New to Sly Flourish? Start Here or subscribe to the newsletter.

Steal Character Archetypes from a Single Show

by Mike on 6 January 2025

There are lots of ways to build NPCs in your fantasy RPGs. In Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master I suggest building NPCs by finding an existing character archetype from your favorite source of fiction – books, TV shows, movies, comics, and so on.

Picking characters from existing fiction is a shortcut for filling out NPCs fast with physical traits, mannerisms, attitudes, accents, motivations, and more. Instead of either selecting or rolling randomly for all these traits, you can grab a character from a book, movie, or TV show you like and get all of them at once.

It's easy to get lost in this idea, though. Which characters should you choose? Do you keep a database of a thousand possible characters? That doesn't sound very lazy to me.

So here's an even lazier trick. Keep a set of characters from a single show handy. Pick a show you like – one with interesting enough characters that you have a bunch to pick from. Go to the show's Wikipedia page, IMDB page, or some other site with a list of characters. Print them out or copy them into your prep notes. Look them over when you need a character archetype for an NPC and you're off to the races. You don't need a lot. Seven to twelve should be fine.

I binge-watched the Expanse recently and it has a great set of characters to choose from.

Here's a list of the characters from Expanse, some of which I've already tied to NPCs in my City of Arches campaign. The others are available for me to use later.

Joe Miller – Belter detective on Ceres.
James Holden – Captain of the Rocinante (COA – Garland Willowmane, head of the Archkeepers).
Alex Kamal – Martian pilot of the Rocinante.
Naomi Nagata – Belter engineer of the Rocinante.
Amos Burton – Earther mechanic of the Rocinante.
Chrisjen Avasarala – UN Deputy Undersecretary of Executive Administration (COA – Roselyn Zeche, spymaster of the queen).
Bobbie Draper – Martian Marine Corps gunnery sergeant (COA – Joslyn Halfcloak – Second of the Golden Knights).
Camina Drummer – Tycho Station's Belter head of security, later the leader of the rebel faction opposing the Free Navy.
Fred Lucius Johnson – UNN colonel-turned-leader of the OPA on Tycho Station (COA – Lord Bianca Swifthand, leader of the Golden Knights).
Anderson Dawes – OPA's Ceres liaison (COA – Adel Rosethorn, fence of the Black Hand). – Diogo Harari – Young Belter from Ceres in the OPA.

Other Example Shows

Here's a list of shows with some great characters. Again, you only need a list of characters from one show but this list can give you some ideas for shows to choose.

Add Your Own Ancestries and Genders

Shake up your character archetypes by changing genders, applying different fantasy ancestries, and tailoring the characters to suit the job you need them to do. Given how often we improvise NPCs, you'd be surprised how little you need to change to run one at the table.

Fictional archetypes are a fantastic short-hand for building rich NPCs in just a couple of minutes. Now, with a single show's cast of characters in hand, you're ready to roll.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Last week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Tracking Character Info – Lazy DM Tip and Pit of Unending Thirst – Dragon Empire Prep Session 7.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Keep your prep, your tools, and your game simple. Let it get complicated as the story evolves with your players.
List and refine your most useful tools for prep and play.
Ask for out of game feedback every few games. What do people like? What do they want to see more of?
Trouble sleeping? Put yourself in your game’s world. What do you see? How is the world evolving?
Who are your three main antagonists? What do they want? What three steps are they taking to get there?
Draw mini-maps to show the characters’ progression through a dungeon.
Use a small fishing tackle box to hold minis, tokens, coins, markers, sticky tack, index cards, and other small things you use during your game.

Subscribe to Sly Flourish

Subscribe to the weekly Sly Flourish newsletter and receive a free adventure generator PDF!

Sly Flourish's Books

Share this article by copying this link: https://slyflourish.com/characters_from_tv_shows.html

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

This work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only by including the following statement in the new work:

This work includes material taken from SlyFlourish.com by Michael E. Shea available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.

This site uses affiliate links to Amazon and DriveThruRPG. Thanks for your support!