How to keep track of NPCs
It is session twelve and the party wants to go back to the fishmonger who warned them about the lighthouse. You made him up on the spot in session three. You do not remember his name. Here is a small, honest system so that stops happening, without turning your prep into a wiki.
Every DM has a “Bob.” The shopkeeper whose name you panicked and made up, who the party then fell in love with. A thread on EN World about the improvise-a-name problem is full of DMs confessing to exactly this. The answer is not more notes. It is the right few notes, in one place, kept at the right time.
Why do NPC notes fall apart?
Usually for one of three reasons:
- Everything gets the same treatment. The barkeep and the villain get the same blank page, so you either overwrite every walk-on or underwrite the people who matter.
- You try to write during the session. Your attention belongs to the table. Notes taken mid-scene are either too thin or they slow the game down.
- The notes are scattered. Some in a notebook, some in a doc, some in a VTT journal, a few on the back of a character sheet. When the party asks, you cannot find the right one fast enough.
Tier your NPCs
Not every NPC needs a card. Split them into three tiers and give each tier only the notes it earns.
- Tier 1: the ones who shape the campaign. Your BBEG, faction leaders, patrons, and the rival who keeps coming back. Usually three to six people. Full card, plus a secret or two.
- Tier 2: the recurring cast. Anyone the party has met more than once or seems to care about. Short card, five fields.
- Tier 3: walk-ons. The guard at the gate, the ferry captain. One line in your session notes is enough.
The players decide who moves up. If they keep going back to the fishmonger, he is Tier 2 now, and he gets a card after the session.
The five fields worth keeping for every NPC
RolePlayingTips has a longer NPC tracker if you want more structure. We find that five fields cover almost everything we actually look up mid-game:
- Name, and how to say it. Spell it the way it sounds. Players will remember “Oss-rick” long after they forget how you spelled Osric.
- What they want. One line. An NPC with a want can react to anything the party does, which is most of what improvising an NPC is.
- Attitude to the party. Friendly, wary, hostile, or something more specific (“likes the cleric, cannot stand the bard”). This is the field that changes most.
- What they know. The rumors, secrets and clues they could hand over if asked the right way.
- Last seen, and favors and debts. Where the party left them, in which session, and who owes whom. Debts are the best plot hooks you never have to invent.
A copyable NPC card template
NPC CARD Name: Say it: Tier: 1 / 2 / 3 One line (who they are at a glance): Faction: What they want: Attitude to the party: What they know (secrets and clues): - - Voice or quirk (one line you can play): Last seen (session, place): Favors and debts: Changed this session:
Here is one filled in, for an NPC we made up for a harbor town called Brackwater:
Name: Hesper Quill Say it: HESS-per Tier: 2 One line: Brackwater's harbor master, counts every crate twice Faction: The Tidewardens (the dockworkers' guild) What they want: The lighthouse lit again before the storm season Attitude to the party: Wary, warming to the ranger What they know: - The lighthouse keeper did not drown; he left on a ship at night - The Salt Crown pays her to look away from one berth Voice or quirk: Answers questions with shipping numbers Last seen: Session 6, the customs house Favors and debts: The party owes her for hiding the stolen skiff Changed this session: Now knows the party lied about the skiff
Update your NPC tracker after the session, not during
One DM in a D&D Beyond thread on what taking notes looks like admitted to writing about fourteen words over three hours of play. That is fine. During the session, a dump page is all you need: a new name, one line about what changed. “Hesper: knows about skiff.” That is the note.
After the session, spend ten minutes moving those lines onto cards. Update attitude, last seen, and favors and debts. Promote anyone who earned it. Our guide to DM session notes in ten minutes walks through that whole after-session pass, and NPC updates are the biggest part of it.
Keep a name list and cross names off
The simplest fix for the improvised-name panic is a list you made before the session. Twenty names per culture or region is plenty. When you use one, cross it off and write who it went to. Now the name is already on a list you will look at later, and you do not accidentally give two NPCs the same one.
A trick we like: group names by where they come from. Brackwater names are short and hard (Quill, Tarn, Dace). The hill towns are long and soft (Aveline, Morrowen). Players start to hear where an NPC is from before you tell them.
Tie NPCs to three to five factions
Loose NPCs are hard to remember. NPCs who belong to something are easy. Sly Flourish suggests in his notes on lazy world building that three to five factions, each with a leader and a symbol, give a campaign plenty of structure. We add one line to each: what the faction wants right now.
- The Tidewardens. Dockworkers’ guild. Leader: Hesper Quill’s cousin, Aldo. Symbol: a knotted rope. Want: control of the new berths.
- The Salt Crown. Smugglers who look like merchants. Leader: unknown to the party. Symbol: a crown stamped in wax. Want: the lighthouse dark.
- The Lamplighters. An old order that kept the light. Leader: nobody, since the keeper vanished. Symbol: a lantern. Want: the truth about their keeper.
Now when the party meets a new dockhand, you already know which way they lean, and who they will report to.
NPCs are where your secrets and clues live
The “what they know” field is the most useful one on the card. In his eight steps of prep, Sly Flourish lists secrets and clues as their own step: short facts the party might discover, not tied to any one scene. NPCs are the natural carriers. If the party skips the customs house, Hesper’s cousin at the tavern can know the same thing.
That is The Alexandrian’s Three Clue Rule in practice: any conclusion you need the party to reach should have at least three ways in. Spread a clue across two NPCs and a place, and it stops mattering which door the party picks. You are preparing situations, not a path.
See the web, not just the list
Cards in a list answer “who is this?” A board with lines between the cards answers “who knows whom, and who is lying to whom?” Try it below: this is a miniature of Inkling’s Storyboard. Drag the cards and add your own (a Character card for Hesper, a Place card for the customs house, a Note for the Salt Crown) to see how quickly a harbor town takes shape.
Brackwater’s harbor, every crate counted
harbor master, wary of the party
smugglers; pay Hesper to look away
the keeper left on a ship at night
three ways to find it
leads the Tidewardens
If your NPCs need somewhere to live, our guide to making a town map in 20 minutes gives you a harbor, a customs house and a lighthouse to hang them on, and a one-page player primer is where the friendly ones get introduced.
How Inkling fits
Inkling was built for novelists, but a cast of NPCs is a cast. Each character card works as an NPC card: a name, a one-line pitch, what they want and why, and a notes field for voice, quirks and relationships. For your Tier 1 villain, the deeper fields (the wound, deepest fear, the lie they believe) are there too. Your cast is searchable, so “who was the harbor master?” is a few letters away, and it persists across projects if the same NPCs turn up in your next campaign.
On the Storyboard you can lay out character cards, place cards and note cards for your factions, and draw threads between them: who owes whom, who is hiding what. If you have made a map in the map maker, drop it onto the board as a map card so the cast sits next to the town.
What Inkling is not: it is not a VTT, and it has no stat blocks, initiative tracker, dice or battle maps. Keep your monsters and combat in your VTT or on paper, and keep the people of your world here.
Inkling is an independent writing app. Dungeons & Dragons and D&D are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC. Inkling is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Wizards of the Coast.
A few questions, answered
How do DMs keep track of NPCs?
Sort them into tiers so only the important ones get full notes, keep a short card for each named NPC with the same few fields, and update the cards after each session rather than during it. A pre-made name list saves you when you need a name on the spot.
What should an NPC tracker include?
Five fields cover most of it: the name and how to say it, what they want, their attitude to the party, what they know, and when they were last seen along with any favors or debts. Add a faction and a line about their voice if you have room.
How many NPCs should a D&D campaign have?
Fewer than you think at the start. A starting town with three well-drawn NPCs, a villain or two, and three to five factions will carry a campaign a long way. Let the players tell you who matters by who they keep going back to.
How do I remember NPC names I made up during a session?
Write each one on a dump page the moment you say it, even as a single word, and move it onto a card after the session. Keep a list of prepared names by culture or region and cross each one off as you use it.
Should I take NPC notes during the session or after?
Mostly after. During play, write only the name and one line about what changed. Ten minutes after the session is enough to update the cards while you still remember the details.
All of it. In one place.
This isn't five apps stitched together. Your storyboard, your cast, your maps, your covers, and the story itself all live on one desk, right beside the words. Nothing to sync between tools. No five separate subscriptions. Just everything a writer needs, finally in the same place.