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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 6056906" data-attributes="member: 3192">It all depends upon the rules you use for your games. There are all kinds of rules you could design to cover this. I'd suggest the first step is determining what nobility will be in the game. For example, while it could be faked, it is only actual when backed by social authority in a monster group or faction. How many nobility there are for a given faction depends on the design generated, which takes into account all kinds of other elements besides monster/racial type. Area layout matters, especially when determining wandering encounters and when and why nobles wander (or don't wander).  For me, a lot of this falls under the movement rules, marching order, NPC behavioral rules, Intelligence, and how wandering monster tables are determined for any given area.Players are generally in control of how and where their PCs move, but of course sometimes they are forcibly moved, like an earthquake ...or the city guard. The key is the NPCs are already there before the players characters arrive. And why and when those NPCs are in their where is predetermined by rules.That's the easy answer. Before each session you generate a scenario. You run the simulation outward far enough - along both time and space - to cover just enough of what the players may get into the next session. And that scenario is the timeline and place map of what is where and what is going on throughout until influenced during session by the PCs. During session determining PC action results should be as easy as possible, but it takes practice for any DM. Later, all of the actions during the session are incorporated for generating the next session's scenario. Now tracking actions in a session may sound difficult, even impossible, but it's just like keeping track of game time. KISS, keep it simple. The vast majority of what will happen during any given session is already covered by the rules. That means it's on the scenario maps in front of you when you DM. You will want to heavily familiarize yourself with these just before running a session. Then tracking actions is quite often literally dragging a pencil line across one or more of these maps as the PCs progress down one or more areas of exploration (spatial or otherwise).First, bell curves are more for population distributions, like with Ability Scores. Wandering Monster tables can be generated by frequency (common, uncommon, rare, very rare), but that isn't necessarily curvilinear. If you remember the tables in the AD&D DMG, those results were by activity cycle, climate, terrain, as well as frequency (based on population amounts, growth rates, procreation and gestation rates, and so on). Frequency was expressed by the number of percentile slots each had on the table. These results weren't curvilinear, but varied and then listed alphabetically, which makes might oddly make them more confusing. Not to mention that while their theory was sound, the implementation was often lacking in my experience. To answer your question, NPCs and everything about NPCs are generated just like treasures and dungeons and outdoor terrain and everything else. The first time this stuff is constructed this way (or converted from player created content) it receives a place in the game world. Where the PCs go, who they choose to stop, if they talk to them, what is talked about, what is learned/passed on, what creatures actively stop and/or seek out the PCs, and so on, is either a result of the players actions or an expression of monster behavioral rules (e.g., these monster, sometimes with these classes, know these tactics which fall under this INT rating and then implemented in these manners which fall under WIS, and so on). In the end it isn't a chart or a roll, but a mental construct of high detail backed up by notes and maps. This method provides for both a level of detail and a degree of coherency for which there is no substitute. Nothing quite compares to actually having an imagining in one's mind.</blockquote>

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