Drama Pushing Haggling Mechanic for 5e D&D

Source: Pexels, "Public Domain Pictures"

When you haggle with a contact of some kind (merchant, service provider, dragon, etc.) to get a little more out of a deal, roll Charisma (Persuasion) or Charisma (Deception).  Depends on your approach.  Heck, Wisdom (Insight) might even be appropriate.

The DC is fifteen plus the order of magnitude of the sale (number of digits). For instance, a 2,000gp sale is DC 19.  Or if you're not haggling over money, maybe the DC is ten more than the Challenge Rating of the encounter, or ten more than the Charisma (Insight) or (Persuasion) or (Deception) skill of your contact.  Your DM will figure that out.

• If you succeed, you get something extra.  It might be a 10% savings, something else of value, or a piece of valuable information.  Maybe it's a good reputation in town, or extra concessions on a treaty.  It could even be a mysterious magic item, a potion, or a follower.  The DM will usually pick what you get.  If the DM can't figure out something cool, they might ask you to suggest something.  If all else fails, some gold pieces are always appropriate.

• If you fail, but not by more than 5, you still get something extra, but it comes with a hitch.  Maybe dangerous people or monsters are after it.  Maybe to get it, you have to do your contact a favor.  Maybe it's going to take an inconvenient amount of time to get everything in order.  Maybe it winds up drawing unwanted attention.  It could be cursed or haunted.

• If you fail by more than 5, you've opened the door to trouble.  Maybe you get ripped off and think it's a good deal.  Maybe you get sold shoddy goods without realizing it.  Maybe some or all the hitches above happen, but without getting anything extra to sweeten the pot.  Perhaps you've walked right into a trap.  Maybe it's time to roll initiative.

In this situation, if multiple people are involved in the negotiations, don't use the Help mechanic.  Use a Group Check instead.

Encounter Stakes

Too many GMs hammer the party with encounter after encounter of "kill or be killed" life-or-death fights to survive.  There are several reasons why this is a problem.

First, it's toothless:  Either you kill a PC every other session, or else your "kill or be killed" encounters are mostly harmless.  Even if you kill a PC every other session, the death risk in any given encounter is probably one in five or one in ten.  Not insignificant, sure, but hardly dire.

Second, it's tiresome:  If every hostile creature you meet turns out to want to kill you or die trying, it gets dull.  More, "kill or be killed" encounters tend to drag.  After about 2 or 3 rounds, it's clear that the PCs have won, and the monsters are just trying to make their deaths as costly as possible.  Once every now and then, that's interesting.  Every time?  Gets boring.

Third, it leads to murder hobos:  If every encounter eventually ends in grim slaughter, whenever a conflict arises, you're going to go straight to grim slaughter as a solution.  The minute anyone cracks wise or threatens your PCs, they're going to go straight for the most efficient kill.

The solution is, luckily, not all that hard.  Just vary the stakes of the encounter.  Here's a big list of encounter stakes that are not "kill or be killed."

Stakes Progression

I've divided these examples into four tiers.  Start with low stakes.  As your adventure progresses, keep raising the stakes.

A lot of stakes come with built in progression:  If the PCs are framed (level 1), they might be at risk for capture (level 4), if the frame-up is successful.  A frame-up is only level 1 because it doesn't lead to the PCs' capture, it leads to a risk they might be captured, if they can't clear their name.

For the lower tier stakes to qualify for their lower level, the PCs have to have a chance to avoid the risk posed by the follow-on stakes:  If the PCs are delayed (level 2), they must still have a chance to prevent their rival from snatching the thing they wanted to get (level 3).  If the delay leads to the snatch without any chance the PCs could have stopped it, then the delay was really a complicated snatch, not a delay.

Level 1 Stakes: Social or Emotional

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  

First level stakes don't cost the PCs much except their reputation or their good mood.  Getting humiliated or spooked or tricked might ruin your day, or let an enemy get away with crimes or escape capture, but they won't cost you anything and they won't hurt.

• Humiliate:  The foes win if the PCs feel humiliated
• Embarrass:  The foes win if the PCs do something embarrassing
• Reputation: The foes win if the PCs' reputation suffers
• Enrage: The foes win if the PCs get mad at them
• Censure: The foes win if the PCs suffer a superior's disapproval
• Framed: The foes win if the PCs are suspected of a crime they did not commit
• Count Coup:  Each foe wins if they touch the PCs without getting hurt
• Scare: The foes win if the PCs flinch (take a defensive or restorative action)
• Spook: The foes win if the PCs regroup, retreat, or begin acting more cautiously
• Threaten: The foes win if they take the foes and their faction more seriously
• Bluff:  The foes win if the PCs believe the bluff
• Reprisal:  The foes win if the PCs are worried of additional reprisals

Level 2 Stakes: Material or Tactical

Stand and deliver!

If the stakes threaten to cost the PCs resources, they rise to the second level.  Second level stakes can also threaten the PCs' tactical position, raising the stakes they might encounter in the future.

• Steal:  The foes win if they take stuff from the PCs by stealth, threats, or force
• Break: The foes win if they break or spoil the PCs' stuff
• Deplete:  The foes win if they get the PCs to use up limited resources
• Foist:  The foes win if they make the PCs take on stuff they don't want to carry
• Block:  The foes win if the PCs don't take the guarded path
• Oust: The foes win if they force the PCs to leave an area
• Divert:  The foes win if they force the PCs to take the selected path 
• Feint:  The foes win if the PCs react to the feint
• Distract:  The foes win if they get the PCs to engage with them for long enough
• Delay:  The foes win if the PCs take a few rounds, a minute, an hour, or a day longer
• Alarm: The foes win if they get warning to their allies
• Pay: The foes win if they make the PCs pay more than they had to through trickery
• Sell:  The foes win if the PCs buy what they're selling
• Beg:  The foes win if the PCs give them charity
• Extort: The foes win if the PCs pay them a bribe or blackmail money
• Split the Party: The foes win if the PCs become separated

Level 3 Stakes: Goals and Bonds

There are fates worse than death...

These are goals or people or places or things that might mean more to the PCs than their very lives.  Would you die to protect your community?  Your family?  Would you risk your life to pull strangers from a burning building?  These are character defining questions, and level 3 stakes help us get to them in ways that level 4 stakes do not.

• In Decline:  The foes want to harm or take over an organization the PCs care about
• Lost Friend: The foes want to harm, beguile, or alienate a person the PCs care about
• Special: The foes win if they harm or take a thing the PCs care about
• Noise: The foes win if the folks that matter don't know who to believe
• Homewrecker: The foes win if they harm, control, or bar entry to a place the PCs care about
• Escape:  The foes win if they escape justice that the PCs want to mete out
• Competition: The foes win if they beat the PCs to a critical prize in a fair competition (even if they cheated)
• Rival: The foes win if they claim an opportunity that a person the PCs care about wanted
• Snatch: The foes win if they claim an item the PCs wanted to get
• Outbid: The foes win if they beat the PCs in a bidding war for an opportunity 
• Demoted: The foes win if the PCs lose formal status
• Divide:  The foes win if the PCs become unjustly suspicious of their ally
• Lost: The foes win if the PCs get lost

Level 4 Stakes: Personal and Physical

Take no prisoners!

Stakes that are direct attacks on the PCs' bodies are the highest of all, but because they're so direct, they're often very blunt, unrevealing situations.  Of course you're going to fight to defend yourself.  Of course you care about being locked in a dungeon.  On the other hand, they're tense, exciting moments that can feel terrifying or exhilarating -- usually both!

• Hurt: The foes win if they harm one of the PCs in particular
• Maim: the foes win if they cause a specific injury to one of the PCs in particular
• Assassinate: The foes win if they kill one of the PCs in particular
• Guerrilla: The foes will try to kill the PCs, but will retreat to avoid any casualties
• Surrender: The foes win if the PCs surrender
• Capture: The foes win if they capture or arrest one or all of them
• Consume:  The foes win if they successfully eat part of all of one of the PCs
• Infect: The foes win if they cause one or more PCs to contract a disease
• Envenom: The foes win if they poison one or more of the PCs

More About Encounter Stakes

Foreshadowed Stakes vs. Surprise Stakes

Foreshadowed stakes are stakes the PCs know about well in advance.  For instance, they might know that Armlor the Brewer is looking for them to chew them out.  That tells them that there's someone wandering around town looking to cause them some reputation or emotional harm (Level 1 stakes, emotional or status).  They know ahead of time, so they're anticipating it.  In effect, you've already levied the stakes at them.  The stakes are real, even if they haven't met Armlor yet.

Foreshadowed stakes are the best because the players experience them for a longer period of time, and their characters can start engaging with them well before the encounter ("well if Armlor comes by here, you can tell him we'll meet him at sunset outside our inn, if he's got the guts").

Surprise stakes are fun because there's an element of the unexpected. Surprise stakes can be...

• New stakes out of nowhere:  On the way to the inn, the PCs are attacked by robbers (Level 2 stakes, extort)
• Significantly changed stakes: Arriving at sunset to discover that Armlor is there helping the owners try to put out a raging fire in the inn (Level 2 stakes, break their stuff) or arriving to find Armlor's fresh, bleeding corpse (Level 1 stakes, framed)
• Surprisingly increased stakes -- Armlor shows up at the tavern with a cadre of Duke's soldiers to arrest them (Level 4 stakes, capture)

Surprise stakes are the best because everyone loves a twist.  But you can't make every encounter a twist.  Try to use a twist every couple of scenes, though!


Play to Find Out

To make stakes work, think of them this way:  You're playing out this encounter to see if the foes will win their stakes.  Therefore, all the stakes examples, below, are phrased as "the foes win if..." to remind you that these NPCs are done when they achieve their stakes.


Level of Stakes vs. Probability of Loss (aka Challenge)

Challenge matters.  Consider how likely it is that the PCs lose in the contest for the stakes.  For instance, low stakes (humiliation) with high probability of loss (the PCs will almost certainly be humiliated) can be very powerful.  High stakes (assassinate) with low probability of loss (the PCs can easily defeat the assassin) can be very weak.

Higher challenge raises the stakes, but it almost never raises the stakes up a whole level.  Humiliation can be really painful, but losing a fortune, losing a friend, or losing an arm is a lot more painful.


PC Stakes

Your players are going to set their own stakes, based on what's going on in the fiction.  If an NPC gets in their face with threats and bluster, they PCs might decide to shut the NPC down emotionally or to beat them up, or even to kill them.

You don't get to control the PCs and what they decide to do.  Their stakes are their business.  Your job is to control the NPCs.  The PCs' actions might trigger new stakes, though.  If they kill an NPC who's yelling in their faces, they might be wanted for murder.  The stakes go from humiliation (level 1) to capture (level 4) as the town militia is called up to hunt them down for trial.


What do the Foes do when they Win?

Most of these stakes end long before one side or the other is dead.  You, the GM, get to decide if the NPCs have won their stakes.  Once they've won their stakes, they should act naturally.  Typically, they'll just leave.

Does this mean you're going to re-use the encounter later?  You bet you will!

Isn't that boring?  Heck, no!  Players love to see NPCs they've met before.

Will encounters combine?  That is, if the guard goblins succeed at raising an alarm and run away, will they join with other goblins and make a really Deadly encounter later?  No.  I mean, you could do that, but you're creating a strong incentive for your players to kill everything they meet, in case they have to fight it later.  There is an enormous conceptual difference between "get a chance for revenge when you meet the same NPCs again" and "any NPC you don't kill might join with another encounter and make your life harder."

Printable Infographic Version

Click here to download this at a readable size

Here's a 8.5x11" printable list of these stakes, to put in your adventure prep inspiration kit.

Fate Magic

Fate is a fantastic game.  I don't want to go into all the things that make it great right now, because if you came here looking for a good, balanced, fair, high quality magic system for Fate, you probably already like the game.  It's biggest flaw is that you have to custom-build a magic system for each campaign you want to run.  Well today, I'm going to solve that for you.


The Two-Type Magic System

This is a simple magic system for Fate that works for both Core and Accelerated games.  It's called Two-Type Magic because there are two types of magic in the system, differentiated by how "unrealistic" they are.  It's inspired by Mage: the Ascension's distinction between Coincidental and Vulgar Magick, which was ideal because when I created it, I did so to replicate an old World of Darkness style game.  But it works for everything from twenty sided fantasy to starfaring psionics.   I've spent most of a year playtesting it, and I think it works real darn well.

The basic nature of the system is that anyone with the appropriate Aspect can use magic that fits with that Aspect.  That is, in an urban horror game, "Vampire with a soft heart" gives you the ability to use the magic powers vampires have (turn into mist, disappear from mortal eyes, turn into a bat, control minds, etc.).  In a twenty sided fantasy game, "Gnomish sorcerer with an incendiary personality" gives you the ability to use D&D-style "arcane magic" (fireball, phantasmal force, fly, dispel magic), and in a space opera game, "Crafty betazoid smuggler" would give your trekking n'er-do-well the ability to use empathic and telepathic powers.

"Churlish dwarven fighters" and "Vengeful vampire hunters" would be much more limited.  They could still do some magic, though.  If the dwarf fighter has a "Sentient magic axe of my ancestors," the dwarf might be able to divine information about drwavish ruins, have the axe fly through the air as if possessed, and summon ghosts of the dwarf's ancestors.  Similarly, the vampire hunter's "True Faith" aspect might be able to repel supernatural creatures by brandishing a cross, ward a room against vampires with garlic, and identify supernatural creatures disguised as regular people.  In short, as long as you can justify it with an aspect, you can do magic.

The system is fair because magic typically doesn't work too differently from regular skills and approaches.  Only rarely can you use magic that truly transcends human capabilities.  So the other PCs who don't have magic powers won't feel like they missed out by not having magic.

Here's how it works.  Whenever you use magic (however your setting defines it), you are either using Type A magic or Type B magic.


Type A Magic

Any time you want to do magic that a character in the setting could achieve with regular skills and tools, the magic uses the exact same skills.  It also uses the same amount of time.  And finally, it uses magical tools of equivalent cost and complexity to the mundane ones.

That is, using a "Knock" spell to quietly pick a lock would call for a Sneaky / Burglary Overcome roll.  It would still take about a minute, and it would require a "material focus" that's as easy to get hold of as lockpicks are, such as a silver key or a live mouse.

If the die roll is the same, the skill/approach is the same, it takes the same amoung of time, and the tools are equivalent, why would you use magic?  Three reasons:

1. The first is for characterization: Your character is a "Gnomish sorcerer with an incendiary personality" of course.  Sorcerers don't kneel down and pick locks.  They cast spells!  
2. The second is for the cool factor.  You can use a Forceful threat or an Intimidation check to make some threats and chase off a neonate vampire who's been tailing you half the night.  Or you can raise your crucifix and show your True Faith.  Sure, it's the same mechanic, but it's way cooler!  
3. Third, if magic is secret or rare in the setting, it can go undetected by the uninformed.  They won't let your character bring a revolver into the courthouse, but a blasting rod like Harry Dresden uses just looks like a carved, ornamental length of wood, not even long enough to be useful as a truncheon.

Type B Magic

Type B magic is any magic not covered by Type A.  That is, if you want to do something that normal skills can do, using equivalent tools, but much faster, it's Type B.  If you want to do something physically impossible in the setting, like teleport from Manhattan to Brooklyn in an instant, it's Type B.

Any time you want to work magic that's not possible to do with mundane skills and tools in the setting, you're doing Type B magic.  Serious stuff.  Every use of Type B magic requires you to spend a Fate point and an action (in an exchange during a Conflict) just to try it.  That Fate point confers no bonuses.  The point is expended whether the magic succeeds or fails, and often (but not always) you still have to attempt a roll.

One Fate point is actually a pretty low cost.  That's because it's the bare minimum.  The GM can also call for a die roll, and set the difficulty of that roll as high as they want.

For instance, if you want to cast a spell that incinerates a vampire, and you don't have a magical molotov cocktail, that's pretty simple.  You'll have to spend a Fate point and make a Flashy / Shoot Attack roll opposed by the vampire's Quick / Agility Defend roll.  If you want to cast a spell that cures a vampire of vampirism, in a setting where that is unheard of, that's more intense.  The GM might make you spend a Fate point and make a Legendary (+8) or harder Overcome roll with Lore.  As with everything in Fate, this is negotiated.  The GM might say "it's impossible to cure a vampire of their curse."  Or they might make it easier, taking the story in a weird direction with the PC as a hated/beloved miracle worker.  Or they might make the spell temporary, or require rare and specific components to keep the person from reverting back to vampirism.  The point is, just because you can spend a Fate point and attempt Type B Magic doesn't mean you can do literally anything - unless that's part of the setting premise (ahem, Mage: the Ascension, ahem).

One action in a Conflict is the minimum time Type B magic takes.  Type B Magic always requires an action in a Conflict unless the character has a stunt for that specific use.  Stunts can allow a specific use of Type B magic without an action in a specific circumstance, and should be used to model supernatural powers, such as werewolf transformation (you may spend a Fate point to turn into a deadly wolf-man hybrid crinos monster and gain huge Weapon 2 claws and fangs before taking your action in any Conflict), or vampires escaping in mist form (you may spend a Fate point to turn into mist and shadows just before you Concede in any conflict, preventing your foes from following you after you escape), or alien weirdness (when you make eye contact with someone, you may use a Fate point to instantly learn one of their Aspects).


Considerations for the Action Economy

Fate's action economy in Conflicts is pretty well balanced.  Type B magic has a subtle implication that you need to consider:  By spending Fate points and using Type B Magic, a player can effectively take two or more actions on their turn in a conflict.  That's because Type B magic allows you to do something better or faster than skills and technology in the setting allow, and might have widespread effects.  As the GM, you should counter this by engaging the Fate point economy to help you or by splitting the spell apart.

For instance, a spell that gives you a glowing shield made of a whirlwind of flames (like the D&D spell Fire Shield) might give you Armor 2 against cold magic and also attack everyone standing close to you when you cast it.  Donning armor attacking all the enemies in a zone is more than one action.  You should lean toward allowing these kinds of actions, but make them expensive.  Make the fire shield divide shifts on its Flashy / Fight attack among the enemies around you, and let them each oppose those shifts individually, forcing the gnomish sorcerer to spend even more Fate points on the spell.  That'll keep the gnome from upending the action economy, and it'll make them desperate to get a compel!  Alternately, the GM might declare that each part of the spell is a separate spell.  Building the anti-cold wall of flames is one Type B spell, then using it to attack people around you is a Type A spell or just a standard Attack action (after all, if you're on fire, you can certainly burn people nearby).


Healing: The Delicate Stress/Consequences System

The Fate stress/consequence system is finely honed to offer tiers of threat to characters.  It's the core of the game in many ways.  Changing it with a magic system would be a bad idea.  While they have clear stress boxes, PCs are mostly safe from consequences unless an opponent gets a really high roll.  While their stress is full, they're at risk for consequences, but not really at much risk of being Taken Out.  As their consequences fill, the chance of taking an Extreme (permanent) consequence grows.  Eventually the risk is that they'll be forever Taken Out.  That system is great for building tension.  Don't mess with it!

Using an action to heal damage in a conflict not only reduces the tension caused by this carefully balanced system, it slows the game down because it doesn't move the scene toward a resolution for the PCs (win or lose).  So we've got to restrict healing magic, even with Type B magic.

As you might have guessed, using Type A magic to heal other characters is no different than using an Overcome roll to rename a consequence to begin the healing process.  That's not problematic at all.  It rarely happens in a conflict, and it's almost perfunctory (though it often highlights how tough it is to make a high difficulty Overcome roll after a major Conflict when everyone's tapped out of Fate points!).

Type B magic is another matter.  Closing wounds is the sort of impossible thing that Type B magic is supposed to allow, but the consequence system in Fate shouldn't be undercut by a single Fate point.

Instead, here's what you can do:  Type B magic can substitute a consequence for another consequence of the same level, even if they're totally unrelated.  For instance, "Moderate: Stabbed in the Leg" can be substituted for "Moderate: Very Hangry" (for instance in the Wheel of Time setting where that's how healing works).  If an opponent has a free invoke on that consequence, the spell would require an Overcome roll against the opponent, and it would take away that free invoke.

In addition, Type B magic can clear a single stress box.  There are already stunts that allow the exchange of a Fate point for clearing a stress box, so this doesn't break the stress/consequence system too much.  I would not recommend players use Type B magic for this, though:  Using an action in a conflict and a Fate point to remedy a single stress box is a waste of your action.  It's one step forward and two steps back.  Still, it fits that D&D style of tactical teamwork where one character "tanks" for the party and gets healing to keep it up, while the rest focus on offense and support.  If you're not trying to run that style of game, though, feel free to take this option off the table.

Unless you want to modify Two Type Magic, a single use of Type B magic cannot outright remove consequences or clear more than one stress box at a time.


Fantasy Option:  Rote or Vance-ish Casting

If you want your magic to model D&D, you're mostly out of luck.  Fate doesn't have character levels or a spell list, so gaining "spell slots" and "spell levels" as you grow in power has to be modeled with another custom system that you and your players will have to develop.  However, we can borrow mechanics from Dungeon World and Mage: the Ascension to create a magic system similar to D&D.

Instead of being able to do literally anything, your magic is limited to spells or rotes.  Choose four spells - magic abilities your character has.  Feel free to choose D&D spells if you want.  Pop over to the D&D SRD and choose a few or make some up, then model them with Fate approaches or skills.  Write down what they do, what roll they require, and whether they require a Fate point.  Type A magic spells are your low level spells or cantrips - ones you probably won't run out of.  Type B spells that require Fate points are your higher level spells.  The Fate points are the "spell slots" for your Type B magic.  As you gain levels, you might gain more spells, and each Major Milestone gives you another Fate point / spell slot.

In addition, if you fail a roll when attempting to cast a spell, the GM can offer you a choice:  The spell fails... or the spell succeeds, but you forget it until you have 8 hours of uninterrupted rest.

Any magic you want to perform outside of the rotes/spells you know is either not allowed, or else requires you to spend at least ten minutes casting a ritual spell, and the GM will tell you what is required to make the magic work.


Playtest Results

Having used this system for about a year, I've found it works smoothly.  Everyone remembers how it works.  There's really just the one line you draw between Type A and Type B magic and a little extra for the GM to be mindful of (i.e. protecting the action economy and the stress/consequences system)  My players got it pretty quickly, and they've been good about sticking to what their characters can actually do.

For instance, we've had a player leave the game, and that player had the ability to do Earth magic.  It was established early that the other characters didn't have that sort of magic, and so whenever the PCs need to tunnel into a basement or search under the earth, they regret that their former ally isn't around instead of trying to be cheesy and use magic they didn't have before.

The occasional powerful Type B spell has turned the tide of a scenario, but occasional high rolls fueled with Fate points on Contacts and Lore and Provoke have done so as well.  And all the characters have some kind of magic, and even though the breadth of their magic varies considerably, they haven't complained of any kind of power disparity because of it.

Using Common Games for RPG Puzzles

Puzzles help you keep your game exciting.  They vary the action, so there's something different to do every scene.

When you're putting together a puzzle for your RPG, there are tons of ways to handle it.  A really easy and supremely adaptable puzzle to use is Mastermind.  Wikipedia tells me it's also called Bulls and Cows and goes back a over century.  It's similar to Twenty Questions, Hangman, or Guess Who?, which make good puzzles for RPGs as well.

You can adapt Mastermind to a lot of different situations.  It can be numbers or letters in a password; words in a passphrase; potions on a rack; symbols on tumblers; or colored marbles in bowls.  Fallout uses a variation of it for hacking terminals.

As a reminder, never make it possible to fail to continue the game.  If the puzzle guards the door into the dungeon, then failing to solve the puzzle has to cause some problem other than preventing the PCs from getting in.  If you're familiar with my article on skill challenges, you can use some of the same hazards from those in guessing games.

Here are the basic rules of Mastermind:

• There is a secret code.  It's usually fairly short.
• The code is made from elements drawn from a set.  The set can be fairly large.
• The player(s) get to make a pre-determined number of guesses.  They don't have to know how many guesses they get, or how many are left.  In D&D, you can also cause them some other penalty on a failed guess.
• The way the players make guesses can have additional rules.  A passphrase should be a grammatically correct phrase (Praise to Tiamat instead of Tiamat Praise Praise), repetition may or may not be allowed (If you have one icon of each color of chromatic dragon, you can play black, white, red; but you can't play red, red, white), and length may or may not vary (if there are three bowls to put liquids into, the length is always 3; but guessing a password might involve words of varying length).
• After each guess, they get feedback about how close their guess was to the secret code.  There are a few ways to give feedback.  If length is a factor, there must be length feedback. 
• Length:  Too Long, Too Short, or Correct Length (always use when length is a factor)
• Correct:  The number of correct elements in correct positions
• Wrong Position:  The number of correct elements in incorrect positions (optional)
• Omen:  If the code has meaning, a fourth feedback option is to give a hint as to how close to the meaning the guess is.  For instance, if the passcode is a word of six letters, "DEFILE" the puzzle feedback could deem hopeful or positive words weak and cowardly.
• Difficulty varies based on the above factors:
• Giving more feedback makes the puzzle easier, 
• Giving more guesses makes the game easier, 
• Using a smaller set makes the game easier, 
• Using fixed length makes the game easier, and 
• Using a shorter code makes the game easier.

A Mastermind Example

In the cult's library is a scroll on metaphysics.  Some of the words on the scroll have been circled in charcoal pencil:  "Curse, Praise, Glory, All, For, To, Tiamat, Harpers, Tharzidun."  There are three puzzle rooms, each with a statue of a robed cultist standing in front of a door.  You can't get through the door unless the statue animates and moves out of the way.  An Insight check tells you that the nine words make up the passphrases to each puzzle door, but which words for which doors?

The code phrases are...
North:  ALL PRAISE TIAMAT
East: DEATH TO HARPERS
West: THARZIDUN FOR GLORY

This is a fairly easy puzzle:  There are only 9 words in the set and 3 puzzles.  The puzzle will get easier as the players go on, because they will rightly assume the proper nouns (TIAMAT, HARPERS, THARZIDUN) are only used once.  Also they will assume the passphrases make sense (not FOR FOR TO ALL FOR or other nonsense phrases).  They might also easily guess the phrases are 3 words each, since it's hard to construct longer phrases with the words in the set.  So to raise the difficulty, we will give the players a small number of guesses.

"The cultist statue has two ruby gems for eyes"

Stealing the gems does no harm to the thief, except it means the PCs can't get any hints.  They have to speak the password.  Each time they get it wrong, some part of the statue becomes colored and lifelike.  This represents an incorrect guess.  If they get it wrong four times in a row within 24 hours, the statue comes fully to life and attacks them.  If they attack the statue or try to shove it aside, it comes to life and attacks them.  In addition, other traps in the room might activate.  Statues tend to be immune to poison gas...

The reason we're using "statue attacks" instead of "statue stops taking guesses" is that we don't want failure on the test to mean the adventure ends.  Also, we want to make the puzzle hard.  We want the PCs to fail at least one puzzle.  So we have to have the failure condition hurt the PCs a little without stopping the game.

We're only giving feedback on two things:  Length and number correct.  First, the statue gives feedback (if there is feedback to give) after someone faces it and speaks three words.  Second, the statue gives feedback about the number of correct words in the correct positions.  Its eyes will light up when you start to talk to it.  After three words, both eyes fade to dark if no words were correct.  One eye will stay lit and sparkle for ten seconds if one word was correct.  Both eyes will stay lit and sparkle for ten seconds if two words were correct.  Getting three correct makes the statue animate and open the door for the PCs.

More Puzzles for your Games

Here is a long list of other games people play that you can use as RPG puzzles.

Hidden rule games involve playing a game where there are hidden rules.  They require an active judge.  In RPGs, these work well for simulating hacking or a sphynx guardian's puzzle.  Some can go on until the rule is solved, and others end eventually.  You can play some competitively, so that one player is the winner.  And others force all the players to cooperate against a time or guess limit.  Some can work either way.

• Zendo is a really simple rule-guessing game that has pretty plastic pyramids.  It really focuses on the act of testing and guessing a rule.  Zendo is competitive, but you can make it collaborative by assigning some cost to guesses or limit to the number of guesses.
• Elephant's foot umbrella stand is another rule guessing game you can use.  Like Mao, there are one or more people who know the hidden rule.  You can use a whole village of people who keep a secret.  They carry or speak the name of an object to be let into an inner sanctum.  Lots of different objects let them in, but no two objects can be the same (so the PCs can't just copy someone).
• Eleusis is a rule-guessing card game you can use as a riddle contest against a sphinx type riddle giver.
• Mao is a card game where new players have to scramble to figure out the rules. If the PCs visit a tavern in an unfamiliar city, you can emphasize the exotic nature of the city with this game.
• Green Glass Door:  This is a simple kids' word game where you have to figure out what nouns can pass through the "green glass door."  Spoiler alert:  It's nouns with double letters (e.g. letters can, but words can't).  You can invent similar tricks.  A portal that only allows certain things to pass is very appropriate for Planescape.

Guessing games involve a secret keeper and a guesser.  Some are played competitively (battleship, guess who) while others are asymmetrical (hangman, twenty questions).  Competitive versions end when one player wins.  Asymmetrical versions end after a limited number of guesses has been used or the correct answer has been guessed.  You can turn a competitive game into an asymmetrical one or vice versa.  Ulam's game is unique in that it is a game of twenty questions where the questions and answers are already asked, but one answer is wrong.  The player(s) have to guess the solution, like a game of twenty questions, but to do so, they have to figure out which question was answered incorrectly.

• Guess who is a great way to simulate information gathering.  Each day, the PCs get to make Charisma checks (D&D) or Contacts rolls (Fate) etc. to ask a question.  As they collect answers, the picture of their suspect becomes clearer.  But each day, they have to roll for a random encounter or some other cost accrues.  Maybe they only have four days to solve the crime...
• Hangman is the simplest word guessing game, with a grim, medieval theme.
• Twenty questions is a great game to play with a sphinx.  
• Ulam's game is like twenty questions, but doesn't require an interlocutor.  The questions have been asked and answered, but one answer is wrong.  The players have to figure out by deduction which answer is wrong, then figure out what the solution is.
• Battleship is a logical process guessing game.  You can use it to simulate searching a ruin or wilderness.
• I Spy is the simplest guessing game.  It could work for a riddling NPC.

Limited communication games are great puzzles to throw into an RPG.

• Charades is a method people can communicate without a shared language.  This is a great way to put a puzzle into your game:  Introduce a potentially friendly NPC that you have to use Charades to communicate with!
• Taboo requires you to communicate a password or phrase without using the actual words of the solution.  Magic can prevent a character from saying a specific word.  But if you're careful, you can help others guess it.
• Heads Up is like reverse Taboo, and you can use an index card to play it.  

Asymmetrical information games are games that divide your players up.  Generally you give one team (or one player) a problem that can only be solved by the other team's help, except that there is information that's kept secret.

• Building instructions:  Divide the teams up.  One team gets something built from blocks or drawn on grid paper.  The other team has to make an exact copy using a set of blocks or a grid paper and pencil. The first team can't show the second team the original - they can only describe it.
• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a video game based on this premise.  If it's not being used in LARPs as a bomb defusing simulator, it will be soon.  
• You can use visual memory in a similar fashion.  For instance, give a player a map of a maze with all the traps, secret doors, and dead ends marked.  Tell them they're not allowed to copy it or write any notes down, but they have to memorize it.  Take it away.  Then put the PCs into that maze, with all the traps, secret doors, and dead ends exactly where the map said they were.  Give them a limited time to get through the maze so they can't proceed with caution.  See if the one player can remember enough to keep the party safe.
• Similarly, you can play telephone with the map.  Hand the GM map of the maze (with all the secrets revealed) to a player.  Give the player just two minutes to copy it as best they can.  Take away the GM map.  Hand player 1's map to player 2.  Give player 2 just two minutes to copy the map player 1 made.  Take away player 1's map.  Hand player 2's map to player 3.  Give player 3 two minutes to copy player 2's map.  Repeat until you have a hasty copy of a hasty copy of a hasty copy (etc.).

Negotiation games can be used to simulate a negotiation in a bounded, circumscribed fashion.  If the GM is just no good at negotiating but wants to make a game or puzzle out of it, play Haggle with the players.  Ultimatum can turn your players against one another.

• Ultimatum game:  There's a pool of money. One player makes a single offer.  The other player can accept or refuse.  If they refuse, neither gets any money.  You would pit the players against one another in this game.  Otherwise it's no fun.
• Haggle:  This is an asymmetrical negotiation game you can use to simulate an asymmetrical negotiation.

Code breaking games and decoding puzzles can represent linguistics (deciphering ancient languages) or represent real ciphers.  They can also be "word puzzles" on floors and walls in dungeons, simulate code-breaking in modern games, and so forth:

• DitLoID:  These are neat because a person who lives in or uses the space needs some hint to remember the passphrase, say, "five fingers on the hand" so they abbreviate it to 5FotH.  See the link for a ton of examples.
• Word Ladder:  Could be symbolic.  How fast can you connect Bahamut to Tiamat?
• Word Search:  I once built a word search so that the words were the names of all the good gods.  The letters left over spelled out the passphrase that was the solution to the puzzle.
• Ciphers:  Letter replacement and Cesar shift ciphers can be solved.  The longer the plaintext, the easier the code is to crack.  Very short plaintext may be impossible to crack.  You can give the players a partial key, or let them have one letter of plaintext with a successful Intelligence check.
• A Rebus represents words as images you have to interpet to form a passphrase or plaintext solution, so it can simulate deciphering heiroglyphs.

Mathematical and logic puzzles are great for players who like complicated and challenging logic puzzles, but they have major challenges for RPGs.  They can take a long time to solve, or a very short time if the player(s) have encountered them before.  Like riddles, there needs to be some limit.  The players might spend the whole session thinking about the puzzle without solving it if there's no time or guess limit.

• Balance puzzles, water pouring puzzles, and river crossing puzzles are logic puzzles.  They require the players to think through an analytical problem.
• Latin squares are arrangement puzzles - like Sudoku, but with colors, letters, or even images.
• Nonograms are like Latin squares in many ways, except that the solution is an image made of colored blocks.  They could be used to simulate divination or other procedures that result in an image coming from nothing.  The players can stop solving once they've got enough of the picture to know the answer to their question.
• Tower of Hanoi (simple sequence puzzle) is a famous puzzle that tasks the players with moving a stack of discs from one post to another.  
• Complex sequence puzzles (Rubik's cube, etc.) are too complicated for RPGs, unless you're running a  certain weekend-long game at MIT.
• Physical puzzles (tangrams, packing puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, blacksmith's puzzles aka disentanglement puzzles) can be bought at most toy and game stores.  They were common in medieval times, so the metal ones you can get at renaissance faires can be diagetic puzzles handed to a player's character.  
• Chess puzzles are fun if the players like chess, and chess is a game in your world.  

Card puzzles can be another fun challenge.

• Solitaire can be a challenge for your game.  About 4 in 5 games of Klondike solitaire are theoretically winnable, but the probability of winning is just around 2 in 5; can be played with Tarot cards with the trumps as their own suit.
• Card games can be used as puzzles, or played at the table to represent the PCs' gambling.  An important NPC might play a game of Baccarat or poker against the PCs in a spy game, for instance.  You might see it as a roleplaying opportunity paired with a battle of wits.  Use the card game to frame the scene.  Non-betting card games like bridge are often used as frames for the parlor segment of murder mysteries in fiction.  Bridge puzzles are potentially interesting puzzles, but like chess puzzles, may be too hard if the players aren't bridge players.  Magic: the Gathering card puzzles exist, and have a fantasy theme, but again, your players need to be familiar with the game.
• Mao and Eleusis, above, are hidden rule card puzzles.
• Playing cards can be used as props in number puzzles, if your players like those.

Riddle games are the classic fantasy puzzle.  They have a single answer.  The classic "riddle door" in D&D is an animated door, so the Knock spell cannot open it (it's not locked or stuck - it just refuses to move).  A great way to use a riddle in a dungeon is to select a riddle with a simple solution, like "a knock on the door" or "fire" and leave the clues throughout the dungeon.  In one area, there's a locked door with a serpent knocker.  Or maybe it's a cold brazier beside the locked door.  Rapping the first door with the knocker causes it to unlock.  Any other action animates the serpent and poison's the character.  Lighting the brazier opens the second door, and any other action causes a Cone of Cold to attack the party.  The knocker and brazier may not appear significant unless the players recognize the significance of the clues they've seen in various places and solve the riddle they form.

• Crossword puzzles are riddle games.  Instead of using a whole crossword puzzle, read through the clues on a few to find riddles of varying challenge level.  They get easier if you reveal a few letters in the solution, of course.
• Math riddles:  See balance, water, and river crossing puzzles, above.
• Riddle trading:  Riddles have real value in a medieval world, and their value scales with the wealth and power of the person "trading" for one.  Riddle games where one party tries to stump the other are a classic way of trading riddles for riddles, but NPCs (especially dragons and the like) might give prizes or boons to characters who can stump them with a riddle.  This makes the players try to stump you, which they will enjoy. 
• Logogriph riddles are very complicated and awfully challenging riddles.  They're similar to cockney rhyming slang (see also: Planescape) where meaning is concealed behind a few steps of word play.
• Situation puzzles (minute mysteries) are some of the most complex riddles.  They often have multiple solutions, but only one simple solution.  The players in a situation puzzle usually get to ask questions, so eventually they will get closer and closer to the answer.  A minute mystery might just have a handful of hints you can choose to read or not.
• A Droodle is a visual riddle similar to a situation puzzle.  You can find them on google.  I just wanted an excuse to write "google: droodle"  
• Want the best riddles?  Reddit is the best place to find riddles because their system of upvoting moves the best to the top

How to Write a Character Personality

Your character is more than a collection of stats and plot hooks.  Unless you're comfortable with a lot of bleed-in (and some people are), you probably want your character's personality to be distinct from your own.  You want to pretend to be someone else -- not just yourself with magic and armor.

In the past, I've talked about how to write a character background.  That's a great way to build a rich character with goals and enemies and connections.  But it doesn't finish the job:  You still need a personality.

There are a lot of ways to generate a character personality.  D&D has the famous alignment system, which I've written about in the past.  The World of Darkness has Virtues and Vices (and previously, Nature and Demeanor).  Other RPGs have had all kinds of other systems for helping you build your character's personality.  Some give you a mechanical incentive to act a certain way.  Others are a list of behaviors you're supposed to avoid or always do.

Regardless of the system the RPG you're playing uses, the best way to build a quick and memorable character personality that's easy to play and hard to forget is to use a list of absolutes.

Absolutes are behaviors your character always or never does, even when it would be pretty stupid to stick to them.  And absolutes are not just for "lawful stupid" paladins (priests, detectives, officers, etc.) and stick-up-the-butt elves (ventrue, wizards, high society types etc.).  Easy-going slackers and anti-authoritarian rakes have absolutes, too.

Consider the holy roller paladin who never murders sentient creatures.  When the party plans to ambush some bandits, the paladin refuses to join in.  "They're not hurting anyone, just walking through the forest.  It's not self defense.  I won't just kill them."

But also consider the foul-mouthed fighter who always mouths off to authority.  "Hey your high muckety muck-ness, you got your forest cleared of bandits.  Now what do I get for sticking my neck out, huh?"

How To
Pick at least two and at most five absolutes for your character and write them down somewhere you'll always see them, such as the top of your character sheet.

Revise them to make them as short and sweet as possible.  You can always explain to others that "Never Murder" means never kill a sentient living being without first giving it a chance to surrender or flee (as appropriate). But it's easier for you to write "Never Murder" on top of your character sheet, so you never forget it's there.  You just need the constant reminder.

Topics
Absolutes relate to specific topics.  Those topics are social norms - norms of respect, harm, autonomy, responsibility, purity, chastity, honor, honesty, politesse, etc.  Your character probably doesn't have an extreme position on every cultural norm, but here's a list of common cultural norms you might have an absolute position on:

• Dignity/Vanity:  ALWAYS respond to an insult.  NEVER expect to be treated with respect.  ALWAYS downplay my achievements and value.  NEVER let someone call me anything but Sir or Sir Henry.  NEVER go out in public in shabby clothing.  ALWAYS exaggerate my accomplishments.
• Respect:  ALWAYS call people sir or m'am.  NEVER use a noble's title.  ALWAYS push people's buttons and provoke them to anger.  NEVER show disrespect to my elders.
• Piety:  ALWAYS show respect to the gods, even the dark ones.  NEVER trust a priest.  ALWAYS make sacrilegious jokes.  NEVER leave the dead unburied.
• Self-Control/Gravitas/Temperance:  NEVER show emotion.  ALWAYS try to get people to laugh and cheer.  NEVER talk about my family because it hurts too much.  ALWAYS cry when someone I know dies.  NEVER repeat myself unless asked to.  ALWAYS go straight to death threats when things don't go my way.
• Forgiveness:  NEVER forgive a wrong.  ALWAYS forgive and forget wrongs against myself (never against innocents).
• Chastity/Purity:  NEVER drink alcohol or take drugs.  ALWAYS get blitzed between adventures.  NEVER turn down seductions.  ALWAYS flirt with attractive NPCs.
• Prudence/Recklessness:  ALWAYS touch the shiny.  NEVER walk into a situation without an exit plan.  ALWAYS get it in writing.  NEVER trust an elf.  ALWAYS trust women.  NEVER compromise (my way or the highway).  NEVER make a threat I'm not willing to carry out.  
• Exchange:  ALWAYS return a favor immediately (NEVER let someone have a debt over me).  NEVER do something for nothing.  ALWAYS give generously, tip generously, and share my wealth generously.
• Courage:  NEVER stick my neck out for a stranger.  ALWAYS protect those weaker than myself, even unto death.  NEVER kill a fleeing foe.  ALWAYS be the first through the door.  NEVER ask someone to do something I wouldn't.  ALWAYS avoid scandal and shame.
• Loyalty:  NEVER let a friend down.  NEVER make promises.  ALWAYS look out for number one - everyone else can go to hell.  ALWAYS repent for a mistake.
• Honesty:  NEVER tell a lie.  ALWAYS try to convince people I'm on their side.  NEVER pretend to be who I'm not.  ALWAYS seal a bargain with a drink.  ALWAYS punish people who break their promises to me.

How Absolute is Absolute?
The mood of the game you're playing in will set how absolute your rules should be.

Superheros get to have absolute ethical boundaries that always seem to work out in the end.  No matter how dumb it seems that Batman doesn't just kill the Joker, it still works out OK because even if the Joker escapes Arkham, Batman always catches him again before he pulls off some horrible scheme.

But in a horror game, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't:  If you act against your instincts under pressure, you'll suffer for it.  If you stubbornly stick to your bad habits or morals, you might become a martyr to them.

Gritty mood games tend to push your boundaries, offering you chances to break from your absolutes and have your character evolve, or else suffer for their decisions (both of which are interesting developments).  The ethical paladin becomes more of a cold-blooded pragmatist and is judged for it.  The mouthy rake learns when to hold their tongue and grows as a person.

Character Growth
Your character might grow and change.  Absolutes give you a great opportunity to do so!  When you encounter a situation where your absolutes are tested, you can choose to act according to your absolutes and suffer the consequences or act against them and grow as a character.

If you stubbornly martyr yourself to your absolutes, you can choose to see the effect it had and regret it or defend your principles to the last.  If you stray from your absolutes, you can regret it and see it as a one time mistake, or you can realize you've been wrong all along and evolve as a person.

Social Scene Improvisation Framework

I like to run investigative RPGs, and one thing that happens a lot is that the players go talk to an NPC about secrets that they know, or get an unfriendly or hesitant NPC to help them.

How do I make those encounters interesting, rather than boring infodumps or procedural rubber stamps?  I could just call for a die roll.  But like you, I much prefer to role play over skill checks.  I still call for skill checks, but I think the role play shouldn't be skipped over.

So how do I make a social scene more fun?  Let's review the fun formula:

Story -> Problems -> Tension -> Excitement -> Fun

There needs to be a problem that creates tension in the scene.  So I need the NPC to resist the PCs, but I don't want to waste time being a stubborn mule just for the heck of it.  There has to be some lever the PCs can discover that will move the NPC.  That creates a small story (the protagonists figured out what makes the NPC tick) and a small game (solve the puzzle of what makes the NPC tick).  It's also emulates fiction well.  Authors and directors skip scenes with secondary characters who are boring and stubborn, but focus on scenes with secondary characters with flaws that the protagonists can use to push, trick, or persuade them.

Levers

I've been using a table I made for myself to identify levers NPCs might have.  It's loosely based on the "deadly sins" - everyone has a flaw, and that flaw can be used against them.  When I create a random NPC, I randomly decide what will make them fold.  Then I try to telegraph that as I roleplay the NPC.  If the players don't catch on, there are usually skills (Empathy, Insight, etc.) they can roll to learn what the NPC's lever is.

I've used it to some great effect.  It really helps me structure an unplanned NPC interaction.  It's a great improvisational tool.  And the players quickly realize that they can look for ways to manipulate NPCs, instead of pleading their case and throwing a Persuasion check every time.

Then the PCs have to apply the lever.  A careless person could be persuaded to help by threatening to make their life harder, or by just waiting for them to let sensitive information slip.  An envious person can be persuaded to help by implying it will help keep them ahead of their rival.

If the PCs push on the NPC's lever, you should roleplay the NPC caving to their request without resorting to dice.

Sometimes the PCs can't figure out how to use the lever, or they do a poor job of it, or they skip the roleplay and just resort to dice, or they don't want to use the lever and want to try some other means of persuasion.  That's when you call for a die roll.

You can base the die roll difficulty on the relationship between the PCs' approach and the NPC's lever.  It might be DC 10 to Intimidate a Cowardly person (or just automatic success); DC 20 to Intimidate a Greedy person; and maybe DC 20 with Disadvantage to Intimidate a Wrathful person.  On the other hand, using Intimidate to goad a Wrathful person should be easy (DC 10 or automatic), but goading a Slothful or Cowardly person should be hard (DC 20 at least!).

Lever Table

Result	Vice	Description
1	Sloth	Careless people are likely to leave clues lying around or give up information accidentally.  They also tend to choose the path of least resistance, considering only the short term consequences of doing so.
2	Greed	They want something badly enough to betray their organization – money usually, but sometimes power or luxury
3	Lust	They’re a sucker for a pretty face, an exciting experience is likely to impress them, and luxuries and indulgences clearly appeal to them
4	Wrath	Angry people are the easiest to manipulate – just get them to be angry on your behalf, or goad them into opposing their own self-interest in ways you want them to.
5	Envy	Internal strife is really convenient.  This person has a rival you can play them off of.
6	Cowardice	Apply some pressure in the right place, and they’ll fold.  There’s usually something that really triggers their fear (loved ones, physical pain, humiliation, etc.)
7	Gluttony	Overindulgent, surely this person has a dark secret and can be blackmailed.  Gluttons have usually gone too far in the past, or can be lured into doing it again.
8	Pride	This person is a sucker for flattery.  You can build yourself up as a [false] friend and sycophant to get access and favors

CC0 Public Domain image from https://pixabay.com/en/co-workers-argument-argue-worker-294266/

Virtues

If you want your NPC to be a sympathetic character with virtues instead of vices, I made an alternate table for you.  Instead of telling you how to make the NPC cave, this table tells you why the NPC is being resistant.  I just made this one up, so I'm not sure if it works as well as the lever table, above.

Unlike levers, virtues require the PCs to change their plans somewhat before the NPC will help them.  The PCs want something, but the NPC believes it would be wrong to help the PCs.  The PCs have to convince the NPC that their request is virtuous within the NPC's ethical framework.  Convincing a diligent person that they should help you means making them believe you've considered all the consequences and made sure there won't be any collateral damage.  Convincing an honest person to help you means giving up on the element of surprise and making sure they're not doing anything behind anyone's back.

It's probably better to use Levers for hostile NPCs and throw-away encounters.  Use Virtues for the PCs' allies.  I've written an article on making friendly NPCs into story challenges before.  This gives you a quick and dirty "lazy GM" way to do it.

Result	Virtue	Description
1	Honesty	Honest people wouldn’t go behind someone’s back, reveal someone’s secret, or act as someone else’s cutout.  They’ll betray them to their face, but not in secret.
2	Fairness	Fair people see the PCs as cheating.  If they want to know, they have to put in the work to learn it themselves.  If they want something done, they should do it themselves.
3	Self-Sacrifice	Self-sacrificing people believe in the greater good, and believe that revealing the secret or serving the PCs would do more harm than good.  Maybe they don’t trust the PCs to be willing or able to do what needs to be done.
4	Diligence	Diligent people have all the details taken care of.  They won’t let a secret slip or go circumvent the way things ought to be done because that would be sloppy, and they won’t just do anything without knowing all the details.
5	Patience	Patient people do not react to threats or hostility, and they forgive even their superiors’ worst mistakes.  They won’t jump to do things for others without some reason for urgency.  They have faith it’s not as bad as it seems.
6	Loyalty	Loyal people care about someone who would be hurt if the secret was shared or if they took the action the PCs want.  They value their loyalty for its own sake.
7	Bravery	Brave people value their own stubborn resistance to the investigators and manipulators.  They resist for the sake of resistance, they don’t care if you’re disappointed, and they don’t need you to like them.
8	Honor	Honorable people value their own integrity.  They won’t betray a trust or act as a cutout because it would damage their self-image as a trustworthy person.  They have to be seen as doing the honorable thing.

Virtues require more work from the PCs -- instead of just persuading the NPC, they actually have to make a concession to the NPC if they want the NPC's help.  The players will certainly have to talk among themselves about it, or at least hem and haw a bit more.  So using virtues instead of levers might take up more table time.  Keep that in mind.

They can always trick the NPC into thinking they've made a concession, then go behind the NPC's back and do it their way anyway.  That sort of sneaky behavior should have consequences for their relationship with the NPC and the NPC's friends.

Tip for LARP GMs  

When you assign players to cast NPCs for you (you are doing this, right?) you can use Levers and Virtues in your cast sheet for the NPCs (you are giving your cast players good instructions, right?).  This gives the cast player some ideas of how to make their NPC interesting to the PCs, how to make their NPC a challenge and a story moment, instead of just a boring information dump.

5e Level Zero rules

"Level zero" represents a D&D character who does not have a character class.  They're a henchman or commoner, or a hero before hearing the call to adventure.

5th edition is not alone among editions of D&D that do not have "level zero" rules.  Level zero rules are not universally useful, but they can come in handy for some styles of game.

For instance, one day I will run a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court game (alternately, Narnia or Fillory), perhaps using modern New Yorkers transported into a fantasyland where they can gain D&D character class levels.

Another use for "zeroth level" is for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel.

You can also run a "farmboy to hero" destined messiah type of game, with the PCs starting as shepherds and pig-boys and so forth.

I've seen some others' attempts at creating level zero rules, but they all added something.  These are stark and simple and provide instructions for "leveling up" to first level.  So here are the rules.

Character Creation

A 5th edition D&D 0th level character has:

• The core six attributes (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha) plus racial modifiers
• Race
• Background
• Maximum hit points:  6+Constitution Modifier
• No hit dice
• Armor Proficiency:  None, plus anything your race bestows
• Weapon Proficiency:  Proficiency with daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, and light crossbows; plus anything your race bestows
• Saving Throw Proficiency:  None
• Language, Tool, and Skill Proficiency:  You start with the language, tool, and skill proficiency your background and race bestow
• Starting Equipment or Gold:  You start with the equipment and money your background bestows
• Your Proficiency Bonus starts at +1*

(* this lets the few skills, tools, and weapons you have proficiency with actually matter)

Note that you do not get a weapon to start with.  Level zero characters are torchbearers, deckhands, and pig farmers.  They're not walking around armed like adventurers.  You'll have some money to buy a weapon, though.  Each background provides enough coin for anything you're proficient with except the light crossbow.  Some backgrounds provide tool proficiency and tools that would let you make a weapon, if you have time.  Note that some backgrounds also provide a weapon (a Soldier can have a small trophy from a fallen enemy, like a dagger).

Gaining your First Level

You improve to level 1 once you've had training in a character class.  Usually there's some danger and adventure you have to go through before you can get that training, though.  That's the whole point of "level zero"!

At level 1, you select a character class and...

• Replace your maximum hit points and hit dice with the ones you gain from your class.
• Gain the Armor, Weapon, Skill, Tool, and Saving Throw proficiencies your class bestows.
• Gain all the class features associated with your new character class.
• Gain your choices from the standard equipment your character class starts with at the DM's discretion.  These are given to you or earned during your training.
• Improve your Proficiency Bonus to +2  

That's it.  Easy as pie!