Wants, Needs and Fears – A Recipe for Better NPCs in Tabletop
Like many, my first time DMing produced some lukewarm games. I had an idea for the story I wanted to tell, and I guided the players toward it in a very linear fashion. Looking back on prior story arcs and challenges, I’d left little room for creativity. Not just in how they solved challenges, but in how they interacted with the world itself – and this was most apparent in my NPCs. It would often feel, in retrospect, like they were talking at the players, not to the players.
This phenomenon can occur if you’re modelling your adventures off your favourite video games, which is a very natural first step for anyone to take, and nothing to be ashamed of! In a digital medium, NPCs are often speaking to a silent – or laconic – protagonist. Think about how much time Geralt of Rivia spends just staring at an NPC, only to interject with one or two lines of dialogue before falling silent once more. This might effectively simulate a conversation, but it’s not exactly a back-and-forth. Because of this influence, I’d plan out responses to certain inquiries word for word, under the impression I was simply being prepared.
The problem is: you’re not designing an expository device, you’re trying to make a person you can comfortably inhabit. One of the best things about tabletop is that any fictional character you interact with is played by a living, breathing human being, and they can respond to the players as if they were very much there in the room with them. Once I’d hit this realization, it completely changed how I built and ran my NPCs.
“Archmage Kilastar fought in the Infernal Wars two hundred years ago” might be relevant to the story arc, but it tells us very little about why he fought in those wars. A meticulous backstory might give you an understanding of their footsteps, but very little about how they made them. If anything, as you gain more experience, you might find your NPC’s backstories growing even more sparse. If they’re adopted by the players, as NPCs so often are, you can add in that detail later.
Your notes for NPCs should look like a sketch. Not only is this kinder to your planning time, it also gives you more freedom to develop them organically. So – in addition to a physical description, history, and a general guideline for personality, I add three additional layers to every NPC: Wants, Needs and Fears.
Wants are your NPC’s desires. There’s a reason every musical has an I Want song; it’s a cheat code for internal and external narrative conflict. You create a goal, and you put things in their way, and suddenly you have a story. A Want is something the NPC is working towards over a long period of time, often more consciously than subconsciously; a prestigious title, vast riches, honour for their clan, solitude. Knowing what it is your NPC is working towards, even if it has nothing to do with the party or their adventure, lets you know what’s important to them now.
Needs are what your NPC requires to be happy, content, and safe. It’s either a status quo they wish to protect, or the driving motivation for their behaviour and actions. What differentiates themselves from Wants is that, if denied their Need, an NPC will quickly start to unravel; they could need to protect their family, win an upcoming election, or feel in control at all times. You can decide how desperate a character is based on whether their Need has been met, how long it’s been denied them, and how far they’ll go to secure it.
Fears are similar to Needs, but if a Need is something that can be denied, a Fear is something that can happen to them, or something they are proactively taking steps to avoid. A fear arms you with the final piece of their worldview; what do they want to prevent, what are they insecure about, what cannot under any circumstances happen to this person? For example: if your NPC is a dictator, perhaps they fear insubordination, or perhaps they fear that they could be wrong about their actions.
Let’s return back to Archmage Kilastar, a man I invented entirely while writing this blog post. We knew he fought in a war, so we can base his Want, Need and Fear around that crucial event.
Kilastar wants safety for the realm, that much is clear. It is the thing he works proactively towards, to the point where he has a reputation for it. What he needs, however, is to feel as if he’s done enough. Kilastar is an ancient man who has plenty of reasons for guilt, so it’s only natural that he might feel unbalanced if he, or anyone else, implies that he is not taking an active enough role in the realm’s protection. What he fears is a return to the war he fought in, a time of lawlessness and strife, where villages could be wiped from the map in an instant. He will do anything to stop that from happening again.
Suddenly, Kilastar goes from being an Archmage who fought in a war to a person with motivation, and several directions to grow. You might feel more comfortable improvising with him now because, at any time, you have a decent understanding of what his priorities are. If one of the players mocks his security systems, you can have him become uncomfortable, if they suggest helping with local trouble, you can have him lean into supporting them. And if he’s ever called upon in a time of need, you can show his ruthlessness in averting another near apocalypse.
Establishing these things allows you, above all else, to become reactive. You can get away from making walking dialogue trees and lean into tabletop’s most transformative aspect: the ability to talk to a fake person, entirely invented by you, who is nonetheless sitting at the table with your friends the moment you don their voice. Do this right, and they won’t even notice your Scottish accent is sketchy at best (that, or my players have been very polite about it, your mileage may vary).