THE ART OF MAKING MEN: A TREATISE ON NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS, LIMITS, AND REGRETS (part 1)
INTRODUCTION: THE GRIMY MAGIC OF NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS
Let me tell you something about magic. The normal kind though. the everyday enchantments that make ordinary things shimmer. Think about the last video game you played. Or the last live-action role-playing game you participated in. Or maybe even that time you tried to make a tabletop RPG character while procrastinating your actual responsibilities. Wherever you were, whoever you were pretending to be, there was always someone else in the room.
No, not the hero. The hero is just you with a different name, a more dramatic backstory, and usually a sword large enough to warrant public safety concerns. I’m talking about the others. The ones who fill the world, not with grandeur or legend, but with the quiet noise of daily life. The ones who make the world feel lived-in. The ones who look at you, the player, and ask, “What’s your deal?”
We are talking about NPCs: Non-Player Characters, the underappreciated, overworked, and often tragically ignored custodians of immersion.
Because, dear reader, if the hero is the melody, then the NPCs are the rhythm section. They are the beats that make the music danceable. And today, we’re going to learn how to make them play their tune.
ON HOOKS AND THE FINE ART OF OLAFING
Let’s begin with a thesis statement that I have been refining for years: The most compelling characters are not the most complex; they are the most engaging.
Take Olaf, Yes, that Olaf, the snowman who likes warm hugs. A character so straightforward that he could be summarized on a napkin. Olaf doesn’t exist to tell you his life story; he exists to invite you into his world.
"Hi, I’m Olaf, and I like warm hugs."
That’s not an introduction. That’s a hook: a baited line cast into the ocean of your imagination.
Why does this work? Because Olaf offers you something to grab onto. He’s not a point of information; he’s a conversation starter. You know what he wants, and that simple, crystalline fact makes you want to interact with him. You can hug him, tease him, ignore him, or, if you are a deeply cruel person, tell him that warm hugs are overrated. Whatever you do, you are engaging.
And that is the secret to a great NPC. They are not the story; they are the invitation.
So, how do you create your own Olaf? How do you craft a character who can hold the player’s attention? Maybe a character that you half to come up with in thirty seconds. Here are some examples to get your creative wheels spinning:
“Hi, I’m Greta, and I collect teeth.” (Are they her teeth? Someone else’s? The possibilities are endless, and unsettling.)
“My name’s Simon, and I’ll trade you anything for a pair of socks.” (Why socks? Is it an obsession? A practical necessity? A mystery waiting to be unraveled.)
“Call me the Captain. Don’t ask why.” (You’re already wondering, aren’t you?)
A single line, a strange quirk, a peculiar habit, this is all it takes to transform an NPC from a piece of background scenery into a spark that lights a fire in the player’s imagination.
ON CONSTRAINTS: THE SNOWPIERCER THAT WASN’T
Now, let me tell you a story about constraints.
Once upon a time, someone, perhaps an overly ambitious game designer, a starry-eyed dreamer, or just a fool with a notebook, had an idea. Not just any idea, but the idea. A LARP on a real train. A post-apocalyptic nightmare on wheels. Picture it: players screaming over the groan of the engine, clutching their makeshift weapons as the train chugged through forgotten wastelands. The rattle of the tracks beneath their feet, the hiss of steam, the ever-present sense of motion, a perfect storm of immersion. A game where the setting wasn’t just set dressing; it was an unstoppable force, a constant, inescapable presence.
As much as it was ambitious. It was, of course, completely impossible.
Because trains, as it turns out, are expensive. Logistics are a nightmare. And no amount of enthusiasm, creative problem-solving, or sheer willpower can bend the laws of physics, coordinate insurance policies, or convince an entire railway company to let a bunch of costumed weirdos turn their rolling stock into a dystopian hellscape. The Snowpiercer LARP never happened, because it couldn’t happen.
But the idea of it? That lingered. It became something else, more than a failed plan, more than a pipe dream. It became a mental exercise, a study in what makes an experience feel real even when it isn’t. Because the truth is, players don’t need an actual moving train. They just need to believe they’re on one. They need just enough detail to let their imagination do the rest. And the best NPCs, the most memorable characters, work the same way: not through excess, but through the right details, the ones that ignite the imagination and make people forget, just for a moment, that this isn’t real.
And this is the heart of NPC creation. Constraints are not barriers; they are crucibles. They force you to strip away the unnecessary, leaving you with the raw, burning ember of what makes your character matter.
Players do not care if your bandit’s armor is authentic leather or cheap pleather. They care that he growls like he’s got gravel in his throat and asks, “You ever kissed the barrel of a shotgun, darling?”
The Illusion of Life: NPCs as Performative Beings
If you’ve ever played a game where the NPCs felt alive: where they seemed to exist even when you weren’t looking:you’ve already brushed up against a concept known as “believable agents.” This idea, explored by Mateas and Stern in “Structuring Believability” (2005), suggests that players don’t require NPCs to be fully realized human beings, only to be coherent enough that their actions make sense within the world of the game.
This means that the best NPCs aren’t necessarily the most complex, but the ones that perform their roles with just enough detail to invite player imagination. Think about the screaming shopkeeper in The Legend of Zelda Windwaker, the one with the empty eyes and the manic energy, who seems to have exactly two emotions: overwhelming enthusiasm or bottomless disappointment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cFndddIy-M). We don’t need to know his backstory. We don’t even need to know his name. But because his performance is so distinct, he sticks with us.
The same principle applies to LARP or tabletop role-playing NPCs. Players just need the illusion of life. A distinctive speech pattern, a strange obsession, an overreaction to a minor inconvenience, these elements are performative hooks that make an NPC feel real even if they are, mechanically, nothing more than a storytelling device.
NPCs as Worldbuilding Tools: Environmental Storytelling and Cognitive Mapping
Game spaces are storytelling tools. This is a concept explored in depth by Henry Jenkins in “Game Design as Narrative Architecture” (2004). Jenkins argues that players construct meaning not just through direct storytelling but through interaction with the game’s space and characters.
NPCs, in this context, are not just “characters” in the traditional literary sense. They are extensions of the world. Their behaviors, their dialogue, and even their placement in the game space communicate crucial information to the player.
Think of the way Dark Souls uses NPCs, mysterious, often cryptic figures who sit in the shadows of ruined castles, offering fragments of lore but never the full picture. These NPCs are the world, their silence, their cryptic warnings, their resigned acceptance of fate all reinforce the game’s themes of decay and struggle.
