WADY 13: One Shots Part 3: NPCs and Premade characters

Apr 11

Welcome to Episode 13 of We Aren’t Dead Yet, a podcast throwing magic missiles into the ttrpg, gamer and speculative fiction sphere and seeing whether we come out alive at the end.

Every Thursday will be WADY Day, a celebration of something gamer, literature or culture shocking with three friends who found each other online via World Anvil and went “Hey! Let’s talk”. We found out we all have a lot to say and different approaches to the same questions.

We have a veteran Dungeon Master, an award winning World Builder & Media Producer, and a bestselling cyberpunk + mythpunk author, here to snark, speak and speculate on fiction, creative professions and games.

Today’s episode… One Shots Part 3: NPCs and Premade characters!

In the third segment of our Writing TTRPG One Shots series, we discuss the importance of memorable NPCs and pre-made player characters in crafting a focused, compelling narrative. We explore tips and techniques for developing vibrant personalities, intriguing backstories, and tangible motivations that breathe life into these characters, as well as share insights on how to ensure NPCs and pre-gens are purposefully woven into the adventure's core conflict and storyline. Learn our best practices for introducing and depicting these characters in gameplay and how to communicate these characters to the GMs playing your one shots.

If you want to support We Aren’t Dead Yet, please subscribe to become one of our Not Dead Knights and consider a paid tier, purchase something from our Merch Store, buy Macabre and Monstrous, our first anthology of horror stories and shout out about We Aren’t Dead Yet on social media.

Have a question you want to ask about the episode, the writing sphere or table top role playing games? Hit us up with comments on substack, down in the comments section below, or by throwing a question up on X @usurperkings or @e__armstrong.

Every little bit helps.

Cheers for now,

We’ll see you next week for the fourth episode of our One Shot series!