm going to steal that hated npc( hand gestures) well done!

Am glad I show my players some of vids with Jack and have been able to imitate your voice of Jack almost perfectly...my players do love Jack now.....lol

Hi Seth just wanted you to know; YOU ARE A GREAT ACTOR! love your vids

Awesome! I learned a lot from your video :)

Thanks for your work Seth. Getting ready to restart my D&D career since AD&D and I appreciate your advice. It’s nice to know that as long as I keep on trying my voices no matter how self conscious I am, my players will have great NPCs to remember!

Loved it, man! I run a game for teenagers, and I've taken to using Google Slides to keep NPCs pics and names (and other campaign notables) for the kids to refer back to and also keeping a Google Doc to jot down the impromptu names (and personality details) that come up during gameplay. Happiness is an off-the-cuff NPC who turns major!

Great video...thanks Seth

Another great way to make a character more memorable is to give them their own theme. Of course that's something you shouldn't do often and only for characters that make an impression with each scene, most likely the main antagonist.

Thanks for the vid. I love your NPC'S

That guy you described at the end is a real guy that I've met.

This will really help me make my pcs shine in my campaign. I unfortunately default to three personas when I do npcs but the tips in this I'll definety try out. Thanks is Seth :)

There I was Seth, about to sleep. And then, in the dead of night, my phone starts blinking.

I had two NPCs that became memorable. Oddly enough bolth were shop keepers. One was based of the shop keeper from an old Nintendo game. I even had it that there was a band that would play the theme when you went into the shop from the game. And players could haggle but some times almost arbitrarily he would jack the prices up. And that character ended up having brothers and cousins who ran the same store with theme and my players would look forward to him even if he jacked up the prices. The other was a gnome who had a potion and herb store that I kinda based off Tommy Chong I even mimicked his voice and mannerisms

Love your stuff Seth, would be so easy to make your videos with less effort than you do and they would still be great but your skits super make it your own.

Good video I try to use different voices for NPCs but sometimes it’s tough. Wow that’s expensive clock

"Whoa, dude, awesome video." I like your focus on voice. I'm going to run with it.

this channel is awesome in general, but that video is especially cool

Great video. I never really analyzed it before, but the advice about imagining that an NPC is played by a particular actor is what I end up with most of the time. I also place personalities and mannerisms of people I know (that the players don’t know) on the npcs. In the same way, when describing a NPC on the fly I just think of a character or two from different movies/shows and mix them together. I try and avoid being obvious, but sometimes for major npcs it is kinda fun to be totally obvious about who the NPC is modeled off (Dirty Harry, The Joker, Inigo Montoya, Artemisia, The Master, Siegmeyer, Hans Gruber being some of my player’s favorites. ). One extra thing I would add that really helps is to be consistent but also unpredictable. I once made the mistake of having too many cool and mysterious npcs, to the point where the players became suspicious of everyone. It is best to mix it up a lot. Sometimes a bland shopkeeper is just that, sometimes a macho talking Han Solo type is a big coward, sometimes the mad wizard is useless insane rather than useful. Try not to second guess your first thought because that illogical combination might just be a great NPC.

'...an npc has no name.' Earned a like from me there buddy. Keep up the good work.

Characters and their catch phrases, voices, etc. One great place to see that in action is to watch the various judges on the tv show, Boston Legal. There are 3 or 4 that are really great.

I saw that comment of "Dweebles" xD Great content as always!

That's genious. Thanks for this insight Seth. I search all the time for tips & tricks to do NPCs better. I heard the idea of modeling your NPC after some actor/character before, but you gave it some uniqe spin with developing mannerisms and speech patterns as reaction to your players. And funny thing: From the three 'players' NPCs actually Dweebles feels the most distinct from you. I mean Mike and the other dude feel like independent characters but if someone told me Dweebles was actually played by someone else, who just happens to have a resemblance to you - I wouldn't doubt it. By the way - my next Cthulhu session includes a shopkeep. I call it your fault, that this NPC will be less than helpful to my Investigators :D

Great video as always..poor dweebles..