Organizing NPCs

I don't know that I'd like a huge number of named NPCs.  I think I'd have a hard time making them seem real, and my bad-with-names problem in real life is leaking into the game. 

"So, last session Ula was trying to claim there was nothing wrong with the mudfish at the same time she was puking up her guts." 

"Ula?  Don't you mean Kettle?" 

"Yes!  Right!  So..." 

Thanks heavens my players are forgiving, and have good memories.  I'm going to make myself a little relationship map with pictures I've pulled off the interwebs, to see if that helps me.

I'm all the time saying "so that guy comes up - what was the name of that guy? Fishy? Arlington? Anybody remember?" Usually somebody remembers.

I don't know that I'd like a huge number of named NPCs.  I think I'd have a hard time making them seem real, and my bad-with-names problem in real life is leaking into the game. 

"So, last session Ula was trying to claim there was nothing wrong with the mudfish at the same time she was puking up her guts." 

"Ula?  Don't you mean Kettle?" 

"Yes!  Right!  So..." 

Thanks heavens my players are forgiving, and have good memories.  I'm going to make myself a little relationship map with pictures I've pulled off the interwebs, to see if that helps me.

Heh, Kettle of mudfish. Ahem.

Anyhow, speaking of pictures from the interwebs, I've seen a few scattered references to cool AW pictures in Mediography and 'visions of the apocalypse' and so forth, but I would find it really handy to get links to 'pictures for PCs/NPCs'. Actually, I'm going to start a thread, now that I think of it.

I'm tellin' ya. If you have problems remembering your important NPCs, give each one a picture, and write their name on it.

I have found that half the fun of MCing Apocalypse World is making up your own weirdo names.

Using CMaptools, I've put together this great relationship map to help me figure out the major relationships and situations.  It's been very helpful, but it has to be updated every game.  This is the situation shortly before our last game, click here to take a look.  I've had to make a few changes since then, but the program makes it easy to update.