Tips for Fellow Students I Want to Share
We're rocking into Year 3 and Strixhaven has been one of my favorite campaigns I've ever run. I think the Fellow Students are a huge part of that; I've never had another game with quite so large a cast of recurring NPCs, especially ones my players are excited to interact with on the regular.
So I want to provide some of the lessons I've learned and changes I've made that I think have contributed, in the hopes they'll help other DMs out there. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but some will slip through, I'm sure.
1. Give Everyone a Unique Voice
I'm no professional voice actor; I don't have a giant stable of character voices to draw from. I can confidently do two accents that aren't my native accent. It's still completely worth trying to give each Fellow Student a unique voice, no matter how small the difference. It makes it easier for you to remember who's talking, it makes each character stick out better in the player's minds, and it's fun to make silly voices in the shower where nobody can hear you practice.*
They really don't need to be super unique from each other. Rubina and Javanesh have the same thick Brooklyn accent at two different pitches. Rampart and Melwythorne have my same "big guy" voice but speak at two different speeds. Aurora and Mina Lee have the same voice, but Aurora sounds like she hates you and Mina Lee doesn't. Most characters use slightly different word choices from each other. Those little differences are genuinely enough and my players have never had to clarify who's talking during a scene.
This can get tricky if you have NPCs talking to each other or a bunch of NPCs in one scene. I once had a custom NPC confront Grayson Wildemere about how he treated one of the PCs and it escalated because the PC who was present chose not to intervene. They had about as opposite voices as one person could do and I had to switch back and forth so quickly. It felt like the biggest challenge of my DMing career. I don't regret it though; that scene was a big moment in the evolution of Grayson and his eventual-boyfriend's relationship.
\I have been informed this is incorrect and my girlfriend can, in fact, hear me making silly voices in the shower.)
2. Give Everyone a Unique Magical Style
D&D books are always reminding you that you can refluff spells however you like, and my groups rarely actually do that. Strixhaven is the perfect opportunity. You can help make Fellow Students stand out more by fluffing their spells differently. Each college has its own aesthetic, of course, but you can break it down further.
When Grayson uses Summon Undead, he writes a glyph onto paper with a fancy pen and then hands it to the creature, like he's cutting his minion a check. When Larine uses Water Walk, spiritual marine life rise to the surface to form platforms under her feet. Melwythorne's Shillelagh has him gently slide a sapling out of the ground and then beat someone with it. Dozens of physics equations flash visibly before Tilana's eyes as she calculates the perfect trajectory for her Catapult. When Nora casts Earthen Grasp, she punches her hand into the soil up to her elbow, and the magic hand mirrors the movements of her now-muddied limb.
My players love this stuff. Not only did it make their friends and allies (and rivals) just seem cooler, the players have gotten more and more into narrating their own magic as the game has gone on. The druid works mushrooms and fungal spores into all his spells; the artificer has a little story for every magic ring he hands off to represent a buff spell; the barbarian has a tenuous relationship with his spirit guardian ancestors because they're fire giants and think he's too short.
3. Make Some of Their Friends Brave
The adventure is pretty clear that when violence arises, the NPCs skedaddle.
I do not like this.
Strixhaven is not a school for adventurers, of course. Not everyone is willing to step up to bat against a rogue mimic or a rampaging slaad. But these are NPCs that are supposed to be cool and date-able. So, I tend to give the NPCs something to do to put them on even footing with the player characters, without eating up time in the initiative order. Players are fighting soup mephits in the kitchen? Rampart and his crew are handling the ones in the dining room while occasionally hurrying through the kitchen doors for tactical repositioning. Mage Hunters ambush the PCs during a celebration? Zanther and Rubina evacuate innocents while Shuvadri tends to a severely wounded ally, and Aurora runs to get literally any professor.
I think this is especially important when someone achieves Beloved status. That's the point at which I feel the NPC should definitely stand with the players in times of trouble. They'll stand where it makes the most sense, of course - Greta and Zanther cannonball to the front lines, Nora stands back-to-back with her boyfriend, even Grayson doesn't run... further than the nearest object that provides three-quarters cover, anyway. He's got minions to handle these things.
Speaking of...
4. Let Beloved Inspirations Do More
So, here's a thing I started doing in year 2: if a player spends a Beloved Inspiration, and the NPC who provided it is in the scene, the NPC does something cool instead of merely giving the player a reroll.
No need to roll Persuasion to convince that band to play at your party, Zanther knows the drummer. Why roll Investigation to dig through old student records when Mina Lee, Ace Reporter for the Strixhaven Star, would gladly do it for you? You could reroll that Dex save against that Lightning Bolt... or, when you look up, Melwythorne has taken the blast for you. He's also a little bit on fire now because heat and wood don't mix. Probably should help the guy out.
I really enjoy this because it gives the Fellow Students more helpful things to do while still leaving the agency in the hands of the players. Greta might punch the vampire so hard it rattles his progenitor, but not until the player says "Hey, I'm spending the Beloved Inspiration I got from Greta. We need her help."
5. Let The Fellow Students Be Friends With Each Other
If you want Strixhaven to feel alive, one of the best things you can do is imply that your PCs' friends are friends with each other.
You do not need a giant web of friendship, romance, and rivalry to make this work. Literally all I do is have NPCs show up together in the same scene, and then mark it down in my notes. The PCs catch Aurora and Rubina studying together in the Biblioplex; when Nora shows up for her date with a PC, observant PCs catch the tell-tale signs that Mina Lee helped her with her makeup; Rosie and Cadoras are always pulling little pranks together; Larine and Javanesh high-five when they pass in the halls; you could go on and on with the little things. Pretty soon you might accidentally form friend-groups you weren't expecting; our Grayson, Mina Lee*, and Zanther are a squad. I never intended it that way, but it makes them seem more real.
\Every character in our game refers to Mina Lee exclusively by her full name. I don't remember how that started.)
6. Don't Sweat the Elaborate Backstories (Or: Embrace the chaos of collaborative roleplay)
Some DMs are planners; if you want to develop a two-page backstory explaining each NPC's history, personality, motivations, wants, and fears, do it! I'm not telling you not to!
But I am telling you that you don't need to. I have some basic info on each character: the info from their official profile in the book, the plane they hale from, their aspiration for after college (if they even know what it is), and their favorite drink when they go out to the bar or cafe.
(Drazhomir likes matcha, but wishes it tasted grassier. Mina Lee likes whiskey on the rocks. Quentillius will have whatever you're having, handsome.)
Nearly every other in-universe fact about the Fellow Students was improvised in-game, arose organically through interactions with PCs, and then written down in my notes after the fact. Had I decided ahead of time that Aurora and Cadoras dated in their freshman year, but broke up because Rosie was always there? Nope. Had I ever considered that Nora might have the alcohol tolerance of a kitten on anti-depressants? Nope. The dice did that and we loved it. Is there literally anything indicating that Javanesh might be the wizard equivalent of a hospitality management major? He works at Bow's End, I guess. But our druid is a huge foodie, and the two of them bonded over tasting all the menus on a bar crawl, and now Javanesh Stoutclaw's favorite thing is charcuterie boards and wine tasting.*
Of course you're gonna come up with cool ideas outside of play. You're the DM, that's your job! Add them in! But my points is this: let the NPCs grow alongside the PCs, and everything will feel right.
\His second favorite thing is throwing belligerent drunks through windows.)
7. Expect Plans You Do Make To Go Off the Rails
This is true for all DMs in all campaigns. It's true here too.
But, specifically, expect any plans you have for the Fellow Students to get completely tossed out the window.
The PCs are supposed to have rivals by year 2, as an example. I've heard that some groups don't have a problem making enemies with the NPCs. My group, however, does. It took multiple tries to set up an effective rival for the PCs because they kept wanting to be friends.
I had initially set Grayson up as the rival, because, like, obviously, right? He's the closest thing Strixhaven has to Draco Malfoy. But our barbarian immediately decided she was taking the Grayson romance route, so now the rich jerk has had an entire arc where he learns to open up about his feelings and is happy with his big jock boyfriend, I guess.
Then, at the start of year 2, I set up a custom NPC to act as the rival - almost literally Damien from popular video game Monster Prom, but stripped of his status as love interest. That one almost worked... and then, a particular interaction happened organically between him and Nora Ann Wu, the human equivalent of the feeling you get when a puppy rests its head against you, because one of the players decided to pursue her romantically... and then demon boy was out of the running for rival.
Third times the charm, I guess, because I brought in Killian Lu and his crew - and it worked! Thankfully, there's only room in a campaign for one set of obvious protagonists, so Killian and his friends got the honor of playing the Big Rivals in the Mage Tower game.
But you see what I mean, right? The "best laid plans" principle applies to all elements of D&D.
8. Most Importantly, Make Sure You're On The Same Page
Talk to your players about what they want, early and often. This is especially important for a game like Strixhaven, which takes place in a school, and the situations that arise could hit far closer to home than a typical D&D story about a lich trying to take over the multiverse or whatever.
My players were clear up front that they didn't want to deal with anything realistically dark. Fighting monsters? That's fine. Cartoonish bullies? A-OK. Relationship abuse, bigotry? Not even once. It really wouldn't be fun for them to deal with those sorts of themes. So we don't! Our Strixhaven doesn't have any sort of fantasy racism, no homophobia/transphobia/etc, and only some light sexism from Rampart (unintentionally. Paladins, protecting people, the optics of context, you get it). Some relationships are unhealthy, there's certainly drama, rival characters are assholes, but there are no truly dark situations.
It can take time and trial-and-error to get it right. Your players won't always know where the line is for themselves. We have a custom NPC who is a real creep toward plant-humanoids. I make sure she never crosses the line from "creep" to "traumatizer," but I was worried that she might still be crossing a line for players. Thankfully, while the characters find her super uncomfortable, the players don't find her presence a problem for their enjoyment of the game. It probably helps that the players got to set some very firm boundaries with the character - in a full-on boss fight to save Wizard Christmas.
Your group might be totally different. You might actively enjoy beating the snot out of realistically awful people. You might be perfectly alright with elves & dwarves & tieflings huring fantasy insults at each other over a millenia-old blood feud. Great! But have that conversation with your players. And keep having that conversation with your players if you need to.
9. Finally, Remember That the PCs are the Heroes!
You've got all these cool characters. They've got voices, backstories, they're friends with each other, hopes and dreams, and cute nicknames. The players love them, you love them, and you have this vision where they get to do something super cool and heroic.
Hold on a sec.
Make sure that super cool, heroic scene doesn't take away from the players. Did I have an idea for a fight between Killian and Grayson that would be so rad to watch in a movie? Yes. Did I make it happen? No! Have an NPC duel the PCs' main rival? Absolutely not. That's what the PCs are for!
It is both extremely obvious and a fine line to walk, but remember: the Fellow Students are NPCs. They're still supporting cast, even if they show up in nearly every session. The PCs get to be the big heroes, land the finishing blow against the villain, and save Strixhaven.
Can the Fellow Students help bail the PCs out of trouble? Yes. Can they have badass moments and say cool one-liners and have an impact on the plot? Yes, yes, and yes! But for as much as this whole post is about making the school seem more alive, making the NPCs cooler and more interesting and on even footing with the PCs, the game is the player characters' story. The Fellow Students, above all, and there to make that story a better one.
10. Bonus: Make Some Silly Music Playlists
IDK man I like making music playlists for all the NPCs. I share them with my players and we all have a good laugh about how much of a memelord Larine is or how Rosie might be the scariest person on campus.
It's a very silly game.