NPC traits/quirks/personalities

[sjmiller]

I was wondering if anyone out there has a quick way of creating traits/quirks/personalities for a lot of NPCs quickly. I have a huge number of NPCs for a city I am working on and want to have a quick way of coming up with a few handles to use for roleplaying NPCs.

Some examples would be like an NPC who is a spendthrift and whistles a lot; or one that is hunchbacked and generally distrustful. Just a few quick words to give an NPC some depth. I've come up with a lot of them but I am running out of ideas and thought that maybe a list, a table, or a computer program might come in handy.

Who knows, this whole thing might become part of a project I am working on that will see publication soon.

 

[Rhun]

Just do a search on google for a random generator...i'm sure you'll come up with some stuff.

Personality/Mood Generator

General Character Generator


Seventhsactum.com has a ton of randomized generators that come in handy.

 

[Hypersmurf]

My personal trick for a quick reference to an NPC's personality is to attach them to a character from a TV show or movie.

In Hommlett, for example, I had a brief note beside Canoness Ydey - 'Judi Dench as M'. It gave me demeanour, accent, verbal mannerisms, and a mental image in one shot. I doubt the players picked what I was basing her on, but they got the benefit of my confidence with the portrayal.

By contrast, Spugnoir was tagged 'Basil Fawlty'. The PCs entered his shop hoping to buy a potion - he was busy. About four seconds after he opened his mouth, the players all knew what he looked like, what sort of mood he was in, how he was likely to react... because they all recognised Fawlty from his first few words. It saved me trying to describe the character, because they could all see him in their heads.

It doesn't matter to me if it's something so obscure that only I'll know, or if my impression is so bad they'd never make the connection... because the important part is that it summarises a lot of information for me in two or three words. If they do pick the source, that's a bonus

-Hyp.

 

[TarionzCousin]

It doesn't matter to me if it's something so obscure that only I'll know, or if my impression is so bad they'd never make the connection... because the important part is that it summarises a lot of information for me in two or three words. If they do pick the source, that's a bonus -Hyp.

I've done this too, especially with NPC's created on the fly. I simply think of someone I know fairly well and base the NPC's personality on them. I keep the description completely different so that my players don't know my father was the leader of the ranger clans, for example.

The important thing is to make a note of that NPC so that when the players return months or years later, you remember enough to be consistent.

 

[RFisher]

1e DMG.

I also have this d12 with the signs of the zodiac that one of my players suggested using for this purpose. But I need a table that relates the signs of the zodiac to similar, brief NPC descriptions.

 

[Darklone]

DM's Haven used to be a nice page with character quirks and many other useful things.

 

[Kafkonia]

There was a GURPS quirk generator online, but it seems to have vanished. It had some very strange results.