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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6711597" data-attributes="member: 1465">I don't know what are the options in the DMG for creating commoner NPCs, by which name I mean NPCs that aren't of major importance in the game (or maybe they are, but they are not adventuring, and are not supposed to be in combat) and as such they don't need to be fully statted, and don't need class levels. In Basic (DM's document) there is a Commoner among the ready-made NPCs. The problem is that this Commoner (and all the other NPCs here) is written just with combat in mind. But most of the time, I never need combat stats for commoners... rather, I need to know their skills and other proficiencies, and maybe some specific equipment items they possess, these being the things that might be useful for interacting with the PCs.So what I am doing at the moment, is simply use a background to represent a commoner NPC.It makes a lot of sense because of the following:- a background represents your role in society, practically a "job" but in a broader sense (you wouldn't call "noble" or "urchin" jobs, but they still tell how you get food on your table...) -> this also makes it easy to immediately spot the best background to represent your commoner NPC- backgrounds come with sub-choices to refine the identity of the NPC- every background also comes sample traits/ideals/bonds/flaws which you can immediately pick (or roll) whenever the PCs decide to talk with the NPC, to quickly create her personality- a background is a set of skills + tools + language proficiencies, which is exactly what I need to know most of the time (equipment and feature may be also useful, but perhaps rarely)- to increase variety, it's a piece of cake to swap e.g. one skill with another---The only thing in addition to a background, is that I typically also like to vary the ability scores (just to randomize the NPC population a bit). But not as far as rolling scores which takes time, just decide them on the spot. For example, one score above average and one other below average, are probably enough to make the NPC more unique.---There is only one significant shortcoming, and that is the fact that this works just fine with human commoners, but for other races, you still probably need to add at least a few of the racial features (but not necessarily all).What is your own approach to representing commoner NPCs in your game?</blockquote>

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