hey Luke Hart here today I'll be talking
about how you can improvise awesome NPC
dialogue for your role-playing games and
just in case you're new to my channel I
have been a dungeon master since high
school and I create weekly D&D videos
with information and resources to help
Dungeon Master's run awesome games
I suspect that improvising interesting
and engaging dialogue is something that
many Dungeon Master's struggle with I
mean we're not like theater majors or
actors or anything there are basically
two ways that you can describe as a
dungeon master what an npc says the
first one is that you can simply
describe what the NPC says yeah the
innkeeper welcomes you to the inn tells
you that he has rooms available he tells
you what their prices are and he asks
you if you'd like to have anything to
eat the second way is that you can
actually talk in character we call it or
talk in that NPCs voice is Ventures
welcome to my ear please have a seat
take a stool would you like anything to
drink anything to eat I have several
rooms available as well if you are
interested first point I want to make
there is nothing wrong with the first
way of doing it I often simply describe
what an npc says if I don't think that
the NPC is important enough to worry
about the dialogue and I don't think
that it's worth the time it takes to
literally have a back and forth
conversation with the NPC and characters
my point here is that you don't have to
get in character for every NPC that you
roll out at your table I mostly reserved
the in character talking for when I am
really getting into it and really
excited about an NPC even if it's a
piddly NPC that nobody cares about or
for the really important NPC's in my
games however talking in character is
really great free merjan and I
definitely recommend trying it out in
your games this right here
no I'm not going to sell you my youngest
son get out of here is much much more
interesting than this the man tells you
that he's not going to sell his youngest
and he asks you to leave now there are
two parts to talking in character the
first part is actually figuring out what
the character is going to say and the
second part is figuring out how the NPC
is going to say it if the rest of the
video I'm going to be giving you several
tips that will help you carry on the in
character dialog of NPCs and if you have
any tips for improving NPC dialogues in
our games let us know down in the
comments real quick I wanted to give a
shout out to my young dragon patrons
over on patreon every month my patrons
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the one that helped me choose there's a
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remember the stay tuned to the end of
the video for a special DM bonus tip
step number one is determining an NPCs
motivations and desires the thing is
that an NPCs motivations and desires
determine what he says and what he does
so the very first step to role-playing
an NPC to improvising dialog is figuring
out what he wants what his goals his
motivations are and then once you know
what those are
they will help inform what he says and
of course what he does for example if
you're role-playing a guard NPC he wants
to do his job he wants to keep peace so
he doesn't get fired but he also wants
to go home alive and not maimed so that
he can like continue living his life be
with his family and children all that
kind of good stuff a little village boy
well he's gonna want to run around and
have fun maybe cause a little bit
trouble but he doesn't want to actually
get in trouble himself a blacksmith's
primary goal it's probably to sell his
wares at a fair and reasonable price so
that he can like make a living for his
family and whatnot but also have repeat
customers so he'll probably be fairly
honest unless of course he's a
blacksmith in a town that is a frequent
stopping point for travelers in which
case he might be dishonest and not quite
afraid of ripping people off because he
figures hey they're not gonna come back
anymore so once you have determined what
the motivation and desires are for the
NPC what you want to do is just simply
keep that fixed in your mind and
remember who you are that your
blacksmith or a village boy and then you
respond in character with dialogue
whatever comes to your mind whatever
feels natural for that rule
you're trying to play now I know you're
thinking that seems obvious Luke but I
think that a common problem the dungeon
master can run into is that we overthink
it we're trying to like do it too well
and make it too over-the-top or
something I think it's okay to scale it
down a little bit and just rely upon our
own experience to inform what we have
that NPCs say simply do your best to
play out that NPCs goals and motivations
in what he says remember your players
are not expecting amazing acting as long
as you're not like stuttering and
freezing and no totally freaking out
you're gonna be just fine
and you know what even if you are
freaking out I bet your players are
gonna be fairly forgiving of you and if
they're not you might want to look for
new players because here's the thing
worrying too much about putting on a
great performance is the very thing that
is gonna cause you to freeze up and not
know what to say you need to loosen up
relax and not care so much tip number
two changing your voice is huge just
change it a little bit make it a little
bit deeper I make a little bit
high-pitched or make a gravelly nice and
evil sounding or just sound tentative
like you're you're not sure what's going
on here's the trick here's the big big
trick and the mistake that I think a lot
of Dungeon Master's can fall into a
mistake you might call it or not is that
we try to imitate real-life accents and
imitating a real-life accent is much
more difficult than simply changing your
voice a little bit and when you change
your voice if you add facial expressions
that helps a lot too and then when you
start hand movements I mean that also
helps to convey with the player with
what the NPC is saying changing your
voice using facial expressions and
gesturing with your hands but not like
super crazy right just a little bit here
and there those three things are gonna
make a big difference when you're
speaking in character and remember it's
all smoke and mirrors if you change your
voice a little change your face and
change your expressions it is gonna make
what comes out of your mouth that much
more believable for your
no yes I know this doesn't actually help
you think about what to say but it does
make what you say that much more
believable and it helps your players to
envision not you as the dungeon master
saying those things but the NPC as
saying those things things to consider
all right now what I'm gonna do is fire
off a bunch of different things that can
influence your NPCs manner of speech and
what he will and won't say consider your
NPCs education level is Hilo born a
farmer perhaps is he highborn perhaps he
is a part of nobility Matt's gonna like
influence like how he speaks and stuff
like that and it's also going to
influence the tone of his voice perhaps
how educated he sounds the size of the
words that he uses what is the NPC's
disposition toward the players is he
friendly is he suspicious is he
aggressive is the NPC's personality sour
and pessimistic like everything around
here is worthless and pointless or is
everything great and everything's gonna
be wonderful and you know it's not a big
deal yeah sure we can do that so a
friendly NPC is going to be much more
cooperative than an aggressive one more
liable to give the players information
that he might have and of course sour
personalities are gonna be grumbling and
grouching a lot which might help you
role play them and influence what they
say I mean imagine a blacksmith that
when you're trying to buy things from
him all these doing is complaining about
the price of steel but act this makes
perfect all right look you guys you
can't just watch one video and expect
that you're going to all of a sudden be
awesome and speaking in character that's
not gonna happen you're gonna have to
practice that crap one of the things
that I like to do is carry on a
conversation with myself where I'm
playing two different roles and yes it
obviously makes me look a little stupid
which is why I don't do it in public
look at that crazy man over there
talking to himself so don't practice in
public practice in private and yes
practice at the game table but also
practice away from the game table you
cannot expect to get good at this at
improvising talking in character you
can't expect to get it good at anything
really unless you practice I sometimes
practice while I'm in the car driving to
and from work I also practice down in
the basement with my cats now some
people might call this crazy
but I just like to justify this sort of
behavior by saying that I'm practicing
for my DD games because if you're not
good at thinking fast on your feet then
practicing and carrying on a two-way
dialogue like that is going to help you
get better at it
obviously it's a good opportunity to
practice different voices to try
different things out and make yourself a
little that's my high-pitched voice all
right now it is time for the p.m.
bonus tip I basically have a handful of
voices that I am fairly good at and I
can do on the spot without any practice
or warm-up and when I need to do
dialogue for an NPC that I wasn't
planning on having to talk like the
players go off and do something crazy
something that you weren't expecting
well then I just fall back on one of
those voices so my bonus tip is that you
work on just a handful of voices that
you can fall back on when you need to
now you and I both know that being a
dungeon master is far more complicated
than being a player so to help you learn
more about being an awesome DM I put
together my dungeon mastering 101
playlist click right here on the screen
to learn more about taking your dungeon
mastering to the next level and until
next time let's play D&D
