"NPCs for Dungeoncrawling" Topic

Dear all,

In the last months I have seen at least three Kickstarters ( Black Hallows I and Black Hallows II, and lately Dunkeldorf, focused on minis for RPGs and tabletop games. To me, playing with a dungeon crawling ruleset, these minis look perfect as NPCs, but to be honest sometimes I cannot see a use for some of them. So I have pledged for the full Dunkeldorf set, though I wonder about how I can use half those minis.

So my question is: for those of you dungeoncrawling, do you use many minis as NPCs? If so, which types/characters?

My own list: prisoners (mainly female, because it is not easy finding 28 mm good looking male prisoners, but that is another history), blacksmith, merchants, monks and torturers.

Do you use other NPCs in your dungeons?

Another dungeon diving party. So, do you team up with them or fight them? Or team up with them, grab the loot, THEN fight them?

In my case the prisoners are the equivalent to objective markers in a scenario where you must rescue them from a prison. The blacksmith, a source of information. The merchant and monks, the usual targets you must escort through a dungeon. The torturers, well… are there just to be killed.

So my question remains: in a dungeon crawling adventure, what use do you have for a beggar, a noble dame, etc.?

Most of them would be better for town/city adventures. Then again, they may be prisoners or doppelgangers in disguise when in the dungeon.

Back in the day, our group might come across an individual NPC who might be inclined to join our party. He/she may seem harmless (a beggar who's really a thief) but, if rebuffed or provoked, could turn against us.

Then again, they could be a spy (as in TKD's doppelganger suggestion). I recall a game in which an entire village of NPC's was treating us like mushrooms; they either were working for our antagonist or thought we were. I can't remember which. Regardless, things got ugly.