Difference between revisions of "Help:NPC Blueprint"

Revision as of 15:48, 14 May 2017

To maintain wiki consistency, all NPC pages for all games should follow this blueprint. If you see an NPC page not following this blueprint, please update it. When this blueprint is updated, please update the respective example pages first, and then all other NPC pages.

Structure

1. Breadcrumb to Game:NPCs
2. Template:NPC
3. NPC Description
4. If NPC Location varies or is unclear: Location header.
5. For non-hostile NPCs: Personality header
6. One or more Custom Headers if the NPC has extra information.
7. If the NPC participates in at least one quest: Quests header.
8. Information about items:
   • For non-hostile NPCs: Pickpocketed Items header.
   • For hostile NPCs: Loot header.
9. If the NPC is a vendor: Inventory header
10. If there are notes about the NPC: Notes header
11. Category Game-NPCs.

Examples

• Help:NPC Blueprint/Citizen: A normal citizen who might not have that much content associated with them.
• Help:NPC Blueprint/Vendor: A vendor.
• Help:NPC Blueprint/Important: An NPC that is very important to a main quest, and as such, has a lot of content associated with them.
• Help:NPC Blueprint/Hostile: A hostile NPC, an enemy.

Wording

If the NPC died before the player could encounter them, the article should use the past tense. Otherwise, it should use the present tense. In NPC pages, always refer to the player character in third person, as if they were just another character in the game. That means using "The Prophet" or "The Shadowgod" instead of "you".

Structural Details

NPC Description

This should be the text at the top of the page, not inside any header. It should give a brief overview of the NPC, always starting with "NPC Name is/was..." (note the bold).

Location Header

If the NPC's location varies or is too complex to fit inside the NPC Template, this header should exist. It should explain the locations where the NPC will appear, in detail.

Personality Header

This Header is used to explain the NPCs personality, in detail. Try to use examples in order to better solidify the truthness of your claims: Instead of just saying "NPC is/was a very charitable person", say "NPC is/was a charitable person, as he once donated almost all his gold in quest X to aid the poor".

Since Hostile NPCs offer little to no dialogue, they require no personality description.

Custom Headers

Very often, NPCs that participate in quests will have a lot of content associated with them. Custom headers can be used to separate that content into proper logical chunks. For example, a king might have a "Leadership" header that specifies what actions he took to lead the country, and a "Marriage" section to specify events that occurred between he and his wife.

Pickpocketed Items / Loot

For neutral NPCs, this contains all items that can be taken from the NPC without killing them, via undetected pickpocketing. If a certain skill is necessary to take an item, or if an item only appears after a certain event, this should be noted too.

For hostile NPCs, this contains all items that may be found on the NPCs' body after they are killed. Very often, these will be random, or contain a "leveled item", in which case that should be noted too ("Leveled Greatsword", "Leveled Health Potion", "Random Alchemical Ingredient").

Inventory

This should be the inventory for a certain vendor. Most vendors' inventories contain random items, leveled items, and items that only appear after a certain event. All of these should be noted, as explained in the Pickpocketed Items / Loot section.

Notes

This section contains complimentary "footnotes" that add superficial information to the NPC, but are not worth having their own section or being inserted into the main text. These are things such as