Steam Community :: Guide :: How to tell if you are an essential NPC

Store Page

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim > Guides > Slaye teh Headpat Princess 💜's Guides

65 ratings

How to tell if you are an essential NPC

By Slaye teh Headpat Princess 💜

Are you having dificulties telling if you are, in fact an essential NPC? This guide will hopefully help you figure out if you are one.

Award

Created by

Slaye teh Headpat Princess 💜
Offline

Category: Characters

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

5 Jan, 2017 @ 10:13pm

6 Jan, 2017 @ 12:39am

3,969	Unique Visitors
27	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

Qualifications of an adventurer

Generic NPCs

The other 2 types.

Specific NPCs

Essential NPCs

So are you an essential character?

If you liked this guide......

Comments

Qualifications of an adventurer

You can't be an essential character if you're an adventurer.

You have to look REALLY stupid. (Not Sonic OC stupid, and you don't have to have unusually colored hair unless you're in an anime, but you want to at least look rediculous enough for deadpool to make fun of you. Wait, he does that to everyone. Just..... be odd looking evough to make most people avoid you.)
You must either be mute, gender neutral, or an otherwise relatable character.
It helps if you have a tragic backstory, but it's not required.
You have several superpowers [Stopping time at will, creating periods of time that can be traveled back to at will, and immunity to ehaustion (At least sleep related.)]
Must have a goal that's extremly cliche (Girlfriend/Princess rescuing, Stopping the end of the world/universe, etc.)
A hoarding disorder.

See, look at how stupid that oultfit is.

Generic NPCs

Now, to narrow down generic NPCs.

Generic NPCs have only 1 or 2 generic sounding lines, or are a shopkeeper. (They don't have to have only a few, but the key is that they all sound really generic.)
They have no quests. Period. Not even the most generic side quests.
Aren't seen 90% of the time just to make people THINK they have lives.
Likely look like 50 other people in the same town.
Chickens are likely more important than them

AAAAAAALL of these guys here besides Link are generic NPCs.

The other 2 types.

The only 2 types left are specific NPCs, and Essential NPCs. They both are very similar, but have a few diffrences.

Both give out, or are the main target of a quest.
Both have some postion of influence, from owning a "valuble artifact." to being the leader of something.
Hopefully seen more than once.
Will never have a major influence over an adventure, but can help out. (Yes, both types help out, think of Lydia, annoying as she is.)

The best sidekicks.

Specific NPCs

Give someone a quest once, and are not typically seen or heard from again after that.
Can have 1 strange article of clothing, but only if it relates with thier quest.
Usually will say:"I'd like to join you but my sister needs pudding daily to live." or some other random reason like that, if they don't join you.
Probably an idiot.
If they die, they'll be remembered for about an hour, and will never have a memorial cutscene You'll be lucky if the family even bothers to have other people know they died.
Likely will be able to die after thier arc, if not killed in a scripted way during thier arc.

Great job Lydia, but that doesn't make me forgive you for dying all of those times.

Essential NPCs

Personally know an adventurer.
Have a few unique characteristics that stick in a person's brain.
Able to handle themselves in a fight between themselves and anything not Giant related.
Can't die from almost anything, even after thier quest is finished.
Don't take up a follower slot when adventuring with you.
The closest thing to sidekicks most adventurers have.
Most likely type of NPC to disguise themselves.

Boy or Girl?

So are you an essential character?

Well, no, sorry.
See, adventurers are no longer a profession that is used, and since you need to know one to become an essential character, you can't possibly be one.
Oh. I just wasted all of our times, didn't I?

Sorry, you don't have to cry like that!

If you liked this guide......

Please, let me know, kay?

I made this stupid guide in about an hour, but if you want to see a stupid guide that took 2 weeks to make (Because I'm so lazy.) click here!
Feel free to do whatever you want, and hey, you never know, maybe some adventurer from an alternate dimension will show up here, dazed and confused.

86 Comments

< >

Mosley was right 25 Aug, 2023 @ 12:14pm

It's actually quite easy to find out if you're an essential character:

1. Short of dying, you can't fail quests.

2. The game world is static until you show up and make things happen.

3. You excel at nothing from the very start, yet the game treats you as a demigod.

4. You are afforded no real or meaningful choices in the game, and must follow the linear, scripted paths the developers set down for you.

5. Your character is not memorialized in any shape, fashion or form for anything he or she does in-game, no matter how world-shaking said acts were.

This has been my TED talk, thank you.