Games - NPC Decision Making - Bartle Types as Traits

In “Guide to Playing Alone” Kenny Norris (free, link to DriveThruRPG) asks the solo role player to ask themselves, “So, who are you: Heart, Club, Diamond, or Spade?” The suggestion has been made that a solo role player can also use Bartle types as part of a player emulator.

I’m going to ask you something different. Who are your NPCs?

I believe that more immersion in solo roleplay is a desirable outcome and that it is achieved by assigning Bartle types not to a player object but directly to the character. 

Bartle Types are four classifications of preferred play styles and player motivations in games.  I also see it as a way of classifying participation in any activity.  Sports, professions, social interaction. 

They do not have to be exclusive.  In fact, it could be far more interesting to give every character a score in each of the four suits.

In a way this is going to act like the player emulator some solo role players are looking for.  But to me, I see very little difference between applying Bartle Types to describe players, NPCs, or just about anyone you interact with.  Even in social media you can find people who want to dominate and destroy, help and support, discover and learn, and amass the most fake internet points. 

You can decide for yourselves which of these I’m doing right now. ;) 

Write down in the traits section of the character sheet the four suits.  (You don't have a traits section? You do now. Put it on the back of the paper, like everything else the sheet designer didn't think of beforehand.) Draw cards from a thoroughly shuffled deck until you have one card from each suit. That’s the score from 2 to 14 where the Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13, Ace = 14) plus the roll of 1d4 for the strength of each trait.

  • Diamonds – Achievement – Characters want to grow in their class and skills, level up, as well as achieve wealth or treasure, or other measures important to their class, alignment, or race. 
  • Spades – Exploration/Discovery – Characters want to discover, solve mysteries, experience new things, encounter new monsters, travel the world, and maybe the multiverse.
  • Hearts – Social/Relationships – Characters want to have an impact on society and interact with other people. 
  • Clubs – Power/Conquest – Characters want to obtain and exercise power over others. This can be killing and destroying, spoiling, trolling, or other belligerent behaviour, or it could be - and I'm stretching it here - parental domineering, protectiveness, or just them thinking they know better.
High scores in Clubs and Hearts in a good-aligned character could mean they like to compete against their friends or compete in a team with their friends against enemies.  They could put a lot of value into destroying enemies to help their friends or in front of their friends so that their friends can see their value. 

An evil aligned character with high Hearts and Clubs wants to kill or dominate everyone. Rule through fear and intimidation.  Maybe because they hate everyone, or maybe they need to feel validated through the exercise of power. 

That’s just my interpretation. You can interpret it however you like.

Example: Three Pathfinder 1e Characters

The game started with an avatar (Bram, human male, adept) character and a sidekick (Ziggy, half-elf female, adept). Only in this case, the story was the sidekick enlisted the avatar PC for the natal adventure. It was only when Bram and Ziggy nearly died in more than half the encounters (published adventure's random and set piece, as well as the random oracle generated encounters injected) that I introduced likely characters to join them.

I'm not satisfied with this setup.  It made a group that's too perfect for my sensibilities. I would much prefer a single avatar character created as I see fit, and a randomly sized group brought together through a randomly determined method. (I'm working on that.)

Nevertheless, here I am and it works.

But what is needed is more information on the non-avatar player characters. With that in mind, here are examples of the Bartle types applied.

Arul Stonecutter, Male, Dwarf, Barbarian

  • Diamonds (Q + 1 = 13) He’s just a little more acquisitive than most people, so maybe not as greedy as the average, stereotypical dwarf.
  • Hearts 6 + 2 = 8 He’s not much concerned with helping. A bit of a loner. 
  • Spades 8 + 3 = 11 He’s somewhat interested in discovery, but not more than the average.
  • Clubs A + 3 = 17 He’s violent and needs to defeat, dominate, and destroy. 
Put all this together, we can intuit that he was either drawn to barbarian lifestyle from a civilized dwarf culture or comes from a barbarian dwarf culture but went it alone. He joined the party at least in part for the likely opportunity to engage in battle. 

Ester Heathminster, Female, Halfling, Ranger

  • Diamonds (K + 1 = 14)     She’s probably about as interested in comforts and wealth as most halflings. Maybe greedier.
  • Hearts Q +3 = 15 She’s very socially minded and cooperative.
  • Spades 10 + 4 = 14 she’s inquisitive and curious 
  • Clubs Q + 4 = 16 more than anything she’s driven to fight.

Zigaliamarnath “Ziggy” Rivers, Female, Half-elf, Adept / Lore Shaman

  • Diamonds 3 + 1 = 4 (She has an active and powerful disinterest in achievement and/or wealth.)
  • Hearts A + 4 = 18 (She is overcome with a need to help, to join, and belong. Possibly she wants others to like or love her.)
  • Spades 10 + 2 = 12 (She's not consumed by discovery, but is certainly interested. Her curiosity is a servant to her need to help others.)
  • Clubs 2 + 2 = 4 (She actively abhors violence, and doesn't want power.  It’s only her need to help that pushes her to violent acts in any way.)
Ziggy however is chaotic neutral. She wants to help but not out of any particular positive feeling for others. 

Update: Adding Bram Spicer, Male, Human, Adept / Inquisitor

Realizing I never put information for Bram, and it could be useful when I don't want to be making a decision for the character. However, this is my player character and the draw+roll I took D7, H5, S9, C14 is actually not much like my vision of the character or the emergent backstory.  But it's close enough other than the spades to quantify his curiosity.
  • Diamonds 6 + 1 = 7 (He's not much interested in wealth at all, although he knows it has uses.)
  • Hearts 2 + 3 = 5 (He's quite anti-social. Doesn't feel a need to be part of anything.)
  • Spades 7 + 2 = 9 (Average amount of interest in digging out mysteries.)
  • Clubs 10+ 4 = 14 (No aversion to violence, the use of power over others, destroying enemies.)
I'm satisfied with the anti-social aspect and the disinterest in wealth, at least for its own sake. An Inquisitor shouldn't be averse to violence, and in fact should have a desire to destroy evil. What's lacking is a strong Spade for a burning need to root out threats and mysteries.

I decide it should be at least a face card, and then start drawing from the top until I reach the first face card of the Spades suit. It's a Jack so 11 + 2 = 13.  More than average, but not extraordinarily so. Probably not someone who would become a member of the Pathfinder Society.

Use Case In Play

The kobolds were defeated. Somehow, all the hostages were saved. The kobold king was dead. 

The quartet of adventurers had in their company a number of children, two injured adventurers, two seemingly devoted kobold henchmen, and numerous kobold survivors.

Bram wants to save the kobolds from a mysterious threat their king was trying to either assuage or avert.

Arul thinks they should kill all the kobolds (d20 = 15, under his Power/Conquest trait, and killing kobolds goes with the dwarvish enmity to the creatures.) 

However, Bram rolls 18 +1 (Cha) versus Arul's 5 +0 (Dwarf trait = 11) convincing his companion of not very many days to go against his nature.

I think that considering Ziggy's serious aversion to violence she agrees. 

Esther is chaotic good.  She's cooperative but violent. I roll d20 against both her Hearts and Clubs, rolling far under her Hearts score and above her Clubs score. She goes along with Bram's suggestion to attempt to relocate the kobolds from the immediate area of the profane dwarven site.

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Note to Self: This needs a character record sheet to go with it. One for each significant character. One table/spreadsheet style for recurring supporting characters like shopkeepers, innkeepers, and regular background characters. 

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Update 2021-10-20

This should work for any West End Games d6 system as well, but the d4 breaks from the established everything is in d6s. Therefore, I'd suggest foregoing the drawing of cards and just list the four Bartle Traits on the character sheet. For each one, roll 3d6. (I suppose you could do that for a D&D type game too, but I like using the deck of cards.) Then take the score as pips and create a die code for that Bartle Type from the score.  So for the average roll of 10 or 11 on those 3d6, you have either 3d+1 or 3d+2 as the d6 die code for the Bartle Type. Or I suppose you could draw cards then add a d6. 

Using Bram above as an example, with Bartle Types DHSC 7 5 9 14 his die codes are Diamonds 2d+1, Hearts 1d+2, Spades 3d, Clubs, 4d+2.

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This article, in slightly edited form, was posted to r/solo_roleplaying on October 29, 2021.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Solo_Roleplaying/comments/qi1ja8/bartle_types_as_npc_traits/
This article, and all others, are subject to the editorial whimsy of the author whenever he thinks, for whatever reason he thinks.

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