NPC roles

 I imagine every D&D player is familiar with certain types of NPCs, especially those who accompany a party on adventures (retainers and hirelings) and those who serve as primary opposition during adventures (villains and their henchmen and lackeys.) Today, I'd like to take a look at other categories of NPCs, especially those who populate the "safe" areas of the campaign where the PCs rest between adventures, acquire supplies, pick up rumors and adventure hooks, gather information, and generally live their lives when they're not fighting for their lives. These are the NPCs that bring towns and villages to life, that give context and continuity to a campaign beyond the dungeon, with whom player characters can build working and personal relationships, which in turn provide motivation and emotional stakes to adventurers beyond the base desire for wealth and XP. 

This list, I suspect, is not exhaustive; there are almost certainly categories and sub-categories I've neglected, but it should at least provide a framework in which to think about the kinds of NPCs you want in your world. Almost all of these categories can overlap with one another, and of course characters can move from one category to another as the campaign and its inhabitants evolve and change. A traveling merchant might serve as both Informant and Goods and Services; the local vicar might be both a mentor to cleric PCs and a provider of healing services; the town burgomaster could alternately act as Patron and Antagonist, depending on his goals on any particular day. A friend in any category could become an Antagonist if the PCs rub him the wrong way, or vice-versa. A rescued Distressed Dude or Damsel could prove to be a useful Informant or even Patron later on, as his or her fortunes improve. 

An NPC's role need not determine his or her personality, either. A Patron may be bright and cheerful as she presents her proposal to the PCs, or she might be haughty and condescending, tempting them solely with promise of reward. A Goods and Services NPC might be generous or transparently greedy, an affable gadabout or shrewdly stoic. An antagonist might be cruel and cutting to the PCs, or he could be sincerely friendly, even apologetic, while opposing them tooth and nail. Mix it up and shoot for the unexpected!

The best part is that virtually all of this is within the players' power to influence, by choosing which relationships to cultivate, in what manner, and by what means. After all in old school play, player agency should be king!

Without further ado, here are my NPC categories, in no particular order: 

Background: The vast majority of NPCs in a campaign fall into this category. They're just there so your towns and settlements aren't empty. They're the nondescript faces in the crowd that make it a crowd at all.

Background Color: A step above the background rabble, by virtue of some interesting quirk or position of minor prominence in the community, without being really relevant to the player characters' adventuring careers. An eccentric widow who frequents town meetings, a garrulous barfly who has nothing really important to say, a village idiot, a flamboyant haberdasher, or a popular artist might rise to the level of background color. You don't need a whole lot of these, and they don't often take center stage, but by virtue of simply being interesting, the player characters might be drawn to befriend (or oppose) them, and they might earn a promotion to some other category. Even if they don't, they still provide a sense of continuity to a campaign, when the adventurers pop into the local pub after a rough dungeon crawl, and there's Cornelius the town drunk slurring tavern songs from his table in the corner, as he's been since the first day they set foot in town. 

Informants: These are people who can consistently provide the player characters with information relevant to their endeavors, whether that be rumors, folklore, knowledge of who's who in town, the going prices of salvaged loot, local geography, or what-have-you. Common sorts of persons who might fill this role include bartenders, retired adventurers, archivists and librarians, the town gossip, minstrels, guides, an so on. Some might share their knowledge freely, while others require payment or favors. Most will be much more forthcoming and cooperative when the PCs show them respect and consideration, and may be reluctant or completely unwilling to talk to those they find obnoxious. 

Informants should be some of the most common regulars in the campaign, with most having a fairly specialized field of knowledge. They're people whom the PCs will do well to cultivate positive relationships. Some will be naturally friendly, while some may prove quite difficult indeed to win over, but that can be an adventure in itself. 

Patrons: People who will seek out adventurers to perform services for them, usually for pay, favors, or both. These are often wealthy or important members of the community, successful businesspeople, authority figures, and such. They may be motivated by personal goals (colleting rare items, finding clues to the fate of a missing friend or relative, rivalry with another influential person, gaining more wealth and influence) or by desire to use their influence to do good. Their motives may be very hard to discern, posing possible moral dilemmas for player characters. Generally, though, they should make good on their bargains, except in special circumstances, e.g. they're not very smart and think they can get away with screwing over the PCs or they're not very nice and have decided the PCs are no longer useful to them. Such a betrayal can be an interesting development in a campaign if used carefully and not overdone. 

Distressed Dudes and Damsels: People who need the PCs's help, often while unable to offer any reward truly commensurate with the danger and difficulty of the task. Unlike the Patron, who is perfectly fine but wants to augment his wellbeing, happiness, or prestige, these folks are experiencing genuine hardship, having lost, or standing to lose, a great deal if the PCs don't intervene. The farmer whose son has been kidnapped by goblins, the peasant youth who needs a gift to present as dowry if he's to marry the merchant's daughter, the woodcutter's family who have lost their savings to a clever thief the week before the royal tax collector is to make his rounds to their village, the innkeeper whose wife is being held for ransom by bandits. These can also be people the party actually encounters in the midst of an adventure, held captive by an orc clan, lost in the woods, suspended in magical sleep, or enslaved by an ogre.

Once aided, these NPCs often remain in the campaign and become another type, depending on their skills and social standing, but they'll almost never fall lower than Background Color. They may have a series of troubles, but dragging the role on too long, or repeated relapse to Distressed status after being saved should be avoided, unless it's the sort of campaign in which you can get away with it as a running gag.

Goods and Services: The people from whom player characters can purchase necessary supplies, equipment, and services, and/or to whom they can sell gems, jewelry, and other valuables found on adventures. These may be local shopkeepers, traveling merchants, or collectors, as well as people such as local clerics and healers, craftspeople, animal trainers, transportation providers such as coach drivers and ferrymen, inn and boardinghouse keepers, etc. They may buy and sell a wide range of goods, or may specialize in particular categories. Specialists will usually be more knowledgeable about their wares, will buy and sell goods within their specialties at more favorable prices than general merchants, or that general merchants won't handle at all. 

Antagonists: People who are opposed to the PCs or their aims in some way. This can be mere personal dislike which causes them to be less helpful than they otherwise could be, but those who have goals and purposes, open or secret, in conflict with PC goals are by far more interesting. They need not be murderous or evil, or even unfriendly. A local merchant might oppose PC plans to clear a long-abandoned trade road because it would allow competition from other towns. A mayor might envy the influence and prestige of successful adventurers. A prominent farmer might form a coalition of concerned villagers to oppose adventurers on principle on the grounds they'll rile up monster populations. Most antagonistic NPCs are still a part of the community, and will avoid (or not even dream of!) breaking laws or local customs, but there are a plethora of ways they can still cause headaches for the player characters. They could convince local goods-and-services NPCs to only deal with the PCs on unfavorable terms or not at all; they could drum up opposition to PCs' plans to open a new inn or public house; they could spread rumors (or unpleasant truth) to sway public opinion; they could hound the PCs with formal grievances (legitimate or not) to the local authorities. Only the most ruthless would resort to illegal or immoral means, and ensuring they are the exception rather than the rule helps set them apart as genuine enemies rather than rivals and nuisances. 

Mentors: People from whom player characters learn skills. Even if there are no formal game mechanics for training, these NPCs can still play a part in the PCs' lives in a purely roleplaying sense (thus overlapping with the Background Color category). The fighters train under a greying old soldier who loves to tell war stories. The clerics learn spiritual discipline from the priest of the local chapel. The magic-user is apprenticed to the old hedge-witch who lives in the cottage with the tangled gardens just outside town. The stablemaster at the inn teaches the party to ride. Sometimes these people may ask payment for their training, but often they'll do it out of friendship, tradition, or sheer enjoyment of passing on their knowledge.