So, two weeks ago… wait, that’s not right. It was last week. But it was two articles ago. And that was only four days ago. Not last week. Wow. When my update schedule is off, it really f&%$s with my perception of time. Gotta fix that next month.

Anyway…

Recently — and isn’t that just a vague, temporal cop-out — recently, I told y’all that I start my game sessions with a long, boring, tedious script that’s part recap and part guided visualization exercise. Remember? No? Then go back and read it again. It’s f$&%ing important.

And to answer the question literally everyone — by which I mean two or more of you — to answer the question literally everyone keeps asking me: ten-ish minutes. Fifteen-ish tops.

And I told you that part of that script involves forcing my players to basically recap their characters. Which I called Reintroducing the Character. But because players are inconsistent as f$&% and can’t be trusted to get anything right, I came up with a script for them to follow. One that ensures they’ll hit all the important s$&% — important for both gameplay and story purposes — and one that keeps the extraneous fanfic purple prose or thoughts-and-feelings internal monologue bulls$&% to a minimum of none.

And, with a few modifications, that script also helps you — the GM — introduce NPCs quickly and effectively.

And I promised I’d share that script. So that’s what I’m doing.

Wow! I nailed that intro, huh? As long I’m smart enough to stop typing right now, anyway. So, cue the header…

Introducing: Your Character

Let’s talk about character introductions. When a player’s character steps on-screen for the first time — whether because the campaign is just starting or because they joined a campaign already in progress or because they couldn’t keep their previous character alive and they’re bringing in a replacement — when a PC appears on-screen for the first time, it’s the player’s job to introduce that character to the rest of the group. And to the GM.

And because roleplaying means sharing details through play and making choices based solely on what your character perceives and because there are no telepaths in the party unless you allow psionics — and you don’t ever allow psionics — because roleplaying is about organic character development through play, introducing a character means telling everyone at the table what their characters see when they look at your character. And nothing else.

I start my campaigns by dragging each PC into the action — one at a time — and forcing that character’s player to describe the being that just entered from stage right. It goes something like this:

… as the serving girl gets Alia settled at her table, the door opens, and… Bob? Tell us who we all see framed in that doorway…

And not only do I make the players introduce their characters at the start of the campaign, I make them reintroduce their characters at the start of every single session. Which I explained two articles ago.

The problem is that players suck. They suck at everything that isn’t eating your snacks and ruining your game. Which means they suck at introducing their characters. But, really, if players could spout out clear, evocative, descriptive narration, they’d be GMs.

So, when you ask a player to introduce their character, what you’re going to get is a crapshoot. And it’ll range from this…

So… I’m a dwarf… uh… four-feet-two… and… uh… 185 pounds… and I have eyes… and a beard… hair too… and an axe… and… uh… my skin… is… uh… I just noticed I have a shield… so you probably see that… two eyes… I have two eyes…

To this…

Framed in the doorway, your eyes light on a figure of indistinct age and blessed with the lithe grace and timeless beauty of the fey. The elf stands haughty and proud, sniffing with disdain as he glances around this human drinking establishment. His bright, violet eyes shine like amethysts catching silvery moonlight. He wears a pale, lilac shirt of gossamer, elven silk beneath a doublet of deep indigo the color of a moonless, starlit sky. His loose-fitting breeches are tucked into high and supple doe-skin boots. You can almost hear his thoughts as he glances around. ‘Never,’ he seems to think, ‘have I been reminded so sharply of what I left behind than here and now in this backwater village inn surrounded by mud-covered, dung-booted peasants whose short mortal lives I can practically feel ebbing from them with every passing second for they are… HEY! STOP! ANGRY, GET YOUR HANDS OFF… WHAT ARE YOU DOING… I CAN’T… BREATHE… GURGLE… GLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

Now, I never used to give a s$&% about this stuff. Character introductions were a great time for me to catch a quick nap. But I recently realized that character introductions — and periodic reintroductions — are actually really f$&%ing important. So, I needed a way to get my players to do it right. Somewhere between “let me read my character sheet at you” and “and now I give you my sixteen-verse epic Ode to a Wayward Immortal Spirit in the Kingdom of the Dying.”

Somewhere way closer to the sheet-reading end of the spectrum.

Why Bother with This Introduction Bulls$&%

Turns out, lots of GMs don’t bother with this character introduction crap. I’ve played at lots of tables where everyone just starts playing. And I’ve played at lots of tables where everyone does introduce and describe their characters and where everyone — GM included — zones the f$&% out and ignores it.

You know what, though? Those tables are doing it right. Because character introductions are valuable and important even if no one listens. And that’s because it ain’t the listening that’s important, it’s the describing.

More Than Just Scene Setting

RPGs are narrative, verbal, descriptive games of pure imagination. Want to play an RPG? Then you’ve got to be able to imagine the world in your head. The same world everyone else is imagining, more or less. And that s$%& starts with good, descriptive narration. That’s how the world gets into your head.

The characters are part of the world. So how can I say that it’s not important for everyone to pay attention to everyone else’s character introduction? Obviously, I’m engaging in some standard, rhetorical bulls$&% to help me transition between points while delivering engaging content. But I’m not actually lying.

Yes, it is better if everyone listens to every one else’s character introductions. But there’s a bunch of other important s$&% that happens in the brain of the player delivering the introduction. More important s$&%. And it’s got nothing to do with making sure everyone else can imagine his character as anything but a blurry, person-shaped blob between them and a marauding band of killer orcs.

If introducing your character was about putting an accurate image of them in your fellow players’ heads, I’d tell you to draw a picture of your character or find one on the Internet or use the Hero Forge character creator to create a perfect miniature representation. And I would call this s$&% describing your character instead of introducing your character.

To be clear, I am not only not telling you to use visual aids to introduce your character, but I am also expressly forbidding you from doing so.

I need you to introduce your character. In words. Why?

It Helps You Visualize

Visualization means building a thing in your imaginespace. Creating an imaginary simulacrum that you can almost see — almost perceive — in your own head. You know that thing your therapist does where she tells you to close your eyes and picture yourself in a relaxing place as if you could relax knowing this little session of let’s pretend is costing you 200 bucks? That’s visualization. And it’s hard.

And the older you get, the harder it is.

Moreover, we live in an age of constant sensory stimulation. Overstimulation. We never, ever want to be bored or unstimulated. That s$&% actually atrophies your imagination. I s$&% you not. The more time you fill with YouTube videos and the more silence you fill with podcasts you barely listen to, the crappier your imagination gets. And the crappier your attention span gets too. So cut it the f$&% out.

Describing something triggers visualization. Yeah, I know that seems backward. I know it seems like visualization comes before description, but that’s not how it works. Visualization and description kind of loop into each other. Start describing and you’ll trigger visualization. Visualize something and you can describe it better. Describe it more and the visualization gets clearer. Describing s$&% helps you visualize which helps you describe which helps you visualize and round and round they go.

Players need visualization skills as much as GMs do, but they don’t get to practice them as often. Introducing and reintroducing characters — descriptively — is the equivalent of running visualization drills.

It Helps You Parse Narration

This ain’t really a separate point, but it deserves mentioning separately. Players often have trouble parsing verbal narration. Imagining the world based on verbal descriptions. They often miss key details and force GMs to repeat s$&%. That’s part of visualization too. So making your players reintroduce their characters also trains them to process your narration better.

It Helps You Remember

Players are always forgetting s$&% about their characters. And everyone else’s too. S$&% like what armor they’re wearing, what race they are, what they’re attacking with, and the fact that they’re missing an arm and therefore can’t attack with a greatsword, especially given they’re a halfling and the greatsword is sized for humans.

The best way to remember something is to repeat it. Over and over. Repeating s$&% is the best way to commit it to memory. When your brain hears words, it immediately scrounges through the different storage boxes in its memory warehouse for the stuff connected to those words. And every time the brain does that, the connections between the words and the stuff and between the stuff and the other, related stuff, all those connections get stronger. That’s why repeating something is a great way to remember it.

Introducing and reintroducing your character loads it into your active, working memory and strengthens the mental bonds between all the disparate ideas that make up your character.

Actually, I lied. The best to remember something is to connect words and ideas to sensory impressions. That’s why certain smells bring floods of memories and emotions. So, when you describe and visualize a thing — because your brain is dumb and can’t tell the difference between visualization and actual sensory input — you’re connecting all the ideas and memories you have with your character with sensory impressions.

Scientifically speaking, you absolutely must force your players to reintroduce their characters periodically if you want them to be any good at imagining or remembering their characters.

It Helps You Roleplay

All that s$&% above about visualizing and building connections between sensory impressions, memories, and ideas? It all means that introducing — and reintroducing — your character makes you a better roleplayer. And here, I’m not using roleplaying to mean talking in character. I never use roleplaying to mean acting and you should f%&$ing know that.

Roleplaying’s about adopting your character’s mindset and then making the choices you would make if you were that character. Which isn’t the same as trying to be your character. But that’s another story. One I’ve told before.

The more interconnected all the s$&% to do with your character is in your brain — the stronger the web of neurons tying all your character s$&% together — and the more quickly and easily you’re able to remember it all, the more effective a roleplayer you’ll be.

Every time you reintroduce your character, the character becomes more solid in your brain. More real. Easier to imagine. Easier to see. And easier to be.

Of course, all this s$&% takes time.

Does It Work if You Read a Script

So, let’s say I’ve actually convinced you. Which I should have. Because I made a really solid f$%&ing case there. You’re ready to make your players introduce — and periodically reintroduce — their characters. But you and I both know your players are just going to write out an introduction and read it aloud. Especially if you hand them a Mad Libs script like I’m about to suggest. Does that really get the mental job done that I’ve described?

Yes.

It’s true that all this s$&% works better if you’re inventing the words you’re speaking as you speak them. That engages the important brain bits more than reading a pre-written fill-in-the-blanks description. But reading a description prepared in advance from a script does fire up the important brain parts. Just not as well. Over time, the practice still adds up.

The truth is that lots of players — lots of people, really — struggle to speak extemporaneously. That s$&% ain’t easy. If you make your players introduce their characters without referring to a pre-written script, first, you’re going to get some real crap descriptions. And second, the stress you put on the player will prevent all the visualization and memory-formation and all the other crap I said.

So you let them read out loud. The benefits ain’t as beneficial, but over time, they add up. Moreover, as players read their scripts week after week after week, they start to remember them. Which means they refer to them less. This means they start relying on their brain bits to recall the introduction. And they eventually do start to get better at speaking off the cuff.

Gamers love the perfect solution fallacy. It’s a mental trap that basically goes like this: “if something isn’t the optimal, perfect, best, ideal approach, then it’s no better than the worst approach.” Written out that way, it’s pretty clearly a stupid way of thinking. But if you’re a gamer, you’re still gonna do it.

Solutions have to be practical. If you can’t implement a solution with real, irrational, imperfect people in the real, imperfect, chaotic world, then the solution ain’t actually worth a damn.

The Good Introduction Formula

Below, I’m going to hand you a script — or, at least, a list of bullet points — for good-enough, practical character introductions. But, since you’re a GM and not a player, you probably want to know what actually makes the script a good introduction. So, let me explain.

First, the point of a character introduction — and all the s$&% I’m about to say also goes for non-player characters — the point of a character introduction isn’t to describe, it’s to evoke. When you describe a character, you ain’t trying to get a wanted poster from a police sketch artist. You’re trying to conjure an image of the character in the imaginations of those sharing your table. A good enough image.

The problem is your imagination isn’t good at handling lots of data and detail. But it is good at taking a handful of small details and building complex imagery around them. Saying someone has a hawk nose or a severe hairstyle conjures much stronger images than saying someone has a curved nose or that their hair is done up in a bun. And that’s the difference between evocation and description. Evocation’s more about emotions, impressions, associations, and fireball spells whereas description’s about lists of facts.

A good, evocative description is brief. It’s qualitative. It presents information relative to common experiences. It provides context. And it follows the natural progression of human perception.

What does that s$&% mean?

First, a good description is brief and qualitative. It covers the broad strokes and lets the audience’s imaginations fill in the details. But it provides the necessary impressions to get the details right. Or right enough. I can describe someone’s loose, red linen pants and billowing green shirt and laced purple doublet or I can say they’re “dressed in the eye-catching motley of a traveling entertainer.”

Second, a good description encapsulates common experiences. Your audience’s perceptions and experiences shape what they imagine. The farther something falls outside your audience’s experiences, the more you have to describe it just to evoke it. In D&D, everything’s got to be described relative to humans. Humans are the norm. The average. And if something isn’t human, it’s going to be compared to humans. Describing a dwarf as short is ambiguous. Am I saying they’re shorter than a human or that they’re short compared to other dwarves? The right way to make it clear is to say, “Glimbeck is just a little over four feet tall, which makes him an average dwarf.”

Good descriptions also provide context for the details they present. And when a descriptive element has some kind of important significance that a reasonable and reasonably intuitive human native of the D&D world could guess, the describer explains that s$&%.

Why must D&D descriptions assume humans are the norm? It’s not because humans are the most populous, most numerous, most popular, and most best of all the D&D races — even though they are — but rather because your actual f$&%ing players are actual f$&%ing humans.

Which leads me to that human perception thing. When humans meet other humans — or, hypothetically, human-like beings — they tend to notice things in a specific order. Most of its to do with evolution and survival and s$&%. First, humans note the overall size and shape of a person. Then, they try to recognize familiar features. Especially faces. Then, they take in anything that represents a threat. Then, they try to assess the human’s standing, role, or status. Then, they notice the smaller details. Good descriptions present information in that order because that pattern makes sense to human brains.

But, as I said, you don’t have to understand or remember any of this s$&% because I turned it all into a set of prompts. Key points. A script, if you will.

Angry’s Amazing Avatar Description Transcription Script

Given that character introductions are majorly important and given that players are only consistent in their inconsistency and given everything I said about what makes a good introduction and given…

You know what? F$&% it. I’m a sexy gaming genius and I wrote a simple set of prompts any player — or GM — can use to craft a character introduction. You’re welcome.

There are two ways to use this thing. Two ways for your players to use it. Because you should make them use it. First, they can use the prompts to introduce their character off the cuff. Basically, they can improvise their way through each point. Or, second, they can write an introduction in advance from the script and read it aloud at your game sessions. Either way is fine.

Note, though, that whenever a character’s details change — say, they acquire new armor or weapons or change clothing or lose limbs — the player should update their character’s introduction. The introduction must be kept current.

The script presents five Key Elements. And each requires one or two sentences at most. Maybe three for a non-human. And it’s your job to enforce that s$&%. And to recognize when your players are using run-on sentences and complex clause formations to get around the sentence limit. Because some of them will. The f$&%ing thespians definitely will.

Note also that each of the five Key Elements contains only one truly important detail. That’ll make more sense when I provide examples. But, basically, of the several different things that fill out the Arms, Armor, and Clothing Element, only one — or maybe two — details deserve descriptive adjectives. And when I say that I mean they deserve one each.

If you say your plate armor is “well maintained and polished to a mirror shine,” you probably don’t need to specify the clothes underneath are also clean and your hair is well-coifed and all that s$&%. Your character’s anal-retentive fastidiousness had been established. Move on.

The point is, in addition to keeping your players from presenting too many sentences, also keep them from expanding on too many different aspects of any one Key Element.

But enough prologue. Let’s get transcribing.

The First Element: Gross Physical Features

First, describe the character’s gender, race, build, ethnicity or features, and apparent age. If the character’s a human, use qualitative descriptors instead of numbers. If the character’s not human, provide numbers for context and qualitative descriptors.

Alain is a tall, broad-shoulder human male barely out of his teens. He has the fair skin and sandy hair of a Sunderlander and a well-kempt growth of beard.

Beryllia is an elf. She’s a head shorter than a human, lithe, and graceful. It’s impossible to judge her age. She has long, straight bronze hair and alabaster skin.

The Second Element: Arms, Armor, and Clothing

Next, describe the character’s weapons, armor, and clothing. Describe every visible weapon and note where it is stowed or carried. Describe the armor your character’s wearing. And then, if your character isn’t so heavily armored as to hide most of their clothing, describe the quality and kind of clothing they’re wearing.

As a note to you GMs out there: if a player can’t tell you how they’re carrying every weapon on their character sheet and you can’t help them figure it out, they’re over their encumbrance limit. No math needed. You can’t carry what you can’t imagine carrying clearly.

Alain wears a battered steel breastplate over mail and has a longsword in a scabbard on his hip. A quiver of arrows and a recurved horn bow hang on his shoulder. Over his heavy pack, he wears a patched and faded traveler’s cloak.

Beryllia is decked in elegant noble’s attire. Her long skirt, blouse, and bodice are of rich autumn hues. She holds a gnarled quarterstaff in one hand and has a dagger tucked into her sash-like belt.

The Third Element: Symbols and Decorations and their Meaning or Context

Next, describe any meaningful symbols your character’s wearing or displaying. Holy symbols, signet rings, pendants, charms, s$&% painted on shields, badges of office, marks of rank, and so on. Anything that means anything about the character’s place in the world.

If the meaning of the said symbol should be common knowledge — say, for instance, the holy symbol of any commonly worshipped god — then you should provide that meaning.

If the exact meaning wouldn’t be common knowledge, but a reasonable and reasonably intuitive human native of the world would be able to at least guess the significance of the symbol, then you should provide that context.

A note to you GMs: it’s your job to tell your players what’s common knowledge and what’s intuitive. So pay attention to that.

Alain’s shield is painted with three interlocked, golden rings, which is a symbol of the church of the Vasaar that represents the King and His Knights.

While Beryllia wears lots of jewelry, the plain silver-blue ring she wears stands out. It’s marked with a single runic symbol and it’s clearly a signet ring, but what family, order, or group connection it represents isn’t known to you.

The Fourth Element: Unique Feature or Personality Signifier

Now, pick one noticeably unique feature that makes your character stand out. Anything will do: a striking hair or eye color or style or appearance, a piece of jewelry or equipment, a clothing element, whatever. It doesn’t even have to be a thing. Or a feature. Gestures, mannerisms, and stances that indicate something about your character’s personality work too. Provided it’s something your character is always doing. A rigid posture, for instance, or constant nervous glances about.

This isn’t permission for you to wax poetical about your character’s personality. You only get to describe the feature itself. Not what it means. Let your tablemates guess. If they guess wrong, that’ll make for an interesting scene later.

Alain has a rigid, soldier’s posture and never seems to relax.

Now, if the unique feature you’ve picked fits in best with one of the other Key Elements in this script, mention it there rather than waiting until the end. For example, Beryllia’s eyes are distinct. So Beryllia’s player should mention them alongside her other gross, physical features.

Beryllia is an elf. She’s a head shorter than a human, lithe, and graceful. It’s impossible to judge her age. She has long, straight bronze hair and alabaster skin. Beryllia’s eyes are striking: vibrant purple, they sparkle like gemstones.

The Fifth Element (Reintroductions Only): Recently Revealed Fun Fact

If you’re introducing your character for the first time, you’re done. Good job. Take a cookie and sit down. But if your GM’s smart enough to do what I say and you’re being forced to reintroduce your character at the start of every play session, then end your reintroduction by reminding your tablemates of a Recently Revealed Fun Fact about your character.

By recent, I mean something that came out during the last session of play. By revealed, I mean something that actually happened during gameplay. Interesting backstory elements you wish people would ask about don’t count. And by remind, I mean literally just remind everyone that the fact was revealed. Do not give a speech about whatever it is.

As for what counts as a fun fact? Anything will do. Maybe the party learned you’re a wizard. Or that you’ve got a certain combat ability. Or that you’re from the City of Padma. Or that you know how to pick locks. Or that you prefer mead to ale. Anything will do. The important thing is that it actually came up in the game and that you think it’s noteworthy.

During your first battle as allies, Alain interposed his shield to protect Beryllia from an orc’s attack. He can protect you if you stay close to him.

At camp, Beryllia revealed that she’s the daughter of a high elf lord named Vallianthe who rules an enclave deep in the Mearan Forest.

And That’s a Wrap

There it is: Angry’s Amazing Avatar Description Transcription Script. Just string the pieces together into a paragraph and you’ve got a character introduction that doesn’t totally suck. It’s as simple as that.

Unless you’re a GM…

Angry’s Amazing NPC Description Transcription Script

Let’s be honest: if you’re reading this, you probably ain’t a player. I wrote the Amazing Description Transcription Script above as if I was talking to a player so you could cut and paste it and hand it to your merry band of hopeless goobers, but I know only GMs are still reading.

So, mister or miss GM, what can you do with this s$&%? Apart from forcing it on your players that is? Well, you can use it to quickly and easily introduce any NPC ever. Seriously. The format’s a perfect way to introduce any character in any game. Extemporaneously or written-in-advance-in-a-text-box.

You just have to make a few tweaks.

When to Introduce an NPC

First, it’s like this: you should properly introduce any NPC the players are about to actually interact with. Or that you’re giving the players an opportunity to actually interact with. If they’re just shopping and the NPC’s just background, they don’t need an introduction. They’re a prop, not a person.

Second, you should reintroduce an NPC the first time the players interact with it in a given session. But each time they return to that NPC for more interaction in the same session, don’t reintroduce the NPC.

Say the players meet Otto VonDunderbar, Brewer Extraordinaire for the first time. Introduce Otto. They go gather some rare ingredients for Otto and return to Otto in the same session. Don’t reintroduce Otto. Two sessions later, the players need a revel catered, so they visit Otto. Reintroduce Otto. They do a quest for Otto, but it takes two sessions to complete. When they return to Otto, two sessions later, reintroduce Otto.

By the way, when you don’t reintroduce an NPC but they reappear on camera for a second time, there’s a cool trick I like to use called the ShortDesc. And it’s also a trick I use in all my narration. Even when addressing player-characters. I should tell you about it sometime. It’s cool.

Why’s this when to reintroduce s$&% important? Because of…

The (Cumulative) One Sentence Per Introduction Rule

You absolutely cannot provide a full, player-character-length introduction for every NPC in your entire world. Ten to fifteen sentences of narration for every background extra the PCs swap words with is way too f$&%ing much.

Hence The (Cumulative) One Sentence Per Introduction Rule. The first time you introduce an NPC, you’ve got to cram their entire description into one normal-length sentence. When you next reintroduce the character, you can use two. If you reintroduce the NPC again at some future session, you get three sentences. See how this works?

But even if the NPC’s been reintroduced a dozen times, you should max this s$&% out at five sentences or so.

By the way, if it ain’t clear from my examples, you don’t actually have to count sentences. Just eyeball it.

Also by the way, if an NPC actually joins the party for one or more entire sessions, they should be reintroduced at each session as a PC. But the minute they leave the party, they’re back down to five sentences.

Even though you’ve got as few as one sentences to work with, that doesn’t mean you can leave anything out. You need to provide a complete, evocative description of every NPC the players interact with. How can you do that if you’ve only got one or two sentences to play with?

Accentuate the Important

First, figure out which Key Elements of the normal script — and which components of those elements — are the most important defining Elements for the specific NPC you’re introducing.

Race, ethnicity or appearance, gender, and age? They always matter. Almost always. And unique features are almost always useful. Provided you don’t overdo them. As for the rest…

The NPC’s role in the game determines what bits of their description are most important. If the NPC is a noble or a priest or a guildsman, symbols and decorations are important. If the NPC’s someone the party is going to fight or might fight or who is ready to fight if they have to — like a soldier or a thug — then equipment’s important. For normal people, clothing’s enough.

Use Words with High Encumbrance Limits

Remember what I said about focusing on qualitative features and impressions instead of specific details? That’s even more important when you’ve got such a limited word count. When you describe someone as a soldier or a guard, you’ve actually provided a pretty evocative description. Particularly if you add an adjective. Bored guards, alert guards, lazy guards, elderly guards, suspicious guards, and sneering guards are all very different. And your brain is already conjuring a different image for each. And that’s thanks to two words.

The Action Loophole

There is a sort of cheat code that’ll get you around The One (Cumulative) Sentence Per Introduction Rule: actions aren’t introductions. If you bounce between introduction and action and back again, you can sneak some extra introduction into the game while also making the character more dynamic.

Let me illustrate this s$&% with an example.

An Example to Illustrate this S$%&

I’m going to end this whole thing by showing you how the GM script fits together. And how a character’s description evolves with repeat appearances.

Suppose the PCs visit The Buxom Baroness in Frostwind to rent some cheap rooms for the night. In his first appearance, I’d introduce the landlord thusly:

The landlord is a barrel-chested thug of a man with a limp and an iron-shod cudgel hanging at his hip.

If I wanted to activate the Interwoven Action Cheat Code, I’d do this instead:

A barrel-chested thug of a man limps over to greet you. Despite his age, he’s strong and well-built and clearly comfortable wearing the iron-shod cudgel at his hip. ‘Name’s Cudge,’ he half-growls, wiping his hands on his permanently grease-and-gore-stained apron. ”s my inn. What do you need?’

Now, suppose two sessions have gone by and the party’s returning to their rooms at the Buxom Baroness after an adventure in the wild.

When you enter the common room, you see Cudge, the landlord, filling tankards from a keg for a rowdy crowd. He’s a tall, powerfully-built man well into his middle years and healthy despite his permanent, painful limp. His build, watchful eyes, and iron-shod cudgel tell you he’s no one to mess with.

Now, suppose the party accidentally burns the Buxom Baroness down. The PCs promise Cudge they’ll gather the money to rebuild the place, but Cudge refuses to leave them alone until he’s got the money in hand. So, the party’s got a new member: a limping street-tough turned landlord. And since he’s a full-on party member, he gets a full-on introduction every session until his inn’s been rebuilt.

Tall and well-built, Cudge is a human man in his late forties. He has dark, brown eyes and a fringe of black hair around his bald scalp. He’s stuffed himself into a boiled leather cuirass and he wears stained and faded woolen traveling clothes and old boots. He has an iron-shod club hanging at one hip and a crossbow and a case of bolts hung at the other. A copper coin of the realm with a hole punched through it hangs from a leather strip around his neck. Some kind of keepsake or sentimental token. Cudge walks with a permanent limp, favoring his left leg and sometimes wincing painfully when he steps wrong. Last session, you learned his leg healed badly after being broken many years ago by guards at Blackrazor Prison to stop his repeated escape attempts.

Of course, the minute Cudge is back to filling tankards and changing sheets, he loses all those beautiful sentences. Such is the life of an extra in a hero’s story.