I know over the years I've DMed, I've had a number of NPCs both my players and I have grown pretty attached to, or loved to hate.

Who are some of the best NPCs you've introduced into your games?

-O

Reggie Ray - Shane Cooper is one of the PCs in my Buffy game.  His best friend and fellow football hero is Reggie Ray.  Think equal parts of Reggie Ray from Not Another Teen Movie, Biff from Back to the Future, and Stiffler from American Pie.  He says fuck for about every other word, and is constantly trying to keep Shane away from his younger sister.  He's a blast and bringing in Reggie Ray and arguments over his sister always brings the funny.

Amber - She's my witch PC's annoying little sister.  The Quinn to her Daria.  Most recently managed to cast the Superstar spell to make herself a ninja of death, with wacky consequences.  Great scene where after it was settled the gang more or less accepted her, saying she could help out if she wanted so long as she left the magic alone.

Both of them add a lot to the game.

Mr. LeSmith.

A human businessman, but not quite.  He's actually a Caeder (demon).  A fallen Caeder.  Myunhuthuzaa.  He works now for the Higher Powers, though according to prophecy, he is destined to turn back to darkness.

Only he's not quite a demon.  He's actually Loki, ancient Norse shit-disturber, manipulating the PCs without their knowledge.  The "fallen Caeder" Myunhuthuzaa actually exists, somewhere in the realm of the Dark Powers, destined to escape sometime while the final stages of Apocalypse are set in motion.  

Loki's due to take many forms in this game... Mr. LeSmith is one of my favourites.

MegaGnome

A group of Spelljamming/Plane Hopping gnomes that have picked up many unusal tricks and gadgets in their travels.  Amplified instruments, interesting band members, major F/X and stage production are all hallmarks of their shows.  Started out as a joke in my Forgotten Realms campaign that my players ended up loving.  So I had to come up with more background/explaination of how they got the way they were, hence the Spelljamming angle.  Have actually provided loads of plot/adventure hooks over the past 15+ years.


Tagline became. "Most Famous Band In All The Cystal Sphere's".

Mine's a dragon the PCs in my Arcana Evolved game have come into contact with...

I'm setting my game right at the start of the dragons' return.  This dragon, Tetrithallichandar, started out young, naive, and a bit dumb.  He decided to claim some territory of his own to start a kingdom.  Not thinking much of it - since the dragon was a bit of an arrogant goof - the characters told him their home city of Erdaenos would welcome him.

Well, that didn't happen.  He went over, declared himself the ruler, and let himself get chased off by peasants throwing fruit.

The party stayed in touch with him, and he eventually used the secrets of evolution to help some of the PCs.  Some of the PCs loved him and some hated him.  He stayed consistently egotistical and was convinced that the pcs were his closest friends.

Since then, he's been getting more arrogant, more paranoid, and much less naive.  The party unintentionally opened up the way for him to take over a nearby village (Thunderbrook from The Cursed Crown; a free module online) and since then he's gained the services of a mojh who's been advising him on the ways of empire building.

The party has been trying their best to free Erdaenos from a group of bandits who've been occupying part of the city.  They finally succeeded in this last week, but one of the characters had mentioned to Tetrithallichandar that (a) the leadership of Erdaenos was corrupt; and (b) there's going to be a big war soon.

After the final battle with the bandits, with the military force of Erdaenos greatly reduced, the dragon flew in, declared himself the ruler, and exiled the party's other mentor.

He's a lot like a toned-down, scaly version of Paranoia's Computer.  He's not quite so crazy, but the party's pretty well aware he's not totally sane either.  They don't like a lot of the stuff he's been doing, but they've pretty much been playing along with it because, well - he seems to mean well, and he could eat all of them without putting forth much effort.

-O

Anton Torino - a real bastard who shows up in the first session I ran with Scut as a player.  Torino betrayed the party to a goblin army, and wound up with them being incarcerated.  Torino was killed and his head carried around by the fighter in the group, but he still returns in other campaigns. (This was also the first time I had a female gamer in the group, and I was not prepared for her to use "feminine whiles" to trick the guards to facilitate an escape.  Funny, I married that girl. )

Blantrast Mo'Cran - same campaign as Torino, he was slain in an early battle (I ran him with the group as my own character) by a vampire, and returned constantly to plague the group.  Never killed, he returns to plague other groups.

Nowdays, outside of Modern I don't really have any.

Some old favorites included: Gor DuMay (Known as the Blossom of Death), Aveliene, Pliazli, Rilvok, Tyrin Ironfist, Fallstaff, and, of course, Ralts Bloodthorne.

However, that long time story came to an end during the Winter War, where Ralts was revealed to be the sundered avatar of an Elder God, an insanely powerful being, who went man in his conflict with IV, and had to be put down.

Currently, my two favorites are Colonel Previn and Gunny Beakman, from d20 Modern. Two career Marines who interact with the party on a regular basis.

Pretty soon, I'm going to be introducing new NPC's to the D&D group, so we'll see how that goes.

An old favorite, making a return (he's from 15 years ago) is Drazzlak Karna'age, a fighter/rogue whose got it in for the party and wants thier treasures, as well as thier fame. He's a pain in the ass who hunts them, studies them, and in general, eventually goes "Kraven the Hunter" on thier asses.

I am soooooo looking forward to that.

The Defenceman: An Ice Hockey themed Speedster who is Canada's answer to Captain America in my M&M campaign.

Sir William "Billy the Axe" Clarkly: Much loved second-son of the royal family in my Kogusar's Black Legion game. Two-Fisted, Loyal, good looking, honest warrior of starting martial prowess. Far more fit to be heir than his brother, but that's not how bloodlines work.

Vugog: Lizardman Captain of the the Warlord's "Steel Dragon Company" in my The Last City campiagn. Not only a hideously talented warrior and tactical genius, but an expert tracker to boot. Drives the PC's crazy that fleeing the city is not a "get out jail free card". Vugog will just fucking follow you:)

Quote from: Teflon BillyThe Defenceman: An Ice Hockey themed Speedster who is Canada's answer to Captain America in my M&M campaign.

Ha!  What a great idea!

-O

BJ Scott : Tne Navigator of the starship in my current TRAVELLER game.  She is a very good navigator, makes bad puns, likes to flirt a lot.  Hates to be in firefights - even tho she is an alright shot  - she just thinks she is bad in a fight.  Always appears to be smiling , enough that it can get unnerving to characters that don't know her yet.

Sir Peter the half-Orc Knight of the Stone : He was in my just recently finished BANESTORM game. He is a half-orc that was raised by a monk. A catholic monk. (Not the D&D kind) This monk raised Peter to try and be as good and as virtuous as possible. So, of course Peter then decides to become a Knight of the Stone when he is a teenager. The other players met him several years after that.

- E.W.C. .

Three-Chop-Nick: I stole this npc out of the Death Gate Cycle series of novels. He was a traveling judge/executioner/bounty hunter with a very dull and nicked beheading sword, that wandered from hamlet to hamlet dishing out the kings justice whenever necessary. Sometimes he remembered the PCs sometimes he didn't. They managed to escape from justice from him on one occasion and have been looking over their shoulders ever since.

I don't have favorite NPCs. NPCs are fodder for the PCs, and if you start getting attached to them, you start treating them like children, not snacks. Players can get attached to NPCs, and often do, but as a GM, I can't afford to.

-clash

Both from my current GURPS Space game:

Mid-Level-Under-Officer Koffman: military attaché (read: spy) of the neighboring and mysterious Batavian Empire, who attempted to recruit the ex-diplomat PC, and, failing at that, became a drinking buddy. I get to carry on in an outrageous German accent, full of malapropisms and odd sayings.

Ogilvy Carter: gray-haired fiftysomething woman; former army supply sergeant, then gray marketer, now general-store owner; attempting to turn Startown into a recognized legal municipality with her as mayor. I invented her when the PCs shot a non-lethally-threatening thug in the back in the first session -- she showed up when they got back from their mission and scolded them for being overly violent ("you can't just go around shooting people, you know"). Now regularly acts sort of motherly to the smuggler character because she knows it gets on his nerves.

I really don't think that's accurate, though. I have NPCs that I really enjoy having in the games. You might even say they're my favorite NPCs... but they don't get preferential treatment. Some of my NPCs are quite powerful, but the massive bulk of them are mearly competant or quite weak.

One of my favorite NPCs was really more of a DMPC in an online Serial Experiments Lain PbP named Okihiro Hiro. He was just this kind of sickly computer geek who'd accidently pissed off the resident super-hacker order. His defining characteristic was a love of information for its own sake, and a love of playing games/wordplay.

He's been back by popular demand in just about every game I've ever run since late 2000, often just as a cameo, but occasionally has a minor contact for PCs. He's never real hot in a fight, or anything, and his intentions are pretty neutral, so there's no danger of him stealing the PCs spotlight. I just like him, because he's fun and interesting, so now he's statted up in a whole lot of systems. ^_^;

But if the PCs tried to kill him, he'd very likely just die.

Trevor, Demon Duke of War - style, sense of humour and out of the PCs' ability to kill (-4 Flaw - any smaller than a duke of Hell and they could simply remove him...) - periodically turns up, sits down and offers popcorn when an interesting fight is in the offing.

The Faerie Lord Pessimism - Eveyone seems to like Pessimism - possibly because he makes them realise how much worse everything could be

Father Samuel - actually a demon, smauel spends his time pretending to be a member of the clergy.  The limit to his observed magical abilities is to make crucifixes glow, heat up or burst into flame (at his unspoken command)...

for my own amusement

Sir Rufus de Martin - Rides a chestnut destrier, wields a great sword and has the arms of a red horse, rampant, on a field of white...  As the Rider of the Red Horse he has an obscene Divine Might and ushers in the apocalypse.

V.